THE GOSSIP MAVEN

Ah, Miss Joyaya. You can spot her a mile away, walking around the neighbourhood in that tacky sunhat and giant sunglasses, trying not to be obvious but clearly being very obvious, and picking up neighbourhood gossip as if it were a federal case. Every single gossip case she cracked seemed like it was made of butter. She would always swoop in and manage to receive information from everyone without really prying into anyone’s business or asking anyone for anything. You’d think that after taking these lessons, she’d be skittish and nervous around people, as if trying to avoid having everybody know by now that she was a stalker and a gossipmonger. But she wasn’t. She would park conversations about book-reading outlets, car models, and taste in movies, then suddenly, out of nowhere, ease into the nitty-gritty, asking about the last doctor you visited, your niece’s new lover, or that emergency cash you couldn’t explain, and you would laugh out loud. And then she would walk over to you, ever so smilingly, with this unrelated question about some totally irrelevant matter, and you would open up as if acing an exam. She just had such a knack for receiving information without doing anything apart from asking one or two harmless questions. You can't help but chuckle at how skilled she is at extracting information without even realising it herself.