Charlotte
started going into detail about doing Brenda’s house, which she had finished a
week ago. Badly. It had been her worst work yet. That had a lot more to do with her being a
frazzled wreck than anything else. It
had all seemed like such a good idea taking care of Sandra’s things, looking in
on her apartment, and seeing to Penelope at the kennel. She had accessed her accounts, and opened
online bill pay funneling the money directly from her account to her
creditors. She had needed to move
several thousands from her savings to her checking. But the woman had an almost trust fund
balance in her savings from royalties from her grandfather’s shipping
empire. It hadn’t even put a dent in things. Charlotte had gone by her apartment and
watered her plants a week and a half ago, and that’s when things had started
getting interesting.
Charlotte
had left Brenda’s feeling pretty good about the way the room was going. She had made a brief stop by Penelope’s
kennel, which had been on the way, to pay the bill. Sandra had given her an emergency ATM card
years ago just in case. Charlotte had
locked it in the safe in the house.
Sandra had
the safe installed when she had first purchased the house eight years ago while
she had been studying for her doctorate in Oklahoma. According to Sandra Oklahoma City was dead on
the weekends. So she would travel to
Dallas every Friday afternoon to stay for the weekend, and then head back to
Oklahoma on Mondays. Being tired of
hotels she had spent her savings on a house in Richardson. A few years after she had returned to Dallas
by way of Scotland she had been ready to get rid of the house.
Only pure
coincidence could explain just why Charlotte had been in the market for a
house. Her business had started going so
well after she had met Brenda who would recommend her for all of the high money
projects that she had worked on. So it
was time for Charlotte to get out of the one bedroom apartment in North Dallas,
and put money into property.
Charlotte
and Sandra had been casual friends from their initial meeting in the
nightclub. On weekends they would get
together and talk about their pet project W.A.R.M. Soon Charlotte had brought
in Brenda, and then Sandra had introduced them to Deborah and Rachel. Suddenly Sandra had been selling her house,
and their friendship had taken on a new dynamic.
It had been
a funny scene because Sandra had put the house on the market. Charlotte had
seen the ad, and called it up. When she
had met up with Charlotte, and not some stranger wanting to buy her house,
Sandra had smiled and said she knew a sign when she saw one. If Charlotte wanted the house it was
hers. Sandra had brokered the thing
herself so that closing costs and realtor commissions wouldn’t make the house
beyond Charlotte’s reach.
This had
led to she and Charlotte becoming even closer as Sandra helped Charlotte
fulfill a dream she had since she had been small; having her own home. They had been like sisters since. Being an only child, Sandra had fancied the
idea of having a younger sister, and always treated Charlotte like that. She would tell Charlotte things first,
secrets about herself, and what was happening in her life. Asking her opinion on matters, something that
the outwardly self-confident doctor didn’t like to admit needing help
with. At those times she could look at
Sandra, and know that this woman would do anything for her without a second
thought.
It was
those kinds of things that had made Charlotte uncommonly loyal to Sandra. As Charlotte knew first hand, sometimes your
own family didn’t care about your happiness as much as they cared about their
own personal gain. She loved all of her family dearly, but she could count on
one hand the members of her family that would’ve moved heaven and earth to make
her dreams come true; the ones who already had which were her mother, brother,
and grandmother. The three of them together by begging, borrowing, and pleading
had made sure that Charlotte had gotten through school at the Savannah School
of Art and Design.
Her
grandmother wasn’t a wealthy woman. She
and the late Dougal McConnell had come to America from Scotland with nothing
but three shirts, two pairs of pants, a couple of dresses, and a few family
heirlooms. So the family had never had
anything but a strong work ethic, and a desire to earn their keep. Her mother and brother had individual trusts
put in place by his father, her first husband Jonathan Clangston. They weren’t plentiful, but they made it possible
for her mother to retire two years ago, and for her brother to carry on his
international affairs without much fuss.
Everyone had lived a little less than comfortable when they had decided
together that Charlotte’s career goals were worthwhile; her mother even more so
with the added burden of providing care for her elderly diabetic mother.
Her
mother’s two sisters loved her, but they had children of their own. Bernice and Carolyn were older than Anna
Marie, and they balanced husbands, children, grandchildren, and helped Anna
Marie care for their mother: children, and grandchildren that Charlotte only
saw every few years at family reunions.
She always felt bad about the fact that she wouldn’t even recognize the
whole lot of them if they met up somewhere, and she was quite sure that it was
the same for them with her.
Her
father’s family was a joke. Just a clan
of Irish and Welsh that found it nigh near impossible to conduct themselves
within the confines of the law. Even
worse they would steal the shirt off of the back of a blood relative without
batting an eyelash. It seems that they
had been in America for centuries robbing and cheating their way through
life. So bad that even the Irish mobs
wouldn’t have them. They had no honor at
all.
That aspect
of Charlotte’s blood made her very aware of loyalty, and the importance of
keeping your word no matter what. It was
one of her grandmother’s rules. Only on penalty of death should someone be
forsworn, and Charlotte believed in that.
She had promised Sandra when she had helped her get her house that if
there were ever a time that she should need help she would not need to look any
further.
