Chapter 1
I’m the kind of girl who never really got a break in life. You hear about those people whom fortune and fame shines on, right? The instant millionaires, the rising stars, the geniuses…unfortunately, you’d never have heard of me because I had a singularly, annoyingly ordinary life. So mundane that I contemplated putting myself out of my misery, once and for all, but didn’t because I figured that there were others probably worse off than me.
Hey, don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t exactly raised off the leftovers from the Dumpster down the street. Both of my parents held “honorable” occupations; my mother was a kindergarten teacher and my dad was a cop. Both of them were killed in a freakish car accident that made me wonder if they were indeed as “honorable” as I had originally thought.
Up until that time, my parents had paid for my tuition, books, dorm…everything. So guess what happened? You would hardly need to be a person with an IQ higher of 70 to get it. Well, I couldn’t go to school anymore. No money, you see. For some reason or another, my parents were so deep in debt, I wondered how they managed to see me off to a university three states away and still manage the appearance of a middle class family.
So, I had to sell the house, rent a squalid apartment in a bad part of town and work two jobs to pay off the half million-dollar debt my parents had somehow racked up. Oddly enough, I never quite understood WHAT it was that they were in debt for. The back had just sent a rather official and scary looking letter saying that if I did not pay off the debt in the said period of time, I’d be confiscated of all properties on me. Which suited me just fine, because I had nothing. Nothing to gain but nothing to lose, right? But then…if they took out the money that I had saved for the tiny excuse of an apartment, where the hell would I go? And besides, with both my parents dead only three months, I had to work to forget. I’m pretty sure that the shock of losing them hadn’t worn off yet, or else how could I still smile and laugh?
And here I am. A “promising” art student, working the late-night shift of a dumpy little café called “The French Rose”. I didn’t think I could fall any lower than this…dressed up like some frumpy French maid and wearing a corset that should’ve been outlawed at least fifty years ago. But it was a job and it was a job that PAID, which was the most important thing of all, so I guess that I shouldn’t complain. But still…this skirt was much too high for my likes, the waist nipped in too much, the lacy collar too tight for my neck, the heels too high…I felt like a whore in an cheap pseudo-French brothel. But hey, it was money. Dirty money, but money, nonetheless. I could hardly complain, you know?
Damn corset was stifling me again and I cursed under my breath, catching the attention of the other person on night shift with me.
“Your color ain’t looking too good, Sophie.”
“No need to worry…it’s probably just the damn collar…” I muttered and the stout bartender, Ray, grinned while polishing a tall glass with a not-very-hygienic washcloth.
“You have to admit though…you look damn fine.” He said with a laugh and I rolled my eyes at me.
“Yeah. I look like a cheap whore.”
With nothing to say to that, because I did sort of look like a cheap whore, Ray merely did a soft of a shrug-nod and went back to his glass polishing.
It was Thursday night and as always, the café…was…empty. Like it was most nights. That’s one of the things that made this job bearable. The fact that I didn’t have to deal with lust-ridden sickos and maniacs. The café was set along the I-5, but since it was set far back and the building was dark, no one really thought of it as a café, more as an abandoned small warehouse. The only thing that belied its “warehouse” like appearance was the blinking red light that blared out “The French Rose.” For all everyone out there knew, this café could’ve been a bloody brothel…under wraps, of course.
“How’s Adele and the baby doing?”
“Well…the baby’s a bit fretful at night and Adele’s threatening to disembowel me if I ever touch her again.” He grumbled, clearly affronted by the lack of affection from his wife, and I laughed. Ray was a great guy to be with. No matter how I felt, there was always something amusing that he said, something that always broke a smile to my face.
