At the time, it made financial sense. He had a job back then and we could afford rent on a double-wide if we pooled our paychecks.
Maybe I was just as clueless as Delilah because I thought it was a steppingstone up in the world, too. From single to double-wide. Sure, it was still a house on wheels, but you couldn’t beat the square footage. I was going to set up a home office in the extra bedroom to do my homework.
I was almost through with my business degree.
Well, sort of.
It was a degree I’d designed for myself based on the free online business classes from the best colleges in the country. It was incredible how much information there was out there. They just gave it away. I’d taken business classes from Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Yale. Courses on entrepreneurship, sales analytics, financial markets.
I did every assignment (even though they were never graded by anyone other than me) and read every book (no matter how long I had to wait for them through interlibrary loan). I wrote papers and did class projects, and I tried to get on every free student forum I could to discuss ideas or swap assignments to grade each other’s work.
Not that I’d have a piece of paper at the end of it saying I learned anything or that I was qualified.
But screw that. I knew. I knew I’d already finished enough work for an associate degree in business and was now working toward my MBA.
I was smart and I wasn’t going to be a lowly waitress barely earning minimum wage all my life.
I looked around the grimy diner. One day I’d own a restaurant of my own and I’d run it right. It would be clean. Bright. A place people wanted to come for a respite from their shitty lives. It would be a place people could spend an hour or two and be inspired that better things were possible.
I’d sell gourmet coffee and provide a wide, exciting menu of dishes so that my customers could experience a flavor beyond Deep Fried. I’d wake up palates and excite imaginations, and I’d build a small enclosed play area outside so it’d be a nice, clean, safe place moms could gather for an hour or two of sanity.
“You’ve got that dreamy smile on your face again.” Delilah elbowed me in the side, and I jerked out of my reverie.
“What?” I felt my cheeks color and I reached for the dishrag to scrub down the counter again, a never-ending task.
But Delilah just grinned. “You dreaming about Kyle? It’s about time you two settled down and started thinking about a family.”
My mouth dropped open and I could only stare at her in horror. Was she serious? I was only twenty-three years old.
But then her eyes got wistful and she caressed her stomach. “I can’t wait until I have a little baby to take care of.”
I glanced at her black eye. She’d spent twenty minutes in the bathroom earlier covering it with concealer, but her eye was still shadowed with the bruise. She couldn’t actually be thinking of having a baby with Jimmy?
“You know Anne-Marie just had her little baby girl and she’s so sweet. Anne-Marie was so happy when I saw her. The little baby sleeps in bed with them. I got to hold her and change her diaper and she was just like this itty bitty dolly. So cute! And you know, Joe was about to leave her but then she got pregnant and he stayed and now they’re both so happy.”
Delilah leaned over and propped her elbows on the counter, looking wistfully out the large front window of the diner. “I’ve always wanted to be that happy.”
Dear God, was there any way to talk sense into my friend? Delilah had a good heart. But if she brought a kid into that apartment with Jimmy…
Looking at her, I suddenly had the freakiest feeling that it was like looking at my own mother twenty years ago. Had she been a young woman once just as full of hopes and dreams? Just as hungry for love as Delilah?
Then again, however Mom had started out, the result had been a total shitshow of a childhood for me.
A buzzing notification from my phone had me pausing before responding to Delilah. Which was probably good because if I opened my mouth now, whatever I tried to say would come out wrong.
Sometimes I had a hard time keeping my mouth shut. And shouting at her for being stupid and immature and inconsiderate of the life she was so casually talking about bringing into the world rarely won arguments and was why I had so few friends.
I pulled out my phone and glanced down at it.
Then I frowned.
It was a notification from an app I’d installed to monitor my credit score. I’d been meticulous about building up my credit ever since I turned eighteen.
Every business book ever talked about the importance of good credit. No one would give me a loan to open a business down the line if I didn’t have good credit. I was poor as fuck so I couldn’t ever get very high credit lines, but I made sure to open up several credit cards, use them to buy groceries, and pay down the full amount to zero every single month.
So why the hell had my credit score dropped hundreds of points and was suddenly flashing red?
I felt like I’d hit a Slip ‘n Slide without the water on. All the air was knocked out of my chest.
I stumbled backwards into the counter and gasped for breath.
“Mistake,” I mouthed, still gasping. “It has to be a mistake.”
I unlocked my phone and scrambled with trembling fingers to get more details.
Ten minutes later, I was outside on the sidewalk, trying my best not to scream at the bank representative on the other end of the phone.
“No, I told you, I didn’t make those charges. What the hell would I do with a speedboat? I live in Barnwell. It’s hours away from the coast. These are fraudulent charges. And I didn’t open those five other credit cards you have on file.”
I paced up and down the sidewalk. “How many times do I have to tell you? My identity’s been stolen. No, I don’t know how or who stole it! If I did, would I be on the phone with you? I tried calling the cops and they said it’s outside their jurisdiction! You watch your tone of voice! Don’t you dare, don’t you dare—”
The line went dead and I yanked the phone away from my ear, staring at it in disbelief. The bitch had hung up on me. My life was falling apart, and she’d hung up on me!
I let out a scream of fury, ignoring stares from people in the parking lot and on the street. I’d read about identity theft as part of my courses. It wasn’t something you could just bounce back from. Once your credit score was fucked, even if it wasn’t your fault, it was almost impossible to fix it, and sometimes it took years…
“Shit, shit, shit!”
I kicked a rock as hard as I could, mostly managing only to stub my toe, before opening my phone back up and going online to look at my bank statement. Whoever had stolen my identity had used my credit card to buy the most ridiculous things.
Other than the boat, they’d basically gone on a shopping spree at a mall outside of Atlanta last weekend, three days ago. $552.98 at Ulta. $3809.52 at Dick’s Sporting Goods. $2300.36 at Guitar World. $274.94 at P.F. Chang’s.
Huh. That was funny. I’d taken Kyle to P.F. Chang’s once when I saved up and we took a vacation to Atlanta. He freaked out, he loved it so much. He swore if he ever got rich, he’d eat at that place every night. It was one of the reasons I wanted to have a more diverse menu in my restaurant.
My head jerked back down, and I looked at the rest of the purchase history in more detail as an idea popped into my head.