Redamancy | Elena Gilbert

Chapter 9

Summers were usually more fun than this.

Rosalind couldn't remember the last time she'd worked so much in a single summer. She typically spent the summer weeks partying and using her vacation days for the randomest reasons.

As soon as she'd come back from Florida with boxes full of Jules's items, which she wished to keep, she'd applied to several jobs, and had opted to work on two at a time.

One: lifeguard at the local pool. Matt and Bonnie had told her about their experience there, and though she was more used to being a lifeguard at beaches, she chose to apply, and they put in a good word to get her hired. Her hours there were mostly in the morning during the adult sessions. Younger lifeguards could handle kids. During the physical evaluation, it had become very clear that Rosalind was well-suited to help drowning adults. She was a stronger swimmer due to being accustomed to rescuing people in the ocean. And she had been CPR certified for years.

Two: work as a cross country/track and field coach for the summer. Tyler had introduced her to the coaches there, and because they were a couple who were about to take a maternity leave, they were more than happy to give her the reigns and train their athletes during the summer months, preparing them for the first season of cross in the fall. She had to set up drills, run them, mark paths for them to take on streets, reserve the track for their sessions, and organize fundraisers to make sure they had new uniforms in the fall.

She was at the community center working in the pool from six in the morning to midday, at a rate of thirteen dollars an hour, Monday through Friday, totaling to thirty hours a week, leaving her to make around $390 (if she didn't consider what would be cut out for taxes) for each week she spent working there that summer.

After lunch, she would be at the track from one-thirty until six-thirty in the evening, at a rate of twenty dollars an hour, Monday through Friday, totaling to twenty-five hours a week, leaving her to make around $500 for each week she performed the job.

In total, Rosalind calculated she'd work for ten to twelve weeks, as she'd be on duty for all of June and July, but perhaps not all of August. She estimated she'd make a total somewhere between $8,500 and $10,500 just for summer. After that, she'd need to find another job to take over the coaching. And because school would be back in session, less people would be going to the pool, which probably meant her hours would be cut. At least she would have more money to call her own, on top of all she had saved from previous jobs and from selling her father's store.

Money had never worried her so much in the past. And it really didn't need to worry her now that her Aunt Carol was providing everything for her. But she kept wondering and worrying, what if she dies, too? She'd be the sole provider for Tyler, and they couldn't exactly blow decades of Lockwood money on themselves. They would need to keep providing for the town. Hell, Rosalind would probably have to step up and be the youngest Mayor in the town's history to keep the legacy, unless she chose to hand it off.

Suddenly, it felt as if all this responsibility was on her shoulders. There were all these 'what ifs' and 'maybes' that had never concerned her before. Maybe her aunt was right, maybe she should consider college so she could have a career under her belt, something that would grant her more money if she needed it. If she took out some loans from the Lockwood funds, she could afford it.

She made a plan for herself, something she'd enact soon enough. She considered what her aunt had mentioned about her being a sports medicine physician or physical therapist, and figured that if her plans to be a coach didn't go well, perhaps she could enroll in college at the same time as Tyler. They could keep each other company wherever they decided to go, and commute together if they chose a place like Whitmore, which was rather close by. Rosalind could perhaps work her way up to being a coach at college level. Her ideal job plan was to somehow be a coach and a physical trainer at the same time. Which she wasn't sure she could accomplish with the grades she'd had in the past, but she supposed anything was possible.