FlyGirl - The First Edition

Chapter 1: What do you mean I'm broke?

THE MORNING I discovered my brother had stolen my trust fund was absolutely beautiful.

It was the beginning of August, about two weeks or so before the start of school. If I was a smart girl, I'd be getting ready for it by buying books, pulling up my syllabi, and getting ahead on my reading.

While I am a smart girl, I was not going to be doing any of that. What I was going to be doing was going to the beach. That was the plan, anyway.

In fact, I was so sure that I was going to the beach that I already had my swimsuit on. The only thing I needed to do was to get up and go. Unfortunately, I'm always at war between the desire to go and do something and the actual getting up and doing it. Life requires so much effort. It makes me very tired.

As it was, I was sitting on the balcony of my South Bend apartment, drinking coffee, and musing over my toes. They looked like crap. Specifically, I was musing over when I should schedule a pedicure appointment. Should I get a pedicure before I went to the beach or after I went to the beach? If I went to the beach before, everyone would see the grossness of my feet. If I went to the beach afterwards, I ran the risk of ruining the paint job. I sighed, yawned, and stretched. These first world problems could be so vexing.

Unfortunately, a call from my landlord interrupted my vexatious musings. My landlord is an empty- nester who has made me her surrogate daughter, so it's not unusual for her to call and check in with me. It is, however, unusual for her to call and ask me about rent.

"I'm calling because I'm concerned," she told me, her voice shaking with just a scootch of nervousness. "It's only the 6th, so you're not very late, but you know, I usually get a rent check from you well before the first." She laughed uncomfortably. "Just want to make sure you hadn't forgotten."

I was horrified. My bills were never late. So I profusely apologized, got up off my ass and immediately ran down to the apartment office. I had the cash; I'm the paranoid type who stashes cash around the house like a squirrel stashes nuts. The problem was where was the check? She should have gotten a check from my trust several days earlier.

Once she got paid, she was all happy again and didn't even charge me the late fee. "I know you, Siobhan," she said while giving me a big hug, "I know you're good for it, dear."

I poured myself a cup of coffee from the 20-year yellowed and grunge crusted Mr. Coffeemaker and sat down across the table from her. "So you didn't get a check from the trust at all?"

She shook her head. "I'm sure it will come any day now. The mail these days, it can be so slow. I mean, I just got a postcard from my Jenny, and she sent it three weeks ago."

Jenny was my landlord's daughter, a small town beauty queen who got on with a major air carrier as a flight attendant. For some reason, my landlord thought that this was the most awesome job ever and just oozed with pride over all her travels. As for me, I didn't really see the charm, but hey, to each their own.

"Where's she at this time?" I asked as I doused my coffee with extra cream to mask the burnt taste.

She handed me the postcard. "Hong Kong. Look at those stamps." She sighed and looked sad for a moment. My landlord desperately missed her daughter. If I didn't get her off the topic, she'd start crying.

I handed it back to her. "When's she coming home?"

"A couple of weeks." She smiled at the thought and patted me on the arm. "She told me she'd like to get together with you when she comes home."

"Cool. I would love to hang with her. She's a lot of fun." And she was. The girl had a liver like an Englishman. She could drink me under the table, and I'm Irish, for God's sake.