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No, she desperately needed it to happen.
The idea of streaming music classes online under the guise of Bonbon Barbie had come to her a few months ago.
And nobody from her real life had any idea that she’d ditched teaching in-person piano lessons and created an alternate online persona.
She hadn’t even mentioned her career shift to her best friends—something she felt awful about. She’d wanted to tell Penny Fennimore, Charlotte Ames, and Libby Lamb. Since Miss Miliken seated them at the same table back in kindergarten, the three women had been her people. She loved them like sisters, but her friends were living their best lives. They’d found love and abundant success in their fields.
And what was she doing?
The exact opposite.
Music was her calling, but she hadn’t been killing it as a piano teacher, which wasn’t that surprising.
Her general disdain for nose pickers, aka children, and most human beings, for that matter, wasn’t quite a fit for working one-on-one in rich folks’ places, cringing as overindulged pint-sized people banged away on pricey pianos.
Okay, she was fond of a few kids, but shlepping from house to house with a stack of music workbooks wasn’t what she’d pictured herself doing when she’d decided to study music in college.
Once upon a time, she’d had dreams. Big, wild, beautifully elaborate dreams. Dreams that came with cheering crowds and glittering fireworks displays. She’d fantasized about having all eyes focused on her as breathless throngs of fans watched her every move and hung on her every word.
Some girls got a fairy godmother who bibbidi-bobbidi-booed their dreams into a reality. And more power to them if that was their jam.
But it wasn’t her.
Harper Presley was the captain of her own ship. She, and she alone, was in control of her destiny, and whatever choices she made, she made them on her own terms.
But not every dream was destined to come true.
She’d put her dreams on the back burner six years ago at the tender age of twenty.
Still, today wasn’t about chasing after the life she’d once yearned for.
Today was about survival.
And this type of survival demanded cash.
A boatload of it.
She didn’t need the money for herself.
She needed it for her grandmother, her granny Babs.
Thanks to a douche nozzle at the bank who’d talked the woman into a creative financing loan to pay for updates to the heating and plumbing systems in their historic Denver home, Babs was up to her ears in debt.
Her grandmother was on a fixed income. There was no wiggle room when it came to her budget.
And what was the collateral? What would they lose if they couldn’t pay back the loan?
Their home. Her grandmother’s home.
But there was more.
Babs was getting older, and while she was still in good health for a woman closing in on seventy-five, she’d slipped and sprained her ankle a few months ago. Her grandmother had played it off as nothing, but the woman lived alone. Her grandfather had doted on her grandmother when he was still with them. She was the love of his life, and he was hers. He would have wanted to make sure someone looked after his beloved wife.
She owed it to her grandfather to be that someone, so she’d left the freedom of having her own place and moved in with her grandmother.
The day she saw the first bill from the bank, she nearly passed out. The woman had never been great with money. Her grandfather had handled the finances. She didn’t want to worry Babs, so she’d kept the statement with the forty-eight-thousand-dollar price tag hidden and had called the bank and directed them to send any inquiries her way.
After that uncomfortable call, she’d gone for a walk to brainstorm how to make a pile of cash. After coming up with nothing and nearly settling on selling a kidney on the black market, she’d walked past a thrift store where she’d laid eyes on a truly bizarre window display.
