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1
ANDIE
Stealing is much like gambling. Just like choosing your mark, you can make the right bet and win big. Make the wrong one, and you lose it all.
I made a mistake long ago when I chose the wrong target. It cost me two years of my life. Today, I made an even bigger one.
Gavin Alexander. The billionaire I work for, owner of The Red Hotel and Casino here in Las Vegas. Charismatic, wickedly handsome and completely oblivious to my existence.
Being invisible to a man like him might have been a blow to my ego at times. He likes redheads. Tall and curvy ones. Not that he’s ever brought one to the house, but he’s been seen around town with one hanging from his arm enough times that anyone can perceive his type.
I’m not a redhead. I’m not tall or curvy. I’m reed thin, short and blonde. When I walk into a room he happens to be in, he leaves without a glance at me.
Why would he look up when the housekeeper is busily cleaning up? But I can’t say that him hanging around would make my job easier. I kind of like working alone.
Besides me, only the cook, Sue, comes in, with the occasional visit from maintenance.
I know how lucky I am to have this position, with perfect hours and pay that make it possible to take care of my daughter. Jeopardizing my job is the last thing I want to do.
But all it takes is a single moment of desperation and a split second to change your life. It’s what happened to me the last time. I swore it would never happen again.
We make plans, God laughs. Is it the bible that says that?
If it’s true, God must be practically peeing himself at my expense.
* * *
Tuesdays and Thursdays are laundry day, or as I like to call it, putting money in the savings account. It’s when I find hundreds of dollars all balled up and forgotten in one of Mr. Alexander’s pockets. Chump change to a billionaire.
For months, I’ve been putting that money in the shoebox he’s relegated to the back of his closet. He’ll never open it because it has a pair of flip-flops that cost more than my entire wardrobe, yet he doesn’t wear casual shoes.
I’ve never been tempted to take a single bill. In my mind, I plan to tell him one day. To say, “Hey, guess what, Mr. Alexander, you have thousands of dollars in that box and you don’t even miss it. Give it to someone that needs it.”
Maybe I hope he’ll give it to me, I don’t know. I just know I don’t want to steal it. That part of my life is over. The inside of a prison cell is a place I refuse to see again. If not for me, for my daughter.
I’d do anything for Lola. I have done everything for her.
For her, I cleaned up my act. I turned my life around. I’ve worked endless hours in exhausting jobs. I’ve begged and pleaded with every state and federal assistance program, saved every penny, all so that she could have a clean safe home, food, and an education.
Years of hard work, and it still hasn’t been enough.
Yesterday, I got a call from her school. She’d been in a fight. My gentle sweet girl who cares so much about everyone, who looks out for injured creatures, got in a fight. Lola was suspended the rest of the day for having defended a little girl that was being bullied over the clothes she was wearing.
I looked at my child who was dressed in hand-me-downs, who I know has been bullied herself by the same kid for not sporting the latest brands. Not once has she let it get to her until then, when someone younger than her was being tormented.
Principal Brooks didn’t scold her exactly, but she did warn her. “Protect the scholarships you have, girl,” she told her. “No one is worth losing your education for.”
“I couldn’t leave her, Momma. Kenzie was trying to take Gabby’s jacket and throw it in the garbage just because it had one tiny hole,” she said after we left the principal’s office.
Of course, I couldn’t reprimand her. If anything, I wanted to take her to dinner and get her something nice. Instead, all I could afford was a hug.
“Thank you for being you,” I told her as we slid into my old Buick. “But next time, get a teacher involved. Principal Brooks is right. Your Achieve Scholarship is everything to you. I can’t afford the things it gives you. All they ask in return is—” I stopped mid-sentence when I realized I had turned the key several times and the engine still hadn’t started.
“Is everything okay, Momma?”
I turned the key again, and all I could hear was the clicking sound of a dying battery. “Please, no. Not today!”
Fortunately, Principal Brooks was still there and jump started the car. Unfortunately, however, I had to drive us straight to purchase a battery I couldn’t afford.
