�Next week your papers are due ladies and gentlemen.� She picked up her book and folder and stuffed them into her bag.
�Aren�t we cute.� She smiled over at Ben as he threw his backpack over one of his shoulders.
�What are you talking about?� She knew exactly what he was talking about; her knack for accessorizing down to the smallest detail.
�Such a girl. You have a bag for every color of the rainbow.�
She didn�t use a backpack. She used big bags that one would ordinarily take to the beach. She could put everything in them. Her books, a change of clothes if needed, even her purse. Just because she had to lug books around didn�t mean she had to look scruffy. She had a bag in red, pink, black, blue and green striped, purple and yellow striped, beige. Probably the only one she didn�t have was straw; that would be going too far. There was nothing made of straw that looked good.
�Nothing wrong with being fashion conscious.�
She grew up learning to appreciate that clothes and the outer appearances could mean the difference between getting and not getting what you wanted. Whether it was getting her car serviced quicker than the standard two and a half hour wait they give you or getting it done in thirty minutes. It most definitely helped her at work. Selling clothes to men when you are an attractive young woman was easier than turning off a light switch. Especially when those men were rich, buying grossly overpriced clothes and wanted to impress said attractive young woman.
�What are you doing now?� Ben asked her as they walked out the classroom.
�Work.� Luckily for her the campus, her house and the store were all about five minutes apart. Her second class of the day ended at 12:30 and she worked from 2:00 until 7:00.
�So, I�ll see you tonight around 8 or so.� Ben had no sense of time. She, on the other hand, was a stickler regarding punctuality. She would rather be half an hour early than five minutes late.
�No, not 8 or so. My house at 7:30 sharp the test is next week.� There was an exam for their Law of Nations class and after it, there would only be two more grades before the end of the term.
�I guess I can be there�and I guess I can be on time.� She laughed, he lived on campus and she knew him. He wasn�t going to leave campus for the rest of the day anyway. They hugged, told each other good-bye and parted ways as he headed for his dorm room and she went to her car.
**
She drove down her brick layered street with nicely manicured lawns on the right and a beautiful lake on the left. It was as if everything fell into place. Her home was basically in her college�s backyard. She just wished the lake was behind her house instead of across the street; sitting in the backyard sipping on a glass of wine with a scenic view of water sparkling under a full moon. She shook her head. That sounded like something from a romance novel.
What she was, was lucky. Lucky that her grandmother left her a nice home that was paid for. When her grandmother�s lawyer read the will, she was in shock. Her grandmother, Margaret, never discussed her finances or to whom she would leave her belongings. No one knew the exact amount of her estate. She was left with a three-bedroom house and her tuition and books for any school she wanted to attend.
She was twenty years old when her grandmother died. From the middle of her senior year in high school up until the week Margaret died, Margaret tried to convince her granddaughter to go to college. She never had any problems in school, in fact she was an above average student but she just didn�t have the desire to go to college after high school.
She continued to live with her mother until finally she couldn�t take it anymore and moved into a three bedroom apartment with friends. After two years of frustration with friends who sometimes paid the rent and sometimes paid some of the rent, and a rather devastating blow to her life that she still hadn't come to termns with, she moved to her inherited home in Winter Park, Florida. A nice suburb of Orlando, it was more of a community than a city. Per capita, the city had to have more registered BMWs and Mercedes than any other city she had ever been. Winter Park was the home of her school, Rollins College.
It was entirely too expensive for her. Her tuition was $28,000 a year and then there was about $200 a semester for her books. It could have been more if she lived on campus like Ben. Her grandmother took care of her academic essentials but that was it, which is why she was headed inside to get ready for her job. Her grandmother didn�t believe in free rides. She felt no one could ever fully appreciate anything unless they had to contribute. Sure, you can be thankful her grandmother said, thankful you were lucky to not work for something but you couldn�t truly be appreciative.
She laid the keys on the small table that was against a wall in the entryway. She never had to look for her keys because she always left them and her mail if she wasn�t going to read it right away sitting on it. She walked directly to her bedroom and placed her bag on the chair that was sitting in the corner. She wasn't obsessive compulsive she was simply neat. There was a place for everything and everything had its place. Her bedroom allowed for a very neat existence because her grandmother loved space and loved clothes so she had a nice sized room, walk-in closet and her own bathroom.
She walked into her closet and removed her clothes getting ready for her second shower of the day. She always took a shower before she went out in the morning. And even if she had just took a shower five hours ago and she did nothing but sit in a classroom she was going to work and she just wouldn�t feel right if she didn�t take a shower before going. She wasn�t going to work in an ice cream parlor or a bookstore, she was going to the land of money and prestige.
002 | No Ordinary Girl