Erasing the search, I tried again, this time typing,Jobs for Caregivers.
It wasn’t like I didn’t already know that I was good at taking care of people. I’d been taking classes to be a social worker when I’d been at school, but it’d taken me far too many weeks to realize that just because I wasn’t in school at this time didn’t mean I couldn’t find a way to make money with the skills I did have.
My hopes weren’t high. Frankly, my experience with jobs had been almost none. The school, as required by my scholarship, had supplied me an on-campus job for a minimum of twenty hours a week. I’d been assigned to the cafeteria my first semester, but once I’d taken an interest in the psychology department, the chair had submitted a special request to have me assigned to that department for the next semester.
Dr. Grady, my professor and advisor, had saved my life in many ways.
And ruined it in others.
I’d made peace with his small part in the destruction of my life, the bitterness no longer something that choked me and woke me up at night in terror and night sweats.
When Dr. Grady had offered to pay for dinner if I escorted him to a fancy meeting, I hadn’t known that meant introducing me to the city’s most successful entrepreneur and high roller, a man who recognized the smell of a young, broke chick and left his card if I ever “wanted to talk business.”
I hadn’t known what it meant then. Hadn’t thought about the way Dr. Grady scooted his chair closer to mine and threw an arm over the back, my head already bubbly from my second glass of champagne.
He’d been a perfect gentleman that night when he’d walked me home.
It was every day after that he’d commenced the slow unraveling of my psyche.
I’d thought circles around the situation in the months since it’d happened, what I could have done differently.
The answer I’d come up with? Well, I still didn’t have one. I’d just shoved it to the back burner in favor of surviving.
I mulled over the search results staring back from the screen, dialing into a database of caregiving jobs in my general vicinity. I spent the next hour familiarizing myself with the status of health workers in the area, trying to carve out a plan for the next few years of my life. If I knew anything, it was that I wouldn’t be sitting here riding Bastien’s coattails and begging for his time on the side for longer than I could help it.
I wanted so much good for St. Michael’s.
But I wanted good for me too.
I spent another hour printing applications for what few jobs in the health industry I was qualified for, filling out each of them longhand before writing down the physical addresses in my planner and then picking out the most professional secondhand outfit my budget could buy.
I wasn’t sure if white was allowed in winter or if navy shoes went with a black belt after all, but it would have to do. One thing Mom had taught me was that a warm and friendly smile went further than a dollar ever could. I didn’t know if she was right about that, but it was all I had to work with, so I was rolling with it.
My plan was to go in guns blazing tomorrow, thousand-watt smile on my face.
I neededoutof St. Michael’s.
Awayfrom Bastien.
Closer tome.
And in a wild, roundabout way, I had Dr. Grady to thank for my meeting Bastien at all.
That night could have turned out so very differently.
I’d called the number on that card that night in the hours before I’d found myself sleeping in my car outside of St. Michael’s.
After losing my scholarship, the checks from the grants no longer depositing into my account meant I couldn’t even feed myself. The funding for my student housing terminated.
My life. In ruins.
I’d called the number that night because I didn’t have anywhere else to turn.
I told myself I didn’t know what I was getting into, but I think, really, I did.
I knew by the flirtatious grin and cocky tilt of his eyebrow that he was trouble.
I should have hung up when he forced me tobeg himfor the meeting.
