“ I don’t know anyone by that name.Are you famous?”She only snorted at him.Delighted, he laughed.“ I’m going to call you and have dinner with you again.I promise.”
“ We’ll see.Just look up my family, and you’ll understand why I’m currently working two jobs and trying to buy myself my own home.”He promised her that he would as soon as he got home.“ My next robe buyer is here, so I have to go.You have a good life, Mr.Erickson.In the event that I don’t hear from you again, I want you to know that, despite not being murdered by you last night, I had a good time.”
“ Are you saying that you wished I’d have murdered you?”She shrugged and told him to look her up.“ I’m going to.And I’m sure that it’s not as bad as you think it might be.”
“ We’ll see.”She greeted her next customer with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes.He had a feeling that she was going to be spending a great deal of time in the robe department today.He wondered where she got her charming attitude towards customers.He supposed that she was just good at her job.
Leaving the store, he wrote down her last name and headed home.While sitting in his car, he added her phone number and name to his phone list and was happy that she’d been nice enough to give it to him.As he was pulling into traffic, he thought about how she was so sure that he’d not want anything to do with her when he looked her up.No, he thought to himself, he couldn’t see himself giving up on her when she had made him laugh so much.Perhaps it wouldn’t go anywhere, but he was willing to try.
Laughing as he drove home, he thought about how she was the most standoffish person he’d ever met.She knew how to keep him at arm’s length, and he was sort of happy about that.She wasn’t going to be the love of his life, but he thought that he could have some fun with her until the right woman came along.If there was someone out there for him.At this point, he didn’t care.He was only looking for a good time, and she could make him laugh, and he was happy with that.
It didn’t take him long to get back home.The first thing he did was look up the Marsh family and found that she was from a very prestigious family.Or they had been at one time.He was sure there were many skeletons in her closet and decided to have a look.Just as it was coming up on a background check on her, he could see where her family had been in the news a great deal of late.Money laundering was the biggest scandal that came up, but there were other things as well.Like non-payment of taxes was a big one, too.
He read over the report on her parents while he was having a sandwich of bologna and cheese.It was still his favorite sandwich as an adult.He’d enjoyed this particular type of sandwich since he and Martha would share lunch together.She also introduced him to putting chips on it so that it had some crunch to it.He missed that woman more than he did his own parents.Which wasn’t saying much as he’d not had anything to do with them over the last twelve plus years.
Martha had taken them in when their van had broken down in front of her house.All of them had learned the true value of money while living with her, and she’d taught them how to be gentlemen of worth.She’d also taught them that love could be freely given.He’d never felt so loved in his life until she came into their lives.He knew that he and his brothers had been lucky that they’d been able to have such a mentor in their lives.
She was one of a kind, and he missed her so much sometimes he’d find himself sobbing for her loss.She’d been the best thing that could have happened to them, and he’d love for her to still be around now so that she could see what they’d accomplished since she’d been gone.
After reading what he could find on the Marsh family, he did a deep background check on Olivia.He told himself he was only doing it so that he could have information on her when he dated her again, but it was wrong, and on so many levels, he knew it was.
There wasn’t much on her that he could find.She worked hard and paid her way through life.She was right in saying that she had very little to do with her family.At eighteen, she’d moved out, and it looked as if she didn’t have much to do with them after that.Her name was rarely mentioned in any newspaper articles that he found, and so far as the news articles went, she’d been wholly left out of their lives.He even knew what her credit score was, and that was great.Putting away his computer, he took his plate to the kitchen and decided that he’d been in the house long enough today and was headed to the office at three thirty.He knew there he’d get some work done without any distractions.
By the time six o’clock rolled around, he was exhausted.He’d gotten all the work he’d needed done on the cases he’d been working on and then some.His brother Knox had gotten a lot of research done on the case against the school principal, and he’d been shocked that they’d hired him at all.His background check had him hurting women who didn’t do what he wanted from way back.
~*~
Olivia decided that she didn’t care for being a personal shopper.There was a lot of smiling that she had to do, and she couldn’t stand being fake.That’s what it felt like to stand around with the same people for two hours and help them buy things that no one would ever use again.Like the man she was working with now.He thought that getting his wife a vacuum cleaner was the perfect gift.
If they had something in mind when she helped them, she didn’t understand why they paidextra to have her shop with them.Sure, she could talk up a good game on what sort of things they had in mind, but she didn’t understand why a man would think that a vacuum would be a good Christmas gift to his wife and jewelry to his mistress.There were a lot of men buying for both their wives and their mistresses.She didn’t understand that either.
If you loved someone, why would you need a mistress?She’d read the paper recently about a school principal who had beaten a woman nearly to death because she didn’t want to be his mistress.The article went on to say that not only had his wife left him, but that he’d told the judge that he wanted her back so that having a mistress would work.Olivia didn’t understand people and was glad that she didn’t usually have much in the way of interaction with them, except during the holiday season.
When she was finished with her last customer, another robe man, she headed home.Checking her phone—she wasn’t to have it on her person while she was working—she found that she’d had three messages from Mr.Erickson and two from her mother.Wondering what either of them wanted, she decided to wait until she got home before she messaged them back.When she got to her place, there were four men outside her place trimming the bushes that were at least six or seven feet tall.
“ What’s going on?”He said that they’d had a complaint about the bushes being an eyesore.“ I called every day for a month to get them trimmed because they’re dangerous for people coming and going, and someone complains about them being ugly, and that brings you out?I should have said that, I guess.”She left them to their work.
Getting inside, she had gotten another message from her mother.Texting her back, she told her she was home now if she wanted to call.Before she hit send, she let Mr.Erickson know that she would talk to him later, as her mother had called.It was only a matter of minutes before her mother called her.Something must be wrong if she was calling that fast, she thought.
“ I’m leaving your father.”Rolling her eyes, she asked her what he’d done this time.“ I had my credit cards denied today, and it embarrassed me.I don’t like to be embarrassed, Olivia.You know that.”
“ Yes, I learned that the hard way.It’s why I don’t come around anymore.You do understand that you’re in trouble with the Federal Government, don’t you?I don’t believe Dad had anything to do with your cards being cut off.The government more than likely did that.”
“ Well, what did I do that would have them doing such a thing to me?I was at lunch with the girls, and someone had to pay for my meal.I’m going to be gossip fodder for the rest of the month if you don’t help me leave your father.”She asked what she was supposed to do.“ I don’t know, but you should want this for me.I’m your mother.”
“ You’re only my mother when you need something.Remember how I embarrassed you at the club by being my age when they asked you who I was?How was I supposed to know that you didn’t tell anyone that you had a grown daughter?Not that it matters anyway.You’ve punished me enough with that one.”She asked her how she’d punished her.“ You sent your goons after me, and they beat me to shit.I had to spend six hours in the emergency department that night, and I still have hurts from it.”
“ Oh yes, I remember now.And they’re not goons but people I employ to get what I want done.”She told her that was a goon.“ It is not.Now behave and tell me what you’re going to do about your father.He’s in trouble with the IRS, and that has nothing to do with me.”
“ Don’t you live in the same house as him?”She asked what that had to do with anything.“ I’m sure that the IRS thinks that whatever happens with dad happens to you, too.You’ll have to dip into your stash if you have one to make ends meet until this is over.”
“ I don’t know what you’re talking about.What do I need to have for a stash?”She rolled her eyes hard enough that she was sure that her mother knew what she was doing.“ And don’t use that tone with me, young lady.I’m still your mother, and what I say goes.When are you coming home to have a talk with your father?”
“ Never.Why would anything I have to say to either of you have any bearing on what you’re going through?As I’ve said to you before, you’ve made your choices, so you have to live with theconsequences.I haven’t had anything to do with you other than these calls since I left home eight years ago.I don’t even know why you’d call me when you’re having trouble with Dad.I never do what you want about him.”
“ Yes, and I’m getting sick of that as well.”She sat down at her kitchen table and went through her mail while her mother went on about how she was going to send someone to pick her up.“ You’ll be here for dinner, or I’ll send someone for you to bring you here.I’m sick of us not being a normal family.”
“ We’ve never been normal.Why should we try that now?”She dumped her junk mail in the trash can and looked at her phone.There was a message from Erickson, and she wondered if he had a mother like she did.She’d feel sorry for him if he did.“ Mother, I’m busy here, and I have to get ready for work tomorrow.I’m not going there for any reason, and you should understand that by now.You and Dad have to get yourself out of whatever mess you’ve made and leave me out of it.I pay my taxes on time and even get a refund once in a while.You two need to budget better.”
