Prologue

I moved to Charming not to get away from life more of I had my car repossessed and lost my job at Nordstrom's back in Boise, Idaho. The only people who would ever come looking for me from there would be my landlord for skipping out on four months' rent and my neighbor for shooting her morning doves that prevented me from indulging in more than five hours of sleep. In the mean time moving in with my mother seemed like the best option…

By the time I arrived via greyhound, my mother was at work and I had to walk five miles from the station to her house that happened to be a small little shack of a house sitting next to an Auto Parts store. So I started walking. At this point I pretended to enjoy dragging three bags of shoes and a duffle bag of books cutting into my shoulders. After half an hour of this, I couldn't understand why I wasn't home yet. I made it half a mile and was ready to pass out on someone's lawn. To get myself to keep going I kept bitching at everyone who drove past me and didn't give me the small town kindness of a free ride home. It took me six damn hours to get to that house. I'm sorry, I meant shack!

When I had arrived, I arrived to a shifty sprinkler that only watered the drive way instead of the twelve foot front lawn. Looking around I saw the flowers weren't just dead they were twigs that stood up from grass. The 'shack' use to be painted pink but was peeling so bad that if you were two blocks away and driving sixty miles an hour it was the only way it would ever give the appearance of pink. And the windows were caked in dirt and dust that I literally thought she put card board against the glass. I didn't want to cry, I wanted to scream at everything and everyone. But I couldn't. I was the one who stole 4,000 dollars worth of clothes, perfume, and shoes that got me fired from Nordstorms in the first place. So my only choice was to move back home. Therefore, I sucked in my sore ego and fury and shoved it into a small box of hate and hurried inside before someone recognized me.

I unlocked the door and held onto my luggage as close to me as possible expecting the filthiest place in the world. Instead I was wrong. Closing the door and turning on the light I saw the shack was not a shack at all. It was an illusion. My mother replaced the crappy carpet from the seventies that was a bitch to vacuum with hard wood floors. The kitchen that sat instantly to my left from the front door with as little counter space as possible now had marble top counters with room to spare. Meaning there would be more than just one spot of counter space to make food.

I turned to see the dining area that was instantly to my right from the front door. It had used to be a small poker table with plastic chairs. Now it was an oak table with velvet cushions on the seats. Standing next to the table was the latter to the loft sitting above the dining area. From here I could see that it was refurnished with a closet and room for a computer desk instead of just a bed.

I set my things down and walked to the bathroom that was directly across from the spare bedroom. I saw that the bathroom had a mosaic picture of a naked man above the claw foot bath tub and the sink was unusual. It was like a waterfall that came out of the wall right beneath the mirror. I couldn't believe this was my mother's house. Did someone die? Where did she get all this money to finance these extravagant household items? Had she been saving all this money till I moved out and decided to indulge herself? Jesus…

I hurried to look into the spare bedroom and saw that the twin size bed was a canopy bed with lace white sheets. The antique dresser with the seventies lamp was now a vanity dresser with a mirror and expensive perfume I sent to my mother for Christmas every year all over the counter. The mold covered drapes that the moths had built an empire inside were now gone and replaced with new drapes. I was more than just flabbergast. I was more than just shocked. I suddenly wanted to hit myself with a crow bar to see if I was in the wrong shack! Before turning to leave the room I saw a note sitting on the bed.

I leaned over and picked it up to read it. It said, 'This house is yours now. I moved out. I have a job waiting for you at Teller-Morrow. Be there tomorrow at 7:00 a.m. Bunch of cute guys and lots of paper work to filter through, all in all it's a job, Nancy! So I don't want to hear any bitching!'

I stared at that note for an hour. Cute guys?! There were no cute guys there. The only males at that place were biker dudes that played mechanic when the ATF had been in and out of their garage every three weeks. Then I thought about it. What cute guys was she talking about? I had to be positive and think of her version of attractive men and knew that Jackson "the slut" Teller is probably still there, Tig "the pink pervert panther" was probably there, Chibs "the Scotland drunk" might be still there, and last but not least Happy "the sociopath" was most likely there. Great. I was not looking forward to seeing those biker freaks at all. But a job was a job. I needed that paycheck to get me the fuck out of town. I didn't want to be here long enough for Juan-Carlos Ortiz "the thick dick" to find me!