Rachel Kent stood at the glass counter just to the right of the restaurant's vestibule. Without conscious effort, the twenty-two year old redhead smiled warmly at the lunchtime customers as they came in, welcoming them to D'Martini's. It was a greeting she had perfected long ago, which was good, because putting on a happy face was the furthest thing from her mind right now. Instead, her thoughts dwelled on the question of how had she had gotten herself into the mess she was in. No, that wasn't right, she corrected herself; she knew exactly how she had gotten into it. What she needed to figure out was, how was she going to get out of it?
How had the most innocent of decisions, she asked herself again, led to such an unmitigated disaster? It was a question that caused her to once more recall the events of the last twenty-four hours.
-=-=-=-
It was already ten minutes past the end of her shift, and Rachel had her coat on and was headed for the door. She'd almost made it when Clarence Winchester, the owner of D'Martini's, stopped her and asked if she would mind doing him a small favor. Before heading home, he asked, could she drop off the morning receipts at First National Bank? He normally would've done it himself during his noontime walk, but one of the cooks had called in sick and he'd been too tied up to do so.
The truth was, Rachel had indeed minded, especially since not only was the bank a half mile in the wrong direction, but she was supposed to meet her boyfriend, Frankie, in less than an hour. But as much as she had wanted to say no, she knew she couldn't afford to, and instead flashed her patented false smile, saying she'd be happy to help out. If only she'd been honest, she told herself, she wouldn't be in her current predicament.
Life really hadn't worked out the way she thought it would, back when she'd been head cheerleader and most popular girl at Darbyville High. Back then, she'd believed that studying hard and getting good grades was for those without active social lives. In her mind, it was enough just to get a passing grade.
And while she was willing to give college a try, if only for the partying possibilities, her track record in high school made her father a bit reluctant to foot that bill. As a compromise, he'd suggested she take out a student loan to pay her tuition, with the promise that if she managed to actually get herself a degree, he would pay it off when she was done. Otherwise it would be her responsibility to make restitution.
It was a gamble she hadn't been willing to take, at least not back then, so she had passed on the offer. So while most of her classmates continued their schooling, Rachel went off to work. It never occurred to her that the road ahead wouldn't be full of possibilities.
Her job here at D'Martini's had been her fourth job since graduation, and the only one that she'd had for more than a year. Now, she wasn't sure if she'd still have it at the end of the day.
When Rachel had reached the block the bank was on, she was confronted by a police barrier and a street full of fire trucks. The fire seemed concentrated in a building two doors down from First National, but it had caused all the businesses around it to close early, including the
bank.
Rachel had considered for a moment whether she should take the money back to the restaurant. A glance at her watch, however, told her that would make her even later than she already was. The bank would be open in the morning, she reasoned, and she could make the deposit just as easily then. Such were the simple decisions, she would later realize, which could change your life.
Twenty minutes after she left the fire scene, Rachel met up with Frankie McManus, her boyfriend of the last four months. A mechanic at Petrocelli Auto, Frankie was not only drop-dead handsome, with a body the result of at least three days a week in the gym, but he was, almost as importantly, truly incredible in bed. Regrettably, the combination had also been enough for Rachel to overlook some of the twenty-nine year old's faults.
As early as a month into their relationship, their dates had fallen into a predictable pattern, and last night had proved no different. Dinner and a movie, then back to her place, the over-the-garage apartment behind her parents' house which her father had the nerve, in her mind, to actually charge her rent for. It didn't matter that it was less than half what he would've gotten on the open market. Once there, it wasn't long before the two of them were fucking each other's brains out.
Several hours later, Rachel awoke and, as she glanced at the empty space next to her, she wasn't surprised to find Frankie gone from her bed. More often than not, he tended to leave soon after they had taken care of business. Tossing aside the sheet that covered her naked body, she headed for the bathroom, but paused halfway there when she caught her reflection in the large, stand-alone dressing mirror that had once belonged to her grandmother.
The body she saw in the mirror was one that pleased her greatly, having changed little from that of her cheerleading days. Her breasts were just large enough to catch a man's attention and firm enough that she could go bra-less when she chose to. Her hair was longer now then it had been back in school, coming down to just below her shoulders. The opposite was true of the hair below her waist, which had been reduced to a small, tightly trimmed patch. All the curves were still definitely in the right places, she liked to point out, and if she had wanted to try, she was sure she could fit into her old uniform easily enough.
Rachel was on the way back to bed when she noticed her pocketbook sitting on the kitchenette counter, despite the fact that she clearly remembered leaving it on the coffee table the night before. Concerned, she changed direction and checked the contents. Concern quickly turned to panic as not only was her wallet now empty, but the envelope with the restaurant's bank deposit was gone as well.
Pulling her cell phone from the bag, she frantically dialed Frankie's number, only to have it go to voice mail after what seemed like an endless number of unanswered rings. Frustrated, she left a message for him to call her as soon as he checked his phone.
An hour passed, and then two, until the glow of the morning sun began to appear in the window - and still no call from her missing boyfriend. Finally, just a bit after seven, there was a knock on the door and, after racing to it, Rachel pulled it open to find her bed partner of the previous night, looking somewhat worse for wear.
"Where the fuck have you been?" the furious redhead said without any preamble, not even letting him get into the apartment first, "and where the hell is the money that was in my purse?"
"Calm down, baby," Frankie said as he turned on the charm that had served him so well over the last few months. "I borrowed it for a few hours, that's all."
"Borrowed it?" Rachel asked in disbelief. "For what?"
"My man, Jesse sent me a text that he was working up a game that I just had to get in on," he said, a noticeable lack of concern in his tone. "I was just a few bucks short and I knew you wouldn't mind. I'd have gotten it all back to you in the morning."
"You thought I wouldn't mind if you went into my purse and took money out of it?" Rachel asked in disbelief.
"Sure, we're a couple, right?" he replied, causing Rachel to think that they obviously had different view of what their relationship entitled them to.
"There was a deposit envelope in my bag..." she started to say.
"Yeah, I was surprised about that," Frankie said. "I didn't think you had that kind of money."
"Where is it?" Rachel further asked, deciding that was the important thing and she could deal with the rest of it all later.
It was only then that the confident expression on Frankie's face changed.
"I'm afraid I ran into a little, unexpected problem," he said after a long pause.
"What do you mean, a little problem?" Jessie asked, certain that she wasn't going to like the answer.
"I sort of lost it," he said in an almost unheard voice.
"You did what?" Rachel thundered.
"I was doing great, in fact I had to have been up at least five hundred," Frankie said, "but then Billie Winslow, who normally can't play cards for shit, drew an inside straight and took the biggest pot of the night. That little bastard was never so lucky in his life."
"Are you telling me," Rachel said in a slow and deliberate tone, still unable to believe what was happening, "that you took money, that in no way belonged to you, and you lost it in a card game?"
"That's about it," Frankie said with a shrug that seemed to say, shit happens.
