Casting Stones 1 | Page 80

Seventeen
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“ I’ m not one of those people. Frank also offered me a chance,” she said, and began to fill in some of the blanks.
From a young girl Samantha’ s mother only spoke to her daughters in one fashion, mostly because of her lack of formal education. She talked only as if each and every one of her four daughters were college bound. By the time Sam graduated high school, two of her sisters had their bachelors degree. The other was entering her last year. It was at that time her father died of a heart attack. Her mother took over the pastry shop with the older sister’ s help and was fairly successful. The income was just enough to keep her youngest daughter from receiving financial aid and not enough to really help with college. She managed to get a small grant, but she would have to work and study. After barely making it through her first year at Sam Houston State University, she nearly quit. That summer she met a friend of a friend who said she was going to make enough cash to pay this years tuition and working one or two days a week paid for books and expenses. Sam asked if it was legal. The friend explained it was totally legitimate and if she was interested, having the kind of looks Samantha had been blessed, would certainly help. She asked if Sam liked to dance. Eddie put the pieces together.“ You know George,” he said. Sam’ s eyes opened wide.“ Do you know George?”“ We’ ve met and I know he runs a clean establishment.”“ I did not have to do anything I would be ashamed of later.”“ You met Frank.”“ I was about to graduate when Frank asked me to look at a property and give my opinion.”
Sam stood outside of the building that had“ Perfect location” written all over it. Frank told her he could not figure out why it was not renting. The granite was beautiful but the color of the painted surface below each window was the ugliest shade of puke green she had ever seen. She went inside. The lobby was flamingo pink and bright aqua. Her first impression was the decorator was from Miami and this would never sell in Texas.“ I walked into Frank’ s office and asked him if he was fucking color blind. Which is a rather cruel thing to ask someone who is color blind,” She laughed.“ Which reminds me. It took me two days to find the perfect shade of yellow for the shopping center. Those gray blocks make it look terrible.”“ I was not aware Frank is color blind. And the color is called“ Morning Sun,” Eddie said. Sam smiled and nodded.“ He asked me to work on a commission basis, based on profit. I get thirty percent of the new revenue generated by the properties I redecorate. I also manage a few of the properties I suggested Frank should purchase just so I could redecorate them.”“ Frank taught you the business?”“ Just like he is teaching you,” She played a hunch.
Eddie’ s demeanor shifted.“ Where you come from does not matter. Just like where I come from does not matter. It is where we are going that really counts,” Sam said seriously.“ Where are we going?”“ Straight to hell if we don’ t change our ways,” she said, kissing him and taking the last swallow of his beer.“ May I ask why you told me all of this?”“ Because we both have secrets and if you can keep Frank’ s then you can keep mine and we can keep ours,” she said.“ We are going to hell.”“ Want a real lap dance?” she laughed and headed for the living room, condom in hand. Eddie grabbed a towel from the bathroom and spread it on the sofa.