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“Hold the fort as best you can. I’m on my way.”
I hated to leave without speaking to Jenna and without even introducing myself, but I had to squash this new beef fast or risk Christmas going to hell.
I grabbed Max to go along with me because it seemed like the situation warranted backup, and to keep him from trying anything else with Jenna.
She was mine.
Chapter 3 - Jenna
The original plan was to spend the entire vacation with Katie, only coming back to Berkeley after the first of the new year. That was until I discovered I was staying in a luxurious crime den. Okay, maybe that was going a bit too far. It was unlikely they did any crime in their home, but how was I to know for sure?
My skin practically crawled the two days I did spend there, making up some excuse about a test I forgot I had and needed to cram for so I could go back with Brooke right after Christmas.
Katie saw through it, and was heartbroken, which made my own chest ache. I hated that she felt so bad, but she put herself in that situation, and dragged me along with it as well. My college tuition was being paid for by mafia money, and no one asked me if I was all right with that.
I wasn’t. Not at all. Not even if it meant going along with it would erase the pain in my sister’s eyes. She let me go, extracting a promise from me that I’d keep an open mind. It was an empty promise, because my mind was shut tight.
And rightly so. It was my fondest wish to get into politics. It had been my dream since I was ten and my mom had been volunteering for someone on the local school board’s election campaign. It was just small-time stuff, but the energy at the meetings she took me to was infectious. Those people really believed in something. That they were making things better by backing their chosen candidate. And the speeches by the woman who was running? Wow. She really lit a fire under me and ever since then, all my Barbies ran for office.
Even when I was getting bullied so badly in my first year of public school, that dream kept me going. Maybe one day I’d be on a local school board, and I could make changes so nobody got hassled so mercilessly that she ate her lunch while hiding in a bathroom stall.
Now, I had even loftier goals than that. I wanted to make it all the way to Congress. How could I possibly do that with ties to the Russian mafia? There was no way; it was impossible.
What also seemed impossible was making it on my own.
Brooke was always poring over a little notebook that she ruthlessly updated every day. She kept track of every penny she made and spent, tapping away at her calculator app and sometimes sighing and sometimes thrusting her fist in the air in triumph when she came out ahead for once. Whenever I moaned about money, she told me to make a budget. Supposedly, it really helped, and after the initial depression that descended when she saw how little she had, she assured me that the feeling of being in control was worth it.
Except, I couldn’t exactly make a budget when I had no income. Katie had always been strongly against me getting a job, especially when my grades started to slip last semester. My scholarship money was eaten up by tuition, with barely pennies left over to buy books. Everything always came from Katie, who had worked tirelessly to make it so I could go to my dream college. I did the work to get in, and the scholarship helped, but it was Katie who made it happen.
Now, I had moved out of the dorms into an apartment that was also paid for with dirty money. It’d be a blot on my record if I broke the lease, not to mention probably costing a bunch in fees, and then Brooke would be left high and dry, too. We’d both been so thrilled to get out of the crowded dorm withthe leaky showers and constantly clogged toilets. The place was the cheapest available, and living in an actual zoo might have been more pleasant.
No money, rent I couldn’t afford—hell, I probably couldn’t afford to go back to the dorms on my own—and I was teetering on the brink of losing my scholarship.
With my head in my hands, I groaned loud enough to scare a bird sitting on the windowsill outside our adorable little kitchen window. My first taste at independence, the apartment I loved so much, was a shackle now.
Okay, crying wasn’t going to solve anything, because, last I checked, my tears didn’t turn to gold. I had to find a job, as many as I could get. If it meant losing sleep to keep studying and drag my grades back up, then so be it.
The only other option was to get comfortable with enjoying the perks of criminal activities I didn’t want to imagine. That meant giving up my dreams. No. Hell, no.
I got dressed and headed to my advisor’s office with what felt like a stone settled in the pit of my stomach. Professor Cardaway hated my guts for some reason, and no matter how many other students told me he treated them just as poorly, I was convinced he really had it out for me. He was the only person I could get to put me forward for paid internships, and as a freshman, he constantly told me I shouldn’t be wasting my time. But since he also reveled in my failures, he’d tell me about anything available.
As futile as it seemed with my experience level and somewhat shoddy grades, I would much rather have an internship that would look good on a resumé than a string of coffee shop jobs. Oh, I was ready to take those, too, but I still held out hope for something glamorous and exciting.
I was glad that Cardaway was in his office so soon after the new year, because now, even bus fare was precious, and I would have been sorry to waste the trip. I had normally been checking in once a month or so since that was all the abuse I could take from him, but now I planned to haunt his doorstep every day until something came up.
For once, the grouchy buzzard of a man seemed pleased to see me, or at least relieved. He waved me in and got straight to business without so much as a Happy New Year.
“There’s a new lobbying company in San Francisco,” he said, rummaging through the papers on his desk. With a sigh, he finally clicked open his email and printed something out. “They want a poli-sci major and don’t care what year you’re in. They’re offering an entire course credit.” He waved the paper at me after it slid out of his printer, his eyes narrowing. “I don’t have to remind you how important another credit is to you, do I?”
“No, sir,” I said, reaching for the paper he kept just out of my reach. “I’d be thrilled to take the internship.”
He snickered. “It’s only an interview, so don’t get too excited. They said they’d see all levels, but I’m sure they want someone with more experience and…” he paused to clear his throat. “Better grades.”
“I know my grades could be better,” I said, choking on meekness.
What he said was true, but it wasn’t like I was slipping due to wild partying. I always had the habit of biting off more than I could chew, especially when excited about something. There was nothing I was more excited about than college, and I’d learned the hard way that slow and steady really does win the race.
“I’ve been notified that you risk losing your scholarship if there’s one more failing grade.” His voice wasn’t malicious, but it wasn’t kind, either. He seemed personally affronted about my poor showing last semester and my less-than-stellar one now. “It might be better if you drop a few of the ones you’re struggling with, although that never looks good either, since by now you’d have to take an incomplete.”
