Page 11 of Guy
As gently as he could, he shut the door and waited until he counted to twenty three times before he let go of the scream that he’d been holding for what seemed like his whole life.Then he went in search of his sister.
She wasn’t hard to find.She was in her room writing out checks for the bills that were overdue, or they’d already gotten turned off.He, just as calmly as he could, asked her what she was doing.
“I’m getting our things back.I already called the dealership and told them that I paid off one of the cars.You’ll have to give me your stuff so that I can pay off yours.I mailed out a lot of checks today, Shawn.You should have put me in charge of our bills from the beginning.I’m doing such a good job at keeping things running.”She was currently stuffing an envelope that went to the electric company, and he just let her.“I’m using a lot of the checks that we had.I hope that I don’t run out before I get everything paid.”
“I don’t either.Because you know that once the checks are gone, there isn’t any more money.”She just grinned at him, telling him that he’d just have to order more.She even handed him the form that came with the checks to order them through the bank.“Yes, I’m sure they’ll be thrilled to charge us for more checks on an account that’s closed.”
He left her to it.There wasn’t any way that anything was going to be paid off with the way things were going.Not only that, but even if they got the money from Amber, they didn’t have an account to put the money in as of right now.At least they’d eat well tonight with the cash she’d gotten from the account.Nothing else to do but go with her way of doing things.For now, at least.
It took him nearly three hours to get things in order in the kitchen.Margaret acted as if they still had staff and a great deal of them by the way the kitchen looked when he’d gone into it.She even left the lid off the milk container when she’d been ‘cooking’ herself some cereal.That was the extent of her cooking: pouring some cereal into a bowl and serving herself.After the kitchen, he went back to the living room.
Sitting in his chair again, he thought about what he was doing.There wasn’t any way he was going to be able to show his face at any of the clubs that they used to go to all the time.And as of last month, he couldn’t get himself there unless he walked.And he hated the snow and cold.He didn’t much care for the heat and rain either, but one season at a time was all he could work with right now.
All his nice clothing was at the dry cleaners, and he couldn’t get them out without cash.Thecheck thing hadn’t worked out so well for him last month when he’d tried to pay with a check like his sister was doing right now.
He really needed to talk to Amber and see if she’d give them some of the insurance money that she’d gotten from their mom.Why she did that to them was something that he wished he could ask her.She’d literally left them out in the cold with the way things were going in their life.But Amber was their only solution to getting back on track.
Picking up the phone, he tried to calm his heart down from being so afraid to call her.He’d never been afraid of anything concerning Amber, and right now, he was worried that her soon-to-be husband would come around and finish the job he’d started the other night.Killing him off didn’t sound like such a bad option right now.Now, with his sister committing mail fraud as well as the hundreds of dollars in bounced check charges they were going to incur while she was making things ‘right’ for them.He just didn’t know what to do.
As soon as the phone was answered, he didn’t think it was the Frazier person he asked to speak to Amber.Everything that he had planned out to say to her went out the door the moment she said ‘hello’ to him.Sobbing out what was going on in his life, how Margaret was going to ruin them, he found himself on the floor in the living room, curled up into the fetal position, sobbing about how he didn’t know if he was going to make it and needed her help.
“How much do you need?I’m not saying that I’ll help you, you’ve been a right bastard to me all my life, but you tell me how much you need and I’ll think about helping you.And for the love of god, take the checkbook away from Margaret before she digs you a hole you’ll never see the light of day again through.”He told her that he didn’t know how much he needed, and that was the truth.He figured that asking for money and getting it was far between, but she wasn’t hanging up on him, so he gave her a good estimate.“That’s a great deal of money, Shawn.How did you get so far behind?”
“I’d like to blame it all on Margaret, but that wouldn’t be true.She’s not helping our situation, but then neither had I been.”He told her how their electricity and cable were going to be cut off, and thankfully, the house phone was working now, or he’d have not been able to call her to beg.And begging he was.“I don’t care about the cars getting back to us, nor about the cable.I can’t remember the last time I sat down to watch a movie.We need just enough to cover the basics.Phone, electricity, and some money for food.Though I’m not sure who would cook it.The staff left us about six weeks ago, and we’ve been living off of cereal and microwave food.That crap is nasty.So I guess we’ve been eating out when we should have been cooking at home.Just help me keep the power on and get our phones back to working.I can deal with not having the rest.”
“I’ll do that, but it’ll come with a cost.”He didn’t care if she wanted his left foot right now; he’d do anything to have one thing go right.“You have to be nice to me.I don’t mean until the power is kept on, but all the time.I’ve never done anything to you, and I don’t like the way you treat me when you feel as if I owe you something.”
“All right.I can do that.But you have to work with me on that.I’m not going to be able to change overnight.Please?”She told him so long as he was trying, she’d work with him.“You have no idea how much I appreciate this, Amber.I know that we’ve been a shit to you before, but I’m going to change.I don’t know about Margaret.She’s…I think that there is something wrong with her mind.She doesn’t seem to understand about banks and checks.”
He told her what she was doing again and again, and he was told to stop her.But he figured that if anyone were to spend ten minutes with her, they’d see that there was something very wrong with his twin sister.
After hanging up with Amber, with the promise to meet him at the power office in an hour, she was going to pick him up and take him there.It was more than he could have hoped for, and he told her that.As soon as he got off the phone, he went to find Margaret again.Apparently, writing checks wasn’t something that she liked anymore, and she was arranging the furniture in her room.
“I have to make room for my stuff.”He asked her what stuff.“You know, stuff that I had before.The ones that we had to sell for money.”
“We still don’t have any money, Margaret.”She said that she counted and they have fifty-three checks left.“Yes, would you mind if I took over those for now?And I’ll see that these get put in the proper place for mailing.”
“Don’t forget to get stamps.I have a check already saved out for that.The one with your favorite movie on it.”He’d forgotten about them ordering checks that were movie-themed.He did wonder now why they’d done that.Just to spend money, he figured.“Are you going out?”
“I am.I have to see someone about the power before they shut it off.”He hoped they’d get there before it was turned off.They wanted to charge him an extra two hundred and fifty dollars to have it turned back on again.“You stay here, and I’ll be back soon, and we can order out.As a celebration.”
“Yes, because I’ve gotten us out of debt now.Silly brother.I told you to do this at the beginning.”Yes, he thought there was something wrong with his sister.“Now we’ll get our things back and go on like we did before.I can’t stand being broke all the time, Shawn.It’s not good for me.”
“What do you mean?”She told him that she couldn’t sleep at night the way that he was doing things, that she had to be in charge of something like the bills, so that they’d not be stressed out.“I was stressed out.I’m glad that you’ve taken some of the burden off my shoulders.”
He had to get out of her room.It hurt his heart when he thought of how much stress she’d been under, and his stress levels were higher because he had to take care of her.Going to the front door to wait on Amber, he thought of all the things that he’d had planned and were now useless because he’d been…they’d been so useless with money.What the hell was wrong with them?
It wasn’t as if they had grown up with a great deal of money.They had a comfortable life.Had anything that they wanted, whether they needed it or not.But after killing their dad, then their mom, they’d gotten stupider.It occurred to him that he might get into trouble for killing them, but he didn’t dwell on it for long.He had enough on his mind right now without thinking of going to prison for killing his parents.
True to her word, Amber came by to pick him up and take him to the electric power company.He wasn’t thrilled that she’d brought Frazier with her, but she was doing him a favor, and he wasn’t going to complain.While he sat in the back seat, she told him what was going to happen with the power company.
“I called, and we have to pay off the entire bill before they don’t shut it off.That’s a bit more than you told me.”He told her how he’d only just gotten a past due notice yesterday, and that was the amount on it.“They’re making you pay the current bill, too.The cell service was a good deal nicer about it.I had to pay the remaining amount owed on the phones that you both got, and then this month’s bill.A bit more there, too, but they were kind enough not to say it would cost you an arm and a leg to keep your service on.So that’s paid.”
“Thank you.”He could actually feel some of the stress rolling off his back.“I’ve put the checks away that Margaret wrote.She just wrote them out for every bill that we had.Some of them were for magazine subscriptions that I didn’t know we got, but she said that she’d done it, so I’m going to assume that they’ll have to wait a bit longer or just stop sending them to us.”
After going to the power company and paying that bill, they headed to the cell service and had that bill changed around so that they were no longer paying on the phones they’d gotten.Only the best was what they’d gotten for themselves, and he couldn’t remember a single thing that his phone did that he thought he needed at the time.He couldn’t even remember the last picture that he took with it, and it was supposed to have a state-of-the-art camera with it.
He was surprised when Amber and her husband, whose name he still didn’t know, took him out to lunch.He thought about Margaret but decided that, for today, she could eat cereal.It was all the two of them had been eating for several days now, as the microwave stuff hadn’t been as easy as it said it would be on the package.He was giddy to be out to lunch, too, with someone other than his twin.
