by Jennifer Vensel

Created on: October 12, 2008   Last Updated: October 16, 2008

She raised her arm and touched the ceiling. Mandy couldn't believe this was where she was going to live for the next year . She hoped she would be out sooner. There was barely enough room for a couch and a coffee table in the whole place. She was going to have to call ths plae home. The carpet was at least a tan color it to take the edge off the patio quality. The walls were freshly painted with a bright white. She looked at the empty room with excitement, only because it was new and different from what she had. It was a real downsize from her three-bedroom home with the big backyard, and the garden she worked so hard on. Inside she felt like she was at the bottom of life, and everyone was ahead of her. She had a little grain of hope that this was not going to last too long, but it felt like the repeat of the hell she use to live in before the accident.

Mandy thought to the moment she sat in that gigantic boardroom. To her right was her mom and on her left sat her brother who was looking nervous for the first time in his life. In front of Mandy was her attorney who just asked whether to put Mandy's quarter of a million dollars into a money market fund with Sheen Twitter Investments. He was waiting for an answer. The quarter of a million was what was left after the hospital bills and Mr. Paper, her attorney's retainer fee. With only hesitation because she had no idea what investing was about, Mandy said,

" I guess, go ahead and invest the money, it sounds like the right thing do. Mandy looked at her mom in doubt.

" It is," Mr. Paper said, " If you don't spend the money for a long time, it will grow, and you'll be financially secure in the future."

Mandy and her mom looked at each other. They had greedy eyes because they had been without money for so long. They couldn't be to blame, at that moment. They were good people, who worked hard to earn money and be good, but just never made enough to get ahead.

For a time, Mandy went back to her regular life. She had only taken out enough money to pay cash for a Jeep. And she gave some to her mom. The jeep was the car she had always wanted. She also dreamed of driving down the road on a dry February Florida day with the top down. She continued her classes at the Fairway Community College in hopes to one day rub elbows with the big kids at the university. Mandy thought being around them would make her lack of self worth go away.

It had been the afternoon she had seen a coworker, Sara. She saw her in the trailer park neighborhood.

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