Opportunity

Packed what's left of my stuff as early as 5 in the morning and moved here to my new place, or else mother would go apeshit on me if she knew I moved out. She's effing unstable I tell you, and those cheap vodka she's been drinking isn't helping much. God, she drinks that thing like her life depended on it. It tastes like nail polish remover.

Yes, I drink. It's my job actually. I work at my uncle's Toucan Bar as a waitress. He pays me good since I'm his niece and all, but it doesn't mean I could skimp on work with him. He's easy to get along with but he hates it if people who work for him doesn't take their work seriously. It's his pride and honor, the bar. Built it from scratch himself with Father's help back then. Uncle Rice, as everyone call him, said he'd crawled, scratched, kicked and screamed trying to keep his bar alive when it just started; so when it finally became household name in Toucan, it's only natural he'd care for it like he does now.

Besides mother, Rice is the only family I've got. After my father passed away, he took it upon himself the expenses that I ever needed in school. Sometimes mother would come and ask from him too, but usually he'd shove her ass out of the door. Mother would curse at him, saying things along the lines of 'irresponsible' and 'stingy piece of shit'. Why wasn't it her being burnt alive?

Odelia told me that lately mother was so desperate for money she's been working at the cotton factory where Ody's the manager. Sober, Ody said, though her clothes often reek of beer, which definitely comes from her boyfriend. The boyfriend, Johnny, long since disowned by her mother Dorothy Harrison, had nowhere to go but freeloading and getting drunk in the house. Sometimes he'd hit me. I was in third grade when I had to be admitted into the hospital because he slammed an empty beer bottle on my head when I said I don't want to go out and buy him his beer.

The Harrisons, rich and famous in Toucan as they are, doesn't seem to hate me even though mother took Johnny away from their family. Dorothy never showed me any kind of resentment. She actually took pity of me, although the gesture of kindness never really exceeded a few dinners and words of comfort. 

Oh, Ody is her granddaughter, by the way. Spitting image of Dorothy when she was younger. Tall, red headed and beautiful. Standing in comparison with me, Odelia Harrison is like Scarlett Johansson while I'm a ferret that smells like onions. Ody wanted to study in Canada, but Dorothy said nobody would be taking care of the family's cotton factory if everybody's going out of the town to be 'somebody', so her dreams of becoming a dentist had to be sacrificed so her brothers and sisters could go for their respective dreams. She taught me a lot of things back in high school, brilliant student, she was.

She's the one who taught me all these computer things. Blogging (and back then it was Myspace too). She said it's the 'in' thing for city kids. Everybody is connected to the internet in many ways so they'd be able to communicate without even picking up the phone to call and silly things like that, she told me. I remember saying I don't believe such things, haha. Though this slowly changed when Ody insisted Billy Bob to ask DiaLine to set up better internet connections through our town. With the faster and stable connection, comes modernization of some point. When it used to be an uncommon sight for people to use smart phones and laptops, now it's a norm. Dorothy was right to keep Ody in Toucan for some reason. She has that thing in her, where she could improve people and how they live. Ody should run for mayor soon!

I'm ashamed to admit that I used to make friends with Ody so I could use her influence as a Harrison to get to know more about my father's incident. She is a good person through and through; there's no way I could use her like that. I never told her about it, but I think she knew and she doesn't mind helping me anyways.

Speaking of father, I did try my luck with Ody to see if she knew anything or any person of interest about my father's death. She said she was too young herself to remember much detail, but she did saw Dorothy talking to a federal agent (judging from the badge he flashed at Dorothy) some time after the incident. She heard that man mentioning a Quincy Lewis to Dorothy, and she instantly turned pale. That's all that she remembered, and Dorothy never speak of any federal agent ever again after the encounter. That strikes me as weird, but my gut feeling is telling me that I'm not crazy at all when I think father's case doesn't add up and this is the reason why.

Why would a federal agent come and see Dorothy about my father? What's the connection between them? I never once see this man came to our house let alone asking us questions about the incident. Did Dorothy knew something? I'll find my chance to understand it... for now I'll just have to lay low and wait for an opportunity to find out.