From Riches to Rags Read Online Free PDF

do.
     
    ***
     
    Attitudes ‒ Christine Livingston
     
    Today is my birthday! I’m going to stay in bed a little longer this morning because today is supposed to be special. My mom always made my birthdays something special, even when I thought I was too old for such things. I was so stupid back then. Oh what I wouldn’t give to be at one of my mom’s special birthday parties right now. The parties were actually fundraisers in the guise of my birthday, where my mom always made me the center of attention, and gave me anything I wanted, even as she plied the adults with drinks and accepted their money. I never knew what charity she was fundraising for, and it never really matter as long as I got the presents I wanted. Now all I want for my birthday is her.
    I’m trying really hard to have the right attitude. It would be so easy to fall into that depression that keeps knocking at my door, but I know that if I gave into it, I would lose everything. Granted, that’s not very much, but it’s everything to me. It’s the difference between waking up in a warm bed with my kitten on my face, or waking up in a dark alley with an empty bottle of liquor in my hand.
    I can’t help feeling the same today, at twenty-six, that I did yesterday at twenty-five. I guess birthdays are only special when there’s someone here to make them that way. And this year, it’s up to me to make my birthday special, and it is because I’m alive, and sober.
    Blackie, my kitten, crawled up on my stomach and wobbled up to my face where she put her cold wet nose against my chin. I don’t know if she was wishing me a happy birthday or telling me I needed to get out of bed and feed her, but never-the-less, it still made me smile. I picked the kitten up and kiss the top of her furry little head and together we ate breakfast in bed.
    “Tuna for everyone and it’s on me, because today is my birthday!” Of course it was just me and the kitten, but I was still feeling generous on my birthday.
     
     
     

 
    Chapter Three
     
     
    Private Investigator for Hire — George Kirk
     
    The sign on the door in the freshly painted high-rise building read, Francesca Bonner, Private Investigator. Opening the door set off a tinkling bell that alerted the older woman sitting behind a small desk, dressed in an immaculate business suit, to my presence. I walked in and gave her my name and she politely asked me have a seat. Then she picked up the phone and a second later an inner door opened and a beautiful woman emerged through it.
    “Mr. Kirk, right on time, please, won’t you come in.”
    I followed the beautiful woman into her office, and it too could have passed for an art gallery. The woman reminded me of Lauren Bacall the way she moved, the way she dressed, the way she looked up at me with her head tilted down. She was wearing a silk draped crossover pink blouse underneath a sheer back wool ivory blazer that gave her a fluid motion as she moved. Her long, thick brunette hair draped over her shoulders, added to her style and grace.
    “My name is Francesca Bonner but most people call me Frankie. May I get you some tea, or perhaps something stronger?” She held out her perfectly polished hand, so soft and slim, and I embraced it.
    “No, thank you, I drank on the plane.” I said it in jest, and she received it with a chuckle.
    “Was it a rough flight for you?” She asked as a matter of conversation. She waved to a Victorian mahogany armchair with faux leopard skin upholstery, and as I sat down, she sat down beside me in a matching armchair. I’m glad Blackie is paying for this, because I don’t think I could afford the woman.
    “No, but I don’t like to fly, so I temper my anxieties with liquor. It seems to work well for me.”
    “And when did your flight get in, Mr. Kirk?”
    Ah, she knows her stuff. “Not to worry Ms. Bonner, I got in last night, took a cab straight to the Peabody and slept in this morning. I am perfectly sober and ready to do