Outsider: Upper East Side (Greisbach Academy #1) Read online

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  My mother’s expression became unreadable, the bowl of popcorn she had in her hand tumbled from her fingertips and spilled onto the floor at our feet. “This is a prank, right? It’s a prank Keira, isn’t it? Some sort of prank ticket? If it is, it’s not funny.”

  I didn’t respond. I was in shock. This wasn’t happening.

  But it was. We’d won. We were close to a billion dollars richer.

  As we would quickly come to discover, the fallout from the win was unlike anything either of us could have ever imagined—and it wasn’t all good. In an instant our low-key lives became a whirlwind of chaos that threatened to destroy both our relationship with each other, and the people who we’d come to be, on a very fundamental level.

  Chapter 1

  “Just leave it all, Mom,” I said as I carried a box through the living room, heading for the front door of our trailer. My mother insisted we pack and move ourselves, including driving the moving van. We didn’t own much; it all would fit in a medium-sized van with lots of room to spare.

  “We just can’t leave our stuff,” she replied, carefully stacking our old, beat-up pots and pans in a plastic tote.

  “We can buy new stuff.” I shook my head. It was as if she couldn’t wrap her head around the fact we were no longer poor. We were moving to New York City, the Upper East Side to be exact and there was no way we were going to use all this crap we’d accumulated.

  It had been two weeks since we’d discovered we’d won the lottery and our payout was set to be deposited into my mother’s bank account tomorrow. The twelve days since it was announced publically that we’d won the big jackpot had been chaos. People we hardly knew were stopping in to visit. My mother was getting so many people coming into the diner recognizing her it was overwhelming; some would give her congratulations, others were there to beg for money. She quit several days ago, the stress from the list of sob stories became too long and she couldn’t mentally handle it all.

  “The money isn’t in my account yet. And I quit my job, so I’m not throwing out anything.”

  Placing the box by the door, I walked across the small living room to stand before her in the kitchen. “Mom. Stop. Please.” Taking her upper arms in my hands, I made her face me. “It happened. This isn’t our life anymore. The ticket was verified. The money is on the way. Grabbing the pot that was dangling from her fingertips, I placed it in the plastic tote. Good things didn’t happen to my mom, and she was still in a state of denial.

  She said nothing, just looked at me.

  “It’s a fresh start mom. Just pack the sentimental stuff and leave the rest for someone who needs it.” One of our neighbors, Gabriella Santiago, had a daughter who was having a baby. We’d discussed leaving the trailer for her daughter as a baby shower gift.

  “We don’t need to do all this ourselves. We’re going to be living in Manhattan; it’s easier to just replace it all.”

  “But I worked for this stuff.” She took a step back from me and looked around, lifting her hands out at her sides and did a slow twirl. “I worked hard and struggled my whole life, and this is all I have to show for it.” There were tears starting to form in her eyes.

  This was supposed to be the happiest time in our lives. It killed me that she was in the turmoil that she was in.

  I chewed at my lower lip, not sure what to say to make this whole thing okay. Where I saw this as a fresh start, she saw it differently. A part of her saw it from the viewpoint that she’d worked her whole life and failed, and that it was me and sheer, dumb luck that was going to be providing a new, luxurious life for us. It made her feel like a failure.

  “You worked hard, Mom. You deserve this. We deserve this.”

  She sighed. “This is overwhelming. Did I tell you that someone actually brought their child who was in a wheelchair and hooked up to an IV in? The child needed a special medication that was insanely expensive and wanted me to pay. I haven’t even gotten the money yet.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I took their information and said I’d take care of it. I have an entire envelope of people’s information, all needing something. How do rich people handle this?”

  “We’re moving to New York tomorrow. A whole new life, Mom, surrounded by people as rich, and richer than us. We’ll be nobodies.”

  “Yes.” A light seemed to flick in her eyes as she scanned the boxes and totes that she’d spent hours packing. “Why am I packing all this stuff?”

  I shrugged and laughed hoping to lighten the mood. “I don’t know.” Sliding an arm around her shoulders, I led her into her bedroom. “How about we both start packing your clothes? And maybe tomorrow instead of renting a moving van we go into the city and buy an Escalade or G-Wagon and just take our clothes and sentimental things with us. It’ll all fit in either of those. Leave this stuff behind for Gabriella’s daughter and her new family. They’ll need and appreciate it. What they don’t want they can have a yard sale and sell and make themselves a few bucks.”

  “Then maybe we should clean the place.” Her blue eyes looked into mine.

  “Sure, if you like.” I nodded. “Let’s not worry about that now. Let’s get the important stuff packed.”

  ~*~ TT ~*~

  “This seems excessive, dear,” My mother said shaking her head at the blue metallic G-550 SUV at the Mercedes dealership. We’d pulled up in a beat-up four-door Dodge that was fifteen years old and looked it. I imagined the salesmen were playing a game of rock, paper, scissors on who would have to deal with us. I’m sure when they looked at us with our worn jeans, tank tops and worn-out sneakers they silently cursed, figuring they would be wasting their time with us.

  The salesman that finally approached was in his late twenties, if I were to take a guess, and looked incredibly bored at having to deal with us. His answers to our questions were purely to humor us and he only elaborated when necessary. If we didn’t need the vehicle to move to New York we wouldn’t have given him the commission, but we needed it and I doubted we’d get much better service at any other car dealership—Mercedes or otherwise.

  “This particular vehicle’s price tag is one hundred forty-five thousand dollars, plus tax,” he said in a snooty voice that royally pissed me off.

  I huffed, boy did I ever want to smack him in his snotty little face. Was he ever in for a surprise when he saw what was in the backpack that I had slung over my shoulder. Just before coming here we’d made a stop at the bank. My mother’s bank balance was $943,043,889.23. We’d withdrawn $200,000 to be on the safe side, unsure of how much the final price of a G-wagon would be.

  My mother looked over at me and grimaced. “We could buy a house for that price.”

  “Mom. Come on. Let’s just get it. The blue is really pretty.”

  My mother looked up at the salesman. “How much will you give me for my car on a trade-in?”

  The salesman looked at the beat-up car and sneered.

  Oh my God, Mom! I wanted to groan out loud but didn’t. I lowered my head and gave it a shake. “Let’s just give it to Gabriella’s daughter.”

  “I suppose we could do that.”

  “May I ask what you do for a living?” The salesman asked my mother.

  “I’m a waitress.”

  The look on the salesman’s face was priceless. If he hadn’t thought he was wasting his time before, he certainly did now. That did it, I was done. I just wanted to buy the vehicle and get out of here. I was anxious to just grab our shit at the trailer and then be gone to start our new life. After the experience here, I was coming to realize that my mother was going to have a harder time than expected adjusting.

  “We’re taking it,” I cut in.

  “Excuse me?” The salesman nearly choked.

  Planting my hands on my hips, I motioned to the vehicle, giving the man a stern look. It was time to stop acting like we didn’t belong. We did belong, dammit. “We want it. We’re not financing. We’re paying outright, right now. Is that going to be a prob
lem?”

  He was genuinely confused. “No…Miss. Follow me.”

  I nodded at my mother and smiled. She returned my smile and we followed him into the dealership.

  “I’ll have to get my branch manager, if you don’t mind taking a seat.” He motioned for us to sit down in his office.

  “Come on, Mom.” Taking her hand, I led her into the office and sat down in the leather chair. She took the chair next to me.

  She leaned into me. “Did you see the way they are looking at us? They don’t want to sell us the car, Keira.”

  I put the backpack on my lap and opened it up. “We have more than enough to cover it.”

  “It seems like a waste. We don’t need something as extravagant as that out there.”

  “If we’re going to be living in the Upper East Side we will. Everyone that lives there has those types of vehicles and we’re going to want to fit in.”

  “We haven’t decided for sure that’s where we’re going to live.”

  “Mom, we’re going to earn millions a year in interest just on the win. You know what the bank advisor said. We can afford to splurge as long as after our initial purchases we don’t spend more than our annual profit from the investment.”

  “I’m just concerned that this money will go to our heads. Do you know that people who win the lottery, in many cases, end up bankrupt? It’s because they splurge and don’t think they’ll ever run out, but they do.”

  “Mom. We won close to a billion dollars. We’re fine.”

  “Remember we have to pay twenty-four percent of the money we have in taxes.”

  Ohmygod, my mom could be so exhausting at times. “That still leaves us a little over seven-hundred million. We’re fine. We can afford a couple expensive cars and a house in Manhattan by the park. You’re worrying way too much.”

  “Ladies, I hear you’re interested in making a purchase with us today,” we heard a male voice saying from behind us. Turning, I looked to see an older gentleman, probably close to sixty, come in followed by the salesman. He took a seat across the desk from us—the salesman coming to stand behind him—and began typing on the computer.

  “Yes, in cash,” I said, matter-of-factly.

  The typing stopped and he slowly turned to face us. “Cash? We have a policy against cash purchases.”

  Unzipping the backpack, I showed him the contents. The room grew deathly silent as the branch manager looked at me, then my mother and then back to me.

  Suddenly, he fell back in his chair and laughed. “Holy shit! You’re the lottery winners!”

  I looked over at my mother who sighed and forced a smile to her lips. My mother’s picture had been plastered all over the news for the past two weeks. I’d stayed out of the public, getting the trailer ready for us to make our escape, but my mother was already used to the fame that the win had brought us.

  “Yes, we are the winners,” my mother responded dryly with a sigh. “I don’t mean to be rude, but it’s been a tiring day already and me and my daughter have a lot to do today. Can we please just buy the vehicle and leave?”

  He looked down at the cash again. “Of course. I’m sorry if there’s been any inconvenience. I hope Ryan treated you ladies well.”

  “Yes, splendid,” I said, giving Ryan a dirty stare. “Couldn’t have felt more welcome.”

  “Great, we’ll get you set up and on the road within the hour.”

  In this instance, money did indeed talk.

  ~*~ TT ~*~

  I really didn’t know how to feel as I drove the G-Wagon back to the trailer park. Even when we had been at the bank and my mother and I saw all the zeroes at the end of our balance it didn’t feel real, but here I was driving a vehicle that I never dreamed I’d ever drive let alone own. As I pulled into the trailer park, my mother following behind me in our old car, I could see the eyes on me. Some happy, but most of those smiles had jealousy bubbling below the surface. And there were a few who openly glared. Perhaps it was a bad idea to purchase the vehicle first and not on the way, but the tote bins wouldn’t all fit in the car. Besides, considering Mom’s picture was blasted all over town and on the media, it wasn’t a secret that we’d won. Mr. Anderson even had a big poster of my mother’s smiling face holding a big-ass publicity check.

  Reaching the trailer, I pulled into the two-car driveway, my mother parking beside me. Shifting the vehicle into park I removed the key and sat in the leather driver’s seat for the span of several beats. This was really real.

  “Wow.” The sound of my voice echoed in the vehicle.

  A knock on the window of the SUV pulled me from my thoughts. Looking over it was my mother. “I’m going over to Gabriella’s and giving her the keys and registration to the car.” She backed away from the vehicle as I opened the door and got out.

  “Okay, I’ll pack up the SUV and we’ll be ready to hit the road by the time you get back. We’ve got a two-day drive ahead of us.” Walking around to the rear of the vehicle, I opened the back as my mother jogged down the street to find Gabriella.

  I’d only gotten a couple of totes in the back of the G-Wagon when Kevin came strolling across the street and came to rest, a leaning a shoulder against my new vehicle, letting out a low whistle. “Looks like you really hit the big time.”

  Fuck my life, I groaned inwardly. “It’s practical.”

  He laughed. “If you say so.” He watched me as I piled a couple more totes in the back. “You’re really leaving, huh?”

  I smiled, excitement racing through me. “You know it. And never coming back.”

  “Where ya moving to?”

  My smile widened. Stopping with my loading to plant my hands on my hips I decided to give him a couple minutes of my time. Maybe once his questions were answered he’d go away. “Manhattan. I’ve already got an appointment to meet with the headmistress of Greisbach Academy the first of next week.”

  Kevin cocked a brow up at me. “Headmistress, huh? Sounds pretty fancy.” Funnily enough he didn’t have the cocky, condescending grin that he normally had pasted on his face. If anything, he seemed...almost sad?

  I frowned. “It’s a new start on life.”

  “Was it so bad here?”

  I sighed. He was starting to kill my high. “I’ve lived my life dirt poor. We have a chance to get out of here and start over, but this time with a major boost. This doesn’t happen to people every day. Why are you busting my balls on this? I know we’ve been pretty up and down and had our issues in the past, but why are you trying to make me feel bad about this?”

  He opened his mouth to speak and then huffed. “Let me give you a hand. The faster you get this thing loaded the faster you can get out of this rat hole and away from the riff-raff that live here, right?” He didn’t wait for a response but turned and headed for the open doorway of my trailer.

  What in the hell was that all about? I watched as he disappeared into the trailer and hesitated before following behind him. If everyone in the park was going to have that type of attitude then maybe it was for the best we were leaving and starting a new life.

  Chapter 2

  Manhattan

  “This is such a major waste of money, Keira.” My mother shook her head as we pulled up to the valet in front of the Carlyle Hotel, in Manhattan.

  “We only live once, and we’ll have a house in no time so we may only be staying here for a week, tops. Besides, this hotel is in the Upper East Side, where all the houses are that we’ll be checking out. Everything is within walking distance. It’s convenient. Let’s just enjoy it.” I put the SUV into park and smiled at the valet when he came around and opened the door for me.

  Digging into my fake Chanel purse, I pulled out a twenty and as discreetly as possible handed it to him, just like in the movies. The bellboy started to open the back of the SUV, but I stopped him, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t bother.”

  He frowned. “Your luggage, Ma’am.”

  I wasn’t about to have him digging through the back, pu
lling plastic tote bins out of the vehicle. We didn’t have any suitcases, never had a need for them. How embarrassing would that be? “No. None.” I smiled as brightly at him as I could. “It’s a shopping trip.”

  His brow furrowed for just a moment before his expression once more became unreadable. “Very good, Miss.”

  Walking past him, I made my way to my mother.

  “We really don’t belong here,” she whispered looking down at her faded jeans and t-shirt. “And it’s thousands per night. It’s insane. Fools and their money…”

  “That’s the thing though, Mom. We do. More than a lot of these people do, I bet,” I whispered back as we made our way to the front entrance. The doorman, a handsome younger man I’d guess to be in his mid-twenties, opened the door for us as we walked past. I flashed him a smile, not missing the fact he gave me a thorough up-and-down look as I walked past.

  “I mean these aren’t our people. We’re down-to-Earth, honest-living people. We’re not ritzy.”

  “How do you know?” Circling my arm in hers I bumped my shoulder into hers and motioned to the assortment of well-dressed, posh people in the lobby. “Just because they’re wearing ten grand in clothing doesn’t make them better than us.”

  We were getting looks. I could feel eyes on us. When celebrities dressed down they were doing it to be ironic. No doubt it was apparent we weren’t doing it ironically. It would come in time.

  “And I’m not sure if I want to be one of these stuck-up types of people.” She ran a hand though her shoulder-length chestnut-colored hair.

  I couldn’t wait to get my mother a makeover at the hotel spa. She was a very attractive woman, but never wore make-up and was so stressed out that there were the beginnings of fine lines in her face where there shouldn’t be any yet. Within the week she’d be the most stunning woman in Manhattan. I’d make sure of it. Maybe I could even convince her to start dating, she deserved a good man in her life.