Chapter Sixteen

 

Deidra sat in the restaurant in the business center counting her money. Her father had handed her a wad of cash when he dropped her off at the dorm where she was staying with her friend Tiffany, but only for the next two nights.

After that she had to find somewhere else and she had to find a job. She had cried for almost half the night and her eyes were swollen today. She wished she had packed her Louis Vuitton Evasion sunglasses. It covered nearly half of her face and would shield her puffy eyes from the public.

She had just enough money to pay rent for a furnished apartment for the next month but if she did that she would have no food and she could not even afford to buy toiletries.

She shoved her money back into her wallet. How ironic that the wallet probably cost more than the cash, she thought.

Her father was being unjust she thought fiercely. The punishment was nowhere close to what she deserved. Hadn't she told him that she would not do something like this again? How dare him! Casting her off to fend for herself.

She grabbed her tablet computer and went on the school's site, determined to find a job. She knew she was at a disadvantage. As Tiffany had said last night, all the well paying jobs were usually gone by the first week in September.

She scrolled through the student vacancies and found that most of them were in the Science department. They wanted test subjects for their various projects. She saw one from Media and Communications for a presenter on MFTV for the program Sound Bites of Faith.

Deidra winced as she read the job description she would have to read daily devotional thoughts. She had come to a Christian school but had tried to avoid all the little Christian-like stuff that they did, but this job was putting her squarely into the fray.

The pay wasn't bad though. It was enough to pay half her rent if she decided to stay at a furnished apartment and her father had promised to match her pay so she would be able to afford the rent. Food and other necessities would be another matter.

She jotted down all her aunties and uncles names and numbers. She would call them later and have them send her some money. The thought made her happier and she ordered a small soup from the counter. She had to pinch her pennies until she knew how she would end up.

"Deidra." She whipped her head around and there was Natasha Rowe behind her, with a soup in her hand.

"Mind if I join you?" she asked.

Deidra looked at her sheepishly and nodded. "I mind, but I guess we have to talk sometime."

Natasha sat down and just stared at her.

Deidra squirmed under the stare.

"You wasted my time," Natasha said to her frankly. "You wasted police resources. Every time you make a bad report for something as bad as rape you make it very hard for future victims to be trusted…real people who have real issues."

"I already said I am sorry," Deidra said sullenly. "Why is everybody coming down on me so hard?"

"Everybody like who?" Natasha asked. "I didn't know that this was known."

"My father," Deidra said. "He kicked me out of the house last night."

Natasha nodded. "Good for you. All little girls must face the real world."

"It's so unfair!"

"Suck it up," Natasha said frankly, "and don't waste time in self pity. Straighten that tiara Miss Beauty Queen and smile through your pain."

Deidra hung her head.

"Gotta go," Natasha said finishing her soup. "I have a bad guy to catch…a real rapist. Be careful out there."

Deidra nodded and watched as Natasha walked away confidently and she found herself envying her in her cheap washed out jeans and her inexpensive polo shirt.

 

Deidra walked into Media Room 4 fifteen-minutes after she was told to show up for her screen audition. It was hell not having a car. She hadn't realized how big the campus was and that most of the places seemed to be uphill. By the time she went into Media Room 4, a sour-faced woman, with what looked like a five o'clock shadow, looked at her balefully.

"If you are going to work here you can't be late for production. Got that?" She jammed a sheaf of papers in Deidra's trembling hands. "Go stand before the green screen and read the paragraph from the paper. Then I want you to do the same from the teleprompter."

Deidra walked in front of the green screen. There were several lights shining at her so she couldn't see into the dark areas of the studio.

She knew that there were people there though because one person coughed and somebody growled, "shut up."

She read from the paper:

"Psalms 37:3-5 Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness. Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord, Trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to past.

The Lord is the source, the heart, and also ought to be greatest object of our desire. There are lots of good things in this world but we have to be careful about what we want and why. When the Lord is our greatest, our first love, when we are delighted in Him, every desire of our hearts will be perfectly fulfilled. That's the promise of this wonderful word!"

"Not bad," said the sour-faced lady coming to stand before Deidra.

"What do you think Gilbert? I think she handled the teleprompter bit like a natural."

Gilbert, a slim, fair guy with a premature bald spot in the middle of his head stepped forward out of the dark. "I agree and not to mention that her beauty lights up the screen."

"You are hired." He turned to Deidra. "It is an honor to have a reigning beauty queen on our humble MFTV screen."

"You recognize me?" Deidra asked.

"But of course." Gilbert licked his lips. "The popular senator Durkheim's daughter. How could we not?"

"I am the producer for this nugget section." He handed Deidra a sheet of paper. "Please record your details here. Workers are paid every two weeks. Want to go out to dinner?"

Deidra took the sheet from him—her first real job. This wasn't too bad. It could be worse. She could be scrubbing toilets, and the devotional had hit a spot, a very vulnerable one.

She looked at Gilbert. Usually she would have done so scornfully but she just shook her head. It was time to put away her beauty queen haughtiness.

"Not tonight."

"Another time then?" Gilbert looked at her like a salivating dog eyeing his first meal after a fast.

"Not sure," Deidra said. The sour-faced lady was passing again and Deidra turned to her. "What's your name?"

"Sonia King," the lady said. "You can come in everyday at 8. You do the daily readings and that's it."

"Okay, thanks," Deidra said and headed out the door.

"Wait!" Gilbert said. "You didn't give me a conclusive answer about dinner.

Deidra shook her head. "No! I am not interested."

If she had turned back, she would have seen Gilbert grit his teeth and tighten his fist.