downright desperate. The hospital was closing beds, laying off nurses. The Board of Education was talking about laying off dozens of teachers. Dealerships shutting down. Even the police department was letting a couple of officers go due to budget cuts. Belinda never would have guessed she’d see the day when people would just walk away. Let the bank have it, we don’t give a shit, we’re out of here . Just packing up their things and leaving their homes behind. Some houses, you could hardly give them away. Down in Florida, they had condo developments almost entirely empty, buyers from Canada coming down, picking up a $250,000 vacation spot for $30,000.
It was a world gone mad.
And how great it would be, Belinda thought, if a collapsing real estate market were all she had to worry about these days.
A few weeks ago, falling house prices, hardly any buyers, and no fat commissions going into the bank account had her tossing and turning all night. But at least back then, all she was worried about was her financial future. Keeping a roof over their heads, making the lease payments on the Acura.
She wasn’t actually scared for her personal safety. She wasn’t worried that someone might hurt her.
Not like now.
Belinda still needed to find a way to come up with $37,000. But even that was just in the short term. Ultimately, she’d have to get her hands on the whole $62,000. She’d maxed out her credit cards with cash advances totaling ten grand, put another five on her line of credit. And she was going to have to pay back her friends the eight thousand they’d kicked in. If they could get another fifteen or twenty for their truck, put that toward the debt, that’d be great, but Belinda would still have to reimburse them. She’d rather be in debt to them than their suppliers.
The suppliers wanted the money that was owed them. They’d made that very clear to her friends. And they didn’t care whose fault it was.
But Belinda had been the one taking the blame. “This is your fault,” they told her. “You don’t fuck with these people. They want that money from us, and we want it from you.”
Belinda had pleaded that it really wasn’t her fault. “It was an accident ,” she kept telling them. “It was just one of those things.”
Hardly an accident, they told her. Two cars hitting each other for no reason, that’s an accident. But when one of those drivers makes a decision to do something very, very stupid, well, that’s a bit of a gray area, isn’t it?
The car burned up , Belinda said. “What the hell do you want from me?”
No one was interested in excuses.
One way or another, she had to come up with the money. All the more reason to unload the stuff she still had. A few hundred here, a few hundredthere—it all helped. If only these assholes would just take the product back. That would help wipe out a good chunk of the debt. But they weren’t Sears. They had a “no return” policy. They just wanted their money.
She had a few deliveries she could make tonight. One guy in Derby who needed Avandia for his type 2 diabetes, and another customer only a couple of blocks over who was taking Propecia for baldness. Belinda wondered about pocketing a few of those herself, mashing them up and putting them in George’s cream of wheat in the morning. The comb-over thing he’d been trying for several years wasn’t fooling anybody. The other side of town there was a woman she delivered Viagra to, and Belinda wondered whether she was doing just that. Pulverizing the pill and hiding it in her husband’s Heavenly Hash ice cream. Getting him ready for bedtime. And she thought she should place a call to that man in Orange, see if he was getting low on lisinopril for his heart.
She was going to set up a website, but she’d found word of mouth had been working pretty well for her. Everyone needed a prescription of one kind or another, and these days everyone was looking for a way to save on drugstore prices.
It was a world gone mad.
And how great it would be, Belinda thought, if a collapsing real estate market were all she had to worry about these days.
A few weeks ago, falling house prices, hardly any buyers, and no fat commissions going into the bank account had her tossing and turning all night. But at least back then, all she was worried about was her financial future. Keeping a roof over their heads, making the lease payments on the Acura.
She wasn’t actually scared for her personal safety. She wasn’t worried that someone might hurt her.
Not like now.
Belinda still needed to find a way to come up with $37,000. But even that was just in the short term. Ultimately, she’d have to get her hands on the whole $62,000. She’d maxed out her credit cards with cash advances totaling ten grand, put another five on her line of credit. And she was going to have to pay back her friends the eight thousand they’d kicked in. If they could get another fifteen or twenty for their truck, put that toward the debt, that’d be great, but Belinda would still have to reimburse them. She’d rather be in debt to them than their suppliers.
The suppliers wanted the money that was owed them. They’d made that very clear to her friends. And they didn’t care whose fault it was.
But Belinda had been the one taking the blame. “This is your fault,” they told her. “You don’t fuck with these people. They want that money from us, and we want it from you.”
Belinda had pleaded that it really wasn’t her fault. “It was an accident ,” she kept telling them. “It was just one of those things.”
Hardly an accident, they told her. Two cars hitting each other for no reason, that’s an accident. But when one of those drivers makes a decision to do something very, very stupid, well, that’s a bit of a gray area, isn’t it?
The car burned up , Belinda said. “What the hell do you want from me?”
No one was interested in excuses.
One way or another, she had to come up with the money. All the more reason to unload the stuff she still had. A few hundred here, a few hundredthere—it all helped. If only these assholes would just take the product back. That would help wipe out a good chunk of the debt. But they weren’t Sears. They had a “no return” policy. They just wanted their money.
She had a few deliveries she could make tonight. One guy in Derby who needed Avandia for his type 2 diabetes, and another customer only a couple of blocks over who was taking Propecia for baldness. Belinda wondered about pocketing a few of those herself, mashing them up and putting them in George’s cream of wheat in the morning. The comb-over thing he’d been trying for several years wasn’t fooling anybody. The other side of town there was a woman she delivered Viagra to, and Belinda wondered whether she was doing just that. Pulverizing the pill and hiding it in her husband’s Heavenly Hash ice cream. Getting him ready for bedtime. And she thought she should place a call to that man in Orange, see if he was getting low on lisinopril for his heart.
She was going to set up a website, but she’d found word of mouth had been working pretty well for her. Everyone needed a prescription of one kind or another, and these days everyone was looking for a way to save on drugstore prices.
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