Love For Hire

Los Angeles, California…

Kinsley tapped her debit card to the machine to pay for her groceries. She bit her bottom, hoping it would go through. The machine beeped, and the words ‘Insufficient Funds’ flashed across the small screen. Kinsley sighed. She took out her wallet and returned her debit card to its slot, and then took out her credit card. “Let’s try this,” she said and waited for the clerk to set the machine up once more. She tapped her credit card to the machine again and waited. The machine beeped, and the word ‘Denied’ flashed across the screen.

She had one last-ditch effort as she took out the credit card her parents had given her for emergencies. She did not hold out much hope since both her parents worked for minimum wage themselves and often could not make more than the bare minimum payments to their bills. She was pretty sure this card was maxed out, too, but she had to try. The clerk set it up again, and Kinsley tapped the card… Denied.

Kinsley signed, embarrassed as she stood with a long line behind her of people impatiently waiting. Kinsley could not pay for her purchase. She apologized and then made a quick escape from the store.

She walked the five blocks back to her apartment. Stepping through the security-locked door, Kinsley retrieved her mail. She climbed the three flights of stairs to her apartment. She cringed as she reached her door and found an eviction notice taped to the door. She had paid her rent late the last four months and not at all this month. Kinsley took the notice down and went into her small bachelor apartment.

Locking the door, she walked over to the kitchenette counter and put everything down. She browsed through the mail. There were utility cut-off notices. And a notice from her school informing her that she was more than three months late with her tuition payments and therefore, her status as a student with their school had been terminated.

Kinsley opened a notice from her bank. As she looked over the statement of her bank activity, she saw four bounced cheques resulting in four NSF charges of $45 each and penalties from the four different vendors she bounced the cheques with. She also saw that her service fees went through, and now her account was so overdrawn $300; she did not know how she was going to get her account out of the red.

Kinsley only worked part-time. She had been hired on as full-time in the beginning, but in the last year, her hours had been cut so drastically. She only made minimum wage, and she lost almost 9% in taxes on each cheque. Lately, she only made about $200/week, and she was struggling to survive. She could not even move home since her parents themselves had moved to a smaller apartment themselves when she moved out three years ago to cut their expenses. They had no room for her. She really had to think of some way to come up with money and quickly because she was going to starve to death and be homeless soon.

Maybe she could pick up more hours now that she was kicked out of school. After all, without classes to attend, she had all the time in the world to work. Speaking of work, she had a shift in an hour. She jumped in the shower and then threw on her pastel pink waitress uniform and raced to the bus stop. She almost missed the bus, but as she reached the stop, she banged on the closed door to get the driver’s attention. He frowned but opened the door and let her on.

It was a fifteen-minute bus ride to her job. She worked in a small diner. Kinsley walked in and made her way to the back to hang up her coat when the restaurant’s owner stepped out of the office. He pulled her aside and told her she could collect her stuff and go home because she was being laid off. He handed her a pink slip and a severance cheque of $200.

not let me go. I

keep you on. I have to cut my expenses. I am letting everyone go. From now on, I am running the

Rick was coming from. The economy was down, and times were tough for everyone. He had to do whatever he could to keep his business afloat. So, she walked back to the bus stop and made her way back home. As she sat on the bus, she stared at the severance cheque. $200, it was not even

got home, she went next door to her neighbour’s apartment and asked if she could use their phone. Her cellphone had been cut off three months ago for failure to pay the bill. She was $1000 behind, and the cellphone provider had taken her account to collections. But the old lady next door allowed her

landlord might let her slide one more month. “I am sorry, Chica,” Dara said. It was funny she had been in America for all of Kinsley’s life, and still, her accent was so thick one would assume she was still living in Mexico, “we just do not have the money to give you. The

figure

one of her friends to loan her some money. She called her friend Lydia first, but Lydia could not spare

Mackenzie. “Sorry, Kinsley, I cannot. I just paid my bills, and I have

said with

money that badly. I know

“How?”

I have to ask what are you willing

was going to be homeless on the street begging for change…

all the time,

have not eaten in three days. I have no job, no money, and soon no home. I

been making some money on the side to supplement my income, and I have to say it pays really