From Riches to Rags (2 page)

Melinda, or Blackie, as she prefers to be called, is an only child, raised in front of the public eye, as the princess of high society. Her parents come from a heritage of wealth, first realized in colonial days, when their ancestor made his fortune as a land speculator. Through the decades, each generation added to their wealth through different ventures. Although the family always withheld some of the land, of which they owned acres upon acres, some generations actually worked the land for profit as well.

Before the Civil War, when the demand for cotton was at its peak worldwide, the Blackstone family added to their fortune by growing and exporting cotton from their plantation to the highest bidder. But with the emancipation of the slaves, the family got out of cotton production, and returned to land speculation. After the Oklahoma land rush of 1889, and four more such land runs after that, the territory of Oklahoma was homesteaded in a matter of a few years. This troubled the Blackstone’s because the land was practically given away. They began buying up land in California and Nevada, and when there was talk of gold in Alaska, they secured land there as well. Today the Blackstone’s have several mansions in several states and a château in Switzerland, but their home base is their mansion in the Napa Valley of California, where they own a vineyard.

Throughout the years, the family’s investments have paid off well for them, and now they and their descendants are set for life. Provided someone like Melinda doesn’t come along and throw it all away. She is the sole remaining beneficiary, and her parents fear for their future, not only because she burns through thousands of dollars a day, but because she’s also a lesbian who has vowed never to have children, children that would carry on the name and legacy of the Blackstone’s. What I find peculiar is that although they fear these things, they do nothing about it.

I have befriended Melinda, as much to write about her as to understand her. We were meeting in a crowded restaurant where I could barely carry on a conversation with her, when she lost her patience and took it out on an unsuspecting waitress. After she got that young woman fired, I thought I saw a twinge of regret in her black eyes. I tried to encourage that regret, to what purpose I’m not sure yet, but it worked. Melinda said she was sorry, she didn’t mean to get her fired, it was just that she had made her angry. I knew, without Melinda saying so, that it was because for the first time in her life, Melinda’s name and net worth didn’t seem to matter. The waitress had put her in her place in spite of it. Melinda asked me not to add that to my book, and of course I agreed. Whether it was because she truly was sorry, or because she didn’t want anyone knowing that someone had stood up to her, I cannot say. But when I asked her why she had allowed the girl to get to her like that, she couldn’t provide an answer.

***

Who is ‒ Christine Livingston

My name is Chris Livingston and next Tuesday I will be twenty-six-years-old with nothing to show for it. Once upon a time, I was rich, filthy rich as they say, and I wanted for nothing. Now I sit in a dingy, flea invested apartment, where the kitchen is a sink next to the toilet, and the window is a fire escape in case the kitchen catches fire. That last part is no joke. My stove is a hot plate sitting in the sink when I cook, that is when I have food enough to cook. I also have the world’s smallest microwave that I think was here before the building was, but still, I’m grateful that it works. Money is extremely tight so I have to be very careful with how I pinch my pennies, something I never dreamed of having to do. Why I let myself get into this predicament, I’ll never know.

My parents are self-made millionaires, well known and well liked in the fortune five-hundred club even though they weren’t
old money
. My father was a genius at investments, although he would say it was all just luck. Maybe so, but he made us rich. In Memphis, where we live, well, where they lived, my parents were generous benefactors to several charities, and when they held a fundraiser, something my mother was a genius at, people from all over the country would attend, promising millions to the cause.

In my defense, we came into the money when I was a pre-teen, just hitting puberty. One day I was sitting talking with my best friend, Bonnie, on the school bus, happily on my way to the public school, and the next day I was in a limousine being driven to an exclusive all girl school where the teachers never said no to the students. It didn’t take long for me to realize that if I wanted to fit in, I’d have to act like the other spoiled rotten rich kids. Surprisingly, that was very easy to do.

After years of over-indulging myself, I guess my parents had become fed up with having to bail me out of jail for public drunkenness, or throwing thousands of dollars out the car window and causing a five car pileup. Maybe it was that photo published on the cover of a magazine of me naked, at a lesbian orgy.
Oh yeah, that one was fun.

It has been nine months since they disinherited me and kicked me to the curb. For the first few months I thought they were just trying to teach me a lesson. Always before, when they had imprisoned me in a rehab, they would bail me out after I promised to clean up my act. But this time, I almost killed someone while driving drunk and I guess that was the last straw for them. Even as I cried like a baby at their doorstep, they stood steadfast and closed the door in my face.
Oh my God, that one hurts my soul so much, even now.

The first three months, I spent what little cash I had on liquor, but the money dried up fast, along with my rich friends, and I had a decision to make. Either I prostitute myself for booze, or I sober up and get a job. Finally, after waking up in the gutter beside a drunkard who reeked of feces, I decided to sober up and get a job.

Although I went to college, I dropped out every other year, and never got my diploma. The sober, disgusting part is that I only needed a few more credits to go for my degree. Because I didn’t have it to fall back on, I was turned away from jobs that actually paid something. So I got a job as a waitress at a restaurant. It didn’t even pay minimum wage, and I was so horrible at it that the tips were practically non-existent. But at least I could take home the leftover food at the end of the day. Until I got myself fired, that is. Tomorrow I will go down to Beale Street and look for a job. I hear they’re always looking for help down there.

Anyway, sitting in my tiny apartment, stone cold sober for six months, I realized that I wanted to do more than just exist. My first compelling thought was that I needed to make amends for almost killing someone when I was drunk a few years back. That realization has begun to eat away at my heart. Even though I was jailed, and my parents were sued, I still need to, at the very least, apologize to the victim. I didn’t have to serve time because my parents settled out of court for a cool two million and the charges were dropped. If I had been the victim, I would have asked for a hell of a lot more than that.

They tell me that it was only by the grace of God that he lived. Perhaps it is God’s grace now that compels me to do something to make amends? I don’t know. All I know is that having had a taste of debauchery, I am now ready for a taste of benevolence, with the understanding that I am the one who will have to be benevolent if I am too make up for my past misdeeds.

I’m not sure how I can make amends with the man I ran over when I was drunk. I never bothered to learn his name or where he lives, and now, with my parents not taking my phone calls or writing back to me, I will not be able to find him. In the meantime, I want to pay it forward wherever I can, with what little I have. My parents taught me at a very young age, that a kindness produces a kindness, but cruelty only produces sadness. I don’t want to be sad anymore, and I so desperately don’t want to be alone anymore.

***

Paying it Forwards, Christine Livingston — Meg Bumgartner

Written report on Christine Dolores Livingston

Client is her father, Carl Livingston

Meg Bumgartner, Private Investigator

Case #210, Christine Dolores Livingston

Subject is a twenty-five-year-old lesbian, long sandy blond hair, green eyes, medium height, very thin.

Ms. Livingston was a spoiled debutant who threw one too many tantrums and her parents kicked her out on her butt. But in my conversations with the Livingston’s, I find that they are not cruel people, they just didn’t know how to help their daughter any longer. This seemed like the last desperate alternative to having her committed to a psych ward. However, they did retain my services exclusively for a year, to keep an eye on their daughter, including protecting her, should the need arise. But their specification is that I am not to let her know this, because they are trying to teach her a lesson. That might seem harsh now, but hopefully, it will bring her back to her senses.

Chris grew up in Collierville, Tennessee, which is just a few miles East of Memphis, and had the normal, small town adventures, and friendships. But when her father, Carl Livingston, made some good investments for himself, they paid off, and overnight he was rich. He took his expertise a step further and began investing for the Memphis Investment Funds, an international firm known for its return percentage. Once his finances were secured, he moved the family to a mansion in Memphis, and put Chris in an expensive private school.

Her teen years are when her troubles began. Mr. Livingston was forthcoming about his daughter; his wife, however, was not. I got the feeling it was too embarrassing for her, and also to painful.

When Chris was sixteen, she came out, literally, at the debutante ball, where the young southern women are formally introduced to society as adults. Chris got drunk, announced to the world that she was a lesbian, and left the ball with three other debutants. The next morning her picture was on the cover of the Memphis social magazine. So began her wanton ways, as her mother tells it.

I got the feeling, although he didn’t come right out and say it, that Mr. Livingston blamed himself for his daughter’s sudden change. The Livingston’s were thrust into the high society life. In an effort to be sociable and fit into the perceived rich circle of important people, they drank, partied and encouraged their guests to do the same, when they hosted parties in their own mansion. Livingston believes it was because he let Chris attend those parties, she learned that drinking was acceptable and expected. He didn’t see what it was doing to her until it was too late.

As I said, they are good parents who only want their daughter whole again. They are not above public ridicule because of their daughter’s actions, and as a consequence, must also rebuild their reputation, which was somewhat tainted after the drunken car accident, but not irreparably. I believe that Mr. Livingston was shrewd in paying off the victim quickly, before his case could go to court. In doing so, it was just a blurb on the back page of the newspapers, where it was whispered around the water coolers, and forgotten quickly.

In observance of Chris since the night she was turned away from her parents’ home, I have seen a complete three-sixty change in her behavior. The Livingston’s hired me the day before they showed Chris their tough love and kicked her out, so I have been, for lack of a better word, spying on her since that dramatic day when she begged them for forgiveness.

The first night she checked into a hotel and drank until she passed out. She continued that behavior over the next three months of exile. Quite frankly, the way Chris drank, I was sure she would be dead or raped by now, although I made sure I was nearby to try and prevent both. The fact that her parents had kicked her out and cut her off from their money had only encouraged her to drink more. I believe it was due to a mixture of heartache and stubbornness that drove her to drink. I don’t believe she is an alcoholic.

She had money of her own and burned through as if it grew on trees. And when the hotel where she was staying, cut up her credit card right in front of her, because her father had stopped credit on it, she didn’t bat an eye. She kept drinking.

I watched her that morning, when she woke up in the gutter, lying next to an unconscious drunk. She was broke. She was terrified. She was sober.

Her mother called me daily the first couple of months. The woman was distraught, but hopeful that she was doing the right thing. It wouldn’t have taken much for her to have changed her mind and demand that I bring her daughter home. But each time she got close to doing just that, her husband talked her out of it. It was he who asked me to give only positive reports to Mrs. Livingston, telling her what she wanted to hear, to shield her from the depths their daughter had sunk to. But he wanted the complete details, including my analyses that I thought Chris was acting out in order to punish them. He agreed with me and said that with all things considered, it seemed the normal thing for her to do.

With absolutely no money left, Chris wandered into a restaurant one day, hoping for food and landed a job instead. I sent up a silent prayer of thanks for that restaurant manager, because he had probably saved her life that day. Unfortunately, I was also in the restaurant when Chris got herself fired. It might be biased on my part, having witnessed her struggle to pull herself up by her bootstraps, but Chris was totally justified in standing up to the insufferable Melinda Blackstone. I know Melinda by reputation only, and she is not even in the same league as Chris.

When I report to the Livingston’s that Chris was fired from her first job, I will temper it with the kindness Chris showed a beggar just an hour before she was let go. The man was dirty, grungy, and reeked of alcohol so bad that I could smell him from my table back in the corner. He was quickly shown the door. Chris told the manager that she was going to break for supper, and then offered her meal to the homeless man instead. When she came back in, I saw a tear in her eye, as if she knew how close she had come to being just like that man. How close she still is.