Chapter 1

My sister Tiffany had been away in college in Los Angeles for the past four years getting her degree in Computer Technologies. I wasn’t real sure what all that entailed, but it’s what she liked so whatever.

My sister and I hadn’t been all that close, I mean we were family and all that but we weren’t all lovey-dovey, kissy-kiss stuff. If something was wrong, we were there for each other and the family pulled together. But if things were going okay, she had her life and I had mine.

I guess it’s because we weren’t real brothers and sister. You see, Mom and Tiffany came into the picture after my birth mom died. She died when I was about a year and a half – I don’t even remember her except from what Dad has told me and the few pictures of her we have. But I guess Dad took it really hard.

Here he was stuck raising a boy just barely able to walk holding onto his finger. I hadn’t even been on solid food for that long! But he managed. He found a woman who would help take care of us and take care of the house. Dad still had to work so Mrs. Daniels took over as a rent-a-mom until the woman I call Mom and Tiffany her daughter came along.

Tiffany is three years older than me, although she looks a lot younger. It’s funny – people we meet for the first time think I’m the older brother until they find out Tiffany is actually older.

She is just a tiny thing ... five-foot-five-inches tall, with a slight 32-25-30 build. She probably weighs all of a hundred pounds soaking wet – if she could stiffen up enough, I could bench press her without even grunting!

Tiffany had been pretty good about calling and keeping in touch with the family. She had bought a couple of webcams sending one to us and told us how to set it up so we could talk and videochat.

Her computer professor told her of a program she could use to keep the long distance costs down which helped too. But now college was done and she had her sheepskin. It was time to come home and Mom and Dad couldn’t be happier.

“Boy, you are coming home at the perfect time, Sis!”

“Why is that?”

“I’ve been wanting to move out of the house and get my own place for awhile now but the rents here have gotten completely out of hand. I have tried finding a roommate but I haven’t had any luck. Either they are unreliable about being able to pay or they are just weird ... some I have talked to are just creepy! I wouldn’t be able to sleep a wink if they lived here!”

“I remember a time when you thought I was pretty creepy, James.”

I laughed. “Yeah but you are a big sister kind of creepy ... I know about that!”

“I don’t know James ... I was kinda of hoping I could get my old bedroom back and stay with Mom and Dad for awhile. I been away from home a long time – I kinda wanted to reconnect a little.”

“Oh you don’t know ... Mom and Dad have turned your room into an office! They weren’t ready to get rid of your litle girl bed or anything – that stuff is in a storage unit. But your room is now our home office!”

“Oh no!”

“It’s just as well. I am sure after living on your own, you would go crazy getting back under the ‘House Rules’! Heck I live here and I’m ready to get out on my own!”

Our father had a particular (spelled anal-retentive) way he wanted things done, and sometimes it drove the whole family nuts trying to keep him happy.

“I will admit it has been nice not worrying that all the labels on the cans are facing forward and the cans are lined up the tallest to the right and working down to the shortest on the left!”

“And don’t forget that hangers have to have the hook facing you so when you pull the clothes off, you don’’t pull the hanger off the rod!” I added.

“Oh my God, I still do that! I guess it’s force of habit now!” she laughed. We talked some more about life at home, Dad’s peculiarities, and the idea of getting our own place.

“Okay, you sold me. We will do it!” she said.

“Well, since it will be the two of use we will need a two bedroom apartment. And the average two bedroom two bath apartment here in Springfield is going for $650-$750 a month plus utilities. Is that good for you? That’s $325 to $375 a month for each of us, plus electricity, and cable. Some have coin-operated laundry facilities on site, or we can go to the laundromat.”

“That works for me. I can do that easily, James.”

“Oh so you have a job lined up when you get back home?”

“I guess you could say that.”

“Huh? I don’t get it – what do you mean?”

She explained a little further. “James I’m a freelance model so I can live anywhere and work from there.”

Wow my sister was a model! “Holy crap Sis, I didn’t know you were a model! I mean you’ve always been pretty, but a model!”

I could almost hear her smile over the phone. “Aww, thanks little brother. But yeah I’ve been doing it for almost three years now. I had to find something to serve as income. I got a grant for the books and tuition, but not for the off-campus housing, eating, and other things one does here! And I didn’t want to burden Mom and Dad – they had their hands full with you!”

“Does your modeling pay well?”

“I do okay. I mean I’m not on the cover of Cosmo or anything, but I pay my bills and have a little left over usually.”

“I didn’t mean it that way, Sis, it’s just that renting a place is serious business ... if we can’t make the rent we might both be on the streets! Dad has already been eyeing my room as his man-cave!”

“Oh?”

“Yeah when we go to the Target store, Dad’s walks through the electronics and ogles the big screen televisions. He knows just what he wants too and where in my room he would put it!”

“Okay I’ll tell you what. I know that moving in costs are higher than normal rent – they want the first month’s rent and a security deposit at the very least. Then there’s transferring utilities and getting them set up. All that costs money. So I will send you $2,000 to get the apartment and get it set up.

That should give you enough to get the apartment and get everything set up. And it will cover my end of the rent for a few months too. Then after that, I will give you $600 a month to cover my rent, my part of the utilities, and my part of the food. Does that sound fair enough to you?”

“Geez Sis yeah that sounds more than fair. Heck the people I asked about sharing a place weren’t even close to that! Are you sure you can do that? Does your modeling pay that well?”

“Most of the time it does and sometimes even better – it depends on how much I work. And I love the work, so I do as much as I can and still have a life! Besides, I’ve been able to put some money away over the past couple years so it’s not a problem. Just email me with your bank info and I will have it transferred into your account.”

“That sounds good Tiff, but what about the apartment – what if you don’t like it for some reason?”

“Well if we don’t like it when I get there we can just move to someplace else. It’s an apartment, not a house we are buying. No sweat.”

And so the deal was settled. My sister would be moving back home to Springfield and together we would throw off the oppressive shackles of parental supervision and strike out to carve a life of our own together. It was going to be great.

Not only was I going to have my own place like an adult, but I would be living with a MODEL! What guy doesn’t dream of that scenario! Sure she was my sister, but models do have friends who are also models! It seemed like I had the key to the Playboy mansion at long last!

Well, that’s the way I had it laid out in my head at least. Tiffany told me that she still had about three weeks before she would be coming home. She had a few more classes, then the packing and all that. She had to give notice to her current landlord as well. I emailed her with my bank routing information and sure enough by the next day my bank account was $2,000.00 fatter.

So I started looking around for an apartment for us. Since she said she could work from anywhere, I started with places that were a little more convenient to my work. I worked in a distribution warehouse for a freight forwarding company.

Our company would receive goods from various places and then ship them out to the customer requesting them. My job was off loading incoming trucks and stacking the palleted goods so they can be retrieved later when the order was to be filled and shipped. It was a good job and paid pretty well. I drove a forklift and used a pallet jack so there wasn’t a lot of physical back work (thankfully).

After a week’s worth of phone calls and checking out several possible apartments, I found one that seemed like a good fit for us. It was a two bedroom, two bath second floor walkup on a relatively quiet street in a nice family neighborhood. It was about 10 minutes driving to my work which was actually closer than my parent’s house.

The landlord seemed nice enough and it had onsite laundry facilities, precluding the need for us to make the trip to the laundromat once a week. Each apartment had assigned parking for two cars, plus additional spaces in a separate lot for guests. The building and grounds looked neat and clean and it was obvious that the maintenance was kept up on.