Chapter 7: Beth

Dax explained to me one evening after coming home from work that he had to travel to Atlanta for a week to take a course on new retail shopping systems and software, some of which used artificial intelligence. This was vital to his job, so he had to go.

I could see a lull in my editorial work so I thought that I’d take a trip back home. It was my parents’ anniversary and in a telephone call with my sister Beth it was decided that I’d come and visit her for a week, and we’d take our parents out for a great and expensive dinner to their favorite upscale restaurant.

Mom and Dad had a small house with no space for guests, so I would stay with Beth since she told me that she had a guest room in her new condominium. She lived a little over an hour away from them. I didn’t know that she’d moved from her crappy apartment to new quarters, so I looked forward to seeing the place. I also hadn’t seen my parents for almost fifteen months except on video calls.

Beth told me that she was a temp worker, doing clerical work here and there for companies who were losing an important administrative person for a few days to even a month or more. She’d also had that job in Tampa as a Booth Babe. Often, she was filling in for somebody that was having a baby, taking some prime R&R, or during some crisis.

Thus, one Saturday morning, Dax drove us to the airport. He had a flight to Atlanta, so he’d be there for a team building golf game on Sunday, and I had a flight back to where I grew up in Minneapolis.

I gave Dax a Hall Pass, telling him that if he had a chance to get laid to seize the opportunity and have fun. The only requirement I had was that he share the details when we got back together. He laughed and returned the favor.

After landing, I got a rental car so that I wouldn’t monopolize Beth’s car during the week. Last I knew, she had an eight-year-old Honda Civic that was slowly turning to rust. I had some serious shopping trips planned, with at least two days planned at the Mall of America.

An hour after landing, I parked and lugged my suitcase to Beth’s condo. I was highly impressed with the upscale apartment that she now owned rather than rented. It was new, modern, expensively landscaped, and secure. I wondered how she could afford the condo based on a temp’s earnings.

In her condo, I was blown away at the décor. She lived in a very high-end place, as it turned out. Some of the art alone on her walls was original, and I guessed it would sell for several thousand. She did have good taste and a flair for decorating. Some of her furnishings were brand new and also top of the line – a leather sofa, for instance, and other modern and retro furniture that you only see in high-end homes.

Beth was my older sister by just under two years, and there was no doubt that we were sisters. Earlier in our lives, people often mistook one of us for the other since then, we had the same physique, hair style, and often wore each other’s clothes.

Beth and I went out for dinner, both watching our figures. We had a bottle of wine and she quizzed me about my work, Dax, and life being married. Of course, I was giving her the PG-version. She had no need to know about my sex life, the swinger’s parties Dax and I attended, or the porn videos that I’d done. I got a snapshot of her life based on my questions.

At one point, I asked her about her condo and its cost. She deflected the question with an indirect answer. “Isn’t it great. I got such a deal on the property. Some of the furnishings came with the place, too.” I had the feeling there was more to the story.

Back at her condo we sat and talked about everything under the sun. We also planned the dinner for mom and dad at a place called Swans. We called and got a reservation for Wednesday evening. Beth had already told her parents we were taking them to dinner.

I drove out to see my parents on Sunday; Beth told me she had a date. My parents and I had an informal dinner at their small home, and then I drove back to Beth’s condo. She’d given me a key and I let myself in.

Beth was still out, so I prowled around a little bit. I guess we all have snooping as one of our inherent skills. I checked out her wardrobe and was astounded at the clothes in her closet. They were not only fashionable; they were sexy and exceptionally expensive – like over-the-top expensive, plus there was no end to them. How could a girl working as a temp afford this wardrobe? Any one of the expensive dresses would have cost me a week’s pay or more.

There were some of what I call more normal clothes there, but they were few in number compared to the others.

A glance lower in her closet and I found her shoes. My God, she had name brand shoes – Jimmy Choo’s, Weitzman, and Valentino originals – fucking originals, and many of them rated the CFM or come-fuck-me label. My sister was a sexy babe, but she was apparently dressing that way a lot of the time – so much of the time as to deserve a nearly full closet of that kind of clothing. Many of the dresses were the kind that were barely there, although they covered the important body parts.

I tried waiting up for Beth to get home, but eventually gave up after midnight and went to sleep.

The next morning, Beth was puttering around the kitchen preparing coffee for us. The morning was one of those rare days for the Minneapolis area when a warm breeze blew on a sunny day. After I had my coffee, I went to walk out on the patio that belonged to her condo. I opened the door and a small gust of warm wind swept into the room. A few papers blew off one of the coffee tables.

I set my cup down and gathered up the papers. Among them was a brokerage statement from Charles Schwab. I wasn’t even in snoop mode’, but I did look at the bottomline balance on the first page.

I think I spoke out loud. “HOLY SHIT, BETH.”

She was still in the kitchen. She yelled out, “You say something?”

“No, no. I’m fine,” I hollered back. I read the statement more closely. Beth had about $650,000 in stocks, bonds, cash-on-hand in a wide variety of investments. Moreover, I could see that she had added over $31,000 the previous month to expand the other investments that she already had. What the fuck? WHAT THE FUCK? Where is she getting this money. Is she hawking drugs for some cartel?

I put things back the way they were and weighted the papers down with a magazine. I went out on the patio to think for a moment. My brain was roiling in concern and worry over what I was finding. What I’d known about my sister and what I’d found out in the past twelve hours didn’t agree at all.

Fuck. My sister was doing something illegal, immoral, and fattening, unless I was completely misreading the situation. I just had to know. I took three deep breaths, and let them out slowly to calm myself before confronting her. I would be cool about whatever was going on.