Chapter 3

Breakfast was her stepmom’s normal ... a slice of dry white bread toast, a glass ... a small glass of orange juice, not more than 4 ounces ... and a chocolate breakfast drink. Not in the bottle ... in a glass. Had it came in the bottle, she would read the lable and been appalled ... high fructose corn syrup was the FIRST ingredient ... milk chocolate was the second. The ingredients for the chocolate were in parenthesis ... sugar was the first ... corn syrup surgar ... but ... no. It came in a glass. Stepmom thought it was the healthiest of breakfasts.

When mom was alive they had eggs, bacon, biscuits and sausage gravy ... and coffee, black. Mom ate with her and helped guide her in her in planning her daytime activities. With mom, breakfast had been at the cook’s table, in the kitchen ... with the cook, the gardner, the maids, the off duty chauffeur, and, sometimes, usually Saturday, the poolboy. The poolboy was the only employee who ‘lived out.’

Daddy didn’t know.

Tiff, ‘Tiffany, Please her second instruction, was to cancel the ‘kitchen’ breakfast. Principals didn’t mingle with the household help... ‘we have a position to uphold,’ Tiffany said. And the first time Amber, ‘such a common name,’ tried to have breakfast with the ‘help’ her stepmother’s new dresser had told Tiffany.

The very next Friday night, when it was the family’s turn to host the neighborhood backyard pool party... Tiffany, Please canceled it.

Daddy went to work every day ... sure ... it was HIS office in the factory that made HIS inventions. Inventions that graced every home in the United States and most of Europe. The inventions that were fast becoming favorites in Asia and the Southern Hemisphere ... inventions that supplied the money that Tiffany, Please spent like water over Niagara Falls. And there were oodles and oodles of money. If every person in the world spent a dollar on one of his inventions... 6 billion dollars ... he had ten such inventions. Simple things that no one else even thought about ... until they saw one.

Mom hadn’t been like Tiffany ... mom saved every penny she could.

Amber went to public school, Daddy insisted.

“You need to associate with life,” he said.

“Yes, Daddy.” But she was well aware that most of her ‘peers’ were just a little less.

But ... Amber sat at the head table ... the decision makers table, she was the only real person at the table.

Except ... she was the Mensa, Presidental Honors, National Honors genius who often said, “Daddy. What about this?” And Daddy made it ... and it sold like ... Yeah.

Everyone in the whole world either had one or lusted after it.

Her table had no idea.