She had grown up watching her single mother struggle for every penny, and she vowed from an early age that she wasn’t going to let that happen to her. That meant coming up with a plan and adjusting it as needed. Her first thought was to get a degree — but that would have meant going into debt, and it would also have meant moving away from her mother, who had needed her at home.
Ashley’s mother had always suffered from ill health, which had kept her from holding down a good job. All through Ashley’s childhood, she’d watched the pattern: Her mother would get a job and she’d start catching up on bills. They’d live a little bit better, maybe get off food stamps and stop having to depend on the local food pantry. There might be a new outfit or two for Ashley.
And then, inevitably, her mother would start missing work. She suffered from poor circulation and spending too much time on her feet led to pain and swelling. Sometimes she had trouble walking. The day would come, finally, when she’d be let go for missing too much work. This pattern repeated itself over and over and over all through Ashley’s childhood. She spent the last few years of her life almost totally bedridden. After she had passed away, Ashley had moved into one cheap apartment after another. She was, she was sure, currently occupying the cheapest apartment that existed in Fairview.
Ashley was thankful to have good health. No matter what else you had, if you were too unwell to work, you couldn't get ahead. She had never once called in sick, and 12 hours a day on her feet was nothing to her. Since she could work long hours, she did, and even in high school, her earnings as a motel maid mostly went to prop up the household. But even then, she had a little savings account, and she would religiously put a few dollars into it every week. By the time she graduated from high school, her account had grown to about a thousand dollars, which had seemed like a lot to her then.
Her bank account had a lot more than that in it that now.
She pulled out her tips and counted them. It had been a good night. She would deposit the entire amount on Monday morning when the bank opened. By living in this crappy little apartment, she could very nearly support herself on her paychecks, small as they were. Almost all of her tip money went into savings. Nobody in Fairview had any idea, but she had amassed a figure that, if she had wanted to, would have allowed her to buy outright one of the fancy new houses in the Williams Realty subdivision. But Ashley had no plans to buy herself a house anytime soon. She had a different goal.
She was going to buy The Clipper.
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Perfect Fit (Small-Town Secrets-Fairview Series Book 4) Page 21
