Love or Money?

It could be we needed each other. She was direly in need to divulge her confidences to someone. She had advertised on a church billboard she needed a companion/driver.

I took her phone number down and decided to give her a call. I soon began to understand my ability to listen to people without interrupting them was what I was here for. I would rarely get a word in edgewise about my own life, my own aspirations. This one would spill everything to me that had been kept a secret as she was alone in the world and a very proud person who played victim very well. A certain haughtiness aura I didn’t really mind as I played a role of light and fluffy hippie which would give her the freedom to be herself. She laughed and called me Tootles condescendingly, gayly, feeling smug within her role of regality and polite society.

Margot bought and sold life. She bought me. I let her buy me as I was here to study her, I knew, for reasons I’d find out later. I didn’t really need the money. I had other income. So we would see what happened.

I would drive her to her weekly hair appointments, wondering what hair appointments had to do with the children starving in Africa but keeping my mouth shut about these things that bothered me in the world, as I was told by guides I needed to practice being like god is, and judgment of others belongs to god.

I would be a clock watcher with Margot, waiting for the perfect opportunity to bolt to the door. I would soon learn a drive to the salon meant a 5 hour day over lunch where my ears got burned off and my lip had a zipper.

She paid for the lunch of course.

Still, she began to grow on me, as I saw her vulnerability begin to show around the edges. Here was a person on a journey different than mine and I couldn’t say to her I held the key to the mastery of happiness and success, and also have love thrown in there either. So I learned not to judge and I tried to help Margot whenever she wanted to hear me talk.

And I would let her call me Tootles anytime she wanted and not take offense. I did tend to tootle along anyway.

Margot had married twice in her life, both men were millionaires. “It’s just as easy to love a rich man as a poor man.” Said she while I ogled at her in wonder. She said she had presented herself to the men and chosen them. The first marriage had born a daughter. The man, true to my impressions of power, had ran roughshod over Margot. He had been an abusive man and their relationship had never gotten mended. He had, according to Margot turned the daughters’ affections away from Margot, by buying the daughter’s affections. She now had no family relationships. She said she had no one to leave her money to when she died, then she winked at me. I got a bad feeling from that remark but played dumb.