Chapter 31 – A Woman in Control
Amanda could barely remember her father from when she was little. But she did have a couple magical memories of when it was just her and her Dad alone, when her Mum was away somewhere. When her Mum was at home she bossed her Dad relentlessly. One day her Dad had enough and walked out of the house. He was not seen again for years.
Then her Mum turned to trying to boss Amanda and this worked for a while until one day she had enough. So she packed her bag and left home, just like her father had. The police picked her up and brought her home two days later, an eleven year old, walking the streets of Newark, with almost no money left.
After that she and her Mum lived out the rest of her school years in an uneasy truce, her Mum largely left her alone and did not push too hard as she realised this was one person she could not control with her voice and empty threats. It was like it had been a battle of wills and she had bent her mother’s will to her own, using her mother’s fear of losing her.
From that Amanda had learned her own first big life lesson, if you did what you wanted, even if other people did not like it, they were almost completely powerless to stop you.
So now, by the start of University, she had perfected this technique and used it to get what she wanted almost all the time. She knew she had a really pretty face and a good body. That helped too, but most came from being clear and determined in getting what you wanted.
Even so it was amazing what you could get people to do for you with promises based on that physical thing, even if you did not intend to carry them through, though at least sometimes you needed to. She supposed most people would call her selfish and self centred, but really it was just making the best of your opportunities, because if you didn’t no one else helped you, that was her life experience at the age of nineteen.
Amanda was a bright girl who got good marks with very little effort so when she completed school she had her choice of local Universities and posh colleges as well as some New York options. In the end she accepted a place in her home town campus, not because she really loved the place but because in this place she was a bigger fish in a smaller pond with more opportunities for advancement. She knew in New York the competition to get to the top would be a lot tougher. First and foremost she wanted to achieve success without excessive effort.
Amanda cruised through her first year of University doing almost no work but enjoying the social life. Somehow she passed all her exams, just! She got no credits, just a bare pass grade average. In second year it slowly dawned on her that her status was on the slide, all the boys she knew had a new crop of fresh faced students to focus on and she did not have good enough marks for any special privileges.
She also found that some of the courses she had wanted to do this year were not open to her. They required credit grades in last years’ exam subjects’ for acceptance. Added to this her money was tight.
Last year her father, weak and useless man that he was, had come back into her life. He had done well for himself in the last decade since he disappeared, when he returned he had a well paying job.
So she worked herself back into his good books as a dutiful daughter, charming him with a mixture of her vivacity and his guilt for many years of abandonment. It worked so well that he had even taken her on a shopping trip to Paris and had given her the money to buy lots of nice clothes.
Best of all he gave her a generous living allowance for her first year in University along with paying the expensive course fees.
However as the year ended so too his fortunes were on the slide; his work was based on commissions and the work volume was way down. With this down went his pay. To allow her continue her second year he just managed to cover the course fees, but there was nothing left for her to live on. Her mother came up with a little bit of money to help with her living costs. But the total was a poverty allowance, enough for a shabby room and to buy basic food to cook but nothing left to meet her social aspirations as a good time girl.
She supposed she could move back home. It was across the other side of the city and even more drab and boring than where she lived. She was not yet desperate enough for that.
Lost Girl Diary Page 34