Free My Lost and Found Life by Melodie Bowsher Page B

up. “This is not good. It looks as if your mother’s employer has put a lien on this house.”
    “What does that mean?” I said.
    “I’m not sure. Nothing good.” She thought for a minute and then stood up. “I’m going to have to find out more about this. Can I take this with me?”
    I nodded.
    “I’ll let you know what I find out,” she said, walking over to the door. “But you better prepare yourself. You’ll probably have to find a new place to live.”
    “ What! Where would I go? How will I live?” I was aghast.
    “You get a job, like everyone else on the planet,” Gloria said with visible satisfaction. “Your mother didn’t do you any favors, treating you like a protected little princess, and I told her so, many times. You need to find a job and an apartment and learn to take care of yourself.”
    “A job! What do I know how to do? Drive a bus? Work at the drive-up window at McDonald’s? I was going to go to college and have a career. This isn’t fair. None of my friends have to serve tacos at Taco Bell. No, please don’t say it. I guess I’m supposed to remember the starving children in Africa and how lucky I am in comparison.”
    “No, I’m not going to tell you anything because you’re going to find out all by yourself.”

Chapter Nine
Gloria called two days later and asked me to come over after her kids were in bed.
    “You better sit down, Ashley,” Gloria said. Her face looked ready to announce bad news.
    “Is it that bad? Should I take a Valium first?” I wisecracked. I made my way through the obstacle course of Legos and other toys scattered on the carpet and flopped down on her recliner.
    “It’s not good,” she said. She seated herself on the sofa, an arsenal of papers arranged on the coffee table in front of her. Carefully placing her pen on the table next to the papers, she gazed up at me with the look of a teacher about to begin her lesson plan.
    “I did a lot of research on embezzlement on the Web,” Gloria began. “I’ve acquired quite an education on the subject. This sort of white-collar crime is amazingly common, and often only a portion of the money is ever recovered. Most embezzlers go to prison, but others get off with just probation. Sometimescompanies don’t even press charges because they don’t want the word to get out about how stupid and gullible they were.”
    “Obviously, that’s not the case here,” I said, sinking back into the cocoon of the recliner. “So I’d like the Cliff’s Notes version. What’s going on?”
    “Richard talked to an attorney friend of his about this situation. According to him, putting a lien on the house was an aggressive strategy on the company’s part. Your mother’s employer is undoubtedly angry and looking for a way to recoup their losses. So they’re staking a claim on some part of the proceeds when the bank forecloses and the house is sold.”
    I couldn’t believe my ears. “What do you mean ‘when the bank forecloses’?” I sputtered. “How can they sell our house?”
    “Unless your mother gets back right away, it’s going to happen very soon. The bank will take the house back and boot you out...evict you...because no payments have been made for nearly ninety days. It takes one hundred and eleven days by law in California for a mortgage lender to foreclose. Once they do, the sheriff will come in, nail up an eviction notice, and toss you out. That would be a humiliating experience, believe me.”
    “What!” I screeched, sitting upright as if a bolt of electricity had just been applied to my backside. “How can they do that? That’s our house. It was my grandmother’s house. They can’t steal our house like that.”
    “Look, they’re not stealing it. Even though Diane inherited the house from your grandparents, she’s remodeled it extensively and taken money out of it over the years. The bank holds both a first and second mortgage on the place. They want their money. There’s nothing