“And you took it over once he died.”
“I did, yes.”
“Have you always wanted to do something like that?”
“Oh, yes. Especially with what I saw growing up.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I grew up in Holly Hill. Do you know where that is?”
“Over by Santee, I think.”
“Yep. It’s right in the middle of the poorest towns in the state. I grew up in poverty. I know what a lot of these kids go through. When I was in eighth grade, I sat in the back of the class and two of the four kids that surrounded me couldn’t read a lick. In eighth grade.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“I’m not. Kids in this state get shoved under the radar if they don’t have money. Passed up grades because no one wants to deal with them. I was lucky. I had a Dad who helped me with a lot of things for a spell, and then I went to college and got a degree in social work. I wanted to make a difference with these kids.”
“A spell?” I asked, watching her face fall before she took a long pull from her drink.
“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” I said.
She quirked her eyebrow at me again and I bit down onto my cheek to keep from grinning. Good. I was demolishing her base expectation of me. That was exactly what I wanted to do.
“Poverty gets to a lot of people. Especially a parent. And then they find ways to cope, which aren’t always healthy,” Andrea said.
“I’m sorry to hear that. Really.”
“It’s fine. He was a good man until alcohol did him in.”
“Do you talk to him at all?”
“I don’t. Not since I moved to Charleston.”
“What about your mother?”
“She died when I was young. I don’t remember much about her.”
“I’m so sorry, Andrea.”
“It’s fine. I’ve gotten over it. It made me strong through my failures.”
“Did you burn down a mansion as well?” I asked.
“No,” she said, giggling, “but I did misplace a four thousand dollar check from a donor once.”
“You did not.”
“I really did. They handed it off to me and I put it in my pocket—or so I thought—and when I went back to my office to take care of the receipt and get it in the mail, it wasn’t there.”
“What happened to it?”
“A hole in my pocket is what happened to it. I had to backtrack my steps for hours before I found it folded up neatly in a corner covered in dust.”
/> I chuckled as a smile grew across her cheeks.
“I have no idea what I would’ve told that patron had I not been able to find their check. And that next hour, I established an official PayPal account for the youth center.”