Lady of the Evening

As Mandy and Jennie pulls up to their deceased Nana's house, they thought back on all the good memories they had while spending every summer there.

Mandy looked over at Jennie, while parking the car, “It just won't be the same with out Nana here.”

Jeannie opens up the car door and begins getting out. Standing with the door open, she looks back over at Mandy, “You know this would make a cute bed and breakfast. I just can't see myself selling it.”

“You know we could both use the money,” responded Mandy.

“Yes, I know, but I have always loved my little visits out here. If we sell it, I won't be able to come visit anymore.”

“I too will miss this place,” said Mandy as they got out and went inside.

Inside the house, the two girls looked around at all their Nana's stuff. Each room they went in to see what they was going to keep and what they would be selling.

As they made their way up the stairs to the attic, they opened the door. The door creaked, as any old door would do. The room was filled with old items. The two girls walked around the room amazed at all the things Nana had kept over the years and collected. Off in the far corner sat a huge chest.

Both girls looked at each other and said, “Wonder whats inside? Let's have a peek!”

Mandy dusted the top off. Then Jeanie pushed the top open. There was lots of photo albums and papers in the chest. Digging each and every item out the girls sorted each thing into different piles. One pile was paperwork, another was for picture albums. There was a pile that had letters and one for miscellaneous items. However, in the bottom of the chest was an old brief case that had a combination lock on it.

Dragging the brief case out, the girls was very curious what they would find inside. So far they had found many wonderful and amazing things. No matter what combinations they used, they couldn't get the brief case to open.

“If we had a saw we could just cut the lock off,” laughingly said Jeanie.

“You can't cut it off. You could damage whats inside,” replied Mandy.

“I'm sure its just more paperwork that we will have to go through,” said Jeanie.

“Either way, we still want whatever is inside to still be in one tack.”

Jeanie shook the brief case, “I don't hear nothing,” she said.

“It is still important, or she wouldn't have had it locked up,” scolded Mandy.

“You right. Here lets read these letters, maybe theirs a clue inside to the combination.”

“Why would we find a clue inside some letters?”

“I don't know, its already a mystery to what's inside so why would she not leave clues to it.”

“Fine give me one, we can take turns reading them.”

“That sounds fun. Sure take the one on the bottom, it seems like a good place to start.”

As the girls read through all the letters from a guy in Italy, it read of a love story between this guy and their Nana. The guy had visited their Nana when he was in America and he fell in love with her. However, he was only in America for a short period of time and had to return back to his country. They had met at the local bar where their Nana liked to hang out in her earlier years.

The letters spoke of how he wanted to take Nana away so she wouldn't have to live that type of lifestyle anymore.

Mandy paused from reading the letters, “Lifestyle? What is he referring to? Nana had lived a wonderful lifestyle. She was an amazing person.”

“Can you imagine if we had grown up in Italy? Wonder what our lives would have been life if we was Italian? Read.... Read some more. Maybe we will find out what this lifestyle was,” replied Jeanie.

Mandy begin reading the letters again. On and on they went on talking about how he wanted Nana to come be with him in Italy and that they could share a wonderful life together.

Mandy laid the letters back down and decided to focus on the brief case again.

“What's date of the first letter?” asked Mandy.

Thumbing through the letters to the first one, “March fifteen, nineteen thirty-seven,” replied Jeanie.

“No that's not it, does it say when they first met?”

“I don't think it mentioned when they first met, but we know its before the first letter.”

“Yea that's not much to go on. Let's look at the photo alums, maybe there's a dated picture in there to narrow it down.”

“That's a great idea. I'll start with this one and you can look through that pile over there.”

As the girls looked through the albums they found nothing. As they was putting the albums and other items back in the chest. As Jeanie was about to toss a few of the albums back into the chest a picture fell out of one of them.

“I didn't see this picture before. Wonder where it was hiding at? Look there's a date on it.”

“What does it say? What is the date on it?”

“January eighteen, nineteen thirty-seven.”

Grabbing up the brief case they quickly put the combination in with the date. Snap went the brief case. Slowly they opened the case.

“OMG! Look at all that money!”

“Wonder how much is there?”

“I don't know. What's this.”

“Let me see. What is it?”

Opening up the little black notebook was list of names and numbers with a date out beside each one of them.

“Why would Nana have all these names and numbers. Who are all these people? I don't recognize any of these names as any of her friends.”

“Jeanie, you know what this is?”

“No, I haven't a clue.”

“Our Nana was a Lady of the Evening.”

“Get out of here. No freaking way!”

“Yup this book tells every man she ever slept with and I bet this is the money she got from all those men. I mean, look at it. This is old money.”

“Let's count it and see how much it is.”

“Okay but I could use a drink first. Let's take it down to the kitchen, pour us some wine and count out our treasure we found.”

As the girls sat down at the table with their glass of wine and brief case full of old money they begin to count and placed in piles of one hundreds. Reaching the last stack of one hundreds in each pile they then counted each pile they had made.

The girls looked at each other and said, “Twenty thousand dollars!”

“OMG what are we going to do with this money?”

“Do you think we can even cash out this old money. Will the bank accept it?”

“You know this is twenty thousand dollars, but actually this money is worth way more then that. Do you know you can get paid really good with old money.”

“Really how much you think we could get for it?”

“I don't know, we will just have to take it to the bank Monday and find out where to go next with it.”

“Hmm?”

“What? What is it?”

“You know just last week Nana was the Lady of the Hour, now we find out she was also the Lady of the Evening.”

“Yea, I don't recall her every telling any of these stories though of how she made her money back in the day nor any stories of the guy from Italy. Do you think he is still alive?”

“I don't know we should try to find him.”