The Jury of Ashley’S Peers

By Moussa N. Melamed

Ashley had found her loneliness, her psychotic mind, and her daydreams her best friends. In this world that men still think they should force their male oriented society with the old laws, the older court system, and the judges of unpredictable attitude of Mid West, Ashley grew up under the spell and the pain of the story of unpunished rape episode of her mother, Donna Sue.
Ashley heard the story and felt its misery time and again in her tender years, that helped to look at the laws of the country differently.
The fear of becoming a victim to the same kind of crime distorted her thoughts, altered her judgmental capability, and diminished her prospect for a full happy dreamed life and caused her hostile personality.
As a grown up woman when she was assaulted, she took the law in her own hand.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 31, 2018
• ISBN: 9781483674506

Moussa N. Melamed

-na-

Book preview

The Young Dreamer

I

A LTHOUGH ASHLEY HAD found her loneliness, her psychotic thoughts, and her daydreams her best friends, on that special morning, like a canary at dawn she sang for what she had planned for her future.

She left her room early and like so many other days of her younger years, she stopped at the top of the second floor stairway.

She was happy; soon she would be 18, almost independent; almost on her own to do as she would please.

From the second floor landing she looked around and down the stairway. She had seen the steps’ rug and everything else from her childhood when climbing up and down and those days they would not spark her fancies any longer.

She was not concerned with the miniature paintings with their heavy antique frame hung on the side wall of the staircase. Neither had she been attracted to the mix of the modern portraits and the huge classical landscape scenery tableaus that decorated the other walls of the house.

She had turned up and down the stairway’s switches for the entire last 7 years that she had used the steps.

However she wanted to tear down the old and hang the new posters of Elvis, Sinatra, James Dean and her other favorites.

The high priced and unique works of old European and American artists – somethings she had not cared to know of them – had not enchanted her dark eyes.

Some of the interior walls were covered with so many different small and not so small artworks that the real color of the walls could hardly be seen.

The façade of the two story brick building gave the structure a looks of a century old art museum rather than a living mansion for her, her grandmother, Catherine, and the lady cook who kept the place immaculate like a king’s castle.

All summer Ashley had talked about her future plans and she had prepared herself to plunge in the scholastic rink and work through the pages of the procession of calendar years to achieve her goal. To reach her dreamed objective of her teen years: the easy dreamed fantasy of youth she had promised her mother to achieve at any cost, before her mother had died.

For the sake of Ashley at age 11 and Matthew her brother almost 15 years of age, her grandmother, Catherine, had filed for, and was awarded their custody. The children had two aunts on their father’s side, who lived in Vermont, and had not contested the custody. Like Catherine the children were delighted to live with their father’s mother on the sands of Monterey, and the sunny shores of Pacific Ocean.

After her 13th Birthday, Ashley had not liked the everlasting Italian crystal chandelier hung high to lighten the stairway and the steps.

Four years earlier, just after his 18’s birthday, Matthew had moved to Santa Barbara to work for an Insurance agency and finish his college education, while Ashley was slightly concerned of the unknown future, and the unforeseen problems of her dream in the long and hazardous journey to reach her goal; a plan she and her mother had set up for her so long earlier.

However like a newlywed woman who dreams and looks forward to raising her first child, Ashley was optimistic in her endeavor.

As a little girl, she was vivacious, energetic, and active young girl. Her exposure to the sun and ocean water of Carmel beaches had caramel colored her skin that summer.

She looked down the wide and slightly curved stairs to make up her mind for another free ride. She smiled; climbed down two steps to make her mind; eased herself over the railing; like in the past, she sat side-saddled style on the wooden top of her one way monorail. As if a hawk taking off from the tip of a mountain she adjusted her balance, and slowly eased her loose grip a little bit once more. Midway she eased her grip a bit more to sail on the imaginary roller-coaster aircraft, and thought to land gracefully. Aware of the clear newel post, she gazed at the bottom of the stairs and got ready to dismount in a breath notice.

On the floor, she remembered the first time she had taken a ride. Before getting on, she had put a pillow under her stomach over the railing top. Cautiously, she had stretched herself down over the barrier, but even with that cushion she had bruised her thighs. Not only that, her hands had burned clinching solftly to the banister. And the pain had not stopped her from riding it repeatedly. Nor had it changed her mind for another day and time, as she had grown older.

The second time, on a bigger cushion, following her brother, she had slid five more times to master the control of her body and the loosening of her grip. She had learned where to stop the sliding. She had not given up such an exuberating pleasure for such a little pain of burning sensation tax she had paid the first time.

Now, as if an experienced sidesaddle-horseback rider, she slid down to the last three steps of the flight, and got off the bar cautiously. Her short black hair flew up toward the ornate chandler. This time she had made sure not to let the shine of the crystal prisms get the best of her imagination, while sliding down the polished mahogany rail. Her young frame and the teenage breasts had not created a shock wave of any magnitude, but the landing had made a dull thud, hurt her ankles, and drew her grandmother’s stare.

Ashley slowly opened her eyes as she straightened up her back, but her thinned out eyebrows told of another sensation.

Bend your knees, she recalled her brother had said, reflecting his high school PE instructor. Like a coil your knees should support and offset the jumping pressure. If not you get hurt.

She had bent her knees this time, too, but not at the right time and angle to compensate for the direct pressure of jumping forward.

She was too excited about going to college and build her future to think of the little strain and the dull pain. She have had enough of it in some of the previous jumps. This time she had thought the rubber sole of her tennis shoes would absorb most of the burden of the impact; it would help her with the landing, and protect her ankles from injury.

You’re not a tomboy, Catherine, protested.

Catherine had seen to it that Ashley grew up a lady, and as feminine as Aphrodite, but Ashley had enjoyed her PE classes in Monterey High as much as any boy in her school. She liked swimming, and surfing with them.

She would stretch on her stomach over her brother’s surfboard paddling like a duck with her small hands and wait for a high wave or higher breaker to bring her home. The running on the wet sand and chasing her friends on the beach were her love of warm weekend weather, and all summer and holidays.

For college, she had bought a pink tank top and white Bermuda-shorts, which accentuated the size and the weight of her thighs. She had thought the shorts would hide the extra pounds, but it had not. She knew her grandmother thought Ashley had a few more pounds of summer Rocky-road ice cream on, than either one had desired. Ashley’s doctor had suggested to get rid of the excess poundage, before it gets worse with growing older and having children.

No more ice cream, she had promised and had kept it for most of the of last months of summer break, and had lost over 9 pounds. The other 6-7 pounds to go soon.

Her caramel-color knees and calves showed the contrast with the white of her shorts.

As if Nephrites of Egypt, she had long black lashes and shiny hair from shampooing the night before. She had colored her fingernails pink to look like a matured woman, though she was still a teenager with the penciled out frame around her eyes. The contrast of the sky-blue eye shadow under her black brows had highlighted her thin cheekbones. She had tanned her skin in sun of summer at Monterey beach. She had kept her face creamed and kept under the wide-brim of the souvenir Sombrero her grandmother had brought her from Mexico City.

She had often argued with Catherine over her clothes and appearance, specialy over the cloths she had baught her being present to stress her like or dislike of color, style, and their usefulness.

I want to look like other teenagers, Ashley had said one day, wearing a pair of her used blue Jeans, especially torn above the knees as a new fad.

What’s with you girls? Catherine had said. Young girls should dress like a girl and walk like a lady accordingly.

Soon as a college student Ashley wanted to chase her bed-ridden mother’s dream of becoming a plastic surgeon. She had not cared for aristocracy.

Beauty, her deceased mother had said, improves people’s quality of life, and their sense of self-worth.

Ashley had thought of children, as her future patients, especially, those like Pretty Alice, her childhood playmate, who had a cleft lip.

Do it for me, too, her mother had said. I wish I had finished college and had become a surgeon myself. I’m sure you’d love it.

Ashley had accepted the challenge to satisfy her sick mother, not knowing the obstacles that may darken her path. She was young without experience of hazards of the society, and that it would not care for her life, should she fail.

Are you okay, Honey? her grandmother said, after she heard the sudden noise. She did not raise her head from the envelope she was writing her return address on.

I feel great. Ashley showed her radiant teeth to cover up the dull pain, and close up the gap that the argument between them had just created.

The thing I said last night, Catherine said was that we should be human, a Minsche – they call it in Europe.

I am one for sure, Ashley said.

We should stay civilized; we should respect the law and follow the rules of our society, good or bad, and try to change it for the better. That’s what the young Americans should learn and keep in mind, the law is sacred. The juries have proved it for years.

The Law? Ashley asked. What law? Whose law? What jury? Is a university professor peer of a dropped out truck driver?

Ashley wondered if Catherine knew the life story of Ashley’s mother before she became her daughter-in-law, even though she had almost disinherited her son for marrying an unknown American nurse in Phnom Penn. Or what The Law and the Court had done to Ashley’s mother for being assaulted.

She quietly finger-combed her hair.

I learned it from my uncle, Catherine fussed about. We called him Mr. Attorney.

He said so to me himself? Ashley said.

I remember, Catherine said. My uncle said when he realized fighting a bully, an idiot, over a chair in the tenth grade seemed stupid, uncivilized, he walked away from the argument and right there decided to spend his time and energy for something descent, and become a lawyer to drag the bullies and their parents to court and punish them lawfully.

Wow, Ashley said with sarcasm and smirking. How noble of being a chicken shit.

Watch your language, Catherine said as her brows pulled up into one line. Don’t laugh. Your own mother said she had lived in a chicken farm in Mid-west. She too believed, and said things like what you had come up with last night: ‘The Law’s an ass.’ Isn’t it what you said?

Well. Maybe The Law’s a donkey in Boston, where you’ve come from.

A law’s law for a purpose, and peers of a selected jury decide the outcome of the trial.

Isn’t a donkey an ass? Ashley said.

The Law, Ashley thought, is something a bunch of crooked lawyers interpret it in their own way for the sake of winning a case, or go around making deals behind closed doors. She did not want to pour out a lot of teenage ideas to get herself to prove a point to her grandmother. She knew Catherine would never buy a single word of her defense, or her objection, correct and logical, or not.

Ashley’s body shivered from cooped up anger in the warmed up summer morning. Her eyelids fluttered; the color of her cheeks darkened. She gasped for air as she licked her lips. She raised her voice, slightly, as she had never tried so hard to control her mood, and stifle her opinion and hostility. But she argued more with her controlled soft-spoken voice and occasional pseudo sweet gestures, than showing how she felt, at that moment about the law and the entire Justice System.

I’m civilized, she emphasized. I’ve always been a good girl and at the top student. Not like others who are into dope, LSD, Marijuana, and Sex. I never drank more than a can of beer in any slumber party. Never came home in eerie hours of dawn pregnant. I just graduated the third in the top ten in my senior class.

You could’ve been the top one, Catherine said.

There’s no satisfying you. Is there?

Ashley fumed and could fall out of control in no time. A bomb ready to explode. She walked to foyer and back, then back and forth to Catherine desk, at which she worked.

In the background the soft voice of Beverly Sills singing as the longing Madam Butterfly, filled the room.

The robins will nest again, Beverly sang.

The smoothing voice calmed the shake in Ashley’s body. She thought at the end all would come out as she had dreamed of.

The two-stories Victorian house had recently been renovated. Two rows of marble stone covered the floor at the walls of living room. A Persian red medallion rug centered the room. The aroma of the palm oil, the maid had rubbed to clean the Mahogany banister, hovered in the air.

People have different taste. Ashley said, changing the subject.

Don’t start that again.

Ok. I don’t. I don’t even say, I’m not a social climber. I don’t say I like to dress in jeans with holes in its knees and only a black halter on on the top. I don’t say: I prefer my sandals to spikes, and I’d wear my casuals in your formal or semi-formal gatherings, if you let me.

Ashley stared at the stack of envelopes on the desk, as Catherine lowered her head, kept talking, and writing an address on an envelope from her personal phone book.

If you want to know, Ashley remarked, I don’t much care for your antique friends and God knows what archaic hand me down stuff you cherish.

These ’re real antiques.

I’m young. I want modern things. Not a French mummy’s desk and dresses of the middle ages, which went with it.

Being fond of beautiful artwork is not a crime.

What’s this faded used rug that your dealer bought for you from some dead man’s auction sale?

It’s a Kerman. A Medallion. It’s known through out the world. Look at its fine work. Just like Goya’s painting. Everybody loves antique. Johnny, your boyfriend said, the friendship ring he put on your finger ’s an antique.

I wear it for Johnny, she argued. Not because it’s someone else’s used stuff, a hand-me down junk.

What’s wrong with a classic Indian designed opal ring with the plain silver band? Catherine answered.

Ashley wanted to stop argument, but she couldn’t. What she wanted to say had been bothering her for years. She continued with her hot temper: Or anything else in a modern design? Your interior-designer with the help of the old dealer has furnished this house for your 18-century taste. Fine. It’s your home. Your Tibetan cat’s unique and pretty, but you haven’t turned your house to a zoo.

She’s a Persian cat. The two black vases with golden trimmed decorating the living room are from a Seventeenth Century mansion in Lyon France, Catherine said. Two Japanese industrialists and an Italian art collector had bids on them. You are telling me you don’t like them?

Why do you always try to miss my point? Ashley said. Japanese would probably buy it for investment purposes.

Whatever do you mean?

What am I saying? I don’t like the gloom and the dark color of Rembrandt paintings, or anyone else’s. I love to sing and dance among the living things, leaves and the smiling sunflowers that Van Gogh painted.

Once more Catherine stayed quiet.

Ashley knew her grandmother’s writing would bring a big party under the name of her 18th Birthday. Catherine’s friends, and other guests, old and not so old, would fill the living room, even if Ashley wouldn’t attend. And Catherine would have a prepared excuse for her friends. She knew it would be a bash and not a simple Birthday party.

Catherine turned another page, and kept on writing the name and address of her friends on the envelopes before she stuffed the invitation card in.

I’ve but two or three friends, Ashley said ignoring all that she had heard. I’d be at college, you know that.

What? Catherine pretended she had not heard her comments.

Don’t you think I’m grown up now? Birthday parties are for children.

Ashley looked forward to the day she would be on her own. She would make her own decisions. But her lack of financial security had kept her with Catherine. As a child, she had to follow every order to the letter, but now that Matthew lived by himself, her grandmother had said she would pay Ashley’s expenses to become a doctor, a plastic surgeon.

I won’t be here this weekend, Catherine said. Should you need any money get it from the box.

Ever since Mother died, you’ve paid for me. Isn’t that enough? Isn’t it the time I worked and paid for myself? I’ve applied for a job near college.

Pay me back when you’re a doctor, a surgeon, or whatever and loaded. I wish your mother was alive to see your beautiful eyes, and how successful you would be once you finish college. You know she was my favorite daughter-in-law and a wonderful woman. I miss them both, my son and your mother.

Ashley wondered, again, if Catherine knew about her mother’s incident before becoming her daughter-in-law.

What about this bulge? Ashley turned a quarter, touched her thighs, then her behind.

Lose it, Catherine said. And good luck with registration.

Before dressing, when Ashley brushed her teeth she had decided to have a happy day. She felt her excited blood danced and pranced in her veins. Under her skin she hopped for attending college that fall of 1985. The word ‘college’ had a mystical hold on her.

She had always been in the company of educateds: doctors, lawyers, and professors who taught in grad schools, and she looked at anyone with a higher education with respect and reverence.

She did not want to be late that morning. She looked at her watch then to the partly visible wall of the foyer. The hands of the ticking grandfather clock displayed a slanted cross and chimed two minutes later.

Two Dutch antique paintings on the north wall decorated the entry hall. Everything in the house reflected the taste and the attitude of Catherine, who lived there only with Ashley. She owned everything free and clear. She had rental properties, too.

I better be going.

You should always look your best, Catherine said, when she saw Ashley made a move to leave, whether you’re going out or not.

I’m not a mannequin, or aristocrat, nor a show-off girl. You know me, I hate them both. I’m getting late. See you.

Good luck, dear.

Ashley sized herself up in the foyer’s mirror again, and closed the entry door behind herself.

The sun felt sweet. The sky promised a sailing blue canvas for a natural panorama.

Like the fragrance of the spring in a rose garden, the air in Monterey seemed to have been blessed with sprayed aroma from an invisible perfume bottle. Nothing, not the early morning fog, nor the late morning patches of southwest clouds could mess up Ashley’s sense of euphoria.

She got in her Chevy Coup to collect Melissa, her friend, her future college roommate, and go to Oakland.

Soon, like a belly dancer’s veil, for a little while, a patch of unwanted cloud covered the sun and the effect of fog from the night before colored the leaves and the geraniums blooming outside the police station nearby.

The early bird weather forecasters had told of the warm and sunny beaches, from Oakland to Pebble Beach on the south and beyond to pull the local sand lovers to the beach. An invisible ocean breeze was teaching the tree leaves near her house how to dance.

As if the city’s eyes were on the look out, the store doors opened to paint the picture of tigers awakening from a short nap and were getting ready to pursuit their happiness.

Except for some trees with brown leaves, the city looked as if experiencing life in an early April. It looked and breathed for the arrival of the new artists to immortalize the city’s sense of eccentricities.

In the stillness of the morning, the city had started to get ready for the majestic colony of artists who searched their inner soul for human understanding, and whether the civilized Man can live a he decent and happy life without the heavy hand of the Law, the bloodshed and the misery of the war. The Artists were not aggressive enough to care or resent The System, unless they were innocent and got caught in the judicial web and the authorities let them fall through the cracks into dungeon of prison cell.

Intrigued from what Ashley had said, Catherine stopped writing and raised her head again to look around room. To her everything was familiar, and she cherished. Everything had been the centerpiece of her life one time or another. All her friends had congratulated her for her taste and the acquisition of the precious antique pieces. Everything she had ever wanted, and could have afforded smiled back at her.

She had felt the happiest woman on earth, when her antique dealer brought the French desk she was working on into her house. It reflected the ceiling light, before an Italian itched Arabesque glass had been put on it for protection. She looked at the golden trim of the wooden loops running on the curtain rod holding the golden laced Royal French draperies. She had cautiously opened and closed them a few times to look like the Ballrooms of Versailles Palace. She looked at her paintings. Not one fake or reproduction, as far as she was told. Not one cardboard print. They had been the conversation pieces of every guest.

She had always loved them dearly, but not knowing when she had started loving them and why. She had read about them and the life of the artists who created them. She did not have a wrinkle on her face then, and her teeth were all original.

The French design and make china cabinet in the dining room belonged to her mother, and her nouveau riche second husband had found the matching chairs for the dining table. At young age and beautiful, she had insisted to keep the old pieces alive, they had a Bourgeoisie and magical effect on her.

She had liked them so much, she had learned the history of most of them. She had kept the pamphlets and books alphabetically on a special shelf in her den/library. On her second trip to Paris years ago she had stayed longer to learn pronounce their names in native tongue.

She sat quiet for a long time. She thought of what Ashley had said: ‘You don’t make your home a zoo, now that you liked the Persian cat.’ She had not paid attention to what Ashley had said to recall them word for word. As a matter of fact she had hardly ever paid attention to what Ashley had said; they were thoughts opinions, and words of her young and ignorant grandchild about fine arts.

Catharine pushed her glasses higher on her nose to focus better. The house she had loved for so many years did look like what Ashley had said. Maybe there were one too many Bronze statuette and decorative clocks on the family room’s mantle. Maybe one of the set of two Tiffany lamps would do on the desk.

Am I running a museum here as Ashley said? she said. This’s our home with precious antiques, not a museum. She looked at her curio cabinet full of the rarest of American Carnival glass art of the turn of the Century.

Is this 17 century sword junk? she murmered to herself. Is it some worthless junk to throw away? Are these zoo animals?

II

A T COLLEGE, ASHLEY and Melissa, each went to her own counselor.

The part time job, Ashley said to her counselor, who was very familiar with Cathrine, will open my eyes to facts of life, to my future, and will give me a sense of civilized feeling.

I wish you luck, but don’t neglect your education. If most people thought like you we would have a better jury system.

I don’t care for the hard work, she tried to persuade him, as the afternoon breeze of campus bellowing in through the office window ruffled her hair. I’m fulfilling the promise I made to my mother before she died, and again to my grandmother, after I moved in with her, no matter the hardship of unknown future.

I’m happy for you seeing the light in your reach, he said. But I’ve heard all this before.

Ashley wondered about his literary diction, but left the office after she registered her name, Ashley Grace Ruskin, in courses she and her counselor had selected for a better mix. It’ll be a faster progress, and a break for a part-time work.

Together with Melissa, Ashley toured the campus the first two days repeatedly. Ashley felt confident and hopeful for becoming a surgeon and her future patients. Like the campus the future work of her dream had a different color and sound from her high school. She spotted the science building and her classrooms, then the library, the gym, the stadium, and two faces of unknown students, again and again.

Ashley’s share of the rent for the two-bedroom apartment was no burden on her grandmother’s wealth and income. Catherine lived comfortably with her stocks, bonds, and rental investments. She had allocated the income of one of her multiplex rental properties to Ashley’s education and another apartment’s for her personal expenses. She had inherited most of her second husband’s wealth after his death. She also collected a portion of her husband’s Social Security allotment, since he had died.

Ashley and Melissa rented a cozy two-bedroom apartment close to College. She picked the pink painted room. The Melissa’s room, the shared bathroom, and the kitchenette were painted white.

I can smell the paint. Ashley said.

Ashley, don’t get HIGH on it.

Don’t worry. I hate drugs.

I know you, Ash. I’m just kidding.

Where’s Johnny? Melissa asked, carrying her last box up to the second floor. I thought he’ll be here to help move.

He called his mother was sick, Ashley said. Maybe he’ll be here soon. We’re really lucky we found this place so close, and so soon.

Like children getting in a hotel room after a long trip, Melissa turned the music of her radio on with low sound. They sang, danced, and jumped on their beds as if on a trampoline. They helped each other to unpack everything, and settle in.

For the first time, away from her grandmother’s house, Ashley sat around waiting for Melissa to come up with every suggestion about the living arrangements. Ashley had different ideas, but she did not voice it, at first. Like when she lived in her grandmother’s house and did not have a voice in anything she thought she would feel detached. Like a lost shy kitten she stood at a corner and watched what went on. She had always been detached, with family and friends alike.

Get the corner of this mattress, Melissa said, surprised of Ashley’s silence and behavior. We got to share the work.

I know. I know. I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me.

You feel alright? Why your mood changed so fast. You were giggling minutes ago.

I wish I knew what happens to me. I’ve got used to it by now

They moved the kitchen table to a corner to have a better space allocation, and use it, also, as a desk.

We arrange the rest of it later, Ashley said. We shouldn’t worry so much."

Ashley wanted to see Melissa’s agreement in her eyes, which did not come.

We may not have enough time, Melissa said, with study and work.

We change it as we go along. Ashley tried to force her control. We’re tired now.

Each time Melissa bent over to move things around, her long hair covered her face. She tussled back her straight blonde hair. When she got tired of it, she searched her purse for a rubber band. She pulled it back together and hooked it like a ponytail.

I’ve got to shorten this mop, Melissa said.

Ashley was surprised to see Melissa so powerful for her small size 7 blouse, and 5' 5" height. Ashley was bigger, and her heavy thighs and hips had forced her into a larger size jeans.

In her grandmother’s huge house Ashley had no reason to feel walled in. Except for Catherine’s bedroom, Ashley had roamed about as if venturing in a king’s palace there. Now she knew she had a long road ahead in this small place, and the cooperation would be the main ingredient of their lives and close friendship.

I like the place, Melissa, especially you being together.

Ashley sat at the edge of her bed, as they decided to divide the house shores.

For now, Melissa said. We do what’s urgent. I don’t wait for you to do things. You don’t wait for me. All the same.

She remembered the previous week when they enrolled and had sized up the campus twice. They walked in the crowded walkways between the Science, Math, and Humanity buildings.

I thought, Ashley said, some jerk was following us, but I don’t see him now.

They passed the boys and girls who were looking here and there to find their classes. The T-shirts and short pants echoed the heat of the sun that day.

They talked about their dreams, and old high school friends.

It’s not much different here, Melissa said. These jerks don’t change over night. Look at them. Look at their shirt hanging out of their pants like a raccoon’s tail. Look at their sandals run ahead of them by a mile.

We’ve been in revolution since our birth, Ashley said. We’re born in sixties, the turmoil period.

In revolution, there should’ve been a master plan for the future.

It seems like the day after my 17th birthday, Ashley said.

Something never change, Melissa said. Only the pages of the calendars."

Melissa, you can’t change your life, until the 18 candles on the cake are blown out, or you’re already on your own. I want to be helpful and rich, too. Get married after college. I want a daughter to take good care of. I want to be her friend, and not only her mother. I want to follow my career path and the hospital work too.

Is Johnny rich? Melissa asked. You better find a Midas man. You’re lucky your grandma is filthy rich.

Uh, Melissa, Melissa. No. No. I don’t want to be someone’s old antique furniture in his museum house. I want to make it on my own. On my own terms. On my own way. And I will. I’m sure I will.

As a plastic surgeon you will be J. Paul Getty in no time. Look at all the doctors, and their Mercedes.

It will not be that easy.

Ashley, for the third time, I’ve promised myself, no college boy would distract me from my study, from my goal, or from helping you and our friendship.

"Well.