Charlotte woke up later than usual on Monday and she dressed in a rush and ran out the door. As she reached the front door she realized that her bag was on the hook by the front door and ran back up, punched the code in, opened the door far enough to grab her purse and car keys; she wouldn’t have time to walk like usual if she wanted to get there on time. As she drove down the narrow street she glanced at the clock on the dash and decided she had enough time to grab cup of coffee. She parked in front of Beautiful Coffee and hurried inside.

“Good morning, Charlotte”, Celeste said cheerfully as she walked quickly up to the counter.

“Just a venti drip today”, she said as she glanced at the clock on the wall, “I overslept and have to hurry to get to work”, she said as she pulled her wallet out and slipped her debit card out.

“Happens to the best of us”, Celeste said with a smile and filled a cup with coffee and handed it to her with a lid. She took the card and swiped it but nothing happened. She swiped it again and frowned.

“It says declined”, she said apologetically as she handed it back,”do you have any cash?”

Charlotte dug through her wallet and came up with a handful of change but it wasn’t enough and she frowned, “I don’t understand what’s wrong with it. I just got paid Friday.”

“I guess I can wait until I get to work”,she said and put her card and wallet back into bag and turned to leave.

“Oh don’t worry about one cup of coffee”, Celeste said and came around the counter to hand it to her, “I’m sure it’s a mistake.” Charlotte took the cup with a smile and thanked her as she headed over to the drink station and added cream and sugar to it.

“So”, she said semi-casually, “have any exciting plans coming up?”, she put the lid on and took a sip as Celeste cracked a smile.

“Nope…..my life is boring”, she cracked  and turned to go back behind the counter, “you better hurry, can’t be late for work”, she said cheerfully.

“Well, I hope that changes soon”, Charlotte waved as she went out the door and got back into her car. She would call the bank on her mid-morning break and see what was wrong with her account. She got to her classroom just as her students started to show up. She pulled out a stack of graded papers and started to hand them out.

“Everyone did a great job on their sentence structure this time, let’s try to focus on punctuation next time”, she said with a smile as she walked around the room and gave the assignment back or set it on empty desks.

“You look nice today, Ms. Timbers”, one of the older women said as she sat down and looked at her paper.

“Thank you”, she said with a slight bow and finished and went to sit back down to drink her coffee and wait for class to start. She couldn’t understand what might be wrong with her card, it was a hassle to use her bank back home but she just felt like it was easier. Her balance wasn’t that low, she always made sure to leave enough in for a few days to give the overseas transaction time to hit her account. Her stomach grumbled and she wished she had at least grabbed a piece of fruit to hold her over until her break. Finally all the desks were filled and they went over the assignment together and talked about what they had covered the week before about punctuation. They practiced it and she left them hard at work correcting the assignment and ran out into the hallway to call her bank. She checked her balance and it showed zero. She was confused and check her account activity and her face went pale as the automated voice told her that her account had been emptied the previous day. She hung up and dialed the 24 hour customer service line with shaking hands.

When she finally got to talk to someone she explained her situation and waited while the lady on the other end of the line checked her account.

“It says that it was emptied by a Shane Collins”, the lady said when she came back on the line. Charlotte gripped her phone tightly and closed her eyes before she spoke.

“He does not have access to this account. We are divorced”, she said and emphasized the last word.

“Well, it shows that the account was accessed via debit card at 11:35pm CST on Sunday”, the lady said after she hit a few keys.

“Well, I can assure you that I didn’t give him permission to access the account. He shouldn’t even have a card in his name. It isn’t a joint account”, Charlotte said as she slipped her shoes off and slid down the wall to sit on the cold tile floor.

“My records show that is is a joint account, as of a month ago. He went to the bank in person with signed documents and changed it to a joint account”, Charlotte listened to her patiently even though she could feel her face start to flush.

“Are you still there, Mrs. Collins?”, the woman on the line said and Charlotte realized that she had gone totally silent for about five minutes.

“Divorced…… I took my maiden name back….. it's Ms. Timbers”, Charlotte said faintly as she tried to figure out what to do, “I’ll just call the branch after they open”, she whispered and hung up the phone just as tears started to roll down her cheeks. She set her phone in her lap and covered her face as she started to cry softly.

“That bastard… I should have known that things went too smoothly after Jacob got here”, she whispered to herself. She slipped her shoes back on and walked quickly to the bathroom. She hadn’t had time to put any makeup on so she didn’t have to fix her face after she splashed cool water on her flushed face and looked in the mirror. Her nose was red from crying and her brown eyes were red rimmed. She grabbed a wad of paper towels and wet them. She pressed them to her eyes and dried her face off after. She blew her nose, washed her hands and went back to her classroom. She walked through the desks and looked at each person’s work and pointed out what still needed to be fixed. Luckily she had a movie planned for her morning lesson so she started it and sat behind her desk; numb; as she tried to figure out how to handle this situation. The cops would have to be involved because he had stolen from her. She tried to think of everything that would come out of her account in the next few days. She would have to call each of them and ask for more time so she could straighten everything out. She was so lost in thought that she didn’t hear the movie end and it wasn’t until a man came up and tapped her on the shoulder.

“Ms. Timbers, the movie ended. Can we take our break now?”, he said and startled her.

“Oh…. um… yes of course”, she gave him a shaky smile and stood up and left the room. She went outside and sat on a bench in front of the community center and pulled her phone out and started to make phone calls. She explained as best as she could what had happened and assured them that she would get it straightened out as soon as possible. She hung her phone up after the last call and closed her eyes and took shallow breaths so she wouldn’t cry again.

Celeste walked down the sidewalk, a bag in one hand and a coffee cup in the other and when she saw Charlotte and called her name out as she smiled.

“Charlotte? I came to bring you a little snack”,she said as she reached the bench. Charlotte opened her eyes and looked at her.

“I can’t pay you for the coffee”,she whispered and covered her face and started to cry again. Celeste set the bag on the bench and sat down beside her and put an arm around her shoulder. She waited until Charlotte had calmed down somewhat before she spoke.

“What’s wrong, Charlotte?”, she said softly. Charlotte sniffled a few times and wiped her face with the back of her hand.

“My ex…. he cleaned out my checking account”, Charlotte said and started to choke up again because she felt so pitiful, ‘He forged my signature, switched my account to a joint one, got a card in his name and cleaned me out completely”, she started to cry again and Celeste rubbed her back gently.

“You can fix this…. he can’t do this to you”, she said and pulled a napkin out of the bag next to her and handed it to Charlotte. She blew her nose and tried to wipe her face. Celeste pulled another napkin out and used it to wipe the tears off her face.

“I can’t believe he did this”, she said angrily and balled the wet napkin up in her fist. “He waited until Jacob was here and went and ruined me”, tears ran down her face again but these ones were hot angry tears.

“Let take a deep breath, eat something and think about this calmly”, Celeste said as she pulled the sandwich she had made out of the bag and handed it to Charlotte. She stared at it for a moment before she took a bite and chewed; her jaw worked angrily and she choked the bite down. Celeste hurried to hand her the cup.

“It’s tea, with lots of sugar”, she said as Celeste took it from her and took a slow sip and another deep breath. She started to eat eagerly and took sips of tea between bites. After she finished she leaned back and closed her eyes.

“Feel better now?”, Celeste said softly and handed her another napkin to wipe the crumbs off her face.

“I’m still mad but I’m not hungry anymore”, Charlotte said as she ran her fingers through her hair.

“So what have you taken care of so far?”, Celeste said as she pulled a cookie out of the bag and handed it to her.

“Called customer service….. called everyone that was supposed to get money today”, Charlotte said as she took a bite of the cookie and smiled a little, “Chocolate chip… my favorite”, she opened her eyes and looked at Celeste.

“I still need to talk to the bank and call the cops back home”, the chocolate had soothed her frazzled nerves a little more and she didn’t feel like she would cry again.

“So take care of those and stop worrying, he will get his and you will get your money back. Do you need a loan to get you through a few days?”, Celeste said as she reached for her wallet in the pocket of her jacket.

“Oh no, I couldn’t take your money”, Charlotte said as she shook her head vehemently and put her hand over Celeste’s, I’ve got a credit card I can use until everything is taken care of.” She couldn’t believe the woman was so eager to help her and she appreciated the kind gesture.