“It’s fine. Think of it as an investment.”
“No, Anna. It’s a loan. I’ll pay you back,” I said.
“Look. If you think of it as an investment and I take a small percentage of the business, then you don’t have to pay it back.”
“What kind of percentage are we talking about?” I asked.
“Only, like, three percent. I don’t want control of the business. All this is on you. But for tax write-offs, if you don’t want to pay taxes on the money I’ve given to you, then there has to be official paperwork filed. Three percent of the business means you’d cut me a check every month for three percent of the profits you’ve made, and in return, the government won’t tax you on the money I footed.”
“Are you sure you only want three percent?” I asked. “You loaned me thirty thousand dollars, Anna.”
“No, I invested thirty thousand dollars. There’s a difference. If you want, I can draw up the paperwork really quickly and come visit so I can go over it with you. The sooner we can get it filed, the better.”
“I guess it does pay to have a sister working at a corporate law firm,” I said, grinning.
“I’ll get started on it. And if you want my opinion, you should go with the last construction company you called. The man on the other line was the only one I talked to who I felt wouldn’t try to pull the wool over your eyes.”
“I’ll give him a call in the morning. And Anna?”
“Yeah, sis?”
“Thanks.”
“Wait. Hailey?”
“Yes?”
“Have you thought about how you’re going to live until the business becomes profitable?”
Even though my younger sister, Anna, was a hardened corporate lawyer shark, she still had a soft side to her when it came to family. Our parents were always harsh with us and had plans for us from the very beginning. I was supposed to be the doctor of the family like our father, and Anna was supposed to be
the lawyer of the family like our mother. They pushed and pushed. They enrolled us in special schools and signed us up for the hardest classes imaginable. I always tried to buck against my parents. Sneaking out in the middle of the night to go have fun. Kissing boys underneath the bleachers at football games while I dodged the prying eyes of my parents.
Anna, however, bowed so greatly to their will that she snapped. She conformed to what Mom and Dad had wanted for her life, and I could hear in her voice every time I talked with her how disappointed she was. She told herself that she was able to defend those who needed it and prosecute those who deserved it, but I knew what her true passions were.
The beautiful operatic voice sitting in her throat being unused brought tears to my eyes every single time I heard her sing in the shower.
“The money I saved up for this gallery was separate from another savings account I had. I invested it wisely, and it’ll keep me afloat until I can get the gallery turning a profit,” I said.
“My sister an investor, huh? This is news to me. Way to go. I’m proud of you,” she said.
“It was the only thing I knew to do to stretch my money the best. I sold my artwork and ran paid galleries out of rented spaces, and the money I got from doing odd jobs around town for others went back into the little investment account I have. It’s not much, but I’ll break even for the next seven months.”
“You should be profitable by then. At least somewhat. And please, if you get into a snag, call me. Anything I can do to help you out with this. I’m so proud of you.”
“You know you could do it, Anna,” I said.
“Do what?”
“Go to Germany and audition for opera houses. They’d take you in a heartbeat.”
“I haven’t had a formal singing lesson in years,” she said.
“Then start taking them. You’ve got the money, Anna. Take them for a year, and then take some time off and go to Germany. If you don’t get anything, you can come back to your job, and if you do get something, you can quit.”
“I can’t just go to Germany, Hailey. I’m not you.”
“I’m not asking you to be me,” I said. “I’m asking you to be yourself.”