CASINO, Mary Collins [top ten books to read txt] 📗

final edits and send in the manuscript. She’d have time to finish it after the movie was filmed. Funny how everything happened all at once, she thought. She’d won a hundred thousand dollars, her book was being published and she’d been picked to play an extra in a movie making a thousand dollars a week. Life was better than ever.
The producer informed them, they would finish filming in a month, yet it turned out they were there nine weeks. On the last day of the filming the girls were paid, the producers thanked them and left town that same day.
JoAnne and Marty decided to have Annie ship their things from the apartment the fourth day they were in Nashville. They only had a few things, being the apartment came furnished. Arranging for the local junkyard to buy her old car, JoAnne instructed them to mail the money to her mother. She hoped they picked it up soon or the property owner would charge her storage.
“Well…we’ve been in Nashville for two months and not had to spend a penny,” Marty said to JoAnne, “Except for a few changes of clothes and some underwear we bought at Wal-Mart.”
Most of the time they charged their food to the room, yet sometimes Simon would take some of them to dinner, Marty more than anyone. He flirted with her a lot, and called her his Little Hornet, because she grew up in North Carolina, about two hours from his hometown. JoAnne hoped Marty didn’t take his flirting serious, he had plenty of girlfriends, a different one showed up on the set every few weeks.
“Where do we go now?” JoAnne was packing her things, being they had to check out the next day.
“Why don’t we go to Palm Beach? My parents used to take me there as a child. You’d love the white sand beaches and the sound of the sea gulls.” Marty didn’t speak of her parents often, but when she did, it was always of good times they’d had together. JoAnne wondered if she missed them.
“What would we do there?”
“Find a job and stay a while.” Marty’s adventuress side was new to JoAnne.
The next morning they packed up Marty’s car and headed for Palm Beach, Florida. The radio played the top forty hits and they sang along, as they drove with the top down, the coastal air blowing their hair. They were carefree. Stopping along the way to eat and shop, they bought bikinis and sun visors in bright florescent colors for the beach. JoAnne had never been on such a spending spree, but liked it.
Monday afternoon they arrived at their destination, and went straight to the Holiday Inn to rent a suite on the ocean. They could rest there until deciding what to do. This time of year, they had the beach mainly to themselves, and spent the days lounging around at the pool or on the beach, before deciding to look for a job.
Within the week, JoAnne found a job as a server in a seafood restaurant, a few days later Marty landed a job as a bartender at The Breakers, the most beautiful Hotel in Palm Beach. There was a private beach there where the girls would hang out when they weren’t working. That is…when Marty wasn’t shopping in the exclusive shops or taking pictures of the movie stars that came in there.
They were lucky to find a quaint little two bedroom furnished cabin within walking distance of the beach, with huge windows overlooking the ocean. The rent being only eight hundred dollars a month, they could easily afford that.
Five months after arriving in Palm Beach, JoAnne’s book came out in bookstores. It was an instant best seller. Marty arranged a book signing at The Breakers, and all the employees and some to the guest bought a copy.
Within the next few months, the book sales soared and with all the publicity, JoAnne quit her job and lined up some book signings. She began working on her second novel, “Best Friends” which she based on the friendship she shared with Marty and their experience from working at Freddie’s Pizza House, to the trip here to Palm Beach. Of course, she had dramatized it quite a bit to fill the chapters.
With her books flying off the shelves, JoAnne decided to use the money to buy a condo on the beach. She’d always dreamed of living on the ocean and when the opportunity arose she took advantage of it. The older couple living there wanted to move back home to be near their newborn grandson. They could have gotten a higher price for the place, but accepted the first offer. It would be a good investment because she could resale it for more than she’d paid for it.
Now that she could afford it, JoAnne bought a new car, a red Mercedes convertible, never dreaming she’d ever own such a luxurious automobile. The first day she owned it, she and Marty drove it a hundred miles down the ocean and back, taking turns every half hour. Upon returning home, they took pictures beside the car. JoAnne wanted to send some home to her brothers and sisters and her mother. She wasn’t one to squander money, the car cost less than sticker price; by paying the full amount in cash, she got a huge discount..
Looking at four condos, she decided on the one with a private beach and a long gated driveway, it was perfect for writing, and would give her family a nice place to visit. After signing the contract, the closing would be in three weeks. That would give her time to shop for furniture.
The next few weeks, JoAnne spent going from one furniture store to another, trying to find the right furniture to furnish the beach house, finally getting on the internet to find what she needed.
With five bedrooms, each with its own bathroom, JoAnne anticipated having overnight guest. She could imagine her mother in the huge kitchen, preparing breakfast, as she loved to do, while the family sat on the large back deck overlooking the pool and tennis court.
After three days of cleaning windows and hanging curtains, they moved into their new home. JoAnne took the master bedroom, because the view overlooking the ocean put her in the mood to write. Marty took the bedroom with large windows looking out onto acres of evergreens and shrubs strategically planted to give the appearance of a small magical rain forrest. They both loved the house and spent all their free time just lounging around it. Marty couldn’t wait to get home after work and JoAnne never left home anymore, except when she had to go to the store for something. At last, she had a home she loved.

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Publication Date: 10-22-2009

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