Karina's Outfit || Karina's Location
It was one of the last Saturday's of summer, and while Karina dreamed of being at the beach, she was stuck home. It felt like she was stuck, but she wasn't really. Her mother had been pestering her to get out of the house for the past few weeks. After Maria had been diagnosed with breast cancer in mid-July, Karina felt like it was her job to relieve as much pressure from her mother's shoulders as possible. The doctors advised Maria to endure as little stress as possible, but for a woman who had spent her entire adult life working seven days a week, that wasn't easy. Not only was it in Maria's nature to work, but it was necessary for her situation. Right now, Karina and her mother were living comfortably, but that was because the Cargill's were good employers. They provided room and board for the family while still offering a fair level of pay on top of that. If they had to pay rent and utilities on their own, there was no way that Karina would be able to afford to pass off as being barely middle class, but that wouldn't be the biggest issue, considering there was no way that they would afford to live in Beverly Hills anyway.
Even with the Cargill's generous pay, the medical bills that had already started flowing in had Karina wondering what they were going to do. Their health insurance sucked, and that was the biggest reason for why the cancer had been able to grow to stage IV. Maria was the type of woman who put her children's needs before her own, so when she suspected she was ill, she brushed it off as something minor and never went to get it checked. She always insisted that it wasn't worth wasting the money on the copay when she could send that money to Alicia to help cover her textbook costs. It was obviously a bad decision, and now the cancer that probably could have been treated early on was not only in her breasts, but her liver as well. Her diagnosis was terminal, but according to doctors, as long as she received treatment, there was a chance that the cancer could be contained for long enough to possibly give Maria years of life.
Karina had spent the weeks following the diagnosis begging her mother to tell her employers of her condition. Maria refused, stating that while the Cargill's had always been wonderful to her, that she was disposable to them. In Los Angeles, there were thousands of struggling women who would eat up a job like hers for half of the pay. She didn't think the Cargill's would keep her if they knew that she wasn't going to be able to work, so she decided to keep the illness a secret until she was literally unable to do the work. That time was clearly approaching sooner than Maria thought. After receiving two chemotherapy treatments, Karina was noticing how much slower and fatigued her mother seemed. Her complexion was washed out and it was obvious that she had thinned over the past few months. She had another week or two before the chemotherapy caused her hair to fall out, but Maria had cut it short in hopes of lessening the shock of it when it did happen. She was taking things day by day, and because Karina didn't know what else to do, she was doing the same. At the same time, it was hard to not completely change her way of life after finding out that her mother was really sick. On top of feeling the need to help her mother out with the house work, Karina found herself feeling more anxious about life in general than ever before.
"Please, mom, just rest until I get back. Rose said that everything is fine, and Mr. Cargill is even letting Linda and Sherrie leave a little bit early today because he said that he and Mrs. Cargill are going out to dinner, and that everything looks great. Timothy and Amelia and Kayleen are all going to be out too, so there isn't anything that you need to do," Karina insisted as she watched her mother wash dishes in their own kitchen sink. She had spent the morning cleaning the bedrooms in the main house with the other live-in housekeeper, Rose, and was now on her mid-day break. Karina had went ahead and done the Cargill family's laundry so that her mother could spend the rest of the evening relaxing, and she really hoped that her mother would actually do so for once. "I'm going to run back over there to fold the clothes once the dry cycle is over, and then I promise I'll text Tee and see if she still wants to do something." The uneasy approval that Maria followed Karina's dictation of her plan up with reminded Karina of how self-sufficient her mother was used to being. She wasn't used to being the person in the position of needing to be looked after and cared for, but there was nothing any of them could do. "Déjalo en manos de Dios," was the response that Karina always seemed to get when she asked her mother about how she was feeling or if she felt like the treatment was helping, and for now, Karina decided that all she could do was leave it in God's hands.
Thirty minutes later, she was nearly finished with folding the laundry and separating it into baskets for Mr. Cargill, Mrs. Cargill, Amelia and Timothy, when her phone buzzed and she saw Lateefah's text. She wanted to see Tee, but with tonight being Tristan Elliott's party, Karina expected Tee's wannabe mode to be fully activated. The fact that Lateefah ended up in that clique only bothered Karina because she felt like it changed Tee's character, at least when she was around the other wannabes or the royals. She felt like it propelled Tee into this personality that wasn't her, and Karina didn't understand what the goal of acting that way was. Still, Lateefah was her best friend, and getting out of the house for a few hours would be good, especially since she knew her mother would insist upon it.
To: Tee
I'm good... no need to get anything for me! thanks tho! but okay, i'll meet you outside the gates in 20 or so!
A text later, and Karina was hurrying back to her house on the other side of the property to grab her bag, twenty dollars from her mom, and reassure her mom once more that all of the housework was taken care of. Luckily for her, she managed to pass by one of the landscapers who gave her a ride in their golf cart-like vehicle to the gated entry of the Cargill property. Having to walk across the entire estate could have taken her a good half an hour in herself, so she was relieved when she exited through the gates and found that she was right within the time frame that she had given Lateefah. Rather than have Tee drive into the Cargill's driveway, Karina walked up it herself and waited at the top of the long driveway, so far up that aside from the large gates, the estate was barely visible.