The Price of His Name.

My name is Maya Vance. I was seventeen, when I learned that words could pay bills. Maybe not big bills, but enough to help with stress. My mom cleaned houses in Buckhead, and she came home each night smelling like lemon cleaner, and her hands were cracked from bleach, and her back hurt from work. She would sit at our kitchen table, put ice on her hands, and tell me the same thing each night. “Don’t clean houses, baby. Make them need your mind.” I listened. I started to write papers for kids at my high school for ten dollars a page, then love notes for boys who could not spell "beautiful" but wanted to sound smart, then college forms for girls who had money and no stories. I was not proud of it, but it paid for food, and it kept the lights on. When Mom got sick in my last year of school, I wrote more. I wrote ads for a site that sold phone cases, sleek, durable fits in your palm, and I could write it fifty ways before breakfast. I wrote blog posts for men who said they were bosses but never had a real job, and I wrote because if I stopped, we would not eat. She died two weeks after I left school, and the school helper gave me a paper for state college and said I was smart. I took the paper, but I also took three new jobs. College lasted one term because I could not pay, so I left on a Tuesday, rented a room above a wash shop, and bought a used laptop with the last eight hundred dollars Mom left me. That laptop was Vance & Co. No office, no sign, no plan. Just me, a Wi-Fi code I got from the wash shop, and a Fiverr page that said, I will write anything for $5. I wrote dating pages for men who lied about their jobs, and I wrote sss pages for things that broke in a week, and I wrote talks for men who were too shy to speak at their own weddings. I did it at 2 AM with my knees up because the chair was broken and my back hurt. At nineteen, I asked for $20, and at twenty I made a site with a YouTube video, and at twenty-one I had four steady jobs and mail that never stopped. Tasha found me at twenty-two. She came to my door, which was just down the wash shop stairs, with two coffees and a piece of paper, and she said, “You type slow, hire me, or you’re going to die at that desk.” I did not have money for help, I had money for noodles, and she just said, “I’ll work for coffee and twenty percent until you can pay real.” She never left. By twenty-three, we moved into a real room. Not nice, four desks, one window that looked at a car lot, and a print machine that got stuck a lot. But it had a door, and on that door I put letters I bought from Home Depot. Vance & Co Content Writing. I put them up myself, and my hands shook, but I put them up straight. I took a photo and put it on Mom’s grave the next Sunday, and I told her, “I’m not cleaning houses.” Year three, the bank said I was growing, and they gave me a loan, thirty thousand dollars to hire two more writers and take big jobs, and they said I was safe because I had deals. I signed because I was tired of being small. For a while it worked. We wrote web words for tech firms, and we wrote books for coaches, and we made real money. I paid Tasha and hired a kid named Dev who was good at SEO, and bought a chair that did not hurt my back. Then the big job left. One email, budget cuts, nothing personal. It was all personal. That was four months ago. Now I’m twenty-six, and I’m sitting in that same room at 9:13 PM on a Tuesday, and the chair isn’t new, and the print machine still gets stuck, and the window still looks at a car lot where the light blinks. There’s a banknote under my keyboard, and I have not read it, but I know what it says. Loan late. Thirty thousand dollars due or they take my stuff, and my stuff is a laptop, a desk, and pride. They can’t take pride, but they can take the door with my name on it. Tasha is here too, because she does not leave when things are bad, and she’s eating cold fries and writing work emails. She does not get paid enough to write. “You need to go home,” I tell her. “You need to eat,” she says, and pushes the fries at me. “You look bad, and I’m not taking you to the ER again.” “I’m fine.” “You’re broke and lying,” she says. “Same thing.” She’s right, but I don’t say it because saying it makes it real. My phone rings, but it’s a number I don’t know, so I let it go to mail. Unknown numbers are bill men or guys who find my email on the site and think "content writer" means "write me texts for free." It rings again, and again, and again, and on the fourth time I pick it up because I’m mad and tired, and I want it to stop. “What,” I say. “Is this Maya Vance?” The voice is male, smooth, the kind that comes from money. “Who’s asking?” “Marcus Hale. I work for Julian Cross.” I know that name. Julian Cross, boss of Cross Holdings, rich man. I wrote a piece about him eight months ago for _City Business Weekly_, and I called him rash and cold and a man who buys people because he can’t earn them, and I meant each word. “Wrong number,” I say. “It’s not,” Marcus said. “Mr. Cross, read your piece. He wants to meet you.” “I don’t do talks. If he wants a quote, he can mail me,"I said. “It’s not a talk, Miss Vance. It’s a chance. He’s buying the place you’re in, and he thought you should hear it from us first.” I stand up, and my chair hits the wall, and Tasha looks up from her fries. “Mr. Patel didn’t say he was selling,” I say. “Mr. Patel had a reason,” Marcus says. “Mr. Cross will call you about your lease and your next steps. Have a good night.” He hangs up. Tasha stares. “Who was that?” “Trouble,” I say.