Some years later have seen Otto overcome new hurtles.
There has been a lot of late night plate licking.
A new butler.
Guests drowning in pools.
Oh, and then there are the kids.
Over the years, Ottoline’s two oldest have grown up. Both of them take after her.
Hadrian, the oldest, is swiftly becoming a master of pool and strong drinks. He’s a manager at heart, organized, and focused in whatever he does. That’s something he doesn’t share with Otto.
Ham prefers dancing and loud music. He’s a Party Animal, and a good one at that, though his parentage remains a mystery.
Then there’s the newest addition to the family, Haji Slender, who clearly has priorities.
And Otto?
Is Otto.
Lounging on the back porch, Otto was doing something she didn’t often do, especially when tanning. She was thinking about the circumstances regarding her life, especially the part about being extraordinarily wealthy. While her brother and cousins had long since gone their separate ways – getting married, having kids, changing jobs – Otto found that even as a single parent with three rambunctious boys, she still had enough money leftover to be set for life.
She remembered growing up in Moonlight Falls, remembering how the rain and snow kept her indoors for hours at a time. Now she was enjoying a perpetual summer and didn’t know what to do with it.
‘Food’s on, ma’am,’ Hugh announced.
‘Good, I’m starving,’ Otto muttered incomprehensibly.
‘I hope you like your hamburgers really well done,’ said Hugh.
‘I’ve been thinking,’ said Otto.
‘You…think?’ Hugh asked.
Otto scoffed and stuffed a burger into her mouth. ‘Believe it or not, underneath my awesome hair, I have a brain.’
‘There’s no denying that,’ said Hugh. ‘Especially since if you didn’t have a brain, you wouldn’t have been able to respond to your basic instinctual desire to eat.’
‘…Huh?’
‘Never mind. You were saying something about thinking?’
‘Something’s bothering me.’
‘That’s unfortunate. What’s the problem?’
‘I’m too rich.’
‘…I’m…sorry you’re experiencing such hardship?’
‘I mean, I’m so rich I technically don’t even have to work. I have to do something with all this money or I’m just going to be sitting on my butt all day doing nothing.’
‘Which you would do even if you weren’t rich.’
‘Yeah, maybe. But I feel like I need to do something.’
‘You like gambling. Why not go gambling?’
‘Yeah, but it’s not exciting if you aren’t worried about loosing your money.’
‘Well, why not invest it somewhere?’
‘And get even more rich?’
‘Sure,’ Hugh paused. ‘No, wait, I have an even better idea. Why don’t you open a bar or something?’
‘A bar?’
‘You love mixing drinks and you’re good at it. Plus, no one knows how to party like you. Why not have a bar that the boys can inherit someday?’
Otto considered this. She did love bars and there were hardly any good places in town, aside from the Casino – which didn’t have a bar – and one very lame karaoke place situated downtown. The more she considered Hugh’s suggestion, the more she enjoyed the thought of having her own personal bar to moonlight at, earn money, and party until the early hours of the morning.
Fortunately, in Lucky Palms, owning a bar was as simple as a single phone call.
The Slender Legacy 