The text message read, "I realize now that I have always loved you Anna. You have been forever in my heart, by my side, and on my mind. I could not live another minute, another breath, or another life time without you knowing. I have known since the crawfish beds of our youth. I chose to ignore it because I was forced to. Now, I am a man yet, society wants to dictate to me whom I should be with. I will not, even if I must live to be a pauper, abandoning the only love I've ever known, is impossible. Until my dying breath I will call to you my love Anna, initials W.B."
It was four thirty in the morning. I was in the last place I thought, I'd ever be in a hospital emergency room. I was numb, my vision blurred from tears which fell from my eyes in disbelief at the last four years of my life. I was confused because the only man I had ever loved was in the next room fighting for his life. I watched as the man who had given me new life and elation was being tended to by doctors, nurses, and other staff, trying to save his life.
My name is Annabella Marie Suarez. I am merely a servant girl from South America, Costa Rica to be exact. My story and that of the man that I love with all my heart began humbly. My grandparents seeking a much better life came to this country as immigrants and farmers. They began from humble beginnings yet were proud in keeping as much traditions as possible from the old country. The culture, the status, the foods, the dance, and of course the family values.
My parents were rooted in keeping up with similar traditions when they moved us onto the property of the Boudreaux Mansion in Louisiana. Not as proud owners mind you but as servant folks who would help on the tobacco farm for exchange for us children to be able to get an education. I was just a girl of about twelve years old when I began exploring my new home and the surrounding area. I went down to the creek to catch crawfish or go swim when I first met the man lying in the emergency room. I reflected on every moment as I sat here waiting to see how this would all turn out.
He was the son, William Maxwell Boudreaux, heir to the mansion and all its wealth. He was fourteen at the time. Maxie too liked crawfishing, swimming, and climbing trees. We grew up hanging out with one another most summers, most winters, and most falls. Spring time however, I was always busy assisting my parents with preparing for another batch of workers being that my father was now the foreman and I the bookkeeper. I kept up with the wages of the workers, interpreted, if needed for the farmer, William Sr. I also helped with the washing of clothes, hanging of clothes, my school work, and of course my Maxie.
My Maxie was two years older than I and had the sweet cleft in his chin, blue eyes, dark hair, tall with a wiry frame but much stronger than one would suspect. I liked his long stride, with his boyishly handsome face. I always tried to get him to eat more food but he was always too busy and on the go. I never cared about anyone else in the world. I do believe other's known and understood that. It was well known that if you wanted to find me, I would be around Maxie. If you wanted Maxie he'd always be around me.
That is what I called my best friend who I grew up playing with and truth be told the first boy I ever kissed. I never liked his name as William, Will, Bill, or Maxwell. I definitely did not like Mr. Boudreaux. However, the love of my life loved when I called him Maxie.
I was about sixteen when some girls at school were picking on me about my clothes and how I was a peasant servant girl. Maxie over heard the picking of the rich and upper class but they failed to realize we had grown up not as Master and servant but more like brother and sister. Maxwell had integrity with a smooth touch of class.
I was looking at my clothes, almost in tears because my mother made my clothes out of denim fabric she bought in yards at the goodwill store. My blouses were hand made out of colorful materials with floral patterns from Walmart cloth. Merely, what she could make do with at the time and at her pay? I was being picked on by the society girls one of which liked to fancy herself as a suitor for Maxie. She was one of the Debutantes, daughter of the rich tobacco farmer, Ms. Kimberly Sheila Lafontaine. The Lafontaine's owned almost seventeen hundred acres of land and employed many, many people. Therefore, it was easy to see that their little Kimberly would get whatever she wanted. The thing she wanted the most was one William Maxwell Boudreaux, that's right my Maxie.
I being the brunt of every joke, harassment, ethnic racial slur, and torture for Mrs. Lafontaine's entertainment, was a normal occurrence. Maxie was always sticking up for me. Maxie always shielded me from those others who would try to harm me. On this particular day, I was almost in tears when the bell began ringing. Maxie ran over to me seeing the picking, "Hey Kim, why don't you take a break? Find a mirror somewhere, and powder your nose." Little did I realize that Maxie was referring to Kimberly's most recent habit of snorting lines of cocaine to be a socialite?
"Yeah sure Will, save the precious handmaid. I promise, one day, you won't come to her rescue and Cinderella will be mine. I was wondering Will, how the help tastes anyways?" Kimberly began giggling like a witch and her girlfriends as well.
Yes, good old Kimberly who was Maxie's same age, eighteen and grade senior class. Kimberly, the most likely Debutante, to marry my best friend, Maxie. Kimberly was the girl with the perfect blonde ringlets of curls, the fancy ball gowns, the Porsche sports car, the blue eyes to die for, and the easiest lay in three parishes. Kimberly had the big boobs {paid for no doubt}, the fair skin, and the thin look from starvation it seemed.
I on the other hand was built like a working girl, thick and durable with hips. I had long black hair which had a natural curl softer light brown eyes the color of coffee with a hint of cream, rounded natural breasts which to me got in the way. I felt bigger than my one hundred thirty pound frame because I was only five two. My ass was Latina and nicely rounded with what my mother called the sexy curves of a woman. I wanted to fit in so badly however, at every turn, I was still just a servant girl for the Boudreaux's.