INTRODUCING ; ANDY MENDOZA
CHARACTER BASICS
FULL NAME: Andrea Sofia Mendoza
NICKNAME(S): Andy, Drea
AGE: Thirty-Four
GENDER & PRONOUNS: Cis Female, She/Her
FACE CLAIM: Lindsey Morgan
EYE COLOR: Brown
HAIR COLOR: Brown
HEIGHT: 6′3″
WEIGHT: 170 lbs.
DATE OF BIRTH: February 27, 1988
ZODIAC SIGN: Pisces
LEVEL OF EDUCATION: High School Diploma
LANGUAGES SPOKEN: English, Spanish
OCCUPATION: Bartender
HOBBIES: Binging TV, Napping, Painting
HOMETOWN: Dallas, Texas (Nevada since June 2022)
CHARACTER HISTORY
In Dallas, Texas Andrea “Andy” Mendoza was raised by a single mother. Andy never knew her father’s name for the longest time. Raised by her mother, Sofía Mendoza, Andy only knew what a strong person looked like. At least, what she envisioned a strong person to look like. Her mother held multiple jobs, some in which Andy could be found sitting in the back room with a couple piles of books, games and whatever else she could find to occupy her daughter for the duration of the shift. The locations of which she worked, were not always the best, the cleanest nor were they the best place for a kid, but her mother was doing what she had to do. At least, that is what Sofía always told her when she would ask why she had to go with her, again.
When Andy was old enough to stay home on her own, it didn’t stop the young girl from wandering out on the town. It was exactly the last thing she could have been doing, but how could her mother expect her to stay locked up in their apartment all day during the summer when she was out working. It was how she met Cooper Castillo. She had never thought she would like him all that much and in the beginning, she didn’t. They were just kids and honestly, spending time with him gave her something to do but the young girl never thought anything of it. They’d see each other a few times a week and Andy would go home never knowing anything different would ever change in her life because of Cooper. She was living her best life, or so she thought.
School came and went for Andy, mostly because by the time she got to high school, she ended up dropping out. Due to the number year spent smoking, Sofía became riddled with cancer and it forced Andy to have to drop out to become the responsible party for the home. It wasn’t her mother’s fault, no, Andy never blamed her but she knew that it would take away a part of her teenage years that she would never get back. Andy found herself involved in shady business around Dallas. Cancer treatment drugs were not cheap and to be able to afford them. Along came Cooper Castillo, again, this time he wasn’t just a friend but someone that found her a job to make the money that she needed. Little did she know, the Castillo family was the biggest family on the streets, with his father being one of the biggest drug lords that owned the North side.
Andy quickly fell to the scene and growing closer and closer with Cooper as the days went on. When she wasn’t tending to her mother, she was working with the Castillo family. Their closeness began to shift sometime in their late teenage years and Andy found herself falling for him more than she ever thought possible. As much as she tried to avoid it at first, it was inevitable. She fell hard for him, having known him all the years. Dating Cooper was one of the few joys in her life, despite the ugliness that they were surrounded by. At times, it felt like it could all be blocked out when it was just the two of them together. However, that would not last forever. Bad things happened in sets of threes, or at least that was how it was told her to her.
Around the time she turned twenty-four years old, her mother passed away. The cancer had finally caught up with her mother after all these years and it crushed Andy. She felt like she only had one person to lean on and that was Cooper. However, shortly after that, the second bad thing to happen would come into her life and Cooper’s. During a deal, his father had been taken out along with all of the Castillo people. One by one, the Castillo’s were gunned down and Andy was forced into hiding herself. Yet, that hiding did not come with the safety she thought it was. The people coming for the Castillo’s found Andy, taking her hostage for some time as they begun to hunt down the rest of the Castillo’s. Andy didn’t know what was happening in the outside world but when she was released back to Cooper, dumped on his doorstep, that would be the last time she ever saw him.
Standing on his doorstep, it was where she was dumped by him. There was no changing the man’s mind and somehow, Andy found herself back to her apartment where she holed herself up for weeks at a time as she healed from what had gone wrong in her life recently. Andy fell victim to drinking often and drinking heavily as she tried to figure out what to do with her life. It was at the local bar that she drank at that things started to turn around shortly after things fell apart. The owner of the bar gave her a chance and began training her as a bartender. Andy was skeptical of this doing anything for her, but she needed a job and it paid her well at the end of the night. After much practice, she became skilled in the art of bartending. It wasn’t much, but it was going to get her out of Dallas.
Andy dreamed of getting out of Dallas, to escape the life that she had once lived there. As much as it pained her to walk in and out of her apartment that she once shared with her mother, she knew the rent was controlled and that she would be able to stay there as long as she needed until she could save to get out. So, Andy did just that. For years, she worked as a bartender, putting away every extra cent that she didn’t need and living life minimally as she insisted on getting on no matter the community she had built back up around her. They had done a lot for her, but everywhere she looked, Andy saw the pain of her past and couldn’t stand it anymore.
Six long years after everything went down, Andy was able to take her first move out of Dallas. She slipped over to Arizona where she worked at a few different bars in the area during the week. It wasn’t much different than Dallas, but she was working at bigger and better bars, making a name for herself. Bartending was not exactly the career she saw for herself, but it was what she was good at and it was what paid the bills. Though Andy had other hobbies, they were just that. Hobbies. She had always loved painting as a young kid, using different mediums and canvases to bring her thoughts to life. It wasn’t something she shared with just anyone, ultimately just collecting finished and half-finished artwork in her bedroom for no one to see.
Due to her circumstances in Dallas, relationships no longer came easily to Andy. She kept people at an arm’s length but she wouldn’t deny herself the pleasure that came with the company of another person in her bed. She rarely let anyone stay the night and if they did, she was quick to kick them out in the morning. Four years of this went by in Arizona, day in and day out, Andy continued to live her life until she heard from an old friend that had moved to Vegas. It wasn’t a place that she ever thought about living but needing a change from her life in Arizona, she figured Vegas would be the best place to spice it up.
The childhood friend had been one she had lost contact with when she was young after they moved away from Dallas but after they reconnected in Arizona in her early thirties, she figured it was worth a shot in trusting someone for a minute. Packing her bags, Andy moved out to Nevada where she would continue her bartending career and with much encouragement from her friend, her painting as well. Slowly but surely, artwork went missing. from her piles, only for Andy to find out that her friend was selling it for her. At first, Andy was pissed. At least, until she saw the interest in her artwork. It brought a new passion into her life and while she isn’t ready to give up bartending, she’s beginning to think it’s not the only thing out there for her.
