She's So Money Read online

  “Yeah?” Nat asked, appearing from the kitchen. He was gnawing on half a mango, seemingly unperturbed by the juice dripping onto his watch.

  “Watch,” I said.

  “Waterproof,” he answered.

  “Nat, listen to your sister while we are gone,” my dad said. “She is Mom and Dad for the next few days.” He handed me the keys to the restaurant and an envelope that was almost completely covered by a note that said “Emergency Money! Do not spend under any circumstance (unless emergency)” in Magic Marker. Awesome.

  I grinned at Nat, who rolled his eyes a little at the prospect of someone only a year older than him being in charge, but he couldn’t help grinning as well. This was the first time they’d ever left us home alone, and while we were obviously going to have to work our normal hours at the restaurant, the thought of having no curfew—and that I’d be able to leave work and go out with my friends for as long as I wanted instead of only an hour or so—gave me a fizzy feeling of happiness and a sudden desire to bounce on my tiptoes every few minutes.

  I’d had to deal with some annoying fallout from my dramatic slamming of Camden King’s car door two days ago—namely, he’d somehow managed to get my cell phone number and was sending me multiple texts, ranging from hey, u didnt really quit on me did u? to give me a call this weekend to ok whatever I did, sorry I guess to dont b like this, mayo—none of which I bothered answering. But that thorn in my side was shrinking by the minute, compared to the five days of absolute freedom coming my way. Well, freedom and major responsibility, but I was trying to look on the bright side.

  “Be good,” my mom said, giving me a hug and actually looking a little teary. She blinked rapidly and shook her head as if she realized she was being silly.

  “We will!” I said, hugging her back. Nat helped my dad load the little blue Prizm with a few bags of food in takeout containers, a black duffel bag, and the battered suitcases that they’d brought over when they first moved from Thailand. Then he and I watched, shivering in the slight flurries of early March snow that were coming down, as they got in and drove off, Mom waving enthusiastically through the back window until they were several blocks away and had disappeared out of sight.

  Yes! They were gone! We were free! We could do anything we wanted! We could—

  My cell phone started playing a tinny version of “Papa Don’t Preach.” Nat had apparently been on another ring tone spree. I flipped it open as he and I hurried back inside the restaurant, where it was warmer.

  “Hi, Dad,” I said. Nat raised his eyebrows and I gave him a “Duh, of course they’re calling already” shrug.

  “Just seeing if everything is okay,” he said. I could hear my mom in the background telling him to tell me to tell Nat to double check the back door lock.

  “Everything is fine, Dad,” I said. “You left thirty seconds ago.”

  “Yes, but your mom wanted to call. Okay. Good luck.”

  “Thanks. Drive safe,” I said, thinking of the snow flurries . . . although, looking out the window, I realized that they had already petered out almost completely.

  “Thank you. ’Bye.” My dad hung up. Hmmm. If they were going to call every five minutes, the next few days were going to be a lot less fun.

  Nat and I set up the restaurant that morning with military precision; we straightened tablecloths, polished silverware, and refilled the water in the tiny bud vases on every table as if our parents were still there, yelling orders at us. Then, shortly before the lunch shift started, I opened the giant walk-in freezer in the kitchen to find Nat making out with a girl. A hot girl. A girl who looked like a shorter version of Tyra Banks, actually, except this girl was wearing trendy yet nerdy black framed glasses and a distinctly not sexy Catholic school uniform under her gray peacoat.

  “Ahem,” I said. They jumped apart. Nat looked embarrassed. Short Nerdy Tyra did not.

  “Oh, hey,” said Nat. “Uh, Star, this is my sister, Maya. Maya, Star.”

  “Hi,” I said. I shook the hand that Star held out to me, and then watched as she returned it to where it had been, which was my brother’s back pocket. Christ. How did my little brother find the time to date when I couldn’t? Wait a minute. How did my little brother find the people to date when I couldn’t? Fighting the urge to simultaneously vomit and laugh, I asked Nat, “Can I talk to you outside for a second?”

  “Sure,” he said. He came out of the freezer, and Star followed him, pushing the door closed with her foot when it got stuck. She started to gamely make small talk with Krai, who just looked annoyed at her attempt. I yanked Nat through the swinging kitchen doors and out to the front of the restaurant.

  “Dude, what the hell?” I asked. “Since when are you dating her? Since when are you dating?”

  He shrugged. “We’ve been together for a few months. I figured there was no point in sneaking around when Mom and Dad aren’t here.”

  “Where does she go to school?”

  “Detroit Mercy. We met at Regionals.”

  “Wow,” I said. “Leave it to you to pick up a girl at a Science Olympiad competition.”

  “I’m the studliest of nerds,” he deadpanned, pushing up his glasses. “Wait a minute,” he added suddenly. “You’re not gonna tell on me, are you?”

  “Of course not!” I laughed. “Unless I feel like it,” I added ominously.

  “That’s not funny,” Nat said.

  “Not to you.” He really didn’t need to worry—the last time I ratted him out to our parents had been years ago, and only then because it had involved him microwaving my Justified CD—but it was fun to make him think he did. Especially since I was the one responsible for getting us through five days of restaurant operation alive.

  The Saturday lunch shift went pretty decently. It was really, really crowded, and while it didn’t exactly help that my parents called four times to demand a status report (especially when I was already on another call taking an order and had to flip back and forth between lines), things more or less went off without a hitch.

  Dinner that night was cool as well; I accidentally gave somebody ten bucks too much change when they came to pick up their takeout, but they were nice enough to point it out. Plus, it was kind of dead for a Saturday night, so I got out in plenty of time for me, Sarah, Cat, and Jonny to go to the movies, disagree completely about which one to see, attempt to rent one, disagree again, and then end up just hanging out in the parking lot of the twenty four hour Meijers until two in the morning.

  By Sunday lunch, I was pleasantly sleepy, having stayed out as late as I wanted to the previous night. We ran out of both cilantro and basil, so Nat had to run to the store for more while I held down the fort. The illegality of him driving by himself was outweighed by his fantastic mood at getting to drive by himself, and he came back without any problems, so that turned out fine.

  Sunday dinner, on the other hand . . . not so much.

  The very first people who walked in, a crabby looking middle aged couple, asked me to lower the music volume. An easy enough request, until half an hour later, when a group of already tipsy college kids asked me to turn it up. I tried to split the difference but only managed to get dirty looks from both tables instead. This distracted me enough that I accidentally switched some customers’ bags when they came in to pick up their takeout, and I had to field two different complaint calls fifteen minutes later. Neither party was motivated enough to drive back and get their free replacement food, thank God.

  Then, some crazy wine connoisseur accused me of opening his bottle of Chardonnay incorrectly, and there was a momentary panic when the sliding metal door to the dishwasher jammed. Krai managed to pry it open with a fork—thereby breaking the fork, but we all figured a broken fork is better than a useless dishwasher.

  So by the tail end of the evening, I was already pretty frazzled when Nat came over to the cash register and muttered unhappily, “Uh, that lady over there just asked to talk to the manager”—he pointed toward a pinched looking woman in the ba
ck corner—“and the manager would be you.”

  “What’s her problem?” I asked.

  “What isn’t?” He shrugged and practically sprinted back to the kitchen, which didn’t bode well.

  I sighed, smoothed out my apron and fixed my ponytail, and then went over to the table of two middle aged women, both of whom looked pretty angry.

  “Hi,” I said, looking back and forth between them. “Can I help you with something?”

  “Yes,” said Angry Lady #1, glaring at me through her bifocals. “Our orders are wrong. We both ordered the Vegetarian Red Curry, and I don’t think this is vegetarian.”

  She pointed accusingly at her curry bowl with a long red fingernail.

  “Oh, I’m sorry about that,” I said, giving them an apologetic smile. “I’ll have the kitchen fix that right up for you.”

  The curry looked pretty damn vegetarian to me—nothing but green peppers, eggplant, and tofu—and Krai gave me the world’s most withering look when I checked with him. “They ask for it veggie. I made it veggie,” he complained.

  Nonetheless, my parents are all about placating the customer, so the easiest thing to do was have him whip up another batch; it didn’t take long, and the women appeared mollified when I set the fragrant, steaming new bowls down in front of them. They started digging into it right away, both shaking their heads irritably when I asked them if they needed anything else.

  Of course, twenty minutes later, when the two women were the only people left in the restaurant, and Nat and I were both positively itching to turn the lights up and bust out the vacuum cleaner, they flagged me down again.

  “Sooo sorry to bother you, sweetie, but this is the second time in a row you got our order wrong,” said Angry Lady #1’s passive-aggressive friend. “We asked for this curry to be vegan.” She put her spoon down, leaned back in her chair, and stared up at me expectantly.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” I said, struggling for politeness and picturing my mother yelling at me to make the customers happy. “I think you said vegetarian last time, actually, but this curry is vegan as well. It’s made with coconut milk.”

  “Was it made in a separate pot?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I think so.” Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Nat approaching from the bar. He’d already changed out of his Pailin uniform and back into the Tigers World Series T-shirt he’d been wearing that morning, but he looked like he meant business.

  “You think?” asked the woman, her voice somehow dripping with both sugar and evil. “Do your people not understand English, sweetie?”

  Oh, what the—? I couldn’t believe what I’d just heard. “I understand perfectly well,” I said, trying unsuccessfully to keep the irritation out of my voice, “which is why I—”

  Angry Lady #1 cut me off. “Well then, could you make us a replacement? In a pot that has never, ever touched raw meat?” She fussed with the silk scarf around her neck, and I briefly contemplated choking her with it.

  “I’m so sorry,” Nat cut in as he stepped up next to me.

  “The kitchen just closed.” That was true. I’d sent Krai home as soon as he’d finished remaking the first curry, since he’d already stayed past the end of his shift.

  “Then you should reopen it,” the first woman said, crossing her arms and staring at me and Nat defiantly. “It’s important that this dish be completely vegan. If there’s any possibility that—”

  “I’m sorry,” I interrupted her, “but earlier you only specified vegetarian. You’re drinking an iced tea with milk in it. So obviously you’re not actually allergic—”

  “It’s not an allergy, sweetie, it’s a preference,” said the other woman. “But you know what, if you’re going to be this Difficult, just forget it. You won’t be seeing us again.”

  “That’s fine,” I snapped. Nat elbowed me. I elbowed him right back. What was the point of trying to be nice if they were just going to leave anyway?

  The two women started gathering their purses and coats, although not before sucking the very last dregs of iced tea from their straws. They threw down barely enough cash to cover the bill and headed toward the door, lecturing me the whole way. “It’s a shame that your establishment doesn’t value customer service. Or sensitivity to people’s preferences. Or proper food preparation techniques.” They were trading sentences, and their voices grew shriller with every word. “Rest assured we’ll be contacting the Health Department about this. And we’re telling all our friends to never come here!”

  “Good. We don’t want to see them either,” I muttered under my breath, shutting the door as they swept through it and flipping the sign to CLOSED. I clicked the lock and turned around to find Nat shaking his head.

  “Dude,” he said.

  “Dude,” I agreed. I looked around the dining room, thought about the mess in the kitchen, relived the entire evening in my head, and suddenly felt very, very tired. “Hey,” I said. “What if we went home right now and just did a double cleanup tomorrow night?”

  “What, just leave it as is through both the lunch and dinner shifts? That’s kind of gross,” Nat pointed out. After a moment he added, “And I love it. Let’s go.” I grinned at him, grabbed our coats, and we left the restaurant right then.

  I spent most of Monday morning totally high from the anticipation of getting to drive to school; my dad’s Prizm was with my parents in D.C., but my mom’s ancient red Corolla was all mine and Nat’s while they were gone. Sarah seemed pretty amused by my giddiness, pointing out as she climbed into the passenger seat and buckled her seat belt, “It’s not like you haven’t driven before.”

  “Yeah,” I said, slowly backing out of her driveway as her fat orange cat, Moxie, took her sweet time strolling out of the path of the wheels. “But I never got to drive to school before. I get to park in the lot today like everyone else with normal, non-paranoid parents.”

  “Yeah, but when Mom drops us off, we don’t have to walk like, eight miles,” Nat said from the backseat. An exaggeration, but he had a point—the student parking lot is huge, and if you don’t get there at least half an hour before school starts, you end up stuck way out by the baseball diamond.

  “Quit raining on my parade,” I said, gleefully speeding up in order to pass a school bus.

  “Just saying.” He leaned up against the window and pulled his baseball cap down over his face to catch another five minutes of sleep.

  “So if they’re cool with you driving now, do you think they’ll let you road trip with me to Stanford this fall?” Sarah asked. “Curb check,” she added, as I bumped the curb going around a corner. Dammit. I was never going to get good at driving if my parents didn’t let me practice more often.

  “Doubt it,” I answered. “Unless a miracle happens in between now and then.”

  “You mean a miracle like both of us getting in and getting huge scholarships, and then they’re so happy they let you do whatever you want for the rest of your life?” Sarah asked innocently.

  I laughed. “Sure. Cross those fingers.”

  “Don’t need to,” she said. “It’ll happen.”

  “Whatever you say, Pollyanna,” I joked, pulling into the school parking lot and looking for a spot. It was slow going; tons of kids kept walking into our path, and there were exactly zero free spots that I could see. Yep, we were going to be stuck way the hell out there.

  “The power of positive thinking!” Sarah said. “Oh my God, look!” Somebody pulled out of a space right by the door and I gunned into it.

  “Wow,” I said, putting the car in park.

  “Wow,” Nat echoed, opening his eyes and seeing where we were.

  “Positive thinking,” Sarah said cheerfully.

  She flung open the door, got out of the car, and promptly tripped on the hem of her extra long jeans.

  We both cracked up.

  After sixth period, I gave Sarah a ride home, told Nat that I’d pick him up after his Science Olympiad team practice, and then went to the restaurant to tall
y up the lunch receipts. I unlocked the front door; the dining room was dark and quiet.

  “Hello?” I called, walking back to the kitchen and pushing my way through the swinging doors. Krai was sitting on a stool by the prep table, waiting for me. He looked nervous; he was purposely unraveling the thread at the bottom hem of his sweatshirt, and he turned his baseball cap backward, then forward again, as I walked in.

  “What?” I asked. Krai, not much for words, silently held out a hand delivered envelope from “Richard R. Jenkins, Health Inspector.”

  Uh-oh.

  “But—but we just—they inspected us like, five seconds ago!” I stammered. Okay, it was actually months ago, but I knew for certain that we weren’t up for another inspection any time soon. “Why did you let them in?” I asked. “Never mind, obviously you had to let them in, but why did they show up?”

  Krai shrugged. “I think a customer called to complain.

  They left that here when they were done,” he said, pointing to the envelope that I was now nervously crunching in my hand.

  “Oh, for crying out—” Those harpies from last night! I couldn’t believe it! Man, they worked fast. I leaned against the edge of the prep counter with the Health Department envelope and opened it to scan the letter inside. It was probably just a warning notice. Blah blah blah inspection . . . blah blah blah complaint . . . blah blah blah violations . . . blah blah blah fines . . . blah blah blah thirty days . . . blah blah blah fifteen day grace period . . .blah blah—wait, fines?

  Uh-oh, indeed.

  I took a deep breath and read the letter again, angling myself away from Krai so that he couldn’t see it if he happened to glance over. Apparently, thanks to me blowing off the cleanup last night, the inspector had inspected us to the tune of $10,000 worth of violations. Ten grand due in six weeks. Oh my God. Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. OhmyGodohmyGodohmyGod . . .

  My hands shook as they held the letter, and I blinked like mad, trying to fight off tears as I walked out into the dining room and sank into a chair. Eight hundred for the food preparation surfaces not being properly sanitized. Three hundred for the freezer being two degrees too warm. Two hundred for the small trail of ants that had gathered where I hadn’t mopped up some spilled ice cream thoroughly enough. Four hundred for a piece of raw chicken sitting a little too close to the onions. One hundred for one of our shelves being wood instead of metal—okay, that one wasn’t my fault. But still . . . oh my God.