CHAPTER TWO
Sarah
An hour and a half later it’s finally my turn to talk with a financial aid coordinator. I step into the next available cubicle, and hand my note to the bald dude in a pink shirt and tie. He’s got a wedding ring on his hand, so I amuse myself by imagining that his wife picks out his clothes for him. She could probably paint their whole house pink and he’d just smile and sit there in his pink shirt.
By the time I sit down I have myself worked into a frenzy about losing my financial aid and getting fired for showing up late for my shift. Why don’t I ever get good news?
“Let’s see what this is about,” he says as he opens a different program on his computer.
“Is it something serious?” I ask worriedly.
“Hmm,” he says non-committedly as he reads the screen, then looks back to me. “Okay, here’s the problem. You filed independent, but you’re only 21?”
“Yes?” I answer, confused if he’s asking a question or making a statement. “Is that a problem?”
“Well, it can be. You didn’t provide any proof of why you are filling independently. We can just change your application to filing dependent of your parents, and it should go right through. You’ll need to have them to sign this,” he says as he slides a piece of paper toward me.
“No, that’s not possible.”
He looks at me with genuine concern, something I’m amazed by, considering how many students he’s helped today.
“Is there some reason you can’t file with your parents?”
I nod my head yes, now in full blown panic mode. He rummages through the files in his desk and hands me another piece of paper.
“Okay, in order to file independently you’ll need a letter from someone, like a clergyman or teacher explaining why you need to file independent from your parents. Examples I’ve seen filed in the past are usually some sort of abusive situation. After we get the letter back I’ll put this in review. The process may take up to a month. In the meantime you can attend classes until we get a definitive answer.”
I keep my head down staring at the papers in my hands as he continues talking.
“If the application gets denied you won’t qualify for your scholarship money, which means you won’t be able to continue here as a student unless you set up a payment plan. It’s best to go ahead and set that up now in case your independent status is denied. Here’s an application for that.”
“A payment plan?” I ask in confusion. “But, how can I make payments now? I’m going to school full time and working as many hours as I can get just to make ends meet.”
“And there’s no way you can file under your parents?”
I shake my head no, and stuff the papers he gave me into my backpack as I stand to leave. It’s so unfair. I’m barely making ends meet as it is, and now I have to make loan payments too. I can’t file dependent, because then the Covenant of Man cult members will know exactly where I am. And then all the financial aid in the world won’t be able to help me because they’ll drag me back and force me into marriage and indentured “wombitude”.
“I’ll need your completed paperwork by the end of the week, but you can still attend classes for now,” he says kindly as I flee the room.
I glance at my watch as I run out of the building. I’m going to be late. The next bus won’t be for another fifteen minutes, and that’s assuming I can make it to the bus stop in that amount of time. I wish I could use my cell phone to call work to explain I’m running late, but I only have a few prepaid minutes left. I need to save them for an emergency. I book it through the ice and sludge as fast as I can run, and just barely make the bus. I collapse in the first empty seat and hang my head so no one can see my face as tears seep quietly down my cheeks. Why can’t I just get a break? I wonder. ]
***
“What a lousy day,” I mutter under my breath as my last table clears out and leaves a pathetic one dollar tip. I tuck the cash into my apron pocket. The pocket is, unfortunately, pretty flat--business has been slow and the tips meager today. Don’t these people know or care that tips are pretty much the only money servers earn? Stan pays me next to nothing, so I rely on good tips to even get my income up to minimum wage. I need a better job, but that won’t happen until I get my degree.
The restaurant I work at used to be called Old Peoria Steakhouse. Back in the day it was a pretty popular place. That was many years ago. It was already getting pretty run down by the time the aliens invaded earth. After the Krinar invasion, AKA K Day, eating meat was highly discouraged.
Prices inflated so astronomically that no one could afford to eat animal products anymore. Stan bought the restaurant for next to nothing and changed the name slightly, because you can’t call something a Steakhouse if there isn’t even meat on the menu. Lots of things changed after K Day, and in the grand scheme of things the dive of a restaurant didn’t even register.
Successful restaurants hired talented vegan chefs to serve tantalizing fare. But Stan preferred to do things on a budget. So, instead of adding vegan delicacies he just dropped the meat options from the existing menu. It became a vegan restaurant by omission, and everything was just kind of blah as a result. He’d employed the same tactics with the sign outside, using black paint to cover the word Steakhouse. So now the name was just ‘Old Peoria’. Yes, our menu is mostly vegan, but it’s pretty basic American fare: baked potatoes, steamed or fried vegetables, bread, uncreative salads with croutons, two cherry tomatoes, and non-dairy ranch or French dressing.
As I stack the dirty dishes and wipe off the table, I glance again at my watch. My heart sinks as I realize that back at the university the special credit lecture I was supposed to be at would be wrapping up any minute. I’ve missed any hope of attending.
Stan gives me the evil eye. He’s been doing that ever since I raced in here two hours late this morning. I tried to explain about the problems in the financial aid office, but he was mad and didn’t want any details. If he would have listened I could have told him about my bus getting caught in the traffic for the K-Day parade. What a nightmare that was. Traffic was flat out gridlocked. All of the cross streets were closed for the path of the parade. There was no way to get through the congestion.
People had come from all over the Midwest to march in support of the K’s. Who plans a parade in Illinois in January? It’s like Antarctica here! This was just about the most stupid thing ever! Big banners and floats boasted all of the ways the K’s had improved life for us ordinary humans. Not all of us were as enthusiastic.
Giant portable movie screens projected videos showing how K technology has enhanced our own archaic knowledge. Displays showed how humankind was now healthier because the K’s had set us straight on how we should be eating. Diabetes, cancer, and heart disease were at an all-time low for recent history because of the decrease of animal products in our diet. Our planet earth was healthier too. Blah, blah, blah. I still wanted a burger.
I honestly don’t care one way or another about the K’s and their presence here on earth. My life is messed up enough without having to obsess over anything I can’t change. I was just mad that the stupid parade made me even later for work. After sitting at a dead stop in the bus for nearly twenty minutes, with no end to the parade in sight, I finally bolted off the bus, and ran the rest of the way to work. I was embarrassed when I had to cross right through the path of the parade, but I did it anyway. I dodged behind a marching band and in front of a float with a tethered twenty foot tall balloon of a gorgeous male K with a cheesy smile on his face.
When I got to the other side of the street I just kept running, and skidding. My heart felt like it was going to burst by the time I made it to the restaurant. Stan looked about ready to blow a cork when I rushed in the door. He threatened to fire me on the spot, and would have done so if he wasn’t shorthanded already. I’d tossed my backpack in the corner, thrown on an apron, and have been working non-stop ever since.
His mood hasn’t gotten any better in the past eight hours I’ve been here. I tried to leave at my regular time so that I could attend an assembly with a guest lecturer back on campus. I attempted to explain to Stan how important it was. My professor said we’d get extra credit if we attended. I told him my professor said we’d need to bring a program brochure and take a short quiz to prove we had attended.
As usual Stan just didn’t care about my personal drama. He made me stay an extra two hours to make up for the time I’d missed. I hadn’t had a lunch break, or any break for that matter. My stomach growled letting me know I hadn’t eaten anything today.
I glanced in Stan’s direction to see if he was watching me, then grabbed a couple pieces of leftover garlic toast from the table I was clearing. People usually didn’t eat all of the bread from the bread basket I placed on each table. I shoved it in my apron for later. Judge me if you want, but priorities change once you’ve experienced true hunger.
Stan was too cheap to even give his employees free meals. That didn’t stop me from grabbing a few leftovers each day. It was amazing how much food people wasted at a restaurant. I had a zero dollar grocery budget, so I wasn’t too proud to eat their garbage. I just had to make sure Stan didn’t catch me.
“Can I go now?” I ask Stan after I’ve finished clearing the table.
“I guess so. But make sure you’re here on time tomorrow. No excuses,” Stan growls.
I smile and wave goodbye as I leave. Well aren’t you Mister Sunshine, I think sarcastically. Silent sarcasm is one of the few luxuries I allow myself. It doesn’t cost anything and it just has a way of brightening up even the dourest of situations.
Fortunately, I’m just in time to make the bus at the corner stop. I glance at my watch. I’m dead tired, but decide to go by the lecture hall anyway. The event will be over, but I’ve had a brilliant idea. Well at least I hope it’s brilliant, albeit it’s a bit of a grey area so far as ethics go . . . maybe even a dark shade.
After a short ride—thankfully the K Parade is long over—I arrive back on campus. The temperature has dropped significantly now that it’s dark. I really need to get a coat. I’m relieved that the door is unlocked, and that I can still get into the building. There are a few people exiting, but the place looks pretty deserted. I make my way to the lecture hall and thankfully the lights are still on.
Just one. That’s all I need, I think. I look around, but unfortunately it looks as if no one left a program. That figures. I’m not ready to give up quite yet so I look harder. Eureka! I spot a program on the floor under the bleachers, and set my backpack down to investigate. I lay flat on my belly and reach as far as I can, but can’t quite get it with my arm. I’m pretty skinny, so I decide to slip off my boot, and slide my legs in between the bleachers, hoping to grab it with my toes.
“Gotcha!” I say out loud as my toes come in contact with the program. “Eww! What’s that?” I wonder as my toes stick in some gooey substance. I pull my legs back out and the program is stuck to the toes of my foot with a bright pink blob of bubble gum. “Gross!”
“Just what do you think you’re doing?” a deep male voice asks right behind me.
Startled, I jerk back and crack the back of my head on the metal bleacher, which sounds like a gunshot in the empty hall. I wince as I spin around to see who crept up on me.
It’s him. The dream-boat from this morning. What’s he doing here? I can’t believe it’s possible, but he’s even better looking up close. I’m staring at him. I really need to stop that.
“What are you doing?” he repeats as he stares with interest at the gum covered program stuck to my foot.
Why is he here? What’s wrong with me? My stomach is doing flip-flops. I can’t seem to talk. He’s literally taken away my ability to speak. And who does he think he is that I need to explain myself to him, anyway? Maybe if I just say something, I’ll be able to get away from here.
“I came for the lecture.”
“But the lecture is over.”
“Obviously.”
“What does that have to do with crawling under the bleachers?”
“I needed a program.”
“Was there a shortage?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“Because?”
“Because . . . because . . . I wasn’t here for the lecture,” I finally admit.
“Aah. The plot thickens. Is there some kind of monetary value for these programs?”
“No, of course not.”
“Are you so interested in the subject matter that you’ll go to great lengths to learn more?”
“Well, no. In fact I could care less.”
He looked at me with a tell-me-more expression and the rest of my sad story came spilling out.
“But one of my professors offered extra credit if we attended and brought back a program as proof. I’ll also have to take a short quiz to prove I was here for the lecture.”
“Which you weren’t.”
“No, I wasn’t,” I say, glaring angrily at him. It’s not like I’m an actual criminal, but that’s how he makes me feel.
His laughter erupts, filling the auditorium.
That just pisses me off. It’s bad enough he caught me pathetically crawling under the bleachers for a gum-wadded program, but now he’s laughing at me? I detach the sticky wad of gum from my foot and use the program to wipe off the last pieces before I stick my foot back into my sock, and then into my well-worn, oversized boot. I don’t have to stick around for this abuse.
I grab my backpack and spin around to make a graceful exit. At least in my mind it’s graceful. That is until right up to the point where my backpack snags on the end of the bleacher. The old material is worn and frayed. As I try to bolt away it rips, splitting in half. The entire contents, complete with my stale toast scraps, spill to the wooden floor. There goes breakfast lunch and dinner.
“You might want to buy a new backpack,” he comments wryly.
It’s all I can do to resist the urge to punch him in his smug face.
“Maybe I don’t want to buy a new backpack. That’s one of the things wrong with people. They’re constantly buying new things instead of repairing and re-using what they already have.” I stare at his two thousand dollar suit as if to make my point.
He doesn’t seem fazed by my contempt over his extravagant choice in clothes, so I continue. “Why do you think we have an epidemic of landfills in this country? Because more people need to learn to reduce, reuse, and recycle. In fact I think I’ll recycle this program, just to prove my point.”
I can tell he’s barely constraining his laughter, but he does show a bit of chivalry by bending down to help me pick up my things. He picks up the toast and lifts one questioning eyebrow as he looks at me. I snatch it from his outstretched hand and shove it in with my books and papers. I hate being this hungry. It was bad enough taking it off some stranger’s table, and now it’s touched the floor.
I’m not quite sure how I’m going to keep everything inside. The backpack now has more holes than solid material. I’m folding it in half like a burrito, and wrapping the straps around it to seal the stuff in when he picks up a briefcase, sets it on the bleachers, and snaps it open. With a flourish he hands me a pristine program.
“If it wouldn’t offend your delicate tree hugging sensibilities to take an additional program. I know you’re quite literally attached to the one you pilfered from under the bleachers,” he chuckles softly.
I stand in shocked silence as the implication dawns on me of who he is.
“And here is my outline . . . so you can study and pass the quiz.”
OMG. He’s the speaker! How utterly mortifying!
“Don’t worry, it will be our own little secret,” he says in a sexy conspiratorial voice.
I am literally too shocked and embarrassed to reply. So, I turn tail and run. I hate my life. I wish the ground would reach up and swallow me. But then who would look out for Amy?