“What do teachers make? Fifty? Sixty?”
“Sixty to eighty-five, depending on several factors. I’m somewhere in the middle of that.”
“And the diner?”
“Most of my checks are voided. You know, for taxes. They take it out of the two-whatever I make on the books.”
“And off?”
“Average night is about one-fifty to three, thanks to the location. And the fact that I’m usually working alone.”
“So, say that’s another forty? Combined, one-ten. That’s not a huge amount of money, but it should get you a ticket out of this neighborhood at least. Then tack on what we’re kicking you. That’s, what, another sixty? One-seventy. That’s a good egg.”
“Your math skills are pretty impressive,” I said.
“Learn a lot about counting when you work the streets as a kid. Where’s the money going, Whitney?” he asked, and I swear there was a weird shivering sensation up my spine as he said my name. But, like, a good spine shiver. I didn’t even know those existed. “You got a shoe shopping problem? Gambling? Debts?”
“That’s just… incredibly personal,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest. “But, no. It’s none of those things. It’s… it’s my sister.”
“Ah,” he said, nodding, putting it together. “You’re the one footing the bill for her education. You know you don’t have to do that, right? Most parents don’t even do that anymore.”
Yeah, well, it was a little more complicated than that.
But that was not exactly my story to tell, was it?
“I don’t have to, no. But I want to. And, unfortunately, it isn’t cheap. So the more I can work, the more I can save, and then the less worries I will have moving forward.”
I mean, chances were, Wren would be in college for four years. At minimum. That was, what, a little over thirty-grand per year for a grand total of one-hundred-twenty grand, all said and done?
That was a big nut to cover.
Sure, it was much easier done thanks to the hush money. But if that went away six months or a year from now, I would be back to square one. Wouldn’t it make more sense to work as much as possible for the time being, save it all, and then have the money waiting for me to use when I needed it?
“You gotta have time to live your life too, baby,” he said, bringing his plate back into the kitchen to put it in the sink, which put him way too close to me.
Dangerously close.
Close enough that I could smell his cologne.
Did I take a few deep breaths to breathe it in?
Yes, yes, I did.
“I will. When all this is done,” I said, nodding.
“That’s not how it works. You’re not promised that day when all this shit is done. So you’re breaking your back day in and day out for some day you might never get. It’s a waste of a life, babe. Trust me. I wasted fifteen years of mine. I know a thing or two about this.”
“I get what you’re saying,” I said. “Really, I do. I think all the time about the years I’ve spent mostly just surviving, but what am I supposed to do? I have to work. Iwantto help my sister. It doesn’t leave a hell of a lot of time for anything else.”
He clearly had a lot of money.
And, sometimes, it was really difficult for people who did to understand what it was like not to. To know that daily struggle, the constant worry, the way you were constantly trying to find ways to lighten the load of that burden.
It was in the big things, of course, like getting a second job. Or even letting your phone get cut off so you could pay for the lights.
It was just as much in the smaller things, though, too.
Like putting back the “good” three-dollar canned soup for the cheap tomato concentrate. It was learning to be okay with brittle hair because the conditioner that works for you just costs more than you can excuse to pay for it. It was putting things in your cart—both online and in the store—and then taking it all back out again.