The Writer’s Corner features poetry, essays, short stories, satire and various fiction and non-fiction from SCAD Atlanta students. To submit your own work for the Writer’s Corner, email features@scadconnector.com.
Gratuity by Julie Tran.
The door opened with a click.
“I got groceries!” said Sheila in a sing-song voice. That meant she was in a good mood. Ann found it shockingly annoying.
Still, she managed to sound cheerful. Well, cheerful enough. “That’s great!”
The couch faced away from the kitchen, so Ann could only hear the sound of plastic bags and pantry doors opening. She didn’t have to stare back at Sheila’s sidelong glances. She could feel it, though.
“You know, you could say ‘Thank you,’ for once.”
“Thank you, Sheila.” It was almost lazy. Yet the muscles of her neck all the way down to her shoulders had tensed up.
“No, seriously, Annie. You never say thanks to me.”
“I just did, honey.”
“Why can’t you just be nice?”
“Probably the same reason you can’t stop being such a cow.”
It came out before Ann even knew it. Straight from her brain to her mouth to the room that just fell dead silent. This was ridiculous, she thought furiously to herself.
“This is ridiculous.” She did it again! Maybe this really was the day. By sheer force of will Ann pulled her stiffened body up from the couch and trotted to the door. She made a point to slam it.
She did it! She finally told Sheila off! The musty air of the hallway smelled like minty fresh freedom, and as she stomped down two flights of stairs Ann could hear blood and anger thudding righteously inside her ears. That desperate, validation-hungry, attention-seeking child stock full of self-victimization and daddy issues. Ann decided then that she would move out. Get an apartment of her own. Probably a smaller, cheaper one, though. In a worse neighborhood. Ann stopped at the first floor landing and looked around. Perhaps not a worse neighborhood; this was already pretty bad, what with the ambient fumes of sewage and skunky marijuana.
Ann’s second decision was to call Peter. They’d only been on two dates, but she had no one else to call and no possessions except for her phone. In hindsight, her dramatic exit from the apartment wasn’t very well thought-out, but she wasn’t ready to go back in yet. Luckily, Peter sounded the right amount of helpful when she explained her predicament. He would come in fifteen, he said. Dinner, on him?
Peter had a nice car. Ann had seen it, but she still made sure to say it to him when she got inside. He had one hand on her thigh, but only for a second, like an friendly pat on the back only it wasn’t her back and he wasn’t being friendly. But like a true gentleman, sort of, Peter didn’t make any more move for the rest of the ride.
“So what’s this fallout with your roommate?”
***
Dinner was good. They went to a mid-price restaurant well-decorated enough to be “fancy,” and Peter listened with a smile to her long-bottled tirade. She felt kind of bad not being able to even fight for the check at the end, considering there wasn’t a cent on her, but thought she made up for it pretty fairly by asking him to a coworker’s dinner party this weekend. Peter would look good in a suit.
“You’d look good in a suit.”
“Oh, I absolutely would.” He was wearing a T-shirt and a blazer, the expensive kind. Peter explained to her what he did for a living on their first date, but she didn’t really understood then and the conversation moved on too fast for her to double around and ask. She watched him calculating the tip with a frown. Not something to do with numbers, then.
“Tipping sucks, doesn’t it?”
Peter looked up from the tab. “Kind of. But it’s what you do.”
“Why do you, though?” Maybe she’d overdrunk a little bit. “Did you tip that guy who showed us our table?”
“Well, yes.” Peter didn’t know where she was going with this. The smile was only half hanging on his face. “The job doesn’t pay very well.”
“Well then they should get paid more! Not by us.”
“I hear they make more money this way, though.” He signed the tab with a flourish squiggle. Ann watched him set it down with distaste.
“But why should we be responsible for that?” They didn’t owe the waiter ten dollars and sixty cents directly from hand to hand with no dish in the middle. Ann leaned forward in her chair. If Peter thought she was a horrible person, his face didn’t show it. “I can just pay more for the food, you know. Pay it all off in one go.”
“That’s just not how it’s done, Annie,” Peter replied, patiently and slowly like a father explaining simple concepts to a rather slow child.
They finished their drinks and left. Peter asked where she wanted to go. It was obvious she was supposed to say “your place.”
“My apartment, if you please. I have some packing to do.”
Peter’s pleasant smile faltered just a little. “So you’re really moving out?”
“It’s either that or giving Sheila a medal every time she takes out the trash or pick up toilet paper.”
“Or give her a ten-dollar tip.”
“Yeah, because that’s how it’s done, right?”
“It really is!”
Peter didn’t just drop her off. He parked his car and followed her upstairs. His invitation was implied, apparently.
They kissed in the hallway and made out against the door. Sheila would be in her room by now, she didn’t believe in watching TV late at night, but Ann pulled away and said that Sheila might be inside.
“So we don’t do it on the couch,” said Peter with a laugh. He leaned in again but Ann sidestepped him.
“I really do have a lot of packing to do, Pete.”
Peter laughed again, like he couldn’t believe she was being serious. “Come on, Annie. I can help you pack.”
And in his eyes was expectation, expectation that she recognized, because it was after the third date and he had after all paid for dinner and it had after all been a pleasant evening. Ann’s fingers fumbled with the keys and the lock and the knob, and although in her was still a stray thought of slipping in and locking Peter out, she knew that she would open the door all the way and let him in, just like she knew that he wasn’t going to help her pack because she wasn’t going to move out, like she knew she would go back to that restaurant where everyone asked so much of her for the basic little in exchange, because being indebted was the way it is, and she hadn’t the courage to veer away.
