Page 106
“How far are you in the accounting book?” she says.
“Four chapters.”
“It’s not even December.”
“I was bored.”
“You were not bored. You read an accounting textbook for fun.” She looks at me. “Two weeks as a business major, and you’re already that guy.”
“What guy?”
“The guy who reads ahead.”
“You read ahead.”
“I read ahead because I have to. You read ahead because you think it’s interesting. That’s different.”
I let her have it. I don’t have a better argument.
“How’d you get into it?” I say. “The selling stuff.”
She pulls the blanket up. For a second, I think she’s not going to answer.
“I was fifteen,” she says. “I went into a Goodwill to look for a coat, and there was a pair of jeans in the men’s section with the tag still on the inside. Old ones. Six dollars. I didn’t even want them. I just turned the tag over, and it had this little stitching on it I’d never seen before, so I looked it up in the parking lot. And it was selling for ninety dollars.”
That surprises me. “That’s obscene.”
“That’s capitalism.”
And I laugh. Out loud. Short and surprised. My lip pulls where it’s split, and I don’t care.
She looks at me. Then she keeps going.
“It’s not actually ninety,” she says. “Before you say anything.”
“I wasn’t going to say anything.”
“You were doing math. I could see you doing math.”
I was. “Ninety, minus the fee.”
“Thirteen percent, roughly.”
“So seventy-eight. Minus shipping.”
“The buyer paid shipping.”
“Minus the bag.”
“The mailer is forty cents. I buy them in packs of a hundred.”
“Minus the six dollars.”
“So seventy-one and change.” She points at me with the water bottle. “On a Tuesday. When I was fifteen.”
“Minus your time.”
“I was fifteen. My time was worth nothing.”
