AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I see Jessica pull her shoulders back and stick her chin out. Here we go again. Her battle stance.
“I’d like to speak to your manager,” she says.
“I am the manager.”
“Great, well, then you must be aware that this is your mistake, not ours. I’d like to suggest you find us fifty yards of a replacement fabric, same color, of the same or higher weight, but at the amount quoted to us. And please make sure to include two copies of the receipt, one in the bag and I’ll take the other copy.”
The manager just stares at her.
“Why don’t you go in the back and find some comparable fabric,” I say to the manager as I pull out my wallet with its not-so-subtle Gucci emblem on the front. Money talks.
“Elijah, no...” Jessica reaches out trying to take my wallet out of my hand. “Can I speak to you over here please?” Jessica hisses and she grabs my arm, pulling me to a corner next to a ream of shockingly bright neon-pink leopard print velvet. “We’re on a budget,” she says, emphasizing each word.
“Fine, we’re on a budget. But we also need fabric. So, how about we just, ya know, expand that budget a few hundred dollars? What’s the big deal?”
“The big deal is that’s not how this works,” she says.
“Fuck, it’s like what, the cost of one dinner at Nobu?”
Her eyes grow huge as she leans in and whispers, “A dinner at Nobu is a few hundred dollars?”
Cute. Again. Per usual, actually.
I meet her lean and raise her a whisper directly in her ear. She smells different than she did when I first met her at the airport. It’s all those expensive bath products. I preferred her no-frills scent from before—simple and clean but so intoxicating. “No, come to think of it, that wouldn’t even cover the first course,” I tease.
I don’t miss her full body shiver. She closes her eyes for a second, and when she pulls back and opens them again, I swear fire shoots straight at me. “Elijah, wake up. This is the real world. It’s not your ivory castle. You can’t just ignore cost and budget and money here.”
Not gonna lie, that ivory castle comment stings a little. “I’m not so removed from the world that I’m naive to how it works. In fact, I may look at money differently, but I’d bet I’m more in tune with what makes the world go ’round than you are. I’ve traveled. I’ve seen it firsthand. From what I recall, you’ve barely ever left Southern California.”
Her nostrils flare and I think for a second that I’ve crossed the line. It’s not the first time she’s been so caught up about finances. It’s why I can’t—I won’t—tell her my secret...that I put a ten-thousand-dollar payment on my personal credit card to secure the library for the hackathon. I’ll deal with that fallout later, after the event is over.
It’s all just more reason why nothing could ever happen between the two of us. She’s infuriatingly uptight about money and it drives me nuts. Our worlds are just too different, farther apart than even the six thousand miles between Seoul and Southern California.
When she finally speaks, her words are like ice. “I may not have been given the privilege to travel the world. I may not be able to just carelessly spend hundreds of dollars on a meal. I have to earn what I get, and that doesn’t make me any lesser than you. I have been working my butt off planning this hackathon, which includes sticking to the budget, because this job means something to me. How are you going to run this company one day if you don’t understand the importance of balance sheets? This isn’t some game for you to play—people’s livelihoods are at stake.”
She might as well have slapped me in the face. Does she really think that I believe I’m better than her because of the family I was born into? How do I explain that throwing money at a problem is all I know how to do? How do I explain that I’m in awe of her work ethic, of her relentlessness to make her vision for this event a reality?
I don’t say anything. I just close my eyes and roll my head back, wishing I was anywhere but here. Wishing I was as far away from Haneul as possible. And here I was thinking I was actually enjoying working this summer.
When I open my eyes, Jessica has already returned to the register, negotiating the price and reducing the number of yards of fabric to remain in budget. And my envy of her capability curdles in my stomach. I accused her of not knowing how the world works, but really it’s me who’s too much of a pathetic, privileged asshole to accomplish the simplest of tasks.
I keep my distance until Jessica wraps up the sale. Then I grab the two bags of fabric she’s secured, and without a word, the two of us leave the store.
15
elijah
It’s eight o’clock by the time we’re done at the fabric store and the other face of New York takes over. People gathered outside the hottest new restaurants waiting for a table for dinner. Couples walking hand in hand in extravagant outfits that seem to clash with the dirty city streets. The sounds and the energy are different in this city at night.
But in this taxi, it’s dead silent. Jessica hasn’t said a word.
My phone rings and I look down at the screen.
“Shit,” I mutter.
Jessica turns to me as I press “Reject.”
I meet her eyes. “My dad. He’s been trying to set up a check-in with me via his assistant. But I’ve ignored all the requests. I guess he’s not too happy about that. He never calls me directly.”
