Reckless

“Good,” my dad continued, “do you know if Managerial Accounting will be available next term? Or is it only offered once per academic year?”

“I don’t know,” I groaned. I didn’t care either.

“Can you check?” he asked.

“I guess,” I moaned. All I wanted to do was get my parents off my back for the evening. I’d had enough of them.

“If all goes as planned,” my dad said in a positive tone, “you can register for the appropriate classes for Spring Quarter and resume your Accounting curriculum. Then you will be back on track to complete your major in four years.”

That was my parents. Making plans for me without asking how I felt about them. I was so done with this conversation.

“Do you find that acceptable, Linda?” my dad asked.

My mom sighed on the other end of the phone. “As long as she follows through, I’m fine with it,” she said to my dad. “But if we find out you have not changed your major back to Accounting, Samantha, your father and I will be having a very long discussion about whether or not we should continue paying for your education at SDU at all.”

She let that sink in.

“Fine,” I said. Were we done yet?

“And if I find out your grades are slipping because you’re spending too much time with that Christos,” Mom hissed, “rest assured, young lady, there will be hell to pay.”

“Your mother is right, Sam,” my dad said. “We’re not funding your stay at SDU so you can meet young men. You’re there to procure a degree. Period. You will have plenty of time for men when you are older.”

“Fine,” I spat. “Can I go so I can finish my dinner now?” I sounded whiny. I didn’t care.

“Yes,” my dad said curtly.

“Bye,” I sing-songed sarcastically.

“Good night,” my dad said.

“Remember what I said, Samantha Anna Smith,” my mom hissed. “Hell to pay.”

I thought to myself, Wow, I love you too, Mom.

When they didn’t say anything else, I rolled my eyes and pressed END on my phone and dropped it on my coffee table.

What was it with my parents both talking like they were minions of Satan? Or Satan himself? Which led me to the obvious question, did Satan have a wife? And was she the one in charge of the whole operation?

I didn’t know, but if Satan’s wife was anything like my mom, I was convinced she ran the show.

Whatever.

I glanced at my scrumptious Roberto’s Carne Asada burrito on the kitchen table.

My appetite was gone.

Thanks, Mom and Dad.

SAMANTHA

The next afternoon, I was back behind the counter for another brain-draining shift at Grab-n-Dash. I did my best to keep a smile on my face.

Sadly, as usual, this job and my neon-urine hot-dog-smelling uniform reminded me of all the things going wrong in my life. Yes, many things were going right, like in the Christos department, but a lot of it was Groansville.

I was pretty sure my History and Sociology grades were slipping further, and I was tired all the time. How was I going to get my grades up if I was too tired to concentrate?

Worse, my parents had become complete strangers. I mean, like, worse than they’d ever been in the past. Maybe because I’d always followed their rules. Now that I was making choices for myself, it had become clear they didn’t understand me at all. They didn’t realize that Accounting had always been the wrong place for me. Why couldn’t they see that?

When it came to my love for Christos, I was certain my mom and dad couldn’t even begin to understand. They didn’t have what Christos and I had. To me, they seemed like loveless roommates.

But Christos and I were in love.

Deeply in love.

Couldn’t my parents at least respect that, even if they didn’t understand it?

I wanted to live my life my way, not theirs.

Thinking about it any further was going to make me either throw up or break down in tears. Sadly, neither would set the right mood when a customer came in and I needed to say, “Welcome to Grab-n-Dash. How can I brighten your day?”

I tried to block everything out and focus on work.

Fortunately, it wasn’t long before the afternoon rush kicked in, distracting me from my gloomy mood. Customers rolled through the doors every thirty seconds. I generally had a line of people three-deep waiting to pay.

I was so busy cashing out the customers, I was surprised when I looked up into the eyes of Tiffany Shithouse-Mousetrap. For once, she smiled.

“You’ve finally found your calling, haven’t you?” she gloated while looking me over. “Nice baseball cap and matching shirt. The yellow goes with your teeth.” She held a 32 ounce cup of soda in her hand.

“Welcome to Grab-n-Dash. How can I brighten your day?” I winced as I said it.

Tiffany looked at me with rampant superiority. I saw the wheels behind her eyes turning. “You want to brighten my day? How about this?” She peeled the lid off her 32 ounce cup of cola.

“No, don’t—!” I held up my hand at the last second.

She jerked the cup right at me and 32 ounces of cola with minimal ice splashed onto my shirt and rained all over my shoes and the tiled floor.

“My day is definitely brighter now,” Tiffany smiled and walked out, dropping her cup on the floor. The bitch didn’t even pay.

I needed a mop. My shirt was sopping wet.

The other customers in line gave me conciliatory looks. I was ready to burst into tears, but I dutifully rang up each person in line. At some point, I realized tears were running down my face against my will, but I rang everyone up anyway.

When there was a lull in the customers, I stepped out from behind the cash counter and prepared to go into the back to find a mop or crawl into a corner and bawl my eyes out properly.

“Samantha?”

I hadn’t even heard the door bing-bong.

“Christos? What are you doing here?”

“I decided to surprise you as soon as Isabella left for the day.” He held a small but classy pink sunflower bouquet in his hands. I’d never seen anything like it. It was perfect.

More tears. But this time, it was the good kind.

He set them on the counter in front of me. When he saw my dirty shirt, he said, “What happened, agapi mou? You look like you’ve been through the ringer.”

“Would you believe Tiffany threw her soda in my face?” I sniffed, trying not to cry again.

“What?!” he asked in total disbelief.

“Yeah, like twenty minutes ago,” I wiped my runny nose on the back of my hand. “I need a tissue.”

He grabbed a napkin from beside the hot dog stand and handed it to me over the counter.

It smelled like hot dogs. I was used to it. “Thank you, Christos.”

He leaned over the counter. “This is ridiculous, Samantha. We’re barely seeing each other anymore. I’m dying without you. Painting all these nude women every day has gone from hollow to desperately lonely. It’s so much better when you’re there to keep me company. It’s like I’m painting for us, not for my rabid customers. When you’re there, I don’t care what I’m doing. I have a blast.”

“I feel the same way,” I said.