Erik was sort of thankful for his co-worker at his morning job. He had given him the natural excuse to talk to the pretty girls this morning, but he was also getting the feeling that he had also been trying to set him up with one of them. That could never happen, no matter how nice they were, they were still miles out of his league. He only had to look at what they had been wearing this morning to know that they were most definitely rich.
They had been covered in expensive jewelry that he, nor any of his sisters could ever afford in a million years. He only knew how expensive it was, because his sisters had found an old fashion catalog for a store that was now obsolete and had spent an afternoon looking through it and daydreaming. Although some of the jewelry the girls had been wearing was old, the rest was equally as shiny and expensive looking. After seeing what his sisters had been dreaming and sighing over, he had looked into seeing if there was anything in the catalog he could find that he could eventually afford.
However, after looking up the store, he found out it had gone out of business over a decade ago and it had been a high-end fashion brand for people his mom's age. Or at least people her age a decade ago. The store's documented range of prices started in the minimum of the triple-digits and moved into the quad range for certain items. He couldn't even afford to get the cheapest of items from there even if the store had still been in business.
As the morning progressed, Erik happily served a variety of customers without a single issue. His work was recognized, and he had been praised by his coworkers for quickly memorizing the drink orders for the regular customers. He didn't think it was a big deal, but apparently not a single one of his coworkers could memorize that many drink orders. They had to look up the customer with their loyalty reward info. His co-worker that pushed him out the door with the cookies for the girls this morning was familiar with the girls apparently because he had gone to their school last year and recognized them as regulars since he had started this job.
After his shift ended, he ended up with a generous amount of tips that completely blew his mind. He tried to argue that there was a mistake, but his manager showed them the receipt information with all the tips calculated. The biggest tippers were the orders of drinks that he had made for the three rich girls. He recognized it by what was ordered. Apparently, they were commonly large tippers, but this morning was the biggest tip they had ever left before. He was astounded that these girls were able to just give that money away so easily.
After securing his tips on a temporary bank card, Erik made his way across town to his second job of the day. It took an hour by bus to get there, but at least the pay was rather decent, compared to the rest of the places in the area that he had interviewed at. It was a fast-food joint that had persisted over the years with the most ridiculous mascot. He didn't know how anyone would buy food from a weird mascot, but he guessed that there were some really odd things from history that he would never understand.
This particular job wasn't as bad as his grocery store gig, but it wasn't as fun and pleasant as his coffee shop gig. He could do this job well enough, it wasn't hard, but it was difficult when the customers got out of hand. Although the trade off was that he could get a free burger, fries, and a drink here after his shift or for his lunch. It was the only time he ever had fast-food. When a burger and fry combo started at $20 for the cheapest, it was in no way the bargain that others saw it as since he couldn't afford to waste money on it. For the same cost, he knew if he was careful, he could feed his family from discount items at the grocery store to make a meal out of. Although sometimes the meat was questionable when it came to its expiration date, since the meat managers just slapped new expiration stickers on them when it was close to expiring when they put it in the discount section.
He was about 2 hours into his shift when he heard over the dull roar of the kitchen, a distinctive laugh and musical voice he would have a hard time forgetting. The girls he had seen earlier had come into the restaurant. Their leader, Liona, as the other girls referred to her, shone brightly in a stunning outfit that looked straight out of an advertisement. The only thing different about her from this morning was that her hair seemed to glow in a reddish-blond halo around her and had been styled to suit her sweetheart face shape. It framed her beautiful blue-green eyes and highlighted that smile that did strange things to his belly. As she got closer, he could almost make out what might be freckles on her nose, but it was hard to tell with her make-up.
"Hi! Omygosh! Erik?! This is really a too small world!" Liona exclaimed to the giggles and playful nudges of her friends.
He didn't respond, and just plastered his working, customer service smile on his face and indicated he was ready to take their order. Between the three girls, they ordered a mountain of food and the more expensive bottomless drink option. That meant that they could re-fill their drinks as many times as they wanted for twice what a normal drink would cost. Their burgers and chicken sandwich options were also some of the priciest on the menu, but they didn't bat an eye when he rang up the total of nearly $100 bucks for three orders of food and drinks. He could feed his entire family for a day on that, and they were spending it on a single meal…
He tried not to feel bitter as he accepted the payment. It was again Liona who paid for her friends and her. Looking down as he took her payment, he noted that her nails had been manicured and had a fresh sparkle and pretty designs on them. As their fingers brushed when their hands briefly met he felt that little jolt of static electricity run up his arm and down his spine, making him shiver involuntarily. He made the mistake of looking into Liona's eyes and saw the same surprise and shock on her face, but it quickly turned into a smile as he snatched his hand back. He ran her card with no problems, not that he expected the card of a rich kid to ever be declined and handed it back to her. This time he was careful about not touching her in the process.
Once the girls had paid, they left to go sit down, but just his luck, they chose a table near enough to the counter that he could hear their idle chit-chat. Most of their chatter was typical of what he expected rich girls to be interested in, which was fashion, hair, makeup, the works, but what he did not expect was that they were subtly asking their leader history questions revolving around when this or that fashion style was popular. Even he who didn't know a thing about fashion knew the eras they were talking about.
When their food was ready, he was instructed to take it to their table since it was slow right now. He groaned inwardly at his manager's request but did as he was told. It wasn't as if it was uncommon to do this, it was just that he didn't want to keep interacting with these girls. He just felt that he had seen way too much of them in the short time that he had been living in this city. When he approached the table, he was startled by a loud groan coming from Liona. She burst out and whined that these history questions were too hard.
"WHY! How do you all find this so easy, Chloe, Alli? It's not fair!" He heard her say as he carefully set the food on the table.
"Come on, Liona! You've got to get some of these right! What if you fail your finals?! What then? Your parents will cancel your birthday party! If you flunk completely and don't graduate, we don't get our grad trip either!" Erik heard one of the other girls exclaim.
"I know! I'm trying! I just don't understand! I can't figure out how you put two and two together to come up with these quizzes for me, let alone pass history! At least with Literature, Auntie is helping me as much as possible, but I don't have that luxury with the other subjects I'm failing!" He heard Liona whine as he stepped back behind the counter.