Ella's Twisted Senior Year(7)
She makes this little pout. “You’re buying my food, right? I don’t have any money.”
“Sure,” I say, looking over her head to see one of the TVs on the wall. They’re showing a destroyed trailer house and interviewing some panic-stricken old man about it. A marque at the bottom of the screen says that so far there haven’t been any deaths, just a lot of injuries.
“Dude, Ethan should buy all of our food,” Toby says, turning around and wiggling his eyes at me.
I look at the woman behind the counter who’s taking the orders. “No.”
She laughs and Toby reluctantly pulls out his wallet. “Ethan is an ass, you know that?” he tells her. She gives him his change and he moves over to let Keith order. “The bastard could afford to take us all out for steak dinners but he’s only going to pay for his girl. That’s screwed up, man.”
Keith takes a sip from the drink the cashier just gave him. “If you don’t want him to be so rich, stop buying his shirts.”
Kennedy narrows her eyes at them. “Keep buying the shirts, boys.”
One of the guys behind us calls her a gold digger and she makes this little curtsey that I’m sure she thinks is cute. It kind of rubs me the wrong way.
We all come from families that are fairly well off, but we have parents who want us to earn money ourselves. Everyone except Kennedy has a job and while yeah, I’m happy to pay for my girlfriend because it’s the southern gentlemanly thing to do, she could at least say thanks once in a while.
The guys actually have no idea how much money I’m making and my job is so great it doesn’t even have me reporting to a boss every day after school. While Toby and Keith both work at the Car Check for minimum wage, changing oil and inspecting cars, I work from home, off my computer.
It started out as kind of a joke. I’d drawn up this funny design of our school mascot, the shark. He was waving pompoms and had bloodied teeth with a speech bubble that said the sharks never lose. The whole thing was satire really, but the teachers loved it and wanted it on T-shirts for the next pep rally. I found out you can upload digital art online to this website and they’ll let you create a storefront website where you earn commission on every shirt sold. People order the shirt online and the company makes the shirt and ships it out. I don’t have to do anything but keep coming up with artwork.
Now nearly everyone in school has at least one of my shirts. Kennedy claims that their popularity is based on her popularity and says no one would care about them if we weren’t dating. I haven’t told her that sales haven’t increased or decreased since we started dating a month ago. They’ve stayed exactly the same.
Kennedy is the kind of girl who likes taking credit for things, and I’m the kind of guy who doesn’t like getting yelled at for disagreeing.
We order our food at take a seat at the only table that’s big enough for all of us. It’s a massive L-shaped booth and Kennedy insists that we slide into the bend part of it so there’s more room. It kind of makes me feel like a kid surrounded by adults on either side of me, but whatever.
Mom calls, and since I’m stuck between two hungry athlete friends who have become one with their food, I know I can’t ask them to get up. Kennedy looks over my shoulder. “Who is it?”
I point the phone to her so she can see my mom’s name and picture and stop wondering if it’s some girl. When do I ever talk to some girl that’s not her?
“Hello?”
“Hey, kiddo,” Mom says, drawing her words out happily. I’ll bet my entire T-shirt company that she’s with her best friend in Houston, drinking more than one glass of wine.
“Hey, Mom. What’s up?”
“Just hanging out with Melissa. We were so into our movie that we didn’t even realize there was a tornado up there. I’m guessing you’re fine though, right? Dad’s stuck at work for a meeting so we won’t be back for a while. I’ll be heading home soon.”
“I’m fine, but you should sober up first before you drive anywhere, Mom.”
Mom’s not a drunk by any means, but her monthly visits to Melissa’s house have her acting like a wild college girl again. It is incredibly gross when she comes home and dad’s there. They’re the very reason why the phrase ‘get a room’ was invented.
“Psh, I’m not that drunk, dear. I’ll be home soon. Be careful! Love you!”
I roll my eyes. Keith looks at me over the burger gripped in his hands. “Did she tell you to hurry up and get home because the weather’s going to get bad again?” Everyone laughs at his spot on impression of his own mother, who is by all accounts, highly overprotective and has the gruffest voice ever.
“Nah,” I say, grabbing a fry. “Is it supposed to get bad again?”
I look over at the TV, still showing news coverage of the tornado. Looks like most of the damage was done to the next town over, but some of the destroyed buildings and homes I recognize as being from Hockley. They don’t show our neighborhood though, so I guess our house is fine.
The last time I remember a tornado getting this close, I was about eleven. It was during the summer just before school started and Ella was at our house. She was always at our house during the summer when her parents worked because my mom stays home with my sister and me.
The thought of Ella, yet again today, makes my appetite fly out of the window but I keep stuffing fries in my mouth, if only to look normal.