Sorority Girls With Guns (5 page)

“
Oh, and what’s going to be in that one?” I ask loudly. The Toyota table nearest us has stopped eating and is staring at us now. “More hair? I can’t believe a restaurant that charges
seven dollars
for a salad can’t even serve it without hair! I want to speak to your manager.”

Five minutes later, Hoolio is bringing a new salad as the manager, a short, squat, balding man, apologizes profusely. “I’m very sorry, ma’am. I’m not sure how the hair got into your salad, but I can assure you that our kitchen staff has very strict regulations about wearing hairnets.” He looks at Hoolio, and I suddenly get a bad feeling that I’m about to get the poor guy fired, and I really don’t want to do that. Looking like a heartless bitch on my vlog won’t win me fans! Also, I sort of like Hoolio, despite his ridiculously made-up name.

“
I have a really good idea,” I say, pointing at the manager’s half-bald, half combed-over blonde head. “I think we’ve just solved the mystery of where all your hair is disappearing to.”

Hoolio starts to snicker, then thinks better of it and coughs into his sleeve.

“
I was nowhere near your salad,” the manager sputters. Obviously, he’s not going to fire himself. He might, however, do whatever it takes to make a customer happy…

“
Again, I don’t know how the hair got in your salad, but I see that we’ve prepared a new one, and I’ll be sure to speak with the kitchen staff to make sure it never happens again,” he says.

“
You just said they all wear hairnets. What you should do is get yourself one,” I say, leaning over to examine my new salad.

“
And as an apology for this unfortunate incident, your meal will be on the house tonight,” the manager continues.

Matt coughs loudly. “We’re, um, all very upset by this. I’m starting to worry about what might have been on my steak. Or in my potato, buried under all that artery-clogging cheese and bacon you people drown it in…”

Tiffany catches on and jumps in. “What if my salad had a hair in it and I ate it? What am I supposed to do, drink a bottle of Nair?”

“
No, no-“ the manager starts, but she cuts him off by standing up, jumping onto her chair, and banging a spoon against her water glass.

Now where does she get off stealing my spotlight, the underhanded bitch?

“
Everyone, I’d like you to know that there was a hair in my friend’s salad, and there may be one in yours, so you should all go home and drink some Nair!” she announces.

All of a sudden everyone in the room, even the half-hungover, half-drunk frat boys, has fallen totally silent.

I realize, with horror, that once again, someone else has upstaged me. Tiffany, in her obvious ploy to get a free meal in more or less the same way I did, stumbled upon the viral video moment without even trying. Why is it so fucking easy for some people and not for me?

As the manager assures Tiffany that all of our meals will be on the house, one of the frat boys drunkenly lurches to his feet and asks, “I just drank half a keg. Nair has alcohol in it, right?”

As I’m trying, desperately, to think of a way to steal back the spotlight, Richard leans over and whispers to me, “Wasn’t it lucky you found a hair in your salad?”

“
Lucky?” Normally I’d have to feign unhappiness, but right now I really don’t have to fake it. “How is this lucky for me, Richard? Because I got a free meal?”

“
You and all your rich friends got a free meal – all because the balding manager wandered away from the desk he obviously sits at all day, into the kitchen where the food is prepared, and lost another hair right there in your salad.” Richard folds his arms and leans back in his chair, his eyes narrowing at me. And are those eyes blue! If he wasn’t such a fucking pain in the ass, I might actually be attracted to him.

“
If you’re implying that I did something to help that hair get into my salad, you’re completely wrong,” I snap. “And do I look happy? Tiffany is having a viral moment if I ever saw one, and no one who sees this video is even going to remember I was here. Now would you please shut up so I can figure out how to get the focus back on me?”

Richard picks up his phone and flicks his thumb across the front, causing the red light to blink out. “The show’s over. You might as well stop recording too.”

I realize he’s right. Tiffany, Morgan and the others are following the manager to the front of the building, where he is still profusely apologizing. The other diners are following suit, except that they’re stopping to pay for
their
meals. Suckers. With a sigh, I thumb off my phone, grab my bag and shove my chair back.

“
Can I ask you something? Now that we’re off the record?” Richard asks.

I’m not dumb enough to fall for this one. “Yes, I really did find that hair in my salad.”

Chapter Five

It's been a shitty day and all I want to do is go back to my shitty, cheap motel room in the Motel One (so named, I'm sure, because they don't have repeat customers), take a shower and dig into the Oreo stash in my suitcase. Hey, I refrained from ordering the Oreo Bomb desert at the restaurant (mostly because it had about as many calories as five billion salads, but also  because it was almost as expensive as the salad). And yes, the $2.50 plus tax I paid for the Oreos came out of my $500.

Tiffany and Morgan have decided to go chasing after the frat boys, who are, apparently, throwing an epic party down at the beach. I've been to more than enough epic parties on campus, and when I get in a bad mood like this (which is at least once a day, on average), I really like to be alone. Also, did I mention I'm sharing a room with Morgan and Tiffany? Yeah, it's the only way we could afford the trip on our Richard-appointed budget.

Speaking of Richard, he's going back to his room to watch our GluedToYou channel, where Tiffany and Morgan have promised to post frequent live video of the "epic party" to prove they aren't cheating. Which is silly, because someone else will already have provided the booze at this epic party, but if that's how Richard wants to spend his first night on vacation, he can knock himself out. Hopefully he'll also catch my public service announcement vid about LDD (Low Dollar Disorder), in which I explain the symptoms (irritability, bitching, moaning, craving expensive items) and treatment options (large amounts of cash).

I'm almost at the door to my crummy motel room (which means I'm still outside, that's how much of a dump this place is), when I hear someone yelling my name. Thinking it's Richard, trying to pick another fight, I whirl around, ready to tell him he better not interfere with my chocolate ingestion mission.

But it's not Richard - it's Hoolio, the waiter.

"Did your boss change his mind about comping our meals and send you to collect?" I ask, suddenly worried.
"No, no, I was just...." He trails off, staring at his feet as if there was a mirror on each one. Okay,    like
I
would stare at my feet if there was a mirror on each one. "I was just wondering if you'd like to take a walk on the beach with me? It's nice this time of night, and you obviously didn't want to go to that party with your friends and table eight."
"Table eight? Oh, the drunk frat boys? I see enough of that back at home, why pay fifty bucks a night to watch drunken idiots?" What the hell, I
am
supposed to be slumming it. "Sure, let's go for a walk."
    "So, if you don't mind my asking, why are you friends with that group?" Julio asks. "You seem so different from them."
For some reason, with the camera off and everyone else gone, I feel like making this my honest moment of the day. “I like hanging around dumb people because it makes me look smarter in comparison, all right? I also have friends who are, let’s say, not aesthetically fortunate. Want to guess why I hang around them?”

Hoolio stops walking and turns to look at me. He’s actually not bad-looking, if you don’t look directly at the nose ring. “Are you serious? That’s really why you hang out with these people?”

I’m starting to get a judgmental vibe from him, kind of like Richard Lite. “You’ve never hung out with someone because it made you feel better about yourself? Not once?”

He shakes his head, the braids flapping behind him like birds that had too much to drink. “No, that’s not what I mean! Of course I have. I’m just surprised because you’re obviously very clever – you don’t need them for comparison.”

That does a lot to make the judgmental vibe go away, and I’m actually starting to like Hoolio, so I decide to have a rare second moment of honesty today. “Well, there is another reason. Dumb, drunk people are very easy to manipulate.”

“
What is it you’re manipulating them out of? They obviously don’t have any more money than you do. I seriously doubt any of them are doing your homework. And I can’t imagine you’d have a romantic interest in any of them – except maybe that one guy. At least, he has the hots for you.”

“
What guy? You mean Charlie?” I’m thoroughly confused. “We went out once, but that was months ago. There was no chemistry. And the last couple months, he’s been all about Tiffany.”

“
Charlie?” Hoolio scratches his head. “Oh, the one your friend wanted to pay for her meal? No,  not him. The other one. The miserable-looking rich guy.”

“
Oh!” I laugh at the thought of seriously dating Richard. “Him? You think he’s into me?”

Hoolio shrugs. “I wait on a lot of couples, a lot of groups. I can always tell who’s into who, regardless of who came with who.”

“
And you seriously think Richard wants me?” It occurs to me that maybe that’s why Richard is so pissy about money. Does he remember what I said about it being a barrier between us? No, of course not – he’s dating Morgan, and she loves money, too.

Hoolio shrugs, staring down at the sand as he walks. “He’s definitely interested. He’s not sure if he’s even on your radar, and I think he’s probably right.”

I shake my head. “He annoys the crap out of me. I mean, he’s a good-looking guy, and his personality might be okay if he wasn’t so judgmental. But I can’t see myself dating someone who’s constantly complaining about…” I trail off, realizing I can’t say anymore without outing the bet.

“
About what?” Hoolio snaps his head up and looks at me. “What’s his deal, anyway? He’s a rich guy, palling around with people like you and me.”

“
How do you know he’s rich?” I’m surprised that Richard’s doing such a good job faking it already.

Hoolio shrugs. “I see all kinds working in that tourist trap. Lower-middle class, middle-middle class, upper-middle-class and beyond. You can tell, after a while.”

“
How?”

“
Lots of things. The clothes, the shoes, the hair. With girls, it’s usually the handbags – the fake ones are usually so bad you can tell they’re fake without knowing a thing about fashion. I don’t know what brand some of them are, but I know they’re fake.”

“
And guys? Richard?”

“
The shoes. Again, I don’t know or care about brand names, but the cheap ones look cheap from a mile away. Watches too, but not everyone wears one anymore – you know, with cell phones doing the same thing and so much more.” He grins. “But it’s not just that stuff, you know. Rich people have a way of acting – some of them are confident, like you. But some of them feel bad about their money –
that’s
Richard.”

Okay, now I see what’s happened. Richard’s rich-hating crap is rubbing off on his rich-guy act and coming off as rich-and-ashamed. I’ve known plenty of
those
, and I see how the two could be confused.

But what to tell Hoolio? He’s smarter than any guy I met at the university, which isn’t saying much. I can’t tell him the truth, but I kind of like him and don’t want to lie to him about
everything
.

“
You’re right about Richard,” I say, feeling like I’m walking a tightrope. “He really disapproves of wealth, especially conspicuous wealth. But it doesn’t stop him from wearing brand names. It just makes him…hang out with people of a different economic bracket. But that means that he doesn’t really fit in anywhere…so I guess that’s probably why he has such a stick up his ass.”

Hoolio nods. “Yeah, I guess that makes sense.”

“
I kind of feel bad for him,” I say. “But I’m not interested in getting together with
him
.”

“
That’s good to know.” Hoolio stares out at the ocean and keeps walking. Playing hard to get – I hate to admit it, but that turns me on more often than it should. In my defense, Hoolio
is
kind of offbeat-way hot. And, he actually pays attention to me when I talk. Most guys just stare at my boobs and mumble neutralities. Or they try to ply me with alcohol, unaware of how ineffective it is on me.

I definitely want to keep spending time with Hoolio, but I need to shut down his path of inquiry. “Enough about me and my friends,” I say. “Tell me something about you. Like, is Hoolio really your name?”

“
It’s what my shirt says.” He shrugs and points at my chest. “Is Lady Gaga really your name?”