by A N Sandra
Molly had a killer instinct. All the Hollisters had it, in fact. Even back in the pioneer era the Hollister family had never been the smartest family, or the best looking, but they were the most ruthless. The most marked quality of every Hollister was that they desired to be the best at everything enough to be unpleasant at any suggestion that they were not. Unfortunately, that had not worked as well for the family gene pool as might be supposed. Genuinely smart and beautiful people tended to avoid them. Genuinely smart people could not be tricked into marrying a Hollister, and beautiful people were driven away by the jealous behavior that was second nature to the Hollisters.
The Hollister family might well have gone on being unpleasant hog farmers, somewhat isolated in the small Midwestern community they had lived in for generations, but World War Two had sent Hugh Hollister to the military where his single-minded ambition to be the best had gone unchecked. Hugh had turned out to be a marvelous killer. Nothing had stopped his brazen violence until he raided a top Nazi warren and stolen several artifacts. Smart enough not to try to take them home and risk being caught in his theft, Hugh had buried them in a German vacation spot. Twelve years after the war was over, he brought his wife to Germany for a vacation and unearthed them, bringing them back to Indiana and the family farm where he displayed most of them in his grandmother’s china hutch.
As a hog farmer, Hugh had lived an unremarkable life, save six years in the military. But since recovering the stolen artifacts things had taken a turn for him. In his early middle age, he started a construction company with little construction experience at all. Hugh, who had never been a business mastermind as a hog farmer, a man who often bought stock when the price was high and sold when it was low due to poor timing, somehow managed construction project after construction project that was finished early and well. Lucrative state contracts followed Hugh’s work, and by the time he passed away, his only grandson, Blaine Hollister, was firmly in charge of a national company.
Nothing seemed to stop Blaine from expanding Hollister Corp, and Blaine moved to New York City and swam with the sharks, so to speak, before eating the other sharks and becoming the most important shark in New York. Blaine created the Hollister Foundation before he was forty. The Hollister Foundation spent money that wealthy companies around the globe invested, and it turned the planet into a different place. The Global Bank stabilized the world economy better than any previous efforts, and the Global Forces, a peace keeping private army, made the world safer than ever before. The Hollister Foundation was speeding the development of the vaccination chip, which would increase standards of health worldwide. Intriguingly enough, there were few critics of the Hollister Foundation as it became the most powerful entity in the world. Almost as if the Hollisters were above reproach.
Blaine did manage to marry well, by Hollister standards. His almost lovely wife, Melissa, would have been beautiful if she had not always had a dissatisfied look about her. Just as their only child, Molly, would have been beautiful if she hadn’t looked just a bit too much like a Hollister. Molly’s chin was slightly pointy, but with no elfish charm that many lovely women with just such a chin have. Her eyes also might have been gorgeous; they were huge and blue and wide set. Jackie Kennedy had very similarly shaped eyes, and was a known beauty, but Molly’s eyes were simply cat-like. Not enticing but causing distrust when they were fixed on someone. Hours at the gym and expensive yoga classes did not give Molly the subtle grace that other young women wear as a birthright, even without exercise. Somehow Molly Hollister managed to be less than the sum of her parts, in spite of how much she wanted to be beautiful and desired.
Not the cleverest, but the most willing to damage others, Molly usually got what she wanted and managed to portray herself, at least to her family, as a worldly young heiress. But she was never really accepted into the correct circles for someone of her wealth. Even corporate partners of the Hollister Foundation did not like their children to run with Molly. People were afraid of her father, who ran his business with more cruelty than necessary, even for a billionaire with a charitable foundation that was reshaping the whole world on many fronts. Instead, Molly became a bully like no other. Her parents were also bullies and approved and enabled her completely.
“If Molly had to melt down the mean things she does and inject them into her veins like a druggie to get high, she would have a worse looking ‘track’ than any junkie in Hell’s Kitchen,” one of her high school classmates once remarked. Molly had laughed and acknowledged the truth of that statement when one of her “ferrets” reported the insult to her. She told her adoring parents, who also thought it was amusing.
Even though Molly still felt the sting of not being stunning or witty, she developed an appetite for control that led to a deep intoxication when she controlled and damaged other people. When she had been an entitled young mistress in grade school, she had learned to take pleasure in causing hurt feelings and emotional pain. As she became a more accomplished liar, the damage she could do grew to proportions that became impossible for her to resist. She was as addicted to hurting people as a heroine user, just as her classmate had noted.
As a college freshman she had accused one of her father’s bodyguards of making improper advances when he would not run a small errand that she demanded of him. He was fired, and Molly convinced her father to blacklist him so that he could not get another security job anywhere. When the twenty-eight-year-old father of two felt so cornered that he killed himself, Molly enjoyed the most rapturous high of her life. By the time she graduated from Columbia she was known as a walking minefield and relished the fear and personal destruction she caused.
“Do you need anything else?” Barry asked after a very respectful silence.
“God, no,” Molly scoffed. “I’ll let you know the next time I need something messed up.”
Probably, she would leave Barry alone. He was necessary to the security of the Hollister family, and they and their allies needed security. The Hollister empire had levels of enemies who were always waiting for a chance to put the Hollisters in their place. That didn’t mean she had to be kind to him, and she never would. But she was not going to fire Barry and blacklist him even if her father would let her. Barry was about to die, just like most of the planet, when he no longer served Hollister purposes. Barry was not important enough to care about at all.
The show will be called One Tough Customer, and it’s going to air every week for twelve weeks, starting next week. We’ll start filming right away.” Rodney told his former crew in the lounge of the restaurant that used to be his. “Every week we’ll vote someone off, and Molly will choose a winner from the front and back of the house and the audience will choose between them. There will be sixteen episodes and the last four weeks will have two episodes a week.”
“We only have twenty-four employees!” Paula looked like she could cry. As the baker she was the least flexible member of the staff, she was always sweaty and tired and felt she was sure to be the least likeable staff member. Because she always worked alone she had no real friends among the crew. She was also the least likely to be camera friendly. She was sure she would be fired first.
“No one can really fire you,” Jesus shook his head as he spoke his mind. “We have to have fresh hamburger buns and cookies. No one else can do that. Besides, Morty left, so he can’t do it. We have twenty-three employees. The first to go will be the prep cooks.”
Everyone looked around. Morty was indeed gone. Everyone wished they were as brave as that, but no one was. Morty wasn’t so brave himself. He was crazy foolish, and everyone would have to admit it to themselves when they thought about it later. He might resurface somewhere in months to come, but he might not. Molly might get some crazy revenge that left him in a Hollister Foundation homeless program if he didn’t have any family to keep him safe. Or even if he did.
“There’s no point in guessing what will happen. Molly will give us all the details next week. She wants to get everyone’s reactions on ca
mera. The prize is going to be ten million dollars.”
“For a twelve-week show?” Brandon, the lead line cook snapped up his head. He was tall and dark, with a keen wit and a sharp sense of style. He had a good shot of winning any competition anywhere.
“It’s going to be a big deal.” Rodney grinned. “I’m here for window dressing. I’m not competing, but I’d love a shot at ten million.”
“You already got a lot for the restaurant,” Shelta said with a slight pout. Everyone agreed with her, but no one even nodded. Most of them looked as trapped as rats in a maze.
“We need to talk about how to work together for different scenarios,” Rodney said. “After we complete our paperwork.”
“What paperwork?” Maddy squinted.
“Molly’s lawyer will explain everything,” Rodney said. “He’s in my office, I’ll go get him.”
Molly’s lawyer turned out to have two assistants and a small mountain of paperwork that required each contestant to sign their life away for the duration of the show. There were some silver linings to the cloud. Unlike other reality shows the contestants of One Tough Customer would not be living in a stuffy mansion. They could stay at their own homes. They would be receiving a paycheck that would equal twice their normal wages and tips every week, so they could keep up with their normal expenses and even have money left over. The promised paychecks calmed everyone’s jagged nerves.
“Now we should talk about how we are going to handle being on television,” Rodney said when everyone had signed and initialed the paperwork and the lawyer, and his assistants were carrying boxes of it away.
“Like what?” Maddy asked.
“Like, what kind of guests do we think will be the most challenging, and how do we deal with the tough customers that Molly is going to bring in?”
Utter silence met the proposal. No one wanted to name the cup from which they dared not drink. Rodney had been prepared for that though. He passed around cocktails for everyone to sip while they loosened up. Tilly remembered the concoction she had enjoyed in Molly’s penthouse and knew that this was Molly’s idea. Would Molly be surprised that TIlly hadn’t told anyone how much the prize would be? Tilly had told Sadie and Maddy about her phone being bugged, but she had kept the information about the prize to herself.
“Most of our customers are here for such a short time that they aren’t really trouble,” Annalise offered. “The lawyers grab quick drinks and burgers and run out the door.”
“Tourists get demanding sometimes,” Tilly offered, just to look like she was playing ball. “They don’t know their money doesn’t spend the same here that it does other places. They expect to have their butts kissed like it’s Red Lobster.”
“I love Red Lobster,” Jesus said, slightly offended. “Don’t diss Red Lobster.”
Rodney rolled his eyes, but wisely said nothing. Red Lobster was the object of Rodney’s complete scorn.
“Doctors are the worst,” Billy, the night bartender said. He was a big drinker, and Rodney probably knew he would be the first to crack. He had drained his first drink and was almost done with his second one. “They make lots of substitutions on anything they order, then they get mad because their substitutions make their food and drinks bad and demand to be comped.”
“When you get bad medical care at a hospital you never get comped,” Annalise said with a pout. “I got a four-thousand-dollar ER copay bill after they almost killed my little girl.”
Other people warmed to the trend. Doctors were indeed considered the worst customers, the best way to deal with them was deemed to stop them from making substitutions. Vegans who insisted on trying to eat in a place bursting with eggs, dairy and meat were considered the next biggest problems as customers. Followed by famous people who felt that just waiting on them was a privilege, so they never said thank you for anything or tipped anyone. The list continued, although Brandon, Tilly, Sadie, and Maddy contributed very little other than to appear to be moderately participating.
After the group left the restaurant, Brandon stayed right behind Tilly and Maddy and Sadie. They were on their way to the apartment Sadie shared with several other aspiring actresses, all wisely out of Manhattan on that crazy hot day.
“You three know how to handle yourselves,” Brandon said as they acknowledged him. “I think we should have an alliance.”
All three young women traded glances, not sure what to say.
“You’re are clearly going to stick together,” Brandon said easily. “I’m just asking to be let into the circle.”
Tilly thought how many times she had tried to flirt with him and he’d ignored her. He thought he was too cool for her, Sadie was probably more up his alley, and Maddy would never give him the time of day when it came to romance. He was conceited, but he was hardworking and a real alpha male. The sort of person who often won reality show contests or did really well.
“We’ll discuss it,” Maddy said graciously. “We’ll let you know.”
“The games begin already.” Sadie shook her head. Brandon turned and melted into the evening crowd of pedestrians.
“I don’t like it, but we probably need him,” Maddy admitted.
“We need a lot of things,” Tilly fretted. “We’re going to have to play to win.”
“If we can,” Maddy answered.
“She’s not smarter than all three of us.” Sadie said.
“She’s not smarter than one of us, that’s why she’s such a bitch,” Maddy said. “She’s going to edit the show, she’s going to call the shots, but we can mitigate the damage she does, and we’re going to.”
Welcome to the first episode of One Tough Customer!” Molly smiled into the camera. She almost managed to look seductive as she used all her aura to reach through the camera and grab viewers. Her research showed there would be a record amount of views although there had been no heavy promotion in the weeks leading up to the show. The Hollister name was its own promotion and the Hollister Foundation had purchased most of the commercials for One Tough Customer.
It was six-thirty in the morning, and the whole crew was there to get the show started and be ready to open for lunch at eleven.
As opening credits showed Crackhouse and the staff, who waited uneasily in the background sipping black coffee, Molly geared up to explain the parameters of her game. The rules were simple. Two teams would be formed, the two teams that the restaurant already had, Front of the House and Back of the House. The restaurant would be open to patrons and there would be undercover guests and celebrity guests every week and they would rate food and service to choose a winning team. The losing team would vote off a member. When enough members were eliminated Molly would choose two finalists and the audience would choose between them.
“For today’s challenge we’ll twist things a bit!” Molly said. “The front of the house will work in the kitchen, and the back of the house will come up front!”
Everyone looked at each other, trying to size up the situation.
“We’ll let the front of the house choose one person to help them from the back of the house and the back of the house will do the same.”
Tilly pulled Maddy, Annalise, Sadie, the other hostess, two other waitresses, and the server’s assistants aside. The bartenders joined them, and the Front of the House team formed a large huddle.
“They’ll choose you, Ashley,” Tilly told the night hostess. “You’re the organizer. If they don’t choose you, they’ll choose me, but you work more than I do, and they will probably trust you more.”
“Who should we choose?” Annalise quivered.
“We’re choosing Brandon!” Maddy answered clearly.
“We’re choosing Brandon,” everyone on the Front of the House team agreed almost in unison as if they had consumed poisoned Kool-Aid.
“Front of the House, who do you choose from the Back of the House?” Molly asked them as they stood back from their huddle.
“We choose Brandon,” Maddy said, clearly.
The
Back of the House groaned as Brandon left his co-workers to join the other team.
“Back of the House, who do you choose?” Molly wanted to know.
“We choose Maddy,” Fresca, the saucier said clearly.
Sadie and Tilly each squeezed one of Maddy’s hands before she walked over to the Back of the House. Annalise looked stunned as Maddy walked away.
“Let’s switch uniforms!” Molly called. Chaos ensued as everyone struggled to get into the clothes Molly had provided. No one was happy about the process and the camera crew was able to get lots of negative comments and complaints, making everyone on both teams appear spoiled.
Sadie and Tilly weren’t the slightest bit surprised when their chef uniforms were not quite cut right. Sadie looked as if she had a lump in her groin, and Tilly was lost in a puffy cloud of white coat. Sadie’s cheeks turned bright red when she checked herself over in the mirror.
“I look like I have a soccer ball in my underwear!” Sadie fumed. “And my makeup is all wrong for wearing white!”
“No worries.” Tilly grinned. “I saw a trick like this coming and brought my sewing kit. While we’re setting up, there won’t be much filming, so don’t worry. Right before we open, and the guests come in, I’m going to make some adjustments.”
“I don’t want you adjusting my crotch!” Sadie tried to joke. She didn’t look convinced. In fact, she was so white that her few freckles were visible even under the extreme amount of makeup she was wearing. “I’m going to see what makeup is in my purse.”
“The most important thing is not to let them get footage of you that looks bad at all. You have to be dazzling every second.”
“I know,” Sadie said softly. She did know, stage presence was her whole life. She and Tilly and Maddy had discussed it over and over in the last few days. But Maddy was already off their team, and she already looked terrible. But she made sure that her crotch was never in front of the camera, something only someone experienced in theater could pull off.
