Sorority Girls With Guns

by Cat Caruthers

  “But how could you even afford to go to Florida on $500 a week if you had to pay for school, rent and all that crap?” Richard asks.

  “Well, we can’t stay here,” I say quickly, aware of where this is going. “Everyone knows us here, so it will affect how people treat us.”

  “If your vlog actually got any viewers, by some miracle, people in South Padre might know, too,” Richard says.

  All of a sudden, I get one of my brilliant ideas. “I know how to kill two birds with one stone,” I say, turning to Tiffany. “You know how we were trying to come up with an internship project to enter in that Green Day contest? The one where they want fresh ideas on saving the environment?”

  “Yeah...” Tiffany looks confused.

  “Well, here's our project: We show people how they can save money by reducing, reusing and recycling!” I say. “We could call it...B Green 2 Save Green. Our rich friends will think we're living like paupers for the internship contest; everyone who doesn't know us will probably assume we're poor. The people from Green Day will see that we're showing people how saving the environment actually saves money in a lousy economy. If there's one thing people care about, it's not the environment – it's money!”

  Richard snorts. “I wish that wasn't so true.”

  Tiffany shrugs. “I guess it could work. I really want our project to win so we can be interns for Green Day.”

  “And your dad canceled your vacation trip because he cut you off, anyway,” Charlie says to Tiffany.

  It’s almost like the guy is trying not to get laid.

  ‘”We’re all still going on a trip that someone making $25,000 might not be able to afford,” Richard says. “You’d have to save all year to visit South Padre, but I’m willing to overlook that.”

  “I’ve been to South Padre,” Matt says. “It’s nice, and it’s not as crowded. We might actually get better service and wait in fewer lines.”

  “Then we’re all in agreement?” I ask, looking around the table.

  Everyone nods, some more reluctantly than others.

  “I guess the youth center will understand,” Richard says. “I volunteer there all year round, they’ll be okay without me for a couple weeks.”

  “Then we’re all going to South Padre and switching places,” I say, making sure to get a good shot of my face with my phone.

  Chapter Four

  There are disadvantages to being a vegetarian. People call you a treehugger, a dirty hippie, a carrot-killer. They tell you your diet is unhealthy when they have more health problems than you can count on both hands. An idiot frat boy once told me it was impossible to get enough protein without eating meat, but when asked, he couldn’t tell me how much protein he should be getting in a day, or how much protein he had eaten at his last meal.

  Another guy, who was about five-foot-three and about as wide as he was tall, informed me that every vegetarian he’d ever known eventually ended up looking sickly. This was a guy who couldn’t walk from his car to the door of the student union without panting like a dog. And he always parked as close to the door as possible, and walked at the pace of a turtle on valium. I told him that if being sickly meant being able to walk twenty feet without gasping for breath, I was all for it.

  But there are a lot more advantages to a vegetarian diet than disadvantages. No one ever steals food marked “vegetarian” or “tofu” out of a shared refrigerator. I’ve never had to walk into a drug store and ask where the laxatives are (I’ve seen people do this, and it looks super uncomfortable, although I’m not sure if that’s from the constipation or the embarrassment). I don’t get sick, so I don’t have any medical bills, which means I can spend all my money on truly important stuff like shoes, clothes and Hello Kitty memorabilia.

  As it turns out, there is another distinct advantage: When you’re perusing a menu for the cheapest items, salad usually tops the list.

  All six of us – Morgan, Tiffany, Richard, Me, Matt, Charlie, – are kicking off the Month of Hell (as Charlie dubbed it) by eating dinner together. Richard says this will be a great wake-up call for “those who don’t know how the other ninety-six percent live”.

  “I’ll have the sirloin steak, with the smothered baked potato on the side,” Charlie is telling the waiter. “And can I get extra cheese, butter and everything else you smother the potato in?”

  “Sure, that’ll be a dollar extra.” The waiter scribbles on his Ipad. Yes, this is an expensive enough restaurant that the waiters have Ipads. You’d think Richard would have said something when Matt suggested we eat here, but he didn’t. He’s probably smirking on the inside, dimples be damned.

  The what-are-you-ordering chatter around the table dies down and everyone looks at Charlie. He’s kind of a burly guy, with dark curly hair and a face that would look a lot better if he either grew a full beard or shaved regularly. The five o’clock shadow just doesn’t do anything for him. “What?” he asks, looking around the table. “It’s only a dollar.”

  “But your steak is $15, and your beer was $5. And that’s just the first one – the refill is another $3,” Richard peers over the top of his menu. I’m now convinced he’s hiding behind it to hide his dimples/smirk.

  “So another dollar doesn’t make a difference either way.” Charlie closes his menu and hands it to the waiter, who’s getting this look on his face like he’s not sure he’s going to get a decent tip on this table. Usually I get that look when I spend ten minutes ordering because I’m a picky eater and a vegetarian (I always tip well, however, for that very reason – I know I’m a pain-in-the-ass customer.

  “No, the dollar doesn’t, but I think the point is to reduce your spending overall,” Matt says, scratching his head. I can tell he’s trying to remember what the fuck we learned in ECON 101. We had this professor who, when he noticed a student sleeping, would walk right up to the offender and continuing lecturing - with his voice set on stun. Let’s just say Matt was the offender on more than one occasion.

  “And if you eat here twice a day, that’s an extra fourteen dollars in a week you spent on stuff to clog your arteries,” I say. I actually read some of the textbook for that class. Like, at least twenty percent of what we were supposed to read.

  Charlie rolls his eyes. “A whole fourteen dollars? So what?”

  “How much money have you already spent on food today?” Richard asks.

  “For you?” the waiter asks, turning to me. He’s kind of cute in an offbeat, dating-this-guy-would-really-piss-off-my-parents sort of way. He’s wearing a nose ring, braids, a nametag that says “Hoolio” (which I’m pretty sure is not his real name) and an expression that says “You’re my last hope for a good tip”.

  “I’ll have the salad,” I say, as I see Matt adding up his daily food buys on his napkin. Unfortunately, this is the kind of place where waiters have Ipads and napkins are made of cloth, not paper.

  “What type of dressing?” Hoolio glances at Richard’s napkin, his eyebrows pulling together in surprise.

  “Light balsamic vinaigrette,” I check the red light on my phone to make sure I’m getting Matt’s fabulous display of cluelessness. “And no onions. I absolutely can’t stand onions. And extra tomatoes. Did you get that?”

  “Uh…yeah.” Hoolio glances around the room as if hoping his boss will magically appear and tell Matt not to write on the tablecloth. Seeing no one but other hungry-looking guests, he moves down the line to take Tiffany’s order, pretending he didn’t see the napkin incident.

  “Counting this meal, $24.50!” Matt announces triumphantly.

  I check the GluedToYou buttons on my bag – when you sign up for an account, GluedToYou sends you a dozen button cameras for free, along with a trademarked glue-bottle shaped button you're supposed to wear or pin to your clothes, to let people know you might be recording, for some sort of legal reason. When I started a new account for the bet, they sent me a dozen more, so all six of us have four. I have one on my purse, one on my collar, one on my phone (it's better quality
than my cell camera and has wifi built-in) and the other one I'm reserving for emergencies. I can't lose any of them because GluedToYou does charge for replacements...and it looks like we're all going to spend all our money on food here in South Padre.

  “Those prices on the menu don’t include tax,” Tiffany says in a stage whisper, leaning forward and resting her ample cleavage on the table. Like that’s going to help Matt concentrate on math!

  “Do you charge for water?” Morgan asks, after Hoolio asks her what she wants to drink.

  Tiffany leans her head on Charlie's shoulder and bats her fake eyelashes at him. "You're paying for my meal, right?"

  "Um..." Charlie looks awkwardly at Tiffany, then looks around the table, then looks back at Tiffany. Or down at her assets. Just when I think he's lost-

  "Why should I pay for your meal?" he asks.

  Tiffany sits up and looks at him. "You always pay for dinner when we go out. You used to insist on it."

  "That was before," Charlie says, looking around the table for support. "When I wasn't, you know-" He leans toward Tiffany and lowers his voice. "-on a budget." He says it in an embarrassed whisper, like you might say "on medication for Herpes".

  "So you don't care about me any more, now that you're on a budget?" Tiffany scoots her chair so far away from Charlie's she's now practically sitting in my lap. I hope she doesn't expect me to buy her dinner, because that ain't happening either.

  "Of course I still care about you," Charlie says, reaching for her hand, which is not nearly as well-manicured as usual. Tiffany "economized" by painting her own nails, which means her left hand looks okay but her right hand looks like it was painted by a monkey who recently suffered a stroke. "I just can't afford to buy you dinner right now."

  Hoolio clears his throat. "This is all very touching, but if I don't get your orders in a certain amount of time, I get in trouble with my boss..."

  Tiffany jerks her hand away from Charlie. "I'll have the salad, too."

  The two of them are silent as we wait for our meals and Matt continues writing on the napkin. But then our food arrives, and as Tiffany stares at her salad, she gets a pissed off look on her face. Yeah, non-vegetarians sometimes do that when they see a salad. Morgan went on a juice fast last spring and she looked like that every time she piled broccoli and carrots into her juicer. But I think Tiffany's problem has to do with why she's eating a salad.

  "So the truth is, you really care more about your money than you do about me?" she says, shooting a murderous glare at Charlie.

  Charlie sighs and slices into his steak so hard you can hear the knife scraping the plate. Actually, it almost sounds like he's cutting the plate, too. "No, I didn't say that. I just can't afford to pay for all your meals while we're here. Maybe at the end of next week, if I have some money left over-"

  "So you're eating steak while I eat a salad," Tiffany says. "Every time we've gone to dinner in the last two months, you've insisted on paying for both our meals."

  "You could have ordered the steak," Charlie says. "Look, I always paid when I asked you out. I heard if you ask the other person out, you should pay. I didn't ask you to go to dinner with all...eight of us or whatever it is."

  At least he didn't say he thought the guy should always pay. Maybe he's finally starting to use his other brain, after all!

  "So you had no problem paying for my dinner when you had plenty of cash. But when you have a very limited amount of cash, you no longer care about etiquette." Tiffany wrinkles her nose and spears a cucumber. "And I'm assuming your concern with who should pay is because you want to impress me, or make me happy, or do something nice for me, right? Because that's what you do for someone you care about. Why should that change with the amount of money in your bank account?"

  "Well, um...it doesn't change." Charlie stares down at his steak for a minute, then he spears a piece and hands it to Tiffany. "Here, you can have half of this and I'll eat half your salad!!"

  "So now you only care about me half as much as you did before?" Tiffany asks. But she takes the fork and stuffs the steak in her mouth, nonetheless.

  "Of course not! I just can't afford as much steak as I did before," Charlie says. “And for the record, you always accept when I ask you out, but you never ask me out.”

  "I don't need to ask you out when you ask me out first," Tiffany says. Then she picks up her salad bowl and swaps it with his steak plate. "Thanks for sharing."

  Charlie looks like he’s going to say something, but just in the nick of time, his other brain kicks in and slams his mouth shut. For once, the below-the-belt brain had the right idea.

  And that’s bad for me. A big blow-up would be so much better for the vlog! How am I going to get viewers if nothing more exciting than Tiffany stealing Charlie’s steak happens? And if I don’t get viewers, how will the world ever appreciate my talent?

  I spear a tomato, thinking about all the people who have made me feel stupid for having dreams, starting with my parents. I wanted to go to Hollywood and pursue an acting career, but no, they wanted me to go to college so I could get a boring desk job. Said I had to be “realistic”, that it’s almost impossible to make it in Hollywood these days. They might as well have just said, “We don’t believe in you and your talent, Shade”.

  They’re not the only ones. There were all those reality shows I auditioned for in the past that didn’t want me, all those producers who didn’t pass me on to the next round, all those local shows I tried out for where the starring role ended up going to some talentless idiot instead of me. You know how you hear all that crap about “perseverance” and “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again” and all that Little Engine That Could crap? It’s one thing to spout that shit when you got lucky on the second try, or the seventieth.

  But when all you’ve ever done is fail, over and over and over again – well, it gets a little harder to keep going each time. And I have this feeling that one day, I won’t be able to do it anymore. And when that happens, I’ll be sentenced to a lifetime of being a bitter, miserable failure.

  I can’t let that happen.

  But what do I do? I look around the room for inspiration. The restaurant is mostly filled with other students, including a table of frat boys and two tables of kids who look like they probably drove up in Toyotas. Used Toyotas.

  I look down at my salad, still seeking inspiration. And then, staring at the lettuce leaves, I have a brilliant idea. With one hand, I pick up my phone and turn it, taking a panoramic shot of my friends eating their less-expensive meals. No one thinks twice, as I’ve explained that we will be forced to use a lot of static wide shots, but that I will try to get some variety to liven things up. With my other hand, I reach up and casually scratch my head, then I reach for my glass and take a sip of water. Nice, free water.

  At least, that’s what I hope it looks like to my friends, if any of them happen to be watching, which I doubt. The camera is conveniently not getting a shot of me right now. Richard is getting a close-up of Matt’s scribbled-on napkin, so his phone’s camera is also pointing away from me.

  I spear another tomato, lift the fork halfway to my mouth, stop and execute one of my best acting performances ever. And I once told Tiffany that her butt did not look big in spandex yoga pants with “Kiss My” embroidered on the backside in pink sequins.

  “Ohmygawd!” I yell at the top of my lungs. I wave my fork in the air. “There’s a hair in my salad!”

  One of the frat boys turns around and glares at me. “Would you keep it down? We’re trying to drink away hangovers here.”

  It’s five o’clock now.

  Hoolio comes running over. “Is there, um, a problem?” he asks.

  I shove the fork in his face. “There is a hair in my salad! A hair!”

  “There’s hair on your head, not to mention other places - it hasn’t killed you yet,” Matt says, shoveling a mouthful of bacon/cheese/chives into his mouth. Ten or twelve more bites and he’ll have excavated the potato.

>   Hoolio frowns at the fork. “I’m sorry to see that. Let me get you another salad.”

  “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…”