Grace is not one of those middlewomen. In fact, she is the anti-middlewoman. She is an endwoman. She’s my mother’s daughter, too, so she’s done her homework and decided that the way to fix me is exposure therapy—forcing me to do the things that make me the most anxious to help make them less anxiety-inducing. In the hierarchy of fears that Dr. Rifkin made me chart out, phone calls ranked even higher than public speaking and my anxiety about the mobile roller coasters at the Booneville-Oneida County Fair.
As I dish out some Greek yogurt, blueberries, and granola, Grace sends a series of texts. She’s rewarded with a response within a minute, because of course she is.
“I’m forwarding you Mr. Bertozzi’s number. Maria says he should be in his office.”
“Grace, at least let me finish breakfast first.”
I eat my breakfast super slowly just to mess with my sister, but the joke’s on me. As I get up to wash my dishes by hand, instead of putting them into the dishwasher like I usually do, she finally loses patience. “Okay, Captain Avoidance, time’s up. I’ve gotta get to work.” She grabs my phone, dials a number, and puts it on speakerphone.
I swear and frantically de-suds my hands while the phone rings once, twice. And of course I don’t catch a break as Mr. Bertozzi’s secretary picks up on the third ring.
“Lisowski and Bertozzi, how may I help you?”
These words should not strike fear in my soul, I know they shouldn’t. But I don’t need to look at my smart watch app to know that my heart rate has probably doubled. I grab the phone and turn off the speaker. My voice only shakes a little as I answer.
“Um, hello. My name is William Domenici. I was hoping to speak with Mr. Bertozzi?”
The minute I’m put on hold, I hiss at my sister, “I’m going to tell Mom and Dad. You know Dr. Rifkin said exposures are supposed to happen in a safe environment, right?”
Grace rolls her eyes. “Please. You’re in our kitchen. Doesn’t get much safer than that. Good luck, bro.” She grabs her blazer and is out the door before Mr. Bertozzi picks up the phone.
“Will! How can I help you? My daughter just texted something about the Boilermaker?”
“Yes, sir.” At least I’m so pissed off at my sister that I can’t concentrate enough to be too anxious. “I know the deadline has passed for vendor applications, but I wanted to know if it’s possible to make an exception for a small food cart?”
When it turns out that there are a few more openings left, it’s maybe a little bit irritating to have to admit that Grace’s strongarm tactics worked. It’s worth it, though, to be able to show up at A-Plus with the opportunity in hand. Jocelyn is already staging the bags for that afternoon’s lunch orders when I get to the restaurant. She looks up from her work using a box cutter to make rectangles of cardboard and nods at me.
There’s something off about her. It’s not just that she’s frowning with concentration (she is)—it’s that her movements are slower than usual. When she showed me the setup routine yesterday, her movements were impressively quick and efficient: open the paper bag with a flick of the wrist, slide it instantly into a plastic bag, line it with cardboard with one hand while grabbing two fortune cookies to throw in with another.
“I should’ve brought coffee again, huh?” I ask, joking, but when she doesn’t smile, I hover awkwardly for a minute.
How could everything that felt so natural yesterday feel so wrong today?
This Is My Brain on Frugality
JOCELYN
My brain feels like a giant ball of lint.
Will, in contrast, comes into work all eager, like a Saint Bernard with a tennis ball in his mouth. I nod at him in greeting, because words seem too hard at the moment.
“I should’ve brought coffee again, huh?” he jokes, and for a moment it irritates me. Is he basically saying that I look tired? Or worse, cranky? I swallow a snarky response and wave to the kitchen.
“Amah has some green tea already steeped if you need some caffeine.”
“No, that’s okay. I’m good,” he says a little too quickly, like he’s trying to manage my mood, for God’s sake. I shake my head to clear out the cloud of negativity in my head.
Snap out of it, Wu.
“So,” I say. “What’s in the folder?”
“Oh!” Will lays down his folio and starts pulling out computer printouts. “I couldn’t sleep last night, so I made some mock-ups of a new website.”
“Wow,” I say after some stunned blinking. “These look awesome!” I mean, anything that uses a font more sophisticated than Arial Black would win an A-Plus design competition, but what Will has come up with is both functional and super slick.
He flips through some different views of the drop-down menus and spouts some technobabble that I mostly ignore, before he asks anxiously, “You like it?”
“Are you kidding? It’s ridiculous. You did this in one night? My dad will freak out.” At least he’ll be happy when he finds out it was free. He’s always ignored our website except for the annual grumbling when he has to renew our hosting service.
Will gives a bashful smile. “And, oh, I’ve got another advertising opportunity. You know the Boilermaker?”
I laugh. “Do I know the Boilermaker?” It is the biggest event of the year in Utica, with literally thousands of runners flooding the city, seeking carbs and electrolytes. “It’s a freaking zoo every year. Dad tripled our order of water and Gatorade last year and we still ran out. Why? Are you thinking of running in it?”
“No, it’s just… have you ever thought about doing a food stand in the Expo?”
“I don’t know,” I say dubiously. “Like I said, it’s our busiest day of the year.”
“Sure, I get it, but we would only have to do the Friday before, not race day. It could expose tens of thousands of people to the restaurant. You and I could run the booth. I think the focus should be your grandma’s pot stickers. The smell alone will have hundreds of people following their noses, and when they come by we can hand out samples. I’m sure we’ll sell at least a thousand dumplings—and people are going to be ready to pay concessions prices.”
“Let’s do five for five dollars,” I suggest, warming up to the idea. Then I look at the vendor application that Will has already partially filled out, and my eyes goggle.
“It costs FOUR HUNDRED dollars just to have a freaking food stand?” That is more than what we net some nights.
“Look, I know it’s a lot, but I swear, it’ll be worth it. Even if we don’t make up the vendor fee through direct sales, the exposure is priceless—you’ll be listed in the program, we can have huge signage. We can hand out menus, too.”
I shake my head. “There is no way in hell that my dad is going to shell out four hundred bucks for the ‘privilege’ of having a booth. He’d sooner take his money and try to deep-fry it.”
Will bites his lip. “What if he didn’t have to?”
“What, you can get them to waive the fee?”
“Not exactly.” Will cricks his neck like he’s gearing up to throw a pitch, and he takes a deep breath in and out. “You don’t have to give the whole amount up front. There’s a fifty-dollar deposit, and then you can put the rest on a credit card the day of the event. If we don’t make up the booth cost, I’ll pay you back from my tips, or volunteer extra overtime hours without pay.”