Chapter 6
Ah, those black letters on yellow squares, that beacon in the night: the Waffle House.
A glance at the car clock told me I’d arrived ten minutes early, and I weighed whether I wanted to enter a clean, well-lit place or wait in my car.
Well, Ken’s car, if I couldn’t come up with a way to get the title from him.
Studying every law reference my paralegal course allowed had led me to the conclusion that I was in another situation where what was legal and what was just were two very different things.
Legally, the car was his. His name was on the title.
If life were fair, the car would be mine because I’d paid for it.
There was, of course, the possibility I could persuade a judge of my point of view, but that would require even more money I didn’t have to take the matter to court, and I couldn’t be guaranteed that I would win.
It was all so exhausting.
To date, every man in my life had been exhausting.
I’d heard that good men existed, but I was beginning to suspect they spent their free time with Bigfoot, the Easter Bunny, and chupacabras, because I’d never met one.
In the meantime, I would leave my car and enter the Waffle House, a place Ken hated but I loved. Unlike him, the Waffle House had never let me down.
Out of habit, I chose a booth in the far corner, my back to the plate glass window so I could surveil the entire restaurant, empty though it was.
“Couldn’t you just sit at the bar?” huffed the waitress as she limped toward me.
“Sorry,” I said. “Habit.”
“My feet are killing me,” she said as she reached my table. Her face was a road map of experience, and her name tag declared her to be Betty.
“Plantar fasciitis?”
“What’s that?”
“Deep, soul-sucking ache in your heels?”
“Sounds about right.”
I was showing Betty some calf stretches while talking about proper orthotics when Havisham and Salcedo walked through the door. Everyone settled into the corner booth and made their orders before I finally asked, “What’s this all about?”
Havisham nudged Salcedo.
“I, uh, I feel bad about what happened, but I’ve thought of a way to get the money you need,” she said.
“Oh, hon, you don’t have to feel bad about anything. Your glitter-bomb idea was hilarious. Unfortunately, Ken doesn’t have a sense of humor.”
“Still, I want to help.” Salcedo reached into her satchel for a folder and slid a piece of paper across the table.
At the top was a grinning blob of a cartoon character who resembled the Mr. Men / Little Miss stories Nana used to read to me when I was little.
The design was obviously meant as a parody of those books. Below the cartoon it read:
Let Me Be Your Little Miss Petty!
Is karma not working fast enough for you?
The patriarchy got you down?
Need some payback?
Let me be your petty personal assistant.*
Ask Havisham at the bar or scan this QR code to fill out a form, and someone will get back to you as soon as possible.
*I only deal in logical consequences. No random revenge.
“I added that last part,” Havisham said, as if I didn’t remember her words from earlier.
“How is this going to help me?” I asked as Betty passed around cups of coffee and did the Waffle House ritual of napkins with silverware on top for each of us.
Salcedo’s eyes glowed. “You’re Little Miss Petty, and we’re going to help you.”
“This isn’t a job,” I said, “and ‘pettiness’ isn’t something you put on a résumé.”
“But it is a skill,” Havisham said. “And we’ve seen the demand. Remember how easily you made a hundred dollars earlier today?”
I waved away her compliment. “A fluke. Basic private-investigator stuff, along with a fair amount of luck.”
She arched an eyebrow. “Tell her what else you’ve been up to, Salcedo.”
“Well, I did some informal market research,” the younger woman said, “and by that I mean I asked around in the bar and on social media. I already have several potential customers—”
“In the mere hours since we last saw each other?”
“—including the woman you helped earlier.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really. She took a picture of the flyer and asked about your services right before we closed up. Said her neighbor might be interested. You gotta strike while the iron is hot. But also . . .”
“But also what?”
She scrunched her nose up most adorably, but I felt a sense of foreboding, nonetheless. “I have a confession to make.”
“Dare I ask?”
“You’re kinda going viral? Well, viral-ish?”
“What?”
“I, uh, recorded your interaction with the Douchecanoe, and I may have edited the video down to just the part where you took him down to the ground, and it may have a bunch of views.”
“Daisy Salcedo, you didn’t!”
“I didn’t show your face! I pasted Johnny Lawrence’s head over yours.”
“Karate Kid Johnny Lawrence or Cobra Kai Johnny Lawrence?”
“Cobra Kai Johnny. Duh.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “I’m not sure that’s better.”
“Someone else got your speech on video. That’s where it all started.”
If I could’ve sunk below the floor, I would have. “Oh, for crying out loud.”
Salcedo cued a video, and I winced as I heard my own words: Only having relationships with younger women won’t keep you from growing older, you sad little man.
“I really dislike the sound of my own voice,” I muttered.
“Well, lots of other people must like it, because I have a waiting list of potential clients, some of whom are willing to pay up to fifty dollars for a DIY option.”
“What?”
“At a discounted rate, you give them the idea, but it’s up to them to implement it.”
I looked from Havisham to Salcedo and back again. Words failed me.
“Come on, Stark,” Havisham said. “All you have to do is meet with the first client on the list. See if it works.”
“I have a job, and I’m already doing homework for my paralegal classes!” My excuses sounded hollow to my own ears. My job was on my own time, and I would have to take a break in my paralegal classes if I didn’t get my money situation straightened out.
“Which you’re able to do at a bar,” Havisham, the traitor, was saying. “So I think you can handle it.”
“I have my freelance gigs, too.”
Salcedo’s eyes brightened. “But I’m going to help you.”
Betty chose that blessed moment to slide plates of food in front of us. She topped off our coffee, and I was glad for the interruption, so I had a moment to think.
Salcedo tucked into her hashbrowns, closing her eyes and savoring the greasy goodness.
Havisham, meanwhile, was skewering me with one of her signature looks. “Come on, Stark. What have you got to lose?”
“Not a lot, but I’m sure this viral video will be forgotten by next week.”
She pointed her fork at me. “For heaven’s sake, when did you get to be such a pessimist?”
“Would you like a chronological list or one in order of severity of trauma?”
“Anyway,” Salcedo said in a tone that suggested we would get back on topic and we would like it. “I got the idea for ‘Little Miss Petty’ from what your jackwagon ex said. We can consider the glitter bomb as my audition for being your assistant.”
“The petty personal assistant to me, the petty personal assistant?” I asked, my chicken biscuit held midair.
“Yes!”
I nibbled at my chicken biscuit while I considered. Finally, I said, “Listen, I may be a millennial, but I’m getting too old for side hustles.”
Havisham looked up from her hashbrown bowl. “If you want to come up with seven thousand dollars in a month, then you need to take your vitamins and hustle.”
“Don’t remind me.”
Havisham and Salcedo started a whisper campaign of “you tell her” and “no, you tell her.”
“Just spit it out,” I said as I put down my biscuit and picked up my water glass. Gotta hydrate along with my coffee and all that.
Salcedo took a deep breath, then blurted, “Your first client is willing to pay you three thousand dollars.”
I had been taking a drink at the moment she said “three thousand dollars.” That water went down the wrong pipe, which necessitated a coughing fit that brought Betty shuffling over.
“Ma’am, are you choking?”
I shook my head.
“If you can’t speak, then I’m going to assume you’re choking.” She cracked her knuckles in grim anticipation of performing the Heimlich maneuver.
Waving her off, I finally managed to croak “No, I’m fine” between coughs.
She exhaled with a combination of relief and disappointment but then yelled over her shoulder to the cook. “Jasper, I told you those biscuits were too dry!”
“Ain’t nothing wrong with my biscuits! And this is the Waffle House. People ought to be eating waffles anyway,” said the wiry man standing by the griddle.
Betty hobbled in his direction, and the two got into an argument that I would’ve enjoyed a lot more if I hadn’t been wondering what in the heck Havisham and Salcedo had gotten me into.
“What does she want me to do for these three thousand dollars?”
Havisham shrugged. “I don’t know. You’ll have to ask her tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?”
She arched an eyebrow. “Want your car repossessed?”
“No.”
“Okay then. You’re petty Perry Mason, I’m your Della Street, and Salcedo is your petty Paul Drake—”
“Who?” asked Salcedo.
“It’s Perry Mason, look up the classics,” Havisham said before turning back to me. “I’ll keep up with your appointments. If none of this works, then we’ve lost nothing but time, but if it works . . .”
Unable to argue with Havisham’s logic or the opportunity for almost half of what I needed from one job, I turned my attention back to the flyer. “This is really impressive, Salcedo.”
“Thanks.” She sat up a little straighter and beamed. I wanted to be mad at her for posting the video, but I didn’t have it in me. Best I could tell, TikToks and memes were Gen Z’s love language.
I sighed. “Okay. So I’m going to try this Little Miss Petty thing, I guess.”
Havisham paused before taking a sip of coffee. “You can do or do not—”
“But Yoda says there’s no try!’” said Salcedo in a respectable Yoda voice. “I get that reference.”
When I got back to my apartment, I noticed the lights were still on in my hot neighbor’s apartment.
Through the vertical blinds, I saw that he was working out.
Forty push-ups so far, and I’d started counting while he was in the middle of that particular activity.
It was also possible I’d lost count while studying the musculature of his back and arms. You know, for science.
Next up were squats, which he blessedly did facing his door rather than the glass patio door.
Then burpees?
Wow. Who knew my neighbor was a masochist.
Stella, you’re skulking out here like a Peeping Thomasina.
Reluctantly, I gave up my vantage point. My bed was calling, and I needed a good night’s rest if I intended to add a side hustle to my usual schedule.