A Coincidental Conundrum

“You did it! You really did it!” My little sister was clasping her hands together, stars in her eyes. When I got home and told her the news, that Don was going to ask her on her very first date, she was over the moon. It was kind of annoying, really. “Oh, I hope he’s still as good at hide-and-seek as he used to be!”

You know, I don’t think I’ll ever understand girls. Not in a million billion years.

Well, except for Al, maybe. I think I get her pretty ok. Especially when she’s yelling at us. When she’s doing that, it’s pretty clear what’s on her brain.

#

“You really think this is gonna work out?” Fence asked me that night at work. “This whole thing between Don and your sister?”

“Who knows?” I told him. “Probably not. I don’t know. But it’s not really my problem anymore. I did my part. I set up the date. Or, you know, told Don that he should, and he agreed. I’m probably not gonna play a role in any of the rest of this, whatever ends up happening. Not even a bit part.”

“Yeah, I guess…” was all he said, looking kind of distant as he scratched the back of his neck with a char-crusty spatula… and then nearly tripped over his untied shoelaces as Al instantly pulled him aside to remind him for the hundredth time that evening not to use the utensils to scratch with anymore, and that she’d beat the habit out of him with a bundle of asparagus if she had to. And also to tie his shoes.

As for me, I was up to my elbows in work tonight again — literally — so I got back to it. We had a long week ahead of us. It was going to take this kitchen all we had to scrub our poor hygiene and rinse all our bad habits before the week was out.

#

Even still, the week ended up passing in a flash, probably because I had plenty to do. At work, we prepared for the inspection, getting the restaurant into a presentable state and our collective act as staff cleaned up. I was proud to say that by the time the weekend rolled around, the effort had succeeded. The restaurant was spicker and spanner than I had ever seen it — than it had ever been, I would have bet. And we, the staff, were now running the place like a ship. A tight one. A cramped rowboat, I guess, like a dinghy or something. Or whatever the saying is. Whatever. Point is Al’s week spent whipping us into shape and molding us into perfect, cream-of-the-crop restaurant employees had paid off. We had managed the seemingly impossible. By the weekend, we had transformed Stench of the Sea from a biohazard containment zone into a perfectly respectable eatery. Well, as long as you were ok with a few chipped plates here and there. And ok, there were some remaining defects, sure. Parts of the wall were still peeling off into scrolls of dull paint — that sorta thing. But you get the idea. Somehow or another, we’d done it. The pre-inspector could do his worst. We were golden. I was sure that the only thing that would ever manage to monkey a wrench into our works was unlucky happenstance of the highest caliber. Some sort of cartoonishly absurdly improbable coincidence that would never in a million years play out in real life.

Haha.

Meanwhile, at home, I was coaching my sister on what to do on her date and, more importantly, how to flash Don a smile that wouldn’t make him want to call the cops. And it was working scarily well. Replica adapted fast and learned fast, and on the fly to boot. Before long, she had a lot more than just her smile down. Her mannerisms were perfect. She knew exactly what to say in any given scenario, like she had managed to etch entire RPG dialogue trees into the grooves of her brain. Her outfit was prepared almost a week in advance and was perfect for the once-in-a-lifetime-the-rest-of-which-she’d-hopefully-be-spending-with-Don occasion she was sure, she told me, this was going to be. I didn’t help with the outfit, by the way. In that department, we both knew I was useless. All my clothes come off the discount rack at Target. Anyway, as much as part of me wanted to see her screw everything up, epically crash and burn and go down in flames on her very first date, by the end of the week, I was completely in her corner, rooting for her all the way.

“You got this,” I told her as she was about to head out, flashing a thumbs up and the same smile I had used to coach her with.

“Eww,” she said. She shot me a look suitable for a water flea. “Your look so gross. You should try being more like me.” She smiled like I taught her. Pathetically, I had no comeback: she looked quite nice. I knew she would at the very least give Don a good impression, if not leave a lasting and positive one.

And frankly — not to pat myself on the back too much here, especially considering what happened next — I was just as sure of myself. It was a big day for yours truly too, after all. The day of reckoning. The day the pre-inspector was set to pre-inspect my place of employment. And we were ready. We had spent a week transforming our once meager, rancid-smelling, pest-infested eatery into the best of all possible restaurants. I was confident that we could take whatever this pre-inspector, if that was his real name, could dish out. Confident we could plate it and serve it right back to him with a smile, alongside the best of them.

But when I got to the restaurant, reality slapped me in the face like a raw fish. Don’t ask me how I know what getting slapped by a raw fish feels like. We’d be here for hours. Point is? The atmosphere in the kitchen was tense. I could feel it as soon as I stepped back there, took a look at the grimness and glumness all around. A bunch of my coworkers were just sitting around, nobody talking, everyone looking nervous and tense. I must’ve looked like a bobblehead, neck-swiveling around the room. Nobody my eyes landed on made eye contact back. Not even Fence. It didn’t take a genius to figure out: something was off.

“What’s wrong?” I asked. “Why does everyone look so down?”

“What’s wrong?” Al repeated, mockingly — she was there too, leaning with her head down over a now-spotless prep sink. “More like who’s wrong.”

“Who?”

“The pre-inspector,” she snapped, standing up and glaring, “that’s who!”

I just stood there like an idiot, letting my jaw hang.

“Look, kid,” Al then said after a short silence, “sorry. It’s not your fault.”

“I just want to know what’s happening.”

She motioned me over to where we could see the restaurant floor. “He’s here. Sitting there. At that table. See?”

I scanned the room. When my eyes landed on the prize, they globed the size of golf balls, it felt like. If I was drinking something at the moment, I would’ve done a spit take.

“What the—?!” That was all I got out before Al clamped a sweaty palm over my mouth to muffle my scream. Once the shock wore off, she let go, and I continued, making sure to whisper this time. “That’s my sister!”

To be continued!