Page 78 of Just So You Know, I Don't Work Friday

“No, no. Of course not. Would I do such a thing?” He looked away and then walked over to Chelsea. An elderly lady took the first egg and took a bite. I could see her wrinkling her nose, but she didn’t say anything. Then a young man took an egg. He’d put the whole thing in his mouth and chewed it down, and he didn’t say anything, either. Maybe, just maybe… And then the coughing started. First, it was the old lady, then the young man, and then everyone who took an egg after it.

“Water,” the old lady croaked. “I need water. It’s so hot.”

I rushed over to the side table, grabbed one of the jars of water, and started pouring it into cups. “This way if you need water,” I said, rushing over to hand cups of water out.

“What’s going on?” Finn asked as he looked at me.

“It’s my fault,” Chelsea said. “I added some hot sauce because everyone loves hot sauce. But maybe I added a little too much.”

“It tastes like burned peppers,” the young man said. I looked away from Chelsea and Finn. This was going just as bad as I thought. In fact, it was most probably going to be worse.

“I told you they wouldn’t get food poisoning, though,” I said to Finn, half-joking. “I didn’t say their mouths might not be a little hot after they ate one.” His lips twitched slightly, but he didn’t look amused. “Let me go to the kitchen and check on the next meal,” I said quickly and hurried out of there. As I made my way to the kitchen, I grabbed my phone and called Polly. “Where are you?” I asked.

“I’m at Red Lobster. I just placed an order.”

“What did you get? Please tell me you got something good.”

“Well, I got those cheddar biscuits.”

“Okay, and?”

“Some cod.”

“Okay.”

“And fries.”

“What?”

“I just got a bunch of fish and chips,” she said. “The other stuff didn’t look that good. And they said the number-one seller is the lobster and the fish and chips, but you didn’t want lobster because you wanted to make fish. So let’s just pretend that you missed being in England and you decided to make fish and chips.”

“But how can I miss being in England if I’ve never been to England?” I exclaimed loudly and lowered my voice in case someone came into the kitchen and could hear me.

“They don’t know that. They think you trained in France. Of course you would’ve been to England if you trained in France.”

“Oh my God. No.” I took a deep breath. “Fine. Just bring the fish and chips and whatever else.”

“Okay. I’ll see you soon.”

“Okay,” I said, hurrying back into the kitchen. And then I looked at the stove and saw a bunch of water had bubbled out onto the stove top. I rushed over and opened the pot and saw a bunch of potatoes. They had been on the stovetop for so long, the water had completely evaporated. I stared at the stove and turned the fire off. I wasn’t sure if that would affect how the mashed potatoes tasted, but I knew it wasn’t good. I walked over to the fridge and opened it to see if there was anything else I could find to try to save the day. There was nothing.

I could feel myself starting to cry, and then I laughed. It wasn’t funny, but I was close to hysterics. It was just such a hot mess. I knew that it was done. It was all over. There was no way Finn would believe anything I said again. I was surprised he’d believed me in the first place. In fact, I was surprised that anyone had ever believed anything I’d ever said. I was such a poor liar.

I took a deep breath and froze as footsteps headed toward the kitchen. Chelsea walked in and made a face. “They just called nine-one-one,” she said, looking slightly nervous.

“What do you mean they just called nine-one-one? Oh my God, what happened?”

“They think someone might be having a heart attack,” she said, and my eyes almost popped out of my head.

“What?”

“Yeah. Maybe the pepper was a little bit too strong. I don’t know.” She shrugged. “But Finn wants to see you.”

“He does?” I asked nervously.

“Yeah, and he looked kind of pissed.”

“Oh, fuck,” I said. “Maybe I’m just going to leave. I think I’m just going to get in my car. Can you—”

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