Gemma's Summer Night

1: Gemma's Shitty Job

The line at Swirl-Moothies was winding around the corner. Again.

My eyes narrowed at so many of my classmates waiting their turn for an ice cream cone or smoothie at the new popular shop across the street. According to the school paper, the smoothies were "totally orgasmic".

I personally would like to know how our school's editor let that word slip pass the principal's radar. Though I'm sure it had to do with adding plenty of Benjamins to the school funding. I worry about what our world has come to when Kim Wu can just slide money across the table, and Principal Deacon looks the other way. Idiocrasy at its best.

Speaking of Kim Wu, her royal majesty was strolling passed the long line with her nose up in the air, and her two lackeys right behind her.

Unlike the normal Queen Bee you'd find in high school, Kim didn't need other girls to be her friends. Having too much estrogen around was just asking for the other girls to try and boot her out. I find this logic of hers adorable because the Wu family was so wealthy, they were crapping it out. And instead of two prim, prissy girls lagging behind with their noses just as high as the Queen Bee's, there were two mean-streak bulldozers.

Jake and Craig were close friends of the Wu family so, naturally, the offspring of the wealthiest families in Braidman would be besties. While Craig was part Hispanic and African American with dark eyes, shaved down hair close to the scalp, there was Jake; a blond, blue-eyed, and pig snouted boy. Both lackeys were wide, big-shouldered, and pretty much were assholes. The perfect personality balance to their hoity toity queen.

Craig and Jake were right behind Kim, giving sideway sneers to everyone they passed. The pair halted a foot behind their leader when Kim stopped at the front of the line, raising a hand to snap and flick her fingers at the teenagers in her way. Those who had been patiently waiting, frowned at Kim's dismissive gesture. When they didn't move right away, Kim abruptly turned on her heel and gave her boys a pointed look. She said something before both Jake and Craig turned their sneers to the girls and a boy at the very front of the line.

One of the bulldozers stepped forward and immediately the customers backed down. My defeated classmates pouted as they moved out of the way so Kim could flip her long dark hair over her shoulder and stroll into her father's shop.

From where I was standing behind the counter in my own family's shop, I pursed my mouth to the side, eyes still narrowed. Despite the rude behavior from Kim, my classmates still waited in that long, horrendous line. Just to be clear, I would never be standing there anyway but had I been, I would make sure to inform her father that his daughter cost the shop my business. Though, from where I stand with Kim, it'd be no skin off her back.

Turning away, I straightened from leaning on the front counter, looking around the large space of the seating area. The empty tables had one side connected to the pale green walls. There were just as many empty tables in the middle of the room. There wasn't a soul in my family's taco shop, and I couldn't blame them to be honest.

After all, it was the middle of summer vacation since school let out a month ago, and nobody was going to be strolling in here looking for Mexican food. Not when the sun was a scorching hundred and something degrees in Southern California.

Every summer was the same for me. I'd wake up early to accompany Dad to the shop, opening it up after I gave the entire place a quick sweep, wipe down and all the chairs were pulled down from being placed upside down on the tables.

And then the waiting began. I'd sit behind the counter, like always, to manage the register. The register that had the same amount of money that was there when we started in the morning. When I wasn't managing the register, I'd be in the back with Mom, Dad and Rose helping make food.