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"You're fired."
"What? Ray, c'mon I need this job!"
Ray sighed, rubbing his eyes and making his glasses come up a little. "No, you really don't. Caroline, I know who your parents are. Your mother is a successful lawyer, and your father writes fanfiction-"
"Horror," I cut in.
Ray waved his hand. "Same thing. Look, you're going away to college once this summer is over and you're 19 years old. Hell, you've been working here for the past three years, its about time we let some new people in."
"Ray..." I drawl out. "I enjoy working here. It gives me something to do during the summer!"
He sighed, scratching the little bit of stubble splattered onto the bottom of his face. "Sweetheart, why don't you actually do something this summer? I mean, you must have friends, or at least a boy you could," he paused, giving a hinting kind of look,"hang out with. You, have fun this summer, get laid or whatever the kids are doing a bunch nowadays. "
"Ray!"
"What! I'm just saying... My point is, Caroline, I love you and I love you working here,-"
"Then why are you firing me?" I asked, crossing my arms and sliding back into my chair.
Sighing, he said, "Because a person is only as good as their experiences are, and frankly you don't have many."
As much as I hated to admit it, Ray was right. I lived in a small town in northern Texas and everyone knew something about everyone. And with Ray running one of the few places people could go out and eat in this area, he heard all the gossip from everyone ranging to small 10 year-olds to the old ladies who come in to place cards. Everyone here seemed to know how blasé my life was. All I ever seemed to do was lay around, watching Netflix, playing little computer games, having chess matches with my dad, and taste testing my mother's desperate attempts to try to find new ways to make junk food healthier with crap like vegetables and stuff like that.
Point is, I'm kind of hopeless and everyone knows it.
"Whatever," I grumbled. Silence quickly filled the empty space, me picking on a string on my apron and Ray cleaning his glasses. "So am I really fired?" I asked, still looking down at the loose material.
"Yes. Trust me, I wouldn't fire you if I didn't need to, but I need to make sure the new kids I hire are going to be good on their own. You know how picky I am about how my restaurant runs, and I can't just have a bunch of crazy fifteen, sixteen year old kids come in two weeks before school looking for some money to run this place! I've got to take this summer to pick the right ones to fill your place and a couple of other workers I had to let go."
I sighed. "I understand. Do I still get employee discount?" I asked, quirking my eyebrow and letting a little smile slip onto my lips.
Ray chuckled. "You can have whatever's left in the tray full of fries."
