I, Racki (Part VIII)

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He flustered.

“You need to stop being cute and answer me. If my jumping over the counter and stuffing your head into a canister of mint chocolate chip is a fate you would like to avoid then you will answer my question with a quickness.” I bowed my head, looked over my glasses, and went on. “I got a lot to do today. Washing my car. Cleaning my clubs. Renting a tux. Buying a boutonniere, shaving, going to the bank, like they say pimping ain’t easy. That’s the kind of day I got in front of me and here you are being cute.”

“What did you want again?”

I blinked a couple of times, then said, “Jailey Hrcz.”

“Where in the world is Jailey Hrcz?”

“That’s why I’ve been wasting my time in this fly strip.”

His mouth went shut, like he was guarding some damn state secret. I jumped in again and said, “Out with it, ass hat.”

“I fired her fifteen minutes ago.”

“You’re kidding me.”

“Nope.” He had scooped up the change and was now funneling it into his pants pocket. “Her priorities were all out of whack.”

I said nothing.

“She just took off.” I began to see where he was going with this. What a jackass. “To go do her hair.”

“For the Prom. And you fired her.”

“Yep. Left the store empty.”

“Okay.”

“We could have been cleaned out.” He had mistaken the look on my face for concern and said, “She agreed to come in. I never said how long it was going to be. She should have assumed it was going to be all day and canceled her plans accordingly.”

He was getting my Mr. Pibb so I didn’t leave. When he turned back to the counter he said, “She’s a great girl, but she’s been really flaky lately and I can’t afford unreliable help what with the summer months coming up. There are things more important than high school dances, and as her boyfriend you really need to set her straight on that.”

“I’m not her boyfriend,” I said back.

“She certainly seems to think you are, Racki.”

“That’s her problem.”

“Everyday she’s in here she talks about what a great guy you are. She won’t let anyone say anything bad about you despite the fact there seems to be an awful lot of bad things to day.”

“What do you care?”

He took a paper towel and started wiping off the counter, a nervous tic for soda jerks everywhere. After he finished ruminating on whatever was taking up space in his brain he said, “As her boss and friend, I only have her best welfare at heart.”

“You want to bang her.”

“What—what are you doing with her, Racki?” he asked roughly and I might add rather impertinently.

“Not the kind of things you’d like to, looks like.”

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