She Ate My Lunch for Free Every Day—Until Six Tins of Luxury Caviar Arrived novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Itemized

Althea corners Killian about the card and sets her repayment terms. Cassidy emails the floor that Althea is catering Friday's potluck for thirty-eight.

I got in at seven the next morning and put the card from the caviar box on Killian's keyboard.

He was already at his desk with his mug.

He had been there before me every day for two years, and I had never asked why.

"There are two Cs on this floor," I said. "One of them said no in writing."

"Yes," said Killian. "It's me."

"You sent two hundred and forty dollars times six."

"One thousand four hundred and forty."

"I can do the math, thank you."

He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes.

"I owe you more than six tins," he said.

"That's what the card says. What's the more?"

"It's not one sentence."

"Everything is one sentence if you're brave."

"Then I'm not brave yet."

He reached into his jacket and took out a white envelope.

On the front, in blue pen, it said FOR EVERYTHING.

He held it out.

I could feel how thick it was without touching it.

"How much?"

"One hundred dollars."

"For everything?"

"It's what I had in the car."

I grabbed his wrist before he could set it on my desk.

It was the first time I had touched him, and I held on a second longer than I needed to.

His pulse was very fast.

I let go.

"You can't pay everything with one envelope," I said. "There is no everything. There's a number."

"Then what's the number?"

"I'm still working it out."

"How long does that take?"

"Until I'm done."

He put the envelope back in his jacket.

"Cassidy said Dennis would be ashamed of me," I said. "What did I do to Dennis?"

"Dennis was let go over padded mileage," said Killian. "It had nothing to do with you."

He said it to the desk, not to me.

I took a sticky note and wrote, in capitals, the terms.

ALTHEA'S REPAYMENT PLAN.

One: Lunches only. Six dollars a lunch. One a day.

Two: No lump sums. No speeches.

Three: Nothing personal goes on the books.

I pressed it to his monitor.

He read it twice.

"What's the third one?"

"If it goes on the books, it gets priced. I don't want to price you."

He nodded slowly.

I didn't know why I had said that last part.

"Lunch today," I said. "You start now."

He pulled a paper bag from under his desk, and I understood he had made the sandwich before I walked in.

It was cheddar and pickle on white bread, cut in a clean triangle.

I took it apart on a napkin and priced it out loud.

"Bread is a dollar twenty, cheddar is a dollar seventy, pickles are a dollar twenty because you put on a lot."

"I like a lot."

"That's four dollars and ten cents."

"Isn't it six?"

"It's four ten, which is one ninety short."

He put a clementine on the napkin.

"Seventy cents," I said. "Balance carried, one dollar twenty."

"Carried to where?"

"Tomorrow. Interest is nothing, because I'm not a monster."

He nearly smiled.

"Althea?"

"What?"

"It's four hundred and eighty-one."

I stopped.

"How do you know that?"

"I counted too," he said. "I kept a tally on a sticky note in my bottom drawer. I didn't know what else to do with it."

I sat very still.

He had counted every one, and he had never said anything to me or to Cassidy.

I wanted to be angry, and I wanted to ask why, and mostly I wanted to eat the sandwich, so I picked up half and ate it.

It was a good sandwich.

"Why a ledger?" he asked. "Nobody keeps a ledger."

I chewed and swallowed first.

"My dad lent money to every friend he ever had," I said. "He never wrote any of it down. When he died, we paid for his funeral for six years, and nobody remembered owing him anything."

"I'm sorry."

"It's fine. I write things down."

He did not say it was okay, or that I was not like that.

He just nodded and picked up his half of the sandwich.

I went to my desk and logged it: One lunch, C. Pembroke, cheddar and pickle, $4.10, plus clementine, $0.70.

At nine, every email on the floor chimed at once.

Subject: FRIDAY POTLUCK!!!

Althea is CATERING this Friday, it said. Thirty-eight people have already signed up!!! xo Cass.

I looked across the floor.

Cassidy was waving at me with her whole arm.

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