They Gave My Cousin a Car, I Built an Empire novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Eleven Thousand Four Hundred

Vicky quits the chain store, the credit union says no without a cosigner, and she and Ben sign the lease anyway. The landlord says her cousin made two offers on their unit, and Tyler texts that his own pet store is opening across the street.

I gave my notice on Monday morning, standing in the stockroom of the chain store where I had worked for five years.

My manager read the letter, then read it again.

"Your dad won the lottery, right?" she said. "Is he backing you?"

"No."

"Honey, everyone in this building knows about the lottery."

"Everyone in this building can hear him tell it," I said. "He does the quarter thing."

She put the letter in a drawer and looked sorry for me, which was worse than if she had laughed.

"Two weeks," she said. "And if it goes bad, there's a job here."

I thanked her.

I meant it, and I also hoped I would never hear that sentence again.

On Tuesday, Ben and I put on our best clothes and drove to the credit union on Dorothy Lane.

The loan officer had a plant on her desk and a tissue box angled toward the customer chair.

She read our proposal while we sat there not breathing.

"This is a good plan," she said.

Ben squeezed my knee under the desk.

"The problem is the numbers on the other side," she went on. "No collateral. No cosigner. And no sales history, because there are no sales yet."

"We have twenty thousand four hundred dollars between us," I said.

"That's wonderful. It's also half of what you'd need for the first ninety days."

"So what do we do?"

She slid a card across the desk.

"Open, sell for three months, keep every receipt, and come back to me. I will approve you then. But not before."

Ben thanked her and stood up.

I stayed in the chair.

"Is there a way a cosigner changes it?" I asked, even though I knew the answer.

She looked at me for a moment.

"A parent, maybe?"

"Not a parent."

"Then no," she said gently. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked."

In the parking lot, Ben leaned against his truck and let me stand there.

"We could ask my uncle," he said.

"Your uncle drives a school bus."

"He has a boat."

"Ben."

"I'm just saying he has a boat."

I laughed, and then I couldn't stop, and then I was just standing in a credit union parking lot with my hands over my face.

He waited until I was done.

"Friday," he said, "we sign the lease anyway."

On Friday we sat in the landlord's office above a dry cleaner.

He was a tired man with a calculator and a framed photo of a fishing trip.

He pushed the lease across with two pens.

"One year. Four thousand one hundred down, first month's rent, and the last month's. You understand it's all due now."

"We understand," Ben said.

I signed my name on the first line.

My hand didn't shake until I handed the pen to Ben, and then it shook so much he laughed at me.

He signed his, and we both looked at the two names side by side.

"That's it," Ben said. "That's a store."

"That's an empty room with a bathroom," said the landlord.

"It's our empty room," I said.

He actually smiled.

"Your cousin was asking about your unit last week," he said. "Before you called. I told him it was already promised."

I stopped with the keys halfway into my pocket.

"My cousin?"

"Young guy. Nice car. He said he was scouting for his uncle."

"Did he make an offer?"

"He made two," the landlord said, and shrugged. "That's why I called you on a Sunday."

That night, I sat on the floor of the empty unit with Ben, eating drive-through burgers on a flattened box.

There was no furniture, no shelving, and nothing on the walls except a faded sticker that said *Hot Dogs, 2 for $3.*

Ben had measured the room twice with a laser and wrote the numbers on the wall in pencil.

"Eleven hundred square feet," he said. "Enough for dog food, cat food, a wall of toys, and a wash station in the back."

"Enough for a start."

"A start is all we need."

The envelope was already waiting on my porch when I got home that night.

Plain white, my name on the front in my mother's handwriting.

I didn't open it.

I put it on the kitchen counter, next to my phone, and I stared at the envelope until my phone lit up.

It was a text from Tyler.

*Hey cuz. Heard you're opening a pet store. Cute lol. Funny thing, so am I. Uncle Gary's staking me. Same road as you, just across the street.*

I read it standing at the counter.

Then another one came through, with a photo attached.

It was a storefront on Wilmington Pike, directly across from our unit, with a banner already hanging over the door.

*PUPPALACE. COMING SOON.*

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