I gulped back a few unfamiliar emotions. “You really think so?”
“I am never wrong,” she said with a sly smile. “You know this.”
I let out a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding. “Okay.”
“Okay.” She grabbed my phone off the coffee table and handed it to me. “So quit. Right now. Because if you are doing this, you need to commit. No half measures.”
I stared at her, suddenly locked in place. I tried to speak, but my mouth wouldn’t open. I couldn’t move. I wasn’t even sure I was breathing.
“I should do it in person though, right? That’s the professional thing. Schedule a meeting with Brad, give him two weeks’ notice, help train my replacement. I should to this the right way, shouldn’t I?”
“Why?”
Why? How could she ask that? She was the consummate professional. Of course this was the right thing to do. How could she ask me such a thing?
“Because that’s what you’re supposed to do?”
Priya tossed her empty chip bag down, licked her fingers, then crossed her arms. “Says who?”
“Says, I don’t know,everyone? It’s . . . professional standards? Common courtesy?”
“Finn, that place does not deserve your courtesy. That Brad certainly does not.”
My leg started bouncing. Nervous energy had to go somewhere.
“Finn, think about this logically,” Priya said, taking my hands in hers. “What has Brad done for you in the last year that makes you think he deserves an in-person resignation with two weeks’ notice?”
“Well—” I started, then stopped. “I mean, he’s . . . he’s been . . .”
“An asshole?”
“I was going to say ‘challenging.’”
“He has been an asshole. And not the kind you gays love to lick so much. He is a large hairy one that is never properly sanitized,” Priya said firmly.
“Priya!” Never, not once, had my proper little princess spoken about another person so . . . graphically.
“I can’t just—”
“Yes, you can.” She held up my phone. “What is stopping you?”
“What if I need a reference later? What if the bar doesn’t work out and I need another bartending job?”
Priya’s expression softened. “Oh, little bird, do you think Brad is going to give you a good reference either way? And if the bar does not work out—and itwillwork out because you’re going to make it so—you will have run a startup business from the ground up. That is a much better reference than anything Brad could give you.”
She had a point.
“You are allowed to be afraid,” she continued. “Change is scary. But you are also allowed to want something better. And you do not owe Riley’s or the hairy asshole anything except an invoice for all the unpaid overtime you have worked.”
“You’re very dramatic tonight. Have you been watching Bollywood films again?”
Her smile lit up the room. “I work in an emergency room. I have seen what slow soul death looks like, and you have been exhibiting symptoms no less than two years.” She handed me back my phone. “So here is what you are going to do. You are not going to honor the hairy asshole with your voice. You willtexthim right now and tell him you quit. You will givehim no notice and no explanation. Do this now.”
“What if—”
“No ‘what ifs.’ Youaredoing this. Do not argue with me or I will call on the many-handed god to slap you until you stammer more than you already do.”
“I don’t . . . st-stammer.”
