Flat Broke Page 3

  Middle initials are cool. I wished I was a Jr. or, better yet, a III or even a IV. Or was K. Lucas Spencer cooler?

  I straightened my file folders, proud of my efforts on the crucially important first day of the rest of my life. Good work, Kev! I didn’t mind complimenting myself, since there was no one else around to do it, and praise, I’d read, keeps people motivated.

  I wasn’t even too bummed that I still hadn’t figured out a way to bring up the subject of my soon-to-be-wealthdom with Tina.

  4

  The Successful Person Knows That Hard Work, Although Not Necessarily His Own, Is the Cornerstone of His Achievements

  The following morning I went to school without a plan for getting rich, but with a better idea about how to build my business. It had come to me while I was sleeping. I’d dreamed that I had a butler and a chauffeur and a cook and a personal trainer. And I woke up knowing that what was missing was a staff.

  Sometimes you have to work backwards. So I’d focus on hiring people to work for me, and eventually, the idea of what we could actually all be doing would make itself known. Momentum was probably more important than specifics—right?—in starting up.

  JonPaul was waiting for me by the front door of school.

  “I want to get rich,” I said right away. One of the books said repeating your objective helps you achieve it.

  JonPaul hadn’t read that book. “You already told me that.”

  “The poker games are just the first step.”

  “In what?”

  “My business plan.”

  “Oh … sure. How’s that coming along?”

  “Great. I know just what I need.”

  “What’s that?”

  “People.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I should have people.”

  “But you don’t.”

  “But I should. Get me some.”

  “Okay.”

  “That can be your first job: hiring employees.”

  “For what?”

  “My business.”

  “What business? Did you figure that out?”

  “Not all the way. But I will. Don’t worry. I have a plan.”

  He started laughing. “You’re the only fourteen-year-old guy I know who plans to rule the world.”

  “Run the world, JonPaul, run, not rule. And I do not. I just want to get filthy, stinking rich. The sooner the better. Because that’s the American Dream. Or the Puritan work ethic. It’s … something patriotic and ambitious.”

  I could tell he didn’t really understand what I was talking about. Few do. But JonPaul is the kind of friend who will help.

  He knows more people than anyone I’d ever met. He’s on good terms with everyone at our school and has friends at Sandberg, our rival school, as well as the Catholic middle school.

  I’d been at HQ for an hour or so after school that day when he poked his head through the door.

  “I found you people!”

  I tried to look as if I had expected him to be this successful this fast.

  “Great! Way to go! Let’s meet them.”

  “It’s not a them, it’s a she.”

  Oh.

  I rallied. “Good. That was smart, JonPaul; we don’t want to bring too many people on board all at once.”

  “Right! That’s what I thought. Sam!” he called.

  Sam was a tiny girl with curly red hair and enormous green eyes and she couldn’t have weighed eighty pounds if she’d been soaking wet and holding a large houseplant. She looked thrilled and hopeful, like she was about to do something amazing, instead of hooking up a part-time job working for an eighth grader.

  “HiI’mSamit’sSamanthareallybuteveryonehasalwayscalledmeSamwhichisaboy’snameeventhoughI’magirl.”

  Whoa. I think and talk fast, but this girl was in hyperdrive, the kind that made the speed of light seem sluggish by comparison.

  “Hi, Sam; I’m Kevin. Why don’t you tell me a little bit about yourself and why you think you’re right for this position?” She opened her mouth, but I cut her off. “Slowly. We don’t pay by the word.”

  She nodded eagerly. “Right. I talk fast when I get nervous and this is my first job interview, so I’mreallyanxious.”

  I smiled sympathetically. I wasn’t about to tell her it was my first job interview too.

  “I’m thirteen, I go to the Aubrey Conley Day School, I’m an only child, I like sushi, I hate olives, and math is my best subject. I volunteer at the hospital and I babysit for the neighbors, but Idon’thavearealjob.Notajoblikewhatyou’re offering.”

  She had promise, this wee lass. Even if she did talk reallysuperfast.

  I saw her study the workstations—my desk, a cracked coffee table and a bedside stand with a huge scratch. Seating consisted of a dining room chair with a stain, and a wooden crate. Nothing matched, but I liked how the furniture filled up the storage closet, even though you had to climb over my desk to enter or leave the office.

  “I like what you’ve done with your place,” she said. “It’s the sign of a guy who’s not afraid to take risks and doesn’t play by the rules.”

  This girl had a good head on her shoulders. And if the longest journey begins with one small step, then my future empire would begin with one tiny worker.

  “You’re hired. Any curfew restrictions we need to worry about with your folks?”

  “No, as long as I’m with you and JonPaul and I’m home by nine, they’re okay.”

  “How do you two know each other, anyway?”

  Sam ducked her head, and JonPaul, I swear, blushed.

  Oh.

  “Wemetattheallergist’soffice.”

  “How long ago was that?”

  “We’vebeengoingtogetherforafewweeks.”

  Uh-huh.

  “Where’s the john?” JonPaul asked. Probably nervous because I’d just met his girlfriend. The girlfriend he hadn’t told me about.

  “Do that on your own time, okay? Captains of industry don’t pee.”

  “How do you know these things, Kev?”

  “I do my research.”

  “Do advisors pee?”

  “Yes, but only after meetings. And you’re not an advisor. You and Sam are staff.”

  “Oh,” Sam said sadly. “Just staff.”

  JonPaul looked at her like she was the greatest idea since melted chocolate chips and bananas.

  JonPaul. In love. With a chatty, smart munchkin. Color me surprised.

  I hoped I wouldn’t have to draft a policy about employees not dating. Nah. Until it became an issue that affected productivity or got really uncomfortable, I’d turn a blind eye to the, uh, interoffice, um, romance.

  Speaking of romance, if JonPaul could get a girlfriend before he even had this nifty job working for me, surely I could get Tina to be my girlfriend once I told her about the business and the employees and all the ideas I had for getting rich. I just had to figure out how to bring all this to her attention without looking like I was bragging—or boring. Some people, after all, aren’t business-minded. I didn’t think Tina was like that, though; she always seemed really smart to me.

  I left JonPaul and Sam sitting together on the crate talking about allergy shots and organic fruit juices. Time to find Tina. The clock was ticking toward the dance. Get her to say yes before someone else asks her!

  I knew that Tina took Irish dance lessons three doors over from Auntie Buzz’s office and that if I timed it right, I could “accidentally” run into her while she waited for her mom to pick her up in the parking lot.

  I walked down the street toward the dance studio. A bunch of girls came out and started heading toward me. Before I could even tell if Tina was with them, I panicked and jumped into the alley to hide. I needed a minute to compose myself, find the right words for Tina. I was crouched by the Dumpster, thinking, when a pair of sparkly pink gym shoes appeared in my line of vision.

  “Hi, Kev. What’re you doing?” Tina asked. She didn’t look like she thought it was weir
d that I was lurking in a grungy alley by the garbage. No, she was smiling. Even as I wanted to die of embarrassment, the thought flashed through my head that she was a one-in-a-million kind of girl to be so cool about talking to a guy sitting next to a smelly garbage bin.

  I stood up. I tried to stand up. I meant to stand up, but my legs must have fallen asleep while I was hunched down. I lost my balance on my numb legs and I … teetered. And tipped right over onto Tina. I’m not a big guy, but I fell hard and she wasn’t expecting it and I knocked her right over. Flat on her back on a pile of crumpled cardboard boxes to be recycled, with me right next to her.

  She wasn’t mad or upset at all—even though I’d Flat Stanleyed her in a grimy alley and was now kind of frozen and couldn’t seem to make myself move away from her. She laughed and said, “Are you okay? I didn’t mean to surprise you like that.”

  How … soft she was and how nice it would be to stay here in the alley until I came up with all the right and perfect words to tell her how incredible I thought she was and how badly I wanted her to feel the same way about me. And I was thinking maybe that should be my new plan, staying here with Tina forever, when I was yanked to my feet by a hand on the back of my belt. JonPaul hauled me up and away from Tina like he was picking up a rag doll.

  “Ohmygoshareyouokay?” Sam extended a hand to Tina and helped her up too. “Wasitarobberyattemptinbroaddaylight?”

  “I’m okay, and we weren’t being mugged. I … I tripped, and Kev tried to catch me, but I knocked him down too.” Tina laughed again and brushed herself off while I thought: I could go right ahead and die here and now. Life couldn’t possibly get any better than having Tina cover for me.

  “You fell?” JonPaul didn’t try to hide his skeptical tone.

  “Yes, I was running out of dance class and wasn’t paying attention and I ran right into Kev.”

  She gave me a look. One of those looks that make you turn hot and cold and sweaty and cotton-mouthed all at the same time. “I’m having a bad week,” she continued. “The other day I dumped over the janitor’s bucket and nearly drowned some sixth graders on the southwest stairs.”

  I opened my mouth to thank her for not making me look like an idiot in front of JonPaul and Sam and to apologize for the waterfall I’d been responsible for and to tell her how awesome she was to be taking the heat for me and that I wanted to send her flowers and open doors and throw my jacket on top of mud puddles for her to walk over and a million and one other great and romantic things that were roaring through my head. It came out, “Puddles.”

  She didn’t even look surprised. And she must speak blithering idiot, too, because she said, so only I could hear, “Our secret,” and then, more loudly for Sam and JonPaul, “Oh, there’s my mom. Anyone need a ride?”

  “Yesthanksifit’snotoutofyourway,” Sam said, and dragged JonPaul after her to climb into the car that had just pulled up to the curb.

  I tried to nod, I meant to nod, I wanted to nod, but some wires in my brain must have gotten crossed when I fell, because I felt myself shaking my head.

  Tina waved as she got into the front seat, and then her mother pulled away, leaving me standing in the middle of the sidewalk. Where the wires got uncrossed and I blurted a perfectly good speech to no one but a golden retriever that’d been sitting by a parking meter.

  “I think you’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever met, I’m starting a business to try to impress you and I’d like to ask you to go with me to the dance that’s coming up soon,” I said in a perfectly normal voice.

  “Woof.” The golden retriever wagged her tail.

  Well, it was a start. My line worked on the dog, and Tina and I had shared A Moment, A Look and Two Helpful Lies. What a girl! Next time: no falling and no gurgling.

  The next time I talked to Tina, everything was going to click into place.

  5

  The Successful Person Is a Carpe Diem Kind of Guy

  Hiring Sam earlier that afternoon had given me food for thought. If I could make good use of employees, maybe I could partner up with other successful people.

  I walked home from The Moment with Tina and studied my family over the dinner table. I’d already decided my parents were nonstarters in terms of ideas to exploit—my mother manages a bookstore and is always saying there’s no money in what she does, that working on behalf of literacy is a labor of love. And I wanted to impress my dad, not ask him for help being impressive.

  I studied Daniel and Sarah over my mac-and-cheese casserole and green beans. Nothing came to me as I watched them chew.

  As soon as dinner was over, Sarah headed to her place of worship. Our/her bathroom.

  As I’ve mentioned, my sister, Sarah, is sixteen. And vain. My mother says that’s typical of a girl her age. Daniel and I think it’s typical of a pain in the butt, because we share a bathroom with her.

  Our/her bathroom is more or less equidistant from all three bedrooms. I measured; I’m three-sixteenths of an inch closer than Daniel, but Sarah is directly across the hall from the bathroom, which we are supposed to share with each other.

  There are three sets of hooks for towels and three separate plastic bins under the sink for each of us to keep our stuff in. But Sarah has taken over all the drawers and the counter space around the sink. Which is where she keeps hot, spiky hair-fixing things that hurt.

  Her showers take forever, and I think she sleeps in the bathroom too. Probably hanging upside down by her heels from the shower rod because it’s some beauty secret she read about.

  And she’s always having her coven over before parties and dates and sporting events to do their makeup and fix their hair.

  Daniel finally gave up on trying to use our/her bathroom and troops down to the basement to use the funky, leaky shower that Dad installed in the laundry room, which smells like monkey butt.

  I resort to drastic measures like licking Sarah’s makeup, powdering my unmentionables with her makeup brushes and flushing the downstairs toilet while she’s in the shower.

  But that night, watching Sarah head into the bathroom to plug in a flatiron when I knew she wasn’t going out, I got curious about girls and their addiction to beauty routines. The next day after school, I trotted down to the closest beauty salon and sat in the front, pretending to be waiting for someone. I studied what went on and I listened to the rip of the credit card scanner as everyone paid.

  On the way home, I stopped by a beauty supply store and used some of my poker money to buy Sarah a tall director’s chair, a three-sided, lighted countertop mirror and an electric hot wax pot. I lugged everything home. Did Bill Gates or Donald Trump or Sam Walton or any of those other hugely successful business guys ever go to this much trouble for supplies?

  As soon as I got home, I set everything up in our/her bathroom and sat working at my computer and waiting for Sarah to appear.

  “What’s with the stuff in her bathroom, Kev?” Daniel asked after hockey practice.

  “Part of my Master Plan,” I said mysteriously.

  Daniel shrugged. “Hey, I’m supposed to tell you: the guys like grape soda and we want tortilla chips, not pretzels, next time.”

  I nodded and made a note. I’d started carrying a notebook around with me so that I could jot down great ideas. Or shopping lists.

  “What’s with the stuff in my—I mean, our bathroom?” Sarah asked when she got home.

  “I’m helping.”

  “Helping what?”

  “You. You already have what amounts to a beauty parlor in our bathroom.”

  She stared at me with slitted eyes.

  “When your friends come over, they have to sit on the countertop, the mirror over the sink doesn’t have magnification, and you’ve been buying little jars of wax to melt in the microwave in the kitchen. I bought you a client chair, a lighted mirror and a salon-grade wax pot that plugs in. More volume.”

  “Why?”

  “I upgraded your skinny butt and—”

  “You think my butt’s
skinny?” She twisted around to try to see her rear end.

  “—and so it’s only fair that I, um, reap part of the profits.”

  “What profits?”

  “What are you talking about?” Even Daniel had started paying attention.

  “Your friends need to start paying you. You’ve been doing their hair and makeup for free. Charge them.”

  “But, Kevin, they’re my friends. I can’t ask them for money. That’d be gross.”

  “What’s gross is the way you run your business.”

  “My … I’m doing makeup for my girlfriends. That’s not a business.”

  “Everything’s a business.”

  “You’re repellent.”

  “Whatever. I’ve, um, enhanced your resources. I should, uh, see some, whattayoucallit, benefits from my … investment.”

  “What?”

  “I want a cut.”

  “You’re a greasy little bully, you know that?”

  “You’ve been a bathroom hog for years, and now I’ve figured out how to make some money from it.”

  “But—”

  “Look, Sarah, are you a charity or are you a, a, an enterprise in the making?”

  “What are you talking about!”

  “Making money.”

  She opened her mouth to answer and was cut off by the doorbell. Mom answered the door. It was Connie Shaw, my debate buddy. She of the Scary Monobrow.

  “Sarah. Have you met Connie?” Sarah’s face lit up when she caught sight of Connie’s eyebrow. And the twenty Connie had clutched in her hand. “I told her you were a beauty whiz.”

  “There’s more where that came from,” I whispered to Sarah after she got Connie settled in her director’s chair in front of the mirror and plugged in the wax pot.

  She looked sympathetic. “Yeah, eighth grade is a tough time in a girl’s life. But zipzip that brow and she’s gorgeous.” Sarah patted my arm. “Leave it to me, Kev, I’ve got this covered.”

  “Give me your client list.”

  “My what?”

  “Your address book.”