Welcome! This is picture prompt week. More of my story, "Some Kind of Wonderful" is here for you today. The word limit is 300. The picture depicts the facade of the restaurant, Chuck's Wagon. I hope you enjoy it. Scroll down to return to Tuesday Tales.
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New
York City
Jackie
Stone narrowed her eyes to read the sign on the door of Chuck’s Wagon, the
steak house where she worked as a manager and dessert sous chef.
SEIZED!
Big
black letters on an orange piece of paper was plastered on the inside of the
glass door. A huge padlock secured the knob and prevented entry. Puzzled,
Jackie pulled anyway. The door rattled, but stayed shut. She shook her head. How stupid. Like the padlock is gonna fall
off because you pull on it?
She whipped out her cell phone and dialed her boss,
Chuck Gregory.
“Hey, Chuck. What’s going on? The door’s padlocked.
There’s a sign that says ‘seized’ in the window. What the hell?”
“Oh, sorry. Tax man cut us off.”
“What do you mean, the tax man cut us off?”
“I’m a little behind in taxes. So they took the
restaurant.”
“What? A little behind?” She paced up and down on
the sidewalk in front of the restaurant.
“Okay, okay. Maybe I’m a lot behind.”
“Chuck. You lost the restaurant?” She stopped, her
mouth fell open.
“Yeah. But I’m going out west. Sindara’s got a house
in Montana. I figure I’ll find a place out there and open another steak house.”
“You’re going where?”
“Montana. Is there something wrong with your
hearing, Jackie?”
“Nothing wrong with my hearing. Just my choice of
boyfriends.”
“You and I were never serious.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. How could you let that happen? I
told you to put money in a separate account. And then when it’s time to pay taxes,
you’d have it.”
“Yeah, well, Sindara wanted to buy the house. She
needed the down payment.”
“You gave your tax money to your other girlfriend?”
She shielded her eyes from the sun with her hand.
Wow! Talk about getting taken in. Poor thing. I would say she definitely had the wrong boyfriend. Well done.
ReplyDeleteWow. Just wow. What a creep! I feel so horrible - I'm so glad she seems more furious than heartbroken. Great job!
ReplyDeleteOh, my gosh! Well, he's a toad! Hopefully she never has to lay eyes on him again. You did a beautiful job of pulling me right into her life!
ReplyDeleteWhat a high-caliber jerk! Great snippet. I was pulled right in!
ReplyDeleteOh no! The cad! I want to smack him.
ReplyDeleteahhh, I've seen this tax scenario in my career all too often. Sad that they don't prioritize taxes so they can keep alive.
ReplyDeleteAnd what a jerk this guy is! Creep.