Meanwhile, back at the beach house, everything was falling apart.
George turned on his brother.
“You told me Daniela was going to help out around here!”
“I thought she was!” Rodrigo yelled back.
“No. You said, She’ll handle the cooking and the cleaning, don’t even worry about it.”
Lauren crossed her arms. Her sunburned face was going redder.
“That’s the only reason we let you two stay here without paying anything toward the rental.”
Rodrigo stared at her.
“What do you mean, without paying? George told me the house was already paid for!”
“It IS paid for,” George snapped. “By us. Thirty-two hundred dollars. You were supposed to make up for it by buying the food and having your wife run the house!”
Rodrigo’s jaw dropped. “You never told me that!”
“Because you said it wasn’t a problem!”
And right there, standing on that patio with a fourteen-hundred-dollar catered dinner going cold in front of them, all three of them finally saw the mess they’d made.
George wanted free labor. Lauren wanted two weeks off without touching a dish. Rodrigo wanted a free house and my savings for his fishing rod.
And the only person nobody bothered to ask was me. The one they all assumed would just quietly carry it.
George’s voice went cold.
“Well. Since Daniela’s not here, you’re doing her list.”
Rodrigo laughed nervously. “Me?”
“Yeah. You. We’re not cleaning up after you.”
“I’m on vacation!”
George looked him dead in the eye.
“That’s exactly what your wife said.”
That catered dinner, Rodrigo told me later, was the most uncomfortable meal of his entire life. Lauren’s sister and the two little nephews arrived halfway through and had no idea what was going on. The kids loved the pasta. The adults ate in near-total silence. The servers cleared the plates without saying a word and left at eight.
Nobody touched the key lime pie.
The next morning, Lauren woke Rodrigo up at seven-thirty sharp by knocking on his door.
“You’re making breakfast for everyone.”
“What about you?” he groaned through the door.
“I’m on vacation,” she said. “If you don’t like it, pay your half of the rental. Sixteen hundred dollars.”
That shut him up fast.
Rodrigo tried to make scrambled eggs for seven people. He burned them. Black on the bottom. The smoke alarm went off. The kids screamed. Then he had to scrub the pan.
Then George sent him to the grocery store.
For the first time in his adult life, Rodrigo went grocery shopping for a household without a list. Dish soap. Toilet paper. Trash bags. Laundry detergent. Paper towels. Milk, bread, eggs, cereal, ground beef, chicken, fruit, juice boxes, and a family-size bag of Goldfish crackers because the nephews were screaming for them.
When the cashier told him the total, he stood there in the checkout line and stared at the screen.
Two hundred and eighteen dollars.
He texted me from the parking lot.
I get it now. Everything is ridiculously expensive.
I didn’t reply.
At that exact moment, I was sitting on my balcony in my robe eating crab eggs Benedict and watching a pod of dolphins go by.
Sophia Rivers is an experienced News Content Editor with a sharp eye for detail and a passion for delivering accurate and engaging news stories. At TheArchivists, she specializes in curating, editing, and presenting news content that informs and resonates with a global audience.
Sophia holds a degree in Journalism from the University of Toronto, where she developed her skills in news reporting, media ethics, and digital journalism. Her expertise lies in identifying key stories, crafting compelling narratives, and ensuring journalistic integrity in every piece she edits.
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