So it's been 12 days... I'm sorry, I really did think I would be able to get it up within a week, but I really did get writer's block for this reason. Thank you so much to my reviewers, you guys are amazing and really give me things to think about while writing this story. I love you guys!
Disclaimer: I don't own Victorious, or Sam and Cat, which is mentioned. Kind of.
'Ding dong!' Cat's doorbell rang, and she raced to the door, with the adorable goat, Murf, in tow.
"Hi, I'm Cat!" She said while opening the door, assuming it was a customer she was expecting later in the day.
"We know, Cat." Jade replied, and Cat did a double take. "Wanna go to Nozu with me and Tori? It'll be like a girl's night out."
"I'm sorry, but I'm busy tonight." Cat said apologetically.
"With what? And why is there a filthy goat behind you?" Jade questioned, clearly surprised.
"I'm babysitting tonight. Sorry, I got to go, Murf looks like he needs to go!" Cat giggled before slamming the door in Jade's face.
"Vega, you were right. Something is up with Cat." Jade admitted to Tori minutes later on the phone. "Can we still go to Nozu with the others then? I'm craving some sushi rolls right now….See you then."
An hour later, the gang sans Cat entered Nozu, sitting cheerily down in one of the booths. Mrs. Lee approached them, looking regretful and carrying a CD. "This is for you. Please, don't play it in here, I don't want to have to listen to it again."
"What is that?" Tori asked warily, grabbing the CD from the table and turning it right side up. "Oh. Guys, let's go back to the car, we've got another reason."
The gang reluctantly got up, going to Jade's car and squeezing back in. Jade turned on the ignition and Tori, shoved in the back, leaned forward and slid the CD into the player.
Here goes nothing, she thought sarcastically.
"While Beck was out buying drugs with his daddy's money, mine had cut me off. What's a girl to do but get a job? And I got one. At Nozu. It wasn't the ideal job, but not because I had to sing a weird song while chopping squid or that the pay was bad, it was because the owner hated me. Yes Mrs. Lee, I know you hated me. In your defense, you tried to hide it, but I could feel it whenever you looked at me. You were never 100% happy with the work I did, and you always gave me the stink eye when I spilled or dropped something. Also, you made me serve all of my classmates, even though I could usually figure out their schedules and plan my work hours accordingly, it was humiliating when I did come across them. I had to serve them and act like their maid, getting them things, cleaning up after them. I was called 'Waitress' for 2 weeks after the first time some popular girls, aka Lindsay and her crew, saw me there. I worked for 24 hours every week and you made all of them unenjoyable.
One night you left uncharacteristically early, at 10 pm, instructing me to stay for the 2 hours until you'd be back and to lock up if you were late. I was thrilled. Were you starting to trust me? Or even better, like me? I worked my butt off for those 2 hours, serving and making most of the orders from night owls and cleaning the counters when I had spare time. Almost exactly 2 hours had passed when you came stumbling back in, hair ruffled and lipstick smudged. Luckily, there were no lurking customers, and when you sat down on the floor, I pulled you up and hauled you onto a chair and got you some coffee, trying to get you to talk to me. Your breath stank of beer and I was panicking. What do you do with a drunk woman? I was debating between sending you home – not that I even knew where that was- or keeping you here so Daisy didn't see you like this when you started speaking.
"I hate you." You spat at me, glaring at me for a second before turning your gaze to the table. "You, go to your fancy performing arts school and have all of your little friends, a nice big house and two normal parents and a good life. I hate you. My Daisy, she wants all of that. She deserves all of that. But she's stuck with a public school, broken dreams, a basement underneath a restaurant for a house, and an abusive, runaway father and a deadbeat mom." Pulling a bottle out of your jacket, you gulped down a sip, before dropping it onto the table. "You know, the only reason I hired you was to make your life miserable. Let me tell you a little story."
I was shocked. Flabbergasted. I'd never seen this side of you, such an angry at the world woman before and I straightened, looking around for my jacket.
"It's past 12, looks like my shift is done!" I said quickly, before bolting. Or, should I say, trying to bolt.
"Sit down." You hissed, and meekly, I did. "This is a story about a half Chinese, half Japanese little girl who loved to sing. She'd sing whenever she could, performing for the small town she lived in like it was a musical. Well, it wasn't. And one day, her father sat her down and told her the hard truth. That she could never be a singer. America was already unkind to Chinese people, and the best job she could hope for was at a factory, working from 7 am to 9 pm like he did. Her mother was dead by then, having died during childbirth of her stillborn younger brother. So, after that day, she stopped singing. Fast forward 10 years, and you have a girl who's pregnant. Her boyfriend gets mad and hits her sometimes, and she moves in with him anyway because she doesn't know what else to do. She's fired from her job and her father doesn't talk to her anymore, so she feels like she has to. And when the baby's born, and the scared daddy runs away, she finally feels like she's worth something, and can make a good life for her daughter. Except she can't, and she's working at a job that she hates and they're dirt poor, but she wants her little girl to get the chance she never did, to be a singer." You paused, and I think you're going to finish your story, but you just took another swig from the bottle and shifted farther away from me. "Leave. Now. You're fired. Never come back."
"What?" I asked, perplexed, but gathering my things.
"Go. Now." You replied, as if you hadn't told me your deepest secrets, your life story while half drunk. So I did.
I ran, and I didn't look back. But that's the reason you're one of my reasons, Mrs. Lee. You put a weight on my shoulders, something you couldn't keep inside and dumped it on me. You showed me what my future would be like, and you drowned any hope I had of being a star."
I just want to say that Mrs. Lee is in her 30's, and there was still racism back then in America. And I'm assuming she was quite young when she had Daisy, who is old enough to audition for Hollywood Arts, so she's about 15 in this story, although I doubt she'll ever be mentioned in this story again. And you can consider Andre's Horrible Girl to be after Mrs. Lee fired Trina or before, really.
And I just wanted to explain that Trina saw herself living in Mrs. Lee's shoes. She'd been told how she'd never make it as a singer, she didn't think she had much of a future, she had a boyfriend like that ( explained in the next chapter ), and she could basically see herself turning into an bitter Mrs. Lee.
And I'm honestly really excited for Andre's chapter, the reason is going to be so much fun to write, as well as Trina's parents and Tori's will be. But right now, the timeline for reasons is Ryder Daniels, Robbie, Moose, Andre, her parents, Tori, then a secret person I'll reveal after. ;)
Hope you enjoyed, and I'll probably update before September 9th, when school starts again for me!