On any normal day, when I treated them to boba or ordered afternoon snacks for the office, every single one of them called me "Beryl" with a smile on their face.
Seeing their true colors now was enough to make my stomach turn.
I propped my chin on my hand and stared at the sunlight outside the window. It hit me all at once that I had no reason to keep wading through this swamp alongside them.
I opened my laptop and began typing my resignation letter, word by careful word.
I had just finished and was about to hit send when Kathy dropped a message in the group chat.
It landed like a drop of water in hot oil. The whole chat erupted.
“The banquet venue is The Peony Grand.”
The moment she posted the full address and name, everyone lost it.
“Are you serious? The Peony Grand is the most famous seafood restaurant in the city. Last time I took my mom there for her birthday, one table alone cost me close to ten grand.”
Derek, who never passed up a chance to wine and dine on someone else's tab, immediately fired off a message the second he heard "Peony Grand"：“It's really twenty-one dollars a head?”
He was terrified of spending a cent more than necessary.
Kathy sent back a sticker that said "No problem."
“That's the price, Mr. Harrington.”
“I already talked to someone on the inside. As soon as we show up, it's twenty dollars a head.”
Derek fired off a string of thumbs-up emojis, then, still not fully convinced, added：“Send us the menu first. I don't want them passing off cheap dishes as the real deal.”
Before Kathy could even respond, her loyal lapdog Sarah jumped in.
“Boss, omakase doesn't come with a menu. That's the whole point.”
Derek caught himself and quickly backtracked：“Right, right, right. Got ahead of myself. This is a company perk for the employees, so Kathy, make sure you put your heart into it.”
“Absolutely. I'll make sure everyone eats and drinks like royalty.”
Watching the group chat glow with warmth and camaraderie, I couldn't help myself. I threw a bucket of cold water on it.
“The Peony Grand is a Cantonese seafood house. I've never once heard of them doing omakase.”
A place where a single plate of greens cost over fifty dollars. Did anyone honestly believe they offered a twenty-one-dollar-a-head omakase?
Anyone with half a brain could figure it out. But this crowd wasn't thinking. They were too busy hoping they'd scored the deal of a lifetime.
The group chat went dead, as if someone had pulled the plug on the internet. For a long time, no one typed a word.
Finally Kathy resurfaced：“Of course you guys wouldn't know. This is an insider-only thing.”
That was all it took. A wave of sycophants flooded the chat, falling over each other to praise Kathy, gushing about how she was obviously some heiress slumming it in a regular job for the experience.
Derek bought it too. If Kathy had the nerve to promise The Peony Grand at that price, she had to be a rich girl playing office for fun.
With the mindset that passing up a bargain was the same as losing money, he typed：“Any chance we can add more people? I'm thinking we invite our clients to dinner too.”
After all, at twenty bucks a head, not milking this for everything it was worth would be criminal.
He didn't even notice it himself, but somewhere along the way his tone toward Kathy had started to border on fawning.
Kathy waved her hand with grand generosity：“No problem at all. Just give me the headcount and I'll reserve the spots. Let's invite the suppliers too while we're at it!”
In the end, Derek scraped together every contact he had. He practically wanted to drag along his distant aunts and third cousins twice removed. The final tally came to a staggering 150 people.
Ten to a table. Fifteen tables.
Derek made a show of hesitating：“Is that going to be too much trouble for you?”
Kathy, the same woman who wouldn't normally spring for a single cup of boba, was suddenly the picture of magnanimity：“Not at all. The more the merrier.”
A table that normally ran close to ten grand, now supposedly two hundred.
Was that even remotely possible?
I shook my head with a quiet laugh, content to sit back and wait for Father's Day. The show was going to be spectacular.
