New life

It’s just orange juice

Arianna pov

Crap she was running behind today. Aurora did not want to wear anything she picked out today. That small hiccup threw off the whole routine. That made her one of the last cars in drop off line. Then Ari missed the time to drop off the kids for school and had to sign Lili and Declan in at the office.

Now Ari was driving to Lachlan’s and she was over thirty minutes late. She came to raised voices.

“I don’t care what that woman said, go get me some more orange juice,” Arianna heard some one yelling from the large dining hall. Ari put down her purse and went to go look. She found some giant man standing over Ariel screaming in her face.

“Hey! What is going on here?” Ari said and pulled Ariel away from the awful man. Ariel was crying hysterically.

“You! Where is my orange juice woman?” The man asked menacingly.

“Gone, since you can’t see with your eyes, and you don’t talk to me that way.” Arianna had dealt with entitled men her whole life, she didn’t take their bullshit.

“Oh ya, or what?”

“Or I call the police,” Ari threatened. The man just laughed like she said something funny.

“Hey what’s going on here?” Lachlan said in a deadly tone.

“This man is threatening me and Ariel over orange juice of all things.” Arianna gave the man a disgusting look, and then looked to Lachlan. “I don’t know what kind of people you associate with, but I won’t put up with me or my people being harassed. I will call the police and file a report.” Arianna looked to Ariel who was still crying,

“Come on sweetie.” Ari gave one last look to that man.

“Pathetic.” The man didn’t like that and he came for her. She reached for her phone,

“I’m calling 9-1-1.” Lachlan stopped her.

“That’s not necessary.” Arianna was livid,

“Oh really? Are you the one that’s being attacked? I don’t think so, I also don’t see you doing anything about this man doing the attacking in your home. I won’t work in an unsafe environment. If he isn’t banned from your home I’m quitting.” The man laughed and Lachlan looked at him.

“What’s so funny, you heard her. Pack your sh.it and get out. Your gone.” Arianna just watched on, she didn’t give the man a gloating look. Ari looked to Ariel and ushered her to the kitchen.

“What happened?” Brie asked.

“Nothing.” Ari looked to Ariel, “why don’t you go to your room and we will cover you for the day.”

“Are you sure?” Ariel asked. Ari nodded,

“I’m positive, we are supposed to be getting out extra help today anyway.” Brie walked out with Ariel who was still slightly crying. Ari pulled out her phone.

Me: where is our additional person?

L: they should be there soon, she is a single mom like you, so she had to get her kid ready for school.

Me: ok thanks.

L: whenever you get a minute I want you to come to my office.

Me: ok

Just then a woman came crashing into the kitchen.

“I’m sorry I was late! My son would not get ready for school.” The woman was of course beautiful and skinny. She looked to be about twenty-five. Arianna laughed,

“Trust me I get it. I need to get started on lunch, will you clean up breakfast in the dining room please. I’ll be out there in a minute.” Arianna got the chili out of the fridge and into the crockpots. She turned all of them on high. She got the stuff out for peanut butter sandwiches.

Then she had realized that the woman hadn’t come back yet. She should have come back in with dishes. After what had happened before Arianna was worried about the poor girl she hadn’t even had a chance to learn the name of. She went storming into the dining hall.

There the poor girl was cleaning up a huge mess. She wasn’t alone, Brie must have come back. Plates were still at the table, food all over the floor. Arianna was furious.

“Brie, do you have to do this every day?”

“Yes Ari?” Like it was no big deal.

“What’s the youngest pack member that eats here at the dining hall?” Brie didn’t seemed phased by the question.

“While sometimes some members bring in their young children. Usually the youngest is sixteen.”

“This is f*****g ridiculous. My four year old has better table manners.” The young woman covered her mouth and laughed.

“I’m sorry sweetheart I didn’t catch your name.” The woman smiled,

“It’s Lindsey.”

“It’s nice to meet you Lindsey. Brie whenever you guys get done will you please make peanut butter sandwiches. I have to go talk to Mr. Anderson.”

“Yes Ari,” Brie nodded and Ari went to Lachlans office. She quickly reached his office, the rage adding to her steps. She didn’t bother knocking and simply opened the door.

“Don’t you know it’s common courtesy to knock?” Lachlan asked. Arianna let out a laugh,

“That’s funny.” Lachlan looked confused,

“What?”

“Common courtesy. It seems your people don’t have any, and I was going to ask if you knew what common courtesy was.” That seemed to piss him off, he stood up and growled at her.

“How dare you talk about my people this way?” Arianna was so fired up she wasn’t intimidated by him in the slightest.

“When a grown man attacks a young woman in plain view and no one stops it? Yeah I will, and when these people have worse table manners than my four year old daughter, I definitely will call them out on it.” The fight seemed to go out of him.

“Explain about the table manners,” Lachlan said sitting back down in his seat.

“I don’t need to explain anything, go take a look for yourself, there’s food all over the floor. Your people don’t even bother to remove their plates from their table. I assumed it was done by children, Brie had to tell me it was all sixteen year olds.” Lachlan grunted and went to open his laptop. Arianna moved and saw he was looking at surveillance cameras in the dining room. Lachlan simply grunted.

“I honestly don’t know how the two of those girls got by doing all the work all this time, they must of been working around the clock.” Lachlan didn’t say anything for a moment.

“Why can’t you just serve the orange juice?” Lachlan ask. Ari let out a sigh, and didn’t say anything about the switch of topics.

“Look the decision is yours. I will do what you tell me to do. But I was simply doing what you told me to do and save you money.”

“And how is stopping people from drinking orange juice going to do that?” Lachlan rolled his eye. Arianna was pissed,

“Considering you spend close to fifty dollars a day just in orange juice. Which means that’s over three hundred dollars a week. And over a thousand dollars a month. That’s a decent amount of money, well for us poor people anyway.” Arianna scoffed at him. Lachlan looked shocked,

“How the hell do we spend that much in damned orange juice.”

“Since you eat around eight gallons of orange juice a day, and they are six bucks a pop. That’s just about fifty bucks. I won’t even get started on the bacon you consume.”

“How do you know how much we eat a day, this is your second day.”

“It was the only thing in the fridge, that and sausage. I didn’t get any at the store yesterday. The girls made five pounds of each. Also at least five dozen eggs. Do you want to know my estimate for how much you are spending on a single breakfast?”

“How much?”

“Close to two hundred dollars, for fifty people.”

“That’s insane.”

“Tell me about it, for people who are too poor to eat anywhere else they are incredibly spoiled. Getting bacon and orange juice every day.” Ari took a breath, “but it’s your money, I just work here.” Lachlan let out a sigh,

“Okay what is your idea for breakfast?”

“Well to make it like a hotel continental breakfast. It clearly works for them in regards to profits over costs.”

“So you want to get rid of bacon and sausage all together?” Lachlan asked.

“No, what time do you normally take breakfast?”

“Usually seven thirty why?”

“Well at that time we’d bring in a limited number of both bacon and sausage. We would always have cereal, bagels, muffins, bread, yogurt, eggs, and a variety of juices. Then on certain days we would do specials. Like French toast, pancakes, biscuits and gravy, or omelets. We would post a menu for everyone to see. We could also do the same for lunch and dinner as well.” Lachlan nodded,

“I like it, I also like how I get to keep my bacon. And I like the menu posting. So everyone knows what’s going on. As time goes on we may want to add an rsvp list.”

“You expecting more people?” Ari asked.

“Maybe, is that a problem?”

“For cooking it depends. Something’s can be whipped up in a jiffy, other things can take an hour. So ya it may not be a bad idea.”

“So what’s for lunch and dinner?” Ari laughed.

“For lunch is chili and peanut butter sandwiches. Dinner is tacos.”

“Mmmm, what about some steaks.” Ari laughed,

“I can buy some, but it sounds like you need to grill them.” Lachlan laughed,

“I can handle that.” Arianna stood up,

“All right I got to get to work.”

“You sure? The girls have it covered, it’s just tacos.”

“I sent Ariel to her room, and I have to get things ready for tomorrow. I have to make muffins. And some desert.”

“Ohh what are you making?” Ari laughed,

“You will find out.” Ari said and walked out the door. She stopped at the door,

“I meant what I said Lachlan. If I see that man again I’m never coming back.”