The Kidney Hypothetical by Lisa Yee

Author:Lisa Yee
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2015-08-29T04:00:00+00:00

The restaurant was only half full. White tablecloths, candles. Monarch couldn’t decide between two entrées, vegetarian lasagna and a three-cheese calzone, so she got both. I got the spaghetti. She tried ordering a glass of wine.

“I’m sorry, if you don’t have proper ID, I can’t serve you any alcohol,” the waitress said to an unhappy Monarch.

“But in France everyone drinks,” Monarch argued.

The waitress smiled wearily. “I wish we were in France, but we’re not.”

“So tell me more about your parents,” Monarch said later as she poured an endless amount of sugar into her iced tea.

“My dad’s a dentist,” I told her.

“A dentist?” she said.

“There’s nothing wrong with being a dentist,” I said defensively. “He’s pretty successful. He has four offices. He wants me to join his dental practice.”

“Do you want to?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“You didn’t answer my question,” she said. “Do you want to?”

I hesitated. “I’m not sure,” I heard myself saying. “If I didn’t become a dentist, my mom and dad would be devastated.”

“You’re avoiding my question,” Monarch pointed out. Was I? “Nothing like a little parental pressure,” she continued matter-of-factly. “As I see it, you bend to their will, spend a lifetime doing something you hate, become miserable, and then force your own son or daughter to follow in the family footsteps.”

Through two straws, Monarch took a long sip of her iced tea. “But enough about the joys of dentistry,” she said. “What about your mother — is she a dentist too? Don’t tell me this is a family thing? That would be double the pressure. And if your grandparents were dentists, that would be a goddamn dental dynasty.”

“My grandfather was a dentist,” I admitted. I reached for a breadstick and held it like a cigarette. “My mom was a scientist at JPL, Jet Propulsion Lab, but quit to stay home with my sister and me.”

“Will she go back to work now that you’re heading off to college?”

I had never thought to ask her.

Monarch took my silence to mean something else. “Oh, that’s right,” she said. “You’re not going to Harvard.”

“Thanks for reminding me.” I broke the breadstick in half and chewed on it.

After dinner, the waitress, who was not that much older than us, came to the table. “Is there anything else I can get for you?” she said, setting down the check.

“Can we have some to-go boxes?” Monarch asked.

As she went to get boxes, Monarch reached toward the check. I put my hand over hers. “I’ll get this,” I told her.

“I said that dinner would be on me,” she reminded me.

The waitress came back with empty containers, which Monarch filled, even taking all the bread from the basket. I watched her slip the salt and pepper shakers into her big purse and a fork and knife too.

While the waitress was busy taking an order on the other side of the room, Monarch leaned in and whispered, “We’re going to make a run for it.”

“But you haven’t paid yet —”

“What? You suddenly got morals?” she asked.

I bristled. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.