Chapter 52

When the meal ends, the club members leave, except for Neil and Dwain. As the staff clears off the table, Neil explains, “It is my job to oversee the tests. Trent, since you decided not to share the official results from when family services tested you, we will have to ask you to take the test too. It is only a formality.”

“I wasn’t planning on taking the test, but there is no harm in it.”

“Have any of you, besides Trent, ever taken an IQ test before?”

The girls all state they haven’t, except Jen. She remains silent since she isn’t taking the test.

Neil continues, “They are timed, and the quicker you are, the better you score. Dwain is handing out the tests, face down. Please don’t turn them over before I tell you to start. Are there any questions before we begin?”

Jen states, “I doubt you want me here for this. What do you want me to do?”

I answer, “Go to the break room and socialize with whomever is on break. I will be there in a few minutes.”

She leaves, and Neil starts the test. I’m not out to get a perfect score. It isn’t something I care about. I quickly get it over with, and in 5 minutes I’m in the break room asking Jen, “Do you want to stay here and continue visiting with Laurie or do you want to come with me and go around to the tables to say hi to everybody?”

Sheepishly looking up at me, she asks, “Can I stay here? I’m enjoying our conversation.”

“You don’t need to ask permission. I ask you what you wanted to do. Have fun. I’ll see you in a bit.”

Jen still has problems, acting a little too submissive, but other than that, she is doing much better than I figured she would be.

I head out and do my rounds. At the third table, I come to say, “Evening, I’m Trent, co-owner of this establishment. How is your evening?”

It is a family of four with two teens, one boy and one girl. The mother is considerably on the heavier side, and the dad is on the heavy side but not as bad as the mom. He has a beard and is disrespectful enough to be wearing his ball cap at the table. I’m guessing that he isn’t the one with the balls in the family since it is the wife who speaks first, saying, “It was a nice evening until the waitress got our order wrong.”

“Let’s see if we can’t sort things out. Who is your waitress, and what is so wrong with your order?”

As I say this, I see her greedy eyes smile as she pretends to continue being upset. The teenage girl appears out of place. She is the only one that isn’t obese. She shrinks down and is red with embarrassment.

The fat mom says, “I don’t know the waitress’ name. I sent her to find the manager, and I thought that was why you interrupted us. That is her coming with the manager now.”

She doesn’t get into what is wrong with her meal. She waits for the Zlata and Chera-Lee, one of our best waitresses, to join us. As they step up, I say, “This is Zlata, the other co-owner, and I presume Chera-Lee is your waitress. Now, what seems to be the problem?”

“Larry asked for a rare New York cut, and I asked for a medium-rare ribeye. Both our steaks are overdone. Jeromy asked for a Pepsi and got a Coke, and Darla’s salad was wilted. When we told the server, she was a snooty little bitch, so we asked for the manager.”

Looking at the half-eaten steaks, I can tell that they are as ordered. I can see that Zlata is about to apologize, so I butt in before she can, “I’m sorry that you feel like you got a raw deal. I know for a fact that the salad wasn’t wilted. If it were, the complaint would have been made earlier. She ate it, so it couldn’t have been that bad. As for the steaks, I can see they are as ordered. Since the definition of rare and medium-rare are on the inside cover of the menu, if you don’t believe me, then we can provide a menu for you to read. As for Coke vs Pepsi, again, it is clearly written in the menu that we only serve coke products. Knowing Chera-Lee, as I do, I’m sure she asked if coke was ok.”

“Go get your daddy, the real owner of the restaurant. I’m not going to deal with some snot-nosed little kid.”

The outburst caused Zlata to let escape a slight chuckle, which she quickly stifles. Chera-Lee stands there, not knowing what to say or do.

I explain, “I had my father jailed for child abuse. Since I am a minor, my Grandfather or Uncle sign for me, but I do co-own this place.” Zlata nods to let them know I am telling the truth. “What you attempted to do is called fraud, and is illegal. Tonight I will be going through the security footage to find your picture and post it in a book for our hostesses. If there is ever a problem with you again, you will not be allowed back. That is all of you except your daughter. She seems to be made of better stuff than you.”

The fat bitch counters, “That skank. She ain’t my daughter. My brother in law dropped the dumb slut with us so he could go on a cruise with the bitch he calls a wife.”

I nod at Victor, who is sitting at a table in the corning watching us. He is my security for the evening. I watch as he talks into his radio.

I interrupt the fat woman’s rant, “That is enough. The police have been called and will be here any minute. Your language and outburst are uncalled for. You can either pay and leave or wait and have the police force you to pay, then spend the night in the slammer. The choice is yours. Oh, and don’t come back.”

Her husband stands up as if to intimidate, as his wife goes on a louder, more vulgar tirade. I stand between him and the girls, who are smart enough to take a step back. Victor is up in a flash and is on his way over, but he is too late.

The husband swings at me and misses as I duck. This puts me in the perfect position for an uppercut. After I hit him, I leave my arm extended and bring both my hands behind his neck, in a Thai clinch. I then jerk his head down and to his left as I bring up my right knee, being sure to put my hip into it, maximizing the power. He falls to the ground, knocked out.

As I step back, Victor cuffs the man, and his wife continues with her verbal abuse. I ignore her and address her niece, “I’m sorry for the spectacle. I came over here to make nice.”

She shrugs and says, “She always acts that way. She even pushes Uncle Billy around. I don’t know why he lets her do that.” While we talk, Victor cuffs the fat woman and puts her back in her chair.

“I’m glad to see you were raised with better manners. When your parents get back in town, come back for a meal on the house.”

The police arrive, and we have a quick chat before they take the family away. Once they are gone, I try to make light of the situation. Speaking loud enough for everybody to hear, I say, “I hope you all enjoyed the free entertainment. In all honesty, sorry you all had to witness that. Dishonest people tend not to like it when you call them on their thieving ways. Since we interrupted your meal, we will pay for it.”

Taking Zlata aside, I ask, “How often do people try to swindle a free meal?”

“At least once a day. This town is bad for it.”

“I want you to play hardball. I know it will drive some people away, but it will be good for business in the long run. Just be sure to discount people when they have a legitimate complaint.”

“I always try to be reasonable, but you already give away a good chunk of your profits.”

“Is there a problem with the accounting. I always pay that out of pocket, so I don’t run your business into the ground.”

“I realize that, but you should be making good money off this place. You spend more money here than it makes you.”

“You have proven that in the long run, this place will be a gold mine. Are you ready for the expansion, or do you want another couple months rest? I have properties picked out, downtown and in Nanaimo.”

“Oh, God, no. Not yet. You are going to run me to an early grave.”

I laugh at her and suggest, “Look for an assistant. You are the owner. Contrary to how it feels, there is no need to be here every day. In fact, it is time you let the reins go, find a manager, and then find an assistant and a business administrator. We are going to grow this into a chain. Truth be told, I want two chains. One will be like this, a steakhouse, the other, a fast-food chain with healthier alternatives and burgers. People are eating less and less healthy all the time. We are going to fix that.”

We don’t have any more time to chat as the girls have come out to retrieve me. On the way into the banquet room, I ask, “So, how did it go?”

Dahlia is the only one to volunteer an answer, “I did better than I thought I would. Moira finished before I did. I’m anxious to see how well she did.”

We sit down just as Neil finishes marking the last test. He gets up, handing Moira and Dahlia their tests back, saying, “Congratulations, ladies, Trent. You are now officially members of the Vancouver Island MESNA Club.” He then addresses Carol, saying, “I’m sorry to say, you didn’t make it, but you were close. If you’re interested, we allow two more tries. I’m sure you will make it next time. If you hadn’t taken so long going back to double-check everything, you would have made it.”

“Great, I’m the dumb girlfriend.”

It has been a long time since I saw her with such low self-worth, not since we all started hanging out together.

I try to cheer her up, saying, “I’d hardly call you dumb. The test was to see if you were in the top 2% of all people. It also doesn’t test intellect. It is intellect quotient. In other words, it is your ability to learn, not how smart you are.”

“Great, so you are saying I am slow.”

Dwain interrupts, saying, “You do realize that we only let in the 98th percentile? You’re still in the 97th percentile.”

I add, “You are still in the top 3%. Besides, you are smarter than that. This test is geared toward adults. You are only 16, so your IQ is higher than what the test suggests. Not only that, but a large portion of the people that pass the test don’t have an IQ above 130. They take practice tests, which skews the results. You didn’t have any practice tests. Two years from now, when you graduate, they will be begging you to join.”

Carol’s frown disappears, and she says, “Even when you are being a nerd, you say the right things.”

“Thank you, dummy.”

She punches me in the shoulder.

“I hope now you realize that I speak the truth when I tell you that you don’t fit in with the jocks because they are intimidated by you.”

There isn’t much more to the conversation. We thank Neil and Dwain for their time, and they thank us for supper. We then collect Jen and head for home.

In the SUV, I ask, “So who scored highest?”

Moira blushes, and Dahlia answers for her, “Moira did. I think I may have gotten more questions right, but she was much faster.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m proud of all of you. Jen, I never got to know you that well before, and you have been dealing with things lately, so I have no clue how smart you really are, but if you continue to hang out with these three, you will only get smarter. The brain is like any muscle. The more you use it, the stronger it gets. Don’t use it, and it withers.”

She just smiles, not knowing what to say. Then she cuddles in a little tighter to me.

Changing the topic, I ask, “What did you girls think about the club?”

Moira changes her expression from embarrassment to disgust and then says, “The guy across from me couldn’t stop drooling. The guy is older than my dad. Half of them are creepy.”

“They were creepy, but I didn’t find it that bad,” counters Dahlia.

“They were older than I expected,” Carol comments. “I’m not sure I want to join the club. You always do things for multiple reasons. Why else did you have us meet?”

“The main reason was to show you how smart you are, but I was hoping we could recruit some of them to work for us. Technically, we are members of their club, but I don’t think we will join them again. I didn’t get good vibes from any of them.”

Dahlia offers, “Brad had some good ideas about desalination. I’m sure you could use that for the shipbuilding.”