The Instant Noodle Banker
Part 1: The Price of Family
The kitchen clock ticked loudly in the silence, each second a metronome marking the rhythm of a life I was wasting. It was 8:00 PM on a Friday evening. Most thirty-year-olds earning my salary were out at wine bars, planning weekend getaways, or at the very least sitting in their own apartments eating real food.
I was sitting at my parents’ scratched laminate kitchen table, nursing a cup of shrimp-flavored instant ramen that cost fifty cents at the discount grocery store. My work shoes sat under the table—expensive leather oxfords I’d bought three years ago, back when I still had access to my own money. The sole of the left one was held together with superglue because when I’d asked about getting them repaired, my mother had declared that cobblers were a “frivolous expense for someone who takes the bus.”
The garage door rumbled open suddenly, the sound reverberating through the floorboards.
The aggressive roar of a high-performance engine cut through the evening quiet of our suburban neighborhood. A moment later, the kitchen door swung open with theatrical flair. My younger sister, Bella, walked in like she was stepping onto a red carpet.
She was twenty-four years old, unemployed for the entirety of her adult life, and glowing with the kind of carefree happiness that only other people’s money can buy. She spun a Porsche key fob on her perfectly manicured finger—nails that cost more than my weekly food allowance. “Look what Daddy got me!” she squealed, holding the keys up like a trophy.
“It’s for ‘job hunting’ motivation! He says I need to arrive at interviews in style!”
My father followed her into the kitchen, beaming with pride like he’d just funded a Nobel Prize winner. He clapped his hands together, looking at Bella with the kind of adoration he’d never once directed at me.
“It absolutely suits you, princess. Success demands the right image. You can’t possibly show up to interviews in some clunker.
First impressions are everything in the professional world.”
I looked up from my instant noodles, pushing my glasses up the bridge of my nose. The cheap frames had broken last month, and I’d fixed them with tape because asking for new ones had resulted in a lecture about vanity. “Dad,” I said quietly, my voice hoarse from exhaustion after another eighty-hour work week.
The story doesn’t end here — it continues on the next page.
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