Roommate Promised Class Cheap Feast at Restaurant Not Mine

After the freshman orientation drills ended, my roommate Leah Fox announced in the class group chat:

Orientation was rough on everyone this week, so tonight I'm organizing a group dinner at The Rosewood Table to treat you all right.

It's only five dollars a person, and once we're there, everything on the menu is all-you-can-eat.

The Rosewood Table was one of the city's upscale restaurants, a thousand a head.

The chat erupted in cheers.

But a few people had doubts: Does The Rosewood Table even do a buffet? And just five dollars, is that for real?

Leah said, The restaurant is owned by my roommate Tilda Summers's family. I negotiated a special deal for everyone.

Except she'd never said a word to me about it.

And five dollars for all-you-can-eat at The Rosewood Table was pure fantasy.

I was about to set the record straight with her when she raised a hand and cut me off:

I've already told everyone, so don't go ruining the mood now.

Five dollars each, forty people in the class, your family clears two hundred. That's not bad at all.

Plus it drums up business for your family's restaurant. Win-win.

But all I wanted to tell her was that the restaurant had been sold last week. It wasn't my family's anymore.

It really can't be done, I explained to Leah again. A single glass of water there costs five dollars. Five dollars a head isn't going to cover a meal.

Leah patted me on the shoulder.

Oh come on, everyone's worn out from orientation. Your family's restaurant sits empty anyway, so why not throw everybody a nice perk?

The whole class will remember you for it.

Even as she talked, Leah had already posted a payment code in the chat:

Five dollars each, all-you-can-eat at The Rosewood Table tonight!

When I heard the payment chimes coming from Leah's phone, I posted a message in the chat:

The Rosewood Table isn't my family's.

But less than a second after it went up, Leah deleted it.

Even so, someone had seen it, and the questions came right away:

Didn't Tilda just say The Rosewood Table isn't her family's restaurant? So this five-dollar all-you-can-eat thing is fake too?

Leah explained: Tilda's just modest and didn't want everyone knowing her family runs a restaurant.

Relax, everyone, I've already worked it out with them. Five dollars, all-you-can-eat.

I frowned at her. I already told you The Rosewood Table isn't my family's. It's not my call to make.

Leah waved me off. All right, stop with the act.

I heard it the first day of school. Your mom said it right there on the phone, that The Rosewood Table is your family's.

I thought back to that phone call with my mom.

She had said The Rosewood Table was ours, that was true. But the next thing she said was that the restaurant had been sold.

No wonder Leah knew my family ran a restaurant when I'd never mentioned to anyone what my family did.

She'd clearly only caught the first half.

It was ours before, that's true, but last week

Leah cut me off again. I'm doing your family's restaurant a favor, drumming up business.

I know your family prices its dishes high, but high prices don't mean anything if nobody comes in.

Better to run a low-price event. Your restaurant gets the crowds, the students eat well, and you leave a good impression on everyone.

It's a three-way win.

My other two roommates took Leah's side too.

Valerie Lambert needled me: Some people just love flaunting how rich they are, and now they won't even give the class a discount to eat at their own family's restaurant.

Paulette Simmons nodded along. By rights, since your family runs a restaurant, you should've treated us for free at our first class dinner of the year.

We're not even asking for free. Just a discount, that's all.

The three of them played off each other until it sounded like I'd be some selfish miser if I said no.

I didn't want to keep going back and forth with them, so I just posted a message in the chat:

The Rosewood Table isn't my family's. If everyone wants to eat there, I can help get the price down to half off, but five dollars all-you-can-eat really isn't possible.

The Rosewood Table had already been sold, but I knew the man who'd taken it over, and he was on good terms with my family.

If I brought classmates in, he'd agree to give us half off.

The chat blew up.

Not with thanks for getting the price down to half off, but with accusations that I was cold-hearted.

Didn't Leah just say five dollars all-you-can-eat? I already paid, and now you're saying it's only half off?

Your family runs a restaurant and is already this well-off, and you're still nickel-and-diming your classmates over pocket change? That's just cold.

You say it's not your family's, so how can you negotiate a discount? At least put some effort into your lies.

They were all convinced the restaurant was my family's, and that I only said otherwise because I didn't want to let classmates eat there cheap.

I was still typing my explanation, message not even sent, when it showed I'd been kicked out of the group chat.

When the notice popped up telling me I'd been kicked out of the group, I almost laughed out of sheer anger.

Then I calmly screenshotted the whole chat log and saved it.

Not long after, a classmate I got along with sent me a screenshot.

It was a message Leah had posted in the group:

I didn't see Tilda backing out coming either.

But don't worry, everyone. I collected the money, so I'll definitely make sure it's handled.

Then Valerie chimed in with one of her own:

Leah's working hard right now to get us that five-dollar all-you-can-eat deal.

The next several messages were all thanking Leah and cursing me out.

That Tilda is such a cheapskate. Trying to fob us off with half price.

Right? So much money and still that stingy. It's Leah who actually thinks about us.

Then Leah replied:

It's the least I can do. Just remember to throw me a few extra votes when I run for class president.

Reading that, I understood exactly what Leah was after.

She was stepping on me to win goodwill and drum up votes for herself.

Without spending a single cent, just by running her mouth, she got a whole crowd to thank her.

It reminded me of the first day of orientation drills, when I paid to buy the class ice cream.

The next day Leah jumped in ahead of me and hauled over a case of water:

"I figured ice cream might upset people's stomachs, so I thought I'd get everyone water instead. It quenches your thirst and it's easier on your gut."

The class showered her with praise for being so thoughtful.

Even back then something about it had felt off to me.

The day before, what I'd bought them was ice cream.

Leah's words sounded like a dig at me, a way to step on me and win the class over at the same time.

When I asked her about it afterward, she said I was overthinking things.

Now it was clear those subtle little jabs of hers hadn't been my imagination.

I looked over and saw Leah cradling her phone, smiling.

The flattery in the group was obviously working on her.

Sensing me watching, Leah turned toward me:

"Don't hold it against me. I was afraid you'd say something out of line again and upset everyone, so I kicked you out first."

"Relax, I'm in here smoothing things over for you."

"I told them that as long as the five-dollar deal holds, they won't make a fuss about what you said today."

I opened the recorder and repeated in a cold voice, "The Rosewood Table isn't my family's, and I never agreed to this."

Leah patted my shoulder. "Why are you so hardheaded? People just want to see the place and be part of the fun. They're not going to eat you out of house and home."

Then she sent a voice message to the group:

"It's settled, then. Everyone pays five dollars and eats all they want at The Rosewood Table. If anything goes wrong, it's on me!"

The way she said it, you'd think The Rosewood Table was her family's place.

I'd recorded everything I needed, so I said nothing more.

Leah took my silence to mean I'd agreed.

She turned around and started getting dressed up with Valerie and Paulette.

When I went to the restroom, I overheard the three of them talking in low voices.

"Leah, Tilda didn't look right to me. What if she won't own up to it when the time comes?"

"What's there to be scared of? We just go and eat." Leah's tone was completely offhand. "The whole class will be there. If she says no, she's the one leaving everyone hanging."

"If she doesn't want to make enemies of the entire class, she'll have to fall in line."

So from the very start, Leah hadn't cared whether I agreed. She figured I wouldn't dare cross the whole class and would have no choice but to go along with it.

I gave a cold little laugh inside. The Rosewood Table required a reservation to get in.

I wondered what her face would look like, after all that careful primping, when she found out she couldn't even get through the door, and how she'd explain that to the whole class.

As Leah headed out, she glanced back at me, still sitting in my seat.

"Tilda, you're not coming with us?"

I shook my head. "I'm not going."

Valerie clicked her tongue beside her. "It's her family's restaurant, so she's obviously sick of the food. Of course she looks down on our little dinner tonight."

With that, Valerie pulled Leah out the door, and the dorm was left with only me.

I figured they'd get stopped right at the door of The Rosewood Table since they had no reservation.

But an hour later I saw Valerie's post, and they were already inside a private room with the food ordered.

Valerie had put up a few photos.

The whole class, packed into one private room, split across two tables.

Both tables were already covered with dishes.

I skimmed them and saw they'd picked nothing but the priciest items.

Almost everyone had a lobster and a king crab in front of them.

There was a live video too, with Leah's voice in the background.

"Order whatever you want, everybody, we'll add more if it's not enough. Tonight we eat till we're stuffed!"

My phone suddenly rang. The screen showed Rod, the new owner of The Rosewood Table.

The moment I picked up, I heard him say,

"Tilda, why didn't you give your uncle a heads-up that you were treating your classmates? I could have set something up for you."

I froze for a second, then it clicked.

Normally you couldn't get into The Rosewood Table without a reservation. Leah had walked everyone in using my name.

The owner had changed, but most of the staff inside were the same.

They knew me, and once Leah dropped my name, they'd let the group straight in.

I quickly explained the whole thing to Rod, then warned him,

"Uncle, they're all there for a five-dollar all-you-can-eat deal. You'd better send someone to set the record straight, and fast."

Rod chuckled. "No need to explain. Business that walks right through my door, there's no reason not to make money off it."

"They want to score a bargain in my restaurant? Depends on whether they've got what it takes."

After I hung up, Natalie Winfield, the same classmate who'd sent me the group screenshots earlier, messaged me again.

Leah's stepping on you again in the group to build herself up. It was your favor, and now those people are all thanking her!

Natalie thought Leah taking a whole crowd to The Rosewood Table meant I'd actually agreed to that five-dollar all-you-can-eat thing.

Reading those messages, she was angrier than me, the one it actually happened to. I ended up comforting her instead.

It's fine. Leah won't get what she wants.

We'll head over to The Rosewood Table in a bit too. There's a show to watch tonight.

Natalie hadn't gone to the dinner either, so I brought her to sit down in the main dining hall of The Rosewood Table.

Once she sat down, Natalie said, a little worried, "Tilda, you're not going to go soft later and actually charge them five dollars a head, are you?"

"From the posts they put up, the dishes they ordered aren't cheap at all. Five dollars a person, how much would that lose?"

I gave her a look that said not to worry. "This restaurant isn't my family's. It's not my call. Even if I agreed to comp the bill, it wouldn't mean anything."

Only then did she relax. "Good."

By the time the two of us had nearly finished eating, Leah's group was done too.

They came out of the private room.

Leah walked at the very front, Valerie and Paulette on either side of her, with a whole swarm of people trailing behind.

At the front desk, Leah pulled out two hundred-dollar bills and tossed them across the counter.

"Two of us didn't show, so give me ten back."

The receptionist smiled. "Your total tonight comes to two hundred thirty-six thousand, nine hundred seventy-six dollars. You just paid two hundred, so there's still two hundred thirty-six thousand, seven hundred seventy-six dollars to go."

The moment the number landed, the crowd went quiet for a beat, and then someone blurted out:

"Holy crap, did we really eat that much tonight?"

"What do we do? That's over two hundred grand. Even if we all pooled our cash, we couldn't cover this meal."

Valerie's voice went shrill. "What are you scared of? Ours is the five-dollar all-you-can-eat. No matter how much it adds up to, it's five bucks a person."

"Right, right." The guy patted his chest. "That number scared the daylights out of me just now. I totally forgot we're on the five-dollar deal."

Leah tipped her chin up. "Every one of us signed up for the five-dollar all-you-can-eat."

"Forget it, keep the change." She waved a hand. "Let's go."

The security guard blocked them.

The girl at the front desk kept her smile in place and said gently:

"I'm very sorry, miss, but we don't have any five-dollar all-you-can-eat promotion."

"You still owe two hundred thirty-six thousand, seven hundred seventy-six dollars."

The classmates who'd come with Leah started to panic a little.

Leah's brows drew together and her voice climbed. "What do you mean, you don't? I already arranged it with the owner of this place."

"You're obviously too low-level to know about it. Go get your manager out here!"

Natalie and I were sitting at a table not far off, close enough to see everything happening at the front desk and hear every word.

Natalie set down her chopsticks and sucked in a breath.

"They ate over two hundred grand in one sitting? What on earth did they order?"

I glanced at the bulging backpacks a few of them were carrying, smiled, and said nothing.

The manager arrived quickly and asked what was going on.

Leah jabbed a finger at the young woman at the register. "It's normal she wouldn't know, she's too low-level."

"You're the manager here, so you should know your restaurant is running a five-dollar all-you-can-eat tonight."

The manager shook his head. "I'm very sorry, miss, but we have no such promotion. Everything you ordered is charged at the prices on the menu."

"If you dispute the amount, we're happy to go over everything you ordered tonight again."

Leah slapped the front desk hard. "What is wrong with this place? You can't even pass a message down properly."

"I'm calling your owner right now!"

Leah dialed my number. My phone wasn't on silent, so it rang immediately.

Following the sound, Leah spotted me sitting a short distance away.

She rushed over at once and dragged me off. "Perfect, you're right here."

"Come explain this for us, quick."

Leah shoved me in front of the manager. "You know this person, right?"

The manager was a longtime employee of the restaurant and knew me, of course. He nodded at me. "Miss Summers."

Leah crossed her arms and let out a cold snort. "She's the owner of this place. She's the one who agreed to let us have the five-dollar all-you-can-eat. Now can we leave?"

The manager glanced at me. "I'm very sorry, but our restaurant truly has no five-dollar all-you-can-eat promotion."

"And Miss Summers is not the owner of this restaurant."

Leah's expression shifted. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"She's the daughter of the owner. How does that not make her your owner?"

Then she turned back to me. "Look at your own staff, they won't even acknowledge you as the owner. You're just going to take that?"

I spread my hands. "When did I ever say I was the owner of this place?"

I had been clarifying from start to finish that this was not my family's restaurant.

Leah finally started to lose her composure, her tone quickening. "Tilda, this really isn't the time for jokes. Everyone's in a hurry to get back to school."

"If you're not the owner of this place, then who is?"

A low male voice cut in. "You looking for me?"

I pointed him out to Leah. "The owner of The Rosewood Table is here."

The instant she saw who it was, Leah's face went white, and her phone dropped straight to the floor.