Chapter 2: The Grinding Gear
By midday, the restaurant was a chaotic symphony of clinking silverware and shouting customers. Eliana moved between tables like a ghost, her feet throbbing inside worn-out flats. "The Golden Spoon" was a misnomer; the spoons were stainless steel and often stained, much like the spirits of the staff. Her salary was a joke—a tiny pittance that barely covered her own transport and the small room she shared, let alone the bulk of the bills back home.
Every time a customer left a small tip, Eliana felt a surge of pathetic gratitude that made her want to cry. She was twenty-two, beautiful enough to be on a billboard, yet she spent her hours scrubbing spilled egusi soup off plastic tablecloths. Her mind was constantly calculating: if she skipped dinner tonight, she could send an extra thousand Naira to Tobi for his school books. If she walked halfway home, she could save more. The math of poverty was a constant, exhausting loop.
The lunch rush finally tapered off, leaving Eliana leaning against the kitchen wall, her breath coming in shallow hitches. Her co-workers gossiped about movies and boyfriends, but Eliana couldn't join in. Her "boyfriend" was the stack of unpaid medical bills sitting in a drawer back home. She thought of her father, the man who had walked out when she was ten, leaving them with nothing but a mountain of debt and a broken mother. She had promised herself she would be the one to fix it. But as she looked at her red, chapped hands, the weight of that promise felt like it was crushing her ribs. She was working herself to the bone, and yet, she was still falling behind.