Little Tsaritsa

I

Little Tsaritsa

I

o0o

Nadezhda Ivanov huffed softly to herself as she bustled around the restaurant, making sure that the diners in her section were comfortable before going back into the kitchen to check on the potato soup. Her cousins were goofing off again, Ludmilla lingering at a table flirting with an attractive patron while Mikhail texted his friends.

"Mikhail, the soup almost boiled over!" she hissed angrily at Mikhail as she waved her hand over his smartphone, and he glanced up at her with half-lidded eyes and an annoyed smirk. He was five years older than her and should have been a more responsible worker, but it seemed like he'd never moved beyond his teenage years.

She fired off several phrases in a mixture of Russian and English to the staff before grabbing Mikhail's phone and pointedly placed it away on the shelf in the alcove that served as the break-room.

"Hey, you can't do that-" he protested.

"You think you're going to run this restaurant when you can't even keep an eye on the soup?" she snapped peevishly. "I'm not going to have Uncle Boris yell at me over it!" Boris Ivanov was a decent restaurant owner, and Little Russka was a popular spot in the neighborhood, but he gave his own children more lassitude than his niece. It'd always been that way, but recently, she'd been taking more initiative and standing up for herself.

Of course, being of legal age helped. Still, her options were limited due to events beyond her control and that was why she was here, cleaning up after her cousins, and doing various jobs around the restaurant for her uncle. She'd been here since she was sixteen, not long before her mother's death, working as a waitress and saving every bit of it she could for college.

As a minor, she'd had to open a joint account with her father. His wife's death hit him hard, and he turned to alcoholism, and in time, gambling, as an escape from his sorrows. Money had already been tight because of medical bills that Mom's insurance company had refused to cover, and Gregory Ivanov had cleaned out most of his daughter's savings to gamble with, believing he could win the money he'd already lost.

The results were predictable. But Nadezhda hadn't learned of it until just after her eighteenth birthday when she'd gone to change the account. Several weeks later, Gregory had died of a heart attack, and his debt had eaten away entirely what money could have been used for funeral or emergency expenses.

At a time where she should have been ready to go out in the world, Nadezhda Ivanov was virtually penniless. Not only that, but her father had owed Uncle Boris some money as well. Boris was willing to forgive the debt, but he constantly reminded Nadezhda of his 'generosity' and expected her loyalty and obedience, which included taking on more duties at the restaurant, with a less than modest increase of pay. Her aunt nagged her about her clothing and hair, and her cousins would shrug off their chores on her, and if Nadezhda complained, Boris would scold her for being 'ungrateful'.

Her feet ached, and she couldn't wait to get the fuck home and put her feet up. Her uncle and aunt had offered to let her live with them after her father's house had been taken by the debt collectors, but she could see how that would make her life hell and lived in a tiny studio apartment. It might be tiny, but it was hers.

After glancing at the orders in the queue, she ladled soup into several bowls and made up a couple salads before loading them on a tray and delivering them to a table. The menu was authentically Russian, with just a few modifications to make it slightly more accessible to an American audience. She was a good cook, and it was her favorite part of the job – at least when things were going smoothly. There were times when she wondered if she should open her own restaurant, but seeing what Uncle Boris dealt with made her hesitant. She just wanted to cook, that was all. Or at the very least, not deal with a family who saw her as nothing more than an orphan, a beggar who owed them everything for their generosity, a person who should be happy to be their slave for the scraps they tossed her.