Billionaire Cashback System: I Can't Go Broke!-Chapter 20: First Lesson

The Store smelled like money, but not in an obvious way — there was no cologne being pumped through the vents or anything deliberately theatrical about it.

It just had that specific quality of air that very expensive places had, slightly cooler than outside, slightly quieter, like even the atmosphere had been curated.

A sales associate appeared from somewhere with the practiced timing of someone trained to materialize without seeming to have moved.

"Welcome," she said, looking at Zara like someone trying to place a face they definitely knew. Then she looked at Ryan.

Her expression remained professional. Just barely.

Ryan looked down at himself. He thought he’d dressed reasonably well this morning. The coat, the trousers, the shirt. He’d been moderately proud of it.

He was beginning to feel moderately less proud.

"We’re just looking," Zara said pleasantly, already moving toward a rack. She had the confidence of someone who knew exactly where she was going in a room she’d never been in.

Ryan followed.

She stopped at a rail of shirts, fingers moving along them as if she were reading braille, barely looking, extracting information through touch alone.

She pulled one out.

Held it up toward Ryan.

Looked at it. Looked at him. Put it back.

"No," she said.

"What was wrong with it?"

"The collar."

"What about the collar."

"It’s the wrong collar for your neck."

Ryan touched his neck involuntarily. "I have a neck problem?"

"You have a collar problem." She was already moving. "Your neck is fine."

"That’s a relief."

She stopped at another section, pulled something off a hanger without breaking stride, and held it against his chest. A deep green shirt, simple, the fabric clearly different from anything currently in his wardrobe in a way he couldn’t technically identify but could physically feel.

"This," she said.

"It’s green."

"Correct."

"I don’t wear green."

Zara looked at him, she had the patience of a very good teacher on a very long day. "Ryan. That’s why you’ve been wearing terrible shirts."

"My shirts aren’t terrible."

She looked at him with a face that said ’did you forget how we got here?’

Ryan opened his mouth.

Closed it.

"Try it on," she said, handing it to him.

---

The changing room was the size of his first apartment’s bathroom, which in New York meant it was palatial. He put the shirt on and looked in the mirror and had the disorienting experience of looking like himself but slightly better, as if someone had adjusted a setting he hadn’t known was adjustable.

He came out.

Zara was sitting in the chair outside the changing rooms, a water she’d acquired from somewhere balanced on her knee.

She looked at him.

"See," she said.

"It’s a shirt."

"It’s ’the’ shirt." She stood, walked over, and adjusted the collar once with two fingers. Stepped back. "Yes. That one."

"How much is it."

She waved a hand. "Don’t look at the price."

"Zara."

"If you look at the price you’ll make a face and then I’ll have to spend ten minutes explaining why it’s worth it and I’d rather just not."

"I’m going to look at the price."

"Ryan..."

He looked at the price.

He made a face.

Zara closed her eyes briefly. "Okay -"

"That’s–" he checked the tag again in case he’d misread it, "–that’s four hundred and fifty dollars."

"For a shirt that will last you fifteen years and make you look like that," she gestured at the mirror, "yes."

"I could buy eighteen shirts for that."

"Eighteen terrible shirts, yes."

"Terribly affordable." 𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦

Zara stared at him. Then she picked up her water and sat back down. "Buy the shirt Ryan."

"I’m buying the shirt," he muttered, heading back into the changing room. "Under protest."

"Noted," she called after him.

---

The second store was three doors down and somehow even quieter than the first.

Zara moved through it like she owned it, which Ryan was beginning to understand was just how she moved through most spaces. He followed slightly behind, which he was also beginning to understand was the correct position when shopping with someone who actually knew what they were doing.

She stopped at a jacket. Charcoal, structured, somewhere between formal and not.

She held it up.

"Before you say anything," Ryan said, "how much."

"Before I tell you, try it on."

"That’s not a reassuring order of operations."

"Try. It. On."

He tried it on. It fit well enough that even he could tell, which he was aware was probably the point — show the man how good it looks before revealing the damage.

He looked at the tag.

"Absolutely not," he said.

"Ryan—"

"Zara. I could pay someone’s rent with this."

"You could also walk into any room in New York and command it."

"I can command rooms in my current jacket."

"You walked into a gallery in a shirt I called cheap to your face within thirty seconds of meeting you."

"And it got me a supermodel’s number."

She paused. "That’s—" she started, then stopped. "That’s not the point."

"I feel like it’s exactly the point."

She crossed her arms and looked at him in the jacket with the expression of someone losing an argument they were certain they should be winning.

"You look incredible in it," she said flatly. Like a fact she was annoyed to be reporting.

Ryan looked in the mirror.

He looked at the tag.

He looked in the mirror again.

"I hate that you’re right," he said.

"Welcome to fashion."

---

They ended up in a third store twenty minutes later because Zara walked past the window, stopped, went back three steps, looked at something inside, and walked in without discussion. Ryan followed because at this point that was simply how things were going.

This one was younger — not in clientele necessarily, but in energy. The music was audible. The rails were closer together. A sales guy with very considered hair nodded at Zara with the recognition of someone who’d seen her online and was performing not being affected by this.

Zara went straight to a table of folded items and began moving through them.

Ryan drifted toward a rack nearby and pulled something out, held it up. A shirt. Navy, simple. He looked at it. It seemed fine. Normal price. He could see the appeal.

"No," Zara said, without looking up from the table.

Ryan looked around to see if she could somehow see him. She was facing entirely the other direction.

"How did you—"

"I could hear you looking at something affordable," she said. "Put it back."

"You can ’hear’ affordable?"

"There’s a very specific sound a man makes when he’s found something in his price range. Like relief. It’s audible, my dad made it all the time."

Ryan put the shirt back. "That’s not a real thing."

"And yet." She held something up from the table — a lightweight knit, dark, simple. Walked it over to him. "This."

He looked at it. "This actually looks normal."

"That’s the point. It’s supposed to look effortless."

"How much is effortless?"

She told him.

"That’s two hundred and twenty dollars worth of effortless," he said.

"Effortlessness is expensive. That’s the whole joke of fashion." She pushed it toward him. "Try it on."

He tried it on. He bought it.

He was beginning to suspect this was how the whole afternoon was going to go and that he was powerless to stop it.

---

They came out of the third store into the afternoon light, Ryan carrying a bag that represented more money spent on clothing in two hours than he’d spent in the previous two years combined.

Zara looked satisfied and overly proud of herself.

"How do you feel," she said.

"Lighter," Ryan said. "Financially."

She laughed. "You’ll thank me."

"I’m sure I will. Probably around the time I need to eat and remember what I spent on a shirt."

"The green shirt alone was worth it."

"The green shirt was four hundred and fifty dollars."

"And you look like that in it."

"You keep saying that like it answers the question of whether I can afford groceries this week."

She shook her head, smiling, and they started walking again, falling back into the easy pace from before. The afternoon had gone gold around the edges, the light doing the thing it did in late afternoon in the city when it came between the buildings at the right angle and made everything look slightly more cinematic than it was.

Ryan swung the bag once. "So. How am i doing so far?"

Zara considered. "Seven out of ten."

"Seven."

"You argued about every single thing."

"I was providing perspective."

"You called a jacket immoral."

"At that price point I stand by that actually."

"Six and a half," she revised.

Ryan looked at her. "You moved it the wrong direction."

"There’s a penalty for arguing about the score."

"That’s not—" he stopped. "What do I need to do to get to eight."

Zara thought about it with the seriousness of an actual deliberation. "Stop looking at price tags."

"Absolutely not."

"Six," she said.

Ryan laughed despite himself, the bag swinging at his side, the city moving around them, the afternoon doing its best work in the light.

"Where are we going next," he said.

Zara looked up the avenue, then at him, then back up the avenue.

"There’s a place two blocks up," she said. "But I’m warning you now."

"How bad."

She held up her fingers close together.

"Don’t even tell me," Ryan said. "Let’s just go."

She smiled and they walked.