Page 2 of You Had Me at Hello World
Anyway, Michael is way more interested in the money than the job, which is the same energy he’s got for his own career. He squints. “How much is in here? A grand?”
It’s $2,192, from five hours a week for thirty-two weeks at thirteen-seventy an hour. Not that I’m about to tell him.
Greed flickers over his face as he eyes the cash. “If you’ve beenworking, maybe you should be contributing to this household.”
There’s a sudden glitch in the part of my brain that usually keeps me from, like, walking into traffic. “More like contributing to your gambling fund.”
“Excuse me?”
“Nothing,” I say quickly, but his face is all red and pinchy.
He shoves the envelope into his waistband. “You think you’re so much better than me?”
I mumble, “I don’t think that,” even though I definitely think that.
“Your mama gives me her paychecks and it all goes into one bank account. We share money. We don’t keep it to ourselves. If you live under my roof and eat the food I put on the table, you follow the same rules.”
And that’s when I know he’s not giving the money back.
I could totally run for it. Snatch the envelope and shove past him. Bolt out the front door, sprint down the street, and then…
And then what? This isn’t a Disney show. I can’t go, like, live among the squirrels. I’m only sixteen. I’d have to drag myself back here sooner or later.
I have no real choice but to let him win. Like he always does.
After my parents divorced, Mom had a few boyfriends. They didn’t stick around for long. Zhao was all sketchy crime-bossvibes and eventually had to leave the country. Noah fell way deep into Buddhism and ran off to some monastery in Vermont.
One night, when my mom was on the evening shift at the Jade Garden, a man came by as I was helping wipe down tables.
“Sorry, we’re closed, sir,” I said.
He smiled. “You must be Charise.” That was when I realized who he was. Mom’s new guy.
“Here, let me do that.” He grabbed the washcloth and started wiping off the table.
Michael looked like Kristoff fromFrozen. Hair the color of wheat. Broad shoulders; large, doughy hands. He seemed sturdy and unmovable, like a mountain. Reliable.
After we finished with the tables, Michael said he’d brought me a present. A bag of White Rabbit milk candy.
“Baobei, sayxiexie,” Mom chided.
Mythank youwas mostly muffled by the candy in my mouth.
He asked me about how old I was (seven and three-quarters), what happened today at school (our class hamster escaped), and what my favorite subject was (lunch). The same boring questions every boyfriend asked me. My eyes wandered downward. Metal poked out of his pants where his left ankle should’ve been.
“Are you a cyborg?” My favorite show on Cartoon Network was about these part-human, part-robot superheroes.
Mom cringed. “Char, be polite.”
“Quinn, it’s okay,” he said.Quinn? That was the nicknamemy mom used with customers instead of her real name, Qinxu. I didn’t know she also used it with the guys she dated. Zhao spoke Mandarin, and Noah called her pet names like “pookie” or “honeybun,” which made me want to barf.
Anyway, I was more interested in Michael’s leg. “Does it have any powers?” On the show, someone had a bionic arm that could beam red lasers.
Michael rolled up his khakis to reveal titanium. “I lost my old leg in an explosion, so the government gave me a new one. But it’s boring. It doesn’t give me any superpowers.”
“Are you going to marry my mama?” I asked. It would be awesome to have a cyborg stepfather.
“Char!”My mother’s voice was a warning bell.
