The Delivery Girl

9. Gossip

I stare blankly at the elevator doors after they've closed.

Hayley sighs and shakes her head. "Don't take it personally," she says in a surprisingly gentle tone, "he's constantly forgetting things if I don't remind him."

I chew on my lip nervously. Being realistic, I know it's not a big deal, but I still can't ignore my hurt feelings. I should've known that I would be too unimportant to be cared about here.

"I'm ok."

I spend the rest of my shift with my head down, getting through my tasks. Mr. Sterling doesn't end up coming back before I leave.

–

"So, Julie has exciting news," Mei announces once the four of us have sat down and begun dinner. She doesn't bother waiting for me to share and continues speaking, "she got a job!"

I nearly have a heart attack, wondering how in the world she managed to find out, until I realize she's just talking about the TA position.

I swear I notice Grandma briefly nodding before beginning to serve herself food. Mei and I are almost certain that she can understand and speak English, but chooses not to, probably to avoid our family's constant drama.

Even so, Mei translates for grandma in her nearly perfect Mandarin. We both grew up speaking Chinese at home and took extra classes on the weekend to learn to read and write in Chinese. Yet somehow, she ended up being much more fluent than I did.

Dad looks at me curiously. "A job?"

I take a long sip of water to stall and recollect my thoughts. "O-oh yeah it's no big deal, I'm just a TA for an intro engineering course."

He nods. "That's good."

I don't know what I was expecting. Certainly not praise or any sort of congratulations from dad. When success is expected, praise is a luxury.

"So I'm going to be home a bit later most days," I quickly add, suddenly realizing how lucky of a coincidence this is. "I need to stay on campus for office hours." It's a foolproof excuse; there's no way dad will ever find out about the second job at Sterling Studios.

"How has it been going?" Mei asks excitedly. She's always been a ball of energy, even after a shift at the restaurant. I'd love to know how she keeps it up.

I shrug. "Today was my first day, nothing interesting."

"It sounds like it'll help with getting a good job after graduating," dad says to no one in particular before continuing to eat. He seems to be mostly talking to himself, like usual.

Dad insists we eat dinner together every night, even if it's just Mei and I talking, while he and grandma quietly listen. Despite the many ups and downs we've been through, food has always brought our family together.

"Yeah," I mumble.

The nervous knot in my stomach tightens at the thought of graduation. I have eight months to make a decision.

Sterling Studios is just a way for me to earn some extra income while I'm still in school, nothing more.

Right?

–

I quickly answer the phone when I see who's calling. "Hello? Hayley?"

"Julie? Are you almost at the office?"

"Yup, half a block from the parking lot," I say as I turn into the alley.