The Mathematics of Love ✔

Chapter 4

“Am I? I guess I am.”

“I knew it,” Alexander sighed. “You’re still mad about the election.”

“I’m not. I’m just an evil, heartless person in general. Ask anyone. My brother would be glad to give you some specific examples. Or you could always ask my little cousin, who I was apparently beating up at the county fair, according to you—”

Alexander interrupted my rant, “You still don’t understand that it technically was not my fault.” He ran his fingers through his short black hair and stared at me through dark, steely eyes. He looked more serious than I’d ever seen him. “Can you just listen to me? I never meant for the campaign to get like that, okay? Dirty politics is not my style. I want you to know that. I like to keep my politics clean and wholesome.”

Geez, this guy was more of a boy scout than all the kids in the local boy scout troops combined. Listening to him made me want to break out the American flag and start singing the Star-Spangled Banner.

Thankfully, before I had to listen to more of Alexander’s Amazing Things About Me speech, Teresa rescued me.

“Nancy, those boxes on the shelves still haven’t been taken down yet!” she squawked.

Fifteen minutes later, I decided that ‘rescue’ hadn’t been the right word. Not when my legs were aching and my arms felt close to falling off. What was that saying again? Oh, yes. I’d gone out of the frying pan and into the fire.

The worst part was, for the rest of the afternoon, Alexander Lin got to stand there and press a few buttons on the cash register occasionally. What a Samaritan. According to Teresa, he needed ‘cash register training’.

I didn’t buy that. Let me tell you, Alexander Lin didn’t need cash register training. He was the Chinese Wonderboy. He probably took apart cash registers and small airplanes in his spare time.

He could have trained Teresa.

And unfortunately, I was stuck with managing all the hard, back breaking labor. Further proof to my theory even if I’d been volunteering first, the world just loved Alexander Lin and always saw me as second best. 

*****

The good thing about having my own car was that I could drive it wherever I wanted to (usually, the library). The bad news was…well, Dad could order me on errands whenever he wanted to. And I always had to obey, because Dad was the dictator and we were his nation of poor, voiceless subjects. (I got that line from Kevin).

That evening after volunteering, rather than letting me finish studying for my calculus test the next day, Dad treated me to a lecture about the uselessness of every college degree out there except for one in engineering, business, or medicine.

“Don’t be like your brother,” were his specific words to me. “You have top grades. You have great potential. Nancy, you have a bright future yet.” He paused. “Just don’t forget you need to do to get into Harvard, okay?”

As if I needed additional pressure or reminder of that. “Yes, Dad,” I sighed.

He gave me a long, hard look. Then he patted me on the back, which was about as affectionate as my dad ever got. We were not exactly a family of huggers.

 “Good,” Dad said. “Make your family proud.”

Making the family proud was really important to Dad. It was all the way up there next to bargain-shopping.

After that lecture, Dad sent me off to get Liang Liang from his daytime care center, Doggie Daycare. It was this small place tucked between a CVS and a restaurant called Los Amigos at the local strip mall.