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  His eyes flicked toward my parents’ bedroom. “Uh, I think you have a right to be worried about stuff. Stressed, even.”

  I laughed—loudly—and, having surprised myself, I had to muffle the noise so my parents wouldn’t hear. Or maybe it would be good if they heard?

  “Were they what you expected?” I asked even though I really wanted to ask, How do they compare with the other parents you’ve met on jobs? which would then seamlessly transition into What are the other girls like? Am I different? What’s wrong with me? Can I talk to one of them so I feel less alone?

  He smiled. “Yes. You’re not my first, you know.” He coughed. “Sorry, I actually didn’t mean for it to come out that way. I just meant a lot of the client parents have similarities. Not completely, of course, but I’ve seen enough to be able to make some conclusions based on certain things I see.” He gestured to the cabinets surrounding us. “Given how your parents boxed up the leftovers, I’m guessing one of these is dedicated to recycled ziplocks and washed-out margarine tubs.”

  I pulled out the drawer with the free plastic utensils, chopsticks, and soy sauces from past deliveries, then opened the door to our cabinet dedicated to crinkled but “perfectly good” recycled foil and plastic grocery bags. We laughed together, and the guilt from poking fun at my parents was quickly overshadowed by my wonderment that someone else understood.

  “And this clearly wasn’t your first Thanksgiving with Chinese food and turkey,” I added. “Did a past mistake teach you that eating more Chinese food than turkey equals two mooncake points or whatever?”

  He laughed. “Mooncake points? I love that!”

  I hadn’t meant to let him in on that joke of mine, but now that he approved, I wondered what other jokes he might laugh at.

  “Speaking of…,” he said, then stood and retrieved the box of mooncakes he’d brought. In front of me, he opened it and raised an eyebrow exactly as I had with the pie. “This is the good stuff too, trust me,” he said.

  We each snatched one, took a bite, and groaned. I’d never met a mooncake I didn’t like, but this was by far the best I’d ever had.

  “You haven’t eaten a mooncake until you’ve had one of these,” he said.

  “For real.” I took three more bites in rapid succession. “How’d you find these? Does the company have, like, taste tests for this stuff?” I let out a short laugh. “Mooncake taster—what an awesome job. I’d apply in a heartbeat.”

  He gave me a tight smile.

  “Sorry,” I said when I realized I was asking him about the company not five minutes after he’d told me his no-company-talk rule.

  “All good,” he said with a shrug. Then he finished off his mooncake in two big bites, bidding me a muffled good night before he’d even swallowed.

  Drew

  Yes, we have taste tests. Because a mooncake can buy your way in. It’s infinite mooncake points, if you will.

  I kept that joke to myself even though I was pretty sure it would have killed.

  Chloe CHAPTER 6

  FRANKENBĀO

  November 27

  We didn’t do breakfast in this family. Which explained why, the morning after Thanksgiving, the dining table was covered in very, um, inventive breakfast food—Frankenstein’s version of it, with pieces put together from different cultures to form one monstrous mess. You can’t mix cultures that way, I always wanted to throw back at my mother, but she wouldn’t get it. For the record, I think fusion food can be fabulous, but my mother is more concerned with presentation than taste, so giving her a buffet of ingredients to play with is similar to handing the kitchen over to my cousin’s daughter, whose specialty is cheese-and-red-bean pancakes because “the yellow and red are so pretty together.”

  Andrew bit into a scrambled egg, ketchup, and Kraft Single sandwich on pan-fried raisin bread drizzled in ginger honey. How he didn’t spit it out immediately was beyond my taste buds and certainly made me feel better about his backbreaking price.

  He swallowed his sweet-and-salty lump with a grin. “Thank you for making me feel like part of the family so quickly, Wang Ǎyí, Shǔshú.”

  Ha. My parents were faking as much as he was. And nowhere near as well. I poked my misshapen ball of fried dough and cheese wrapped in a white fluffy bāo.

  As Frankenbāo neared my reluctant mouth, our doorbell rang.

  Saved by the bell. I dropped the monster, which, for the record, smelled exactly how I expected it would: not Chinatown sidewalk garbage on a hot day, but not edible, either.

  Andrew, my father, and I all stood in hopes of using the doorbell to delay more bites, but my father held up a palm to insist he have the honor.

  Andrew coughed a few times into his napkin, having stood too fast.

  “Did you choke on a raisin?” I asked, rubbing his back like I guessed a good girlfriend would. I lowered my voice. “Because that’s a perfectly normal thing to find in your scrambled egg–honey sandwich.”

  He let out a sudden cough-laugh, which made me jump.

  “Hmm? Some inside joke?” my mother asked.

  I nodded. Andrew and I shared a smile, but mine promptly fell when my father reentered the kitchen with a visitor in tow.

  “Look who so kindly decided to drop by, Jing-Jing!” exclaimed my dad—now Vanna White—as he waved his hands up and down the visitor’s body to present him to the table. My father’s face was lit up like a Chinese New Year lantern, his previous hump-adjacent excitement over Andrew now forgotten.

  My mother ran over and shoved an empty chair between Andrew and me.

  For Hongbo.

  Drew

  This was most certainly Hongbo.

  Slightly raised chin and half-concealed, half-on-display smug expression? He might as well have been wearing a name tag.

  “Hey-o, boys and girls!” Hongbo said too loudly, followed by a chuckle.

  Despite the obvious fact that I was here with Jing-Jing, like with with her, Hongbo marched right up to us and stuck a bouquet of bloodred roses under her nose.

  “Roses for my rose,” he said, nudging her with the plastic wrapping in an effort to force her to accept. “You look… rosy… as always.”

  He couldn’t even sell the compliment, choking on the words as they came out. Amateur. He should’ve just pretended he was talking to his beloved Sheila, to which Jing-Jing had devoted an entire paragraph on her form. And, sadly, Hongbo didn’t know Jing-Jing well enough to know her hatred of flowers, especially roses. They’re cliché, a waste of money, and a half-assed effort from someone who barely knows you, she had written. Nailed that square on the head, hadn’t she?

  Jing-Jing sat there, frozen, her eyes downcast, so Hongbo threw the bouquet on the table, smashing my sandwich in the process. As classy as the Lamborghini T-shirt beneath his freshly pressed blazer. Yikes.

  Hongbo was holding back whatever was on his mind, and not very well; his teeth were clenched so tight his jawline fluttered like a hummingbird.

  What the hell was going on here? Hongbo obviously had no interest in Jing-Jing (I’d seen better liars kicked out of Rent for Your ’Rents on day one), yet something was driving this pathetic courting (if it could even be called that). Why bother, when this was all their parents’ idea? He should be on our side, not theirs.

  “Thank you so much for the flowers, Hongbo,” Jing-Jing said, her voice small. This was not the girl from the application who had angrily typed (in the sixth paragraph) about the misogynistic, philandering, sorry ass of a human who was necessitating my paycheck. “They’re lovely,” she continued, “but I can’t accept them. It would be rude to my—”

  Before she could finish, her mother rushed over and scooped up the roses. “Aiyah, you shouldn’t have, Hongbo. So generous you are, just like your parents. Such fee-lan-therapists.”

  With disgust, Hongbo corrected her: “Philanthropists.”

  Mrs. Wang flushed all shades of red but recovered quickly. “I just heard about your parents’ latest donation to the church, wh
ich was larger than any other donation ever given, a record they also previously held. Amazing! They’ve donated so much that everything should be named after them, but they’re so humble and always refuse the recognition.”

  Right. Jing-Jing had mentioned in her application that the church was the pillar of their community, and Hongbo’s family, as the biggest financial supporters, were like gods (but second to the real God, of course).

  “Number One donors and Number One bachelor here,” Mrs. Wang finished with enthusiasm.

  Mr. Wang clapped Hongbo on the back. “We just invested a large chunk of our savings into Number One stocks. Do us proud, yes?”

  Jing-Jing’s raised eyebrows told me this was unexpected.

  Even though all the attention was on him, Hongbo wasn’t even pretending to listen. He was staring at me.

  Realizing she wouldn’t get anything out of Hongbo until she addressed the five-foot-eleven (hopefully great-at-art) elephant in the room, Mrs. Wang gestured to me and said, “Hongbo, that’s Jing-Jing’s friend. Anthony. I mean, Arthur? Adam.”

  Rent for Your ’Rents would have booted her on day one too.

  “You know his name, Mǎmá,” Jing-Jing said, still quiet. Then, a little louder, she told Hongbo, “My boyfriend’s name is Andrew.”

  I smiled, trying to encourage her to be herself a little more.

  Hongbo looked me up and down, then laughed until his eyes grew watery. “I’m not intimidated by this pretty boy.”

  I kept my face neutral, not reacting.

  “Well, if you’re intimidated by just his looks, you should probably leave before he actually says anything,” Jing-Jing said, shocking me. I quickly stifled my laugh.

  Hongbo’s eyes darted to my UChicago T-shirt. “Pfft. You think I’m intimidated by that safety school? I didn’t even apply there.”

  “Because your parents had already paid your way into Stanford with Kuo Hall,” Jing-Jing muttered, which I already knew.

  Hongbo looked to Jing-Jing’s mother, then father. “You know, my parents only blessed this union because of Jing-Jing’s virginal reputation, but maybe that’s not the case anymore. Maybe I should tell them to look elsewhere.”

  What the fuck? Had he seriously just said “virginal reputation”? I scooted closer to Jing-Jing, wanting to protect her not because of any role I was playing, but because this was all sorts of disgusting and no one should have to deal with it.

  “No!” Mrs. Wang yelled, waving her hands frantically. “Anthony is just a friend; no hanky-panky happened. Jing-Jing is still considering your proposal, okay?”

  Holy shit, this guy proposed to her? The fact that Jing-Jing had left that detail off her form threw me for a second. Was I supposed to pretend I already knew? Was I supposed to stay out of it since she, for some reason (or maybe I should say for obvious reasons), hadn’t wanted me to know?

  Gently, Mrs. Wang reminded Hongbo, “You so kindly gave us until New Year’s, remember?”

  “Only because she’s so clearly lost her mind and needs time to find it!” Hongbo spat.

  Really, an ultimatum? Come on, man.

  “Girls beg for a chance to be considered by me!” Hongbo thundered.

  “Aiyah, you know our innocent Jing-Jing,” Mrs. Wang said as if her daughter weren’t sitting right next to her. “She’s so young and pure, and she doesn’t know how to handle interest from the most eligible bachelor, the heir of the mighty Number One Systems! She just needs a little time to wrap her head around marriage, that’s all.”

  “For the second and final time, the answer is no,” Jing-Jing declared, grabbing my hand. “I’m with Andrew.”

  My training kicked in and I stood, the quickness of my movement pushing my chair back.

  “I think it’s time you headed out, Hongbo,” I said as I continued to squeeze Jing-Jing’s hand, presenting a united front (which I probably would’ve done even without the mission because, just, ew).

  “Excuse me, but this is our house,” Mr. Wang piped up.

  Crap. I knew her parents were pro Jing-Jing & Hongbo, but their Category 1 personalities were also supposed to respond positively to a protective significant other.

  As I faltered, unsure which way to play this, Jing-Jing also stood.

  “Hongbo, please leave. You’re not welcome here, at least not by me.”

  He shook his head at her. “Like I said, UChicago is a safety school, which explains why you have no brains, girl. I don’t need this shit.” He turned to me. “Be careful, dude, because she might be a lesbian since she said no to this.” He gestured dramatically to himself, chin up, chest out.

  How did he manage to be worse than the monster Jing-Jing had described?

  Hongbo stomped off.

  Mr. and Mrs. Wang trailed after him, yelling “Hongbo! Please! Jing-Jing doesn’t mean it!”

  I turned to Jing-Jing, whose fists were clenched. She slowly sat back down.

  “Sorry,” she said, her voice and eyes faraway. “I… He… It’s—”

  “You don’t have to say any more,” I interrupted.

  We shared a sad smile. I hovered a hesitant hand over hers, unsure if she wanted comfort from me, Drew, while her parents were nowhere in sight. She reached up and grabbed it, and we sat in a quiet that would have been comfortable if not for the bang-your-head-against-the-wall words floating down the hall.

  Tell your parents Jing-Jing is as virginal as they think.

  Anthony’s just a friend, we swear.

  Jing-Jing’s too innocent to know what’s good for her, that’s all!

  “Do you want to get out of here?” I asked.

  She didn’t say anything. Just shot up out of her chair and led the way out the back door.

  Chloe CHAPTER 7

  NON-FRANKENBĀO

  As I stepped into our poorly-cared-for backyard—the previous owner’s plastic pink flamingo looked like it had died three deaths with its deep-rooted brown smudges, toppled form, and gaping hole—I heard the front door open and slam shut. Then raised voices filled the air.

  Andrew and I hurried through the once-white gate, through the neighbor’s backyard, and onto the street.

  Once we were a couple doors down—in the opposite direction Hongbo would be heading—I paused. Were we just going for a stroll or did we need a destination? And given that we were in my neighborhood, were we supposed to act like a couple to keep up the charade? Did we want to stay away for a bit so I could catch my breath, or should we use this very expensive time to let Andrew work his operative magic?

  Even though it had been my plan—an uncharacteristically shoddy one brought on by emotions after my mother had told me I should be jumping at the chance to be with dreamboat Hongbo, who had “magically” set his sights on plain ol’ me thanks to his parents’ attraction to my golden vagina—all I could think about now was how I shouldn’t need Andrew. How my no should have been enough. But it never was, not with my parents. When I’d tried to show them Hongbo’s true puke-green colors, they had tsked and slapped me on the wrist for not recognizing how ol’ Dreamboat was so dutiful to his parents he was willing to propose to their top choice regardless of his feelings, as if his motivations were driven by filial piety and honor, not access to his parents’ bank accounts.

  I jumped when Andrew’s fingertips grazed my arm, and my previously tense muscles relaxed a smidge. I hadn’t even realized how clenched I’d been.

  “I can’t believe my parents are pushing me to marry someone for money,” I whispered. “And not just someone, but the worst person I know.”

  I closed my eyes and saw Hongbo from different points of my past: begging for a dog at age ten, then locking her in the laundry room as punishment for stealing the spotlight; peeing on the sandcastle that I’d spent hours on when I was six and he was twelve; telling the Asian community when I was in high school that I was such a prude I must’ve been born with a shriveled vagina.

  “I’m really sorry, Jing-Jing,” Andrew said, standing completely still be
side me, waiting to see what I needed. Because I’d paid him for that. Everything in my life was fake: my parents, my suitor and his proposal, the boy beside me who was pretending to care.

  I fought back tears. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

  “How about we go get some edible breakfast?” he suggested. “I know an awesome place around here.” When I still wasn’t convinced, he added, “They have a breakfast banh mi with fried egg and chili sauce. And, like, fifty ways to order matcha.”

  My James Banh Mi was offering to take me to banh mi. Normally, I’d have laughed, but in this moment I gave an unenthusiastic nod—it was the most I could manage when my mind felt like congee.

  We argued over who would call the Uber, and I finally caved when he—the real him, I could tell—said kindly, “I’m off the clock right now, okay? Not hired Andrew—just a friend.”

  “Okay,” I finally answered.

  We said hello to Paul, 4.8 stars, known to be a good conversationalist, and piled into the back seat.

  “Have you ever seen this much mayhem”—I gestured back toward the house—“on the job before?”

  Andrew offered a sympathetic smile, but I couldn’t read what was going on beneath his piercing gaze.

  “Never mind,” I said quickly. “I don’t want to know.” Not to mention, I was breaking his rule again.

  Quietly he said, “It’s never easy for the client.”

  Paul glanced at me in the rearview mirror.

  We rode in silence despite Paul’s exceptional conversational skills.

  * * *

  The cozy café had photos of menu items on the wall and a golden plastic cat by the register waving its arm to bring in good luck. The familiarity soothed me.

  “Do you want to share the banh mi?” Andrew asked as we stood in line.