Chapter 8 Section 6

After 8:30 in the evening, business is very slow.Everyone in the restaurant started to clean up, and Helen also took the initiative to clean the front of the store, mainly sweeping the floor, wiping the tables, tidying up the napkin boxes, and filling up the soy sauce bottles on the table. She wanted to mop the floor, but she was a little scared.She worked as a kitchen helper in a restaurant. She was supposed to mop the floor before leaving get off work at night. Every time she finished mopping, she felt as if her waist was broken. There is a saying in her hometown that "a frog has no neck, and a baby has no waist".This may be true, she never felt that she had a waist before, neither pain nor itching.But since giving birth, a waist has emerged, and I always feel its existence.Sitting for a long time also hurts, standing for a long time also hurts, a little too much physical work, especially work that requires bending, the waist seems to be broken, and I can't straighten up for a long time.

Although she was very timid to mop the floor, she decided to mop the floor.For some reason, she felt as if she was fawning over this restaurant.If it was in other places, like today, if even she felt that she did not do a good job, she would take the initiative to resign. She didn't want to wait until the boss came to fire her, because she always felt that it was a shameful thing.But at PANDA518, she was a bit reluctant to take the initiative to resign, and she wanted to make up for it so that the boss could keep her. She looked everywhere for a mop wringer, which is a tool for wringing mops. It can be filled with water to wash the mop. It has a handle for wringing the mop, so it won't get your hands dirty and saves effort.She thought that this kind of tool must be in the toilet or outside the back door of the restaurant, so she ran to these places to look for it, and finally found it outside the back door.

As soon as she pushed the wringer in from the door, BENNY saw it and said, "What are you doing?" He snatched the wringer from her hand and took it out the back door. She felt that his tone of voice was a bit angry, and she didn't know what mistake she had made again, so she went back to the front desk in embarrassment, standing there at a loss, waiting to be scolded by BENNY. BENNY came over and asked her, "Do you want to eat chicken wings?" She was taken aback and asked, "Chicken wings? What chicken wings?" "'Dangyan' is chicken wings." He didn't seem to be very good at pronouncing the "R" sound, so he replaced it with other sounds, so "of course" sounded more like "dangyan", and "then" was like It's "delayed" and "ROOMMATE" sounds like "Umi".

Seeing that she was still standing there in a daze, he explained, "Cook——for your dinner, you don't want to eat whitebait, so I have to make chicken——you eat the wings, the only ones in the restaurant—" She couldn't figure out how he knew she didn't eat whitebait, because he wasn't at the table at all during the meal. Did he see it from behind the counter?She didn't know why he was cooking her dinner, as if to send her away.She stammered, "I—I'll eat with you all, and you—I'll eat whatever you eat—" She was very anxious, lest he think she was imitating him to stutter.But he didn't seem to care, and said, "You—you don't have to eat with us, I'll cook something for you, and you—take it back to eat—"

She felt like it was basically getting her fired, and she didn't blame him, since she couldn't be of much help, who wants to hire someone idle?She wanted to say, "You don't have to cook dinner for me, just give me my trial wages, and I'll go back." But she didn't want to say it, and would rather wait for the boss to say it with the cheek.She thought, BENNY is not the boss, as long as the boss doesn't fire me, I will wait. She stood there stupidly, watching BENNY chop up a few chicken wings into small pieces, fry them in a frying pan, then put them into the frying pan, add some seasonings, stir fry for a while, and then add some I can't understand the name of the sauce, after cooking it, it becomes a chicken nugget with red sauce.

He used a white plastic lunch box to fill a box full of rice, and took another white plastic lunch box to put the freshly fried chicken wings in, and the box was full.He stacked the two boxes and put them into a paper bag, put two forks, several bags of sauce and two FORTUNE COOKIEs, and wrapped them in plastic bags, just like packing for guests. He handed the packed bag to Helen, and said, "This is your supper, you can deliver it back by yourself." Helen asked cautiously, "Off work?" "No—yes, I get off work at ten o'clock. You live far away, and it's NEWDRIVER, so let's go first."

She felt that this was not firing her, so she relaxed a little, and only asked worriedly: "Then if I leave so early, will the boss—" He muttered, "Why do you care about that idiot?" She tentatively asked: "Then tomorrow I—" "The restaurant opens at eleven o'clock, and we go to work at half past ten. You don't have to come so early, just come before ten or twelve o'clock." She was overjoyed, it seemed that she was hired, so she actively offered and said, "Then I will come tomorrow at 10:30." "I beat you all over." He always said "whatever" to "beat you all over". Every time Helen heard it, she wanted to laugh, as if he was going to beat someone hard, but she was too embarrassed to laugh, lest he think she was laughing. his national language.

He didn't seem to think he said anything wrong, took out a cardboard box, and told her in an old-fashioned voice: "Put this box in your car, and then put the meal in it, put it in place, don't spill it—in the car It’s not easy to leak out when it’s packed in a COMBO box, but you’re so messy when you do things, I’m afraid you’ll hurt your hand when you go back and open it.” He thought so carefully that she was moved. She stared at him blankly, not knowing what to say.He also confessed: "Turn on the taximeter on the car, and when you drive to 7-miles, just stare-to the right, you will see the sign for the expressway. It's dark, drive carefully, don't mess around —Come on.” When he encounters some words that may stutter, he prolongs them, and often overcomes the stuttering phenomenon.

Helen felt that he was really speaking like an "uncle". He sounded very worried about her, as if she was a frizzy little girl.She didn't know how old he was, but she estimated that he was about the same age as her, because the boss was only three years younger than her, and the boss still called him "uncle", and he was much more mature in speaking and doing things than the boss. She took a bold look at him and found that he was also looking at her, and his eyes made her feel that he should be very young, because his eyeballs hadn't turned yellow, they were still very black.

He told her "don't mess around", which made her suddenly feel that she was many years younger, as if she had returned to the time when she was a naughty little girl many years ago.She joked: "The boss said you are his fourth uncle, so you are quite old?" "Thump you all over—what do you think." He didn't seem very talkative, especially when it came to himself. She couldn't continue on this topic, so she asked instead: "Are you—really not the Jackie who answered my call today?" He asked, "Why do you keep asking JA——JACKIE?" She said frankly: "Because I think JACKIE's voice on the phone is very nice."

"JACKIE's voice is nice, but mine isn't nice?" The boss heard their conversation after delivering the food, and asked, "Did you forget about JACKIE? Did you confuse our restaurant with other restaurants?" This sentence made her feel a little guilty, because she had indeed made such a mistake.When I was looking for a job, I sometimes forgot about the place I had already called and called again.As a result, the people over there recognized her voice first, saying, didn't you call just once?It made her miserable. Another time I did a trial job at a restaurant called LUCKYCHINA, and I also took orders.When the phone rang, she grabbed the receiver and said reflexively: "MAY'SCHINESERESTAURANT.HOWCANIHELPYOU?" The proprietress of LUCKYCHINA has sharp ears, and she heard it right away, and asked repeatedly: "What were you talking about? What were you talking about just now?" She knew she was wrong, so she fired herself with a guilty conscience. She didn't know if she confused this restaurant with the restaurant called "Pearl Spring". She remembered that the person on the phone over there was also very nice. Could it be that person's name was JACKIE? Seeing that she was speechless, the boss smiled smugly for a while and said, "Auntie, then you will work here with us. I pay you $1500 every month and take one day off a week. Is it okay? Our shop is small and we can't make any money. I don't have much PAY for you. If you think it's not enough, you can post me. I work seven days a week and never rest. You will definitely not lose money—" When Helen heard that the boss agreed to hire her, she was so happy that she didn't even care about the boss' dirty jokes, and immediately said, "Okay, I like this place, so I will work here." The boss laughed loudly: "Auntie, do you like dine-in? Do you want to start working here? I like DELIVER, home delivery. Auntie, whenever you want to eat me, just call the restaurant and I will give you FREEDELIVERY. " Everyone laughed for a while, and the boss said to Helen, "Then go back early, has BENNY cooked for you?" Helen said again and again: "It's cooked, thank you." She said goodbye to the people in the restaurant, got into her car, and switched on the taximeter as BENNY said.At mile seven, she started looking for the sign to get on the highway, and she saw it right away.She got on the highway smoothly and returned to the Woodlake community where she lived. When she returned to the residence, Lily was still awake, watching TV in the living room.Helen took out the food she brought back from the restaurant and asked Lily to come and eat some, because she knew that Lily didn't know how to cook, and she often dressed in boiled salt, so she liked to eat the food she brought back from the restaurant.No matter where she works, she tries to bring something back at night. When Lily saw the braised chicken wings, she yelled: "It's delicious, it's delicious. Just the smell alone can swallow a few bowls of rice." Then she asked worriedly, "I ate it, is it enough for you?" "There are so many. They think my husband is here, and he cooks for two people. He even has two sets of knives and forks. The two of us will definitely not be able to finish the meal. You can still take it for lunch tomorrow." The two talked about the restaurant while eating. Lily has also worked part-time before, so she often gives ideas and solutions to Helen's part-time job. Lily heard that the restaurant was full of young men, and was very interested. She said, "I'll go to your restaurant on Saturday to make a living, and see if there's anyone I like. Tell me the address of your restaurant." Helen wrote her the address of the restaurant and joked, "I'm afraid I'll be fired before it's Saturday." "How could it be? There are all men there, and now there is a woman here, they are willing to fire? Maybe everyone wants to pick you up." "What's the matter? I've told them I'm thirty-six and married." Lily yelled: "You are so stupid, how can you tell them this? It's too bad. Otherwise, they would treat you as a princess, and now they have to treat you as the princess's mother. But there is a woman there , Even if it's the princess's mother, those BOYS still like it very much, they work harder, they must be very motivated to tell dirty jokes, they are all bachelors, and it's better to have a good time than nothing." The two chatted and laughed for a while, Lily said that she would watch TV for a while, and Helen took a shower and went to bed.She lay on her floor, unable to sleep for the first time, as if she was too excited by today's good fortune. She came to work in City A this time, thanks to Lily's help.She has lived with Lily since the day she came to the United States, and it has been almost a year.During the summer vacation, Lily wanted to come to City A to do an INTERN. Knowing that Helen wanted to work during the summer vacation, they discussed finding a place to live in City A together.However, it is still difficult to find a house to rent for so many months during the summer vacation. Most of them need to sign half-year and one-year contracts. In the end, Lily found a former classmate of hers, who used to be her boyfriend, named JOE, who studied ACCOUNTING. He had already found a job in City A and rented a two-bedroom house. The former ROOMMATE just moved out. Yes, free a room. So, as soon as the vacation was over, Helen and Lily moved into JOE's apartment.The condition of the apartment was not bad, and the room the two of them lived in was quite big. Anyway, she was working outside, and she would come home very late, and she would not rest on weekends, so the house was only used for sleeping. Neither of them had a bed, nor did they want to buy a bed just for these few months. JOE has an air mattress, so he lent it to LILY.Helen spread a quilt on the ground to make a floor bunk.Anyway, there is a carpet on the floor, so I don't feel cold. According to Lily, JOE is her third boyfriend, and he is also the best "skills in bed" among several people. Lily said that the performance of the first two boyfriends in bed was unsatisfactory. The first one only knew how to go on a rampage and didn't care about her feelings at all, and then blew it for some other reasons.The second one was more gentle, but a little too warm. The little brother was always tired and seldom refreshed once a week. Later, he died for some other reason. JOE is good-looking, and many girls like him. He may have "viewed countless people" because of this, so his performance in bed is top-notch, but he was blown away for some other reasons later. At first, Helen was worried that Lily would be embarrassed to live in an apartment with her ex-boyfriend, but later she realized that she was really worrying too much. Lily was almost eleven years younger than her, which was another generation altogether. Lily's generation doesn't seem to be as rigid about sex as her generation. Lily talked about several friends, and more than one had sexual relations, and it seemed that there was no bad influence.And what about Helen herself?From the beginning to the end, she only talked about one boyfriend and had sex with one man, and she didn't seem to get any reward for it, but missed the person she really liked.