The Bride Test(21)

After a while, C? Nga said, “There’s a secret for dealing with my Kh?i.”

“A secret?”

“He doesn’t talk a lot and is really smart, so people think he’s complicated, but in truth, he’s simple. If you want something from him, all you have to do is tell him.”

“Just tell him?” Esme couldn’t keep the skepticism from her voice.

“Yes, just tell him. If he’s being too quiet, tell him you want him to talk to you. If you’re bored at home, tell him you want to go somewhere with him. Never assume he knows what you want. Because he doesn’t. You have to tell him, but once you do, nine times out of ten, he’ll listen. He doesn’t look like it most of the time, but he cares about people. Even you.”

Esme considered the serious expression on the lady’s face. C? Nga believed what she was saying. “I … Yes, C?.”

C? Nga smiled and squeezed Esme’s arm. “Now let me show you around, so you can get to work.”

? ? ?

By the time the busy lunch hour was over, she was fighting tears. She didn’t mind heavy lifting or staying on her feet—she was as strong as a water buffalo—but she’d forgotten that waitressing required talking. Oftentimes, in English. That was another thing she did about as well as a water buffalo. People had given her impatient looks as she forced herself to speak, a customer had yelled at her, another had openly mocked her, and she wanted to lock herself in the bathroom and hide for the rest of the week.

She stacked dirty dishes in the roller bin. Wiped, wiped, wiped the table. Moved on to the next. Tried to empty her mind and focus on the work.

Until she remembered she’d messed up this table’s order. She’d run to the grocery store down the road to get them grapes, only to learn they’d said crepes, which was bánh xèo. What an embarrassing mistake. Who ordered grapes at a nice restaurant like this? She should have used her head. Her eyes watered, and she blinked furiously.

Don’t cry.

Once the last customer left, she’d eat those grapes and laugh about all of this instead.

Dirty dishes in the bin. Wipe, wipe, wipe the table. Move on to—

Crash! She forgot to watch where she was going, and her hip knocked a chair over. With her stinky luck, the last customer’s things had been on it, and now papers were spilled all over the floor.

“Sorry, so sorry,” she said quickly and got down on her hands and knees. But once she was down there, the task seemed overwhelming. Papers were all over the place, under tables and chairs. One sheet had even made it to the other side of the room. It was too much. Her hip throbbed, and her head ached, and she wanted to scream, but she couldn’t breathe—

“Enough, don’t worry about them,” a voice said in cultured Vietnamese.

Before she knew it, the papers were all gathered up, and she was sitting at a table, a vague memory in her mind of steady hands guiding her to the seat and a cup of tea in her hands.

“Drink it slowly,” the lady customer said as she sat down across from her and watched her with kind eyes.

Esme took a sip, finding the jasmine tea lukewarm, grainy, and bitter, as it was the dregs of the pot. It still helped to calm her, though. She swiped at her face with the back of a hand, expecting to feel the wetness of tears, but there was nothing but her own overwarm skin. The lady had caught her before she could break.

“I eat here regularly, and I never saw you before today. It’s probably your first day,” the customer said. From the looks of her, she was twenty years or so older than Esme. With the lightweight scarf around her neck, sunglasses on her head, and fashionable sundress, the lady exuded sophistication, though maybe not wealth.

Esme nodded, feeling numb.

“You just crossed, didn’t you?”

There was no need to clarify what she’d crossed or where she’d been before. Esme simply nodded again. With how the lunch hour had gone, it had to be painfully obvious that she was new to the country.

The lady reached across the table and squeezed Esme’s hand. “It gets better over time. I was a lot like you when I first came.”

Esme almost told her that she was only guaranteed to be here for one summer, but she thought better of it. She didn’t want to explain things and change this woman’s kindness to judgment. And what kind of impression was she making, sitting and drinking tea when she was on the job? She got to her feet, and as she continued wiping tables where she’d left off before, she said, “Thank you, C?. I’m sorry about the papers.”

“My name is Quy?n, but call me Miss Q. That’s what my students call me.”

“You’re a teacher?”

Miss Q held up the papers she’d gathered off the floor. “That’s right. This is my students’ homework.” Then her face brightened, and she said, “You could join my class. I teach English in the evenings. The summer session just started.”

Esme sucked in a surprised breath, and her towel froze in midswipe. Her first reaction was excitement. She would love to go to school again, and it would be so nice not to be embarrassed when she spoke to customers, and—

No, she told herself firmly. Evenings weren’t for school. They were for seducing Kh?i. Besides, it was better to save the money for Jade. That was why she was here, after all. For Jade (and her dad). Not Esme. She couldn’t justify it if it was just to make herself happy.