2 Ch. 2: Played for a Fool

Sunday could not come fast enough. Whenever she wasn't working on homework or completing chores around the house, Chunhua flopped onto her bed feeling more confused than ever. She hadn't ever really thought of Georgie like that, although she always appreciated how kind he was to her in the back kitchen. But over her entire Saturday, Chunhua began to consider how much she liked the way his nose swooped up at the very end, like a button nose, and how smooth his voice sounded with his accent.

And then around the late afternoon, as if a lightning bolt had hit her, Chunhua suddenly remembered how not cute she looked at work every day. Rushing to her small desktop in mirror in horror, Chunhua painfully reminisced on how she never wore makeup during the weekdays and how limp her hair was on her head. She flopped onto her bed dramatically afterwards, wondering what on earth Georgie had seen in her that no one in her grade, let alone handsome Thomas whom every girl seemed to have some affection for, saw.

For the first time on Sunday morning, Chunhua felt horribly underdressed looking at her reflection in her chef's coat. Her straight brows suddenly looked bare, with more skin showing through than she had ever noticed. Her eyes were bare and her lips were colorless.

Pinching her cheeks in the hopes to bring a little color to her face, for the first time, Chunhua reached under the sink of the shared family restroom to pull out her mother's makeup bag. As a working woman in her forties as a receptionist at a corporate law firm, her mother wore a surprising amount of makeup in an effort to look younger.

Chunhua wasn't well versed in beauty-related matters, so she was sensible enough to avoid difficult items such as mascara after she nearly poked her eye out. Instead lightly filling in her brows and using her bitten to the quick fingers to dab on pinky lipstick, Chunhua felt slightly prettier as she bounced out of the house.

"Zaijian, mom and dad," Chunhua called out as she shut the front door, dancing between Mandarin Chinese and English even though it annoyed her parents to no end. She didn't expect an answer and she didn't get one.

Waiting at the bus stop felt even more anticlimactic than usual. Chunhua had taken care to leave even earlier than the 10:30 she normally left the house and now she tapped her red high tops endlessly on gum covered ground. Her quick breakfast of cheerios churned in her belly as the rickety bus carried her somewhat unwillingly to her destination.

In her head, she counted down the stops before hers. Hazelwood. An old man carrying grocery bags stepped off. Morrow Avenue. No one got off. It was, unfortunately, a light day for the driver and even earlier than her start time of 11 am the bus pulled up at the stop near Le Petit Maison, the small sign of a house winking on and off even during the day time.

Chunhua walked off the bus, feeling as if the weight of the world sat on her shoulders. She turned around to say goodbye to the driver but he had already closed the door as eager as she was to leave her stop. Too bad she couldn't.

Georgie was a little too old for her, but it wasn't a big deal, right? If anything, she could just tell him to take it slow. A small part of her mind warned her that she might be getting a little bit ahead of herself but it got lost under the clutter of fear and excitement rumbling through her veins.

Chunhua was allowed to enter through the front door of the restaurant since it wasn't opening time yet, and immediately the blast of the AC made her grateful she had worn a long sleeves shirt beneath her black chef coat. The restaurant was quiet. Perhaps a little too quiet.

Mr. Big was overly fond of running his mouth in the hours before the store opened, bragging about how he had almost saved enough to open his own place and escape from 'this dump'. His words not hers. The luxurious maroon booths and chandeliers within the restaurant cost a pretty penny to maintain and were the reason why the restaurant's dishes were incredibly overpriced. He would lean against the wall beside the only entrance into the kitchen and give Chunhua a withering glare that sent her running into the back kitchen with her head tucked between her shoulders. Today, there was no one out. For the casual observer, it appeared as if no one was in that Sunday.

The silence felt like a blanket, smothering Chunhua's own sounds so much she was practically tiptoeing to the kitchen entrance. The entrance was two silver double doors that only required force to open. She was too short to see if anyone was inside from where she stood so she sucked in a breath and walked into the kitchen, to see a group of people standing and staring at her.

Every waiter and staff, from the garbage boy to the dishwasher stood side by side, some leaning on the counter but all of them looking right at her. Going down the line, Chunhua's stomach began to fall as she saw Georgie looking back at her with an unfamiliar straight face and completely bottomed out when she spied Mr. Big at the end of the line, slightly obscured by the pots and pans that were hung from the ceiling. She was dead. She was so dead. RIP Chunhua Chen 2003-2020.

Chunhua was embarrassingly horrible at confrontation. Once when she was 9, a girl had stolen her packed lunch of rice and fish. The girl hadn't even wanted to eat it, she had just taken it around lunch table to lunch table, in a strange show and tell, forcing people to sniff the fish and then gleefully informing them that it was Chunhua's meal. When Chunhua had finally cornered the abominable girl in tears, she had ended up apologizing to the brat for bringing such 'stinky' food to school.

'W-What is this?" she hazarded out, her feet already pointing towards the kitchen entrance again to bolt.

"What do you have to say for yourself, Ms. Chen?" asked her boss, stepping out from a hidden spot to stand directly between Chunhua and the door. She was cornered like a wild animal that needed to be put down.

"About what, Mrs. Borachev?" Chunhua asked, wanting nothing more than to scream, wail, cry, and wipe off her stupid, stupid makeup.

"I have never had an irresponsible worker such as you in my workplace. Ever!" The woman yelled out suddenly. The elderly Mrs. Borachev was sweet albeit easy to fool. On the rare occasion she did actually come to the restaurant, she holed up within her cozy little office and worked on papers. It was the reason why Mr. Big had been in the job for so long even though his strongest skill was warming food in the microwave.

"But what did I-"

Georgie started making a tsking sound. "Don't play dumb, Chunhua." She looked at him in bewilderment. He had his chest puffed out as if he were a valiant hero rooting out the villain. Chunhua could feel a bead of sweat begin to form on her temple.

"How dare you use this restaurant for you hooligan ways! This is an honorable establishment and I will not have any of my workers tarnish its name."

"Mrs. Borachev, I can explain. I was just playing a prank on-"

"A prank, huh?" Mrs. Borachev said, cutting Chunhua off. "Since when did drugs seem like a prank to you? I could have you arrested, you know!" Chunhua's blood ran cold in her veins as her head struggled to wrap around the bomb that Mrs. Borachev had dropped. Her right arm, which had been behind her back for the entirety of the accusation now revealed in her wrinkly grip, a large ziplock bag of white powder. Chunhua had never, ever done drugs. Living in a relatively safe suburb and never going to any parties, she hardly even knew what drugs looked like, let alone took them with her to work.

"Drugs? Mrs. Borachev I think you're mistaken. I've never done drugs in my entire life." Chunhua said with conviction, confused at the outlandish accusation. She looked at the standing group for back up but they had condemned her too, beady eyes piercing her where she stood. There was not a friendly face among them. So she turned to the one person she knew best, Georgie. He had said some confusing things earlier but surely he knew that her only error had been in creeping out the window, not drugs? The faint smell of betrayal, Georgie's trusty aftershave, wafted through the air as he stepped forward.

"Now you want me to lie for you? No mija, it doesn't work that way. I literally caught you using your fancy ladle to put drugs in your bag. When I caught you, you ran away through the window. Then, I chased after you holding the evidence of the ladle and you snatched it from me. My mom raised me not to hit girls, even criminals like you so I didn't fight back and then you hit me with the ladle on the side of my head!"

Chunhua's mouth had gradually fallen open as Georgie began to wave his completely false tale, implicating her in something she had never done. It was almost an out of body experience, like she was watching awful things happen to a girl in a movie, only she was the main character.

"I-I-" Chunhua stuttered, in utter shock at the falsehood. "That's not true! Why are you lying, Georgie? I was only trying to prank Mr. Big, you know that!" She looked him in the eye, his brown eyes utterly remorseless as her bottom lip began to tremble. Her lips covered in the pink icky lipstick she had stupidly worn for him.

But the charade wasn't done. If it were a film, it would be the moment in the second act when the hero faces a huge setback and his victory seems uncertain. But it was Chunhua's life and the last semblance of normalcy, of happiness, was falling apart right before her eyes as Mr. Big stepped forward to seal her fate.

Relying on the utter faith that Mrs. Borachev had in him, Mr. Big launched into his side of the story, how he had stepped out to grab some air after covering Chunhua's work in addition to his own, when he had heard Georgie shouting from inside. He had rushed in only to hear that Georgie had caught Chunhua bagging drugs and that Chunhua had run. Since Mr. Big was too tired to give chase, he had instead bagged the evidence and called Mrs. Borachev right away.

Chunhua's face was beginning to ache from the dumbfounded expression it was frozen in. Tears had begun streaming freely down her face in the middle of Mr. Big's speech, the implications of what could happen running through her head. It was a he said, she said situation, and since Georgie and Mr. Big had done damage control before her they had the clear advantage. Chunhua also wasn't well-liked in the back kitchen since a lot of the other chefs were jealous of her skills at such a young age, she couldn't count on them to be honest and help her. But she implored them nonetheless.

"Guys," Chunhua said desperately, her voice coming out half yell, half screech. "Tell the truth! Tell her that I did not fight with Georgie, that I wasn't handling drugs."

A memory quickly returned to her. "Sammy," Chunhua said, almost running to the dishwasher. "Sammy, you saw me right before I clocked out. Remember I was at the sink washing a few pans and then you told me that you would be right back, you were getting more dish soap. Remember?"

If possible, his murky gray eyes grew even duller as he took a slight step back into the counter, away from the truth. He just shook his head, his greasy mop going back and forth. She practically wanted to shake the guy's shoulders.

"Why are you lying, all of you?" Chunhua sobbed, wiping tears off with the back of her hand. She just didn't understand. She couldn't understand. She had never hurt anyone, never been rude to anyone in the restaurant before. And now they were all actively participating in this huge lie.

No one met her eyes, save for Georgie. Even Mr. Big could not meet her gaze. Chunhua knew her only hope lay with Mrs. Borachev. Turning around, Chunhua flung herself pitifully at Mrs. Borachev's feet, laying her heart bare.

"Please, Mrs. Borachev. This is all a lie! I promise! I'm a good kid, I've always been a good kid. I do so much work in the kitchen every day and I even do all of Mr. Big's work too because he is always too busy chainsmoking outside to do his job. That fois gras that the critic for that food magazine loved 2 months ago, I made it!", she said fervently, her finger punching into her own chest. "Everyone here sees me do all the work around here, but I don't care because I love this job, I love it more than anything! I would never do drugs or bring them here!"

Chunhua looked earnestly into Mrs. Borachev's eyes, nowhere near as friendly as they had been the first time they met.

"This is why I don't trust you, people. You young people. Mr. Big told me you would try to take credit for his hard work, which is so despicable. I can hardly look at you!" Mrs. Borachev snapped, not the slightest bit moved by Chunhua. Chunhua began to cry louder on the floor and Mrs. Borachev let out a sigh.

"Listen, I won't call the police over this matter and you have Georgie and Mr. Big to thank for that. They both agree that you are too young to have this sit on your record. However," she said, looking down her nose coldly at Chunhua, a teary mess on the pristine white floor. "I will not give a recommendation for cooking school, I'm withholding your last paycheck, and you will have a dishonorable firing on your record."

It was a death sentence. The pain in Chunhua's chest was unbearable, she would rather have been killed than to hear what Mrs. Borachev had just said. She looked at Georgie once more, a spear of pain hitting her heart once more as he smiled at her on the floor. Smiled!

Shame burned Chunhua's throat, so fierce it was a struggle to utter her next words. But she knew when she was beaten.

"Thank you, Mrs. Borachev," her sudden quiet voice causing a ripple of surprise to rush through the room. Putting one foot in front of the other had never been harder as Chunhua picked up her discarded backpack and slowly walked out of her second home. Her real home. The haven she had found at Le Petit was gone, shattered forever. Her dream? That was also probably gone. Chunhua's world was coming apart violently at the seams and she had to pause in the middle of the dining area to let out a loud sob that had been building up painfully in her chest. It hurt to let it out and it hurt even more knowing those in the kitchen could still hear her. The weak sunlight hit her face as Chunhua emerged, a different girl than she was when she had entered.

Crumpling against the white exterior of the restaurant, Chunhua felt as if her chest were caving in within itself as her wailing only got louder. She put a hand over her mouth, tears wetting them instantly, but even then she couldn't become quieter. Her body wouldn't let her, every emotion from the past months since she had told her parents she was going to pursue cooking racking through her chest and out her mouth. Her hand was twisted around her black coat jacket, a response to the very physical chest pain she was feeling, and she realized it was probably the last time she could ever wear one.

Her mind kept going even as her body had come to a full stop on the side of the restaurant, random passersby throwing curious and even disgusted stares at Chunhua as they walked by. Georgie and Mr. Big didn't want to call the police because they would probably uncover the truth of the matter, that it wasn't Chunhua who had brought the drugs to the restaurant. Maybe it was even Mr. Big and Georgie themselves who had brought them in. But why did they have to frame her? Why burn her? And why, if Georgie had been planning it from the start, did he have to tuck her hair behind her ear?

The door to the restaurant opened, startling Chunhua into quieting her sobbing a little. The next bus wouldn't arrive until 1 pm, so she hadn't had anywhere else to mourn her injustice in peace. She looked up, nearly falling over from the wave of hate that filled her when she saw Georgie, his cute upturned nose mocking her.

"Sorry, mija," Georgie said, not looking very sorry at all. "That's just business, you know? No one here liked you anyways."

Someone inside the restaurant said something unintelligible to Georgie and he turned away before looking back at her.

"I only came out here because Mrs. Borachev wants you off her property before she actually calls the police. And we wouldn't want that, would we? Just crawl back home to mommy and daddy, kapeesh?"

Without waiting for an answer, he left, the door slamming shut behind him along with dreams.