Chapter 13 Social Media Nonsense and Business Bullshit
thirteen
Social Media Nonsense and Business Bullshit
Ace is quiet through dinner, never looking up from his bowl.
It turns me inside out to watch him avoid my gaze.
Nai Nai talks about all the things she read up on at the library, that there’s a rich history in the town.
Not only of the café, but of strange goings-on, reports of demons, and bouts of violence. I’m not really surprised.
I want to engage with her and chitchat, but all I can think about is how to make Ace feel better. Promises won’t do it; I’ve made them before. I can show him the alarm on my phone, but that’ll do fuck-all to apologize for not being there today.
“…and a dog made of fire brought me a burnt stick last night,” Nai Nai says and my attention snaps to her.
Ace tsks. “Yeah, right. I would’ve woken up if a fire dog came in the room.”
Nai Nai grins smugly. “Now that I have both of your attentions, I want to say this brooding has gone on long enough.”
My stomach clenches hard around the vegetables and rice as my gaze cuts over to Ace. He glances up at me for a fraction, then back into his bowl.
“Zixin, Jiahui is trying to get this business running so we have money to fill our bowls,” Nai Nai says.
“I know,” he murmurs. “Thank you, jiejie.”
“Jiahui, the only people Zixin has had for years is you and me.”
I swallow, trying to force down the lump in my throat. “Yes, elder.”
“I have friends,” Ace complains.
Nai Nai grunts. “Friends do not feed and clothe you. They do not watch out for you the way Jiahui does.”
He pushes his food around, poking a bit of cabbage.
“We are in a strange predicament. We are far from where we once lived, for an unknown amount of time, but that doesn’t mean this isn’t home, and that we shouldn’t be acting like family.”
I nod my head several times, then look at my brother. “I’m so sorry, Ace. I don’t have a good excuse for forgetting, but I’ve set an alarm in my phone so I’ll have a daily reminder to come get you.”
His brow furrows and he frowns. “I’m fifteen. I can take a bus.”
I worry my lip. “Is that what you want?”
“Kinda.” He shrugs. “Only a few kids get rides. Everyone else takes the bus and walks. Maybe…I could make a few new friends while I’m here, invite them to my Dischorde server.”
I want him to have friends. I don’t know how long we’ll be stuck here. Amherst said it could be months before Zhao Shang’s hearing—even years. There’s no end in sight, and we have to make the most of what we’ve got in front of us.
I set my bowl down and turn to Ace, then bow my head. “It would be very helpful to me if you would take the bus so that I can focus on the shop, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to see you or spend time with you.”
He huffs. “We see each other every night for dinner.”
Nai Nai makes a shrill noise as she clears her throat.
Ace sets his bowl down and turns to me, bowing his head. “I would be honored to help relieve you of some of the burden, so that you may carry on strongly.”
I sit up straight and he looks me in the eyes, then smiles.
“Speaking of burden, can you help me with the website stuff? You know I suck at computers,” I say.
He blows a raspberry. “That’ll take me twenty minutes.”
“What about a Facepost page? I think we’ll want one for advertising.”
“Another five minutes,” he says.
“After dinner?”
“You got it.”
I grab my food and tuck in, finally ready to eat.
Ace seems ready, too, as he scoops another serving of rice into his bowl.
Nai Nai tells us more about the newspapers she read on the town, but again, my attention is divided.
I’m thinking about what to stock in the pantry, and if Nai Nai wants to bake sweets for the shop, and if I need to hire someone to help me run it…
We wash all the dishes and pack away the leftovers in the fridge before running back to my room to get to work. Nai Nai stays out in the living room, semi-surrounded by all our stuff as she works on custom cushions for the chairs in the cafe.
Ace pulls up his laptop and I lay out all the color swatches I’m using for the shop so he can get to work organizing the color theme for the website.
“I really am sorry I wasn’t there,” I say.
He bobs his head and whispers, “I know.”
“But being sorry doesn’t excuse me or fix anything. I want to make it up to you, Ace.”
“Well, then just do a good job here and maybe buy me a new solid-state hard drive for my birthday.”
I give him an incredulous look. “A hard drive will make you forgive me?”
“It’s better than no hard drive,” he says with a grin.
I flick one of the paint swatches at him and he deflects with an indignant, “Hey!”
We work quietly for a while; me on our marketing text, him on the website. It’s nice to just sit in peace with him, but the air doesn’t feel clear yet, and I don’t know what to do. Maybe there’s nothing I can do. It’s his move next.
He shows me the layout of the website in twenty minutes, like he promised. It’s basic, but that’s really all we need. There’s a drink menu page that I need to fill in, a contact page, and the home page has a “featured” section for specials.
My mind whirls. It’s information overload, but I’m excited to take on the new challenge. There are so many things I didn’t consider, and Ace’s website just woke them up inside me.
“Mom and Dad wasn’t your fault,” he says.
Like a punch to the gut, my excitement deflates. I don’t know what to say.
“You keep acting like every time you’re not around, I’m in danger,” he says.
“What if you are? I pissed off Zhao Shang.”
“And we’re far away from him now. He doesn’t know where we are, and he’s in jail anyway.”
I don’t want to tell him that he’s allowed to make phone calls and have visits in jail.
It’s yet to be seen, but anyone could be ferrying information and requests to and from his gang.
I don’t want to tell him that Shang was aware that Nai Nai had won several small contests, and the sweepstakes that landed us this café—though the address wasn’t on the website, it did say “Northern Maine.” That might be enough.
I don’t want to scare him.
But maybe I should.
“He might know where we are,” I say. “And he might be able to get to us.”
His face pales, but then he licks his lips and leans in. “Can’t you and Nai Nai put some…protections up? Something?”
I didn’t realize Zixin believed in this stuff. I’ve never revealed my power to him.
I nod. “I have been.”
Along with wards against interdimensional cockroaches the size of a Saint Bernard, but that’s probably more than he needs to know.
“It might not be enough. And if you’re not home…I suppose Nai Nai could make you a protection amulet. You’d have to wear it all the time.”
Why didn’t I think of this before?
“If that’ll make you feel better, I’ll wear it. Shower with it, too. But please, jiejie, stop blaming yourself for what happened to them.”
Self-hate spikes through me. I try to shrug it off. “Yeah, okay.”
“What would you have done if you’d been there? You saw the wuguan. They fought hard.”
“I know,” I say, dropping my gaze to my notebook. The words scrawled in blue ink start to blur.
“Why do you keep thinking you could’ve done something?”
“Maybe one more fighter would’ve made the difference,” I snap without meaning to, then shake my head. “I’m sorry.”
He sets his laptop aside and comes closer. “You would’ve been taken, too. You’d be in China now, who knows where, laboring off their debt.”
“Still laboring off their debt,” I murmur, wiping my nose with a sniffle.
“I would’ve gone to a group home. Nai Nai…she might not be here anymore.”
I don’t want to think about an eleven-year-old Ace trying to make his way in the foster care system of Boston. I don’t want to consider a desperate Nai Nai, unable to pay rent on her own, nowhere to go, trying to see Ace.
And still…
“I’d said I would be there,” I whisper.
“What if it was fate, or something? You have experience with that kind of thing that I don’t. Couldn’t it be fate?”
“What a cruel fate it would be.”
He scoots closer, grabbing my shoulders. “You not being there saved us. And as far as we know, Mom and Dad are okay. Overworked, limited communication, but okay. And when the shop is running, I’m going to do what I can to help make more money so we can pay their debt faster and bring them home.”
My eyes burn again and I nod. “Thanks, buddy.”
He smiles. “Plus, I’ve got a plan.”
I breathe away my tears. “Oh, yeah?”
“A delivery service! There’s this beat-up scooter I saw on the way home at the pawn shop and I bet I could use it to bring coffee and snacks to people. We could charge a delivery premium, and it would be super easy to manage orders through the website.”
I tsk. “You and what driver’s license?”
“I’m gonna apply for it! Will you help me?”
“Of course, but you have to have a permit first.”
“Yeah, I know. My hours from Boston should transfer, even though I still need a few more. Maybe Nai Nai could drive and I’ll sit on the back.”
We both laugh at the image; Nai Nai in a brightly colored helmet driving at twenty miles an hour, Ace on the back holding a stack of drinks.
“Bedtime soon!” Nai Nai yells.
“It’s only nine-thirty!” Ace complains.
“School night, and you haven’t done your papers!”
He mashes his lips together and his cheeks color. “Yes, Elder Feng!”
I didn’t realize they gave new students homework on the first night. Oops.
We wrap up what we can for the site and save it for now. I still want to work on the drink menu, something that has a bit of astral flare. It’ll all be lattes and stuff, but like “Cosmic Caramel Crunch” and “Espresso Explosion.”
Maybe explosion isn’t the right word to use with coffee. And “cosmic” is already in the name of the café so…
More workshopping to come.
I take a quick shower and collapse onto my bedroll, asleep before I even know it’s happening.