I Thought Love Had to Be Earned Through Chores, They Hugged Me novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Nobody Hired You

Minnie cooks six breakfasts at 4 a.m., works her own homecoming banquet as a server, is accused of pushing the adopted daughter Odette, is cleared by security footage, and when nobody speaks to her, offers to wash 300 people's dishes for one night's lodging.

Nobody hit me.

My mother cried until my father walked her out.

Wesley left last, without a word.

I lay back down on my cardboard and waited for four o'clock.

At four sharp, the range hood in the Westbrook kitchen roared.

By ten after, the whole house was awake.

Wesley came in barefoot in a T-shirt, hair flat on one side, just as I flipped my sixth pan.

Pancakes. Ravioli. Toast. Oat milk I'd made from a bag of oats in the pantry. Beef pasta. A pot of chicken soup.

All of it lined up on the marble counter.

He looked at it for a long time.

Then he laughed, and it wasn't a nice laugh.

"Minnie Westbrook. What exactly are you trying to do?"

I untied the apron I'd borrowed from a hook.

"Show my value. Earn my spot."

"This is your home. Nobody hired you."

The spatula slid out of my hand and hit the tile.

Not hired.

That meant they were keeping me for nothing.

Living without working was wrong. I'd known that since I was three.

But eating and sleeping on somebody else's dime, with no job at all?

That was the worst thing a person could do.

I picked the spatula up, rinsed it and slid a glass of oat milk across the counter to him.

"Drink first, then yell. Yelling on an empty stomach hurts the lining. I'm not certified in stomachs."

A vein stood up on his forehead.

Odette came down in silk pajamas, yawning.

She saw the counter and something moved behind her eyes, fast, like a mouse behind a wall.

"Oh, Minnie can do everything," she said softly. "Not like me. I can't do anything. I just make trouble."

My mother came in behind her in a robe and stroked her hair.

"Our Odette doesn't have to do anything. Mom and Dad will take care of you."

I stared at Odette with real respect.

She could live here and not do one single thing?

That took skill.

I took out my spiral notebook and uncapped my pen, ready to learn how.

Odette's smile went stiff.

That evening the Westbrooks threw me a homecoming banquet at a hotel in Chicago.

A stylist came to the house with a dress covered in tiny diamonds.

I looked at the tag and almost called the police.

"One point eight million dollars? Won't it scrape your skin off?"

The stylist said it was haute couture.

I didn't know what that meant.

I only heard "expensive."

So when nobody was looking, I hung the dress back in its bag, found a spare black-and-white uniform in the hotel's staff hall and slipped into the ballroom with a tray.

Three hundred guests.

Do you know how many dishes three hundred people make?

I got a warm feeling just thinking about it.

The first thing I noticed was the lights.

They flickered twice above the stage, then hummed.

I knew that hum. The diner made it right before the walk-in cooler died.

I put my tray down and followed the hum to a door marked STAFF ONLY, and then to a gray metal panel that was hot to the touch.

When I came back out, I picked up a plate of beef bourguignon for table nine.

I'd barely turned when a scream cut through the ballroom.

Odette was on the floor by the dessert table.

Her white dress was soaked brown with sauce.

She held her wrist against her chest, and her eyes filled up on cue.

"Minnie, I know you don't like me. But it's your homecoming. Did you really have to push me down in front of everybody?"

Three hundred heads turned to me.

Wesley crossed the room and clamped his hand around my wrist.

"Minnie Westbrook. Apologize to Odette."

I looked at her.

Then at my plate, which was still full.

"But I didn't push her."

"Then who did?" His grip tightened. "You dressed like a waiter on purpose. So everyone would feel sorry for you. And now hot soup all over her. How many moves ahead are you playing?"

I opened my mouth.

A man in a hotel blazer got there first, out of breath.

"Mr. Westbrook, there was a short in the ballroom circuit. Your youngest went into the utility room and fixed it herself. We'd have lost power to the whole floor."

He held up his phone.

It was a camera feed.

There I was, crouched in front of the breaker panel with a flashlight in my teeth, redoing a burnt wire.

The time in the corner matched the second Odette went down.

I was elbow-deep in a junction box.

The ballroom went so quiet I could hear the ice melting in the bar.

Wesley let go of my wrist, one finger at a time.

Odette went pale under her sauce.

Then she put a hand to her chest and started to sob.

"I must have remembered it wrong. I was just so scared Minnie would hate me."

My mother gathered her up, sauce and all.

"It's all right, sweetheart. It was a misunderstanding. It's over now."

Wesley bent down and murmured to Odette until she nodded.

My father stood with his hand over his eyes.

Nobody spoke to me.

I didn't mind.

My old boss at the motel once said I stole a bag of onions.

When I proved I hadn't, he didn't say sorry.

He gave me two hundred pounds of potatoes to peel by close.

That was how it worked.

I knelt by the dessert table and started wiping up the sauce with a bar rag.

A shoe came down beside my hand and kicked the rag across the floor.

It was Wesley's.

"Stop it!" His voice cracked. "The Westbrooks don't need you to do this."

I froze on my knees.

For a long time, I didn't look up.

When I did, I made my voice as polite as I could.

"Then where am I supposed to sleep tonight?"

He stood there with his mouth open.

I rubbed my hands together. They were split across the knuckles from dish soap.

"At least let me do tonight's dishes," I said quietly. "Three hundred people's worth. That should cover one night's lodging, right?"

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