After two hours, Zaria could say with confidence that folding clothes with one arm was not a simple task. It took quite a few tries to be able to get them looking as good as the ones that she was folding before her injury, and it took what felt like forever to finish just one.
Gu Cheng was already gone by the time her cast was proclaimed hardened enough and 'safe to leave'. Liu Wen called a cab for Zaria and gave the driver the apartment address before calling one for herself. Zaria was mildly surprised since she herself did not know the address, and she was the one staying there, but she was pretty out of it by then. The painkillers made her sleepy, and when she arrived, she could only give Auntie Wang a brief explanation of what happened before falling onto the narrow bed and falling asleep.
The next morning, she had planned on not taking any pain killers since they made her so sleepy, but that conviction lasted exactly the length of time it took to realize she was awake and in a lot of pain. Auntie Wang encouraged her to take things easy for the day, but Zaria did not feel comfortable with being lazy at work. She was practical and knew that her help would not be needed for much longer. She wanted to be able to say that she earned every dollar that came her way.
As she folded up the table to put it away, there was a jingle of the shop door signaling someone entering. A teenager not much younger than herself walked in carrying a white shopping bag in one hand and removing a uniform hat with the other.
"Excuse me," he called, "I have a delivery for a Joshua Zaria."
She stepped forward, answering, "May I ask who sent you?"
"An order was placed with our shop this morning to deliver this phone to this address. If you are Joshua Zaria, then I will leave it with you and be on my way!" He thrust out the bag, eager to move on to his next delivery.
"I'm sorry, I have not ordered a phone, there must be some sort of error. I will have to trouble you to return with it. I can not take it."
The boy looked confused, pulling a clipboard out from where it was squeezed between his arm and body. "No, Miss, it clearly says this address and your name here." He pointed emphatically at the order information.
"Someone must have mixed up their intended recipient, then," she insisted with a polite smile. "I have not ordered anything and do not have anyone who would have ordered one for me. I think it would be much better to take it back then to take the chance that the person who ordered it is upset that it went to the wrong person."
He seemed confused, rubbing his hat across his hair and making it stick up in spikes. "I will take it back, ma'am, but are you sure that someone else didn't send it to you? Like your family or a friend? It's the newest model of Fruit phone..."
"No, I really have no one." Sadness flashed across her eyes, and she forced the smile to stay in place. "I hope everything works out alright, I know you were only following the information that you have. But I did not order it, I am sorry."
Auntie Wang stepped out of the stock room as the bewildered boy left the shop. She eyed Zaria somewhat suspiciously. "Ah, you ordered something from the Fruit store? I have always wanted to get one of their phones, but there is always something that needs to be paid..."
"No, Mrs. Wang, it was a misunderstanding. Someone entered the wrong recipient information. I did not order anything." She smiled briefly, her polite facade beginning to crack, and looked around for something else that needed to be done.
The older woman relaxed and smiled at her, looking a little guilty as though she had thought Zaria would lie about having money. "Why don't you go in the back and organize the new sunglass racks? I want to put them out this weekend. More people will be playing outdoors with summer approaching."
Zaria nodded, having difficulty keeping her customer service smile on her face. The only other people who knew that she did not have a phone were the elderly woman in the other room, and Liu Wen. Top of the line new phone would mean expensive, so it was most likely related to that frigid man. She felt no obligation to take anything from him. Rather, there was a strong need to stay away from him. The first time she met him, she ended up having a kiss stolen from her and a busted lip, then the next time they interacted, she broke her wrist. If the phone was from him, she had no idea what bad things would come. Perhaps a meteor would smash into her while she walked down the sidewalk.
The rest of the afternoon, Zaria sat in the stock room opening boxes, taking product out of its protective plastic, and setting up wheeled displays. With no speakers piping music overhead her mind wandered around, obsessing over the many different issues she had already encountered in the new world. Part of her felt like she should be objecting to everything more. Things were getting odd, she should just make a run for it, toward the mountains in the distance that cut off the peninsula from the mainland. Auntie Wang seemed nice, but after having another interaction with that madman on the beach she was worried that being around people was going to cause even more troubles before it was time to leave.
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But. She had no money. No way to buy supplies that would help her survive in this world long enough to get to the next. Running off sounded great but she would starve or die of dehydration if she couldn't buy food and water. Was it better to just keep rolling with the punches?
Around dinnertime, Auntie Wang came in and told her she could have the rest of the evening off. Even with only one arm, the work had been done far quicker than the shop owner thought it would be, and there was just no more work that needed to be done for the day. Plus, she could tell that Zaria was exhausted due to her injury and medicine. Auntie Wang had not put much thought into what Zaria would do if she was not at work and was not able to be in the apartment. It was not malicious. She was just basing her understanding of young adults off of her extroverted granddaughter. So she gave Zaria the evening off and told her to go see a movie or something and they would see each other that night.
"There is nothing else that you need help with? I can still work!" Zaria protested as she was ushered out of the stock area and through the main body of the store.
"No, no, you just go relax. You have helped so much this week that there is nothing left to clean! Here," she handed Zaria first her little medication packet with two pills for the evening to put in her pocket and then pulled a familiar white shop bag from behind the counter. "The delivery person came back and left this. It was not a mistake before. There is a note inside as well. You could find somewhere to eat and then play with your new phone!"
Zaria took the bag numbly, placing it on the counter so that she could pull out the note. She read it and then crumbled it up with a scowl.
'Just take it.'
She quietly mouthed a few swear words and picked the bag up with her good hand. "Thank you, Auntie. I will go take care of it." She didn't want the elderly woman to worry. She had just been trying to help. With a few more words reminding her to have fun, she was pushed out the door and into the bright sunlight beyond.
In the morning rush, Zaria forgot her hat, so she stood on the sidewalk and tried to shade her eyes with her good hand while looking toward the city center. Of course, the bag hanging from her good wrist bopped her in the face, and she swore some more before resolutely heading toward the skyscrapers in the distance.
She stopped in a convenience store to buy a bottle of water and asked for directions to Shooting Star Entertainment. The nice man at the counter showed her a map on his phone, and she memorized the directions before thanking him and starting off. She took her two pills with a drink of the water, grimacing at the bitter taste on her tongue that didn't wash down with the water.
Dropping off the bag at reception was far easier than she thought it would be. It helped that the order slip was inside, showing Gu C. as one of the parties involved. She told a small lie that she found the bag nearby and thought it was easier to drop it to the sender rather than finding the intended recipient. The desk clerk took the bag with a thank you, and it was done.
Two hours later, she drug herself back to Auntie Wang's apartment, late enough that the woman was already home. Auntie Wang looked upset about something but smiled and made them something to eat without saying anything. They ate noodles together, and Zaria was able to take a short shower before falling into bed.
The next morning, as they were getting ready to head for the shop, Auntie Wang still looked bothered, and Zaria couldn't help but ask what was wrong. Auntie began to apologize profusely in the middle of the kitchen, raising her hands in front of her face in supplication. "I am so sorry, I didn't know how to bring this up, and I worried about it all night. My granddaughter's apartment building has to be fumigated, and she needs to come home for a couple of weeks. I need to ask you to find somewhere else to stay for now. I am so sorry!"
Zaria looked at her blankly for a minute before sliding on her polite smile. "There is no worry at all, Mrs Wang. Of course, I will go get my stuff right now. I thank you for letting me stay here!"
Auntie came to help her pack her little bag with the few sets of clothing that she had. She told Zaria not to forget her new toothbrush and met her with the loaded bag at the front door. Zaria slipped the toothbrush inside and slung the bag over her shoulder. "I think that's everything! Thank you again for taking me in. It has given me time to breathe while I looked for somewhere to stay. It's going to be fine, don't worry, really!"
The walk to the shop was awkward, Zaria trying to lighten the mood with false cheerfulness but not sure how to make the woman understand that she really didn't mind. Apparently, the woman explained, it was very bad manners to turn away a guest, but it was worse to turn away family, and she just didn't have the room for both. Zaria eventually turned the conversation away to a discussion of a musical group Auntie liked, and by the time they approached the shop, the air was a little lighter.
Auntie Wang gave her the afternoon off to go home hunting, pushing another envelope in her hand as she left. "It's the rest of this week's pay, without the room and board. I know it is not much, but it should be enough to at least find an extended stay instead of an overnight place."
So for the second time in two days Zaria was standing out in the sunlight alone with nothing to do, only this time she had all of her worldly possessions in a bag over her shoulder and no where to go to when it got dark. She thought about it as she walked slowly and aimlessly, but in the end, she decided that she wasn't really upset or bothered at all. Finding a place to stay and a way to earn money for supplies had been a boon, and even though the roof was no longer going to be over her head she was still in a better place than she had been when she first stepped into the world. It seemed as good of a time as any to start looking for supplies, and if she could get a good tent and camping supplies, then she would even have an easier time getting through the night. The wooded area next to the beach was not that far away, and she could stay there for the night, or so she surmised.
Zaria walked along the busy roads, wondering where she could find an outdoor or sporting goods store that might have what she needed. As she stood at a crosswalk waiting for the light, a light blue luxury car stopped in front of her and rolled down its window. She tried to ignore it until the driver leaned across the seat and called her name. She bent over slightly, a furrow between her brows until she recognized the face. "Director Chiu?"