Read The Expat Diaries: Misfortune Cookie (Single in the City Book 2) for Free Online Page B

missed the point of being a waiter. ‘Is that too much food?’ I ask as I tick the boxes.
    He smiles and walks away to ignore his other customers.
    How can I get a job like that? I could learn to speak Chinese menu, couldn’t I? No, of course I couldn’t. I couldn’t even speak English in London.
    I have applied for loads of jobs online though. It’s not nearly as much fun as shopping for a new dress or a handbag. And there’s a big difference between browsing and buying in online recruitment. It’s not like that Mulberry bag will say, ‘Thank you for your interest. We’ve had many applicants and have found the shoulder we were looking for. Good luck in your search for the perfect spring accessory.’
    In a way I envy Rachel. She might be clinically insane but she’s found her dream job. I have a dream; I just don’t have the job. Not to put too many eggs in one basket, but if I’m not hired tomorrow I’m out of options. Done, finito, kaput, doomed to live under the Star Ferry pier with the water rats. I just hope they don’t get a whiff of desperation when I arrive. I’ll be sure not to cling to the boss’s leg or intimate that I’d be very grateful for the job, wink, wink. I simply need to gloss over the work permit issue. Just for a few weeks till I prove that I’m made to be a buyer’s assistant’s assistant’s assistant. Maybe I’ll take a page out of my waiter’s service manual. I’ll smile sincerely and walk away when the subject comes up.
    The waiter sets my lunch before me, neatly stacked in covered steamers to maximize that whatever-could-be-under-this-lid quiver of excitement. They’re pork buns! Just like the ones Stacy and I get in New York when we’re really hung-over but eschew McDonald’s because it’s a fat day. This is quite a moment for me. It’s the first time I’ve ordered a dish here that I’d meant to. And the second and third dishes are recognizable too!
    The only problem is getting them into my mouth. Perhaps I rushed the decision to move to a country without forks. I’d feel less self-conscious if I weren’t the only Westerner in here. The Chinese at the tables, and serving, and clearing aren’t hiding the fact that they’re staring at me. So no pressure.
    Poking the dumpling sends it skidding across my plate, triggering a Rachel-worthy giggle attack at the thought of flipping it into the lap of the diner beside me. Now I see why everyone is eating straight from the bamboo steamers. Traction. Even experts take shortcuts. Good. While stabbing the morsel through the middle and levering it into my mouth may not win me any technical awards, at this point it’s any fork in a storm.
    ‘Bdllling!’
    I loved that sound before I taught my mother to send texts. Naively I thought giving her the means to send these supposedly unobtrusive messages would limit the number of middle-of-the-night phone calls. I was wrong. It’s now 4 a.m. at home and I expect there’ll be a message on my machine when I check it later. Mom simply views texting as an extra weapon in her arsenal.
    Hannah, do you wantto come home for your bdat? Well pay and you shouldn’t be alonee .
    Nice try, Mom, but I won’t be alonee. I’ll be with Sam. And Stacy. Besides, she must know I wouldn’t willingly let her wear me down in person.
    Mom isn’t happy with my move. She doesn’t mean to sound judgmental, and I do appreciate her genuine concern. After my rather out-of-the-blue move from Connecticut to London last year, this relocation probably has a whiff of déjà vu about it. But she should know me well enough to understand that it’s no use trying to bully me into returning home. It’s not just that I’m stubborn. She’s fighting against an inviolable mother-daughter dynamic, a formula that has held true through the ages:
     
    N (T+12) =-L+S 2
     
    where a mother’s nagging across time zones is responsible for her daughter’s unwillingness to listen, plus her exponential capacity for