Closing time, eleven forty at night. Zhao’s Old-Stove Hot Pot, thirty-two tables, nine of them turned today. The number on the register: 3,860.
I closed the Meituan dashboard. One more bad review had landed on the Douyin group-buy page: “Tripe not fresh, the boss lady’s attitude was okay.” Attitude was okay. I laughed once, and it looked worse than crying.
My name is Yang Man, thirty-eight, the boss lady of this place. The boss is my man, Zhao Jianguo, forty-one, who ran off twelve days ago.
Before he ran he emptied the petty cash from the register drawer, thirteen thousand. Only after he ran did I find out he had been gambling online for two and a half years and owed four hundred and sixty thousand. The collectors called from seven in the morning until midnight. I changed my number three times and they still found their way to the restaurant.
Old Li the landlord came by in the afternoon. “Xiao Yang, next quarter’s rent is seventy-two thousand, due before the twentieth, or I find someone else.” His eyes made a lap around my chest while he said it. Six days until the twentieth.
Old Zhou the supplier was owed thirty-eight thousand too. The tripe he delivered today was yesterday’s. He said, “Put it on the tab, and the goods are what they are.”
At four in the afternoon two collectors came in, sat at table three, ordered a split-pot, ate for two hours, walked out without paying, and left one line behind: “Back next week.” Xiao Chen stood in the kitchen doorway holding the tripe knife and did not come out.
One person left in the back kitchen. Xiao Chen.
Xiao Chen, full name Chen Xiaodong, twenty-six, three years at the restaurant, worked his way up from prep to kitchen supervisor. Not a talker, fewer than ten sentences a day. A knife scar on the back of his left hand, from the web of his thumb to his wrist. He said he got it in a slaughterhouse at seventeen.
Everyone else was gone. The two waitresses collected their pay last week and never came back. The dishwashing auntie said her back hurt yesterday. He was the only one still here, opening at eight every morning, mopping after close every night, and I already owed him two months of wages.
Last payday he took two thousand and I said the rest would have to wait. He said, “Fine.” One word.
“Man-jie.” He came out of the kitchen wiping his hands on a rag. “We’re out of beef tallow for tomorrow. Old Zhou says no payment, no delivery.”
“I know.” “The landlord came too.” “I know.” “So what are you going to do?”
I pulled the register drawer open. Thirteen hundred in small bills, a pile of coins. “What can I do? Sell the place. Thirty-two tables, the transfer fee could bring a hundred and fifty thousand. Pay the rent, split the rest with Old Zhou.”
He looked at me and said nothing. The rag twisted twice in his hands.
“You make three thousand a month. Ten thousand saved in three years, what, you don’t eat?” “I live here,” he said. The storeroom next to the kitchen, one folding cot, one induction burner. I had known since last year and never kicked him out. “Eat here, sleep here, the money stays.”
“Man-jie, don’t sell,” he said. “I have a hundred thousand.”
I froze. “Where would you get a hundred thousand?” “Saved it. Three years, I never spent the wages you paid me.” “You hand me a hundred thousand, what do you get out of it?”
“Last year when my mother was in the hospital, you fronted five thousand,” he said. “I remember.” “That’s a different thing.” “Not to me.”
He slung the rag over his shoulder, walked over, and stood on the far side of the register, looking at me across the counter. He was a full head taller. In my flats, I had to tip my head back.
“One condition,” he said. “From now on, in this restaurant, you do what I say.”
“What does that mean, do what you say?” “I set the menu, I do the buying, I decide the staff.” He paused. “And you do what I say too.”
I understood the second half. A woman of thirty-eight understands everything. I stared at the scar on the back of his hand. It was paler than the skin around it.
“Think it through,” I said. “I’m twelve years older than you, and my man and I aren’t divorced.”
“He ran.” “Ran, but not divorced.” “Even better.”
He took out his phone and tapped it a few times right in front of me. My phone buzzed on the counter. A text from China Construction Bank: Account ending 6620 credited 100,000.00 yuan.
A hundred thousand, five zeros, just lying there. I read it three times.
The morning Lao Zhao left, it was this same register. He said he was going out for stock, took the car keys, took the money in the drawer. I was in the back frying the soup base, the range hood was roaring, and I never heard him close the door.
“Man-jie,” Xiao Chen said. “The money’s in. Why are you still standing there?” “I’m thinking.” “About what?” “About my man.” “Done thinking?” “...Done.”
“Man-jie, starting now.” He said, “Rule one. After close, you clean the kitchen. I watch.”
“I clean the kitchen every day.” “Before, you cleaned it with the apron on.” He walked toward the kitchen and turned at the door. “Starting today, nothing under the apron.”
I stood behind the register for one minute. That text was still glowing on the phone screen. The landlord’s seventy-two thousand, Old Zhou’s thirty-eight thousand, the two months I owed Xiao Chen. I flipped the phone face down on the counter, twice, and walked into the kitchen.
The kitchen lights were white, two fluorescent tubes, one of them flickering. The stainless steel counter had been wiped until it could show your face. There was a layer of beef tallow in the drain, red. He stood at the cold-room door with his arms folded.
I untied the apron. Under the apron was a black T-shirt and jeans. I stood there without moving. “Man-jie, I said nothing under the apron.”
“Xiao Chen, if you ever walk out that door and say one word out there...” “Three years and I haven’t said a word.”
The T-shirt came off, tossed by the dish sink. The bra was black, 36E, hooks in the back. I reached around to unhook it and it took two tries. My tits fell out. Thirty-eight, one child nursed, not sagging yet, just soft. Nipples dark brown. His eyes did not move.
Jeans, panties. I stripped fast, as fast as undressing for a shower, because the slower you go the uglier it looks. Folded the pants on top of the T-shirt and stood up straight. The extractor fan was still running and the draft went right between my legs.
“Put the apron on,” he said.
I tied the apron back on. It was the restaurant’s standard one, red, printed with the four characters “Zhao’s Old-Stove,” covering the front down to above the knee, wide open on both sides and the back. My ass was bare, my tits swaying loose inside the apron.
He dragged a plastic stool over from beside the stove and sat down facing the drain. “The grease under the stove gets wiped squatting. Squat with your legs apart.”
“Mop’s there. Stove to cold room, three passes.”
I mopped. The mop handle was a meter twenty, and when I bent the apron swung forward and my tits spilled out both sides. He just stood at the cold-room door, saying nothing, watching. Under the stove I had to squat, ass toward him. The tiles were cold and left rings of red on my knees.
“Man-jie, your legs are really long.” The first thing he had said all night that had nothing to do with the work. “I’m thirty-eight.” “So what if you’re thirty-eight. Longer than those two twenty-something waitresses we had.” “They left.” “Good. Saves on wages.”
On the second pass, when I reached the drain, he came over. Walked up behind me, crouched, and set one hand on my ass. The hand was burning hot. It was the one with the scar.
For the third pass he would not let me use the mop. “Rag. On your knees, wipe under the counter.” I got down on my knees, ass raised, the place between my legs pointed straight at the stool he sat on. I wrung the rag once and heard his breathing go heavy. Just once.
“Man-jie, you’re wet down here.”
I knew I was wet. I had been wet since the first pass, water running down the inside of my thighs and mixing with the sweat on my skin. I did not turn my head. My grip on the mop handle was white.
“I know.” “Good that you know.” He took his hand away. “Finish up and go home. Tomorrow seven thirty, inventory.”
Three passes done, twelve twenty. I got dressed. He had already switched off one of the kitchen tubes, leaving only the flickering one by the cold room. As I walked out he was at the sink washing his hands with dish soap, washing the hand that had touched me.
Fifteen minutes home on the e-bike, wind blowing between my legs, still wet. I opened the door. Nobody home, the apartment dark. I did not turn on the light. I sat on the sofa, put my hand inside my pants, and brought it out wet.
Lao Zhao’s photo was still stuck on the fridge, taken out front at last year’s anniversary, apron on, grinning with all his teeth. I had sat with my back to the fridge. I only remembered after I was done.
The phone buzzed again. A WeChat from Xiao Chen, one line: “Inventory tomorrow. You read it on your knees. One wrong line, one smack.”