This Is My Brain in Love - I. W. Gregorio Page 0,61

it at face value, because it never crossed my mind that Jocelyn wasn’t worth it. Maybe another guy would’ve bargained for a better “dating contract,” but I just didn’t see the point. It wasn’t worth losing Mr. Wu completely by pushing back.

I try to explain. “It’s not that I don’t want to stand up for myself, it’s just that I’m choosing my battles. I didn’t want to put up a fuss only to have your dad shut me out completely. I’m happy with the deal I made. You’re worth it. I might not be fighting, but I’m persisting. He’s not going to get rid of me.” I offer a tentative smile as Jocelyn seems to deflate, like a cat smoothing down its hackles. “You’re not going to get rid of me.”

Jos sighs. “I don’t want to get rid of you.” And like that the storm’s over. “The scary thing is, I think he really does have a nanny cam somewhere,” she says, resigned instead of furious. “We had this one checkout clerk that he was convinced was siphoning money on the side. Also, I don’t know why he’s asking for revenue reports so early. It’s barely been a day since we started our outreach.”

“We did already get those two catering orders,” I offer. “Also, my mother saw my flyers lying around and gave me a tip. You know who orders out a lot? Shift workers. We can make up a bento box for the ER and each nursing station, and I can drop them off tonight with some menus.”

“Maybe we need a hospital-specific flyer,” Jocelyn says. “How about something like, ‘You worry about your patients. We’ll worry about your food.’”

“Yes! We can highlight the low-sodium and low-carb choices, too. And put a ‘No MSG’ callout.”

“Ummmm…” Jocelyn looks a little shifty.

I raise my eyebrows. “You guys use MSG?” I mean, it isn’t like there are huge kegs labeled “monosodium glutamate” lying around.

“You know that MSG is in, like, everything?” Jocelyn says. “Most soup bases have it, and any soy sauces that aren’t Kikkoman, which is super expensive. And it’s not just a Chinese food thing, either. KFC and Chick-fil-A use MSG in their seasonings. There’s natural MSG in Parmesan cheese, for God’s sake. Heck, it’s in freaking Doritos. I don’t know why Chinese food gets such a bad rap for it—sinophobia, anyone? Besides, recent studies show that it’s not actually that bad for you.”

I blink. My mind whirs, wondering if I can leverage this into a blog, an op-ed in the O-D, or even a longer think piece revealing common misconceptions about ethnic food. Mr. Evans might even be proud of me. He wanted me to dig deep for material? You can’t get more behind-the-scenes than this gig here.

This Is My Brain on Personal Statements

JOCELYN

Perry High School has a Rising Stars of Business club that’s basically composed of tools. To the best of my knowledge, it’s an all-white group of six boys and two girls who sit around playing at being grown-ups. They wear ill-fitting business suits to their meetings and tote around giant flip boards so they can brainstorm shit and talk about “economies of scale,” play with imaginary money, and brag about how much they won in the Stock Market Game. I am never going to fit in with that group and don’t want to try.

What my dad wants me to do is the University of Utica Junior Business Program, which allows high school students to take a college course each semester during their junior and senior years. A lot of people get into the program—basically, it seems like if you can pay tuition and string together sentences for an application essay you are in. What interests my dad, of course, is a scholarship program where the person who plans the best business project gets free tuition, not to mention access to a faculty adviser and $5,000 seed money for their proposal.

I know at least one of the people applying, this guy Geoff from my school, who is student council treasurer. He’s apparently trying to start up a solar power assessment company.

As it turns out, Geoff is dating Priya’s friend Sophia, so Priya was able to give me intel. “Basically Sophia tells me that his parents told him to play up the clean energy angle because it’s hot now, not because he’s really interested in it. It’s all just résumé fodder for him; he doesn’t actually want it.”

I’m not sure if that makes it better or worse, to feel