America 1982

At five o'clock in the afternoon, a second-hand champagne-colored Chevrolet Chevette two-seater small family car drove off Route 95 and turned into Warwick.

The trunk door was wide open, with Tommy Hawke's bicycle inside. This made Tommy, who was holding a bottle of cheap champagne in his co-pilot's hand, turn his head every few minutes to see if his bicycle had fallen. possible.

"So, what business do you want to spend 20,000 yuan on?" Melonie looked forward, holding the steering wheel with one hand, and used the other hand to turn off the car radio that was playing country ballads, and asked.

Tommy sat up straight and withdrew his gaze: "The most important thing now is not business, but what to have for dinner. I want to make a sumptuous dinner. Usually when I do some household chores that don't require thinking, I always have the habit of freeing up my spare time." The brain thinks about complex problems.”

"Like making up a reasonable reason temporarily?" Melonie glanced at Tommy suspiciously and asked.

Tommy Hawke exhaled: "No, it's about thinking about how to deal with your ex-boyfriend and how to help you complete your employment. But before these two questions, it is important to get your hands busy and cook a sumptuous dinner. ."

"Yeah, if lemon chicken breast and spaghetti bolognese deserve the word rich, then you can indeed make a sumptuous dinner." Melonie smiled when she heard that Tommy Hawke was going to prepare a sumptuous dinner. one time.

While this child was renting his own apartment, most of the time he was more miserable than an Indian sadhu.

The daily itinerary is roughly as follows: go to school to study, work part-time to make money after school, buy cheap ingredients after work, go home to make dinner and prepare a lunch box for the next day, and continue to review homework until late at night after dinner, and the cycle repeats.

Most of his dinners consisted of a cheap pasta from Costco topped with black pepper meat sauce, paired with a piece of chicken breast and a few slices of lemon. After a few times, Melonie couldn't stand food anymore. It was monotonous. She would rather drink coffee with a few snacks than touch the dinner cooked by Tommy. She also persuaded Tommy Hawke to learn from her and buy some discounted dessert cakes to cope with it, but Tommy Hawke refused. The reason given is that a dinner of coffee and snacks costs 1.2 US dollars, and he only needs 50 cents to enjoy a meal that provides vitamins from lemon, protein from chicken, and carbohydrates from the rest, although the combined taste is somewhat poor. , but nutritious dinner.

So when Tommy Hawke mentioned dinner, the first thing Melonie thought of was spaghetti with black pepper bolognese that made her stomach twitch subconsciously.

Tommy also laughed when he heard Melonie talking about his signature Bolognese Spaghetti: "Not only can I make Bolognese, I also make very good Chinese food, but I didn't have so much time to prepare it before."

"Sonny, the Chinese owner of the laundry, taught you this?" Melonie asked casually. After all, the only way Tommy could have a connection with Chinese food was that he worked part-time in a laundry owned by a Chinese owner.

"So be it." Tommy nodded.

"Okay, let's see what Chinese food you can make." Melonie drove to the parking lot of Costco supermarket. Tommy entered the supermarket without even looking at the dazzling array of fruits and organic vegetables. Heading straight to the cold food section, he was already familiar with the placement and prices of the meat here. Chicken thighs cost 21 cents a pound, chicken breasts 22 cents a pound, pork chops 1 dollar a pound, and pork trotters 23 dollars. A pound of prime steak is $2 a piece.

After buying some chicken and pork chops, and some seasonings, and spending a total of seven dollars, Tommy Hawke returned to the apartment with Melonie carrying large and small bags.

Tommy walked into the kitchen carrying the ingredients and started cleaning up. At the same time, he asked Melonie, who was not prepared to help at all, "Tell me about your ex-boyfriend, Aunt Melonie, give me some ideas."

From Melonie's mouth, Tommy Hawke learned that her ex-boyfriend was named Hugh Spade, who was currently working at Sinclair Elementary School in East Greenwich, Kent County. In college, Melonie and he liked each other. They met through the band Aerosmith and eventually fell in love.

The two spent a sweet time together, working part-time to save money for travel, such as going to Boston to watch Aerosmith's concert, going to New York to watch the New York Dolls' concert, etc. After graduation, they had the same goal in life, which was to obtain a teaching qualification. get a certificate, become a public school teacher, and work hard for a lifetime of being able to paddle and fish.

Last year, Hugh Spade was the first to pass the teacher qualification exam, and then worked as a paid substitute teacher. He gained a good reputation in major public schools in Rhode Island. During the interview, he received many letters of recommendation from primary and secondary school principals, and finally joined Xinjiang. Clay Elementary School.

According to the agreement between the two, Hugh Spade should continue to live in the apartment left to Melonie's parents as her boyfriend, but the other party soon rented another apartment in East Greenwich on the grounds that he was newly employed. The work was busy, and Melonie needed to concentrate on preparing for the exam. However, after Melonie got her teaching qualification certificate, she learned a surprise. Not only did the bastard get together with another new female teacher at Sinclair Elementary School, They even made each other's belly bigger.

Melonie had a big fight with the other person and then broke up, and told the female teacher that Hugh Spade was a scumbag. The story should have ended here.

What is happening now is the sequel. Hugh Spade finally did not marry the female teacher and the two broke up.

The only problem is that the female teacher gave birth to a child, which was a bolt from the blue for Hugh Spade. As the biological father, this meant that he needed to pay monthly child support to the female teacher, and the female teacher was While enjoying maternity leave, maternity subsidy, school salary and other benefits to raise her children with peace of mind, she can also receive 40% of his monthly salary as child support. The life of a single mother is not easy.

Hugh Spade has no right to refuse payment. The Rhode Island Child Protection Agency has the right to directly deduct it from his salary account, collect a handling fee, and pay it to the female teacher.

The weekly salary of US$240 directly turned into a weekly salary of US$140, which changed Hugh Spade's quality of life from a happy bachelor to a homeless man on the street.

In the end, he attributed all this to the appearance of Melonie. If Melonie had not made a big fuss, the female teacher would not have broken up with him, and he would not have been reduced to such a situation. So he learned that Melonie was preparing to teach as a substitute. During the interview for admission, he approached Melonie and asked Melonie to pay him at least five hundred yuan before next week, otherwise the hot photos taken by Melonie and him during their previous relationship would appear in the offices of those school principals. Don't ever get a teaching job in Rhode Island.

But Melonie couldn't pay 500 yuan, her college loan had not been paid off, and she had to bear the property tax of this apartment. She could only barely make ends meet by running for classes every day. In the end, Melonie had no choice but to I plucked up the courage and came up with the idea of ​​going to a club part-time to make some quick money. As a result, the first customer on the first day of work was my tenant and nephew, Tommy Hawke.

While Tommy Hawke listened to Melonie's recounting of past experiences, he brought the dishes to the table one after another. Then he took off his apron and opened the champagne: "Dinner is ready. Next, let's talk about how to solve the problem of Hughes." Mr. Pade."

Melonie looked at the dishes on the table and exclaimed: "Now that the food is delicious, what else do you want to talk about?"

Tommy Hawke handed the glass of champagne to Melonie and imitated Dutch Vanderlinde and said, "I have a plan."