Chapter 3
The sea breeze in Miami was hot, damp, and salty against my skin, but it smelled ten thousand times better than the moldy air in that underground garage.
I lay back on a lounge chair at the resort, an iced cocktail beside me, while my phone screen glowed in my hand.
On it was a live feed from my parking space back home.
To make sure I didn’t miss anything, I had upgraded the camera before leaving. True 4K. Crystal-clear audio. Every sound, every word, perfectly captured.
On the screen, a white rideshare car was awkwardly backing into my spot.
Behind the wheel was Mrs. Watson’s precious son, Bobby Watson.
He was in his thirties and still daydreaming about getting rich overnight. He thought office jobs were too tiring, delivery work was too hard, and even now that he drove rideshare, he barely treated it like a real job. Three days on, two days off, whenever he felt like it.
He parked crooked, practically nose-first into the wall.
Bobby got out, yanked my charging cable loose with the confidence of a man opening his own front door, and plugged it into his car.
He waited.
Nothing.
He frowned, pulled it out, blew on the connector like that would magically fix it, and plugged it in again.
Still nothing.
The charger stood there dead and silent. No hum, no click, not even a warning light.
“Mom! This stupid thing is broken!” Bobby shouted toward the stairwell, his voice echoing painfully through the empty garage.
Less than two minutes later, Mrs. Watson came barreling downstairs in a floral robe and slippers.
“What happened? What happened? It worked fine yesterday.”
She circled the charger twice, slapping it and patting it the way old people hit a television when the picture goes fuzzy.
“That little witch did something to it,” she snapped. “I knew it. Smiling to my face and stabbing me behind my back.”
Bobby kicked the charger housing in frustration.
“My car’s almost dead! Tomorrow morning is peak hour. I can make good money then. If I miss it, are you paying me back?”
Even to his own mother, he sounded like a debt collector.
Mrs. Watson flinched at his tone, pulled out her phone, and immediately started bombarding the residents’ group chat.
@C-102 Lin, what is wrong with you? How could you cut off the power like this? Don’t be so heartless. My son’s car needs charging. Everybody, come judge this. Young people these days are so calculating.
She typed like a machine gun.
You promise one thing and do another. Are you trying to drive a helpless widow and her family into the ground?
The chat came alive fast.
A few self-righteous neighbors surfaced right away.
Neighbors should help each other.
Cutting the power does feel a little extreme.
Yeah, she should be more generous. How much can one charge possibly cost?
I looked at those comments and let out a cold laugh, taking a sip of my drink.
Then I turned notifications off.
It wasn’t that I had nothing to say.
I was just waiting for the right moment.