My alarm rang at exactly 4 am. I get up quickly and change into a fitted white t-shirt, dark blue distressed skinny jeans, and knock off black high tops. I throw my hair up into a high ponytail and grab my brown over the shoulder bag and head out the door.

Shirt:                                                                                       Jeans:                                                                           Shoes:

                                                     

Since the bakery is a few blocks away, I walk everyday to save money even though our family does have a sedan. I twist my key in the keyhole of the bakery door and walk in. I lock it as soon as I walk in to prevent anyone from entering before opening time (6:00 a.m.).

I routinely walk to the back and start preparing the dough for various pastries. I flour my surface and begin forming the dough. As I bake up certain pastries, I work on other ones in order to save time. Since this is a family owned business, usually Kate, Fala, Mom, and I work everyday since Kevin goes to his office everyday for cases. Tiffany is dropped off at school everyday at 7:00 a.m. by either Fala or Kate. As for Yoyo, well she is always out partying and socializing.

Our bakery has a rule that all pastries must be fresh everyday therefore we bake them up early in the morning. With the remaining pastries, we either take them home to eat or give them to the Chung Family that also owns a restaurant around the corner. The Chung family consists of Chow Chung (70 years old) and Samantha Ko (23 years old). Also around the corner lays my dad's bar, which I hardly ever go near unless I have to pass by to deliver pastries to customers.

Around 6:00 a.m., my mom usually arrives to the bakery along with whoever didn't take Tiffany to school that day. And around 7:30 whoever did take Tiffany to school that day will arrive.

Since Fala is mute, her main jobs are preparing the pastries in the back and folding and printing out our cake boxes. Kate and I don't have a set job as we do everything including working at the front desk, baking, folding cake boxes, deliveries, and grocery shopping. Mom's specialty is baking therefore she stays in the back most of the time.

Today, we had a high demand for our moon cakes and steamed buns therefore Kate, Fala, and my mom were on baking duty while I was working at the cash register.

"Hi, how may I help you?" I greet, hearing a customer walk in as I was focusing my attention on folding the cake boxes since there were no customers prior.

"Hey pretty girl," I hear someone say in a fake deep voice. I look up and break into laughter. It was Samantha.

Chuckling, I manage to speak, "What are you doing here?"

"Haha well I got up early today and decided to check in on you," she replies, smiling.

"Are you my mom?" I ask, laughing.

"Anyway, do you need any help?" She asks, resting her arms on the counter.

"Nope, thanks though. Hold on give me a second," I run to the back and grab about 10 different steamed buns and stuff them in a paper bag.

I run back and hand it to her.

"Aww thanks, Yi-Fei (my chinese name), you're so generous," she exclaims, accepting the bag.

"Oh no, it's not free, miss," I look at her with a serious face.

We break out laughing after I see her shocked face.

"Alright, I'll see you later," she says as she waves and walks out the door.

Throughout the day, many customers came in excited to order something new. Over the course of the last 5 years, I've noticed that most of our customers were super sweet and generous.

However, around the evening time, a young man came in dressed in a suit with 2 bodyguards following closely behind. He gave off an arrogant vibe to me however I tried to stay positive since our customers are very important to our business.

"Get me 5 12-inch vanilla specialty cakes with vanilla frosting," he said.

I was a bit taken aback by the informal and impolite way he ordered but I put his order in anyway. How our cash registers work is that when I enter an order it sends it to the computer in the back as well as give me the total. As I was completing the order, I notice from the corner of my eye, him glancing at me up and down. I look up with an annoyed glare. "What?"

He smirked. "What's your number?"

I was twice as annoyed by this point. "Your total is $115.68," I said through my gritted teeth.

He raised his eyebrows, laughs, then takes out his wallet. "Why didn't you just tell me you wanted to know how much money I have?" he asked with a smirk.

I look up. I'm thinking 'Are you kidding?' at this point. Arrogant much? 

He held out $600 in cash. "Will you go out with me now?"

My mouth parted in disbelief.

Before I even got a chance to reject him, he takes out another $100 from his wallet and raises his eyebrows.

I scoff. Who does he think he is? Just cause he's not ugly and he has money means that he owns the world?? "Okay. Don't think you can buy any girl using your dirty money. Not all girls are low enough to date you for the sake of money. Our bakery doesn't give out orders to customers like you. Take your money back and leave!" I look at him dead in the eyes.

His smirk still doesn't budge but he puts his money back in his wallet and walks off with his bodyguards tailing behind.

I roll my eyes and click the cancel button for his order on the cash register.