THE SADDEST GIRL SINCE THE SONG DYNASTY

WORSE THAN EACH OTHER - PART II

Ms. Lo, or The Big Downer as Ander had been referring to her in his mind since around his twelfth birthday, was a tall, thin, negative woman. She had spent an enviable portion of her young adult life not needing to work, meeting Ander's father when she was barely twenty, getting married within a year, bearing Ander not long after, and enjoying a household income that placed them as a family comfortably above the median income range, even with only one earner. Then, when Ander's father fled the country and civilization in general, Ms. Lo suddenly had to find ways to keep her and her teenage son fed, clothed and sheltered in the fashion they were accustomed to, the last of which involved maintaining significant mortgage repayments. These Herculean feats she accomplished by juggling three jobs at a time, none salubrious, one not declared in her tax return, and all three kept from her neighbors out of shame.

Ander's college education was covered by savings and early long term prudence, but his Masters was not, and neither was his chronic unemployment over five years. Reaching her late fifties, Ms. Lo, The Big Downer, was still working one-point-five-times full time, was still being coy with her friends at the shooting range who didn't even know she had separated from Ander's father, was still only paying back interest on the house, and was still providing for a son who considered waiting tables, something she did on Wednesday and Saturday nights, beneath him, who considered bottom of the range electronic equipment, like the Savemart House Brand she used, beneath him.

Yet it was she who suggested the business school idea. The Big Downer herself had been enticed after seeing adverts by several establishments claiming to have exceptional employment statistics. King Endowment was one of them, and on the inner cover of its brochure, it said (via a speech bubble) that ninety-nine per cent of its summer program graduates had found course related employment within a year; eighty per cent had allegedly gone into positions at the one-hundred best paying employers in the world. For Ms. Lo, if the numbers were to be believed, Ander had to be terribly unlucky to find himself at the end of the year without at least an enticing offer. If it meant taking out another loan, the investment would surely be worth it.

Ander chose King Endowment because it was far away from California and the epicenter of his problems. In contrast, Lady Zhao, who had a rather different personal background, found herself chosen by one of its principal donors.