“Thank you, Tony,” said Mom.
“My pleasure, Mrs. Dae,” said Tony. “Medium rares all around, extra au jus?”
“You know us so well,” said Mom.
The dining room murmured away, for this was where the serious networking happened; I watched Mom and Dad as they alternated between scanning the room and checking their phones, scanning and checking.
“Now, will we be needing this fourth place setting?” said Tony the waiter.
“Not tonight,” said Mom. She’d been saying this for three years now.
Tony began stacking the place setting.
In order to distract Tony, I pointed and said, “Is that stag head new?”
Tony glanced back at the wall, giving me time to palm a miniature teaspoon.
“That thing’s been creeping me out for years,” said Tony.
I glanced at Mom and Dad, but they of course did not notice my pilferage.
Tony whisked the plates and utensils away. That fourth place setting had been meant for Gray. It was sweet that the staff still put it out, just in case.
Gray had forgone college against Mom and Dad’s wishes. He was living forty minutes away in Hollywood, the glowing nexus of every dazzling arc light crisscrossing Los Angeles, and well on his way to becoming a rock star.
I imagined Gray, lit from all sides by flashbulb lightning.
“Honey, did you get my Hastings Company email?” said Mom, tapping at her phone. “They’re asking about reseller permits.”
“What the hell do we know about reseller permits?” said Dad.
“Just make something up, Mr. CEO,” said Mom.
“Fake it till you make it,” said Dad, and he high-fived Mom.
Then they returned to their phones.
“Sunny,” said Mom. “Did you get my email about later tonight?”
“Uh,” I said.
“I sent it this morning?” said Mom, growing disappointed in her son. Tony swept a drink in front of her, and she swept it to her mouth for a sip in a fluid motion without breaking eye contact with me.
I was terrible at email. I would leave it unchecked for days at a time. Email was the awkward transitional technology between snail mail and texting. Pick one or the other. Even the word email—electronic mail—sounded vintage, like horseless carriage.
Mom frowned. “Your morning email is what sets the tone for the rest of your day.”
“Email is fundamentally incompatible with my workflow,” I said.
Dad raised his eyebrows as he worked his phone. “I got your email, dude. The Sohs, right?”
“Yap,” said Mom. Something appeared on her extremely large smartwatch, and she flicked it away. “So, to reiterate what was in the email: Our old friends from college, commercial development consultants, you’ve never met them, are here from London for the next three to six quarters, working on this ginormous mixed-use project in downtown LA, but, and, so, we got Trey, who should be here tonight, to score them a condo just down the street, anyway, their daughter, Cirrus, you’ve never met her, same age as you, she’ll be at Ruby High starting tomorrow, so we figured you could show her the ropes, because we and the Sohs have always done favors for each other.”
“Sohs?” I said.
“Jane and Brandon Soh, S-O-H,” said Dad.
“Cirrus isn’t gonna know anyone,” said Mom. “So I figured you could be her orientation buddy.”
“I’m the world’s worst orientation buddy,” I said, because it was true. My main interest was in cataloging the imbecilic spectacle of human folly, not justifying their inane rules and customs with explanation. I bit a nervous fingernail.
“Friends in need, Sunny,” said Dad, eyes on screen.
I hated meeting new people. New people terrified me.
“Tha-anks,” chanted Mom.
Dad looked up from his phone and narrowed a hunter’s gaze. “I see Trey Fortune,” he said. “Right there.”
“Take the conch,” hissed Mom. She swatted his shoulder. “Go, go, go.”
Dad holstered his phone, took a breath, and whispered a little prayer: “Keep a super-duper positive attitude.”
“There’s my CEO,” said Mom. She patted his back.
Then Dad slunk off into the dark. Within moments, he reappeared with Trey Fortune.
Mom shot to her feet. “It’s so good to see you, Trey,” she chirped.
I groaned silently and rose, as etiquette demanded. “Hi,” I said.
“Love the tie, Gray,” said Trey Fortune.
I could only blink at the man.
“I mean Sunny—my goof,” said Trey Fortune. “You and your brother are practically twins.”
I wanted to point out that Gray was five inches taller than me and eight points handsomer, but I could not. I said nothing. For a good couple of seconds, too.
“All Asians are technically identical twins, at the genetic level,” I said.
Trey made a horse face: Did not know that!
Dad, who often confused my jocularity for unhinged derangement, erupted into the fakest laughter in the annals of laughing, dating all the way back to the prehistoric walrus. Mom picked up on Dad’s cue and laughed as well. Together they laughed loud enough to cover up their mortification at their son.
The laughs did the trick, and soon Trey Fortune was laughing right along.
All of us laughed, except for me.
* * *
—
Later.
Back in my room.
As I changed back into my cargo shorts and placed my dress slacks into a white plastic storage container, a miniature teaspoon fell out.
I smiled.
I took the little spoon across the hallway to Gray’s room.
I walked in. I sat on the bed, which was perfectly neat from years of disuse. When Gray moved into his own apartment in Hollywood, he took only what he needed from this room and left the rest sitting wherever it sat, giving the place the feel of a ship abandoned mid-dinner:
Posters, old vinyl, three guitars, a bass, amps, club flyers. Graffitied Docs in the closet; a frayed wardrobe of black pants and tee shirts, all still hanging; a leather jacket.
Gray had left it all without a second thought, creating a ruin frozen in time. A Tomb of Cool.
I opened Gray’s old desk drawer. It was full of tarnished teaspoons, all stolen from the country club by either me or him over the years. It had been our little gag ever since we moved to Rancho Ruby. We had performed this small act of disobedience without fully realizing why. Without fully understanding that it was our small way of claiming this new, unfamiliar neighborhood as our own.