Aloft (10 page)

73

group you can't really tell what the hell we are, though more and more these days the very question is apparently dubious, if not downright crass, at least to folks like Theresa and Paul, whose race-consciousness is clearly quite different from mine. I suppose what's critical to them is who's asking the question, for if it's an average white guy like me there's only awkwardness and embarrassment ahead, the assumption being I'm going to blindly buy into a whole raft of historical "typologies" and "an-tecedents" and turn around and plonk somebody with the label of Other. This, by the way, is and isn't a terrible thing. They in-ordinately fear and respect the power of the word, having steadily drawn down the distinctions between Life and Text. Let me say that when I was growing up the issues could be a lot heavier than that, a switchblade or Louisville Slugger being the
text
of choice, and one not so easily parsed or critiqued.

Jack, on the other hand, seems totally unconcerned about such matters, and always has been, but I can't say for certain, because we've never discussed the subject. He's never been what anybody would call a brainy kid, and not just in the test-taking academic sense (which was how smarts used to be measured), but I suppose none of that mattered much because he's done more than fine and seems happy enough and doesn't seem to wrestle with questions too big or medium or small. Maybe he has strong feelings and painful memories of awkward and searing experiences as to his identity and character but it's just as likely not. I've often thought it's because he's very fair and Anglo-looking, tall and long-legged and with barely a lilt to the angle of his eyes. Such as it is, I believe he's always
passed
any lingering questions quickly squashed by his model-good looks and good-guy demeanor, which have always attracted plenty of the popular crowd to the house, to my eye at least. I can't remember his once dating a girl 74 C I I A N G - R A E

L E E

who wasn't your classic American blonde (from the bottle or not), Eunice
(you-NEECE)
Linzer Robeson being the most impressive of the bunch, and easily the sharpest. I see her now, outside on the massive slatestone front landing of her house, cordless phone ever in hand. She waves, and I pull into the semicircular part of the driveway already packed with cars. This surprises, as I thought the party was to be an intimate family affair, but then I should know that the Battles of Haymarket Estates can't do anything too downscale/downnaarket, as if they'd ever really have a cookout of burgers and dogs.

"Where have you been, Terry?" she says brightly, covering the mouth holes. "Jack's out getting more ice and juice boxes."

Eunice kisses me and sends me inside, signaling Rosario's teenage daughter, Nidia, as she's now getting into issues with the caterer about the flatware and wineglasses, which as usual aren't exactly what she requested. In these situations Eunice never yells or raises her voice, but rather speaks at the downward angle of a third-grade teacher, with a patient, if often chilly, enunciation. In the clickety marble rotunda Nidia, in a crisp white shirt and black skirt, greets me with a flute of Champagne, and I note that she's looking exceptionally womanly, particularly in the important parts, and I contrive to make her linger a little as I down the first glass and then take another.

I've seen her perhaps once a year for the last four, each time appreciating more deeply the march of youth's time. She smiles (not unwickedly?), and trots off. In the rotunda I notice the walls have been stripped of the "old" wallpaper and freshly painted, and the windows newly shaded with a single panel of muted silken fabric, clearly redone to complement the quartet of abstract paintings that recently arrived from the auction A L O F T

75

house, which, at least to my Art History 101 eye, look like real Kandinskys (and I very much hope are not).

In the great room/media room, Jack's kids, Tyler (girl) and Pierce (boy), are watching a Britney Spears concert DVD on the widescreen with a handful of other slack-jawed toddlers and young children who I'm sure are also named for minor presidents, and when I kneel down to kiss them they do manage a faint grunt and smile. This is true love, given the circumstance, which I appreciate and don't question. Along my sight line from here through the kitchen I can see the score or so of grownups mingling outside on the back deck, friends of Jack's and Eunice's and old buddies of Theresa's, some of whom I recognize and could speak to of specific times way back when but whose names I could hardly remember then and have no clue to now Theresa used to get furious at me whenever she'd bring friends home and I'd dance around having to address them and afterward I'd plead early Alzheimer's but she knew it was because I never quite paid full attention. Unfortunately she thought it was only her but really it was a much more global problem than that and something I'm not sure she's over yet, or will ever be.

It's funny how my grandkids (and their playmates) are now the ones calling the shots, as they're endlessly fussed over by Rosario and their preschool teachers and by Eunice and Jack and then even by me. The only one not readily kowtowing is my father, whose firm and sometimes gruff stance with them is not so much about teaching deference or respect but reminding one and all of his own status as family patriarch/biggest boy.

He's nowhere to be found, though, and I head out onto the massive multilevel redwood deck, where Theresa and Paul are holding court by the buffet table. Paul sees me first and waves
76

C H A N G - R A E L E E

the big wave. Theresa glances over and nods, still talking to her friends, while Paul approaches. As mentioned, Paul grew up only a short distance from here, but after having spent a number of years on the West Coast he's no longer outwardly pushy and irritable like a lot of people on the Island. He talks softly, with an almost Western, cowboyish loll to his speech, which frankly is strange to hear from an Asian face. He wears his straight black hair quite long and somewhat ratty, though today he's gathered it in a ponytail, which is neater but still gives me the willies. From the back you'd swear he was a girl, with his short, slightish frame and periodic horsey tosses of the head, but from what I gather these days long tresses on a man usually indicate a hetero-supreme, a type, surprisingly, to which Theresa has always been drawn, and then to older ones, which Paul is (by eight years). I like him very much, despite his hemp-cloth-and-bead exterior, as deep down he's a thoroughly decent and affable fellow without a lot of that self-important artistic gaseousness that has to fill whatever room its owner finds himself in.

His parents, Dr. and Dr. Pyun, who aren't here today because this party was only recently planned and they had long booked (through me) an eighteen-day Bella Extravanganza tour to all the famous spots in Italy, are a sweet and always smiling couple, at least on the surface, though I can tell, too, like the few other Asians I've come into contact with over the years, that they are not so quietly tenacious about what they want. When they came into the office to set up their trip I got the distinct feeling that they were sure I was going to sell them the most expensive package, and were intent upon starting from the bargain-bin tours I'd normally only recommend for pensioners and Catholic school teachers. I'd heard from Paul that they were interested in going to Italy (for the first time), and
I
called them directly A L O F T

77

and urged them to come in to see me. Maybe my zeal was suspicious, plus the fact that they weren't sold on the idea that I was a travel agent for reasons other than the sorry pay and needling customers (they'd certainly never imagine passing their retirement that way). Mrs. Dr. Pyun even asked a few times what the trip would cost "not counting commissions."

Undeterred, I took them through the whole range of offerings, noting what I thought were the best values and itineraries, and they decided to go with a great mid-priced tour called "Savors of the Past," which mixes art and ruins with food-and-wine-oriented excursions. When I informed them that I'd of course not only credit them my commission but also try to sneak them in at a special industry rate, they positively burst with happy re-fusals, saying there was absolutely no need, and Dr. Pyun said something to his wife in Korean and she said something back that somehow sounded to me like
Why not)
Soon enough they were insisting on taking the ultraluxe package I had only briefly mentioned, and only if they paid the regular price, Afterward we had a gyro lunch at the Greek place next door, where they basically told me that they believed Paul (much unlike their two other sons, who were Ivy League grads and established attorneys) had no real prospects and they would not be surprised if I was very upset, being Theresa's father. I told them I wasn't, and that I was confident Paul's career would soon take off, and that his talents would be fully appreciated, if not in financial terms. They both sort of laughed, which I took to be their way of throwing up their hands, and Dr. Pyun said with finality, "Ahh—he's never going to be famous."

But apparently Paul is somewhat famous, at least in certain rarefied academic/literary circles, which is great if true but also means that no one I've met on a train or plane or in a waiting
78

C H A N G - R A E L E E

room has ever heard of him, much less read his books. And I do always ask.
I've
read his books (three novels and a chapbook of poetry), and I can say with great confidence that he's the sort of writer who can put together a nice-sounding sentence or two and does it with feeling but never quite gets to the point. Not that I've figured out what his point might be, though I get the sense that the very fact I'm missing it means I'm sort of in on it, too. I guess if you put a gun to my head I'd say he writes about The Problem with Being Sort of Himself—namely, the terribly conflicted and complicated state of being Asian and American and thoughtful and male, which would be just dandy in a slightly different culture or society but in this one isn't the hottest ticket. I know, for example, that his big New York publisher just recently parted company with him, deciding not to publish his latest manuscript, which was also passed on by the other major houses and will be issued instead by a small outfit called Seven Tentacle Press near where they live in Florence, Oregon, in a softcover format.

"Hey there, Jerry," Paul says, giving me his usual lovechild hug, wiry and sneaky strong. "What's shaking?"

"Nothing much. Congratulations, by the way."

"Thank you," Paul says, his eyes checking me. "You truly okay with this?"

"Are you kidding? I'm thrilled. Theresa is lucky to have you."

"That's what you think. She's the one with regular employ-ment."

"Of course she is," I say. "But you're the one everyone should support. You're the artist."

"The Artist Formerly Known as Publishable."

"Come on, now, you'll get this new one out and those editors in the city will come begging, checkbooks ready. There'll be piles of the book at Costco, right next to Crichton and Grisham."

A L O F T

79

"Sure," he says. "I bet there are remaindered copies at the All for $1 store, between bins of cheap nail polish and Spanish-labeled cat food."

"Well, you're wrong." But this makes me pause for a half second, as last year in fact I did find his second novel,
Drastic Alter-ations,
at such a place in the Walt Whitman Mall. I ended up buying all seventeen copies and giving them as Christmas gifts to the employees of Battle Brothers, only one of whom, my longtime foreman, Boots, e-mailed me with comments ("Kinda tough read for me, skip, but English wasn't my best subject.

Also, I didn't get the small print at the bottom. Thanks, anyway"). I began to reply that the "small print"
was footnotes,
as in a research term paper, except that this was a story with
avant-garde features,
but then I realized Boots might not have finished high school, or even middle school for that matter, and I just commended him for trying. Of course I would never tell Paul about any of this, as I'm sure it would plainly depress the crap out of him, and further ratify his recent thinking about how his career was going, as he's put it, from "mid-list" to "no-list."

In our last few conversations he's joked a bit too pointedly about self-publishing and getting into teaching or editing or even Hollywood screenwriting, perhaps trying to warn me that my daughter was marrying a fellow with ever-diminishing prospects. But that's the case with almost everyone in the broaden-ing swath of middle age, isn't it, that we're all fatiguing in some critical way (sex, job, family), some prior area of happy vitality and self-definition that is now instead a source of anxiety and dread.

"Hey," I say, glancing over to Theresa, who's likewise been glancing over to me while talking to her friends, "I think it's high time you introduced me to your fiancée."

go

C H A N G — R A E L E E

"Of course, of course," Paul says, and we slide over into the group, and Theresa steps forward and gives me a light hug.

"Hello, Jerry," she says, pecking me on the cheek. Theresa has called me Jerry pretty much since her mother died. I didn't correct her then, out of fear she'd be further traumatized or something like that, letting her do whatever she wanted, and we both grew accustomed to it. Right now I'm happy she's clearly not unhappy to see me, which is a welcomed happenstance, as more often than not she'd have been simmering about something I said or did since the last time we got together, gathering up this prickly potential energy to let loose on me when I was thinking all was perfectly fine. And she looks great to me, a little fuller everywhere, her skin warm with a summer glow.

"You remember Alice Woo and Jadie Srinivasan, don't you?"

"I certainly do," I say, shaking their smooth, petite hands.

They address me as Mr. Battle, which fortunately jogs my memory of them, but not as being half as attractive and self-assured as they are now, more like gangly and foreign and shy. When they were young the three of them would sometimes play Charlie's Angels when their had slumber parties at our house, and they'd set up Jack's walkie-talkie, with me in the kitchen and them in the living room, and I'd say, "Hello, angels," which would delight them no end, and they'd act out whatever crazy story line they could come up with, and then vamp around a little bit, too, in sleazy makeup and clothes. But whenever I picked them up at the middle school after band practice or drama they slunk, as if trying to stay under the radar as they walked to the car, other girls running in from the fields in their team uniforms, ruddy-faced, hollering all, hair jouncing in shimmers of chestnut and strawberry and blond. I never drove them to the kinds of parties Jack was always invited to, mostly dropping them off for the train A L O F T