Page 136 of Playworld

“The hours.”

“Funny.”

“Not to mention the outlays.”

“Stop.”

“You want to know the best thing?”

I shook my head and then waited.

“I just want you to be happy. No matter what you do. You and your brother. Because nothing would make me happier.” He considered his snifter. “Will quitting make you happy?”

My father’s greatest gift. It was not his voice. It was his infuriating charm. It was impossible to stay angry at him.

“It’s what I want.”

“God bless,” he said. He pulled me toward him and kissed my forehead. “I love you very much.”

—

It was Cliffnotes who told me where my brother was. We’d met for milkshakes, and he mentioned running into him outside a new restaurant afew blocks from his apartment, a place called Cowabunga Surfeteria. I asked him to come along with me, since it was on his way home.

The restaurant was on Columbus. It was completely jammed, and I had never seen anything like it inside. The front room was dominated by a long, narrow bar whose bottles were strung with Christmas lights, the bulbs of which were jalapeño peppers. The walls were spray-painted with waves and longboarders and girls dancing the hula in grass skirts with leis around their necks. Surf rock blasted over the stereo. The bartenders, all gorgeous women, wore aloha shirts tied at the belly, the fabric glowing in the black light shining from the ceiling. A pair of margarita machines roiled behind the bar. Cliffnotes said, “Is this fresh, or what?”

The dining area was in the back, up a short flight of stairs, and I spotted Oren, emerging from the sublevel, where the kitchen window could be seen a flight down, in shorts and a Hawaiian shirt; an apron around his waist was filled with dinner setups rolled in paper napkins as well as straws, and he was carrying an enormous serving tray, full of entrées, over his head, confidently, athletically. We watched him deliver the food and then take the tray and snap the stand closed. Coming down the stairs, he spotted us and upnodded, coolly—one of those rare occasions when Oren was acting—as if he’d been rehearsing this encounter.

We met at the foot of the stairs, by the busing station. We had to turn our ears to each other when we spoke to hear what the other said.

“This place is so excellent,” I shouted.

“It is, right?”

“How long have you been working here?”

“Since Mom left.”

“What about now that school’s started?”

“I’m gonna keep taking Wednesday through Sunday shifts, plus doubles on the weekends.”

“When will you do your homework?”

He shrugged. “Before.” Then he brightened. “I’m making over two hundred dollars a night.”

“Food’s up,” one of the cooks shouted below, and rang the bell.

I watched Oren hustle downstairs. He read the dupe, then arranged the plates on the tray, cross-checked the ticket dangling in the window, then raised the tray over his head and raced up both flights of stairs.

When he came back, I said, “I thought you were gonna playD&Dwith us.”

“I thought so too,” he said.

The bell rang again.

“I quit acting,” I said.

He shrugged, nodded. “That’s not how I would’ve done it, but that’s what I would’ve done.”