Super Fake Love Song - David Yoon Page 0,49

wanted to make sure I didn’t miss a message like I had while stupidly asleep at 5:03 this morning. It was currently 11:11 a.m.

I descended toward the breakfast nook. One end of the table there was covered with folders, agreements, and invoices.

At the other end sat Mom, all by herself. Oddly, she was wearing a tee shirt and sweats and not her work clothes. I tried to remember the last time I’d seen her dressed like this. I couldn’t put my finger on the right word to describe how she looked.

Relaxed.

Before her sat two bowls of red. Cold thin flour noodles with spicy gochujang sauce, topped with icy slivers of cucumber, white radish, and pear. It was the simplest meal we’d had in a while, and one we used to have often at our old place.

“It’s bibim naengmyeon for brunch today, okay?” said Mom.

“Love it,” I said. I was drooling already. I took my phone out of my pocket and fastidiously set it next to my chopsticks.

Mom pursed her lips like an imp thief. “Waiting for someone to call?”

I blushed. “No,” I said, so unconvincingly even I was embarrassed for myself.

“’Kay,” Mom said, shrugging, and began pushing her noodles around with the forced indifference of parents of teenagers everywhere secretly aching for those days of unfiltered intimacy they had with their children back when they were small.

I pushed my noodles around, too. The noodles were winning. “Are Dad and what’s-his-face out wheeling and dealing?” I said.

Mom flattened her eyes at me. “You mean Gray, your one and only brother, who you love more than anything?”

“Nurr,” I said.

Mom stretched and mixed with her chopsticks, like noodle calisthenics. “Those two are doing links and drinks at the golf club with some of Trey’s top subcontractors. So you’re my brunch date, ha.”

I blinked. “Gray doesn’t drink. Neither does Dad.”

“They’ll hold a mocktail if it means locking in a couple new retainers,” said Mom. She slurped. “Oh my god, all I want to do is carb out, I swear.”

“Then I, too, shall carb out with you,” I said, and slurped.

“It’s gotta be the stress,” said Mom.

“Everything okay?” I said.

“Just work,” said Mom, glancing up at the piles of paper. “Work work work today, Sunday, every day.”

“That sucks.”

“It’s fine,” said Mom through chews. She paused. “It’s funny.”

“What’s funny?”

“I’ve never had a Sunday brunch date with just me and Dad at the golf club, or lunch or dinner, for that matter,” said Mom. “Only work events.”

I noticed Mom wasn’t wearing her usual headset. I tried to read her face. Was she sad? Wistful?

“Anyway,” sang Mom, mostly to herself.

At the end of the counter I spotted something: an expensive-looking VR headset. I pointed at it, looked at Mom: ???

Mom rolled her eyes so hard her face went slack, and then she leveled a wry gaze at me.

“From our day with the Sohs,” she said. “If Cirrus’s dad bought a dozen red elephants, your dad would, too.”

We ate for a moment. I didn’t know what to say to her. Part of me wanted to suggest we move to a cheaper house, in a cheaper neighborhood, and just coast for a good long while. I imagined we had plenty of money to do that. But then I tried to imagine Dad downsizing back to our old four-cylinder, five-door Fava hatchback from our Arroyo Plato days, and could not. American progress went one way only toward just the one eternal goal, which was always more.

Jhk jhk, went my phone.

I dropped my noodles with a splat. It was Cirrus.

I was staring at a glorious photo of a whale spouting into the sparkling green sea. It was the best photo ever taken in all of human history.

Jhk jhk, jhk jhk, jhk jhk. My phone was practically playing rock and roll. Three more photos arrived: another whale, three gray streaks of dolphins from very close up, and a diving pelican.

I took a ton of photos . . . just amazing out here, wrote Cirrus.

“Honey, please don’t text at the table,” said Mom. She had uttered this exact phrase at least sixteen thousand times in the last five years.

“Sorry,” I said, even though I wasn’t sorry at all.

“Who is it?” said Mom. She glanced over. I made no effort to hide the screen.

Mom beamed sweetly at me. “Text as much as you want,” she said.

I’m only gone for the day but I miss you already, wrote Cirrus.

I miss you too, I wrote back.

I can’t wait to see YOU, wrote Gunner.

Ugh! Gunner!

I unhinged my jaw