The wife says, Of course I don’t know him. I’ve never seen him in my life.

Right then, Adonis looks real hurt. He says, How could you say that in front of my face? After that night we shared together under the stars, devouring each other’s naked bodies like two starved animals?

Oh ho, Charles says. He’s improvising now.

For true, this is the best prank I have ever played on anyone in my life, ever.

F

ORTY

-T

WO

Window down, Charles lays his arm on the side of the car, steering with thumb and forefinger.

He says, Goodness, that was exhilarating. Wasn’t that exhilarating?

I say, Super exhilarating. Our man smashed it in there, no?

Charles says, Smashed it indeed. He says, I couldn’t have pulled this off without you. What a fantastic idea.

Splish, splash, splosh.

This thing we’ve done, are doing right now, it’s fun. Me and Charles, sharing a moment, and it’s like I’m finally bonding with someone the way I should have bonded with my dad.

I think about Other Me and how he just seems to belong. And in Charles’s car, after the adrenaline and the craziness of the prank we just pulled, I’m thinking maybe I’m starting to feel like that too.

Like this is the place for me.

I’m not gonna lie, I say. I thought the guy would have reacted a bit more—

Crazy?

Right.

(After Adonis got the door shut in his face, they just brushed their teeth and went to bed like normal. Backs to each other.)

Charles sticks his hand out the window, fingers spread out. He’s enjoying the feeling of the air against his skin.

He says, We’ve had a bigger impact on them than it seems. Trust me.

I watch Charles drive for a minute. The breeze plays with his white hair. He has the tiniest of smiles on his face.

Happy, shiny eyes. Less giddy, like he was at the bowling alley, more content.

No, satisfied.

He pushes a cassette into the car stereo, more of that dreamy French piano music.

I open my own window, get some of that cool night breeze. Outside, as the car moves slow with the traffic, bright neon flashes and blurs, up, up, up into the sky. Streets still thick.

I say, Debussy, right?

Right, Charles says. Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum.

He turns to me, points his finger at me. Played by Chia Chen though.

He says, Taiwanese pianists, you see, they have more discipline, more focus, more technique. You can hear it in the recordings, if you listen closely enough.

This guy’s fingers must be moving at insane speeds up and down those piano keys. The image in my head: those fingers dancing around, little wisps of smoke starting up until the keys catch fire. The way this guy is playing, you’d think only a machine was capable of that.

I think about how my parents made me do extra study time after school and at weekends for hours and hours, hours and hours. When all I wanted to do was draw Superman and Flash comics.

I bet this Chia Chen didn’t even know who Superman was as a kid. I bet his entire world was eighty-eight black and white keys.

I did get As though. You never saw my parents’ eyes light up the way they did when there were As all round. Ding ding ding.

And that feeling when their smiles spread and words of pride came out of their mouths (mostly to their friends), and they were beaming and I was getting blasted (indirectly) by those rays…

Fuzzy.

I say to Charles, You could say the same about Chinese pianists, too, I suppose.

I don’t know what I’ve just said though, because Charles’s face turns.

He says, They are nowhere near the same.

But when you think about it, we’re pretty much Chinese, right?

I don’t know what I’ve just said, because Charles’s face has gone atomic.

He turns to me and he says, My family has been in Taiwan for centuries. Akemi and me, we have aborigine blood flowing in our veins.

He says, China? China is a power-mad maniac obsessed with control. It uses its might to lean on nations and organizations. It will do anything to ensure that our independence is not acknowledged.

It insists we are one of its states, he scoffs.

Chinese Taipei? he says. Disgusting.

This is just about as worked up as I’ve seen Charles get. Except for when he first told me about his dad’s boss.

He says, Have you heard of the 228 incident?

I shake my head.

Of course you haven’t. He shakes his head, blows out a sigh. Did your parents teach you nothing?