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“So. Um. About this weekend. It’s not great. What about next?”
“Mmm.” She doesn’t sound terribly disappointed. “Next weekend, I’m traveling. We’re having one of our Cyclone software summits, and I promised our localization support in London I’d be with them this time around.”
In most families, landing a tenure-track position at a research one university would be considered a signal success. For me? Not so much. My mom’s the baby of her family. She’s also the vice president of software engineering at Cyclone. My aunts and uncles—a swarm of nine, all related, but not really aunts or uncles the way Americans would mean those words—range from executives in Singapore to cutting-edge doctors in France. There’s Lung Wat, who does large-scale art installations where he covers skyscrapers in fabric.
In that company, I don’t even make the average mark. My cousins and I—all nineteen of us—used to complain in our private Facebook group about the impossible bar our parents had set. Back when we had time.
“The week after that?” she asks hopefully.
“Uh.” I do have to look at my calendar now. “Also…not great.”
There’s a long pause before she speaks again. “After that, things get a little hairy on our end. My fault; I was going to remind you before now, but I never see you on c-chat anymore.”
C-chat is the messaging system built into all Cyclone computers. I look at the computer in front of me and feel another pang of guilt. “That’s because I don’t have Cyclone machines at work.”
Once, Mom wouldn’t have accepted so transparent an excuse. Aren’t you in charge of purchasing for your lab? she’d grumble. Or, once she figured out the problem: What do you mean, your laser doesn’t have a driver for Cyclone systems? Your cousin Philippe wrote his own device driver for his PCR machine, and he doesn’t have half your experience.
Instead she’s quiet for a moment. “Ah. I should have realized. I wasn’t calling to play Cyclone salesperson anyway. Let’s go back to this weekend. What about a few hours? Your father and I could come up.”
I exhale slowly. “Mom, I picked up two graduate students this year, and I already have a theory of quantum computation session set up for Saturday. I’m taking them out after.”
Once she would have said something about that. You’re taking out your graduate students instead of seeing your own parents?
Now…
She clicks her tongue. “Brunch Sunday? Early Sunday, if you can.”
“I’ve got a call with Vithika.”
She doesn’t say anything, but I still feel the need to explain why a call with my collaborator takes precedence over brunch with my parents.
“She lives in Australia. It really is the only time our schedules overlap for three weeks—her husband is at a conference, and so she has the kids in the evening—and we have to go over the final revisions on our paper.”
“It’s okay,” she says.
These days, it’s always okay.
“It’s just, your father’s book comes out after that, and he’ll be on tour. You know how it is.”
I do.
My father writes literary fiction. Every few years, he produces a book to moderate critical acclaim.
I haven’t read his last book. Or the book before it. Or… Or any book of his at all, not since I was nineteen. I’m too chicken to admit that I’m afraid of what I’ll find.
I look upward. “I’m sorry. We’ll work something out when Dad gets back, okay? When we all have some time.”
My mother is tiny and filled with energy. She’s always fidgeting, except when she’s upset. I can imagine her now, momentarily still.
“I’m sorry,” I say. And I am.
She brushes me off. “Not your fault. My schedule was hell until we got the beta out, and you can’t help that your summer is all conferences. Now it’s your dad’s turn. Don’t worry; we’ll figure it out.”
It is my fault. When we touched base frantically in June—me preparing a poster for a conference in Spain, Mom going over her schedule for the Cyclone Developer’s Conference—we’d agreed to get together in October.
It is entirely my fault, and it doesn’t matter that she doesn’t blame me. The thing about being a perfectionist workaholic is that you bring your own guilt with you.
“Fine,” she says again. “Maybe later this month, then. But since I have you now, set aside December fifth, okay? Don’t forget that Saints and Dinosaurs is that weekend.”
Saints and Dinosaurs is a party my mom throws for the Cyclone employees who work under her. It has also become my parents’ excuse to have something to occupy themselves during that time of year.
I shut my eyes. “Of course. I’ll come down. It might not be right at the start of the shindig, but I’ll spend the night. We can talk in the morning.”
“Good. Now talk to your dad. Here.”
I hear the rustle of them handing off the phone.
“Hi, Dad.”
“Jay.” My dad’s voice is deep and entirely unlike my mother’s—more California surfer than anything else.
I fumble for a topic of conversation—any topic. “How’s the new book going? Are you going to finish it before your tour?”
He makes a little sound in his throat—a weird, growling noise. “Never ask that question. I think I killed the wrong person. The book is terrible. Everything is terrible.”
I almost smile. My father writes serious books that he does not take seriously.
“Maybe you could kill two people,” I suggest mildly. “Salvage what you have.”
“That would mess with my authorial signature. One person dying is a tragedy. Two? That’s bordering on thriller territory. It would be off-brand.”
“Ha.” I smile despite myself.
“Did you finish your grant proposal for DARPA?”
“Last night. Seven whole hours early.”
“My punctual son,” he says drily. “Wherever did you get that skill?”
“Try being on time. Once. You might like it.”
“No good. My editor would die of shock, and we have an excellent working relationship. It would be inconvenient to have to find someone else at this juncture.”
“I bet.” I stare at my desk. The pause lingers as I shuffle papers around.
I can imagine him running his hand through his hair—still mostly dark, with a few white threads—and looking upward, trying to think of something to say. Small talk can only carry a conversation so far.
My father is an author. My mother is the VP of one of the world’s biggest corporations. I come by my workaholic tendencies honestly.
My parents used to expect a lot of me. Now? Now it’s all awkward pauses and excuses.
I never worry that I’ll disappoint them these days. You can’t disappoint people who have no expectations.
“So,” my dad finally says. “Saints and Dinosaurs is on the schedule. First Saturday in December. Think you can make it?”
That’s what I get these days. Think you can make it? It used to be: Attendance is mandatory; do not think of escaping.
I blow out a breath. “Mom already told me. Is she going to draft me to help?”
I wish she would. Saints and Dinosaurs is a party, but it’s also a competition. Ostensibly, it started as type-A bluster. Twelve years ago, in the midst of some epic shit-talking battle between Mom and her boss, Mom claimed she was a better cook.
Did it matter that nobody in the upper echelons of Cyclone ever cooked beyond microwaving Hot Pockets? No. A challenge had been made; it had to be answered.
Thirty minutes later, their outrageous claims had morphed into a dessert-off between the two of them. Five hundred and some Cyclone employees were enlisted as the judges, and an excuse for a party at the end of the year was born.
“You are safe,” Dad says. “I am her sole sous chef in this matter.”
I fix my gaze on a point across the room. Of course. They don’t even expect me to help any longer.
“Come in the evening, when you have time. Spend the night after we get rid of the hoi polloi. We’ll have breakfast in the morning. If you can, that is?”
“You know, Dad.” I swallow, pitching my voice to sarcastic so he won’t know how serious I am. “You are allowed to expect me to show up for family events.”
“We don’t want to be a bother. We know you’re busy.”
That’s the way it always goes. We don’t expect anything of you, Jay. I rub my forehead.
“It’s okay,” Dad says again. “We get it. You have a lot to do. I’ll let you go. I’ve a book to write.”
“Same,” I say. “Except it’s a paper.”
Yeah. There’s more than one reason why I might disappoint them.
