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“I’ve seen people come and go over the ages,” said Quentin. “And rarely, very rarely, I see them come back. I knew you in your past life, Genie.”
He handed me the book. It was the one my mother was talking about. Journey to the West, it said, the big black letters covered by a thick layer of dust. If I had ever read it, it had been ages ago.
“Here,” he said. “This is the second half of my story.”
I took it with an air of suspicion even though it had come from my own shelf. “Why is this important?” I said.
“Because you’re in it.”
I swallowed my jitters and attempted to pry open the book, but the glossy, child-friendly covers were stuck from years of compression. The sudden crack as they pulled apart rattled me like a gunshot, and I slammed it back shut before any of its contents could leap off the page and melt my face.
I frisbeed the book to the side. The stiff cardboard backing allowed it to sail through the air and land on my bed.
“No,” I said. “Nope. All the nope. I’m done. I’m done with tonight.”
“Genie, you can’t ignore what you’ve seen with your own eyes.”
Sure I could. “If your parents are fake, then your demon could be fake, and I bet your tail is fake, too,” I said. “Animatronic or something.”
Quentin looked personally insulted by that last accusation. “You saw my tail. It’s as real as can be.”
“Prove it.”
He scowled and untucked his shirt, wiggling on his butt to free up some room around the waist of his pants. I caught a brief glimpse of the muscled crease running down his hip before the smooth skin was blocked by fur. The thick brown rope came loose and stood up behind him.
“There,” he said. “See?”
Not good enough. I held my hand out and wagged my fingers, demanding. He looked hesitant but brought it forward anyway, gingerly laying it across my palm.
This was beyond weird.
His tail was alive and warm. It wasn’t too gross. In fact, it was strangely comforting to hold. An elongated Tribble. I rubbed the soft, silky fur into criss-cross patterns with my thumb.
I must have squeezed too hard at some point because Quentin made a strangled noise from deep in his larynx. At the exact same time his mother entered my room.
“Quentin,” Mrs. Sun said. “It’s getting late. We should be lea—”
We scrambled to our knees. Quentin wrapped up his tail again, quick as a whip. But the lingering image was still him with part of his shirt undone, and me pulling my hands away from his lap. Not the most innocent diorama.
“QUENTIN! NI ZAI GAN MA?!?” Mrs. Sun shouted.
“What has he done now?” roared Mr. Sun from downstairs. “You’re dead once we get home, you hear? Dead!”
“Whatever it is, it’s okay,” Mom called out.
Quentin’s mother stormed in and hauled him downstairs like a milk crate while apologizing to me all the while. She was stronger than her delicate build suggested.
The Suns gave their hurried, mortified thanks to my mother and left, yelling at Quentin all the way. Only the slamming of their car doors silenced the smacks, slaps, and scoldings heaped upon his head. It made me smile to hear such familiar sounds, to the extent that it wasn’t until after they were long gone that I remembered Mr. and Mrs. Sun weren’t real.
Quentin’s trick must have endowed them with some kind of independent AI, to better serve the illusion. If there was a flaw in their behavior, it was that they hadn’t blamed me for the compromising situation and accused me of corrupting their precious little emperor, like actual Asian parents would have. Or Western ones, for that matter.
My mother stood next to me in the doorway, looking out into the street.
“I haven’t had that much fun in a while,” she said quietly. “I was so worried they’d look down on us. But they’re lovely people. Some folks are just good in everything. Luck, character, everything.”
She looked so relieved that I thought she might cry. I was struck by the fact that she hadn’t talked to anyone besides me in a meaningful way for a very long time. She had no family in California, and her adult connections had been mostly Dad’s friends.
I put my arm around her shoulders, and we went back inside.
