Picture Us In The Light(69)

I don’t quite have it in me to match that level of jokiness, but I give it my best shot. “We’ve been driving, like, four freeway exits.”

But then we both lose the energy for it, I think, and we’re quiet again. We pass the 880 interchange, the point where it always starts feeling like you’re leaving the boundaries of the known world.

“Every now and then at night,” Harry says, “when I’m trying to sleep, I’ll feel all weird and I swear to God, it’s knowing that you’re, like, ninety miles away.”

Something catches in my heart. I try to keep my voice steady. “It’s not even twenty miles. It says it right there on your map.”

“It feels like ninety.”

“It does.” Except there are only ten more minutes now before I’m home and he drops me off and leaves. I wish it were ninety, just for tonight.

I lean back against the seat. We go under an underpass, into what starts feeling like the heart of San José to me. I feel that same spreading, frightened sadness of being home by yourself after dark, something I don’t usually feel when he’s there.

“So you still don’t know why, huh?” Harry says. “You never found out if you were right about your parents trying to run out on their debt?”

“No.”

“Did you ever find out more about those people your dad was obsessed with?”

“Not really.”

“Who are they? I wanted to look them up.”

“I did that already.” I reach out to change the radio station, but Harry swats my hand away.

“So who are they?”

I give him their names only because Harry’s stubborn; I can’t imagine actually saying no and then expending the necessary energy to stave him off until probably the end of time. When I do, a weird expression goes over his face.

“Like, Clay Ballard as in that billionaire guy in venture capital or whatever?”

“Yeah, that one.”

“Dude, I know them, kind of.” He sits up straighter. “Or my parents do. The guy donated to one of my dad’s campaigns.”

For some reason this never occurred to me—that Mr. Wong might know them. I should’ve wondered. He knows everyone, and, especially if you’re up at a certain level, I think, the Bay Area’s only so big. “You know him? You’ve talked with him?”

“I met him once at one of my dad’s fund-raisers. He was hosting it at his house. That’s…really strange it would be him. He was kind of weird.”

“Weird how?”

“Just like, socially awkward. He has this really harsh laugh that sounds like a machine gun.” Harry demonstrates: ehh-ehh-ehh-ehh-ehh. “And he cornered me and gave me this long spiel about how he has Chinese American daughters and how important it is for his daughters to get to see Chinese American leaders and how he’s very passionate about China and Chinese Americans in America. I was like, um, all right, thank you?”

“That’s awkward. How well do your parents know him?”

“Not very, I don’t think. I can ask. I’ll ask.”

“Yeah, no, don’t. You ever see him besides that one time?”

“Not that I can remember.”

I think about that fear that sparked in all the lines of my dad’s face when I asked about their debt. “Did he seem threatening? Can you picture him trying to ruin someone’s life if they owed him money?”

“I didn’t get that vibe. Maybe a little bit cutthroat like every VC ever, but he was also kind of—earnest. He’s that guy who genuinely thinks the startups he’s investing in are going to change the world. He was weird but in the way that like—I don’t know, like Mike Narvin will probably grow up kind of weird. Like a rich white guy kind of way.”

“I love Mike Narvin.”

“I know you do. But he’s a little weird, right? Picture him twenty years from now with a shitload of money and a hot wife and a job where all day people tell him he’s all smart and important, and that’s Clay Ballard.” Harry pauses. “Honestly, he doesn’t really strike me as the kind of guy your dad would know. He was like…really Silicon Valley.”

I take a second or two to answer that. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means—” He winces. “Come on, Danny, not like that. You always think I’m such an elitist. He was just like extremely venture capitaly, you know? I can’t imagine your dad, like, getting steaks with him in Palo Alto or whatever. Do you think maybe your mom—didn’t you say for a while your mom—”

I stare at him hard until he looks away. “Didn’t I say my mom what?”

“Nothing. Forget it.”

He means, obviously, did my mom ever clean their house or something. Mrs. Wong is the VP of some tech firm, and I remember how she tried to cover her surprise when she asked what my parents did. At the time I definitely kind of hated her for it, but in a way she was right—my mom runs herself ragged working and look what good it did her, did any of us.

Harry chews on his lip for a few seconds, then he says, “Danny, I didn’t mean—”

“Forget about it.” I guess it’s not entirely outside the realm of possibility. “I should just stop speculating, probably. What’s the point.”