“Sometimes it really is that easy.” I don’t see Lucy anywhere among the guests. “She might’ve left. We’ll have to return it in person.”
“It’s a start,” Jack says.
I take a few seconds to visually trace the outline of Jack’s face when he’s not looking. “So, Star Guy, huh?”
Jack quickly inhales before plunging his fork into the corner of the chocolate cake. “Seems so,” he says with a small grin.
“You let Bennett and Olivia call you Jack. You’re good at teaching. Is it only at work that you’re not as comfortable with those things?” I ask.
Jack wipes his lips with a napkin covered in the moon phases. “Work is meant to be professional. And teaching kids versus adults is very different. One is for fun and pure education. My colleagues don’t need me teaching them anything. They know how to do their jobs.”
“Maybe the teaching is more of a mentorship-type involvement, like the kids you educate?” I pose.
Revelation flashes across Jack’s face. “That’s a good point. I hadn’t thought about it like that. Mentorship also does look good on a résumé.”
“It can also be something you do for fun, you know,” I tell him. “Kind of like how you don’t tell anyone you volunteer.”
Jack looks down at his plate. “That’s different. I’m used to tracking my work achievements and using them to…”
When Jack trails off, I insert words to try to keep his momentum going.
“To be paid handsomely so that you can buy your own island? To create a list that you can read off every morning to self-motivate?”
Jack laughs at my attempt to make him smile. “To be seen. Achievements were how I was seen by my parents. Still are.”
I nod knowingly. “Ohhh. Yes. I get that.”
Jack locks eyes with mine. “Do you ever feel like people want you to be something you’re not?”
I raise an eyebrow. “Definitely. My mom thinks I should stop hiding behind Red String Girl.”
He nods. “With my parents, I always had to be on top of my game. I was supposed to listen to them because what they knew was best.” Jack blows out a breath. “You know how in school you’re taught to be well rounded and to involve yourself in a variety of activities?”
I shake my head, drawing lines across the icing with my utensil. “I don’t. All I did was art, but I hear you.”
“Well, my parents didn’t want me to bother with other extracurriculars, either. They wanted me to be excellent at one thing: astronomy, like them. Become an expert in the field, like them.” Jack pushes back a strand of hair that’s fallen in front of his eyes. “They’re not big fans of everything we send into space. They’re observers, so anything we put up there, like satellites, only disrupts their view. If I can get this promotion, though, maybe they’ll take a second to see what I’m working on and think differently about it.”
“Yeah, maybe,” I say. “Oddly, I can relate. I’m an artist like Mom, but I’m still not visible enough, not daring enough.”
“She wants you to follow in her path, too?”
“It’s the only version of success she knows. It worked for her, so it might also work for me.”
“Right. Yeah, you get it.” Jack shifts in his seat.
“What does your Gong Gong think?” I ask.
Jack’s eyes light up at the mention of him. “Oh, he’s the best. Besides Gong Gong, there hasn’t been anyone else in my life who’s been interested in knowing what I think purely for the sake of wanting to hear my thoughts. No hidden agenda of sparking a debate. No manipulation to make me think the same way. Gong Gong always saw me for who I was. With my parents, it’s like their love was—is—conditional. I have to earn it.”
I nod along as he talks. “Gong Gong never pushed me into being an ocean engineer,” he continues. “I think that’s because it wasn’t his whole world. He was in the Marines and lived a lot of life before transitioning careers. He always supported me, took me to the aquarium, made ice cream with me. I’m lucky to have him. Sometimes I feel awful that my desire to connect with my parents outweighed his influence and opinion.”
“It sounds like the relationship you two have is strong,” I say, “but it can be different with parents. Their influence is like a gravitational pull.”
He grunts. “Yeah. It really can be,” Jack says. “My parents would go away on months-long expeditions for work, which didn’t leave them much time to spend with me. They didn’t take me along.”
“Never once?” I ask.
“They were remote sites without much for kids to do,” Jack explains. “They wanted to focus on their work. I get it now as an adult, but it was hard as a kid to be away from them for long periods of time and not really understand why. Looking at the stars sounded fun.”
