“When Daniel’s not cooking, he’s all about making sure that physics makes sense and that the machinery as designed correctly generates that physics. It’s all kind of abstract.” Ellie takes a sip. “I work with the machinery, mostly replacing worn parts, but sometimes building fixes for bugs. Materially changing the physics goes against everything we stand for.”
“How’s your sister taking it? Older sister, right? Daniel talks about you all the time, but he never really talks about her.”
“Oh, Chris doesn’t like him. He probably doesn’t like her either. If I had to guess, she’s always resented him living with us.” Ellie fumbles with the folded napkin and chopsticks in front of her. “Probably because she thought Mom was making her take care of another kid.”
Ellie immediately wishes she hadn’t said that. Somewhere between the very little alcohol she’s had so far and the flow of a conversation with someone who seems to care, it slipped out.
“What do you mean?” Belt looks curious.
“My parents ran a restaurant—nothing like this—until I graduated from high school. Daniel is only a few years younger than Chris and he was never around that much anyway. All she had to do was live with him, but there were a few years where Chris basically raised me.”
Horror sweeps across Belt’s face before he recovers himself. Daniel must have talked about Chris at least a little. Ellie can imagine what awful but true things he told Belt. She and Daniel have a polite disagreement about Chris. Ellie has to believe thatChris can change. Otherwise, she would stay curled up and frozen in bed most weekends, unable to force herself down to DC. Besides, Chris only got truly horrible after Mom received her diagnosis and she took it upon herself to be Mom’s one and only caregiver. Ellie puts up with Chris only because Mom wanted her to.
“Does she also maintain the universe?”
“She’s a builder, like me.” Ellie forces herself to stop playing with the table setting. “How much do you know about what happened to my mom?”
“Daniel said you saved the universe, and let your mom die her natural death.” Belt is absolutely matter-of-fact, as though that is a sentence he tosses off all the time.
“I think ‘saved the universe’ is excessive.”
Daniel finally makes his appearance. He has a hopeful “Are you two best friends yet?” look on his face. His shirt, as usual, would make a better motorcycle tarp. Daniel has never met a shirt that fits properly.
“Not at all.” Daniel pulls out the seat next to Belt and sits. “The universe was unstable and now it’s not. Or at least much less so. I’m not saying it’s bug free, but it’s certainly more predictable now.”
A server shows up with Daniel’s drink. His is inside a smoke-filled glass cloche. The server also hands out menus and says she’ll be back in a moment to take their orders.
Ellie scans the menu. On the right-hand side, it has a column of bao. She wants an order of every bao the restaurant makes. They all sound delicious. The column heading “Bao Buns,” however, earns a glare of disapproval.
“Yeah, they had to call them ‘bao buns,’”Daniel says, reading her expression. “If they didn’t, no one would understand what they were ordering. By the way, the bill is already taken care of, so go nuts.”
“What?” Ellie sets down the menu. “I can’t let you do that. You’re the guest.”
Etiquette demands that she mount at least a token complaint, but, also, she’s not sure how Daniel can afford this. She can’t either, but that’s not the point.
“Ellie, save the politeness for a relative who wants it.” Daniel looks vaguely offended. “I’ve had a year to plan. Let me have this. Besides, there isn’t a bao on the menu you don’t want to try.”
Daniel’s right, of course, but she goes back and forth with him for two more rounds anyway. Belt looks amused as Ellie and Daniel go through the motions. The bill, as Daniel says, is already taken care of.
They order all six kinds of bao, chili garlic string beans, and a whole fried branzino to share. This strikes Ellie as a spectacularly large amount of food, but Belt looks like he spends his days hauling lobsters, and he’s practically a waif sitting next to Daniel.
Daniel opens his cloche. Smoke drifts away to reveal a lowball glass with a pink cocktail. He takes a sip. His eyes close as he savors the cocktail.
“So how badly is your sister taking it?” Belt asks. “If you don’t mind me asking.”
“Her reaction kind of took me by surprise.” Ellie’s hand grips her cocktail glass. “When I showed up at her house the following afternoon, she already knew what I had done. She said she felt the change in the universe.”
“Chris, of course, is a font of pure, unerring truth. Nothing false has ever passed through those angelic lips.” Daniel sips from a smoky, pink cocktail that cannot possibly be as dry as his comment. “Some number of people saw you dismantle that contraption. I could keep them only so far away. The news had to have spread quickly.”
Ellie doesn’t want to get into how Chris reacted. This time, she probably deserved it. Either way, Daniel doesn’t need Ellie to tellhim that Chris tore into her for condemning Mom to death. Belt doesn’t need to know.
“So how did you two meet?” Ellie lets go of her glass when she realizes her hand is a vise locked around it.
Daniel squirms. He hates talking about himself and finds the idea of being talked about mortifying. If a relative stranger talked about him, he’d view it as an attack, she suspects, and bear it. Ellie can embarrass him at will. She only ever does by accident. In retrospect, no one who has endured a childhood with Chris could on purpose. In any case, she wants to know how they met and she’s desperate for a change of topic. If Ellie has to talk about Chris, for once, Daniel can talk about Daniel.
“Oh.” Belt holds up a hand to Daniel. “I was jogging on a treadmill in the gym when this mountain rushes at me. My life passes before my eyes, and I’m searching for what I’ve done to deserve an early death.”
“Oh, I justcan’twith you.” Daniel looks incredulous. “There are sugar-free breath mints more menacing than me. I started jogging on the treadmill next to yours and politely waited for you to notice me trying to make eye contact.”
