Page 45 of Okay, Cupid

“Why do you own so many tapes?” I ask him.

“Because it’d be too expensive to install a CD player in this thing.”

“Yet another reason to upgrade to something else.”

“Pfft, you don’t know what you’re talking about.” He looks down at his hands. “I don’t know, I probably could’ve afforded it if I didn’t buy all of these. Noah told me to just buy a Bluetooth speaker and glue it to the dashboard.”

“Also a nice alternative.”

“I like the physicality of it, though. I like picking out a tape, reading my mood, knowing what I want to listen to. It’s not the same as just picking a random song on Spotify.”

I hope he knows just how pretentious he sounds right now.

“True, but Spotify playlists are easier to make,” I argue.

“You’d think. But I’ve got my technique down.”

“Really? You make mixtapes?”

“Here.” He swings open the console again, and I hear the rattling around of the plastic cases before he exclaims “Aha!” and pulls out a tape, handing it to me.

The album cover is hand-drawn art, very messy, with the words mixtape 13 written in lowercase letters on the spine.

“Give that a listen, tell me what you think.”

“Okay, but … how am I supposed to listen to this? I don’t own anything to play this on.”

“Ugh, fine.” Huy rolls his eyes, and for a moment I think he might just take the tape back, but instead he reaches over me, his arms stretching impossibly long to get into the glove compartment. From inside, he takes out a small black box.

“What is this?”

“A Walkman. Ever heard of them?”

“I know what a Walkman is,” I tell him. “I’ve just never seen one in person.”

“You could’ve just called me ancient to my face.”

“You’re not ancient,” I say to him. “You just have very odd taste.”

“I prefer ‘specific.’ ”

“You want me to borrow this?” I ask.

“Yeah. The songs sound really good on tape. Adds to the depression element.”

“Right.” I take the player, eyeing it in my hand, glad that I have wired earbuds that I can plug right in. “I’ll report back later.”

“You’d better.”

Something catches the corner of my eye, and I turn to look at an older Vietnamese man standing in front of the car, the headlights of the truck illuminating him in the dark. I nearly jump out of my seat, grabbing my chest as the man scares the living daylights out of me. He almost looks like a killer in a horror movie just standing there.

Okay, maybe that’s a little dramatic. But I’ve always scared easily.

“Ba!” Huy rolls down the window, and watches as his father walks toward his side of the vehicle. “Gì vầy?” Huy asks him in Vietnamese.

“Ba nghe tiếng xe. Ba ra xem có chuyện gì.”

“Hai đứa con thôi, Ba.”