To Charlie’s surprise, it was a glorious morning.
He’d slept for twelve hours straight. He woke up with sun coming through the small slats in his blinds, hitting his face and warming him awake.
He felt strangely, wildly free.
There was no Game. No adventure last night. Or at least not one he went on. The crying was awful, painful, but it felt like it purged him. He had fallen fast asleep and woken feeling lighter than he had in months.
For just a moment, there was a paralyzing fear: What will I do today?
But then the smell of pancakes rose from downstairs, and he realized he was ravenously hungry. However foolish his dad was, he could cook. Man, could he cook. And for once, Charlie was desperate for that.
“I’m glad you’re here,” Charlie’s dad said, looking at him from over the stove as he came down the stairs. “We have a busy day ahead.”
“We do?”
“Yes, we do.” His dad flipped two pancakes onto a plate and slid them across the island to Charlie. “Fresh-squeezed orange juice in the pitcher. Help yourself.”
Charlie took the plate and poked at the pancakes with a fork, waiting to see if they disappeared in a puff of smoke. But they were real. This was real. He smothered them in syrup and put two pats of butter on top, which melted instantly.
This time, he thought, I won’t ruin it by bringing up mom.
“Where are we going?”
“It’s a surprise. It was a surprise for me, yesterday. And now it’s a surprise for you.”
Charlie remembered the good news his dad had promised yesterday, when Charlie shoved his way past him, up the stairs. Now he would find out.
Charlie finished his breakfast and felt revived in more ways than one. His dad sat across from him, reading the paper and eating. They didn’t talk. The windows were cracked open and the sunlight brightened the room and the crisp blue fall air streamed in, making everything feel alive and good. Then they were in the car together, driving down East Bishop.
His dad’s cheeks were flushed and fuller than Charlie had noticed in a long time. Life was here.
“What’s going on?”
“Sometimes, good things just happen.”
A car ride later, and Arthur looked out the window and smiled. “There it is.”
They were staring at a storefront at the bend in a shopping strip. The brown building had warm shutters and a pub vibe. The sloped roof and green shingles gave it a slightly Germanic, fairy-tale feel.
“I was facing down permits, licenses, the loan. It was going to take months to get through the red tape. Fine, I could’ve done it. But then this just fell into my lap.”
“What just fell into your lap? This place?”
“Yeah.”
“Really? How?”
“I got a call yesterday morning. The owner ran into some kind of trouble. He needed to turn it over to someone else right away. Like, right away. He was freaking out. He basically begged me to take it over. I did take it over. It was a steal, Charlie. I can keep the staff, run the kitchen, sub in my recipes over time. It’s plug and play.”
His dad was happy, but Charlie had a sinking feeling. He wanted to believe in fairy tales. But in recent days all coincidences had become suspect.
“Doesn’t it seem a little too good to be true?”
Arthur looked at him and snapped, “Yes, it does. And when you look at the pile of shit we’ve been dealt for the last two years, everything besides a kick in the teeth feels too good to be true.”
“I know, but…”
“I think we’re due a little good luck, Charlie,” his dad said, a little softer.
“How’d he even find you?”
“Online. I’ve been posting on restaurant blogs for months, learning how it’s done.”
Charlie started to run the situation through the lens of the Game: Had it caused someone’s crisis? Had it connected that person to Arthur? And why now, when Charlie had just quit? Was this to lure him back in? Or maybe this was the punishment. Maybe his dad would sink all their money into this place, and then the Game would tank it. The possibilities were endless. They were probably evolving by the moment. Or—maybe sometimes a restaurant was just a restaurant. Charlie didn’t know.
But Arthur was already out the door. “Come on.”
Inside, the place was just as Charlie would’ve guessed. Tight booths, cozy and rounded. A pool table and two pinball machines. Low-hanging lamps with a warm glow. It felt like the kind of place you wanted to live in. A mural was on the wall, a nineteenth-century city wrapping a forest park with lights strung through the trees and hot-air balloons above. Genteel couples in suits and dresses strolled along a promenade.
“What was this place called before?”
“World’s Fair.”
“And now it’s going to be Arthur’s?” Charlie preferred World’s Fair but didn’t say so.
“Well, wait, check this out.”
When Charlie was little, his dad used to go on and on about how he’d wanted to be a chef and own a restaurant when he was young. But Charlie’s grandfather had been a stern, sullen accountant who had seen his share of restaurant clients fail. “Running a restaurant is a sucker’s bet,” he would tell Charlie’s dad. So Arthur Lake became an accountant, like his father, except not as talented and not as adept with numbers and financial statements. He hated every day of it, but he supported his family and he loved his wife and child. Then one day his wife was gone and his son was lost and he wondered how his life’s balance sheet had flipped so suddenly.
Now, he was leading Charlie through Arthur’s own restaurant, beaming with pride.
In the back, a canvas banner was unrolled across the floor with ties on each end, the cheap kind you could get at a same-day print shop like the one Charlie languished in.
“I got it last night. It’s temporary, just until we get a proper one.” Arthur nodded at the sign.
It said CHARLIE’S.
“If it’s okay with you.”
Charlie felt his throat catch. He willed his eyes to stop before they grew damp.
“I’m so happy,” his dad said, not noticing. He put a hand on Charlie’s shoulder. It was tentative at first, as if he suspected Charlie would flinch. And Charlie did flinch, because the mix of emotions was overtaking him, the hope and joy of something new, the certainty that his father had now mortgaged their future, and the creeping feeling that the Game might be behind this, for reasons as yet unknown. But then the grip on his shoulder was firm. Arthur squeezed Charlie’s shoulder and let his palm rest on the back of Charlie’s neck, something he used to do when Charlie was little.
“Come on,” his dad said after a while. “Help me get the sign up.”
Alex’s father had come home late the night before. He lingered at work because, deep down, he was terrified to find out if Alex had passed the test.
Bao Dinh didn’t understand Alex. Bao had nothing growing up. He’d faced war, starvation, and worse, but his family had always been close and warm. Alex had grown up wanting for nothing, yet he’d never been happy. It was baffling. How many nights, after ten hours at work, had Bao tried to teach Alex baseball, not because Bao cared about baseball at all, but because he wanted Alex to know his father loved him?
When Alex didn’t come home, his parents were worried at first, until the text came in that he was sleeping over at Kenny’s house. Even then Bao couldn’t sleep because he knew that might mean the test went poorly.
Mr. Dinh saw the belt on his bed and shuddered. He got on his knees before sleeping and prayed. Please, God, let him pass. He hated the belt, but he’d tried everything else. Kindness, sternness, prizes, consequences, praise, shame, love, fear. Nothing worked with Alex. He was like jelly, always slipping through your fingers. Where would he go next year? What would he do? Please, God, let him pass this one test. Then he’ll see the way forward.
Bao Dinh didn’t sleep all night.
But when Alex walked in the next morning, looking disheveled and smelling like dirt and rain, Mr. Dinh was perfectly dressed, drinking orange juice and reading the morning paper as if he’d slept a full eight hours and was ready for life.
He didn’t look up from the paper when he asked, “How was the test?”