The Zenith Angle - Bruce Sterling [30]
Dottie plucked Ted free from the old man before Ted’s uneasiness could grow into sobs. Using her baby as a wedge, Dottie swiftly broke the ice between Helga and Mrs. Srinivasan. Soon the three women were clucking over Ted in a happy international hen party. Van’s stomach rumbled and his mood darkened. Van realized that he was starving.
Clearly Mrs. Srinivasan lacked the provisions to feed this sudden crowd of adults.
“Kentucky Fried Chicken?” Van hypothesized.
His insight met with swift approval. Mrs. Srinivasan was vegetarian, but not on special occasions. For Mr. Chang, Kentucky Fried Chicken was the height of luxury from the Red Chinese cultural thaw. Helga loved American fast food. Grandpa and Ted could suck on the crusts.
Van left in the Rover and fetched a big family bucket of extra crispy. Driving the Rover again, even for a few more blocks, was like having sunburned skin rubbed.
When Van returned to the duplex, two more strangers had arrived. One was a middle-aged, olive-skinned woman, in a tailored black pants suit and a hooded khaki jacket. The other was an older, distinguished man, in designer jeans, with a gold earring and graying blond ponytail.
The man was his father.
A sudden hush fell. “Is that Kentucky Fried Chicken?” his father said at last.
“Uh, yeah, Dad.”
“For breakfast?”
“Yep.” Van set the cardboard bucket down defiantly.
His father took a breath and emitted a quotation. “‘Let me prescribe the diet of the country; I do not care who makes its laws.’ ”
Van felt a familiar despair. Why was his father always like this? Why didn’t he just say whatever he meant directly? Why did he have to dig into his big, 1968-hippie head, and come up with some kind of weird, senseless, semipolitical quotation? Van’s dad was a former Rhodes scholar. He was ruinously gifted. Van’s father was literally the only human being in the world who spoke both Afghan Pashtun and African Bantu dialects. He was also the only man Van knew who carried on conversations, in real life, using semicolons that you could actually hear.
Van looked at his father glumly. His father looked bad: piratical, slick, and never to be trusted. But he didn’t look quite so bad as he normally did. He was, for instance, sober.
His father offered Van a brisk, cheery “Your dad is here, all is well” smile, a smile as thin, flimsy, and phony as individually wrapped lunch meat baloney. How had his father found out that Van was in California? How had he shown up here at this building? Without a word, a phone call, an e-mail, or a whisper of permission! The guy was impossible.
“It’s more of an early lunch,” Dottie offered kindly. In the rare moments when her erratic father-in-law drifted into her life, Dottie loved to play the peacemaker.
“This smells good!” declared Helga, eagerly helping herself to the chicken bucket. Then everyone went for the chow in a merry outburst of chattering, except for Van, who had lost his appetite. To cover his pain and confusion, he gave an extra-crispy thigh to his grandfather, who seemed lost in the crowd now, tired and bewildered, forgotten.
Van could not understand why his painful personal problems were suddenly the business of Swedes, Indians, and Chinese. They seemed pretty pleased with the fast food he had brought them, but how could such a thing have ever happened?
“Son, this is Rachel Weissman,” his father said, introducing the latest girlfriend.
“Hi,” Van told her reluctantly.
Rachel half curtseyed to grab up her chicken from the cardboard bucket. There was something very wrong with her hip.
“Where are you from, Rachel?” Dottie asked her.
“I’m from Bogota,” Rachel lied. “I work in oil.”
“Rachel and I have a beautiful residencia north of the city,” his father aided and abetted.
Dottie blinked at them. “So you’re really at home in Colombia now, Robert? To stay?”
“It’s never like it sounds in the media. ‘Nature gives to every time and season some beauties of its own.’ ” Van’s father gave Rachel a warm, protective look. Rachel was in even worse trouble than Van had imagined.
Rachel