It's funny how my grandkids (and their playmates) are now the ones calling the shots, as they're endlessly fussed over by Rosario and their preschool teachers and by Eunice and Jack and then even by me. The only one not readily kowtowing is my father, whose firm and sometimes gruff stance with them is not so much about teaching deference or respect but reminding one and all of his own status as family patriarch/biggest boy.
He's nowhere to be found, though, and I head out onto the massive multilevel redwood deck, where Theresa and Paul are holding court by the buffet table. Paul sees me first and waves the big wave. Theresa glances over and nods, still talking to her friends, while Paul approaches. As mentioned, Paul grew up only a short distance from here, but after having spent a number of years on the West Coast he's no longer outwardly pushy and irritable like a lot of people on the Island. He talks softly, with an almost Western, cowboyish loll to his speech, which frankly is strange to hear from an Asian face. He wears his straight black hair quite long and somewhat ratty, though today he's gathered it in a ponytail, which is neater but still gives me the willies. From the back you'd swear he was a girl, with his short, slightish frame and periodic horsey tosses of the head, but from what I gather these days long tresses on a man usually indicate a hetero-supreme, a type, surprisingly, to which Theresa has always been drawn, and then to older ones, which Paul is (by eight years). I like him very much, despite his hemp-cloth-and-bead exterior, as deep down he's a thoroughly decent and affable fellow without a lot of that self-important artistic gaseousness that has to fill whatever room its owner finds himself in.
His parents, Dr. and Dr. Pyun, who aren't here today because this party was only recently planned and they had long booked (through me) an eighteen-day Bella Extravanganza tour to all the famous spots in Italy, are a sweet and always smiling couple, at least on the surface, though I can tell, too, like the few other Asians I've come into contact with over the years, that they are not so quietly tenacious about what they want. When they came into the office to set up their trip I got the distinct feeling that they were sure I was going to sell them the most expensive package, and were intent upon starting from the bargain-bin tours I'd normally only recommend for pensioners and Catholic school teachers. I'd heard from Paul that they were interested in going to Italy (for the first time), and I called them directly and urged them to come in to see me. Maybe my zeal was suspicious, plus the fact that they weren't sold on the idea that I was a travel agent for reasons other than the sorry pay and needling customers (they'd certainly never imagine passing their retirement that way). Mrs. Dr. Pyun even asked a few times what the trip would cost "not counting commissions."
Undeterred, I took them through the whole range of offerings, noting what I thought were the best values and itineraries, and they decided to go with a great mid-priced tour called "Savors of the Past," which mixes art and ruins with food-and-wine-oriented excursions. When I informed them that I'd of course not only credit them my commission but also try to sneak them in at a special industry rate, they positively burst with happy re-fusals, saying there was absolutely no need, and Dr. Pyun said something to his wife in Korean and she said something back that somehow sounded to me like Why not) Soon enough they were insisting on taking the ultraluxe package I had only briefly mentioned, and only if they paid the regular price, Afterward we had a gyro lunch at the Greek place next door, where they basically told me that they believed Paul (much unlike their two other sons, who were Ivy League grads and established attorneys) had no real prospects and they would not be surprised if I was very upset, being Theresa's father. I told them I wasn't, and that I was confident Paul's career would soon take off, and that his talents would be fully appreciated, if not in financial terms. They both sort of laughed, which I took to be their way of throwing up their hands, and Dr. Pyun said with finality, "Ahh — he's never going to be famous."
But apparently Paul is somewhat famous, at least in certain rarefied academic/literary circles, which is great if true but also means that no one I've met on a train or plane or in a waiting room has ever heard of him, much less read his books. And I do always ask. I've read his books (three novels and a chapbook of poetry), and I can say with great confidence that he's the sort of writer who can put together a nice-sounding sentence or two and does it with feeling but never quite gets to the point. Not that I've figured out what his point might be, though I get the sense that the very fact I'm missing it means I'm sort of in on it, too. I guess if you put a gun to my head I'd say he writes about The Problem with Being Sort of Himself — namely, the terribly conflicted and complicated state of being Asian and American and thoughtful and male, which would be just dandy in a slightly different culture or society but in this one isn't the hottest ticket. I know, for example, that his big New York publisher just recently parted company with him, deciding not to publish his latest manuscript, which was also passed on by the other major houses and will be issued instead by a small outfit called Seven Tentacle Press near where they live in Florence, Oregon, in a softcover format.
"Hey there, Jerry," Paul says, giving me his usual lovechild hug, wiry and sneaky strong. "What's shaking?"
"Nothing much. Congratulations, by the way."
"Thank you," Paul says, his eyes checking me. "You truly okay with this?"
"Are you kidding? I'm thrilled. Theresa is lucky to have you."
"That's what you think. She's the one with regular employ-ment."
"Of course she is," I say. "But you're the one everyone should support. You're the artist."
"The Artist Formerly Known as Publishable."
"Come on, now, you'll get this new one out and those editors in the city will come begging, checkbooks ready. There'll be piles of the book at Costco, right next to Crichton and Grisham."
"Sure," he says. "I bet there are remaindered copies at the All for $1 store, between bins of cheap nail polish and Spanish-labeled cat food."
"Well, you're wrong." But this makes me pause for a half second, as last year in fact I did find his second novel, Drastic Alter-ations, at such a place in the Walt Whitman Mall. I ended up buying all seventeen copies and giving them as Christmas gifts to the employees of Battle Brothers, only one of whom, my longtime foreman, Boots, e-mailed me with comments ("Kinda tough read for me, skip, but English wasn't my best subject.
Also, I didn't get the small print at the bottom. Thanks, anyway"). I began to reply that the "small print" was footnotes, as in a research term paper, except that this was a story with avant-garde features, but then I realized Boots might not have finished high school, or even middle school for that matter, and I just commended him for trying. Of course I would never tell Paul about any of this, as I'm sure it would plainly depress the crap out of him, and further ratify his recent thinking about how his career was going, as he's put it, from "mid-list" to "no-list."