“Alicia’s sister should realize that family is arbitrary,” someone said. “Alicia’s realized, so her sister should too. That would solve things. Plus it’s true, objectively. I’m just stating facts right now, like a computer.”
“What has Alicia realized?” Alicia said. “Be more specific.”
“I disagree with that,” Aaron said. “Everyone should realize that everything is arbitrary, and so nothing is — which is also true — and so everyone should try and be nice to their family, in the way that everyone should be maximally nice to everyone.” Start with your family, Aaron thought without much conviction, that’s what a person needed to do — that was the given task, probably, the world’s free and weary advice — and from there, then, spread out from family to include, gradually, everyone else. “I’m profound,” he said aloud, by accident, but effectively, as some people laughed.
“Is it important Alicia’s parents are immigrants?” Alicia said. Her parents, like Aaron’s, had, for whatever reason — neither of them knew exactly why — left (escaped?) their families and friends for a new, relativeless, friendless, equally middle-class, less communicable place; a place, maybe, with less worries?
“You didn’t explore that,” someone said. “That’s not your focus. Or is it?”—people had gotten more sarcastic and long-winded as the semester went along; without their shyness, actually, Aaron suspected, they were all jerks—“Ignoring it, that may be a political statement. Maybe. Not to say you have an agenda. Not to say you’re running for office.”
“What do you mean by political?” Alicia said. “What are you talking about?”
“Politics,” said the teacher. “Social relations involving authority or power.”
“I meant if it’s important as to what people … should do,” Alicia said. “I’m not talking about social power.” She had changed, Aaron knew. She used to be happy, maybe. Now she was just distracted and incomprehensible all the time.
“Alicia should do drugs,” someone said. “Then her family can worry about her and she won’t have to worry anymore. And later she can write a raw, unflinching, but ultimately redemptive novel or memoir about it.”
“Alicia should be like a crustacean whose shell has been bludgeoned,” Aaron said. Everyone laughed, though in an exerted way, with many enunciated “ha-ha’s”; the mollusk thing was getting old. Though maybe Aaron was mocking exactly that. Yeah, he thought, he was.
“Alicia’s so detached and melodramatic,” someone else said. “She sort of isn’t believable. I don’t believe she exists — as a real person. Why would anyone sign a two-year lease? I don’t believe that. Which is okay, though. I mean, Moby Dick, yeah, that’s really believable. Not that I liked Moby Dick. I didn’t. I mean, I didn’t read it. Never mind though. Sorry. I don’t know what I’m talking about. I’m just … stupid. Please don’t listen to me. Okay.”
“She’s like a green mussel that’s been eaten so there’s just the shell left,” Aaron said. He was very quietly and completely ignored, which could sometimes happen in a workshop; he was not embarrassed at first, but a little bit proud — his joke was simply too true and complex (too good) to be acknowledged — then he was embarrassed.
“Do you exist, Alicia?” the teacher said. “If you don’t, then you don’t have to answer that.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Alicia said.
It was getting uncomfortable. Everyone stared not at Alicia, but at their own hands, or else abstractly at some piece of table or wall, as there had become in the room a feeling of immobilization, something of both nostalgia and doom — a sort of gigantic helplessness that could take affect, sometimes, near the end of class; everyone feeling elderly and pointless from all the criticism and subsequent qualifications and admittances of not knowing anything — an unpleasant urge to stay still for a very long time, for ever, perhaps, not saying or thinking anything, but just accepting one another, entering and absorbing and maybe, finally, somehow — with anonymity, osmosis, conjecture, and luck — then, experiencing one another.
For winter break they went to Aaron’s house.
They fought about how Aaron never went to Alicia’s house. “You haven’t been back to your house in two years or whatever,” Aaron said, “am I supposed to go there by myself?” but then immediately apologized and said that they would go to her house, then, for spring break. He had almost no anger these days, and he hugged her and apologized two more times.
With Aaron’s parents, they went to a theme park, the movies.
On New Year’s Eve, in a large-windowed restaurant atop a pier at the beach, his parents fought about the stock market. Aaron’s father called Aaron’s mother stupid; she told him to stop acting like a baby. They had spoken English at first, so that Alicia could understand, but had gotten lazy after an hour or so and now spoke only Mandarin.
“A ten point gain is better than a ten percent gain. That’s what she thinks,” Aaron’s father said to Aaron. “That’s how her mind works.”
“That’s right, I’m the stupid one,” Aaron’s mother said. “He likes stupid girls of course. It gives him a feeling of superiority, a feeling he can’t live without.” She sat up very straight. “He lost forty-thousand last week,” she said loudly to Aaron. “He’s a day-trader, a professional.”
“Is a ten point gain better than a ten percent gain?” Aaron’s father said. He looked down, at an angle, toward Aaron’s mother. “Is it?” He had been grinning before, but now his face was red and tense.
Aaron laughed. He liked his parents, and wished, now, sitting here, that they were all the same age and friends, in middle school or something, hanging out. “Calm down,” he said. “Don’t be so ridiculous. You know she knows it depends on the stock price and is just stubborn to admit you’re right. And she knows you know all that, too. The facts are all known. So there’s nothing to talk about — argue about.” He had just come up with this, but it sounded right, if a bit depressing, as one had, despite falseness or whatever, to be accusatory every once in a while; small talk had to be made, things needed to be said — provocations, sudden risky beliefs and improvisational generalizations — one had to tread water with these preconceptions, these prejudices and quarrels, keep one’s head buoyed and in the sun; kick at the dark, wet, worried meaninglessness below.
Aaron’s father repeated his question to Aaron’s mother. He was grinning again, though tensely.
“Yes,” Aaron’s mother finally said. “A ten point gain is always better than a ten percent gain.” Their entrees came. Aaron’s father said something about cooking, at which Aaron’s mother put her fork down loudly. She asked for chopsticks, but it was a Cajun restaurant. She looked at her fork and picked it up. She devoured her catfish and then talked at length — looking around the table in a storytelling way — while everyone else ate at a normal speed. She talked in a formal mandarin that Aaron couldn’t understand that well. “He meets his young, stupid wife — a person so stupid that here she is now. He has big plans, moves to America. He realizes his big plans. Meanwhile he has his house slave, his cook and child raiser, his nice little affair on the side, his very successful career. He makes a lot of money; he is known in his field. But is he happy? He isn’t sure. He wakes in the night. Sweating, panicked. Hungry. But he is a genius and now he is going into retirement, and a genius going into retirement cannot be stopped. I don’t know. Listen to me. I don’t know.” She looked around and then stopped looking around and stared through the window at something outside; a gray and dusty light moved against and off the surface of her eyes, like the wet-dry shine from a cold, unwashed grape. Outside, a gull came into view, floated in place, wobbled, and then pitched back and away, out of control. Aaron laughed a little. Alicia squeezed his hand under the table. Aaron had forgotten she was sitting here, beside him. He had stopped translating for her a long time ago.