Hannah, her parents, and her brother arrived at the Dans’ house at 8:00 PM sharp for the dinner. She rang the doorbell, and Al’s mother came to answer it with a big, warm smile.
“Oh, good evening,” Mrs. Dan said as she reached out a hand to shake Hannah’s. “You must be Hannah. Al has told us so much about you. Come on in, all of you.”
The other Dans were still in the living room, not smiling at Al.
As the Sandys were coming in, Mrs. Dan greeted the others. “You must be Hannah’s mother, Mrs. Sandy,” she said.
“Yes,” Mrs. Sandy said, mirroring Mrs. Dan’s grin. “You can call me Margaret.”
“And you are Hannah’s father and brother, yes?”
“Yes,” Mr. Sandy said. “You can call me Brad.” He shook Mrs. Dan’s hand.
“I’m Doug,” Hannah’s brother said, then he shook her hand.
Mrs. Dan led the Sandys into the living room, where Mr. Dan rose from his chair with a grin. He reached out to shake Brad’s hand.
“Good evening, Mr. Dan,” Brad said as they shook hands. “Hannah’s told us so many nice things about Al. I’m Brad Sandy, her father, and this is her mother, Margaret.” Margaret shook Mr. Dan’s hand. “This is Hannah’s brother, Doug, and this is Hannah.” They all shook hands.
“It’s so nice to meet you all finally,” Mr. Dan said, then he gestured to Al’s sister and to Freddie. “Meet my daughter, Emily, my son, Freddie, and their brother–the one moping and twitching in the corner over there, the one Hannah is dating–is Al.”
Everyone shook hands.
“Emily,” Mrs. Dan said, “come help me in the kitchen.”
Emily left the living room.
“Let’s all go into the dining room,” Mr. Dan said. “My wife and daughter should be getting all the dishes for us to eat now.”
As they were heading for the dining room, both Margaret and Hannah were thinking, Interesting how only the females have to do all the work in the kitchen.
Of course, Al had concerns of his own, him still moping as they all sat down. His mother and sister were putting the bowls and plates of rice, vegetables, chicken, and seafood on the round table, which could be rotated to allow anyone to get access to any dish.
Oh, please, spirits, Al begged in his thoughts, with his eyes closed and his lips moving. Don’t do anything too horrible tonight.
Freddie noticed Al’s moving lips.
“Who are you talking to, Al?” Freddie asked. “Besides yourself?”
Al glared at him, his eyes telling him to shut up.
“Ooh,” Freddie said. “Dirty look.”
Now Hannah was glaring at Freddie.
I’m starting to see why Al didn’t want us to come tonight, she thought. His brother can’t even refrain from bullying him when guests are here.
“So, what do you do, Mr. Sandy?” Mr. Dan asked as he helped himself to some rice.
“Well, I’m the owner of a furniture store on the other side of town,” Brad said, then rotated the table so he could get at the rice.
“Oh, Brad’s Furniture?” Mr. Dan said.
“Yes, that’s the one,” Brad said with a smile.
“We have a chair or two in the living room that need replacing,” Mrs. Dan said.
“Because Al broke them,” Emily said.
There was a pause as the Sandys looked at her and the other Dans awkwardly. Al blushed.
Po broke both of them when I sat on them, he thought. But how do you talk about that without sounding crazy?
“We should go to your store and see if there are any we can get to replace them,” Mr. Dan said.
“I’d love to have you come in and look around my store,” Brad said with another smile. “After dinner, I can go back into the living room and look at your damaged chairs so I can get a head start in finding suitable replacements in my store.”
“That sounds like a great idea,” Mrs. Dan said.
“Just make sure they’re extra sturdy chairs,” Emily said. “We don’t want Al breaking them again.”
Al, sitting next to her, whispered “Shut up!” in Chinese.
“Why?” she whispered in Chinese. “What’ll you do if I don’t?”
He cursed at her in Chinese, more audibly this time.
Mr. and Mrs. Dan frowned at him…but not at Emily.
“Al, don’t be like that,” his mother said softly but firmly in Chinese.
Trying to defuse things, Margaret then said, “Mr. Dan, what do you do?”
“Oh, I’m a businessman, too,” he said. “I own a microchip manufacturing company located downtown.”
“I wish Dad would make a microchip we could have implanted in Al’s brain,” Freddie said. “If it can be called a brain.”
He and Emily giggled.
The Sandys all looked at Al’s siblings in shock. Mr. and Mrs. Dan acted as though nothing wrong was said. Al just sank into his chair.
There was an awkward silence of five seconds.
“A-and you, Mrs. Dan?” Margaret asked. “What do you do?”
“I’m a housewife,” she answered coolly.
“I’m a high school history teacher,” Margaret said.
“Oh,” Mrs. Dan said, almost with an air of disapproval, as if it would have been better for Margaret to be a stay-at-home mom. Margaret keenly felt that.
Al reached for the plate of chicken. As soon as he touched it, though, it twirled in the air several times, throwing the chicken pieces all over the place, one hitting Margaret in the face, another hitting Hannah in the chest, fortunately leaving no stain on her blouse.
“I was waiting for Al to fumble something,” Emily said. “You clumsy idiot!”
“Loser!” Freddie said.
Po, Al thought, looking down at his shoes.
Poor Al, Hannah thought after checking her blouse for any marks of chicken on it. He didn’t fumble that plate, though. It did a cartwheel all of its own accord…but how do you talk about that without sounding crazy?
Infinite Ocean 