Even before stepping inside, Regina always adored the appearance of the Waterfront Pavilion, the dim sum restaurant Juliet's family owned. She loved the fountain in front with lily pads and koi, the red-and-gold hues of the building, the Chinese name plastered in similar gold lettering, and the line stretching out the door. She had a table for two already reserved, so all she needed to do was wait for Tom, and then they could sneak past the line with quiet apologies and go right on in. Regina's parents had misgivings about her choice of restaurant, having appraised Tom the first time they all met as cordial, if unadventurous; couldn't she have gone for pancakes or something? There was nothing wrong with a good old-fashioned breakfast of hash browns, poached eggs, and sizzling bacon in their mind, but Tom was so nice in letting Regina choose where they went to eat, and the last thing she wanted to do was waste a good opportunity.
Regina discovered a few facts about Tom quite quickly at brunch, soon after Tom showed up fashionably late to the restaurant. For one, Tom did not know how to use chopsticks. Or, he did, but his skill was limited to stabbing the food he wanted to pick up. Before he could massacre a char siu bun, Regina had to politely lean over and explain how to use them correctly, showing with hers how they moved together. After about thirty seconds of Tom trying all angles of attack to pick up the aforementioned char siu bun, she politely suggested he use the fork a kind waiter presented him.
Tom also had no idea what he was eating or why. Tom simplified the dishes he was eating into a few different types. There were the bread things, which generally had a white, fluffy exterior or maybe a sticky, translucent casing, inside which there were blobs of paste that were pork, shrimp, or some combination thereof—he really could not remember. There were also rolls or something of the sort that were wrapped in a type of pasta, he assumed; these tasted pretty good. Tom's culinary expertise perhaps did not extend much to Asia, but at the very least he ate out frequently and was not a picky eater; he took some pride in being a good sport and trying everything, even enjoying most of what he ate.
The chicken feet were a tougher sell: Regina said they were called "phoenix claws," which seemed to Tom like one of those schemes parents used to get kids to eat their vegetables. He did not like the idea of playing with his food, which refused to obey his fork, and they did not taste like chicken or what he imagined phoenix to taste like.
"How do you like the food?" Regina asked warily. Even though she could see Tom was smiling, she was still concerned: if his jolly exterior concealed some inner disgust, he may not let her pick where they ate ever again.
"It's all very good. Very exotic," he commented in between mouthfuls, and Regina politely laughed. She didn't think anyone else around them would consider the food "exotic," but Tom was most certainly entitled to his own opinion.
"I'm not sure if that's how I would describe it, but I do agree, it's quite good."
"So is this like a standard Sunday brunch sort of thing?" Tom asked with curious eyes. His dad would love this place.
"Kind of. Well, not always, but at least once a month," she explained, trailing off when she saw Tom more interested in the bamboo steamer than her. As Tom began to get into the rhythm of eating the new foods that Regina seemed comfortable with, he took a moment to look around the bustling restaurant, admiring the owners' panache to have lobster tanks and old ladies pushing carts instead of traditional service. He also remembered that Juliet's family owned the restaurant, and he smiled at how humble their story must be (he'd have changed this reaction had he known that this was one of a chain of equally bustling restaurants, which combined made Juliet's family quite well-off by his standards). He wondered if Juliet would show up in an apron right out of the kitchen, grease stains and all, asking how they enjoyed the food that she had made. When he got up to go find the restroom, he couldn't help but laugh at the winding path he had to navigate to get there, past waiters giving him the stink-eye for walking too slowly and the décor that seemed too fancy for an ethnic restaurant. He second-guessed that latter observation when he came back to his seat and looked at the menu with prices listed: this was well within his budget, but he expected a Panda Express level of bargain.
He went as far as to make a third judgment, realizing that he was the only white person there. He shared this observation with Regina, who found it hilarious:
"Yeah, I guess you are. Typically there are some others, but it's not like anyone cares. You're standing out more by not using chopsticks than anything else." Tom suddenly felt a pang of shame. He looked at the soiled fork and knife in front of him, then looked around and saw that the only other person with a fork and knife was an old man with trembling hands, who still somehow managed to use them more dexterously than he did. He wondered then if the young kids who looked at him with an awe-struck expression only did so because he looked different, like a stranger. He was unique, he stood out, and for reasons entirely beyond his control. Tom couldn't wait to leave, and fortunately both he and Regina were getting full. Tom flagged down a waiter, paid the bill with a smile, and they took a few last sips of tea before leaving.
Tom's initial hypothesis was proven true in part when, as they were about to pass through the grandiose lobby and wave the lobsters good-bye, Juliet walked in with her parents for their lunch. Hasty introductions were made, and the subject of their conversation immediately became Tom.
"Have you ever had dim sum before?" Juliet asked with a smile, and Tom shook his head. "What did you eat?"
"I forget the names of everything; Regina, could you help me out?" Regina did her best to remember and list everything, and everyone but Tom laughed when she mentioned the chicken feet. Tom said politely he liked them, and Juliet's mother said something in Chinese that everyone else laughed at, only reinforcing further in his mind that he was an outsider. There was no shame in that, he was told by Juliet's parents, who exhorted them to come more frequently and try more stuff on the menu; still, why wasn't he the one in charge? Regina's parents drove up quickly after they left the restaurant, and she thanked him generously again for brunch and left; Mr. Langley arrived soon afterward to pick him up, and Tom immediately explained everything he ate, the squishy turnip cakes and the chewy sesame balls, with a youthful excitement.
"I haven't taken you here before? I guess I must have come with work buddies or something; the food's great, but it's so crowded. If you liked it, we should go another time. I want to see you try bitter melon." Tom was surprised his father was in such a good mood; it must have been the chicken feet story, which caused a rare laugh. He was hoping his father had never been before, just so he would have something to hold over him, but Tom felt like he was only the butt of yet another joke.
Over the next few hours, clouds heavy with rain rolled in, and the day turned from a cheery blue to something desolate and clammy. John resisted the wind as he walked with his family back home from their afternoon walk, and he laid out his raincoat and umbrella in his room in anticipation of tomorrow morning. John slept to the sound of rain and woke up to the sound of rain, and he ate his morning cereal in dreadful anticipation of his morning walk to the bus stop. He expected to hear thunder as he walked, but only saw rain pour in streaks and everyone else foolish enough to be out in the early morning walking in haste. He grabbed his newspaper as usual and nestled it under his jacket for safekeeping. The bus arrived just before John started to worry, and he sat near the front like he always did. He saw Beth a few rows behind talking with some people John had never seen before, but he paid her little heed until he looked up once absentmindedly and saw her clutching something that to John's uneducated eyes, happened to look like an USB drive or something of the sort. It can't be, John thought to himself, but it was too late.
His first reaction upon seeing Beth take a heady drag of an e-cigarette was to inwardly scream in horror. As he saw her take it out of her jacket pocket and move her hand toward her lips, he wanted to lunge forward and knock it out of her hand. It would then bounce harmlessly on the padded seat and land on the floor, when she would then wholeheartedly thank him for doing the right thing. He was paralyzed by fear, however, and could not even open his mouth to gasp. His second reaction was to dismiss what just happened and look back at his phone. She didn't know better yet. The club had not talked about drugs yet, although they had just finished a fascinating nutrition unit that John enjoyed primarily because of the free food, and the general advice about doing no harm clearly had not marinated sufficiently. Content with this explanation, and all the more sure that Beth would make a good pet project for later, he sat quietly like any other day until the bus arrived at his destination, his face frozen.
Beth thought little of this, and she did not even notice John's horror; even if she did notice his facial expression, she'd have thought it merely another one of his strange flights of fantasy. Vaping was an occasional habit for Beth, one that none of her good friends indulged in, and one that many of her bad friends indulged in far more frequently. It was a minor compulsion: some days just called for a little bit of nicotine, and there were not nearly enough of those days for her to think she had a problem. That was why she avoided doing so in polite company. She did not remember how she started; probably at a party of some sort, maybe Louis's? He seemed like the type. In the past, her worries had always been if her parents found out, or her good friends—she would be excommunicated! Now, her worries also included the club: Beth could handle a few rumors based on furtive glances, but not a full public shaming. If she were doing something illicit that could be framed as morally good, that would be another story. If, for instance, she were a modern-day Robin Hood, shoplifting from drug stores for the good of the homeless, she could tolerate a smear campaign. But sadly, the PR team behind the proliferation of e-cigarettes in every form in every school could not loan its protections to her.
While John believed himself to be sufficiently recovered from that morning's shock, chemistry class turned out to be a surprising reminder. First, a quiz on combustion, which left John reeling with self-doubt over exactly what carbon dioxide was and why it was that things were set on fire, including tobacco and marijuana; then, Behrooz happened to discreetly ask him about Beth. Behrooz had motive behind his inquiry, as much as he tried to convince a John clearly on edge for some strange reason that it was innocent. Recently, Behrooz had gotten into DJing as a hobby; this had the full support of his friends, including Tom, who one day went shopping with him at a fancy store in San Francisco and gladly footed the bill for hundreds of dollars of equipment. Happy early birthday, Tom had said; Tom was eleven months early, and Behrooz still did not like Tom, despite his charity (Tom privately hoped that if he invested in Behrooz now, he would DJ for free at his parties, saving money in the long run and giving him cool kid points). At a party where Behrooz was helping out just to be nice, he happened to talk with Beth casually, who to him seemed immensely attractive on first sight. Behrooz knew that John and Beth were something approaching friends, and without any particular desire to learn what nuance there was there, decided that John would be a good judge of character.
"I don't know what I can say, Behrooz. I'd have to think about it," John lied. John had plenty of nice things to say about Beth: she was friendly, intelligent enough without being annoying, attractive, and currently single. Then again, he had seen her take a fatal puff, one that would race through her trachea to stain her pristine little alveoli black as coal, a blemish that would eventually spread through all her lungs and internal organs until she was reduced to a coughing, sputtering mess. The details of what she did wrong were irrelevant, all that mattered to John was that she had done something to make her less of a good person in his eyes. John considered himself to have exacting standards; maybe Behrooz was less discerning.
"But surely you can find something to say about her, John. This isn't a test of anything, I'm just curious. Give me a few adjectives you'd use to describe her." John thought for a moment, then reluctantly suggested Beth may be considerate, lively, and complex.
"What do you mean by complex?" Behrooz asked. To him, that seemed like a cop-out.
"I view her as one of those people who can't be summarized by a single word. But really, I think we ought to move past that crystallization of identity. It's dehumanizing." Even though Behrooz appeared annoyed, John continued, far too interested in where his train of thought was going to stop: "You know, when we were reading The Catcher In The Rye earlier, I was thinking about that exact same point you brought up. Somebody like Holden Caulfield is defined by his rejection of society. He doesn't fit; he's like a puzzle piece for the wrong puzzle. He sees people acting in what they perceive as a normal way and doesn't understand why they're all dancing around like marionettes on strings with class or dignity or whatever you want to call it. It's awfully bourgeois, if you think about it: everyone running around like ants to appease their monarchs. At first, when I was reading, I didn't understand where he was coming from. I thought he was a spoiled brat who couldn't handle failure; a bad person, if you will. But the more I read, the closer I come to this realization: I am Holden Caulfield. You are, he is, she is, we all are. We all have a bone to pick with a system that doesn't really give a damn about any of us. Society tries to shove us all into little boxes, and when we don't fit, it cuts off our limbs until we do. Everyone always tries to give us advice, but it doesn't mean anything until we experience it ourselves. Learn by doing, you know, take a few risks. Don't listen to the orthodoxy." The bell rang, and John immediately left, proud of having articulated his point so clearly.
Ms. Liu could not believe that students queued outside Mr. T's door every week for a chance to be let into a propaganda session. It wasn't as if this were a casual affair for the attendees, either: Frank assigned readings in preparation for discussion, as this reserved the full extent of his half-hour for more exciting topics. Frank had found an introductory philosophy textbook online, and used it to source readings when How To Be A Good Person or his prior knowledge proved insufficient. At the beginning of the week, he and the other club officers would identify a few prospective readings, beginning an email chain that always resolved itself quickly. Someone would make a PowerPoint quickly, Frank would fill it in with his own insights, and the week's work was done on that front. While some of the initial hype had died down from the first few meetings, calculated public-facing initiatives like the morality patrols ensured that everyone who mattered knew of the club, and Frank never had any issues filling seats. One could not casually attend the club without being seated in the corner reserved for people who were insufficiently prepared; those who sat there were envious of the others, who were treated like adults and not children. Frank did not know why his meetings were so popular, despite them offering little of value besides passionate lectures.
One of his main theories was that some of his attendees, namely Beth, Regina, and Juliet, attracted a good percentage of the male coalition; he mentioned this to nobody but Pranav, who thought some of the attendees would struggle to find a date otherwise. There were other female attendees, certainly, but Frank did not know them as well and therefore paid them little regard. Beth attended out of a lack of self-esteem, and she vainly searched for advice that she could follow to actually feel better. There was plenty of advice that the club told her ought to make her feel better, that was for certain—retooling her wardrobe required some thought, and many outfits she enjoyed were filed away for weekends and vacation, but the people who were most happy with her changes were her parents. She had tried to explain to them once exactly what it was she was doing at school, but when they seemed to respond poorly to the idea of an especially charismatic classmate embarking on a moral crusade, she told them instead it was for Christian Club. They were fine with that, although privately, they were not sure if it was right for a public school to display such Christian morality publicly, and made a mental note to bring it up next time they were at Heller.
Regina's personality was extremely malleable and thus subject to the influence of peer pressure. First, this came from her friends and John, but recently, Tom had been a lot more bullish about attending weekly, and even participated in some of the morality patrols. Tom had avoided actually reading How To Be A Good Person for a long time, instead relying on his friends' summaries, but after a few weeks he was suddenly quite curious to know what sort of text justified their new behaviors. Tom quickly realized he was reading a work of satire, if only because it was so out of character for how Frank behaved otherwise; Frank initially denied Tom's accusations, calling him ridiculous and clearly feebleminded in some way, but dropped the act when Tom made it clear this only increased his passion for club activities. It was no big inconvenience for Regina to attend the club with Tom, and she also weighed the chance of scandal in her mind: if she were to suddenly stop attending, would they spread rumors about her, accusing her of having never been devoted to the cause? She considered herself extremely principled, and there was no room in that moral foundation for any inconstancy.
Juliet found herself with a plethora of reasons to attend club meetings. It was only thirty minutes per week, ones she'd otherwise spend eating alone in the sunshine and studying. Juliet also wanted to keep her grades up: she had recently injured herself during cheer practice (through no fault of her own, she thought), and came out of that experience with a broken ankle and a slight mental fog, both of which only made it harder for her to do as well in school as she wanted. With a remarkable amount of free time cleared up in her schedule, Juliet sought new hobbies: more yoga was a start, being something physical she could still do, and reading more was also something she could do without pains. Frank had been so kind, after all, to provide a list of recommended books in his manifesto, and when she texted him one afternoon asking for recommendations, he did her the favor of responding quickly. Her afternoons were then occupied by literature, at least whenever she was in the mood. Frank's positive feedback, delivered over text and at school in bland, impersonal remarks only made her more certain she was doing the right thing. More importantly, her grades were back to normal.
When Ms. Liu learned Pranav attended the meetings, she correctly assumed he was there to expedite the chaos, and was not disappointed when he recounted, starting from day one, all the club had done.
"So it's like the Third Wave without the Nazism, right?" she asked, just in case the answer was no.
"Effectively, yes. Frank has a list somewhere of the craziest club activities he could think of, and he's slowly checking off everything."
"Do you want me to do any advertising?" Pranav, not wanting to inspire another riot of bombast, politely declined. Pranav viewed Ms. Liu as overly prone to hyperbole, too frequently seized with absurd ideas that fed upon the class's energy. On one of the first days of school, Ms. Liu had walked straight into her door, laughing it off with no apparent trace of injury. Teachers were not supposed to walk into doors, they were supposed to grasp the handles delicately, open them, and walk through like normal people. Pranav was initially worried that he was betraying Frank by spilling the beans to Ms. Liu, but she did not seem to mind.
"Frank sounds delightful. I want to meet him and have him tell me all the things. Last time we talked about this, I remember promising to talk to Mr. T. Now seems like just as good of a time as any, as we have a staff meeting in a bit anyway." Ms. Liu found Mr. T's door open as usual, although he was busy taking a phone call in what sounded like German to her; he gestured to a tray of cut fruits, cherimoyas, jackfruits, and even some durian that made her wince. Classic Mr. T.
"It's always good to see you, Ms. Liu. Business or pleasure?" Mr. T asked once he ended his phone call with boisterous laughter and best wishes to the incumbent CFO of Credit Suisse.
"Pleasure, today. Tell me about that club you manage. Is manage too strong of a word?"
"Frank, as he should be, is the head honcho here; Pranav, who I believe is your student, also strikes me as more involved than he lets on, even though he isn't a club officer. I do little but supply the club with resources and keep our coworkers off their tail. Have you read their little manifesto? Here's a copy."
"Nothing like calling something a manifesto to leave a first impression." Ms. Liu started reading, struggling to hold in her laughter. "Hold on, hold on. So is everyone in on this? I mean, it's a bit lengthy and it takes more than a casual read to figure out what's going on, but I can't believe that people are going along with this completely without realizing this is a massive troll."
"It's the delivery that made the difference. I have not seen anyone laugh in any of these meetings ever without being sternly reprimanded unless one of the club officers told a funny joke. Then, you get sternly reprimanded for not laughing. As it turns out, you can disguise anything under layers of self-confidence and invective. I don't think even the club officers are fully aware of what they're preaching; Alan, if you know him, seems especially scary. I've heard about him from other teachers saying that he's been having difficulties interacting with others constructively. Not like he never had any, of course, but he's been more defiant."
Ms. Liu looked around the room, trying to recall if anything seemed different. "How does someone get into one of these meetings? Is this a mafia-style, you know someone who knows someone, sort of deal?"
Mr. T put on a Brooklyn accent, to Ms. Liu's amusement: "You're a teacher, they will roll out the red carpet for you. Every Friday, at lunch, you can watch the corruption of the American youth. What better lunchtime entertainment could you ask for?" A few other teachers heard their conversation and came in, and together they walked to their staff meeting.
Discussion Questions:
How does the scene at the dim sum restaurant build on previous references to Asian cultures? What point is being made here?
Why is John so concerned about Beth vaping? How does this relate to his personal philosophy?
What exactly is Pranav's role?