“Like sons in a family, or suns in the sky?”
A bit of the tension eases from Oliver’s jaw. “Kind of both,” he answers, pleased that I asked. “Our youngest brother wrote something for a school assignment that our mom wanted a daughter, but got ‘four suns.’ My parents got a kick out of it and the joke always kind of stuck. Anyway, it beats Power Yangers, which for some ungodly reason was on the table.”
I let out a snort. “Yeah. Bullet dodged.” Our eyes meet, both smirking. “But the Four Suns—I like it.”
His eyes linger on mine for a moment before we both look down at our meals. “I’ll let them know it’s Millie-approved.”
I take another big bite of fries, and then, because I inherited my eating habits from Heather, say, “Three brothers. No wonder you thrive in chaos. Where are you in the lineup, anyway?”
Oliver waits to swallow before he responds, since he is not a monster. “Third. First Hunter, then David, then me, then Elliot.”
I rib him. “Nice of them to include you in the ‘four’ part of the band name, even if you have stage fright.”
“I don’t have…” Oliver waves me off. “I’m still pretty involved.”
“You play the triangle?”
Oliver’s fork hovers over his bowl. “I’m their manager. At least, for now.”
“What, too busy being in charge of our whole theater department and the road safety club?” Which, let it be known, Oliver spearheaded and would probably be the lone member of, if the underclassmen girls weren’t determined to find excuses to talk to him.
“No, it’s not that. It’s that … they’re good.” He doesn’t just turn to me this time, but turns his whole body on the chair, like he really wants me to understand. “They only started this about a year ago, but they’re really starting to get some buzz around the city, and they’re putting together a demo. They’re getting approached by other people now.”
“Oh. Shit.” I tread carefully—an unfamiliar feeling, since usually the goal is to piss Oliver off. “And you … don’t want that for them?”
Oliver frowns. “I mean—I want them to succeed. But I don’t agree with these other managers’ visions for them. They want to package them a certain way, craft this whole bogus narrative—like, Hunter as the silent, mysterious one and David as some kind of punk rebel kid and Elliot as a regurgitated Disney Channel wannabe, and I think they should just stick to what they already are.”
I put my elbow on the table and prop my head on my hand. It’s fun watching Oliver get worked up, even if I’m not the one doing it. “What’s that?”
“Just … themselves.” He picks at the edge of his bowl, making a tiny tear in it. “And not playing characters, like the Chinese Jonas Brothers.”
“So what is their ‘thing,’ then?”
Oliver leans back in his chair, a small smile playing at his lips. “Honestly? They’re all dweebs.”
“Your brothers? Dweebs?”
Oliver gives me a familiar eye roll. “But I think that’s the whole point. People like them. They’re awkward and funny and real. And Hunter agrees with me, but the others I think are just so excited they’re getting noticed that they’re more focused on the short term of like, getting signed and getting more exposure than the long term of what the band would actually have to look like if they don’t keep the original concept.”
I almost don’t want to ask it. I already know what the answer is and already know it’s going to make me feel like an asshole. “Is that what you want this internship so bad?” I ask anyway. “So you can manage them?”
“Well, that, yeah.” He’s still looking out the window, sitting completely still. “I just … I want to keep us together. Things are already so weird, with the divorce. We get shuffled back and forth every other weekend. But we’re always together. And I just want to keep it that way.”
When he looks back at me there’s something uncertain in his expression, and I realize there must be something uncertain in mine, too. We’ve never talked like this. And it’s not that either of us minds it—it’s just that there isn’t a regular rhythm to follow anymore.
“That makes sense,” I say, picking the beat up for us both. “But there’s still one thing I don’t get. Everyone else in your family’s in a band, but you’re the only one into theater?”
Oliver reaches over and helps himself to one of my fries, dipping it in the vat of ketchup by his burger. “Not the only one. My mom’s always been into it.”
I perk up in my chair. I’ve always liked Oliver’s mom—at least peripherally. She always brings candy for us to eat at intermission and takes sneaky videos of our performances with her phone that are actually decent, unlike the ones my dad takes with half his thumb in the frame. But that’s about as much as I know of her, since it’s hard to get to know someone when you’re otherwise occupied shooting the occasional death glare at their son.
“Does she do theater at all?”
“Used to. She took it as a minor in college and did it semiprofessionally—like, even after we were born. She was always blasting soundtracks in the house, especially right before her agent would send her out on something.”
I feel a reluctant pang, wondering what that would have been like: listening to musical soundtracks with your mom. It’s not a pang that I’m used to having, but I guess I’m not used to having possible faces to put to a mom, either.
“That must have been fun,” I say quickly, cutting my brain off before it can go there.
“It was,” says Oliver. “Even if rehearsing sides with six-year-old me may have been, uh, less than helpful to her process.”
There must be something in the ketchup, because I can’t remember Oliver ever being this willing to tell me things about his life. “Did you really?”
Oliver’s trying not to smile, looking away from me like he’s afraid he’s going to catch mine. But a smile sneaks up on him anyway, and when he looks back and realizes I am very much expecting to hear more, he leans back with an accommodating sigh.
“I could read faster than David and was apparently insufferable about it. Somewhere in the Yang family blackmail vault is a video of me shouting half the lyrics to ‘Love Song’ to prep for some off-Broadway audition for Pippin.” He raises his eyebrows at me. “She got the part. I didn’t.”
“Aw. You would have been a cute little existentially fraught Pippin.” I avenge my stolen fry by snagging a crouton from the top of his salad. “I wonder why she stopped.”
“Yeah. I wondered for a while, too.”
He stares down at what’s left of his burger, quiet for a moment, like he’s followed that Pippin memory further down than he wanted to go. I brace myself for him to clear his throat and change the subject, for us to pick up our regularly scheduled snark-and-forth, but instead he frowns.
“I mean, mostly it was because other things got in the way. She’s big on the choir scene, and she had all four of us, and at some point the band started taking a front seat. But I think part of it was just the industry in general.” He presses his fork into his bowl, making little dents in the paper lining. “Sometimes she was frustrated because a few of the bigger casting directors weren’t considering her for roles that weren’t some tokenized Asian thing.”