They both shook their heads.
“It was a cut on their 1986 album, Mosaic, but wasn’t released as a single until January 1987. You guys remember the eighties?”
They shook their heads again, as if it had been a serious inquiry.
“Jack Hues sings lead vocals, while Nick Feldman sings the bridge. Both sing the chorus. Wang Chung? Jack Hues? A play on the French, J’accuse? No?” The kids were growing impatient. This lecture was delaying their cake. It was time to wrap this up. He hit play and the opening synth chords filled the room in full eighties splendor. “Play it in the morning and I defy you not to have at least a decent day. On some days it’s the only thing that makes the day decent. You should know this. More people should know this. Everyone should know this. Guncle Rule number fifteen: Let’s go, baby, let’s go, baby, c’mon.”
Patrick closed his eyes, letting the music take root inside him. His shoulders were inspired first, they shrugged in tune to the song. His wrists curled in, then up, then his arms opened wide and his fingers fluttered, ushering the kids off their barstools. He sang the opening words. “Meet me in a restaurant.” He waved again, until they joined him. “Dance with me. Then we’ll stuff our faces with cake.”
Patrick grasped their hands, they formed a circle and began to sway until the crescendo building to the first chorus. He pulled his hands in close to his body and started jumping excitedly. And then his body exploded as he leapt in perfectly with the refrain. “Let’s go, baby, let’s go, baby, c’mon!” He danced as hard as he’d ever let anyone watch. Grant, inspired, waved his hands over his head and shook them like a Muppet; he had surprising rhythm, as if the music was emanating from inside him, and he swung his hips with an easy, admirable confidence. Maisie moved more timidly, decidedly off the beat, but her smile was all you could really see.
“Get your feet in motion!” Patrick crunched his abdominals and ran tightly in place. Maisie and Grant imitated their uncle and they moved in close until their noses touched, Patrick singing the words, the kids doing their best but not quite nailing it, before they all ran back to their starting places, bursting in joyous motion.
For one fleeting moment this was it, they were the music and the music was them, Wang Chung itself (or, more precisely, huang chung, Chinese for yellow bell), and all of their sadness rang out of their fingertips in radiant sunshine that warmed the darkening sky.
TWENTY-FIVE
Incredibly, Marlene slept through the knock at the door. Patrick wasn’t certain if he was relieved or annoyed she would so easily shirk her responsibilities as guard dog just because she had put in a stint dancing. By the third song on Patrick’s playlist (some Ray of Light–era Madonna), Marlene was a full participant, jumping on her hind legs like a Pentecostal brimming with the Holy Spirit about to burst into tongues. Eventually Patrick and the kids ate cake with their hands; plates, knives, and forks were instruments of other, more solemn people that stood in the way of their joy. They swayed to the music and Grant let Marlene lick frosting off his fingers. The sugar crash that followed hit hard. Patrick was the last man (child, dog) standing, and even he was splayed out on the couch watching Desert Flippers on HGTV, fighting to keep his eyes open. His first thought was that he might have imagined the knocking, that maybe he had drifted off and was dreaming or that it was coming from the TV—the hosts assessing the viability of a rotting home’s framework. He sat upright before realizing the knock was real, and when he finally answered the door he was confronted with a familiar face waiting expectantly on the other side of his peephole.
Emory.
Patrick opened the door slowly to avoid the squeaking thing it did.
“So, I was in the neighborhood.” Emory flashed this full-tooth smile/eye roll combo that looked not unlike that GIF of young Marlon Brando that everyone sends around. When Patrick said nothing in return, he leaned his head in the doorway and pouted with his lower lip.
Goddammit.
“No one’s ever in this neighborhood, which is precisely why I live here.” Patrick leaned on his door and it swung him flirtatiously closer to his guest. “Want to try that again?”
“It’s Coachella,” Emory offered.
“The music festival? That’s in April.”
“Modernism Week?”
“February, I think.”
“Palm Springs Pride.”
“November.”
“The White Party?”
“I forget what that is, but I’m certain it’s not going on now.”
“Dinah Shore?”
“That’s for lesbians.”
“I could be a lesbian.” His glasses were not unlike Rachel Maddow’s.
“Sure.”
There was nothing left for Emory to do but come clean. “Some friends of mine were renting a house in Palm Desert, so I crashed for a few days. Thought I’d stop by my friend Patrick’s and see if he wanted to go for a swim.”
Patrick considered the situation carefully, weighing the odds of waking anyone against his desire for company, and then stepped out of the way to usher Emory inside. “Kids are asleep.”
“They still here?”
Patrick made a face—Of course—but they had never discussed his custodial arrangement, so Patrick had no reason to hold him at fault. “Drink?”
“Sure, I’m not driving.”
“Then how are you getting back to LA?”
Emory gave it some thought, but not much. “I always find a way.”
It was the thing Patrick missed most about youth, the assumption that everything would just work itself out. That and his back not hurting. He shook his head as Emory stepped inside and then motioned for Emory to follow him to the kitchen.
“Whoa,” Emory said when he saw what was left of Sara’s celebration on the counter. “You guys murdered that cake.”
“Yeah, we did a number.” He put some
