“Anthony plucked twin cubes from the porcelain sugar bowl and popped them into his mouth. On the table, his overturned phone haloed with silent notifications. When the cubes melted, he plucked and popped two more.
His wife’s best friend Michael’s fortieth birthday. Private dining room in a three Michelin star restaurant in The City. Twins with the au pair. Twelve courses had come and gone. Anthony was still hungry. Dessert wasn’t sweet enough. Thus, the sugar liquidating upon his coated tongue.
Nights like these, in places like this, he tried to find solace in how far he’d come. A hometown so small it was little more than an intersection with a post office off a state road. A childhood of looking forward to snack cakes and Saturday breakfasts at the local waffle house. His parents immigrated from Wuzhou, tried to be as American as possible, their lives ignored in the mostly white town. They were owners of a Chinese restaurant that also served sushi and pad thai. Anthony now bought and sold the equivalent of their lifetime’s net worth in a few minutes of his workday.”
Leland Cheuk 