Page 29 of Cakes for the Grump

His response, a little snappish, is: “Last year.”

Always competitive. He gives as much as I did, which is not much at all.

“What’s your favorite part about being in charge?”

His response: “The power.”

“Do you have siblings?”

“Yes.”

“How many?” I ask him, quickly and with actual curiosity, because I could have sworn he was a classic case of Only Child Syndrome.

His terse response:“One sister.”

Before I can open my mouth to dig deeper, Luke stands up. His tea isn’t finished, but he tells me he’s got a meeting to go to. Within a few blinks, he’s gone.

Okay.

Family clearly is a sore topic, but that only makes me feel more snoopy about it. I wonder what it must be like growing up the way he has been immensely wealthy, and under the powerful shadow of an ancestral, multi-generational dynasty. Thinking more about it—he’s got no portraits of people in his apartment. At least the parts that I am allowed access to (entryway, kitchen, part of a living room, bathroom) don’t.

Does he keep personal mementos in other parts of the flat? Is there a shrine to childhood he’s got sequestered away? Or are he and his family really not that close?

As a product of Punjabi culture, despite being the only one of my South Asian friends to have almost no relatives outside of my dad and my uncle, I know and have seen strong kinship. The ties in my culture that promote—for good or bad—multiple generations to live together in the same household, and families to make decisions together for the individual. In most cases other than mine, there is always a random relative chiming in with their opinion, third cousins showing up at your doorstep without calling ahead, and the not-really-related person from your parent’s village back in India being hosted at your house for an indeterminate amount of time while they study at college.

Do the Abbots do any of that?

The next day, I think about asking him but can’t bring myself to voice my words. It feels unsportsmanlike to push against a vulnerability attached to family, and also, I certainly don’t want him asking about mine in return. There is too much rawness to uncover there. As if in mutual understanding, the safest of questions are instead ping-ponged between us.

He asks: “How was your night?”

My response:“Good.”

“Did you go to the spa yet?”

“No.” For my turn, I ask him: “What’s your favorite food?”

His response: “I’m not a food connoisseur.” Then he asks, “Do you like Barcelona?”

“Mostly, do you even own any casual outfits?”

“I certainly don’t work out in my suits.”

“Where were you born?” I ask swiftly.

His response: “In the United States. Ohio. You?”

“India. Mumbai. Do you have a favorite color?”

“No.”

“Then are you a cyborg secretly masquerading as a human?”

To that question, I merely receive a droll stare.

So it goes on, these limited snips of conversation exchanged during the mornings.

And it’s only when the next weekend comes, and I wake up on a Saturday wondering what boring tidbits of information Iwon’tbe learning about him today that I perceive with some faint level of discomfort that it’s kind of nice. Comfortingly banal even to share non-revealing, safe questions and answers that pose no inherent risk of discovery. Like a dripping faucet kept on with no danger of flooding.