“Oh hey,” Laurence said, making sense of her features. “It’s you.” This was the first time she’d seen the grown-up Laurence act anything but cocky. Hunched over, flushed, he looked more like the Laurence she remembered.

“Is everything okay?” she asked.

“Yeah. I just went for drinks with my coworkers, and I’m kind of a maudlin drunk.” He paused. “But also … I feel like I’m screwing up everything. I’m losing my girlfriend. Serafina. You met her, she’s amazing. And meanwhile, I have all these people expecting me to work miracles, and I can only accomplish so much with asinine stunts like the one you witnessed. My boss—Milton—is counting on me, my supersmart team is counting on me, but most of all, I made a promise to myself. I always thought that if I just had the chance, I could change everything—and it turns out that maybe, I’m just not good enough. So I resort to trying to trick people into thinking I’m a ‘wunderkind,’ to make up for the fact that I can’t actually figure out anything. Jesus.”

Patricia climbed up the slope and over the wall Laurence was sitting on. She had a flashback of the teenaged Laurence telling her that the power to make everyone see an illusory version of yourself would royally suck.

Laurence scooted over, to give Patricia more room on his chunk of wall. “And I was just thinking about my parents. I looked down on them for so long, for being failures. I was kind of horrible to them. And I was just thinking that maybe one day I would understand why they chose to fail, but it would be too late. Or a realization I’d rather not have.”

“My life plan involves never understanding my parents,” Patricia said. “That’s like the cornerstone. You met them, you saw what they were like. I’m dedicated to not being the person they wanted to make me.”

“Yes.” Laurence laughed: a queasy drunk laugh, but still a laugh. “You know … no matter what you do, people are going to expect you to be someone you’re not. But if you’re clever and lucky and work your butt off, then you get to be surrounded by people who expect you to be the person you wish you were.”

“Huh. I hadn’t thought of it like that.”

“How about you?” Laurence stood up and got oriented, only swaying a tad. “What are you doing out on your own at this hour on a school night?”

“Working.” Patricia stood up too. She was going to get Laurence home in one piece and then crash. “I work long hours.”

“You work alone?” Laurence said.

They straggled down the hill toward the Haight, where there would be taxis cruising for kids leaving the latest Seoul relief fund-raiser.