In Willow Creek, someone was walking past Eliot’s house. He could get points for starting a new friendship, so he did that. He made them chat and goof around and have tea.

How to belong.

It was a weird choice of words. How to belong to what? Or whom? Maybe it was poorly translated, like that “All your base are belong to us” meme based on a bad arcade game translation—Japanese to English. He’d come across a GIF of Bart Simpson writing “All your base are belong to us” on the board. And the phrase imposed on a photo of white walkers from Game of Thrones.

Something was getting lost in translation with him and Aizel, that was all.

He could fix this.

He texted Aizel: Can we talk?

The message bounced.

Marwan

MARWAN

The reporter was due to arrive at the restaurant in a few minutes, and Marwan’s father was seated at a table raging: “We’re better Americans than they are! Whoever they are!”

Marwan had googled around to see if there were stories about the incident popping up anywhere. They were mostly limited to Queens-based news sites and neighborhood blogs, but this TV interview might change that and his father really needed to put his best self forward. Marwan pulled his mother aside in the kitchen. “He needs to tone it down if he’s going to do this.”

“I told him that,” she said.

“And?”

She answered only with strained eyes.

“Dad.” Marwan crossed the room and sat across the table from his father. “Before they get here, you need to try to calm down.”

“Calm down?”

“I’m just saying, you don’t want to, like”—he chose his words carefully—“reinforce any stereotypes.”

His father gave him a look of heartbreak and betrayal.

“You do it, then,” his father said. “You do the interview for us, representing the family. You’ll be better than me.”

“What? No!”

“Why not?”

“I just really don’t want to.”

“But the restaurant. One day, it will be yours.”

Marwan half wanted to slip his father a list of movies he should watch, books he should read, about how the passing down of the family business never works. About how it was a cliché to even try.

“I just don’t think it’s smart,” Marwan said. “I don’t want all of this affecting my schoolwork. It’s an important year, an important time.”

He felt bad trying to emotionally outwit his father but also relieved that it worked: “Of course,” his father said. “You’re right.”

Marwan said, “You just need to say that you’ve lived here for years and love the neighborhood and your neighbors and are just as shocked as everyone else. That’s all. Nothing more. You’re hurt, not angry. Got it?”