“Winston was Chinese Man of the Year,” May said, “at the Tien Tao Ming Society.” And Winston heard—he nodded—but went on tonging food with his chopsticks. “Like she says, Winnie’s a nurse, but she’s super-important at Queen’s. If someone is, like, having a spasm, they’ll call her. See that little box? It’s her beeper. She’ll get beeped and she’ll have to go.”

“Pager,” Winnie said, patting it.

“These children,” Sharkey said, his chair jogged with the boy’s kicks.

“Two are Winston’s, the other two Winnie’s,” May said. “This is Galen,” of the boy thrashing on the floor among scraps of food.

Seeing the boy on the floor, the old woman said, “Oh, da cute!”

“You try the pig?” Wallis said to Sharkey, tapping her chopsticks on the platter of dark shredded kalua pig. “They imu it round the back. Hee Hing famous for it.”

Before Sharkey could respond, Winston said to his mother, “I told that fricken haole guy he never join the hui. Hell with him. He never bring no omiyage for present.”

“Because of that wahine,” the old woman said. “She big trouble.”

“Plus plenny niele,” Winston said. “Never keep her nose out of other people business. She part Hawaiian, and the other part maybe Portugee.”

“I came back from the war,” May’s father said, still nibbling a chicken foot reflectively, and gesturing with it as he spoke. “I thought maybe I join the Elks Club. But my pakay friends say, ‘Don’t do it, Wallace.’ I say”—he chewed and swallowed and now had the whole table’s attention—“I say, ‘I give it a try.’ But was no good. The Elks then was too much haole and some Portugees. Exclusive kine.”

May said, “But they never let any wahine join up.”

“No wahine in the Tien Tao Ming,” Winston said. “That’s why it same like a secret society.”

“What’s the Tien Tao Ming?” Sharkey asked, intending to be polite.

But when Winston did not reply, May said, “Like a club. Chinese kine.”

“You got one job, mister?” May’s mother asked.

“Joe’s a surfer,” May said.

“That one job?” The old woman smiled at the thought.

Sharkey’s shoulders moved with the kicks against his chair. He said, “I got some sponsors, a few endorsements. I’m competing on the tour.”

“Where you go?” Wallis asked, and she too was moving, beating her feet on the floor, her knees jogging up and down.

“Wherever there are waves,” Sharkey said, and realized that May had slipped to the other side of the table, where she sat between her father and Winston.

“The bitter melon,” Winnie said. “So ono. I eat it fast before they beep me!” She spooned some into Sharkey’s bowl.

“Eh, stop it, kids,” Wallis said to the two who were still filling water glasses with handfuls of rice.