Sam said, “This is my associate, Jackson Leong. We call him Sonny.” The second mover, a stocky Chinese kid, couldn’t have been more than nineteen or twenty. The company T-shirt he had on, hunter green with a pocket on the chest, still bore a vertical crease down the front. The sleeves were stretched tight over his massive shoulders and biceps.
Sonny mumbled a hello into the carpet.
“Jane,” I said. Sonny dragged his gaze from the floor with difficulty, landing somewhere next to my ear. He found my outstretched palm, then Fiona’s.
Sam flipped through the papers pinched to his clipboard, all business. “Now let’s see. Where we taking you?”
“Griffith Park and Hyperion,” said Fiona.
“You two sisters?” Sam asked. “Roommates?”
“We’re dating,” I replied. “She’s my girlfriend.”
Sonny stifled a chortle. His eyes darted between Fiona and me, then back to the carpet.
“Are you now? Pardon me,” Sam said. “You look like sisters.” He turned to Sonny. “Don’t they look like sisters to you?”
“You guys related?” I said.
“We’re not together,” Fiona cut in. “She’s my best friend. She makes jokes,” she added.
“We’re not related, either.” Sam threw an arm around Sonny’s shoulders. “We are family, though,” he said smiling. “Ain’t that right, buddy?”
“I’m just here to supervise,” I said. “Make sure everything’s on the up and up.” I flopped down on the sofa, kicked my feet up on a box.
“All right, I see. You’re the boss.” Sam winked at me, and somehow it was both weird and comforting.
Sonny had been silent this whole time, but I felt him running furtive glances between Fiona and me, those long narrow eyes cut into his moony face. When I caught his gaze, Sonny startled and backed away a couple steps until he was touching the wall. His neck reddened, then his whole face.
“This will be easy,” Sam said, bobbing his head up and down. “Unless you’re hiding a piano in the bedroom?”
“There’s a pool table, though,” I said.
Fiona asked him how long the move would take.
“You got somewhere else to be today?” Sam said, which made Fiona laugh. “Let’s get started.” He studied the clipboard. “You requested four hours? We won’t be that long, I don’t think.”
“I was kidding,” I said. “There’s no pool table.”
“You’re the best friend. You make jokes,” he said. “Important job on moving day.”
Sam removed the baseball cap from his head and followed Fiona down the hallway that led to the two bedrooms. A large circle of brown skin sat on the back of his skull, surrounded by a thin moat of graying hair. I wondered then if he might be in his forties.
“Uh—I’m going back down to—grab the—” Sonny stammered, drawing a rectangle in the air with his hands. “For clothes,” he added. “The box.” He lurched out the door.
Sam and Fiona came back out to the living room in a few minutes and settled down on the sofa next to me. He fumbled for a pen in his pants pocket and offered it to Fiona. The palm of his hand was cut like a road map and ridged thick with calluses.
“Sonny went downstairs?” he said. “We passed by Chinatown driving over here, his old hood. Broadway, Hill Street. He don’t talk much, but that’s one thing he did tell me.”
“Jane lives there,” Fiona said.
We all looked up as Sonny crashed through the door. A tall cardboard box tumbled in front of him.
“Oops,” Sonny muttered. He set it upright, then turned around and brushed out again.
Sam started to laugh. “I better go help him,” he said, getting up.
When they were both gone, Fiona leaned close to me and whispered, “That kid creeps me out.”
“I gave him your number while you were in the other room,” I said. “Recent divorcée, hot young moving dude—did you see his arms?”
“Ha-ha, very funny, bitch,” she said with a smile. “Sam seems competent,” she added. “But the other guy, Sonny, I don’t know—something’s off.” She folded her hands together in her lap. I noticed her rubbing her ring finger absently, as if twisting an invisible gold band round and round. “What kind of name is Sonny?”
“I could call up Uncle Frankie,” I said. “He’ll be over here with a crew in fifteen minutes. Just say the word.”