Sam knew the man was familiar, but for half a second, he couldn’t quite place him. It had been three years since he had last seen him, a lifetime when one is ten. And then he remembered who George was. “Hi, George,” Sam said. George shook Sam’s hand in a casual, professional way.
“I didn’t know you were in L.A.,” George said.
“We just got here,” Anna said. “I was planning to call you when we’d gotten settled.”
“So, this is a permanent thing?” George said.
“Yes, I think so,” Anna said. “My agent has been begging me to come out for pilot season for years.”
“Pilot season is in the spring,” George said.
“Yes,” Anna said. “Of course, I know that. But I had to wait until Sam’s school year ended, so we’re here now, and I’ll be ready for next year.”
George nodded. “Well. Good to see you, Anna.” George began to walk away and then he turned and walked back to the table. “Sam,” George said, “if you have the time, I would very much like us to have lunch. You name the day, and my assistant, Miss Elliot, will set it up.”
Sam met his father, George Masur, at La Scala, one of those pleasantly decaying Los Angeles establishments that sounded fancier than they actually were. He had only met George a half-dozen times before, usually when George had been in New York City on business. On these occasions, they did New York City–tourist or divorced-dad things together: FAO Schwarz, afternoon tea at the Plaza, the Bronx Zoo, the Children’s Museum of Manhattan, the Rockettes, etc. These activities had not bonded them, and Sam felt no meaningful connection to George. He did not, for instance, call him Dad; he called him George. When he thought of George, he thought of him as a person that his mother had once had sex with, though Sam, at age ten, was not entirely clear on the mechanics of sex.
Sam knew that George was an agent for the William Morris Agency, and that the William Morris Agency was not the agency that represented his mother. He knew that George had come backstage after a revival performance of Flower Drum Song to tell his mother that her rendition of “I Enjoy Being a Girl” had been the best thing in it. He knew that George and his mother had dated for about six weeks and that his mother had ended it for ambiguous reasons. He knew that six weeks after that, she had determined that she was pregnant. He knew that she had considered having an abortion, and he knew what an abortion was. He knew that she had never wanted to marry George. He knew that George had written her a check for $10,000 when she told him about the pregnancy, but that she had never asked for it. He knew that the money had been deposited in a trust fund for Sam’s college, and that George had not made any contributions to the fund since. Sam knew these things mainly from Anna’s acting class friend, Gary. He sometimes babysat for Anna when she had to work, and he was chatty to a fault.
George was wearing a suit of fine, summer-weight wool—Sam would think of him as always wearing a suit. He offered Sam his hand to shake. “Hello, Sam. Thanks for making the time for this meeting,” George said.
“You’re welcome,” Sam said.
“I’m glad we were able to make this happen.”
Sam asked George what he should order, and George suggested the “famous chopped salad,” which Sam would end up finding watery. They spoke of the Olympics, the family in K-town, the differences between living in New York City and Los Angeles.
“You know,” George said, “I’m Jewish, which means that you are partially Jewish as well.”
“Does it?” Sam said.
“I know it probably doesn’t seem like it, but you’re half of what I am.”
Sam nodded.
“It wasn’t my choice that we should see each other so little, you know.”
Sam nodded again.
“I’m not saying it’s Anna’s fault, but your mother doesn’t always make things easy. Did you know that I asked her to move here when she was pregnant? She refused. She said she couldn’t see herself raising a child in Los Angeles. And now she’s here.” George shrugged. “What’s funnier than people, right?” He looked at Sam expectantly.
“People,” Sam said, sounding like a sixty-year-old man. It seemed like the response George was seeking.
“People is right. I have a place in Malibu,” George said. “Do you think you’d like to come to the Bu sometime?”
“Yes,” Sam said politely, though he felt no particular desire to go to Malibu. “It takes a long time to drive to…the Bu.”
“Not that long. Maybe you’d like to meet my girlfriend? She’s a very nice-looking woman. I’m not saying this to brag, but to paint a picture for you. It is important to make things visual for people. If you can do that, you’ll be ahead of the game, Sam my boy. But yes, my girlfriend is a very attractive woman. Do you know the James Bond movies? She was Bond’s second secretary in the last one. Some people say that playing the secretary in a Bond movie is not the same as being a Bond girl, but I think it is.” He looked at Sam. “What do you think?”
“Hmm,” Sam said. “I don’t really have an opinion about that.”
George gestured a checkmark, and a waiter brought the bill. He paid the check and shook Sam’s hand again. George handed Sam a business card: george masur, motion picture talent agent, william morris agency.
“You can call this number if you ever need anything. Miss Elliot will answer, but she always knows where to find me, and if she can’t find me, she will give me the message.”
They went outside. They were a few minutes shy of the time Bong Cha was supposed to pick Sam up.
George looked at his watch.
“You don’t have to wait,” Sam said.
“No, it’s fine.”
“I’m by myself all the time.” Sam realized that there might have been an implied insult to his mother in this disclosure. “I mean, not all the time.”
At precisely one o’clock, Bong Cha drove up to the curb, neatly wedging her burgundy MG into a space barely half a foot longer than the length of the car. Bong Cha was a spectacular, aggressive driver. She had driven for a local moving company when she and Dong Hyun had first arrived in L.A., and she was known in the family for her epic parallel parking abilities. Sam said she drove like she was playing Tetris.
Sam waved to George as he got into the car. “Goodbye, George.”
“Goodbye, Sam.”
Sam closed the door. Bong Cha wore a head kerchief and professional driving gloves that had been a gift from her husband, and her car’s interior was, as always, immaculate. The driver’s seat had a wooden bead overlay that supposedly gave a massage or did something for circulation; maneki neko, the zaftig hospitality cat, waved from the back window; an air freshener in the shape of the Virgin Mary hung from the rearview mirror. The scent had long faded, but a label indicated that it had once been pine. As Sam often put it, “To be in a car with my grandmother was to know everything you needed to know about her.”
“Your mother says not to say. But I do not like him,” Bong Cha said.
“He said I could come visit him in Malibu.”