How Is Your Mother?
The next day, at lunch.
As usual, I invited Cassandra in for brunch when she came by to pick up the pottery.
"Come on in, Cassandra. Where's Charlie?"
"Ah—ah…!"
Aigoo, Luca. I readjusted my grip on the squirming baby.
Lately Luca got wildly excited whenever guests came over. Cassandra answered while playing peekaboo with him.
"I left Charlie with the neighbors. You said you had something to talk about today."
"Ah—are you sure that's okay? It isn't anything that big… I even baked cupcakes for Charlie."
"He's grown up with the neighborhood kids like siblings, so it's fine. In our little community we take turns watching each other's children. I'll take the cupcakes home with me."
"All right. Come sit down first."
I guided Cassandra over to the kitchen island.
"It isn't much, but please help yourself."
Cassandra took one look at the pretty plates of mouthwatering brunch laid out on the table and immediately pulled out her smartphone.
"You're kidding me, right? Did you film the whole process of making this?"
"Yes. Sit down and eat already."
"One second. Let me grab some insert shots first."
"I already filmed them, I told you…"
I told Cassandra about Greg. There was no way I could keep my current schedule and still squeeze in practice time and performance hours, so I needed to cut back a little on the pottery.
Thwack!
Cassandra slammed her palm down on the kitchen island.
"How can one person be this planless, this directionless, this completely reckless?!"
"Eeh…"
"No, no—Luca, you keep doing what you were doing."
Luca, who had been army-crawling all over the living-room mat, glanced our way once, then resumed his determined wriggle and snagged his teddy bear.
When I first built the baby fence I had worried it was too big. That worry had been unfounded.
Cassandra smiled at Luca, then lowered her voice and vented her frustration.
She said she completely understood why Rachel had turned down the proposal, and she was furious.
"First of all I can barely even picture Rachel and Greg dating, but… Greg looks like he was born to be a parent, so how on earth does he bounce off every single practical piece of advice and only take the part about 'think about what you actually want to do'?"
"Right?"
"If he wants to make money he should just get a proper part-time job…!"
This time she leveled a glare at me.
"You too, Jun. You have Luca, and you already have work of your own—you should have turned him down gently. Aren't you busy every single day right now? Why go out of your way for someone who never considers your situation?"
"If he were capable of thinking that far, he wouldn't be Greg… Still, he's a good kid."
"Jun, Greg is the same age as you. And when a grown adult has no sense of social cues and no consideration for others, that isn't kindness—it's a public nuisance."
I nodded.
"You're right. If Greg had done this to someone else, I would have said something too. And the reason I went along with it this time is that I'd rather…"
"Rather?"
"I'd rather let him try, fail fast, and then move on to looking for something else."
"…"
Cassandra let out a long sigh.
"You're not being a friend—you're raising a child."
I laughed hollowly.
"I do feel a little like that myself."
"And physically, do you have the time?"
"Yes. I'm pretty decent on the guitar."
We would need to lock in the ensemble before the show, but guitar practice itself wasn't necessary.
I had plucked at the guitar that arrived this morning half in doubt, and though my fingers ached from fretting the strings after so long, the playing itself was flawless.
"Is there anything you can't do? But who's going to watch the baby?"
"On the day of the performance I'm planning to leave him with the neighbors downstairs. There are two young grandmothers, Lily and Rose, and it turns out their grandchildren who visit every weekend are around Luca's age."
It was an offer they had made back when I delivered a cake and received two hundred forty dollars for it. If the young dad ever needs someone to watch the baby when he has somewhere to go, just say the word.
This time I would bake a tart as babysitting payment.
"I still don't get it, Jun."
Cassandra swallowed a bite of croissant sandwich and spoke.
"Do you really have to go this far to help him? Just tell him to figure it out himself. He needs a taste of how bitter reality is before he'll come to his senses."
"That's true. But…"
Plenty of people besides me could scold Greg for being smart enough and still incapable of living realistically.
…I had tried it myself, for that matter, and it hadn't worked.
Anyway. People get worn down by the years eventually. So many lose their dreams as they age and end up living for others under the name of a "realistic" life rather than for themselves.
Even this thoughtless, irresponsible adult-child would get there someday. He would only understand once he lived it himself.
And more than any of that…
"Cassandra. When something happens, I don't have any family who will come running for me."
I was alone. Family? Forget that—I had rarely gone out of my way to approach anyone, so I barely had people I could even call friends.
And amid all that, Greg was one of the very few people who would drop everything and come running for me.
On the day I first brought Luca home, he had come with me from the orphanage, stopped by Maria's place, hit the supermarket, and followed me all the way back—never once getting irritated when the baby cried along the way, just quietly going wherever I asked and helping however he could.
At first he had asked, like everyone else, why I was suddenly taking on a child who wasn't even mine. After that, though, he had doted on Luca the same way I did.
On the day we moved here, too—without his help it would have been twice as hard.
Of course, from a family's point of view, a Greg who couldn't even manage his own life yet rolled up his sleeves for a friend every time something happened would be endlessly frustrating…
Just once, I wanted to help him. Just once, I wanted to believe in him. When everyone else was talking about his mistakes, about reality, about responsibility and common sense—just this once.
"Of course, if he tries it, fails, and still refuses to come to his senses and digs in his heels—then I have no intention of helping him any further."
Because at that point, not helping would be the real help.
Cassandra looked like she had a lot more to say, but she chewed it over a few times inside and seemed to swallow it down.
Then she folded her arms, thought for a moment, and her eyes lit up.
"Then should we film the performance with Greg and upload it to YouTube too?"
"What? But the channel is called Jun's Atelier. Wouldn't it be a little weird to put up a concert video?"
"About that—I've actually been thinking it through for a while."
"You seem a little uncomfortable with the word 'atelier' yourself, and Luca is going to appear in the household-goods-making video I'm editing right now, right?"
"Yes, that's right."
It would only be side profiles and back views—chubby cheeks and a plump little bottom—but Luca would be in it either way.
"So I'm thinking of changing the channel name from June's Atelier to June's Life."
And she wanted to break the playlists down into finer categories.
"But if the pottery videos decrease, pottery sales might drop too…"
"It's not like you can stamp out pottery like a factory anyway. Selling smaller quantities with a premium markup is much better. Besides, the pottery you've made so far has already completely filled my garage."
"No way."
When I refused to believe her, Cassandra showed me a photo of the garage.
"…Oh. I didn't realize there was quite that much."
"You've been making pieces almost every day for four weeks since that day. And your hands are so fast… even editing it, I still can't believe it."
"Yeah, well…"
I was just thinking that maybe my schedule would ease up a little when Cassandra grinned and flipped her phone around to show me another screen.
"And my income isn't based only on pottery sales—it's based on the growth of this channel itself. You know we hit our watch-time and subscriber goals, right?"
Looking at the revenue settlement screen, it took me two seconds to process what Cassandra had just said. My eyes went wide.
"Wait—for real?"
"We hit it last night. Of course I did pad the watch time by streaming hard myself, but… the growth is genuinely not bad, you know?"
"…It really isn't."
I smiled at the small but precious estimated payout.
"So this… actual money is coming in."
"What, did you think it was coming in as counterfeit?"
"No, not that, but…"
I just never thought something like this would actually happen to me.
"Same here. Last night I was so afraid of waking Charlie that I went outside in my pajamas and did three laps of the yard before coming back in."
We laughed. Then we each lifted our coffee cups and tapped them together lightly.
And even though it had only been four weeks, we retraced the little things that had happened in that time and toasted our small victories.
"Eeh… Ah! Ah!"
I picked up Luca, who was calling for me as if demanding to be included, and brought him back to the table.
"Yeah, Luca. Daddy made money. It's still not even enough for our Luca's formula, though."
"The important thing is that I started my own work this early. Whatever time you invest becomes yours! …Of course, in my case the return on investment was zero and I went under, but still."
"What are you talking about? Isn't this only possible now because of that experience?"
"Thanks for saying that. Anyway, I'm genuinely working so that in two months I can throw in my resignation instead of going back. Once the YouTube channel settles in, you're going to quit the company too, right?"
"Hmm… I haven't thought about it in any concrete way yet."
Of course I wanted to quit. I wanted more time with Luca, too.
"Sure, you can't ignore the stability side of things. But if I were as multi-talented as you, I would have quit ages ago."
If this Golden Hand had been my own talent, I would have done the same. But this gift wouldn't last forever.
I asked the question I had always turned over in private.
"If I stopped making things, the channel would die, right?"
I had started it thinking I could help Cassandra right away, but now that there were signs it might do a little better than expected, I couldn't help feeling a twinge of regret.
Cassandra, however, gave me an unexpected answer.
"No. Even if you keep making things forever, eventually the content loses its freshness. People lose interest."
To expand and maintain a channel, she said, you needed plans for a variety of content.
"As you know, it's good to upload videos consistently and often. But then the material runs dry almost immediately. That's the shared headache of everyone who makes videos around a single theme."
To hold onto people's ever-shifting attention, you had to constantly find something new.
I hadn't thought that far, so I asked in a rather foolish voice,
"Uh… so what do we do?"
"I'll keep it simple. You become a star."
"What?"
"Once you're a star, even a video of you watching Luca and then going to the bathroom will get views."
"That is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard."
"I figured you wouldn't get it. Jun—once people like you instead of the things you make, a video of you dressed beautifully and drinking coffee with elegance will get way more views than a hundred videos of you sitting there crafting something!"
"There's no way that's true…"
"I think a geek-chic image would work well… You're the diligent but slightly cynical handsome guy. The chic handsome guy who goes, 'Wait, you can't even do this?' and then does everything perfectly!"
Why was there not a single normal person around me?
"But then you show your warm side only to your child and deliver that reverse-charm twist!"
"Calm down, Cassandra."
"There are plenty of YouTubers who make more money from external brand deals than from ad revenue based on views. Once you reinvent yourself as a living influencer, I'll land every sponsorship under the sun for you."
"No…"
"And from there—publishing, lectures, business, TV appearances!"
"Cassandra. Please. There's no guarantee any of that would happen, and I genuinely don't want it. I'm an introvert."
But Cassandra didn't so much as let my words brush her ear.
"Fine. Anyway, separate from how annoying Greg is, this looks like a not-bad opportunity for our channel. I should go shoot that day. I wonder how many people will be in the audience… Ah, speaking of audience, that reminds me."
Cassandra suddenly lifted her head.
"Does Greg's mother know about this?"
"His mother?"
"Yes. I happened to meet her once a while back… Do you know her?"
"No. He doesn't talk much about his family… Ah, I think he mentioned she lives a seven-hour bus ride away."
Cassandra smiled meaningfully.
"Jun. Call Greg right now and ask him—how is your mother doing?"