That Old Cape Magic

single-malt scotch?” he asked when Griffin slid onto the bar stool next to him.
    Even in the dim light, he could see the young man’s eyes were full. “I do,” he admitted, although hard liquor was probably the last thing he needed right then.
    Sunny ordered him a very expensive one. “I love fine scotch,” he said, “but I can’t drink it without remembering my father.” Was this, Griffin wondered, to explain his liquid eyes? “What would he have thought about such extravagance? He didn’t believe in excess.”
    “Are you sure?” Griffin said. “Not being able to afford something isn’t the same as disapproving of it.”
    “True,” Sunny admitted. “It’s also true that I never really knew him.”
    “He’d have been proud of you,” Griffin assured him, because he hadn’t meant to suggest any such thing. “Hell, we’re not even related and I’m proud of you.”
    Which clearly pleased the young man, though his smile vanished as quickly as it appeared, replaced by confusion. “Laura’s uncles? Jason and … Jared?”
    Griffin chuckled. Back in the tent he’d noticed the twins had taken a shine to Sunny, introducing him to all the pretty girls, most of whom they hadn’t been introduced to themselves.
    “They mock their father,” he said.
    Sunny hadn’t been at the rehearsal, of course, but Griffin suspected that even if he’d witnessed the collapse of the wheelchair ramp and the ensuing Ordeal of the Hedge, none of that would’ve been as profoundly inexplicable and unsettling to him as their treatment of Harve. “It’s hard for them to express love,” he explained. “Being men. And idiots.”
    Sunny nodded seriously.
    “Otherwise they aren’t bad fellows,” Griffin said. “They’d be good to have on your side in a fight. Of course”—he pointed to his eye—“if you’re with them there’s a much better chance there’ll
be
a fight.”
    “I made the mistake of telling them I don’t have to be back in Washington until Monday. They want me to go with them to Bar Harbor tomorrow. Do you think I shouldn’t?”
    “No, I wouldn’t say that. Just remember they act first, think later, and then neither clearly nor deeply. Have you ever thought of getting a tattoo, Sunny?”
    “I’m sorry?”
    “I ask because if you go drinking with them, you could wake up with one.” And it would say
Laura
.
    Sunny must have been thinking along these same lines, because after a moment, he said, “I’m getting married myself later this year.”
    “No kidding? Congratulations.” They clumsily clinked glasses. “You want to tell me about her?”
    “Yes.” But then, for a long moment, he didn’t. “She’s Korean,” he finally said. “From a fine family. She’s been very patient waiting for me to ask for her hand.”
    “Will the wedding be here?”
    “No, in Seoul. I’ve invited Laura and … Andrew, but of course I’ll understand if they can’t come. It’s a long trip and very expensive. I’m hoping we’ll get together later. Andrew’s never been to Washington.”
    “You’ll live in the U.S., then?”
    “Yes, of course. My mother’s here, my brothers, and my work’s important, too.”
    “Yes, it is.”
    He seemed pleased to be given this vote of confidence, but troubled, too. “Why does a rich country like ours blame people who have nothing for its problems?”
    “Good question. It’s a problem that predates Lou Dobbs, and it’s probably not just us in the States.”
    “No, but we’re not responsible for other countries.”
    “Are we responsible for this one, as individuals? Isn’t that a lot to ask?”
    “Yes. But I do believe we are responsible.”
    Griffin nodded, surprised to discover that despite raising thequestion he agreed with Sunny’s response. Also that he’d finished his scotch.
    “She’s very happy,” Sunny said, as if this leap from political and philosophical discussion to deeply personal were perfectly natural.
    Love
, Griffin thought, smiling. Only love made such a leap possible. Only love related one thing to all other things, putting all your eggs into a single basket—that dumbest yet most courageous and thrilling of economic and emotional strategies. “I think she is,” he said, almost apologetically. His daughter was happy and deserved to be. Yet, sitting here in the dark, quiet bar with Sunny Kim, Griffin couldn’t help wondering if the worm might already be in the apple. A decade from now, or a decade after that, would