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that hand—and the hand gripping a battered lobster claw—at the two sides of his mouth, like microphones at a press conference. His chin glistened with lobster juice.
    I had to skip the ceremonious application of the bib. I jumped right into lobster cracking, dunking, chewing. Instead of staring off in a kind of gorged reverie, I had to keep an eye on Max to make sure he didn’t notice my humming or hovering over my plate or shoveling chunks of shellfish down my gullet. Twice I nearly choked. The lobster tough, tasteless. Pale bits of corn splintered between my teeth. By the time he sighed, tossed his balled-up napkin onto his plate, and leaned back in his chair, I’d returned my hands to their position under me, though I could feel a beard of mess on my face.
    Mama had barely touched her dinner, eyeing Max and me with that mixture of horror, rebuke, and bemusement mothers do so well. “Is everyone okay?”
    â€œFine,” I said.
    Max swooned in digestion. “Accch,” he said, as if lifting a piano. “Ecccch.”
    â€œI take it you liked the food,” Mama said.
    Max chuckled. “Oh, God, yes,” and a quiet settled over the table, as Mama, with an exquisite and almost parodic economy of manners, sliced and nibbled her lobster savannah. I sat with that mess on my face. My stomach whistled. Max, meanwhile, ordered a coffee and, when it arrived, sipped it, groaning in continued ode to the fallen meal.
    No one spoke, but things had changed: the weather of the table shifted. A new front coming in. It was Max’s appetite, I think, unguarded and unruly, as if some mad puppy had leapt out of his person to frolic on the table, delighting Mama. People who did not comport with the narrow bounds of the world—these were her favorite, and she smiled for the first time all dinner, uncoiling her hands from her lap. I remember being scared of all things, terrified that she might say yes. That she would give me up.
    â€œWhere were we?” said Max. “Right, the names. The
names
. VIP personalities, all of them, and if you want, I can get more letters to—”
    â€œIt’s not the letters, the letters don’t matter, Max,” she said. “It’s my son. You’re asking to take him away from me.”
    â€œA tall order, I know, but I’ve got a feeling about it. Giovanni, he’s really quite a talent. In fact, I—”
    â€œHe’s been destined for this since he was a boy.” Her voice deepened as if to match the finality of her pronouncement, and a strange, wholly illogical fantasy overtook me: that Mama had been the one to arrange this dinner. That she was trying to pawn me off to this stranger. A fist of gas rose in my throat.
    â€œWell, there you go. Destined!”
    â€œHe used to perform for me every day, you know that?”
    â€œYou didn’t tell me that!” Max knocked my shoulder like a chum. I tried to smile, but my lips weighed too much.
    Mama stared off, through a haze of reminiscence, then raised the martini to her lips. “So, what
are
you proposing exactly?”
    â€œFirst we move to the City. Expenses covered by
moi
truly. I have a room lined up at the Hotel San Pierre, superb quarters. Then I say start at the top. Full Moon Bar, the Green Room. If those don’t work, on to the nightclub circuit. The comedy clubs.”
    â€œBut what’s the act?”
    â€œExcuse me?”
    â€œWho will he do?”
    â€œWhy,” Max said, grinning that same way he had for me. It was like seeing a comedy act for the second time. I burped and tasted lobster. “The audience!”
    â€œHa!” Mama covered her mouth. “The audience!” In her glinting eyes, I understood, ran the roll call of teachers, classmates, shopkeepers and parents, my former tormentors, lining up to be copied by Giovanni the Entertainer. “He used to do the silly faces I made when I was feeding him. When he was