fandomtownies | Ching Tai, Sunday evening

Priestly tugged at the hem of what he hoped was his least objectionable t-shirt (ice cream doing a cheerleading stunt), and pulled open the door of Ching Tai, ready as he'd ever be to meet his fate.

His mother was waiting for him. She looked up from the table and shook her head slightly at his appearance.Priestly smiled slightly and shrugged, then pulled out the chair across from her.

"So you really are a cheerleader," she said. Well, there were worse ice breakers.

"I really am a cheerleader. It's not that weird, you know. All the best squads have male cheerleaders."

"And all of them have. . . ." She trailed off and waved a hand at his hair. Priestly resisted the urge to run his hand over it.

"No, that just makes me special."

"It makes you something."

Priestly looked down at his menu, not knowing how to respond to that, and they spent the next few minutes in silence.

"You know," he finally said. "I've been taking a cooking class. I coulda just made us something."

Mrs. Priestly shook her head. "I'm your mother, it's my job to buy you things. Especially food."

"Yeah, well, it's also your job to, like, let me live at your house. And we know how that went."

Mrs. Priestly set her menu down with a thump. "I was trying to do what's best for you."

"Right." Priestly figured she wanted him to get brainwashed by preppies. He knew better than to say as much.

"You were having . . . trouble in Santa Cruz."

"And, what, acting out by wearing a kilt and dying my hair?"

Mrs. Priestly narrowed her eyes. "You set fire to the garden."

"That was an accident!"

"And the khakis?"

". . . Okay, so that wasn't an accident. I didn't know geraniums burned that easily."

"It's California, Boaz, everything burns easily."

Priestly winced. "I hate that name, Mom."

"It's a perfectly good name."

"I go by Priestly."

Mrs. Priestly sighed. "I guess I should be glad you're not trying to go by 'snake'." She shook her head. "I'm your mother. I gave you your name. I'm going to use it."

"Fine."

"Fine."

"But I want to stay here."

Mrs. Priestly looked up from her menu again and blinked. "What happened to 'you don't let me live in your house'?"

Priestly looked away. "That was before."

"Before what, you realized we'd accidentally sent you to a -- a refuge for the clinically insane?"

"Naomi really is from space."

Mrs. Priestly assumed he meant that metaphorically. She had an amazing ability to hold to her world view.

"Look, Mom, they -- they accept me here." Which is more than you ever did, he didn't say.

"And you think that's what you need?" Mrs. Priestly shook her head again. "You think this school is going to be able to prepare you for the real world?"

"Better than my old one would have."

"Your old one had social systems in place to remind you that no one respects someone they see as -- as a tattooed freak."

"I get plenty of respect!" Priestly smacked his menu down on the table. "You've got to get your head out of the fifties, Mom! No one cares if I have blue hair and neck tattoos!"

"That's a pipe dream, Boaz, and you know it! Do you think that any employer is going to want to hire you looking like that?"

"Lacey did. And Trucker says I've got a job with him any time I want it."

"Diners and sandwich shops. How are you going to support a family on that?"

"Just because it's not mucho bucks doesn't mean it can't be supportive!"

"You think so? You think in this day and age, in this economy, there's any respect, any dignity in being poor?"

"If you're doing what you want to be doing? Yes! I do! I think there's a lot more dignity and respect than Dad really has where he works. He hates it. He hates it so much he can't even get up the energy when he's home to find out what the private school he's sending his son to is really like. Just like you hate your job, and your friends hate their jobs, and everyone in our neighborhood hates their job."

Mrs. Priestly just stared at him for a long moment. "I don't hate my job."

"Oh, so that's why you'd come home cursing out your boss?"

Mrs. Priestly folded her hands. ". . . I didn't know you could hear that."

"Well, I did. Come on, Mom, didn't you ever want to just . . . do what you wanted to do? That's what Trucker does. He is who he is and he does what he does and no one can tell him differently. So what if he doesn't own a house and his car's a dinosaur? He's happy!"

". . . And are you?"

Priestly swallowed, some of the wind going out of him. "Yeah, Mom. I really am."

Mrs. Priestly studied him carefully. "You were never happy playing football, were you? You pretended to be, but you weren't."

"I liked flag football."

"You were seven."

Priestly shrugged. "I guess it's easier to like stuff when you're seven."

"And when you're seventeen."

"So I can stay?"

Mrs. Priestly sighed. "I can't pretend to like it, Boaz. The hair, the tattoos, the . . . things in your face. . . . You're going to regret these decisions you're making now."

"Yeah, well, they're my decisions to regret."

"I don't want to see you unhappy when you're older."

"You'd rather I was unhappy, now?"

"No! No, of course not. But . . . you're so young Boaz. And I hate to see you throwing away your potential."

"Well, then, you don't have to see it. Not while I'm here."

"That's not the point."

"We're never going to agree on this."

"No. No, I don't suppose we are."

Priestly sighed, dropping his chin, then looked up, determination renewed. "But I can stay?"

Mrs. Priestly sighed. "We've already paid your fall tuition. Seems like a shame to waste it. We'll . . . reassess at Christmas."

That wasn't the best answer he could get, but it was better than he'd been afraid of. "Okay."

"So," Mrs. Priestly said, lifting her menu. "What's good here?"

Priestly laughed slightly. "Damned if I know. I usually make my own food."

Mrs. Priestly smiled. "You really do like cooking, huh?"

Priestly nodded. "I really do."

"Well. I suppose there's plenty of respectable chiefs around."

[ooc: establishy, though Ching Tai is, naturally, open for others coming in for food.]