If You Follow Me (27 page)

He is willing to play. He places his hands on my shoulders, closes his eyes and parts his lips. I don't know why I kiss him back. Curiosity maybe, or so that Carolyn doesn't one-up me, or the urge that you feel, when holding something fragile, to squeeze. His lips are thinner than hers, edged with stubble, and his tongue feels cold and thick and gummy. At first I can't stop feeling the separate components of the kiss, and then I get caught up in it. My breath snags and I want to push him down in the sand, climb on top of him and stub him out. But then another wave hits us, a big one, and as it sucks back into the ocean, we are toppled and dragged under by its force.

Carolyn dives under and starts swimming and I follow. Joe falls backward, kicking his long legs behind him. The farther out we get from the shore, the smoother the surface of the water, so the stars reflect in its mirror and it's almost like being in outer space. But it's the ocean, and the thing about the ocean is that it's never still, not for one second. It's like a human body that way, moving, cycling, churning, changing. I think about how every movement we make we initiate by sending messages through our brains, but this happens so fast that we don't even realize that what we think are involuntary actions are actually millions upon millions of choices. I choose to dive under and open my eyes, to feel the sting of the salt, to see the blackness stretching below. I choose to let antigravity or whatever force it is push me back to the surface, where I find Carolyn treading water, kissing Joe again. Then she stops and kisses me once more, and I swear I can taste him on her mouth. The ocean is still moving,
of course, doing its own pulling and pushing, a fourth to round out our number. It pushes us into the sand and we stumble out in our waterlogged clothes, heavier and clumsier than before, like astronauts returning to earth. Carolyn stands behind Joe, wraps her arms around his waist and sucks on his earlobe. When she starts to slide her hand down the front of his pants, he groans and turns to face her. Watching them kiss again, the relief goes away. But I am not angry anymore either. I'm not even jealous, not really. It's over. We can stop trying. I am free. I turn around and walk away.

They don't even notice I'm gone.

omoshiroi:
(
ADJ
.)
interesting; funny

I
n books, when a mystery is solved, it's like a bow slipping off a present to reveal the gift inside: case cracked, case closed. But in life, when one piece of the puzzle fits, it often seems as if that piece had simply been lifted from somewhere else on the board, creating a new gap. I have no idea who would have stuff ed the technical boys' high school uniforms into boxes in our storage area, where I was sure to find them. The first one I find is in the electric sukiyaki pot. There are yellow stains on the underarms of the shirt, and the balled up jacket and pants smell of mold. As I keep opening other boxes, I find more and more of these uniforms hidden in plain sight, a clue to a mystery I hadn't even realized existed.

I had just returned home from school when someone knocked on the door. I assumed it would be Carolyn, coming to collect the stuff she left behind. The last time I saw her was at the beach a week ago. She stayed out all night, and the next day, while I was at work, she packed up her suitcases and moved down to Hakui. When I came home that day, I thought we'd been robbed when I saw that half of the shoes were missing from the
genkan
. But since very few women
here could fit into either of our big shoes, that didn't make sense. Then I saw the note on the refrigerator.

I had my speech ready. I was going to say that family doesn't leave without saying good-bye. But when I opened the door, Carolyn wasn't standing on the other side. Instead, I found myself drowning in a pair of gray eyes.

Keiko was holding Koji in her arms. He was straddling her hip and she was holding him tight, the way she did after he jumped out of the window. Fumiya stood beside her, muttering something, his head jerking around like a bird.

“Say ‘hello' to Marina,” Keiko prompted Fumiya. The older boy didn't respond, but Koji said, “Hello,” and then grinned at me.

“You have a new tooth,” I said, pointing to his mouth, my hand shaking.

“Big tooth,” Keiko added, kissing his cheek.

“Big tooth,” Fumiya repeated. “Big, big, big tooth.”

“I look like the rabbit,” Koji said in Japanese.

“How is that rabbit?” I asked, my stomach lurching. The rabbit spent a night recovering from dental surgery in our bathtub before I brought it back to the elementary school, sneaking it into the hutch at dawn. It was bedraggled and wobbly, its fate far from secure, but I wanted it to be there when the kids arrived.

“Futotta
,” Koji declared happily. It got fat.

“The children love this rabbit,” Keiko said. “So thank you.”

“Thank your brother-in-law,” I said. “He saved its life.”

“It's okay,” she said. “He needs new patients.” It took me a moment to realize that she'd cracked a joke. When I laughed, she grinned and I felt my eyes well up. Keiko looked alarmed. I lied and said that I'd been chopping onions before they arrived, but it was obviously just a story. “Maybe now is not a good time,” she said, explaining that she'd come to practice for the English speech contest.

“It's a fine time,” I said, stepping aside. I asked if they'd like to join me for dinner, explaining that I had all of the ingredients for sukiyaki and no idea how to cook it. Keiko said that they didn't want to bother me. “I know you are so busy,” she said, and I assured her that I wasn't busy at all. Finally she nodded and set Koji down. As I led them down the hall, he slid his hand into mine.

The gloves were off.

It was then that I ducked into the storage area to search for the electric sukiyaki pot, and discovered the boys' school uniforms, stuff ed into every nook and cranny that could hold and hide them. Someone must have broken in when we weren't here and left the uniforms behind as a message or a warning. But of what, I don't know. It's creepy, but nothing I can deal with at the moment.

In the kitchen, Keiko has turned on the rice cooker and is chopping vegetables. When I tell her to stop and relax she says, “You don't trust my cooking?”

“You're my guest,” I say. “I can chop while you practice your speech.”

“Oh no,” she says. “I will not compete in English speech contest.”

“You're not?” I ask, confused. “I thought that was why you came over.”

“No,” she says, looking at me head-on. “Fumiya will compete.”

My stomach lurches again. From across the counter separating the kitchen and the living room I can see him bouncing on the couch. He is dressed in running shorts, his legs shockingly white. As the backs of his thighs smack the vinyl, he smacks his lips in an echo.

“Fumiya-kun,” Keiko says, “
Jyabauokki taimu
!”

Fumiya shoves his hands under his butt, sucks in a deep breath, and then rambles through a long phrase of gibberish: “Twasbrillig andtheslithytoves didgyreand gimbleinthewabe allmimsymimsymimsy…” Keiko claps her hands and he stops abruptly. She and Koji both look at me with twin expressions of pride.

“That was…” I begin.

“It's
Jyabauokki
,” Koji says. “Don't you know? From
Arisu
?”

Of course. From
Alice in Wonderland
. “The Jabberwocky.” I vaguely remember having read this poem as a kid and seeing it inexplicably printed on a brochure at Shika's museum of nuclear power. Keiko explains that this is how Fumiya learned it. After she took the two boys to the museum, she brought home the English brochure and read it to them for fun. Fumiya insisted on hearing it every night before bed, and soon he had learned the whole poem by heart, without trying.

“Mimsymimsymimsymimsy,” Fumiya says again, grinning at me.

Keiko brings the electric sukiyaki pot into the living room and sets it on the coffee table. The cutting board is arranged with slices of meat, squares of tofu, sugar snap peas and mushrooms. Using chopsticks, she dips a piece of raw meat into the hot broth, swirls it around for a minute until it turns from deep red to light pink, and then passes it to me.

“It's delicious,” I say, and it is, sweet and rich and soft, almost creamy.

“More delicious than the steak I cook for you at my house?”

“Your steak wasn't bad,” I lie. “I just had a toothache.”

“It's very bad,” she says. “At that time I'm so stress. I'm sorry.”

“Do you feel less stressed now?”

“Not one hundred percent,” she says, “but better.” She dips another slice of meat into the pot and then holds it up to Koji, who opens his mouth like a baby bird. Fumiya opens his own mouth and chews in time with his brother. He's sitting with his feet up on the couch and his knees spread, hands cupping his groin. I'm afraid he's going to start masturbating again, but Keiko asks in Japanese if he's hungry and he considers the question, or at least the morsel caught between her chopsticks. She places it on a bowl of rice and waits for him to plant his feet on the ground before sliding the bowl to him.

“Fumiya is artistic,” Keiko says. Then I realize that she actually said, “Fumiya is autistic.” I am not sure if I should act surprised, or what I should say, so I just keep quiet and listen. “Before, we don't want to admit it. His teacher makes suggestions for treatment, but we resist, hoping he will improve. This does not happen. In fact he gets worse. So now we try new strategy. Goal is to reward appropriate behavior. For example, Fumiya has echo tendency. To repeat is so stimulating. We can't make him stop this, so we must find appropriate context and reward. Maybe speech contest is appropriate context for repeating. And he loves a clap sound. If he recites this poem during Shika's festival, maybe people will clap…” She trails off, dipping a mushroom into the broth, and then chewing slowly. “But probably California's mayor expects to hear perfect speech by fluid English speaker, not recitation by autistic child.”

“No one else is participating,” I say. “If Fumiya enjoys reciting this poem and you think it would be good for him, then I think he should do it. As long as you think he's up for it, getting onstage with all those people watching him.”

“All of those people,” she echoes. “Am I up for it? For so long I am
hazukashii
…”

“Ashamed,” I translate, knowing she doesn't mean shy or foolish.

“But lately I just…don't care so much. He is my son. Maybe I can't make him perfect son like everyone else. But I can try to help him,
ne
? Little by little.”

And so for the next hour I coach Fumiya. At first sounds cartwheel out of his mouth, but I can get him to break up the lines by clapping whenever he should stop, and before long he is slowing down, separating every phrase, pausing between words. As he anticipates my applause, he actually looks at me, picks up on my cues, mostly manages to follow them. It's dark and Koji has fallen asleep on the couch, his head on his mother's lap, when she glances at her watch.

“I'm sorry it's so late,” she says, stroking Koji's hair. “Isn't your friend coming home?”

“My girlfriend,” I say. “No. She moved out.”

“Good friend?”

“Girlfriend,” I repeat. “You know…my
ra-ba
?” I've always hated this word. It sounds so cheesy, so show-off y. But Keiko looks confused or uncertain and I want to finish what I started so I say, “s
hi-ko-re-tto ra-ba
?” Secret lover. And suddenly I get why there are so many
eikaiwa
or English conversation enthusiasts among people who have no plans to go abroad. I get why the members of SMILE come so regularly even when they never intended to make a speech at the festival. When you want to say something difficult, when you want to get something off your chest, it's so much easier to do it in another language. It's like a costume for your words.

“Oh,” Keiko says. “
Omoshiroi.
”

“Funny?”

“Interesting,” she says. “It must be nice. No
gokiburi
husband to expect dinner on a tray while he watches baseball…always someone to talk to you.”

“Well,” I say, “my relationship with Carolyn had its own problems.”

“Had?”

“We broke up,” I say. “Hey, I thought you didn't know the past tense. You always use the present.”

“Really?” she says. “Eh. I do not realize this. I guess it's because of Fumiya.”

“What do you mean?”

“Fumi only uses present. For him, there is no difference between yesterday, today, and tomorrow.”

He really lives in the moment, I think, remembering Einstein's definition of insanity as doing the same thing over and over but expecting new results. Only Fumiya probably doesn't have these expectations. He probably finds the predictability comforting.

“What kind of problems did you have with your
ra-ba
?” Keiko asks me.

“I think we were too similar,” I say. “Not our personalities, but our circumstances, at least here. There wasn't enough difference to keep things interesting, and it made us competitive. Also, it was difficult to have to hide all the time. We were pretending so hard not to be lovers that after a while we really weren't lovers anymore.” I think about this, how we started by living a lie, and soon the lie turned into the truth.

“I understand,” she says. “I have…I had…
shi-ko-re-tto ra-ba,
too. We also shared similar circumstances, and we also had to hide.” She looks down at Koji as she says this. His lashes look long and luxurious against his pale cheeks. His eyes flutter beneath his lids. I wonder what he's dreaming about.

“Kobayashi-sensei?” I guess.

“You know?” she says. “I try to be so careful! I try to hide my feelings so well!” She sounds shocked, but not upset. Actually, she seems
glad. Secrets are lonely. The fun part of hide-and-seek—the whole point of the game—is getting found.

“Is it over?” I ask.

“Mmm,” she says. “My life is difficult enough,
ne
?” I wonder who decided this, who called it off. She sighs and says that they should probably leave, that her husband is going to expect dinner when he gets home from work and Koji needs to go to bed. At the door, she thanks me for helping Fumiya and then gives me a quick, fierce hug.

“Good-bye,” I call out as they get into their car.

“Good-bye,” Fumiya repeats and Koji grins, flashing his big new teeth.

 

I'm washing the sukiyaki dishes when I hear another knock at the door. This time I open it to find Miyoshi-sensei, his arms filled with blooming cherry branches. Tucked between the stems is an envelope. “Happy birthday Mari-chan,” he says, handing me the knobby bouquet. “I know it's late. I have an important thing to tell you. I'm sorry to disturb you and Carolyn.”

“That's okay,” I say. “She moved out.”

“Really?” he says. “Where?”

“She's living in Hakui,” I say. “She wanted to be closer to her school.”

“Ah,” he says. “I see.”

He follows me down the hall and accepts my offer of tea. I can feel him mustering the nerve to say something and I force myself to keep quiet for once instead of filling in the blank space with my nervous chatter.

“You have big hands,” he says at last.

“Thanks a lot,” I say, wanting to sit on them.

“I meant it as compliment,” he says. “Your hands look strong. Like you. Mari-chan, I must ask a favor.” He is still looking at my big hands. “I know it's a burden, but could you teach our classes alone tomorrow?”