Southern Fried Sushi (4 page)

“What took you so long, Jacobs?” snarled Dave as I handed him the hard copy. “You’ve worked here almost two years. You should know better!” His craggy face looked perpetually angry, as if he couldn’t wait to take out his frustrations on the desk or coffeepot.

I knew how to handle Dave. Cringe. Wait. Look properly ashamed, but don’t grovel.

“LATE!” he shouted in sixty-point font, waving me to shut up with his arm. “What kind of flunkies am I hiring to turn in stories late?”

“I’m sorry.” I ducked as his words rattled the glass office window. “I won’t let it happen again.”

“You’re right you won’t! The next time you’re sloppy I’ll throw you into one of those daft hot-noodle shops to wait tables!” He banged his fist on the table, overturning a coffee cup, and roared some swear words about rookies.

“I understand.” Shiloh P. Jacobs, wiping soy sauce bottles. I forced back a smile.

“No, you don’t understand! You don’t understand that every single hour, every single minute we’re late on news, we’re losing dollars! Maybe our shirts!”

He ranted awhile, face the color of a dark red
umeboshi
(pickled plum), and I tried to identify his hair color. Gray-brown? Slight comb-over? I need to add that to my notebook.

But I tuned in when I saw him winding down. “Am I clear, Jacobs? If not, go sell records or something. I hire reporters!”

He was testing me. “Yes, sir. No thanks. I’m aware of that.” Three statements, three answers.

He slapped the paper down on his desk. “Did you get Schwartz to edit this? Because I’m not wasting any more time doing it myself!”

“Yes, sir. It’s ready to go.” I hadn’t, but it was perfect.

Dave narrowed his eyes at me and banged his index finger into my story. “And if you referred to her as the First Lady I’ll fire you on the spot because that’s for presidents’ wives, not wives of prime ministers! The classic rookie blunder.”

“No, sir. I knew that.”

He waved me out of the room with a furious hand, and I closed the door cautiously behind me. And walked straight back to my desk with my head up. No way I’d go out crying like Nora.

I straightened my desk and pretended to work on the Diet story, but I could hardly stop my fingers from shaking. So, after a carefully timed ten minutes, I gathered up my purse and headed to the restroom.

Kyoko swung through the door on her way out, wiping her hands on a paper towel. “You okay?” Her eyes popped. “I saw you got called into Dave’s. Did you have the story?”

“Of course,” I fudged. “He just told me to make my deadlines.”

“That’s all? I thought I heard him yelling.”

“Not at me. That vending company he hates called.”

“Oh, that one. Whew! Good for you.” She blew out her breath. “I’ve heard he can be pretty tough.”

“Yeah. I was lucky.”

I pretended to casually check my makeup in the mirror until Kyoko left and then fled for one of the stalls.

Do not cry! Do not cry!
I told myself severely, holding a wad of tissues to my eyes. It would smear my makeup, and I’d have red eyes for an hour. Besides, I don’t cry. I just don’t. Shiloh P. Jacobs does not cry.

I leaned my head against the cold metal door and breathed deeply, feeling light-headed. I’d done the deed. And if I could slip through, just this once, I’d never do it again. I’d never steal somebody else’s words. And I’d never include quotes that I myself didn’t elicit.

At least I hadn’t invented the quotes. The prime minister’s wife did say them—she just didn’t say them to me. So what’s the big deal? It’s not like I lied. Exactly. I merely lifted information someone else had posted. On the Internet, of course, where millions of people browse every second, and who put what first just sort of blurs. Public domain and all, right?

First and last time. I promise. I’ll never do something so stupid again as long as I live.

I pressed my fingers to my forehead, feeling a headache coming on. If I stayed too long, Kyoko would think I was crying, so I flushed the toilet and took another breath.

Japanese toilets are amazing. First of all, they have padded, heated seats to warm legs and posteriors. Plus a bidet functionthat sprays water, at the touch of a button, and a whole panel of other buttons to adjust temperature, flush, and—my personal favorite—make a flushing sound. That way if people are shy about the sound of nature’s call, they can cover it with a flushing sound and not waste water. Some toilets even play music.

I had just come out of the bathroom and into the office when Dave powered past me on his way to something important. I felt ice in my stomach.

“Good story,” he growled. And stomped off.

I went back to my seat on rubber legs. He didn’t notice. He had read my story, and he hadn’t noticed. Maybe I was in the clear after all.

I picked up my notes on the Diet and hastily got to work.

I
stayed late at the office until Kyoko finally got tired of waiting around. “So, Ro-chan, Akiba this weekend?” She shouldered her huge purse, which could probably carry a folding chair.

“Sure.”

“It’s almost seven thirty. On a Friday. What’s so all-fired important?”

I sighed and shuffled my papers. To tell the truth, I had nothing all-fired important. Guilt just weighed heavily, as if I ought to make up for what I’d done.

I looked up sheepishly. “Going out tonight?”

“Nah. I’m a little bushed from researching Japanese legal stuff all day. Dave’s been breathing down all our necks lately.”

I pretended not to hear. “Takeshi out of town?”

“Takeshi’s over. Too
otaku
for me. Just weird.” She tapped a message into her cell phone without looking up. A little plastic dog thing dangled from her cell phone, bouncing back and forth.

“I thought you like geeky otaku guys. With their big glasses and plaid shirts and reading comics all day.”

“Otaku is one thing. A guy who takes you to a
pachinko
parlor on your first date epitomizes weird.”

“He took you to one of those annoying gambling places?”

I’d seen them before, with their flashing lights, weird sounds, and rows of people seated in front of what looked like pinball machines. I never understood the attraction.

“He won a green pepper.”

I smiled. Pachinko prizes sometimes ranked lower than white-elephant gifts.

“Besides, he’s thirty-four and still lives with his mom. Gives me the creeps.” She shuddered. “Dinner … I don’t know. Maybe an
onigiri
at 7-Eleven or something.” Kyoko snapped her cell phone closed and waited. She knew food held a persuasive power over me that little else could rival. Except maybe Carlos.

Onigiri. I could almost taste the crisp green nori seaweed wrapper, slightly salty, wrapped around a triangle of fresh white rice. I loved the dab of tuna or shrimp and mayo in the middle, or sometimes salmon. I even liked the salty pickled plum, too, but Kyoko called me crazy.

And never before had modern Japanese technology and creativity shined as much as they did with onigiri wrappers.

“You know, I’d lived here six months before I realized the numbered tabs on onigiri wrappers were for you to open them in order?” I saved my half-finished story and started to shut down my computer.

“So what did you do, just rip them open?”

“Yeah. Didn’t you?”

She gave me a look. “No. That’s why there’s a number one. You open that tab first. And then the second and the third. Did you think they printed the numbers there for looks?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I figured it was something like stroke order—you know, the Japanese way of writing kanji characters up to down, left to right. Any other variation and you’ve done it wrong.”

“Well, there’s a purpose in the wrapper, genius. It’s to keep the seaweed crisp and separated so it doesn’t get soggy against the rice. When you pull the tabs, it slips right into place. Brilliant.

Unlike us Yanks, who just slap plastic wrap and Styrofoam on everything.”

“Now I know. But I still haven’t figured out the purpose in stroke order. I mean, who cares how I do it if it looks the same?”

“It doesn’t look the same. We foreigners just can’t see it.”

“Most things in Japan are like that, aren’t they?” I turned off my screen and stood up.

“So, changing your mind about pulling an all-nighter?”

“Yeah.”

“Onigiri?”

“Nah. Something more substantial. As long as you don’t say a word about Carlos.” I hadn’t eaten much with Mia’s frosty eyes twinkling across the red-and-white-checked table.

“
Tonkatsu
?”

Fried pork? I brightened. “Now that’s more like it. There’s that Momiji place on the way home.”

“Momiji it is.”

We walked out into the deepening blue twilight, and a strange sense of peace fell over me as we crossed the street without speaking. Evening in Japan descended warm and quiet, and the streets lost their boisterous clamor. As far as I could see glimmered lights, lights, and more lights: full-screen TVs flashing advertisements, neon signs, and futuristic glass buildings like they’d popped out of a Jetsons cartoon.

I loved the city, and I loved Tokyo. Surrounded by waves upon waves of buildings like galaxies of stars made me feel at home, at rest, and comforted, like long-lost friends. Inside those offices and rooms and subway cars were people just like me, all searching for their tomorrow, their greatness, and their way home.

And I had found it.

I turned in a full circle, taking in the dizzying immenseness of it all. Skyscrapers lifted their arms up into the perfect indigo dome as if reaching for heaven.

We all did, in a way. Trying to improve, perfect, and attain the next great thing … and for what?

Yet for the moment, I was content just to be a little dot on Shiodome’s sidewalk, dwarfed by a colossus of concrete and stone, by the sprawling harbor and mazes of endless streets and neighborhoods. We moved through Tokyo’s sidewalks like blood in its giant arteries, pumping, pumping through its great heart.

“Do you miss California?” I asked abruptly. A guy sped by on a bike, smooth spokes purring into the distance.

Kyoko stuffed her hands in her pockets. “Yeah.”

“Really? Why?”

She pushed the button at the crossing. “Well, California’s my home. I miss my mom and dad, my brothers, and … well, you know, the idea of home.”

I tried to understand, but a Japanese paper lantern caught the corner of my eye, pricking me with an almost painful longing. “How so?”

The crosswalk opened with a birdlike chirp, and we walked across the black-and-white-striped crossing with the crowd. Not a single straw paper littered the astonishingly clean streets, unlike New York, and we felt perfectly safe to walk alone at night. Darkness and streetlights made everyone look ghostlike.

“Well, I grew up there. My roots are there. Japan’s great, but it’s very homogenous outside Tokyo and the big cities. If you’re different, it’s not such a good thing.”

“But you’re Japanese!”

“No. I’m American.” Kyoko spoke in a tone I’d only heard when she was mad, and I kept my mouth shut. “But people expect me to act Japanese because I look Japanese. They expect me to read and write perfectly, speak with all the honorifics, and dress myself in a kimono.”

“Are you kidding? I needed two people to help me get into mine!”

“Ro.” Kyoko rolled her eyes. “Try getting stuck in thebathroom—on the toilet! With that stupid obi thing wrapped around my …”

“I get it! You can stop now.”

She glanced at me bitterly. “But people don’t expect you to be Japanese—not with your pretty foreign face. You so much as spit out a sentence, and people fall all over you like you’ve won the Nobel Prize.”

Um … that was actually true. Never once, in all my time in Tokyo, had anyone said a negative word about me. (Except Dave, but I heard he criticized a squid at Tsukiji Fish Market until the white-booted fisherman threw something at him.)

Kyoko didn’t look at me. “My grandmother lives in Aomori, up in the north. I visited her one time.”

“I remember that.”

“And probably the last time, too.”

“Why?”

“She hated my makeup, my piercings, my hair, my clothes, everything. She called my parents and scolded them for raising an American vagabond who can’t even speak Japanese. Said I was too big for a proper Japanese girl.”

I sucked in my breath. “I’m sorry, Kyoko. I had no idea.”

She shrugged in annoyance. “Ah. Who cares? She grew up in a different era, a different world, and she can’t expect me to fit in it. I couldn’t do the Buddhist chants right, the claps and candle-lighting and stuff, I spilled tea, and my knees hurt to sit on the hard floor. It’s just not me. I’m San Fran. Trolley cars. Freedom. No stroke order. Know what I mean?”

Funny, but I did. At the same time, Tokyo flowed in my blood, and I had somehow become its child. As much as I loved dirty, messy, brawling New York, smelling of garlic and garbage and the harbor, I couldn’t forsake Japan. It had adopted me.

Down that street stretched a quiet little park just after Mitsukoshi, the ritzy and crowded department store where I bought
senbei
rice crackers and imported spices.

On the next street I could find Kitamura with fantastic
gyoza
dumplings and curry, the post office with its friendly, uniformed staff, my favorite karaoke place, and Inoue’s grocery/convenience store where I bought those onigiri rice triangles, cold jasmine tea, and bunches of fresh green onions. Ancient Mrs. Inoue always smiled her wrinkled grin and gave me handfuls of ginger candy.

And down that street, my all-time favorite: Beard Papa’s, the cream-puff shop with yummy custard filling. They’d even expanded to New York, making my two favorite cities now sisters. All thanks to Beard Papa’s cream puffs.

“I could stay here forever.”

A shiny bus swooshed by in a rush, blowing our hair slightly in the evening breeze. The exhilaration of speed and distance made me tingle all over, like a whiff of Carlos’s sultry cologne. The bus was headed somewhere, on a mission, and I wanted to go with it.

“I love Japan. I never want to leave.”