Southern Fried Sushi (8 page)

Carlos gestured to the sofa and turned on the lamp, bathing us all in light.

“What’s wrong, babe? You okay? You look upset.” He reached out muscular arms, and I just stood there.

“She tried to call you all evening,” said Kyoko, sharper and louder than necessary. “Is there some reason you didn’t answer?”

Carlos’s jaw dropped. “You called me?”

“Your house phone, too. Care to explain?” She glared at Carlos and then at Mia, whose cheeks turned pale.

Um, maybe we should try a different tactic. I sat nervously on the edge of his armchair.

Mia blushed and excused herself with an embarrassed “I’ll be right back,” but I knew she wouldn’t.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” snapped Carlos, flaring up. “What is this, the Inquisition?”

“It’s okay.” My fingers fluttered to my forehead. “I just needed to talk to you. About something important.”

“What’s so important?” Carlos smoothed my hair. “You know I want to talk to you, amor. I’m just tired. Long day. Didn’t feel like answering my phone. Headache. You know how it is when you’ve been talking to people all day?”

Actually, I did. His accent soothed my raw nerves, and I leaned back against him.

“I’m sorry,
princesa
. I didn’t mean to hurt you. Forgive me?”

“Sure.” My resistance melted like a cone of shaved ice at a Japanese summer festival.

“So what’s the big deal?”

On the way home I forced myself to talk about something—anything—but Carlos. I’d accepted his apology, but something unsettling still lurked. Kyoko didn’t need to mention she’d made her point.

Carlos held me and whispered his sorrow. Wished he could take me to the airport, but he couldn’t miss his big presentation. Held my face in his brown hands and promised he’d be waiting for me when I got home. Those deep eyes, rimmed with tears, so beautiful I couldn’t turn away. I pressed my head to his shoulder and wished I could stay.

Kyoko went out on the balcony and smoked. Mia never reappeared.

I turned my attention to the trip home. My foggy brain still churned.

“I need to call that person Wade and Ashley told me about,” I said as we turned on the lights in Kyoko’s apartment. It felt dark compared to mine, decorated in Gothic art, mirrored Indian pillows, and a whole bookshelf of creepy-looking anime comic books. A record by somebody called The Psychedelic Furs mounted on the wall. The Psychedelic what?

I suddenly felt exhausted and rubbed my eyes. “Maybe I’ll just call tomorrow.”

“It’ll be in the middle of the night there,” Kyoko warned. “Better do it now.”

“Then I’ll sleep until noon tomorrow. I’m worn out.”

“You miss your flight and I’ll beat you silly.” She scowled at me. “The phone’s there. I’m getting ready for bed. Help yourself to anything in the fridge.”

She closed the bathroom door, and I slipped over to the fridge. In the bright light I found nothing but healthy food: tofu, some languishing green onions, a bit of Brie cheese, and a white Styrofoam container of some kind of leftovers. I grabbed the Brie and rummaged through her cabinets until I hit pay dirt: chocolate. I just hoped I wasn’t ripping into a precious care package stash.

Kyoko’s mom sent her Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. Mine sent me artificially colored curiosities. Huh.

Only now she’ll never send me anything again. Ever.

I dropped the Reese’s Cups back in the cabinet, feeling queasy.

“Call yet?” Kyoko poked her head out the bathroom door, toothbrush in her mouth and barely intelligible.

“No.” I picked at a piece of lint in the rug.

“Do it.” She dropped the phone in my lap and went to spit.

“You have a real sink. Not a toilet sink.”

“Do it. Or I will, and I’m too tired to be polite.”

I picked up the paper where I’d scratched the number. Some older woman who knew Mom and had keys to Mom’s house.

“Faye Clatterbaugh,” Ashley had said.

“Clatter-what?”

“Clatterbaugh. It’s her name.”

I sighed and dialed the number. It toned several times—that weird, overseas ring—and then someone picked up.

“Hello?” said the voice in a Southern accent.

“Hi. I’m Shiloh Jacobs, Ellen’s daughter. Calling from Japan. My sister Ashley said you wanted to give me your number.”

“Oh hi, sweetie. I’ve been waitin’ for yer call. I’m so sorry about yer mom, sugar. So sorry.”

She sounded sadder than I did, and I felt ashamed. “Um … thanks. I appreciate it.”

“Just call me as soon as ya get here, and I’ll make shore ya get everywhere you need to be. You’re welcome to stay with me, too. I’ve got an extra room.” I suddenly thought of Carlos and his “extra room,” and fresh anger swept through me.

“No, that’s all right. I’ve already made hotel reservations. But thank you.”

“Are you shore, honey? You do what you want, but ya don’t need to spend your money. You’d be welcome at my place.”

Southerners sure were friendly. But I needed space, not friendliness, now.

“Thanks, but I’m fine. I just need to get to the funeral on Monday. What time will it start?”

“It’s at four p.m. If you tell me your hotel address, I can leave directions there or even come an’ pick ya up. Ain’t no trouble.”

“Okay.”

“An’ when you’re ready, anytime, I’ll show you your mom’s house or anything ya need at all.”

“Thanks. That would be great.”

“I imagine you’ve got a tight schedule, so I’ll let you go, doll. Sleep well, and I’ll see ya on Monday. I’m lookin’ forward so much to meetin’ ya.”

“All right.” I shrugged. “Well, good night then.”

“Good night, doll baby. Have a safe trip.” I crawled into the bed Kyoko had made for me on the floor, feeling like the 116-year-old Japanese woman I’d seen on TV.

A
t an ungodly hour, sky still brooding, I found myself on a plane headed across the Pacific in a number 47 seat. Three rows behind the number 44. Japan Airlines apparently didn’t honor superstitions.

I rubbed my forehead, remembering the blur of events: Awakening on Kyoko’s hard floor with an angry Indian elephant tapestry brooding down at me. Back to my apartment, where Kyoko helped me shove things in suitcases and then haul them up onto the conveyor belt at the airport. Luggage checks, security checks, passport checks, jarring announcements on the loudspeaker, my tickets, fumbling for my foreigners’ ID card, a boarding gate, crisply dressed Japanese stewardesses.

And here I slumped, eyes glazed over with sleepiness and shock.

The big news: Mom lived in Virginia of all places—not Atlanta. She’d never lived in Atlanta. Wade said she almost took a job there once though, so I wasn’t completely out in left field. But she’d settled in Virginia about six years ago.

The city itself where Mom lived mystified me and, in some ways, made me nervous. For starters, maps showed no airports close by. Actually, they pretty much showed nothing close by.

Worse, Mom actually didn’t live in town at all. She lived in “Churchville,” which coughed up little on the Internet except—I kid you not—photos of livestock auctions. Not a good sign.

Churchville? Ironic for me, a nonchurchgoer. Chalk up another one for ol’ Mom.

How much would a house sell for in a place like Churchville? Enough to cover my debts? I hoped?

I’d spent my preboarding time researching Staunton, the closest city to Churchville. If I could call a place with barely twenty thousand people on a good day a city.

Kyoko had printed off reams of info on Staunton, Churchville, and Virginia in general and shoved them in my hands before I left. Consummate on-the-spot reporter that she was. Since I couldn’t sleep, I flipped through them.

Virginia: “Old Dominion,” Jamestown and Pocahontas, tobacco, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, Colonial Williamsburg, Patrick Henry’s “Give me liberty or give me death!” speech, capital Richmond also former capital of the Confederacy, the Pentagon, Blue Ridge Mountains, top ten in education, dogwood, bluebells, Chesapeake Bay, peanuts, Edgar Allen Poe, Langley Air Force Base, Katie Couric, Sandra Bullock, blah, blah, blah. Motto:
Sic semper tyrannus
, or “Thus always to tyrants.”

Sandra Bullock? I looked at the list again. Where did Kyoko come up with that?

Staunton: Home of old Western State Lunatic Asylum.

I shouted out loud, clapping my hand over my mouth, and several annoyed Japanese faces frowned in my direction. I managed to bob my head in an embarrassed “sorry, excuse me” and flung the papers in the empty seat next to me with a shudder.

Mom was just weird. End of story. If I ever needed proof, it grinned right back at me in black and white.

Honestly! My hands curled into fists. Couldn’t Mom do anything normal? Even her last domicile proved her freakishness to a
T
.

I glared at the paper again, hoping her house wasn’t on Western State Lunatic Asylum property. Or that she wasn’t a resident.

The thought flashed through me so quickly that the paper wavered, and I slowly lowered it to the folder. Mom did have psychological problems at times…. Do you think …?

The plane droned. The window turned navy and then black. I opened my laptop and tried to work on some news stories. Halfheartedly ate a soba noodle dinner on a flimsy tray—likely the last Japanese food I’d have for a while. But for the first time I could remember, I didn’t feel like eating.

When people started turning out their lights and putting on slippers, I reluctantly flipped on my reading light and tried again.

Staunton: Home of old Western State Lunatic Asylum, home of Virginia School for the Deaf and Blind (okay, so maybe Staunton-ites had big hearts toward those with physical challenges … good, I suppose), home of the Statler Brothers (some kitschy old country-western band), Woodrow Wilson birthplace, Confederate supply base, farming, poultry, apples, livestock feed, Amtrak, Mary Baldwin College.

Churchville: NOTHING.

Half the stuff Kyoko printed out referred to Churchville, New York.

I put the stack down and thought about Mom, and a light glinted in my head. Physical challenges. Teaching. Hadn’t Mom talked about doing special-ed teacher training all those years ago? I mean, when she wasn’t unemployed or working at diners or laundry services because her tax center boss fired her again?

She talked sometimes about her younger brother, Billy, who’d been born with severe learning disabilities, including deafness and bad eyesight. She’d cared for him and tried to teach him, and apparently she’d had some measure of success before Billy died at age six. He affected her deeply. Could Mom

have worked at the Virginia School for the Deaf and Blind?

Mystified, I recalled snatches of conversations I’d pushed aside so many years ago: “Billy learned his alphabet…. They said he couldn’t, but he did…. Wish I could have gotten a degree…. Kids with difficulties shouldn’t get sent off to institutions and forgotten…. If I had more money … if I could do it over again … if I had a chance to do what I did with Billy …”

At the time I could only hear complaints and injustices, pressed down so tightly they overflowed like a plugged sewage pipe. More lectures about Mom’s problems, way too big for my own shoulders, and more things to blame on Dad.

I tried to imagine Mom working with blind students, pressing their hands to pages of braille, and felt a sudden warmth flood through me … a strange aching that also condemned me. I should have spent more time with her. I should have known who she was. I should have cared about what she wanted.

“Tea?” The starched-uniformed flight attendant scared me by stopping the cart by my seat, and I jumped.

I accepted the steaming cup. The fragrant, slightly grassy scent reminded me of Shiodome, morning sun through the buildings, and the call of crows.

As I stared into the chartreuse depths of my teacup, I wondered how much more of Mom’s life I had missed.

T
raffic cleared out once I circled Richmond in my rented Honda, leaving me with wide open lanes and endless thickets of pines. Not a car in sight. The college rock station crackled and finally disappeared. I was really in the middle of nowhere. Which was probably good, considering I’d tried to drive in the left-hand lane at least three times, like back in Japan. Cars honking angrily as I swerved out of the way.

I stretched my legs, clad in preppy dark blue jeans and high-heeled boots, tugging on the scarf tied around my neck in the heat. Turned up the air conditioner.

Sunday already, and Mom’s funeral tomorrow. I’d fallen asleep still in my traveling clothes in the hotel bed, completely “flown out.” My flight from Chicago was delayed, and I’d been lucky to make it to Virginia, even half asleep.

My eyes sagged. I yawned. Tried to remember what my businessman seatmate told me about Staunton—a “stopover,” he’d called it—where tradition still lives and will probably rise again. “The Civil War and all that.”

He corrected my pronunciation, too. “It’s STAN-ton. You’ll sound like a Yankee if you call it STAWN-ton.”

“I am a Yankee.”

“Well, then, good luck. But remember how to say it.”

I yawned again, turning the radio dial as my mind blurred with sleep. Static. Nothing but static. And then a shaky organ.