Three Scenarios in Which Hana Sasaki Grows a Tail (5 page)

I flop down onto his bed and try to imagine what it was like to be him.

Rooey had something of a girlfriend, though we never called her that; she was just “his friend.” Lily. Her parents came here from Japan right before she was born, and gave her a name neither of them could pronounce. Once I walked in on Rooey and her together, in bed. Or rather
on
the bed—they lay belly-up beside one another, Lily’s arms at her sides, the hand nearest Rooey touching both her leg and his. Rooey’s hands were folded atop his stomach. They both stared at the ceiling.

She was a strange-looking girl, with a tiny pucker of a mouth and hair to her waist. Her eyes and nose were just little pinches too, and you wondered how her head didn’t tip back under the weight of all that hair. She had braces—maybe that helped balance things out. At the funeral she cried and covered not her eyes but her mouth.

The entire night passes this way, me, flat on his bed as if afloat, my mind full of details, all the questions I never thought to ask him: what was happening with Lily, and whether he had a clue what he was doing; how his job was going at the metalworking shop; was he any good at the work?

The stucco swirls above me, lit by the half moon outside. Then that spot of ceiling, that personal place where the eyes rest when you’re thinking in the dark, whispers answers:

Things with Lily were slow moving, excruciating, thrilling; they’d French-kissed once after school and it tasted salty; if he were still alive, he’d take her to see a movie when he got his T-bird. When things got serious, he’d make her something in the metal shop, a figurine of some kind, and give it to her for her birthday. He was good at transferring the molds and pouring and measuring and scraping, all the intricate business of making casts. He had the patience for it.

When the first gray light struggles into the room, I open my eyes, or maybe it just feels like I’m opening them, since I haven’t really slept. I wouldn’t call what I do in this room at night “sleep.” It’s more like a nocturnal hypnosis that only clears when the sun comes snapping its fingers.

I stand up and go to the closet. CD album covers shingle the door and partially obscure the mirror attached to it. At eye level is the cover for the Vapors’s “Turning Japanese” single I gave Rooey for Christmas last year.

I pull the door open, and cool, sour-smelling air drifts out. Rooey’s favorite T-shirt hangs crooked on a wooden hanger. The shirt is gray and is noticeably shorter than the other shirts in the closet. The turquoise lettering on the front says POCARI SWEAT. He came home from school late one day, having stopped and bought it at Teed Off, the T-shirt place downtown. He said he’d looked
online—he was always looking up something online—and read that Pocari Sweat was like Japanese Gatorade, and when he called Lily and told her about it, she’d laughed and laughed; Rooey held the phone away from his ear, and I could hear her from across the room.

I yank the shirt from its hanger and put it on. Then I lie on the bed and slide two fingers under the waist of my panties.

I don’t fantasize anymore when I masturbate. It’s just a lot of furious rubbing, no imagination required, though sometimes toward the end an image of Lily, sunbathing naked, pops into my mind. Before Rooey died, my orgasms had come in sweet, rolling waves. Now they’re like squalls, the pleasure almost violent.

Afterward I think about my cover story. There was a time, I realize, when I dreamed about this opportunity— my name on the front page, a color photo illustrating my words—but the ideas I used to toss around aren’t appealing anymore. Profile piece on the owner of Ambrosia, the green grocer? A report on the solar-powered nunnery out in Teastown? When did I ever find
that
interesting? It’d be cool to write something on the guy in town with the Porsche Carrera GT. A half-million dollar car in this town—now
that’s
news.

I close my eyes and imagine I’m driving an incredibly fast car on a circular track, around and around, on the brink of losing control.

THE TRIP TO HAWAII WAS
a graduation gift from my grandma. I took classes these past two summers in order
to graduate early and hadn’t left the Midwest since I could remember. I chose to bring Rooey over Felix because, as I saw it, Rooey and I were at the end of our shared childhood. Soon I’d be moving out for good, leaving him for the real world. I wanted to hang on to that life just a little longer.

They tell me I did the right thing, swimming ashore and yelling for help, but I don’t remember this. I remember sounds: a scream, a moan, then the sloshing of water like kids in a bathtub; I could hear children calling to one another on the sand, a game of Red Rover, while Rooey’s head went under and his forearm drifted away from blonde hair that clung to the surface; the fingers that had reached up from the bottom bunk brushed my abdomen while I watched ragged strips of tissue jet blood. I remember turning and swimming away. That I headed for the shore was purely coincidence.

I MUST HAVE DOZED OFF,
because when I open my eyes a few hours have passed and I’m thinking of Lily. Her long dark hair, and the way she locks eyes with you when she laughs. My chest aches, and I realize: I miss her.

It’s a weird feeling, missing someone I barely know, yet when I think about it, it seems odd that I’d feel any other way. Why don’t I go for a visit? I look around the room for something to bring her. I look down and—that’s it—I’ll give her shirt—the shirt she found so funny!

I walk there, swinging the CVS bag that holds the T-shirt. I’m walking quickly, looking up at the clouds as I go, wondering what Lily will have to say, and whether
she’ll be glad to see me. A car horn blasts. I jump back and a woman in a Jeep waves me across the street I’d been about to step into. I hustle across, blushing. I’m glad to have an excuse to rush, and I jog the last block to Lily’s house.

Mrs. Mizukami answers the door. She’s wearing bright orange slippers. Her mouth drops at the sight of me, and she keeps a hand on the doorknob as I remind her who I am, though of course we’ve met before. I hold up the bag, full of nervous energy. She ushers me into a dim living room full of ferns and looks at me with sad eyes. I want to say, don’t be sad! Things are going to be fine, really!

Mrs. Mizukami leads me into the kitchen, where Lily is seated at the table, doing homework.

She scoots her chair back when she sees me and stands up. I can tell she’s surprised, and I say so.

“Yeah!” she says, taking me in. “But, you know, in a good way.” She doesn’t say anything else.

Mrs. Mizukami sets a glass of iced tea and a plate of cookies on the table. “Please, sit,” she says, and we do. She shuffles out the room.

“I’m sorry I interrupted your homework,” I say. “I should have called.”

“Nah, it’s OK.” Lily pushes an open textbook away and leans both elbows on the table. “Math sucks anyway.”

I ask her about school. I watch her mouth move as she answers, then follow the smooth line of her hair down, over her small breasts, to where it puddles in her lap, like a waterfall. I want to touch it.

“Are you OK?” She leans back.

“Yeah, sorry.” I blush, and fish for something an older sister would say. “Your hair’s great. I wish I could grow mine that long.”

She makes a face and bats her hair back, then picks up a pair of red-handled scissors from the table. “I think I’m gonna chop it.”

“What? No! It—it’s so pretty.”

“Whatever. It’s been long my whole life.” She gathers a fistful. “Time for something new.”

She slides the scissors open, brings the blades to her hair. “Very funny,” I say.

She’s watching me, eyes wide, and then snaps the scissors shut. I lurch out of my chair to stop her, but she moves the blades at the last second.

“I made you pretty nervous,” she says, grinning.

“You had me for a second. Well, maybe a half-second.”

“Well, I still might do it.” She pulls a few strands forward and really does snip them off. We watch them float to the ground. She says, “It could be like... an offering.”

“But—wouldn’t he want you to keep it?”

She shrugs. “He’s not here to ask.”

I look at the hair on the floor and am seized by a desire to pinch it up and hold onto it forever. Then I remember the shirt. I grab for the bag and dump out the T-shirt in front of her. “So, I brought this for you. I thought you might like to have it.”

She stares at the balled-up fabric and bites her lip. She blinks back tears, and I lean over and hug her tight. I close my eyes. We rock together, her head on my
shoulder and my face in her hair. It feels wonderful. I move my hand on her back, hold her tighter.

“Can I—” Mrs. Mizukami stops in the doorway. Lily and I spring apart like two kids caught necking.

“Beg your pardon,” Mrs. Mizukami says, bowing slightly and backing out of the room. “I just wondered if I could give you more food.”

“No, Mom,” Lily says.

“No thank you,” I say as she leaves, and though I haven’t touched them, I call, “The cookies are delicious, though.”

Lily and I look at each other. She looks at her lap.

“I should get going,” I say.

“Thank you,” she says, standing up, grasping the shirt with one fist.

At the front door, I put my shoes on and say goodbye to Mrs. Mizukami. Lily steps outside with me.

“It’s nice to see you,” she says. “Just, you know, a surprise. Sorry I’m all crying and stuff. I mean, he was
your
brother.”

“It’s good to see you too. Someone he was close to, who he really liked. He was
very
picky about people, you know.” We laugh; she sniffles and catches my eye.

“I dunno, this is weird, but when you walked in, I thought it was him. I could’ve sworn it. Isn’t that messed up?”

“I think I see him all the time.”

She touches her hair. “I just... miss him.”

I think of them lying on the narrow bed together, touching without acknowledging it, and think of me lying
there with her instead, what that might feel like. I want to tell her this, but what would I say?

She’s looking at me again, really focusing, like she’s looking for something she dropped. She takes a deep breath and hands me the shirt.

“You should really keep this.”

I say no and reach for it anyway.

“Really, I’m definitely sure.” Her eyes are watering, her tiny nose pink, as she backs into the door. It’s shut, and she fumbles for the handle while keeping her eyes on me.

“Thanks again.” She turns the handle and takes a step backward, into the shadows. “I’ll see you around.”

“Yeah,” I say, and force a grin, a wave with the shirt. “Allah willing!”

I walk home slowly. It’s only September, but the sidewalk’s already full of leaves that crunch underfoot. It seems like the leaves are always falling. I don’t know how the trees keep up.

IT’S FRIDAY. MY MEETING WITH MYRA
is not going well.

“I’m not saying the story on Metalfest is a bad idea,” she’s saying. “At all. Just not right for our
readership.”

I can tell she’s not wearing a bra under her light blue blouse. I wonder what her nipples look like.

“How about the comic book convention?”

“Well, I mean, it
could
work, my only concern is that, well, it raises the same issue as the music festival. Japanese comic books are certainly popular these days, but for
most of our subscribers...” She licks her lips, slowly. Her tongue is plump and pink and her lips shine.

“You know,” she continues when I don’t respond, “didn’t you mention something once about a profile of that lady who owns Ambrosia?”

Something is happening inside me, a wild building energy like a wave.

The AP report read like a Mad Libs:

“Died of blood loss.” Nope: Cardiac arrest.

“Swimming alone.” Wrong: It could’ve been me.

“The victim was 16 years old.” Wrong again: he was fifteen. If he’d been sixteen, he probably would’ve stayed home, peeling around corners with his friends in his Thunderbird. He’d be a different person. He’d be alive.

“Oh, fuck it,” I say. “Fuck journalism.”

Myra jerks back in her chair.

“I don’t give a shit,” I say. I get up and walk away, all the way to the door, and out into the blinding afternoon sunlight.

ON THE DRIVE HOME
I get a text from Felix. “rinned ta iva lebla?” it says. I’ve been avoiding Felix since our awkward night in bed and whatever the message means— probably an invitation of some sort—I’m not in the mood to figure it out. “Call u later,” I respond.

When I get home, Mom’s not there. I go to Rooey’s room, the only place that really feels like my own anymore.

The shelves are lined with Japanese comics and language learning manuals. I slide one of the thin books from
the shelf. In the cover illustration a blue-haired, starry-eyed girl holding a red ball reaches out to a boy swathed in tentacles. The boy’s teeth are clenched; his face fierce. The girl is saying, “Swallow this orb to reverse the spell!” The title is
101 Japanese Phrases You’ll Never Use.

My phone rings: Myra. I don’t pick up, and she leaves a voicemail suggesting that I take a week off, “to think things over.” She wants me to know that I am in everyone’s prayers. As soon as I’m done listening to her message, Felix beeps in, and I answer without thinking.

“Hey,” he says. “You didn’t call.”

“Oh, yeah. Sorry. I got sidetracked.”

He’s silent for a second, then says, “Did you figure out my text?”

“Oh. No, I forgot.”

“I was suggesting dinner at Via Bella. We haven’t been there since our anniversary. I’m going through withdrawal.” He laughs.

“Ah.”

“It was an anagram,” he adds.

I pick up Rooey’s guitar, a red electric with frets worn down past the grain.

“Can I call you back in a few minutes?”

“Sure, babe.”

I hang up and cradle the guitar. Despite all my accomplishments in school, music has always eluded me. Band’s the only activity I’ve ever quit.

But Rooey’s guitar feels right. Its slim weight against my chest is a comfort, and the curved wood nestles into my thigh. The neck is thin and the strings soft. I know
no chords but find it soothing to close my eyes and let my hands wander, the smooth wood grain cradling my fingertips, and occasionally I hit upon a combination of strings that sounds like a choir.