Swimming to Tokyo (5 page)

“So what?”

“So people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.” I practically hear him rolling his eyes. “You act like you have lots of friends and I act like I have none, but something’s bugging you enough to send you wandering around town in the middle of the night—”

I cut him off, my voice rising. “Who then? Who do you have?”

He answers, which kind of surprises me. “A guy from back home. Jamal Grant. We’ve known each other since we were ten. His mom makes the best chocolate cake in the world.”

The way he says it makes me want to reach out to touch him, but I don’t. That would be way weirder than this conversation we’re having. “Okay. You win.”

Finn’s voice softens, like maybe he’d touch me, too, if he thought it wouldn’t freak me out. “It’s not a win-lose kind of thing.”

“Yeah, maybe. I guess. It’s just…honesty is hard.”

“Bullshit. Honesty’s easy. It’s trust that’s hard.” He says it without hesitation, fast and sure.

“Maybe, but you’ll never have one without the other.”

“Well, that’s not necessarily true.” I’m pretty sure I get a raised eyebrow from him on that one.

“We don’t even know each other. It’s easy to be honest when there’s no obligation,” I say. “Like people who meet on an airplane. You can say anything because you’re never going to see them again.”

“I don’t know. We seem to keep running into each other.” He flashes a smile.

“Okay, fine. But for me to even start to trust you, you’d have to tell me something totally embarrassing. Then I’ll think about it.” I laugh a little.

I expect a retort or a joke. Definitely not what he comes out with. “I think I was, like, nine and I had a part in the school play. Something dumb. I was a space invader, had this elaborate suit with this big headpiece. I really wasn’t into it, but my mom kept talking it up, how fun it would be. You know, mom shit.

“The day of the show, she took me out for dinner to this Italian restaurant and let me order orange soda, which she never let me have. Ever. It was my favorite damn thing and she was dead set against it because of the artificial color. Anyway, she let me have as much as I wanted, and I went to the show and got into my huge costume. My stomach was really upset after all the sauce and the soda, but I didn’t think it was that bad. And then I got on stage and it was really hot, which made it worse. I think I could have made it if the starship hadn’t fired. Someone lit the fuse and it let off this horrible smell and I puked inside the mask of my costume on stage in front of the entire audience.”

I burst out laughing. I don’t even try to stop it. “Oh my God. How awful. I’m sure you wanted to die.”

“You have no idea.” He shakes his head. “Although I’m not sure laughing should be allowed.”

“I’m trying not to.” And failing.

He laughs, too. “You are not. But you trust me more now.”

And he’s right. I do. That laugh was genuine, and I feel a lot less stupid than I did ten minutes ago. In fact, for the first time since Finn showed up, I’m actually glad he’s here.

His phone beeps and he fishes it from the back pocket of his shorts. He scans the screen and lets out a sigh. “Everything okay?” I ask.

“Yeah, I’ve got to go.” He hops off the swing. “Can I walk you back?”

“No, it’s fine. I’m right around the corner.” My refusal is automatic.

“It wasn’t actually a question. I can’t, in good conscience, let you walk back by yourself.”

So Finn O’Leary is chivalrous, too. I add it to my mental list as I slip on my shoes.

We don’t pick up our conversation as we walk, but I don’t mind so much. A million questions come to mind that I’d like to ask him. About his life now, MIT, the summer. But it’s only five blocks and our shared laugh created enough goodwill to carry us to my house without the silence feeling strained and weird.

I stop midway between my house and Mrs. Maso’s, just in case Dad or Babci are up. “This is me.”

He nods, and as we both stand there, I feel his eyes on me, even if I can’t really see them in the shadows. He’s close enough to touch.

“I hope you can get some sleep.” His voice is different, low.

I nod. Me too.

“And I’m sorry if I was out of line back there.”

“You weren’t.” Not really.

“I always thought you were cool. Like, if I was going to have friends in Westfield, I would’ve wanted to be friends with you.”

Really?
Really
? “Why didn’t you?”

“It went against my principles. Plus, Kathy Johnson gave me a pretty bad rap, I heard. I figured you’d hold it against me.” He grins and thrusts his hands in his pockets.

“I don’t know. I think that’s actually a point in your favor.” I smile a little.

He laughs softly. “Good to know.”

“You should’ve. I mean…” I run the sheer fabric of my dress between my forefinger and my thumb to give my hands something to do. “I wish you had.”

“I do, too.”

We stand there sort of frozen for a minute, and I will him to reach out to touch me because I’m pretty sure if he does, a kiss will follow. And all of a sudden I want to kiss him like you would not believe.

He moves his hand and I hold my breath in anticipation, but he just rubs the back of his neck and turns to walk away. He takes two steps before his voice carries back to me. “See you around, Zosia.”

“Finn?” His name feels strange coming out of my mouth.

He’s poised in the glow of a streetlamp, and for the first time tonight, I can see his eyes. So dark. I take one step and then stop, although I’m pretty sure I’ll always wonder what would have happened if I’d taken that last one that would close the distance between us.

Instead I say, “See you around.”

And watch him walk away.

T
he next three days pass in a blur. Between hanging out with Mindy, last-minute trips to Target, and actually packing, I expect to fall asleep the second I sit down in my premium economy aisle seat en route to Japan. Instead, I spend fourteen hours flipping through movies and watching reruns of old TV shows. No wonder I wake up at two in the afternoon my first day in Tokyo. I have to glance at the clock twice to believe I really slept sixteen hours. Although my head feels it and so does my bladder.

I use the tiny bathroom and then spend three minutes finding the right button to flush. I’ve never seen a toilet with so many buttons, and according to Dad, this one has a heated seat for winter, in addition to everything else. He doesn’t actually know which button that is, of course, but since it’s something like one hundred and five degrees outside, it’s a nonissue right now.

Not only is Tokyo hot, it’s humid. I’m pretty sure my hair frizzed the second we walked out of Narita Airport; by the time we got to the apartment, it was wilder than I’d ever seen it. We took a train into the city, and one brave little kid asked in pretty good English if he could touch my hair and I let him because I didn’t know what else to do. His mother was horrified and
gomen nasai
’d me to death in between saying lots of things to him in Japanese that I’m pretty sure meant he was in trouble for the rest of his life. I tried to tell her it was okay, but in the end I just said sorry to the kid a couple times.

I walk into the little alcove kitchen and flip the switch for the electric kettle. From the doorway, I can see the entire apartment. Not that it doesn’t have everything, as Dad pointed out at least six times. The living room has an actual couch and a coffee table thing, which Dad says is called a
kotatsu
. Like the toilet seat, it heats up, and in winter apparently you can put a blanket between the top and the base, flip a switch, and sit there to keep warm. Either the Japanese have a thing about the cold or it’s the equivalent of Siberia here in the winter.

The kettle whistles and I get the instant coffee from the shelf. I make a face, but instant is better than none at all. Dad doesn’t drink coffee and has already said a coffeemaker is out of the question since they’re expensive and it will take up valuable counter and/or storage space. Admittedly, the kitchen has little of either. There’s an L-shaped counter along the wall with a sink on one end and a stove top on the other, but the actual amount of free space is about three feet, which already has a toaster oven, a kettle, and a rice cooker. I say ditch the rice cooker, but it came with the place.

I fix my coffee and wander out to the living room, which is really only four steps, and settle on the couch with the laptop. I checked my email last night, but I’d been too tired to type and Dad had been too excited to let me. Now, I settle in to read through my inbox. A long email from Mindy. She’s at camp, the same summer science camp where she’s worked for the past three years, and she’s already got stories to tell. The first day they get the kids acclimated by doing outdoor experiments, like putting Mentos into a bottle of Coke. She got sprayed right in the face by the Coke geyser and sent me a picture of her soaked and sticky, but smiling. A couple of emails from friends on the swim team. Short email from my future roommate Sarah, hoping I got to Tokyo all right.

I email her back first because it will be the shortest. Thanks, I’m here. Hope you’re well. Blah, blah, blah. I haven’t gone to get my stuff for our room yet, despite her asking repeatedly if red is okay with me. I’ve told her it’s fine and it won’t upset me at all if our stuff doesn’t match, but I can tell it will upset her, even if she doesn’t come right out and say it. I have a feeling until I send picture proof I’ve gotten a comforter with red in it, I won’t be hearing much from Sarah.

I click on Facebook and scan through the updates. Some of them are funny, but nothing exciting. And nothing from Finn. I’d searched for him on Facebook after that night at the playground, thinking for sure he wouldn’t even be on. But he was and his profile isn’t private so now I stalk him because I’m too chicken to send him an actual friend request. Not that he would notice since he has over three hundred friends—half from Boston, half from Baltimore, and mostly jocks, judging by their profile pics. And those friends seem to know him and like him if his wall posts are anything to go by.

I feel like a voyeur looking through them, but that doesn’t stop me from reading them almost every time I log on and today is no different.
Dude, is the world really flat? Where the hell are you?
Another one with a Betty Boop profile pic.
Bummed you’re not coming to the beach this summer. This is me pouting
. And the one that makes me click on the photo near her post:
Miss you, but oh that goodbye…

Lexy Newton. Relationship status: It’s complicated. Long blond hair. Tan. Big smile. Big boobs. I scan her wall for posts from Finn, but I have to go back to April to find a post from him.
Made it back to the armpit. Heading to Beantown. See you in a few weeks
.

Back to his profile. Relationship status: Single. Photos, all of which I’ve scanned before: no Lexy. Hers, however, once it occurs to me to click on them, are a different story. Her and Finn arm-in-arm. Her on his lap. Him kissing her on the cheek. All of them scream couple to me, no matter how complicated it is.

I close the tab and lean back into the couch. Okay, so that explains some things, but not a lot. He never mentioned a girlfriend, just his best childhood friend. But he didn’t kiss me that night either. Not that it matters. I didn’t see him again before I left town, and the odds are slim to none now.

I take a sip of coffee. If I’m honest, I’ll probably never see him again, except through Facebook. That makes me feel more wistful than it should and I turn back to the computer and type Yokohama into Google. I need to focus my efforts on something else, anything else, and figuring out where I am and what’s here seems like a good start. Especially with 15 million results in .26 seconds.

I get so sucked into the Japan Guide and all the links to temples and train maps that I lose complete track of time. So when I hear the key in the lock I’m surprised and even more so when I look at the little clock in the corner of the laptop and it says 5:27 AM. Dad stands in the middle of the living room as I’m trying to do the conversion from New York time. Is Tokyo eleven hours ahead? Or is it thirteen?

“Zo? Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m good. Are you?”

He’s frowning, so maybe not. “Are you going out?”

I raise my eyebrows at him. “Um, I don’t know. Am I?”

“We’re supposed to go to dinner. Remember, I was going to come home to pick you up so you didn’t have to find your way? Sorry I’m a little late. I said I’d be home by six.” He eyes the cut-off sweats and tank top that make up my pajamas.

Thirteen hours ahead, then. It’s almost 6:30. “Oh God. I totally forgot. But we can go. I’ll get ready.”

He looks a little relieved. Maybe he thought I was depressed instead of lazy, because before I decided to be “fine,” there had been weeks after Mom died when I lived in my pajamas outside of school hours and acted like it was totally normal.

“We’re supposed to be there at seven. I’ll just call Eloise and tell her we might be late and they should go ahead and order.”

“It will take me ten minutes, Dad. Don’t worry.” I’ve already got one foot in the bathroom and I hear him on the phone, although I pause before I click the door shut. Because even though he doesn’t say anything out of the ordinary, something in his tone makes me think Eloise was the woman on the phone that time calling him “sweetheart.” Eloise, his so-called colleague. Wow.

I would think about this more if I didn’t have to wrestle with the shower, which I’m hard-pressed to call a shower at all. It’s a hand-held nozzle with a hook on the wall that’s barely high enough for me to stick my head under and the water pressure is nonexistent. I abandon all hope of even running conditioner through my hair if I’m going to make good on my promise of ten minutes and just manage a basic wash before I give up completely.

My suitcase takes up half the floor in my room, and I wish I’d spent some time today putting things away or at least hanging them up on the rolling rack in the corner because everything is crumpled. I pick a green cotton tank dress close to the top that doesn’t seem as bad as the rest and throw it on with a wide leather belt. Hair goes up in a high ponytail, a trace of mascara and I’m back in the living room where Dad surveys me with a smile.