Win rubbed Four’s shoulders. “Are you ready for tonight?” He had either failed to sense the tension in the room, or was purposefully ignoring it. Most likely the latter.
Four looked at his sister to discern how mad she still was. Often, the two would engage in a cease-fire of sorts around their father. This morning was no exception. Four didn’t bring up the situation with Thatcher. “Yeah, I feel pretty good.”
Win grimaced and cocked his head to the side. “It’s going be a tough game.”
Four chugged his orange juice and set the empty glass down. “I know. We’re going to have to stop that really good kid, the one that’s going to play football at Alabama. Jareme . . . Jaremeka . . .”
“Unbelievable!” Brynnie was again offended.
“What? I don’t know what his name is. It’s the African-American guy.”
“Seriously? That’s how you’re going to describe him? Holy micro-aggression!”
Four tugged at his tie. “Yeah, I don’t even know what that means. It’s not like I called him black.”
Brynnie let out a long, exasperated sigh. “Would you describe a white person as ‘that Caucasian guy’?”
“Well, yes, Miss Martin, if that was how I thought I could best describe the person I was referring to.”
“First of all, it’s Ms., not Miss. And really? Is it too hard for your tiny brain to find some way other than skin color to describe a person?”
“Okay, you’re right. Sorry—” Four paused for emphasis and then added, “We need to find a way to stop the guy with the large Afro.”
Elle looked to Win. Why wasn’t he saying anything to help? He was distracted—his head was down reading his Blackberry. This grated on Elle; she needed him to be involved in the conversation.
“You’re ridiculous,” Brynnie exclaimed as she put her iPad into her backpack. She looked disapprovingly at her mom again. Win was forgiven; he always was. It was Elle who had failed her.
As much as Elle loved her daughter, she found her increasing self-righteousness unfair. Everything was black and white to Brynnie; she lacked the life experience to see the gray and was often unapologetically fierce in her judgements. Elle tried to be understanding, but it could be trying. A few weeks earlier, she had told Brynnie that although she didn’t necessarily agree with her decision to turn down Brown, she would accept it. All Elle wanted was for Brynnie to be happy, to live her dream.
Brynnie had snapped, “Are you happy, Mom? Are you living your dream?”
Her daughter hadn’t meant to be cruel; Elle was sure of that, but Brynnie’s words couldn’t have been more biting, their implications all too clear. Elle’s life was a joke, not deserving of respect or admiration. This crushed Elle. She was smart and accomplished in her own way. Sure, she had willingly given up her career when Brynnie was born, but it was because she wanted her children to have the kind of childhood she had so desperately longed for. Choosing to stay home was not lack of ambition; it was an act of selflessness. Couldn’t her daughter see that?
Brynnie’s words had hung uncomfortably in the air for a few minutes before Elle had answered, “Of course I am.” It was one of the few times in her life a lie had not come easily to her.
“Brynnie’s right. You should be more sensitive about the words you choose, Four. You know better.” Elle hoped this was enough, that Brynnie would be placated. She yearned to have her daughter’s respect. Their relationship would be different than the one Elle had had with her own mom.
Four put his hands up defensively. “I know, I know. It was just a joke. Relax!”
Brynnie rolled her eyes. Elle understood her daughter’s disapproval was directed toward her just as much as it was to Four. Why hadn’t Win intervened? Elle looked toward him again; he was still intently reading something on his phone.
Brynnie slung her backpack over her shoulder and turned to Four. “Hurry up, I don’t want to be late.”
Four grabbed a bagel and tossed it into the head of his lacrosse stick. “Will you bring me a protein shake after school, Mom?”
“Of course.” Elle might have to rearrange a few things in her schedule, but she could manage. “Do you need me to bring you something for lunch?”
“Nah, it’s all right. Coach is having Chipotle brought in for us.”
“He probably needs help wiping his butt, though,” Brynnie said, smirking.
Elle pretended not to be hurt by her daughter’s sarcasm. She was merely trying to help Four, to be a good mom. She would do the same for Brynnie. Couldn’t she recognize that? And didn’t she understand just how lucky she was to even have a sibling to be annoyed with? Elle would give anything for just one more minute with her own brother, the baby perpetually asleep with his eyes open.
Elle looked again to Win—would it kill him to step in and defend her? His head was still down in his phone. What could he possibly be reading that was so important? Elle was discouraged. Why was it that Duke was the only member of their family that appreciated everything she did for them? Trying to hide her frustration and appear cheerful, Elle hugged her children good-bye. She wished Brynnie good luck on her exam and reminded Four to talk to his advisor about signing up for an ACT test-prep class.
Brynnie blew Win a kiss as she walked past him. “Bye, Dad!”
Win looked up. “Sorry. Are you guys leaving? I was checking to see if the deal I told you about is coming through.”
Elle searched her mind trying to remember the deal Win was referring to, but she couldn’t think of it. Had he really mentioned it to her? The bulk of their conversations usually regarded their children and their respective schedules.
“Give me one more minute, then I’ll walk out with you.” Win glanced down again at his phone. After a few moments of reading, he stood up and put his hands above his head like a referee making a signal for a touchdown. “Bonsai and sushi roll. Pack your bags; we’re going to Tokyo!”
Tokyo!
Elle’s stomach lurched into her throat causing her to choke on her coffee. She remembered the first thing she had heard upon waking. News about the earth caving in on itself and causing widespread destruction in Japan. It had been a warning. And to make sure she got the message, the song “Shake It Out” had come on next. It’s meaning was abundantly clear to Elle now. Her experiences in Tokyo could definitely qualify as a devil on her back. One she had spent most of her adult life trying to forget.
Elle suddenly had the taste of metal in her mouth, like the fillings in her teeth had melted. It was an eerie sensation, one she had experienced only one other time: her last day in Tokyo, when she had feared the worst.
As always, the signs had been right. It really was going to be a bad day.
Chapter Three
Tom Petty: “Free Fallin’”
August 30, 1992
7:08 p.m.
What have I gotten myself into?
Elle was tripped out—overcome with sensory overload as she took in the concourse at Tokyo’s Narita Airport. All around, there were people—just masses of people. And bright, blaring neon lights. And noise. An unfamiliar, rhythmic noise with a life of its own. Everything seemed a beat off, like the New Orleans funeral parade scene in the James Bond movie Live and Let Die. It was spooky.
Elle hadn’t bargained for this. Maybe she should have been better prepared.
As it was, Elle hadn’t really done any planning at all. She had graduated from college that spring with a liberal arts degree and no idea what to do next. Most of her sorority sisters had the luxury of wealthy parents willing to subsidize them while they took a year off and traveled or went to unpaid internships in art galleries or with fashion magazines. Elle didn’t have these options. Bobbie couldn’t afford an airline ticket to her daughter’s graduation, much less rent on a cute loft in a good neighborhood in New York or San Francisco. And traveling was completely out of the question; she had zero savings.
No, Elle needed to make money. Although she had hopefully sent out résumé after résu
mé, she didn’t get a single job offer. She could have gone back home and worked at the bar with her mom, but returning to the sad two-bedroom apartment she had grown up in was not something Elle was willing to do. With its potted plants and macramé owls, it was the kind of place you could dust for hours yet still never seemed clean, as though being poor was something that couldn’t be wiped away. Elle would do anything but that.
The decision to teach English in Tokyo had come from a sign. She had been in the break room of her summer temp job, microwaving ramen noodles and bemoaning her lack of direction, when she overheard one of her co-workers talking about a friend of a friend who was making loads of money teaching English in Japan. Elle hadn’t given it much thought, but when she turned on her Walkman to listen to some music while eating her lunch, the David Bowie song “Changes” had come on. Elle knew this was a sign.
Changes . . . Ramen noodles . . . Japan.
After a few moments, Elle got it. It was a sign telling her the change she was looking for was a move to Japan to teach English. It seemed to be a perfect solution to her state of flux, and she had learned long ago to trust the signs.
The only research Elle had done to prepare for the trip was to check out a book from the library on Japanese culture. Taking to heart the author’s observation that the Japanese favored blonde hair, she had purchased some Clairol at a drug store and dyed her mousy-brown hair platinum over the sink in the bathroom she shared with Bobbie. She loved the results. She looked like a whole different person.
Looking around helplessly at the indecipherable Japanese characters on all the billboards at the airport, Elle realized she had bigger concerns than her hair color—why hadn’t she thought through the language barrier? She had just sort of assumed everyone would speak English and it would be fine.
Elle took a deep breath. There was no going back now; she needed to figure this out.
Surveying her surroundings again, Elle noticed that most signs had an English translation under the Japanese. Nice. She could work with that. Elle saw a sign that said Trains to Tokyo with an arrow pointing in the direction of an escalator. She lifted her luggage to head toward the escalator and immediately recognized another failure in planning. She should have invested in a bag with wheels. Instead, Elle had a large army duffle bag stuffed so full that it was heavy and difficult to carry. She could barely take a few steps before her arms got tired and she had to stop, rest, and then start up again.
Elle was vexed by her stupidity. She didn’t have time for this.
“Do you need help with your bag?”
Grateful to hear an American-accented voice in the sea of Japanese, Elle looked up to see a college-aged guy removing the earbuds from his Walkman as he approached her.
Wow. He’s cute.
“That would be awesome, thanks. I don’t know what I was thinking bringing this huge duffle bag.”
“No worries. Where ya headed?”
This was something else Elle hadn’t really given much thought to ahead of time. She had planned to just sort of wing it and find a cheap hotel once she landed, but she had met some backpackers on the flight who had recommended a hostel. Elle reached into her pocket and pulled out the barf bag she had written its name and address on. “The Ace Inn. It’s in Shinjuku.”
“Cool. I’m headed to Shinjuku myself.”
The stranger grabbed one handle of the duffle bag while Elle held the other. Together, they started toward the train station and Elle had a chance to take a closer look at her Good Samaritan. He was wearing a leather jacket, Doc Martens, and tight black jeans. He was so tall, his long legs looked like licorice sticks in his skinny jeans. He had glistening seafoam-green eyes, made more striking by incredibly long eyelashes, like a woman’s. His medium-length brown hair was slicked back on the sides with gel, Duran Duran-style. He was cute for sure, pretty almost, but not someone Elle could see herself hooking up with. He was a little too “New Wave” for her. She preferred a more rugged look; a Mel Gibson to his Simon Le Bon.
Under his leather jacket, which had small silver spikes across the back, he wore a white T-shirt with a picture of the Ramones on it. Elle approved. The Ramones were a great band but not exactly mainstream. This guy knew his music. He must be a musician. He had probably started a band with his college friends and they were trying to scrape up enough cash to record their first single, so he took a gig touring Japan with a Duran Duran cover band to make some easy money. Or maybe he was writing jingles for commercials. Either way, he wasn’t selling out. No, he was a solid guy—someone just doing whatever needed to be done to make it happen.
Elle liked to play this game—creating personas for complete strangers. She had invented it as a child as a way to entertain herself during the long days she was left alone while Bobbie tended bar. After years of experience in observing others, Elle believed herself to be somewhat of an expert in human behavior. She saw the subtle clues, she understood what motivated people, and rarely were her instincts wrong. This guy just had to be a musician. She was sure of it.
“I’m Mitch, by the way,” he said, extending his free arm to shake her hand. “My name is actually Mitchell, but that’s just waaay too much for the locals to handle.”
Elle looked at him, confused.
“You know, l’s are hard for Japanese people to pronounce, so when they try to say ‘Mitchell,’ it comes out sounding like ‘Mitch erre.’ It got annoying.”
“Oh, okay, got it. I’m Elle . . . or I guess you can call me ‘Erre.’” Elle returned Mitch’s handshake, realizing that her name would also be difficult to say. Add that to the list of things she hadn’t considered.
The truth was, her real name was Michelle. (It was so like Bobbie to pick the same name as nearly every other pregnant woman in 1969.) After seeing the dramatic change with her hair color and how much she liked it, Elle decided a name change was also in order. Michelle was far too common for the person she would be in Tokyo. Her inspiration had been an Elle magazine with a platinum-haired model in a kimono on the cover. She had spotted it while returning the book on Japan to the library, and it seemed like another sign. Besides, Elle would be the perfect name for her new self. It was chic and original, like the person she wanted to be.
“Elle. I like that name. I haven’t heard it before.”
Elle was pleased by Mitch’s reaction; it was just the sort of response she had hoped for. She felt more sophisticated already. “Thanks! And thanks again for your help.” Her bag seemed heavier by the minute. It would have taken forever for her to try and drag it by herself.
“No problem. I was just here doing the same thing for a friend going to Hawaii. Apparently, she needed three suitcases for all of her swimsuits.”
“That’s nice of you. Is she your girlfriend?”
“No, no, nothing like that.” Mitch blushed so quickly that Elle guessed he must have a massive crush on the girl. Just as well, he wasn’t her type, anyway.
As Mitch and Elle reached the platform, a man’s voice came over a loud speaker announcing the approach of their train. His Japanese sounded airy and light; it reminded Elle of a lullaby and was reassuring. As the train approached, Mitch and Elle carefully lifted her duffle bag onboard and took seats next to each other.
Mitch sat back and said, “It’s about a ninety-minute ride to Shinjuku.”
“Okay, cool.” Elle pointed her chin toward his Walkman. “What are you listening to?”
“U2’s Joshua Tree. That whole album just slays me.”
Elle perked up. Mitch’s interest in U2 was a sign. A good sign. U2 was her all-time favorite band. Their music was synonymous with good luck; it had predicted her high score on the SAT and her full-ride scholarship to college. “Me, too! I love U2. Big time. That album was my favorite in high school.”
Mitch sat up on the edge of his seat, energized. “For me, that album was high school.”
“Totally!” Elle felt the exact same way. Joshua Tree took her right back to her senior year of high sch
ool, a time of hope and optimism: college was on the horizon. The dark bar and the grimy apartment with its potted plants would soon be behind her.
Elle had been right about Mitch. He was cool.
Mitch rubbed his hands together excitedly. “All right, since you clearly know your music, I have a game for you. It’s called Overrated/Underrated.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know it. Bring it on.” If this was a test, Elle was ready. Music was a huge part of her life, her greatest love. She would like this game.
“I’ll start with something easy. Let’s go . . . say, the B-52’s.”
“Oh, no-brainer. Totally underrated.”
“Excellent!” Mitch nodded approvingly. “I see I’ll need to make this a little harder.”
Elle put up her hand. “Let me save you some time. I’m a big fan of all the music to come out of the eighties, especially all the British New Wave stuff.” She paused and nodded at his shirt. “And I love the Ramones—waaay underrated.”
“I like it, you just went up like four notches on my cool scale. How do you feel about Billy Idol’s ‘Mony Mony’?”
Elle shook her head. “Here’s the thing, it’s a great party song and all, but I’m over drunk guys fist-pumping and yelling ‘Get drunk, get laid’ during it.”
Mitch smiled. It was a curious smile and she wasn’t sure what it meant.
She hit him on the knee. “What?”
“I thought I’d catch you on that one.”
“Oh really? I see what you did; you slipped it in there like leaving out the Simon Says.” Elle was having fun. The conversation was flirtatious, but so natural and easy it was like catching up with an old friend.
“Yeah, you got me. I was pretty sure you were cool, but I had to make sure you knew what you were talking about.”
“Fair enough.” Elle had a test of her own for Mitch. “How about this: song that even if you are having the worst day ever, you hear it and feel better.”
“Easy. U2’s ‘Bad,’” Mitch answered quickly. “I saw them perform it live at the Amnesty Concert, and I’ll never forget it. I mean, I’m not a religious guy, but something extraordinary happened when they played that song. I can’t explain it, but I actually almost started crying. It was pretty wild. That song takes me to a totally different place, you know?”
Grannie Panties Are UnderRated Page 3