Starfish

by Akemi Dawn Bowman

  It takes her a few hours, but eventually she does text back. Except she doesn’t say anything about my drawings—she sends three photos of her from when she was younger and asks which one I think is the prettiest.

  I’m starting a blog, she texts. I want it to be beautiful.

  I tell her I like the second photo best, and then I delete the entire conversation. Because even if I can’t unsend the drawings, I can at least pretend like I didn’t send them in the first place.

  It hurts less this way.

  • • •

  I draw a girl shrinking into the grass until she’s hidden by a bed of flowers that are all so much prettier than she is.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  I’m sketching out some faces, thinking of the perfect color for the hair and eyes, when Hiroshi takes a seat next to me.

  He places his elbows on the wooden table and lets out a hum.

  I feel myself begin to shrink. “They’re just practice. I know I can do better.”

  “They’re superb,” he says, but he’s still frowning.

  I tap my pencil against the edge of the sketchbook, anticipating a “but.”

  He motions his finger over the faces. “Where does this image come from?”

  “My head?” I answer like it’s a question.

  “Yes, but where? Why did you decide on this exact face over any other?”

  I look back down at the drawing, rotating his questions in my mind like I’m searching for their hidden agenda. “I don’t understand,” I say at last. And then I blink. “I just thought it looked good.”

  “So this is the face you decided would be beautiful. This is the face that made sense to you.” He nods.

  I shrug. “I guess. Yeah.” It’s the face I’ve always drawn—it’s just become more detailed over the years.

  “But why? Who told you this was beautiful?”

  I stop holding back. “Magazines. TV shows. Everyone at school.” I set my pencil down and shove my hands between my knees.

  “So beauty to you is what’s palatable to everyone else? You’re drawing what you think everyone wants to see?” he asks gently.

  In a tiny voice, I say, “I guess it never occurred to me to draw them any other way.”

  I look around the room. Hiroshi’s paintings are everywhere, all of them with different faces, all of them with unique faces. They have such varying degrees of color and shape and style. They represent the whole world.

  My eyes fall back down to my sketchbook. The faces I draw rarely change, like they come from cookie-cutter molds. None of them ever look like me.

  “Beauty isn’t a single thing. Beauty is dreaming—it’s different for everyone, and there are so many versions of it that you mostly have no control over how you see it. Do you understand what I’m saying?” Hiroshi smiles, pats the table, and walks back to his own canvas.

  Everything about him is stylish and cool and otherworldly—the way he speaks, the way he walks, the way he paints. Sometimes I can’t believe Hiroshi Matsumoto is a real person. He’s so comfortable in his own skin. Even if I lived to be three hundred years old, I still wouldn’t have his confidence. It’s his gift—a gift he’s trying to share with me through art.

  I stare at the faces for a long time, and when I’m sick of them I shut my eyes tight and let my imagination take over. I think of so many faces—Emery and Susan Chang and Francis from the tattoo parlor and Akane and Mom—and then I let everything blur together until I’m daydreaming about beautiful quirky strangers I’ve never met before. They have freckles and tans, light hair and dark, crooked features and curves, and they are all exactly as they are meant to be.

  I open my eyes, find a blank page, and leave the cookie cutters behind.

  • • •

  I draw face after face after face after face . . .

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  Mom’s voice is weird today. She’s talking to me the way she talks to strangers—with her nice voice.

  I look at Jamie and point upstairs. I don’t like talking on the phone in front of people—it makes me uncomfortable, and I feel like everyone is listening.

  He smiles and points to the TV. He and Brandon are watching a cop drama I’ve never heard of.

  “Have you heard anything back from the school?” Mom asks. She’s trying to sound nonchalant, but I can tell she wants to know the answer. She’s rarely interested in me; it’s not hard for me to tell the difference when she actually is.

  I close the guest bedroom door and lean against it. “Not yet. Their website said it usually takes four weeks to respond, so it will probably be a while.”

  “I see.” She pauses. “Is anyone there? I thought I could hear someone in the background.”

  “Not anymore. I’m upstairs.”

  “Do they have a nice house?”

  I perk up. “Yeah, really nice.”

  “Is everyone nice to you? Do you guys talk a lot?”

  “Just a normal amount, I guess. Why?”

  “Can’t I be curious? They’re taking care of my only daughter. I have a right to know.” She sighs dismissively. “It’s so hot here. I should be getting some sun, but I’m so busy with work and my website.”

  “Mmm,” I grunt into the phone.

  “So, what do you guys talk about?”

  I move around the room anxiously. She’s leading into a question—I can feel it. “I don’t know, Mom. Normal stuff.”

  “Like what?”

  “The weather. Food. If the water pressure is too high.”

  “Do you talk about me?”

  And there it is.

  “No.”

  “I find that hard to believe.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I know you tell everyone about how horrible you think I am. You know, I hope you at least keep some things private.”

  Anger swells in my throat. Hurt floods my chest. “That’s not true—I don’t talk about you. And if you’re talking about Uncle Max—”

  She tuts into the phone, interrupting me. “You mean to tell me you drove all the way to California without telling Jamie how miserable you think your life is?”

  It’s hard to hold the phone up to my ear because my hands are trembling like it’s below freezing in this room. “Actually, yeah. I haven’t talked to Jamie about you at all. I didn’t even tell him about Uncle—”

  “God, Kiko.” Mom groans. “Enough about Max and the money.”

  My palms sweat. “I’m not talking about the money.”

  She ignores me. “Well, I don’t trust you. I have this gut feeling you guys have been trying to drag my name through the dirt over in Cal-i-for-nia.”

  “Why do you keep saying it like that?” I snap.

  “I’m saying it completely normally. Stop being so sensitive.”

  “I have to go to the studio.” My knees feel like they’re made of jelly. It’s impossible to stand still.

  “Okay. Well, I love you, even if you hate me.”

  Normally I’d correct her. Normally I’d convince her that I don’t hate her. But I’m too angry and I don’t care if she thinks I hate her. She’s probably only saying it because she wants me to fall back under her spell anyway.

  “Bye.” I hang up the phone.

  When I reach the bottom of the stairs, I see Brandon’s head pop up from the other side of the couch.

  “Was that your mom?” When I nod, he asks, “How’s everything at home? Your brothers okay?”

  “They’re fine.” At least I think they are—Mom doesn’t usually talk about them unless she’s complaining, but that’s normal, so I just assume everything is normal with my brothers, too. I walk closer to Jamie, who pushes his body forward suddenly so he’s leaning away from the couch. “I’m going to head over to the studio.”

  “Okay,” he says, his fingers flexing.

  Brandon is staring at the television screen, but he’s still talking to me. “I heard your dad got remarried.”

  I’m sure Jamie’s jaw clenches.r />
  “He did,” I say. “They had twins a little while ago. Two girls.”

  Brandon’s eyes find mine. “Oh, really? Wow. That’s great. Good for him.”

  Jamie suddenly shoots up from his seat. “Actually,” he says a little too loudly, “I’ll drive you over there if that’s cool. I could use a coffee.”

  He’s out of the house so fast I barely have time to process what just happened. When I ask him about it in the car, he shrugs and tells me it was nothing. I want to believe him, because it’s Jamie, and because I don’t think he would lie to me, but it’s obvious he’s hiding something.

  But he doesn’t talk. Neither of us does.

  Hiroshi notices I have something on my mind. Something different than normal.

  “I hope this is the emotion you’ve brought with you to paint today,” he remarks.

  It’s taking me forever to blend the right amount of white and yellow paint because I can’t stop thinking about Jamie’s shifting jawline and my mother telling me how she doesn’t trust me, even though I never talk about her. At least not in the way she means. I talk about me, and that’s different. It feels necessary.

  It’s my story, after all. Maybe I need to make sense of things. Maybe I need to talk about it. And telling my story isn’t the same thing as breaking her trust.

  I don’t want to talk about Mom to anyone, if I can help it. I’d prefer if she just didn’t affect me anymore. I’d prefer if I hardly had to think about her at all. Not because I hate her or anything, because I don’t. But thinking about her hurts me; talking about how she makes me feel hurts me.

  What I want is for the hurt to stop. I want a mother who thinks more of me than she does. Who recognizes that I’m a better person than the version of me she has in her head. I just want her to know me, and be interested in me, and care about me without it being because she thinks she’s supposed to.

  And maybe—just maybe—I want her to think I’m pretty, too, even if it’s just a little bit and even if it’s just in my own way. I know I don’t have her blond hair and blue eyes. I don’t have her long legs and her delicate nose. And I want her to tell me that it’s okay. That being pretty in a different way to her is okay. Because pretty is important to Mom. I want to be important to her too.

  And then I don’t think—I paint.

  • • •

  I paint my mother shimmering like a pearl, her arms allowing—no, expecting—the world to worship her.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  Hiroshi invites me and Jamie to dinner. I’m worried Jamie won’t want to go because he doesn’t act the same around me lately. He’s . . . grouchy. And irritable. And he snaps at me when I ask him if he’s okay.

  I feel like I’ve hurt him somehow, and I’m not sure how to make it better.

  But not only does Jamie agree to go; he actually seems excited about it. He even wears a white shirt with a suit vest over it like he’s catching the tail end of a wedding. When I ask him why he’s so dressed up, he laughs and asks, “Why not?”

  I’m underdressed next to him, with my hair in a ponytail and my jeans flecked with gold paint. I’m living out of a suitcase—packing a nice dress wasn’t a priority.

  Akane greets us at the door. “Come in. Come in. Make yourselves at home.” She’s wearing a red tank top and a white skirt. “Leave your shoes by the door, please.”

  Their house smells like oranges and nutmeg. The floors are dark wood, and all of the fixtures seem to be the same brushed metal. To my surprise, none of the artwork around the house is Hiroshi’s. They are all abstract and blend perfectly with the color theme of each room.

  Hiroshi looks happy to see us. He introduces us to his wife, Mayumi, who is a decade older than him, which I think is all kinds of awesome, and his oldest daughter, Rei, who is so pretty up close that I can’t believe she isn’t a professional model.

  They’re all so nice and happy, and they treat Jamie and me like they’ve known us for years. Mayumi makes the mistake of referring to us as boyfriend and girlfriend three times. Neither of us corrects her, which definitely hasn’t gone unnoticed.

  We eat vegetable ramen for dinner, which Hiroshi made specifically because of me. Afterward Mayumi brings out mochi ice cream, which is so good I make an actual noise when I eat it.

  “I can’t believe you never have mochi before,” Mayumi says. Unlike Hiroshi, she speaks with an accent. “Rei and Akane love since they were children.”

  I shrug. “I’ve never had ramen like that either. We’ve only ever eaten the stuff from the foam cup.”

  She makes a noise like she’s about to faint. Everyone at the table giggles, even me.

  When we’re finished, I offer to help clean up, but Mayumi shoos me out of the kitchen.

  “Spend time talking. You our guest,” she insists.

  On my way back to the living room, I feel a rush of fresh air envelop my skin. The wide, sliding door to my left is open, exposing the square deck overlooking the hills.

  I step into the evening warmth. Hiroshi’s house is so close to the water I can practically taste the salt in the air. I feel it on my skin—my face feels tighter, as if all the salt has found its way to every crevasse and pore. It makes me feel calm, but I don’t know why.

  My fingers rest against the edge of the balcony. The ocean sends another wave toward the sand before pulling it back again. Over and over again it does this. It’s hypnotic. It’s beautiful.

  All my life I’ve felt lonely, and it has always left an ache inside me, like there’s a supernatural presence crushing my heart within its fist. Looking out at the ocean, I don’t know how anyone could be anything but lonely. There’s nothing out there to see—just water and space. But it feels good. If lonely can ever be something good, this is it. This is Kiko at peace with the world. This is Kiko not in the middle of a raging war with her mother. This is Kiko just being Kiko.

  I decide I am in love with the ocean. I’m totally counting it as a legitimate relationship, because if I ever felt this way about another aspect of nature, it would absolutely feel like cheating.

  Jamie’s voice breaks my thoughts from the wide, open-planned space behind me. When I turn around, I see him talking to Rei. They’re both smiling, moving their hands around enthusiastically and talking to each other like they’ve known each other for months. It looks so easy. Social interactions make sense to Jamie. He understands the rules.

  “Do you surf?” Hiroshi steps onto the decking with his bare feet and gray, loose-fitting clothes.

  “No. I don’t know how to swim.”

  “Don’t they teach you to swim in school?”

  I shake my head again. “They teach us softball and stuff, but not swimming.” And thank God for that. I’d die if I had to wear a bathing suit in front of anyone.

  Hiroshi frowns and his eyes completely disappear. “That’s terrible. Everyone should learn how to swim.” He moves next to me and drums his fingers at the banister. “Akane is a very good swimmer. She can teach you.”

  I glance back at his youngest daughter standing near Rei and Jamie. She’s slim and cute and has sleek black hair that looks like it’s been soaked in conditioner. If I went swimming with her I’d look like a beluga whale next to a mermaid.

  “It’s okay. I don’t really like the water,” I say.

  Hiroshi points his finger in front of him like he’s using it to focus on me. “I can see you, Kiko. You love the water. Why are you trying to hide yourself?”

  I’m not prepared to answer such a very big question.

  He leans against the railing. “My father never wanted me to paint. In fact, he only wanted me to do what he himself approved of first. Because you see, to my father, my purpose in life was not to follow my dreams. It was to bring him happiness. He had a very strong understanding of what I needed to do in order to make him happy. And if I wasn’t making him happy, well, then, what was the point of having children?

  “I wasted a lot of time trying to be the son he wanted because I
thought failing him meant that I was failing in life. Anytime he was unhappy, I thought it was my fault. If he was angry at me, I felt to blame. He always found a way to make me feel as if I had let him down in some way.” Hiroshi straightens his back. “At his funeral, I overheard some people referring to him as ‘Starfish.’ I asked them why they gave him that nickname, and they told me it was because he always had to be the center of attention. Like the legs of a starfish, all pointing to the middle. He thought he was the center of all things.” Hiroshi laughs. “All that time growing up, I thought I was the only one who could see. I thought nobody understood the way he was. I thought I was the problem. But some people are just starfish—they need everyone to fill the roles that they assign. They need the world to sit around them, pointing at them and validating their feelings. But you can’t spend your life trying to make a starfish happy, because no matter what you do, it will never be enough. They will always find a way to make themselves the center of attention, because it’s the only way they know how to live.”

  I feel like all my blood has drained away and I am left standing and empty.

  A sense of clarity washes over me, and all the images I’ve collected of my mother over the years start to morph into something different. For the first time in my life, I really see her.

  The mother I’ve always wanted isn’t real; she’s a dream. And not every dream comes true. Sometimes a wishing star turns out to be just a lump of rock that crashes into a planet and kills all the dinosaurs. Mom’s not a shooting star—she’s a starfish.

  And for the briefest, smallest moment in time, I feel like I don’t have a mother at all.

  Hiroshi pulls himself away from the balcony and places a hand on my shoulder. “Don’t live to please the starfish, especially when their happiness is at the expense of yours. That is not love. That is narcissism. There’s an entire ocean out there, Kiko—swim in it.”

  After he goes inside, it takes me a while to move. When I look over my shoulder, I see Jamie watching me with the same adoring smile he has from the first time I met him.