by Paula Hiatt
He thought of all the little old ladies with their shrunken heads and teased hair barely poking over the steering wheel as they chauffeured their aged husbands around town. I’m the man. The man is supposed to drive.
He opened his mouth to offer his own car, but she had already turned to talk to Tom, whose enthusiasm for Napa Valley burbled large right up until the plates were cleared and Ryoki had missed his chance. Kate invited Tom and Claire, twice, nearly wheedling the second invitation, but sadly they were returning to L.A. early in the morning and couldn’t be delayed.
A little after eight everyone adjourned to the large family room, preferring big leather chairs and comfy sofas to the arch formality of the living room. They had just gotten settled when a low rumble radiated from the depths of the cavernous house. At first Ryoki thought they must have an entire kindergarten in full stampede, complete with clouds of dust and get along little doggies. Instead two children appeared, a girl and a boy, Hannah and Jack, four and three respectively. A month ago Tom had emailed Ryoki a photo of his children at Disneyland, yanking Goofy’s ears while two desperate security people tried to drag them away without traumatizing anyone.
“He was jumping on me and kicking me and biting me and pulling my hair—”
“I didn’t bite,” Jack said flatly.
A harried-looking teenager came running up from behind, clutching a plastic sword that hummed and lit up blue as she handed it to Jack, who made a face at his sister. “I towd you you can’t hide it fowevoe.”
The babysitter had what looked like grape juice on her white sweater and the twist in her hair had tipped precariously to one side, giving the overall impression that she might fall over if she strayed too far from the wall. “I’m sorry,” she said. “They really wanted to say goodnight.”
Tossing her blonde curls, Hannah looked like a magazine angel, but no one who knew her was taken in. All business, she marched to the center of the room, carrying a stack of books, a hairbrush and a few ribbons. Her dark-haired little brother followed behind, wearing a horned Viking helmet, holding a sword in his left hand and carefully balancing a green frog cup in his right. Jack looked at Ryoki very seriously. “If I spilw, I have to stay in da kitchen,” he said, gently placing his cup on an elaborate inlaid chess table over which Ryoki and Tom had spent many happy hours locked in mortal combat. Claire hurried to move it to a more suitable location as both kids commenced chanting, “Story! Story! Story!”
Such perfect unison did not come without practice.
Claire went toward her children, holding up her hands for quiet and trying to look stern, but Ryoki recognized a soft touch when he saw one. “Have you been giving Melanie a hard time?”
“No,” Hannah said, shrugging her shoulders, eyes wide and blue as the sky.
Ryoki caught a moment of indecision on Claire’s face; to punish or not to punish?
“We just want a story.” On cue both children pulled out the hundred-watt grins, exposing Jack’s big front gap, the most lethal weapon in his arsenal.
“One story, then bed. Deal?” Claire said quickly.
“Deal!” they cried in unison.
Claire looked at the sitter and took pity. “I’ll take you home, Mel. Tom will read to the kids and put them to bed.”
“No. Kate. We already decided,” Hannah said.
Hannah looked up at her mother, face set, the very image of Kate, despite her blonde hair.
“Okay,” Kate said. “One story, let’s go.”
She took their shoulders to usher them down the hall as Claire and Grace led the sitter in the opposite direction. Ryoki, fearing Tom’s promise to describe all the haunted hotels in Napa Valley, suddenly declared a keen desire to hear a bedtime story and hastily produced two silk handkerchiefs, making one vanish into the other so the children would cut and run in his direction. “That’s prolonging,” Kate said, looking betrayed. Brian and Tom kept quiet, eyes flicking from Kate to Ryoki to see who would win.
“Do you want to see five dollars turn into twenty?” Ryoki asked, keeping his eyes on the children. He’d actually brought a couple of tricks on the off-chance he got to see Hannah and Jack.
“You gotta see this, Kate,” Hannah said, snatching Kate’s hand. “After that we can read our story. But we have to sit in our club because we need to do your hair.”
As he performed his trick, Ryoki saw Brian flip Tom a quarter. “Knew he’d pull it off,” Tom whispered.
“Openin’ skirmish,” Brian answered. “Long haul, my money’s still on—”
Jack squealed and Ryoki missed the clarifying word.
Kate and the children moved to the floor to sit in the crook of the grand piano. Hannah carefully arranged her books around the piano leg, laying the ribbons neatly side by side. She noticed Ryoki watching. “This is our club, Kate’s and mine.” Having made that clear, she returned to her work, placing the brush diagonally over the ribbons. At last she settled with her knees tucked to the side, her princess nightgown frothing all around her, yards and yards of satin and sheer, practically a ball gown.
“That’s quite a nightgown, Hannah,” Ryoki said.
“I drew a picture and Kate made it for me,” she replied distractedly.
“Fings!” hollered Jack.
“Yay, Things,” Hannah seconded.
Kate picked up a book as Hannah carelessly grabbed the brush. Kate looked her in the eye. “Remember to be careful about the pulling, Hannah.”
“I will, I will,” Hannah said, rolling her eyes as if Kate could not be more ridiculous. She plowed the brush into Kate’s hair, back and forth, up and down, winding her ribbons in twists that would not stay put, Kate wincing at regular intervals.
Kate read Where the Wild Things Are, a story Ryoki’s mother had read him so many times that he still knew it by heart. Secretly he would have liked to read to the kids himself, maybe carry them around on his back. Growing up as the only child of two only children, the echoing silences in his vast empty house had made him promise himself a whole baseball team of children, ten at least. But he’d grown up, learned to be realistic, to want less.
Kate’s voice rose and fell, taking her time, giving life to the voices. When she finally read the last hopeful words, Hannah declared Kate’s hair not nearly ready and would Kate please read just one more. Kate read two.
In the middle of the second story Jack leaped up, handed Kate his cup, and began fighting invisible enemies, part knight, part ninja. “Fanks, Kate,” he said, resuming his seat and retrieving his cup.
“When you’re fighting bad guys, someone has to hold your juice,” Kate pronounced sagely.
It wasn’t until the third and final story, when Hannah finally wearied of her brushing, that Ryoki realized he’d been staring at Kate’s hair. It looked so different from the office. He didn’t consider the difference between bleached compact fluorescents and lively incandescent bulbs. He only saw garnet lights winking and shimmering through the shiny mahogany mass. He understood why Hannah wanted to brush and touch it. He wondered what it smelled like, whether it was coarse or soft like his mother’s. His mother told him that as a child he used to ask her every night if he could “hold her hay.” Though he never mentioned it, he did recollect the grainy softness of her curls twining through his fingers as she read to him. Odd to think of that now.
“The End,” Kate said significantly. “Time for B—E—”
“D,” the children said gloomily, hanging their heads before beginning the age-old dodge and weave designed to keep them from bed as long as possible, even accosting Ryoki who made his pinky ring vanish into his eye and come out the back of his head. After that Kate tackled Jack, and Tom snatched up Hannah, slinging them up off their feet and carrying them down the hall and off to bed.
Chapter Three
Ryoki was left alone with Brian and suddenly the room felt overly still, as though individual atoms of nitrogen and oxygen had settled down to rest. “I guess Kate was here a lot growing up,” Ryoki said.
“Oh yes, as many summers as we could get her. Before we married, Grace told me how she wanted a girl, but we didn’t get a one. Fortunately my brother had four gals, so we just sort of borrowed Kate. That’s actually why she speaks Japanese.”
“You taught her?” This made no sense to Ryoki. Brian’s Japanese syntax and vocabulary were excellent, but his accent was Huckleberry Finn Goes to Yokohama. His father still supplied Brian with a translator if they had to meet with the board. Kate’s accent was excellent, and Ryoki would have pegged her teacher as an upper-crust Tokyo native. But her vocabulary was simpler, more circuitous than Brian’s, particularly in contrast with her precise English. She kept a Japanese business dictionary on her desk.
“Land, no,” Brian said. “But when she was just a little bit, she heard me speaking to your father on the phone. She got all excited and said she wanted to talk like that. A few months later my brother John and I helped sponsor a Japanese doctoral candidate to come to John’s university out in Utah and develop this revolutionary new method for teaching languages to children. My brother’s an English professor and a writer, very interested in language, so it was no trick to talk him into offering up Kate as a guinea pig. I believe Kate was one of her first students, studied with her for a number of years. Then of course, when they moved to São Paulo she had plenty of chance to practice. Big Japanese population there. I expect that solidified it.” He opened his mouth to say more, but got distracted when Tom returned alone.
“The kids unleashed the ‘We never get to see you’ shtick. I think Hannah even worked up a tear or two. Kate got suckered into one more story, which means at least two.” He rolled his eyes then looked at Ryoki. “So, Tanaka, I hear you’re heading down to Brazil soon. You know I spent some time down there with Kate’s family.”
“Did you enjoy it?” Ryoki asked politely, bracing himself for a Napa-esque onslaught.
“Pretty girls,” Tom said noncommittally. “I think Kate really enjoyed it. She knew the people better than I did.”
“So, didn’t care for it then,” Ryoki said.
“You go there, keep your eyes open,” Tom said, his face uncharacteristically serious. Ryoki snickered. A veteran traveler, he understood how to protect himself in a foreign country, and São Paulo wasn’t exactly a war zone. “You laugh,” Tom said, “but I was robbed twice and I was only there a couple of months.”
“Twice?” Brian said. “How is it I didn’t even know about once?”
“Kate was afraid of losing her freedom, so she made me promise to keep it to myself. You know how her mother was. I suppose it doesn’t matter now.”
“Well, what happened?” Brian asked.
Tom laughed sheepishly. “All over the place they have these big shanty neighborhoods—favelas, they’re called, makeshift houses cobbled together out of whatever they can scavenge, dirt floors, the whole nine yards. One night we were standing with our backs to a big favela and this little guy comes up waving a big knife and talking a mile a minute. I didn’t speak much Portuguese, but I knew what he wanted. I figured I could take him if I had to, so I got between Kate and that knife and handed over all our money. Then I realized that we had no way home, so I got him to give us bus fare. He was reasonable, as thieves go.”
“Kate should’ve known better than that,” Brian said, frowning.
“You know Kate, always so busy people-watching she pays no attention to where she is.”
“What about the second time?” Ryoki asked.
“Yeah, well, the second time was less dramatic. We were just pick-pocketed one night outside a movie theater, just a shove-and-snatch and they didn’t get much. But that time actually bothered me more because I never saw anything. It was probably a group working together and I never saw one of ‘em. They could have had any number of weapons, done whatever they wanted and taken off. I was powerless.” Tom’s eyebrows wrinkled together. “Not seeing them, that knocked the wind out of me. I mean, overall the people there are really warm, some of the nicest I’ve ever met. But there are some desperate ones too, so like I said, keep your eyes open.”
Tom paused, twisted his hair as he always did when he was thinking. “I regret not ratting Kate out, though. For months I woke up sweating from a dream where there’s someone with a knife and I’d start yelling for her to run, but she always just walked along, oblivious. I swear, that girl could be snatched up and locked in the trunk of a car before she noticed a thing.”
“Technically, that could happen in any country,” Ryoki said.
“True,” Tom said, “but São Paulo averages one kidnapping a day.”
“If you know what’s good for you, don’t mention this to your mother,” Brian said, more solemnly than Ryoki thought was warranted. He turned to Ryoki. “Keep your eyes open, son.”
Kate returned to the room, smoothing her hair from the apparent aftermath of a wrestling match. “I had to blow raspberries on their tummies,” she said. “Your kids are getting more spoiled every year.”
“That would be partly your fault,” Tom said.
“Tom was just telling us about your adventures in São Paulo,” Brian said, the twinkle back in his eye.
“‘Adventures’?”
“Said you were robbed at least twice that we know of,” Brian prompted.
“Did he also tell you he used his five words of Portuguese to negotiate a ten-percent discount on our mugging? I knew right then he’d be a good lawyer.” It struck Ryoki strange, even disturbing, that she seemed to consider the whole ordeal a silly prank, didn’t mention the knife, didn’t even appear to remember it.
Grace and Claire returned from the garage, bringing with them the faint chilly smell of outdoors. “Did we miss anything?”
“Tom was just saying he wanted to play cards,” Kate said, looking a gauntlet at Tom who took it up at once.
“House rules, three out of five,” Tom said enthusiastically, already on his feet and moving directly to the game table.
“I have a new strategy,” Kate said. “You have no chance.”
Claire looked at Ryoki. “Don’t let them scare you. This started when they were little over a crucial bout of Chutes and Ladders. Before that I think they mainly used their fists, but Tom kept getting beat up, so Grace made them play board games, battle style.”
“We’re still hoping they’ll grow out of it,” Grace said resignedly.
“Care for a wager, Kate?” Tom asked.
“Nope, just want to beat you.”
“If Tom wins, Kate has to play and sing for us. If Kate wins, Tom has to whistle the national anthem while tap dancing in his boxer shorts,” Claire said firmly.
“Bit harsh, honey,” Tom said. “Why can’t I just sing like Kate?”
“Because your singing peels the scum off the shower, sweetheart.”
“I’m not that bad.”
“Baby, I’m still with you in spite of that noise. That’s proof of my undying love,” she said. Tom tried to look hurt, but you can’t fight truth.
“For the greater good, I accept the terms. Kate?”
“Agreed,” she said.
Ryoki had recently developed a great sympathy for any man caught in his underwear, and took his seat silently rooting for Tom.
“Cards” may have begun its life as Rook, but Porter house rules had gradually transformed it into a noisy, fast-paced, three-deck game that required four players and a minimum of one referee to throw fuzzy dice at anybody getting out of line. The first game was a disaster for Ryoki, who entered play carefully and conscientiously, trying to memorize the rules and remain polite in an impolite game. But by the second round he had caught the rude logic and began to think the game could be easily marketed. Brian played with an amused smile, more often than not giving up his cards to another player, like a father handing out treats to his kids. Kate and Tom played for blood.
At the end of four games, Kate and Tom had two apiece. “There’s a tutu in the dress-up box. I for one am not keen to see
your shorts,” Kate said.
“What makes you so confident?”
“I am about to shock and awe,” she said, fanning herself with her cards.
By the middle of the fifth game, Kate was beating everyone soundly with a new tactic that would likely affect games from then on. But, inexplicably, Tom began to gain, pulling it out of the fire for the win.
“Shenanigans!” Kate hollered when the last card was thrown.
“What?” Tom said innocently.
“Your right eye is twitching.”
“Did you catch me cheating?”
“The numbers don’t add—”
Tom cut her off. “Purely circumstantial evidence, Kate. Innocent until proven guilty.”
Kate narrowed her eyes before exchanging a look with Claire. The two women started to giggle with the sweetness of a talking doll in a horror flick. Ryoki wondered if Tom would have been better off losing.
“Tom, I have a picture of you naked in the tub,” Kate said.
“I was three,” he said, still basking in his victory.
“Actually, five, and I’m friends with your boss’s daughter,” Kate said.
“So? What could she do?” Ten percent of the color drained from Tom’s face, but he soldiered out a grin.
“I have the general email for the whole office. That picture would make a dandy screensaver,” Claire said.
“I hadn’t thought of that,” Kate said delightedly.
Tom was done in, but he didn’t dare back down, not entirely. “How about we split the difference. I’ll tap dance and whistle with my pants on, and Kate will play and not sing.”
Claire was the toughest sell, but reluctantly gave in. Tom let out a long, grateful breath and stood in front of the fireplace where he half whistled, half hummed an atonal “Star Spangled Banner” while dancing a sleepy foot, knee jerk shuffle step. Ryoki laughed until tears welled in his eyes. He was still trying to slyly brush them away when Kate settled down at the piano.