“I’m Jae-Jae,” she says. “Do you know how to use a cash register?”
I shake my head.
“What about a coffee machine?”
I shake my head again.
She pouts. “Okay. How about a broom?”
“That I can do,” I say.
She laughs, and I’m sure a little bit of glitter falls out of her hair. “All right. You sweep. I’ll teach.”
I clean up a mess of black hair from beneath a chair. Each time a customer needs to pay for something, or someone asks for a hot drink while they’re waiting for the hair dye to set, Jae-Jae shows me how to operate everything. At some point, we end up in the back room sorting through a box of supplies that needs to be unpacked.
Jae-Jae tells me she’s been working at the salon for a year. She got the job because her mom and Mrs. Yamada are good friends. She tells me she auditioned to be in a K-pop group earlier in the year but didn’t make it, and now she’s not really sure what she wants to do.
“What about you?” she asks. “What are your plans after high school?”
A memory
“We should apply to the same university together. We could be roommates,” Alice says, her eyes an alarming blue next to her angled black bob. “How cool would that be?”
I put a fresh piece of gum in my mouth, and the rush of spearmint envelops my tongue. “I don’t know if I want to go to college.”
She half shakes her head away and half rolls her eyes. She does that a lot, and I always feel like it’s more for show than out of habit. Maybe it’s the way she always looks around at the end, checking to see if anyone is watching her. “Everyone wants to go to college. It’s basically like high school but with less homework and more freedom.”
I shrug, eating another French fry and following her gaze around the cafeteria. Caleb is sitting with the captain of the cheerleading squad. Well, not so much sitting with her as practically lying on top of her. Their faces are pretty much just one face at this point.
I don’t know when Caleb stopped being annoying and actually became popular, but I do know it happened after Alice broke up with him. If it had happened before, I think she might have stuck it out until the end of the year. Or at least until prom was over, so she would have had a genuine chance at junior prom queen.
Alice is scowling at the two of them. I’m scowling too, but for very different reasons. I scowl at everyone who thinks it’s not disgusting to swap spit in the middle of a public cafeteria.
Sighing, she turns back to me, not realizing I still haven’t replied to her. “I can’t wait to get out of here. I want to meet new people. A fresh crop of boys.”
There was a time I thought we’d be best friends forever—and then she kissed Caleb and turned into kind of a snob.
But something else happened too. Lea grew up. She went from being my baby sister, to my little sister, to my younger sister, to just my sister. She evolved into my best friend. And to be honest, if I’m going to go to college with anyone, it’s going to be Lea. She’s the only person I know besides Mom who doesn’t make me want to punch myself in the face. And she gets me—like, really gets me. I don’t feel like I have to constantly explain myself, or justify why I feel the things I feel. She doesn’t think it’s weird I’m not interested in romance or college or anything besides music. And she doesn’t hate me even after all the times I’ve been horrible to her.
“I want to write music. With Lea,” I say. “We talked about going to college at the same time, for music. But in the meantime, we want to try to get a record deal together.”
Alice brushes hair out of her eyes. “Your sister is only a freshman. What are you going to do for two years while you’re waiting for her to graduate?”
I scrunch my nose. “What’s wrong with waiting?”
“It’s kind of a waste of time, no?”
“No. Because I’m waiting for something.”
“That sounds pretty lazy.”
“Lea and I have a plan. That’s not lazy—that’s following our dreams.”
Alice looks irritated. Not at me, but because Caleb doesn’t even seem to notice she exists anymore. “Well, that’s fine, I guess, as long as you don’t care that you’ll be two years behind everyone else your age.”
I eat another French fry, and then another and another, just so I don’t have to keep talking to Alice about things she doesn’t understand.
Two years behind. What is the rush? Why does everyone think I should be in some big hurry? What am I supposed to be running toward?
I hate it. I hate the rushing, and the expectations, and the pressure.
It makes me feel like I’m behind everyone else. Even behind Lea, who is so sure of herself and confident about what she wants that I don’t know how I’m ever supposed to catch up.
I just want to make music with my sister for the rest of my life. Is that so much to ask?
It takes me a second to realize Jae-Jae looks weirded out because I’m almost snarling. I try to look like a normal teenager about to become a senior in high school. I imagine it looks something like Hannah—excited about the future, prematurely tired of school when there’s still a year left, and anxious to go.
But the truth is, I’m not in a hurry to go anywhere. I’m not sure my dreams mean anything anymore because they died with Lea. Maybe all I have left now is the knowledge that we live before we die—everything in between is simply extra effort to keep ourselves from hitting our expiration dates too early.
It’s scary trying to decide what I’m supposed to do with all that extra time. I mean, it could be days or months or years. What if I live to be one hundred? What if I only make it until the end of next week? Does everything in the middle become a waste, because there wasn’t enough time to finish what I’ve started? And what about things I don’t know the answers to? Like, what if I die before I ever play an instrument again? What if I die without knowing what my favorite hot dog topping is? What if I die before I ever have sex? Or before I figure out if I ever want to have sex?
It’s a lot of pressure. Maybe it’s easier to not make any final decisions ever again. Because Lea and I were so sure we were going to get recording contracts and tour the world. Look how well that turned out.
I look at Jae-Jae with fleeting interest. “My only plan right now is to get the money to pay Mrs. Yamada back. After that . . . I don’t know.” It’s sort of the truth. I have to finish “Summer Bird Blue” too, but I’m not sure I’m ready to talk about music to anybody yet. I think maybe I need to keep it to myself for a while, until I’m ready to acknowledge what finishing our last song really means.
After “Summer Bird Blue,” everything I do will be on my own, without any trace of Lea.
And I find that so much more terrifying than not having a plan for the future.
We spend the rest of the afternoon barely talking, not because Jae-Jae gives up on me, but because I’m not sure I want to make any more friends when I’m going to be leaving soon anyway. I think it’s better if I don’t get attached. I think it’s better if I just pretend I’m a ghost—here one moment and gone the next.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Poi brushes her whiskers against my cheek, her cold nose making my face recoil. “Stop that,” I say, pressing my hand against her body. She jumps over my stomach and settles on the other side of me.
Mr. Watanabe is whistling in the kitchen along with the music. It’s piano music today. It sounds like salt and whispers and abandoned lighthouses.
I take a breath through my nose—he’s cooking something with fish, but it doesn’t smell exactly like fish. It’s sweeter, somehow.
“What is that?” I call out.
“Food,” he answers.
“Yeah, but what kind?”
“Good food.”
“Yeah, but what is it?”
“Fish.”
“Yeah, but what kind of fish?”
“You ask too many questions. If you like know what kine food dis is, de
n you try cook next time.”
I roll my eyes and sit up, pulling my knees back so my legs are shaped like a diamond. “Can I use your bathroom?”
He grunts.
I look down the hall at the three doors. “Which one is it?”
“Da one where da toilet stay.”
I snort before pushing myself up and making my way to the first door on the left. I peek inside. It’s the bathroom. I walk in, turning to close the door, when something in the room across from me catches my eye.
It’s large, and black, and has eighty-eight keys.
I swallow.
I didn’t know Mr. Watanabe played the piano. Why didn’t I know that?
I can’t help it—magic runs through my bloodstream when I see a piano.
My skin tingles like someone turned up the amp. My fingers twitch like they’ve been starved for years. My heart beats like it’s begging for a song. And before I know it, I’m standing in the next room, my right hand hovering over the ivory and black keys, and I forget everything but the notes fluttering through my brain like a never-ending song.
I don’t remember sitting down, or pressing my foot against the right peddle, or even caressing my fingertips along the keys. But I do remember the first note that leaps through the room like a fish falling back into the sea. It sounds like everything good in the world. And then I lose myself to the instrument, as if my skin and the piano are all connected as one being.
My fingers fly around the keys, playing one of the many songs that never really leave me. Because music is more powerful and familiar than breathing. Playing the piano again feels like my sight and hearing and sense of touch have all returned in one single moment. It feels like living again.
At the end of the song, I barely take a breath. My fingers jump into the next piece in my repertoire, like a playlist from my memory that can’t be stopped. It’s good to feel something that isn’t hate or anger or hurt. It feels like I’m here, living somewhere within the sounds.
Could that be where Lea lives too? Is that why music hurt so much before?
I don’t want to be afraid of finding my sister anymore. I don’t want to be afraid of the ache in my chest.
I just want her back.
I think I play at least five more songs before I hear the sound of Aunty Ani’s car pull up and realize I’m still in Mr. Watanabe’s house and not in the most perfect dream I’ve had in months. I take a breath, step away from the piano with shaky hands, and walk back to the living room like I’m standing on a conveyor belt.
Mr. Watanabe is sitting in his chair with something heavy and cruel in his eyes. The record player is off, and I think something might be burning in the oven.
I’ve hurt him. Somehow I’ve hurt him.
The fan above me spins in fast circles, the seamless motion making me feel faint.
A memory
Dad’s strawberry-blond curls flop around every time he shakes his head. He’s pacing around the room in circles, like the train ride at the carnival. Around and around and around.
“I can’t take it anymore,” he says.
He doesn’t see me watching from the hall. Mom doesn’t either—she’s too busy crying.
“One kid was hard enough, but two? I didn’t want this, Mamo. I didn’t want to be a parent this young,” he says.
“It doesn’t matter what you wanted—this is what you got,” Mom sputters.
I squeeze the edge of the doorframe, feeling the wood between my fingers. Watching them.
“I have my whole life ahead of me. I cannot waste any more of it on”—he waves his hand around erratically—“this.”
“You’re their father. You’re a part of their lives whether you want to be or not,” Mom says. Her shoulders are shaking.
Dad sighs, reaching for her, but she shoves his hands away like they’re covered in something dirty. Something contagious.
“You selfish bastard,” Mom growls.
I feel my heart jump. Mom never swears. Mom never yells.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I only get one chance to live my life. I want to really live it.”
“If you do this,” Mom hisses, “if you leave now, you don’t ever come back. It’s not a revolving door—I’m not going to let you break our daughters’ hearts again and again.”
He blinks. There aren’t any tears. “Okay. Okay.”
Mom breaks down into a horrible sob, bending over and squeezing her stomach like she’s going to be sick.
Dad leans down. “I’m so sorry. I tried. But”—he pauses, closing his eyes and twisting his jaw—“it’s just too much. You know I never wanted this. I don’t have enough of me to spread around between you and two kids. I’m losing myself. I want to be me again. If we didn’t have Lea, I could cope better. But two of them . . .”
Mom starts to say something, but I’m already running to the bedroom.
Lea is in her toddler bed, curled up like a puppy, her blanket pushed down to her ankles. I take her hand and sit beside her, watching the door and waiting for footsteps.
If we didn’t have Lea. And I don’t understand what any of the shouting and the fighting and the horrible words mean, but I know Dad is saying he doesn’t want Lea.
I won’t let him give her away. I won’t let anyone take her from me. I’ll protect her. I’ll keep her safe. I’ll keep her here.
I watch the doorway until I’m too tired to keep my eyes open.
Lea is still there in the morning, but Dad never comes home.
I was supposed to protect my sister, but I didn’t. Sometimes I couldn’t.
I hurt people, even when I don’t always mean to. I don’t want to hurt anyone the way Dad hurt us—the way he hurt Mom. But I can’t help it. Maybe I’m too much like him. Because I say things and do things and I never know how to take them back. Sometimes I don’t even know I want to, until too much time has passed. It’s hard to apologize right away. It’s even harder to apologize later on, because then you have to relive arguments all over again.
I should’ve apologized to Lea. I should never have hurt her the way I did.
The way I’ve somehow hurt Mr. Watanabe now.
Poi lifts her head from the floor, looking between us with her small pink tongue dangling from her mouth. For all her barking and yapping, she’s the world’s worst guard dog, letting me into Mr. Watanabe’s life. She should’ve done more to protect him, just like I should’ve done more to protect Lea.
I walk out the front door and close the screen behind me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
I go with Aunty Ani to the mall because I can’t go back to Mr. Watanabe’s, and I’m still not sure if I’m allowed to hang out with Kai or not. Or, more accurately, I’m not sure he wants to hang out with me.
The mall looks like the ones back home in Washington, two stories and split down the middle, but there’s no roof and there are trees everywhere. We have chicken long rice for lunch, which isn’t rice at all—it’s more of a stew made up of clear mung bean noodles, ginger, onions, and lots of chicken.
Aunty Ani is being so careful not to set me off that she doesn’t ask me a single question—she never stops talking, like she’s worried the silence will give me an opportunity to yell at her for something.
“Shave ice at the mall is junk, but the one at the hotel is ono. We can drive by later. I thought maybe we could see one movie first, because I know you like da kine animated films, and there’s a new—”
“I don’t,” I interject. She stops, her mouth frozen midword. “Lea was the one who liked cartoons.”
Aunty Ani looks frazzled, like she knows she’s a pile of confetti that’s about to be thrown in the air and end up all over the floor, but she’s powerless to stop it.
I try to relax my face. I didn’t bring my weapons today. “I like superhero movies. I think they have a new Marvel one playing, if you want to see that instead.”
She nods so many times. I think she’s trying not to burst into tears. “Oh, oh, okay. We
can do that. I’ll get us one of those big snack boxes, you know, with the nachos and popcorn? Or I could get two, if you want your own.” She pauses, still nodding.
“I’m full. But thanks.” I force a smile, but I’m pretty sure it still comes out like a grimace.
Aunty Ani almost explodes into an exasperated sigh. “You’re welcome, Rumi.”
I try to tell myself it feels nice to not be hurting someone for a change, but there’s a miserable itch in my chest that makes me want to shout and thrash and snarl at everyone and everything around me. But I tell that urge to shut up. I tell it to quiet down, because Lea would be horrified if she saw how I was treating Aunty Ani. They always got along, the two of them, even though they hardly saw each other. I think it’s because Lea was so easy to get along with. She was like a baby animal. You’d have to have a truly wicked heart to look at her and not feel some sliver of joy.
After the movie we take the long route along North Shore. I tell her I don’t want any shave ice, but I wouldn’t mind looking at the water.
Because I still think she’s out there, somewhere beyond the waves. Lea, with her goodness and giggles and heart made of pink cotton candy. Sometimes it feels like she’s waiting for me, but I don’t really know what for.
Aunty Ani notices the way I’m watching the ocean—like I wish it would tell me what to do next. “If you like try surfing lessons, I could set that up fo’ you. It might be a nice way to spend the rest of the summer, having something fo’ do every week.”
I dangle my fingers out of the window to feel the wind push against them. I imagine I’m a bird, fighting against the breeze. Birds are lucky—they can fly away whenever they feel like it. They can disappear, start over, exist somewhere else. I’m not a bird—I can’t just spread my wings and go.
I clear my throat. “I’m not really interested in surfing, to be honest.”
She’s quiet for a while. “Then why did you do it?”
She means why did I go out into the water and almost get myself killed.
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