I almost choked on a home fry. “Really!? Who? Don’t you dare hold out on me.”
“Austin.”
Who do we know named Austin? I know it sounds ridiculous, but that actual thought ran through my head. “Oh. Is he that red-haired kid in your Honors English class?”
Will blinked at my stupidity and cracked up. “Mattie, no. Austin. As in your brother’s friend, Austin.”
“AUSTIN?” This simply did not compute. “But . . . that’s . . . How did you two even meet?”
“At Salone Postale, obviously.”
“Oh.”
He exhaled a deep breath. “Are you mad?”
“Mad?”
Honestly, I was too shocked to feel anything. But then a bittersweet little memory from middle school swam up from the depths of my mind. I’d fallen off my bike and the concrete tore into my knees and right elbow, caking them with dirt and blood. I still remember how much it stung. My brother, who’d just gotten his driver’s license, stopped only so he and Connor could laugh at me as I sat on the side of the road, choking back tears. Instead of joining them, Austin climbed out of the back seat and helped me up. When Kyle and Connor sped off, still laughing, he walked with me all the way back to my house.
“Of course I’m not mad. I mean, it’s insane, but kind of amazing.”
“Phew,” Will sighed.
“Does he make you happy?”
Will grinned as a blush crept into his cheeks. I don’t want to take all the credit for this, but come on. If I hadn’t taken a chance on myself, if I hadn’t shown up on Miyu’s porch that morning and refused to leave, Will and Austin probably never would’ve met.
“Does my brother know?” I asked.
“No. Not yet.”
***
“Brilliant as always,” Liam said as he handed back my history paper. “Dare I ask how you got ahold of your source material?”
For a second, I considered telling him about Miyu. But I figured one question would lead to another and soon enough I’d be lying to cover my tracks. “A lady historian never tells,” I replied.
He shook his head. “I’m going to miss you next year, Mattie McKenna.”
I glanced through Liam’s notes on my paper as two of my classmates got into a politically charged discussion on the invisibility of women in American History textbooks.
“But they weren’t doing anything important at the time,” the smelly kid argued.
The girl with the earbuds and I both glared at him. “That depends on how you define important,” I said. “They still have stories.”
Earbud-girl, who’d been growing on me on a daily basis, laid into him with a surprisingly articulate diatribe on the power of patriarchy. My mom would have loved this conversation and that it was happening in a public high school. But as much as I wanted to participate, today happened to be December third, the anniversary of Akiko Miyake’s death by plane crash, and I had important business to take care of.
I discreetly pulled out my phone and texted Frankie:
>Hi. I need your help with something today.
>Salutations. How can I be of service, m’lady?
>Sixteen years ago today, Miyu’s mom died. I’d like to do something nice for her. I know she doesn’t like to leave the house, but it might be good for her to visit her mom’s grave, you know? Like, put some flowers on it or something. Does that sound dumb?
>She’ll never go for it.
>I know. Maybe we can talk her into getting coffee and then swing by Swan Point before she has a chance to argue about it?
>Swan Point? I have an idea.
>Thank god. I’ll borrow Stella’s Bug and we’ll head there after school.
>Roger that.
After school, Frankie and I found Miyu sipping tea at the dining room table, wearing her forever-disgruntled expression like today was any other day. “You come in without knocking now?” she barked.
“Frankie’s the one who opened the door,” I argued.
“Cub Scout has privileges. I still expect you to knock. What do you want?”
“Ugh, whatever. So . . . we’re here because . . . um . . .”
“We’re going to pay our respects to H. P. Lovecraft’s grave at Swan Point Cemetery,” Frankie chimed in. “You should join us.”
Miyu stared out the window, tapping her fingers on the table. “I suppose I owe him that.”
She got up and put on her coat, then, as usual, got stuck on the porch. I tried not to crack up as she gingerly dangled her foot over the edge, like her lawn was made of hot lava.
“If you make it to the car in the next ten seconds, I’ll stop at Greene Beans to pick up a latte for you,” I said, trying to coax her onto the stone path.
“Fine,” she barked. “But I want a shot of espresso, too.”
“Done.”
She scuffed her boots all the way to the passenger seat and called the drive-thru barista a useless clodpole when he got her order wrong. He flipped her the bird as we drove away, though she didn’t seem to care now that she had the latte of her dreams.
A light snow began to fall as we drove into Swan Point Cemetery. I’d been expecting a hillside of tasteful plots. Swan Point was more like a silent city of the dead. Frankie pulled out the map he’d printed off, but we still got lost in the maze of winding roads and endless marble monuments.
Miyu huffed from the passenger seat. “For fuck’s sake, Girl Scout. Take a right onto Pond Ave.”
I hooked a right and parked the car by a stone fountain. Frankie led us to the Phillips family plot and the three of us huddled around H. P.’s modest headstone, shivering in the chilly twilight air.
“I AM PROVIDENCE,” I said, reading aloud the quote on the headstone. “That’s quite a proclamation.”
“This city is full of weird,” Frankie said.
Six months ago, I never would have even considered staying in Rhode Island for college. But now I knew the truth. Providence was full of weird. Weird and wonderful.
“Must be the johnnycakes,” Miyu mumbled.
Just as Frankie and I had hoped, she shuffled away, but not back toward the car.
Frankie nodded at me, zipped his coat up over his face, and trailed after her.
A brisk wind swept over us, rattling the dead leaves and sending them swirling into the air. As we walked, a thirty-second news clip I’d watched at least a thousand times on YouTube sped through my mind. A dark haired thirty-something in a suit stood in front of Akiko’s decaying lawn in Grayton. We’ve just learned that Akiko Miyake, a resident of Grayton and a world-renowned escape artist, was among the victims of the December 3rd crash outside Houston, Texas . . . I got antsy every time I watched it. His description of her—which included only her domicile and her occupation—seemed so reductive. You don’t even know her, I wanted to scream. She was so much more than that.
I drew in a deep breath, letting the cool air chill my lungs. “I can’t believe it worked.”
He nodded and blew on his cold hands. “Sometimes you just need a detour.”
Up ahead, Miyu took a left, weaving through a knot of headstones and stopping by a modest monument of pink granite.
“Should we give her a minute?”
Frankie nodded.
After a few minutes of respectful silence ticked by, we made our way toward Akiko’s final resting place.
Miyu blew her nose into a cotton hanky as we approached. “God dammit, Girl Scout.”
Akiko’s headstone bore her name, a small engraving of a hummingbird flapping its wings, and a single quote. I love you, hachidori. No grand gesture, no pompous words of wisdom, just a simple and direct I love you. The unabashed lack of irony and artistic posturing took me aback. Miyu may have written the dairy as a way to turn her oft-mythologized mom into something she could hold onto, but Akiko had used her
final gesture to do the same thing. Like good old H. P., she could’ve turned her headstone into a soapbox to remind the world how larger-than-life she was. Instead, she used it to say something directly to the person she loved most in the world.
Frankie handed Miyu a fresh tissue.
“Thanks, Cub Scout.”
Akiko may have reserved her last words solely for her daughter, but there were a lot of things I wanted to say to her. Saying them aloud didn’t seem right, as if the sound itself would render them meaningless. I said them inside my head, kind of like the inverse of my desperate, drunken rooftop prayer.
Dear Akiko. There’s no way I can possibly pay back the debt I owe to you and The Hummingbird. Thank you for allowing me to draw strength from your story, to use it as a platform from which to jump. If I ever have the opportunity to pay it forward, I’ll do my best to see it through.
“I’m hungry,” Miyu barked. “Let’s get Thai food.”
We returned to the lingering warmth of Stella’s car, and drove through the cemetery gates as the first star of the night pierced the Rhode Island sky.
The Art of Escaping Page 23