by Kyoko Mori
In the park on the bluff, Maya and Yuko refill their water bottles and sit on a bench overlooking the lake. The sun is still low in the sky. The light ladders across the water, the golden rungs shimmering with the waves. In four days, Maya will have to call Eric to say good-bye. Because she has told Jeff, what was between her and Eric is no longer a secret. For the last few days, she’s been trying to tell Yuko. Maya pictures a cracked glass with the water slowly leaking out, leaving her with nothing to hold on to.
“So,” she says. She pauses and straightens the straps of the helmet, which she’s holding on her lap. “I need to tell you something.”
“Uh-huh,” Yuko answers vaguely.
“It’s kind of a big thing.”
“Okay.”
“It’s not easy to talk about.” Maya puts her helmet down on the ground next to Yuko’s.
Yuko takes her eyes off the lake. “All right. I’m listening.”
“When I left Jeff,” Maya begins, “there was something I didn’t tell you about. I was keeping a secret.”
Yuko looks straight into Maya’s eyes but doesn’t say anything.
“I was seeing someone else—a painter I met at Peg’s party in April. I fell in love with him even though I didn’t want to. I tried to go away so I wouldn’t see him anymore. But I just couldn’t.”
Yuko doesn’t speak for a long time. Finally she asks, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I don’t know. I wanted to keep it to myself. I thought you might be upset.”
“So you lied to me instead?”
“If you have to put it that way, yes.”
“What other way can I put it?” Yuko stares at her, frowning.
Maya looks away. “He was moving back east at the end of June. I wanted to be with him and not think of anything or anyone else.”
Yuko picks up her water bottle but puts it down without drinking. She is scowling. “Let me get this straight. You wanted to go to my parents’ cottage to get away from this man. Then you decided to stay and have a fling with him. And instead of telling me, you pretended you weren’t feeling so great and needed to be alone. Like that time I helped you move your stuff—you didn’t want to go out with me because you wanted to be with him.”
“It wasn’t a fling. I really loved him.”
“Big deal. Call it what you want, it makes no difference. A lie is a lie. I gave you a lot of space because you told me you needed to be alone. I was worried sick about you, but I said nothing and stayed away. All that time, you were actually seeing this guy. You were avoiding me so you could be with him.” Yuko shakes her head. “I have to tell you, Maya, I feel used. I would never have treated you that way.”
“You have to understand,” Maya pleads. She feels queasy and seasick. “We didn’t have a lot of time together. He asked me to move out east with him. I said no, and when he said he would stay here, I said I would never see him again if he didn’t move. I’m going to call him in four days to say good-bye, but I think of him every day, almost every moment.” Maya stops, not knowing what else to say. “I’m miserable,” she adds.
Yuko squeezes her eyes shut and holds up her hand. “Don’t tell me any more. I don’t want to hear how miserable you are.”
In the distance, a few gulls are bobbing up and down with the waves. The water crinkles around them, making them disappear and reappear. “Do you think you could forgive me somehow?” Maya asks.
“I don’t know.” Yuko sighs. “This is too much like what I went through with Dan. I don’t know if I can take it.”
Maya thinks of the braid Yuko cut off and stuck inside an envelope. She doesn’t have a thing to say in her own defense.
“When I found out about Dan, it changed the way I remembered everything we did together. I told you that. Right now, my mind’s doing the same thing about you and me. I think of that month and the mental footnote says, ‘But all that time, she was lying to me.’” Yuko leans forward, her elbows on her knees, her hands pressed against her forehead.
Maya wants to lay her hand on Yuko’s shoulder, but she’s afraid Yuko might squirm away from her touch.
“Really, you’ve acted just like Dan. I don’t mean because you cheated on Jeff. That’s between you and Jeff. What makes me mad is something else.”
“What?”
“You didn’t think about me.” Yuko closes her eyes again as though she were trying to get rid of a headache. “When Dan first told me about Meredith, I thought he had done this horrible thing to hurt me. He’d betrayed my trust. That’s what made me angry at first. But the truth was worse. Dan wasn’t trying to hurt me when he called Meredith and asked her to lunch, or even when he slept with her. He wasn’t even thinking about me. I was nothing to him. You did the same thing. You forgot about me too.”
Maya recalls all the times she sat with Yuko, scarcely able to keep up a conversation because her mind was elsewhere—daydreaming about Eric, remembering the afternoon they’d spent together. She can’t say, You’re wrong. I never forgot about you. She wasn’t really there even when they were together. “I’m sorry,” she mumbles.
“Lucky for you, you don’t owe me anything. When Dan and I were married, he promised in front of the minister and eighty people that I would always be foremost in his mind, that he would think about me first. You never made a promise like that. I suppose you can lie to me all you want and get away with it.”
“Don’t say that,” Maya begs her. “My lying to you is almost worse than Dan’s.”
“You’re right. You know why?” Yuko makes a sour face. “Because you were always the person I trusted the most. Even when Dan and I were happy and I was crazy about him, I didn’t assume that we’d always be together. How could I? One out of every two marriages ends in divorce. My four brothers have been married six times. I couldn’t help having those statistics in the back of my mind. With you it was different. I always thought you’d be my best friend for life.”
All around in the trees, squirrels are climbing up and down, making chattering noises at each other with their tails puffed up. When they stop for a moment, the park is absolutely quiet.
“Do you want to stop being my friend? Is that what you’re saying?”
Yuko looks down. “Maybe,” she mutters.
Maya swallows hard. “Please. Can’t you just forgive me?”
“Why should I? I’ve been your friend almost all your life. You lied to me and avoided me so you can be with some guy you just met. Tell me how that’s different from Dan’s losing his head over the ticket girl and dumping me.”
“You’re right.” Maya has to concede. “I’m no better than Dan. I forgot about you and lied to you. But there is one difference. I don’t want to leave you. I want us to always be friends.”
“I don’t know. I trusted you and you lied to me. Besides, what’s to keep you from leaving me after all? Someday, you’ll decide to be with this man and you’ll forget about me.”
“No, I won’t. He went back to Vermont a month ago. I’m never going to see him again.”
“Why not? That’s pretty screwed up if you really love him so much.”
“No, it’s not. I can’t change my life by latching on to a man I just met, no matter how much I love him. That’s what my mother did. Nate believes in reincarnation. He went on about it at the hospital the other day. He’s right, but not in the way he thinks. When I see my mother, it’s like she’s already living her next incarnation and doesn’t remember her past life with me. I don’t want to change like that. It’s not honest. I need to be alone, not running away to Eric.”
“Do you think you fell in love with him because you were confused?”
“No, I don’t think so. It doesn’t matter why I fell in love with him. I go to sleep every night thinking about him, and when I wake up in the morning, I’m still thinking about him. I’ve never been this way. You know that.”
“Oh, Maya.” Yuko puts her arms around her. Leaning into her hug, Maya realizes that she’s on the verge o
f tears.
“I wish none of this had happened. I’m so unhappy.”
Yuko hugs her tighter. “If you’re afraid to be with him because of me, don’t be. I’m hurt that you forgot about me. But I guess I have to get used to it. What choice do I have? Besides, if you go away, it won’t matter what I think. We won’t see each other very much.”
“But I don’t want to forget about you. I can’t go to him because it’s wrong. I don’t want to be like my mother.” Maya pulls away from Yuko’s embrace and sits back on the bench.
“You’ll never be like your mother.”
Maya doesn’t answer.
“This is nuts.” Yuko shakes her head. “Why am I trying to talk you into being with this man? I’m supposed to be upset with you.”
“And you are. It’s all right.”
Yuko thinks for a while. “I’m confused because you’re in love with someone,” she says. “All of a sudden, we’re in a place we’ve never been before. I don’t know what to think.”
“Yes,” Maya agrees. She imagines herself and Yuko entering a dark, unfamiliar forest. The trees don’t look like the pines and oaks they know by daylight. The moon is no help for telling directions. Together or apart, they are bound to lose their way.
“When Dan introduced you to Jeff,” Yuko says, “I knew right away that Jeff could never really understand you.”
“That’s why you never liked him.”
Yuko nods. “To me, from the very start, you were a mysterious girl from a faraway place. As soon as Miss Larson brought you into our class, I piped up and said you were my cousin, but that was just a gamble. I wanted you to choose me as your best friend. I was thrilled when you did. But we were different. I told you everything, good or bad. I might keep things to myself for a while, trying to figure them out on my own, but eventually I’d confide in you. When something upset you, you were quiet. You talked to no one. I got used to that.” She shrugs. “Remember a few years ago when you took me birdwatching? You tried to show me the shape of a bird’s beak or whether it had a ring around the eye, and all I could think was, It was a little yellow bird and it was beautiful. I didn’t care if I could identify any of those birds by name. I liked being outside, watching them fly by. You got irritated with me—but for me, being with you was a lot like birdwatching with you. I didn’t understand everything about you, but I was happy to be there. Jeff didn’t know you enough to see that. He treated you like you were just an ordinary, quiet person. He didn’t see how special you were. Still, when you told me you were going to marry him, I said nothing. You know why?”
“Because I already had my mind made up. It would only have upset me if you’d gone on about his faults.”
“That’s part of it, but my motive wasn’t that pure. I made a selfish calculation.” She takes a deep breath. “I said to myself, ‘That guy’s no competition. She’ll still love me the best.’” Frowning, Yuko pushes her bangs out of her eyes.
Maya remembers the lilies Yuko brought her fifteen years ago. The bright yellow petals, perfectly curved, had made Maya want to cry because she was afraid the flowers were a kind of farewell gift. She had done everything to make Dan fall in love with Yuko, and it was finally working. “I felt the same way once,” she says to Yuko. “When you fell in love with Dan, I was afraid you’d forget me and spend all your time with him. I was jealous even though I never let on. I would have moved out if you started coming over to see him and ignored me.”
“I knew that,” Yuko says, “but this is different. By the time I met Dan, you knew all kinds of people who loved me—my parents, my brothers, my grandparents—so it wasn’t hard for you to think of Dan as just another person in my life. For me, this is a first. I’ve always been devoted to you, knowing there was no one else. I didn’t think your mother or Jeff really counted. I’m not saying you didn’t have any other friends. I don’t mean to make you sound like a poor orphan girl.”
“I know what you mean. I was alone.”
“Yes, and you loved me the best. Now, it’s going to take me awhile to get used to this new situation. I sense the change here.” She places her hand on her chest. “I feel different, a little empty.”
“It won’t be different. I’m alone again.”
“But I don’t want you to be. I shouldn’t want you to be.”
“Why not?”
“Because I want you to be happy. You love this man. You think of him all day long. I can never make up for his not being with you. You’d rather be with him than with me. If that’s true, I have to let you move on. That’s a hard thing for me to accept. Maybe that’s why I’m so hurt.”
“I’m going to call him in four days to say I’ll never see him. He knows what I’ll say. What was between us is already over.”
“Not in the way you feel.”
“No.”
“Or the way he feels.”
“Probably not. Just the same, I have to be alone. My mind’s made up.”
Yuko shakes her head. “Why don’t I feel happy or relieved when you say that?”
“Because you’re a good person, Yuko. That’s the truth. You would let me go if you thought I’d be happier living far away with someone else.” She leans forward and puts her arms around Yuko. Yuko hugs her back and starts crying. “It’s all right,” Maya says.
“I don’t think I’m crying for me.” Yuko sniffles. “I’m crying for you.”
“Thanks,” Maya says. “I’m not good at that.”
As they continue to hold each other, Maya thinks of the hawks they saw flying along the bluffs last November. Riding the stiff north wind on their migration south, the hawks glided over the water with their wings scarcely beating. They made moving on seem so effortless; all they had to do was hold their wings open and stay airborne.
In silence, Maya and Yuko begin their trip back toward the barn. Their tires swish on the rough-surfaced path before they hit the black-top of the county highway. In a few minutes, Maya is going down the first hill, her breath making her feel as though she were flying off the bike into the blue air around her.
* * *
After Yuko drives back to town, Maya goes up to the loft. It’s Monday; the store is closed. She gets out the two boxes she retrieved from Jeff’s house. Digging through her sweaters and hats, she finds what she’s looking for: Yuko’s love charm, Dan’s baseball cap, and her red wool jacket from Japan. They’re crammed inside the box with photographs and old notebooks. She places the cap and the charm on the worktable and holds the jacket up by the sleeves. She was only ten when she wore it; the jacket is tiny. The purple stitches on the inside collar are still there, not faded much. Sitting down at the worktable, she traces the letters with her fingers. Then she picks up the baseball cap. The two squares she cut out on the back look like the twin lenses of binoculars.
Those early mornings they went birdwatching together, Yuko walked by her side, smiling and singing softly. Above, in the trees, chickadees and cardinals sang as if in response. For a while, Yuko thought everything was a chickadee because it was small or because it had a black spot on its throat. When flocks of orioles stopped at her hummingbird feeder one spring to drink the sugar water, she thought the females and the young, whose markings were yellow instead of orange, were grosbeaks. Maya went to see them and couldn’t stop laughing. “Look at this picture in the guide,” she said, opening Yuko’s book. “Grosbeaks have big, conical beaks. Their beaks are chunky and yellowish. Now, look at the oriole. The beak is long and thin. They look nothing like each other.” Yuko shrugged and said, “I don’t have your obsession about naming everything.” She flipped the book to the picture of vireos. “How come these birds look like they’re tipping over and falling off the branch? Will I ever see them?”
Maya stopped asking Yuko along because she assumed Yuko was bored. She didn’t know that Yuko thought of those early morning walks as a picture of their friendship. Maya imagines a painting she might have made. She and Yuko are on a narrow path surrounded by trees. M
aya is looking into a thicket with her binoculars pressed to her eyes, while Yuko is looking up and laughing, letting her binoculars dangle from the strap around her neck. She’s listening to the call of the cardinals and watching the blue jays overhead. The happiness that surrounds Yuko is like a bright light fanning out from a lamp. Maya is always on the edge of it even though her own eyes are fixed on the small light inside a tunnel of glass.
The two squares on Dan’s cap look into nothing but the emptiness between the front and the back. Maya puts down the cap and examines the love charm. The red seed beads sewn on the navy blue fabric are almost the same color as her hooded jacket: the red of hearts and pomegranates, of apples, toy blocks, crayons, and Mother’s Day carnations. Maya places the charm on the table, picks up the sewing scissors, and lets the blades touch the body of her jacket. The first snip makes her wince, the edge of the blade going through the fabric. She keeps cutting until she has a square approximately two inches on every side, the size of the white squares Eric pasted on his letter. Laying the square aside on the table, she cuts another one, then another. She takes the jacket back to the box in the closet, slips Yuko’s love charm in its pocket, and puts it away.