Meeting Luciano

by Anna Esaki-Smith

  As we neared our stop, I jiggled my shoulder to rouse him. For a brief moment, I wondered if this was what marriage could possibly be about, not so much a romantic union, but a process in which you discover more and more about your spouse, chipping away at expectations and appearances, until finally an individual you never imagined is completely unearthed.

  “Wake up,” I said.

  Ben’s head jerked away from me, as if his cheek had grazed a hot frying pan.

  “Wha?” he gasped, straining open his eyes as widely as possible.

  “We’re the next stop.”

  “Next stop, next stop,” he mumbled, lids lowering.

  “The movie theater,” I reminded him.

  “Yeah. Yeah.”

  I thought about my mother and father, married for what now seemed like a brief twenty-eight years. Discarded expectations had mounted into a pile so high that it eventually separated them. I wanted some kind of reassurance from Ben, a sign that exposing ourselves was a process of clarification, not something that would get in our way. It was silly of me at this point in our relationship to think that we would end up together, but I suddenly felt afraid that the more we got to know each other, the less either of us would find to love.

  Ben’s eyes flickered open, as if he heard my thoughts, but then closed again. He fell back asleep, his body bobbing and swaying to the rhythms of the bus.

  MY MOTHER WAS having a difficult time deciding whether to replace the window. It was still a good window, a large glass square looking out onto the sloping front yard and street. Two double-hung windows on each side were fitted with summer screens, now fuzzy with dust.

  “If you were going to change windows, shouldn’t you have done it before painting the room?” I asked Alex.

  “I can replace windows very cleanly, and I’ll touch up afterward,” Alex said. After an awkward silence, he added: “It won’t cost you anything extra.”

  When I was eleven, a crow flew into the living room window and killed itself. The window didn’t shatter, but the thud was so resounding I heard it from my bedroom and came running downstairs. Pappa went outside and picked up the crow by its feet while I watched through the window. He held the carcass up to me triumphantly as though he had shot the bird himself. The feathers left a greasy smear on the glass.

  “You have to consider how the old window will look in a new room,” Alex said, making a sweeping gesture toward the floor.

  My mother nodded, her hands gripping her waist. She was wearing a blue sweatsuit, her working uniform. Her eyes watched the contractor’s hands.

  “We’ll be putting in beautiful oak. Long, thin slats. Think of the striped movement toward the fireplace.”

  “I see.”

  “I think you need a simpler window. There will be too much going on otherwise. Too many blocks here”—he gestured towards the window—“and strips.” He pointed to the floor and looked at me. “Do you understand what I’m talking about?”

  “I haven’t a clue,” I replied.

  Alex turned and began measuring the window. He hummed, pausing for a moment to turn his painter’s cap backward on his head. There was a white outline on the back pocket of his jeans where he kept a pack of cigarettes.

  “You don’t need a new window,” I whispered to my mother as we watched. She had a stern look on her face, and her glassy eyes told me her mind was occupied.

  “Alex has some good points, about that movement to the fireplace,” she murmured.

  Alex continued to measure, scribbling numbers with a pen on his palm. I turned my back toward him and hovered over my mother. “He’s not an interior designer,” I whispered. “He just wants to sell you a window.”

  She cupped her chin in her hand and shook her head. “I’m sure he’s just concerned about everything looking nice,” she replied.

  When it came to strangers, my mother always gave them the benefit of the doubt. On Halloween, teenagers knocking down mailboxes, including ours, were young at heart. The garbage collectors who left trash scattered on our driveway were in a hurry, trying to be efficient. She even forgave the raccoons who spread our milk cartons and tuna-fish cans further down the street, saying man had tampered with the delicate ecosystem.

  “He’s running a business, plain and simple,” I said. “There’s nothing artistic about it.”

  My mother’s face loosened slightly. Her jaw, which was usually firmly clamped under her mouth, slipped.

  “I know about business,” she said, blinking. She smoothed her sweatshirt over her stomach. “I may not have a snappy tongue like you, but I know about business,” she continued. Then she called out: “Alex!”

  The contractor turned to face us, a pen dangling from his mouth. His stomach was flat, almost sunken. Oily fingerprints dotted the windowpane.

  “Alex, you may be right, in some ways.” My mother’s voice wobbled, and she coughed to steady it. “A new window would be lovely. Very lovely. But I am one who believes that you have to mix old and new.”

  Alex nodded solemnly and released the end of the measuring tape. The thin, metallic strip snapped back into its holder like a frog’s tongue after clinching a fly. “Is it the money?” he asked, glancing at me.

  My mother laughed lightly. “Of course not. It’s simply a question of history. Without that window, it’s as if we were never here.”

  “I understand,” he said, sighing.

  “So, no new window.”

  “Got it. No window, Mrs. Shimoda.”

  “By the way.” My mother again put her hand to her chin. “Will you be using tongue-and-grooved boards?”

  Alex looked startled. “Why, yes, Mrs. Shimoda. Unless, of course, you’d like something else.”

  “Please, call me Hanako.”

  My mother stared intently at the floor while Alex smiled widely. “Hanako,” he repeated, slowly. “That’s a beautiful name. What does it mean?”

  “Hana means flower. Ko means child.”

  Alex’s eyebrows climbed skyward. “Flower child? Like a hippie girl from the sixties?” He snapped his fingers and swiveled his hips in a vague dance.

  My mother tittered, her hands covering her laughing mouth. “Heavens, no! It’s a very traditional, romantic name in Japanese, I suppose like Elizabeth or Catherine in English. I had a romantic mother.”

  “So did I,” said Alex, feet planted firmly apart, his freighted tool belt slung low on his hips like a cowboy’s holster. “Alex is short for Alexander.”

  After an awkward moment, they both laughed, Alex with an open mouth and his head thrown back, while my mother giggled and watched.

  BEN’S FRIENDS WERE creative and artistic, talking about the latest Wim Wenders film or Don DeLillo book, their hair studiedly unkempt. I was fascinated by them, a group of people with opinions they had to shout out in order to be heard above the others. Their ideas and attitudes were already tightly woven together; mine were vague and unformed by comparison. In their presence, I would cower near Ben as if he were a shield.

  One day, during a break between classes, I sat on the arts quad watching the Frisbees sailing in the air, the dogs chasing the Frisbees, the boys applauding their dogs. A familiar confidence flowed through me as I pulled out a pad and a pencil; I knew I could draw what I saw and draw it well. I did a simple contour drawing and felt pleased at my efforts.

  When I showed Ben the sketch, he glanced at it and returned it to me.

  “Very nice,” he said.

  “Thanks,” I replied, my face hot with embarrassment. I felt silly for wanting his praise, for offering up the sketch like a child. I stuffed the drawing into my backpack.

  “You don’t have to prove to me that you can draw,” he said.

  I shrugged.

  “But an occasional doodle doesn’t mean much,” he added without a trace of dismissiveness or judgment in his voice.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, fighting to loosen the tightness in my throat.

  “I’m just saying
that being talented doesn’t mean much, doesn’t mean anything. What matters is that you care.”

  • • •

  I CALLED CHARLOTTE to tell her Alex had painted over the height wall.

  “Oh, we should have preserved that!” she said. “We could have covered it with glass and framed it, or something.”

  “Well, it’s gone.”

  “How’s everything else?” she asked.

  “Good,” I replied. “Mom’s getting along pretty well with the contractor.”

  “Really? I like hearing that. That’s nice.”

  I listened to her chew gum for a few moments.

  “So when are you going to get out of there?” Charlotte asked.

  “I kind of feel like I should stick around for a while. Don’t you ever feel guilty about moving to Chicago? Like you’ve deserted her or something?”

  “What, is something wrong with Mom?” she asked, her words coming out in a rush.

  “No. I’m just curious.”

  Charlotte sighed. “Well, I personally don’t think there’s any reason for us to feel guilty.” She paused for a moment, as if watching something pass by her window. “First of all, she’s healthy and still relatively young. Secondly, she left her mother behind in Sado to come to America. You realize that, don’t you? If she felt free enough to do that, I should feel free enough to come to Chicago.”

  “I suppose you’re right.”

  We both fell silent, and I looked out Pierre’s window, watching a young man glide down the street on his bicycle, back upright, leisurely putting on riding gloves as if sitting in the back of a car. I thought about how, on some Sundays while growing up, I’d peer into the coming week and see only bleakness. Standing in the living room, gazing over my father napping on the couch and through the front picture window, I’d look out onto the street, only slightly grayer than the sky: There would be some movement—a leaf turning, a bird or plane skimming the air—but otherwise the stillness was overwhelmingly complete. I imagined the mundane chores people were performing, hidden in their silent houses: washing dishes, cleaning out closets. It seemed that one Sunday moment, waiting for another week to begin, summed up their whole lives.

  And standing there, looking out the window, my father exhaling deeply on the sofa, my mother puttering around in the kitchen, I’d feel as distant from my family as from the strangers living across the street. It never occurred to me then that my father and mother, too, could be experiencing something private, the vast past of their lives hurtling through their minds and distilling into that one Sunday afternoon.

  “Maybe she doesn’t see the world the way I imagine,” I told Charlotte. “It would be nice to think so.”

  • • •

  I CALLED UP the Better Business Bureau, but found no one had filed any complaints against Alex. “That doesn’t necessarily mean anything, honey,” the secretary told me.

  “Really?” I said, listening to her long nails tapping on a keyboard.

  “You should see what happened to my house when I renovated,” she continued, her voice tangy and eager. “Hired a guy with solid credentials, great references, nice, smooth personality. After he finished, there was a heavy rain and splosh! Got a hole in my roof the size of Toledo. And I couldn’t track down Nicky for the life of me. He’s probably running a scam in Connecticut or something. If you hear the name Nicky Flint, I suggest you vamoose in the other direction.”

  ALEX DISCOVERED DIRTY magazines in my brother’s room, termites in the garage walls, four-year-old canned soups in the hall closet. He brought his discoveries to our attention in a matter-of-fact way, like a cat depositing a dead mouse on the doorstep. “You’re paying me to make your home my business,” he’d say, but I was never sure how much he came across by accident or how much was simply a result of snooping.

  Then, one evening as I searched my drawers for a pen, I noticed that my old Japanese textbooks were missing. Although I hadn’t opened them since we stopped going to Japanese school, they had always been in the bottom drawer of my desk.

  I found my mother in the kitchen, rearranging her cookbooks on the counter.

  “What happened to my Japanese books?” I asked.

  “Oh, I gave them to Alex,” my mother said, opening a file of old recipes. “He’s interested in picking up a little Japanese.”

  She laughed, holding up a few index cards that looked toasted. “Remember when I was going through my sauerbraten and brandied-fruit phase?” she asked.

  “You gave my books to Alex?” I said, my voice rising and suddenly querulous. “Why didn’t you ask me? Those books are a part of my childhood. I want to keep them.”

  My mother continued to go through the yellowed cards. “Neither you nor Charlotte cared much for that school. I thought you’d be glad to put them to good use.”

  “But the books are mine. Since when is Alex so interested in studying Japanese anyway? And why are his little interests so important to you? He acts like he owns the place. And you’re letting him.”

  “Certainly not.”

  “Well, you’re letting him use the car.”

  “I don’t see anything wrong with that,” my mother replied. She riffled through The Joy of Cooking and plied apart two pages stuck together with a brown splotch of dried sauce. “His truck’s in the garage, getting the transmission fixed. There’s nothing wrong with helping him out,” she added.

  My mother trusted everybody. She never locked doors or asked neighbors to keep an eye on the house when she was away. Sleeping alone with an acre of dark, spiky woods out back had never worried her. In the mornings she dressed with the windows wide open.

  “I just don’t want Alex to start feeling like he’s got the upper hand in this house,” I said. The tiles chilled my bare feet. “It’s your house and I don’t think he’s treating it seriously,” I added.

  My mother was silent, using a dishrag to wipe away a cobweb on a cookbook before lining it up with the others. She was too proud to be truthful. It was easy for her to feel angry and resentful toward my father, but she would never acknowledge it if someone else insulted or offended her, or treated her badly.

  “I mean, look here.” I walked to the stove, pointing to the imported blue ceramic tile on the wall above the burners.

  “This is obviously crooked, Mom. Lining up tile is a skill that Alex should have mastered by now.”

  My mother looked at me blankly.

  “How much was this tile?” I asked.

  “Hand-painted. Twenty dollars apiece,” my mother replied. “And worth every penny.”

  “You should ask Alex to do this over again,” I told her. I slid into a kitchen chair, flushed and empowered by the sternness of my own words.

  “Frankly, I think the tiles look quaint,” my mother said evenly. “Like we were living in the Italian countryside.”

  “Oh please. I suppose the Italians have holes in the floor, too.” I pointed to two holes by the floor-to-ceiling windows where a radiator had been removed.

  “Alex is aware of those holes. He has momentum now, so he thought it would be best to move on to other rooms. He’ll fix all that soon enough.”

  I rested my chin on the palms of my hands, my elbows propped up on the kitchen table, and rubbed my temples. “Who referred Alex to you?” I asked.

  “He left his business card in my mailbox,” my mother replied.

  I imagined Alex rambling around in his old truck, wheezing to a stop at every mailbox on the street. “Great,” I muttered.

  “I don’t understand you.” My mother began slapping cookbooks, one at a time, up against each other into a row. “You and Charlotte have been pushing me for so long to renovate, to cleanse the house of Pappa’s things, to start a new life. Now that I have, you are so unsatisfied.”

  “Well, I was hoping you’d pick a Japanese contractor. Someone you could deal with more easily, on your own terms.”

  “You don’t think I can deal with Alex?”

  “No,” I repl
ied.

  My mother clasped her hands together, and opened her eyes so wide that the irises were surrounded by whites, like two brown islands.

  “Then by all means, leave,” she said.

  There was a moment of sudden silence. “That’s fine with me,” I replied, standing up and pushing my chair in toward the table. The chair stuttered, and I saw with angry satisfaction that I had left pale scuff marks on the new floor.

  “Fine,” my mother said curtly, turning her attention back to the cookbooks.

  I WENT OUTSIDE, slamming the front door shut behind me. From the corner of my eye I could see Alex at the picture window, his arms outstretched above him, a puzzled look on his face. I took the porch steps in twos and strode down the front lawn.

  When I was a very little child, I once headed down the driveway with my mother to pick up the mail. The day was fine and sunny, and I had eagerly embarked on our adventure.

  I was holding my mother’s hand, and we approached the driveway’s end, where our white mailbox stood. I looked out across the street to our neighbor’s white house, with their big white- and pink-flowered trees, as my mother opened the mailbox with its creaky whine and retrieved the mail. For most of my brief life, my mother had been more a hand to me than a person.

  There, at the bottom of the driveway, I felt my mother’s hand loosen around mine. And I turned to see her heading quickly back up toward the house. She was wearing a bright blue shirt. For a moment, standing by myself at the edge of the driveway where the world began, I felt exhilarated. But then quickly, I was flooded with anxiety and worry about how I would return home.

  Many years later, when I watched a film of this incident, I could see how unaware I was of my father kneeling in the grass in the front yard, or of my mother at the top of the driveway, coaxing me to walk up the hill. All I recalled was being stranded alone at the bottom of the driveway and not being able to hear or see anybody.