“He is better than me on bass,” Tak said and reached for a wad of napkins from a nearby table. “Better than most, in fact.” He retrieved a bottle of iced water, unscrewed it, and dampened the napkins for his uncle.
“Now I need you to stop making a mess,” Tak said. “And don’t eat so much. You’ll spoil your appetite.”
He swabbed at his uncle’s stain, before his narrowed dark eyes concentrated on the vast sweep of the ballroom. It was the sort of room that glimmered in opulence, that pushed the boundaries of luxury. It made him think of old English country homes and bygone gentry, once content to spend their days entertaining.
“Stop that. You’ll turn into your wife,” Yoshi snapped and snatched the wad of napkins from Tak. The dabs he made bled the brown stains, smearing instead of controlling. “You’re getting as bad as your father. Always on me to lose weight.” Yoshi glanced down at his skewer. “But this kawa,” he said and tore teeth into a stick of chicken skin. “Kawa and me cannot part.”
Tak resigned himself to directing the staff as they decorated, speeding up the process as family began to file in. On sighting his father, Uncle Yoshi slid down to the beverages, as if to make his gorging more innocuous. More lights went up, less red, no green, and briefly Tak entertained himself with the idea of mounting a Buddha in the center of the room. What was it that Grandma Emma said all those years ago, on discovering her evangelical granddaughter would marry a Buddhist?
Whoever heard of a fat Chinese man being the son of God?
Tak grinned. He swore; that one never got old.
Their first night turned into something of an impromptu party, once the decorations were up and Tony took to a lively string of Christmas hits on the grand Fazioli in one corner. Though Mario had gone to a great trouble in representing two divergent food cultures, no respect had been paid to that judging by the plates made. Scallion rolls with black-eyed peas, sukiyaki alongside cheesy mac and cornbread. Mia was the most egregious of the lot, with her oysters and offal smashed in black eyed peas and topped in soy sauce. And off in one corner was John, with a hodgepodge of uneaten food and a glass of red wine already tipping toward empty. Having a talk with his cousin shot up on Tak’s to-do list.
Chapter Ten
Deena rose for the sunset, grabbed her pencils and pad, and took a glass of OJ to the terrace. Before the bustle of family made it impossible, she wanted to slip in a little work.
A “shameless swipe at immortality” was what her father-in-law now called her projects. The sleek keyhole of a skyscraper in Milan, the arcing half circle hotel straddling the Indian Ocean in Bali, and the undulating wave of smooth grace, embedded in the cliffs of Cabo San Lucas. All the work of ego, her father-in-law chided, with all the humility of a British king.
Her latest attempt was a recreation of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Mile High dream. It was exactly as outrageous and consuming at it sounded, as reckless as it dared be in an age of terrorism: a skyscraper thrusting a mile in the air.
She had no buyers for such a thing, no investors willing to front for such a hemorrhaging project, but she had the inclination to obsess over it anyway. For now, Deena Tanaka stood as the preeminent female architect in a field dominated by men. The feminist in her wanted to smash at every consonant and vowel in that statement until only “preeminent” and “architect” remained. Top architect automatically meant top male, with a rush of testosterone fueling their war. Deena knew she wasn’t the first girl to take a running smash at the field’s proverbial glass ceiling; she would only be the first to shatter it so thoroughly.
When the sun made its presence known, Deena took breakfast in the ballroom with her family. Chef Mario, who complained nonstop about a night of labor while they slumbered, served eggs in every style, alongside biscuits, pancakes, French toast, sausage, bacon, and an assortment of other delights. Guests were left to serve themselves.
As Deena piled her plate, her gaze fell on Tak’s aunt, Asami. If perfection had a walking synonym it would be her. Skin smooth and firm and vehemently denying her age, her hair flowed and tapered as if combed purposefully by the wind. Beauty found its way in subtle details, resting in the bow and arch of her lips, in the slightness of curves on a slender body. Never had Deena seen Asami outside of makeup or tasteful wear. That morning she donned a crisp, asymmetrical summer dress that had to be tailor-made and paired it with simple string of pearls. Across from her, her husband Ken wore slacks and a white button up, sleeves rolled up as he sipped coffee. They could have been a million other places in the exact same wear: a business office, an office party, a night out on the town. It could have been a romantic evening for two. No matter the time or place, they were two fixtures of perfection without fail.
Arms slipped around Deena’s waist and lips pressed to her neck.
“They’re not as flawless as you think,” Tak said. “Some are just better with their masks than others.”
Masks. As if they needed any. In her husband’s family, the biggest scandal involved missing a mortgage payment. In hers, it was the murder of her father.
*
Tak released Deena just as his gaze fell on John. The entire time he’d been standing there, John had busied himself by shoveling eggs back and forth across his plate. Tak elbowed his way through throngs of wild children in every shade, barely avoiding Noah mid back flip, scolded him, and finally dropped across the table from John.
“Where’s Allison?” Tak said, eyes on his cousin’s berries and mandarin slices artfully arranged into a frown.
“Don’t know,” John said and stabbed at his eggs.
“You don’t know,” Tak echoed, weighing out each word.
John tossed his fork and glared at him.
“She left me. OK? The day she disappeared, I got divorce papers. I thought you, of all people, would have figured it out.”
Figured it out? There had been fights, yes. Screaming, hysterical brawls with furniture broken and accusations hurled like slime on a wall. Still, Tanakas didn’t file for divorce. Ever.
“You…let her go?”
It was the wrong thing to say, he knew. As he considered how to amend this blunder, Tak’s thoughts drifted to his father and the xenophobia he once had. Back then, he wanted Japanese spouses for his family and saw anyone else as a threat to tradition, a promise for unwanted change. Was this the omen portended? Tanakas getting divorced? The idea felt otherworldly, abhorrent. Giving up on someone was for before marriage. It had no place after vows.
“We were unhappy, Tak. I thought time would see us through. I was wrong.”
“John, you can’t just—”
His cousin shoved aside his plate, hard enough to unseat the eggs and scramble the frown, before excusing himself from the table.
“John!” Tak called, feeling the inward cringe. “John, wait!” Though he knew he’d already lost him.
Chapter Eleven
Tony’s breakfast shot from belly to toilet fast as the favored horse in this year’s Kentucky Derby. Their au pair—who he thought needed to concentrate her efforts on Noah alone—stood outside the door tsk tsking.
A shower and change of clothes later had still left him reeking of alcohol.
“Antony?” She called through the slab of wood in her slaughtered Russian English, robbing his first name of its critical blend. “Antony, I called the physician. He will take good care. I verified credentials.”
Tony retched wildly into the toilet, spewing with a jerk of his body what he hoped was the last of his Jägerbombs.
“I’m OK,” he managed and flushed down the filth. The second he did, he vomited again. “I’m OK,” Tony repeated, with less fervor.
A night with Lila ended like this, with Tony groping for memories and spewing up foreign substances. Beer, rum, tequila, he’d even tried ecstasy once, though he’d take third world prison conditions over admitting to any of his friends or family. Anyway, once had been more than enough, as doing the stuff had blurred his vision and doused him in parano
ia.
His girl, the Caribbean Amerindian who cursed in Dutch, was as turbulent and majestic as a summer storm, and as prone to jamming a flower in her hair as she was to drowning in vodka and tearing off her shirt. Lila Dahl wasn’t the sort of girl a guy made plans to hold on to; she was the girl you chased without hope of ever catching.
For now, that was plenty enough.
He was her soft spot, she always said. The boy who sped her pulse and slowed her heart, the one who made her feel and think. Sure, he was a teenage boy with all the hormone-induced hang ups of one, but he hadn’t let that consume them. He was different in that way, she said.
They met last summer in Oranjestad, on a vacation that had been uneventful before then. Like usual, Tony had resented the insistence on summering that people with money tended to have. A sullen evening of souring over the absence of Lizard and Wendy sent him out into the city, looking for who knew what where. Lila had been waitressing at the restaurant he wandered into and asked him if he wanted a beer. Him, at 17? A beer? Unable to resist the offer, he agreed, only to choke on the first swig. Lila laughed, laughed this sultry booming sound that weaved through him and up turned the corners of his lips. Tony went from not caring that a girl was laughing at him, to wanting her laughter even more.
He’d asked her out with his hands ringing under the table and his gaze flitting as if to flee. She accepted on condition that he ask again, that time while looking at her.
He took her to all the wrong places when she got off work, places where cash reigned and the walls glinted like gold. Through his nervous chatter on music and musicians, her yawns sliced like foreboding: he was on the fast tracked to friendship land, for sure.
But then she asked him out the next night, that time to Loose, their eventual favorite club. Pulsating reggae and calypso, strobe lights and grinding, made the possibility of him and her skyrocket to a promise. They went out again the next night, and by the third, they were making out on the dance floor.
“Antony!” His au pair rattled the door, yanking him from the reverie. “Antony, talk to me. Tell me if you are conscious.”
What kind of 18 year-old had a nanny? He could drink in Aruba, smoke cigarettes and vote in America, yet according to his adoptive mother, he needed milk and a nap. ‘College’ was the word he used to rouse him from annoyance. A few months more and he’d be away from the fretting and hand ringing of his mom and babysitter.
“Go away,” Tony said in a voice like granite. “I’m an adult. Go find a child to look after.”
He journeyed to the sink to freshen up, knowing she’d be there when he opened the door.
Chapter Twelve
Tak headed upstairs just as people began to drift from the ballroom. He sought out his oldest son, sent the au pair on her way, and waited for the hurl fest to cease.
When Tony opened the door, he froze at the sight of his father.
“I—I’ve got a bug, I think. Probably ate something wrong at the airport,” Tony said.
Tak sniffed.
“Drank something wrong is more like it,” he murmured.
Tony shook his head in protest, only to wince at what had to be scissoring pain.
“Grab a V-8, take another shower, and come spend time with your family. I really don’t care what your head feels like. Next time you show up smelling like a wine cellar, I’ll put the au pair on night shift.”
Tak gave his son’s shoulder a squeeze, looked him over discreetly, and then headed downstairs.
He could have handled that differently. He could have screamed and raged and reminded Tony of what they expected from him. But Anthony Tanaka was no longer the terrified eleven-year-old Anthony Hammond. Soon, he’d be leaving for college, where alcohol and worse abounded. So, Tak practiced trusting his son and reminded himself to have faith in the job he’d done—even if there hadn’t been time enough to do it.
Tak made it downstairs and immediately wished he hadn’t.
“Sexuality can hardly be defined by the neat categories presupposed for us,” Lauren said. “It’s mass brainwashing and socialization that forces the choice between boy and girl, man and woman. Heterosexuality and homosexuality are prisons of the same design.”
Jesus Christ.
Lauren sat across from Deena’s aunt Rhonda, her wife Mary Ann, and a blank-faced male cousin of Deena’s. Everyone stared back at her, wide-eyed.
“So…you’re…bisexual?” the guy ventured.
“My God. You’re imprisoned by labels! Enslaved by propaganda. Society is polluted by the insistence on categorizing only so they can marginalize. You have to reject these norms outright.” Lauren nibbled on some toast.
“What’s happening?” Deena said, appearing at Tak’s side with coffee in hand.
“Lauren’s happening. Lauren Tanaka.”
“If you insist on a label,” his cousin continued, as if such a thing were a sign of limited intelligence, “then pangender works fine.”
Rhonda and Maria exchanged a look. Deena’s cousin leaned forward.
“Does that mean that you’re…with both parts?”
“It means that I refuse your labels. Although, I do have a vagina, since you’re doing inspections.”
Deena choked on her coffee. Tak mulled over the best way to shut Lauren up. He considered tackling her, but dismissed it.
“Mia’s room,” Deena gasped. “She’s in it.”
“Not anymore,” Tak said.
Mike showed up with a broad smile, on special reserve for Tak’s wife.
“Regular little freak show isn’t she?” he said and took a massive slurp of OJ.
“Yesterday,” Mike said, “she went on about how sex was an inherent good that should be practiced as frequently and with as many partners as possible.” He shrugged. “Can’t say I argue much with that. Though your grandmother looked pretty sickened by the discussion.”
Deena buried her face in her hands.
Chapter Thirteen
Deena’s thoughts were on her mile-high skyscraper again. While family drifted from the ballroom to the terrace and beyond, she stood stoic, hoping to make her presence known long enough that she wouldn’t seem rude once disappearing. When all but a few stragglers remained, she went for her grandmother, parked in one corner, and offered to wheel her outdoors with the others.
“No,” the old woman said, as if she’d be content to watch the help clean.
“Well, are you ready for a nap then?” Deena said.
Grandma Emma shook her head, yet kept silent.
Deena wasn’t very good at this. In fact, she sucked at being a nurse. She hadn’t the patience for the careful ministrations it required, or the ability to anticipate every need.
“Let me take you outside, OK? You can sit under a tree and—”
“I’ll sit with you,” she said.
Deena exhaled. Things would be fine. If her grandmother wanted to spend beautiful days, maybe even her last days, ball and chained indoors, so be it.
Her last days. Air seeped from Deena’s balloon of annoyance with the realization, leaving only the quiet unease of reality. Her grandmother would be dead soon. For once, sketched dreams could wait.
Deena bounded around to Grandma Emma, crouched before her, and took both papery hands in hers. They would do whatever she wanted, however she wanted, as long as she could possibly stand it.
She opened her mouth to say so and was assaulted by a snore.
Of course.
With a sigh, she gathered up her grandmother, her drafts, and a copy of Frank Lloyd Wright’s A Testament, and wheeled her into the study.
Outside, the sounds of family traveled muted, but near euphoric. Splashing, squeals and then the slicing in of up tempo bass as the hired DJ went to work. In a crowd of thousands, Deena could make out the thrilled laughter of her son, Noah, always tinged with an air of mischief. A streak of self-appointed superiority set him apart, making him ringleader no matter the number of troublemakers. That was what she heard out there
, the gratified cackle of a boy getting away with something, possibly even everything.
Deena stared at the steel sliver she’d committed to paper, a design representative of heights man had yet to reach. Bold, sleek, empowered, sexy, she’d coined it The Stiletto; though it was an endearment she’d never admit to.
The Stiletto was a technical challenge, comprised of riddles about load bearing, oscillation, and cost. Each one pulsed Deena’s temples and throbbed the bridge of her nose. If only—
“You got your whole life to draw,” Grandma Emma said. “Spend some time with your family.”
Deena looked up from her corner drafting table and tried to blink away wayward brown tendrils. When that didn’t work, she swatted the hair from her face.
“One lifetime to design is hardly no time,” she said.
Her grandmother’s eyes snapped to attention.
“You know, your granddaddy—”
“Don’t—”
Deena clamped down on her retort, twisting it till it buried belly deep. A measured exhale later, had her back at her center of calmness.
“He was a hard man,” Grandma Emma said. “Too hard on you, I suspect. But he loved you and he—”
Deena smashed her drafts so they sailed airborne. Then she stood and strode out the room.
She didn’t talk about him, wouldn’t talk about him, not to her grandmother of all people. The man her father called father. How much of her self-worth, her uncertainties, had been enslaved to what that man thought? What would it have taken for her grandmother to stand up to him even once? She pushed away the thought. Gone was the girl who feared truth in that man’s message; in her place was a woman who knew better.
Deena went to the billiard room in search of a moment to exhale. She opened the door and froze at the sight of her mother-in-law behind the bar.
Tak’s mother gulped Belvedere straight from the bottle. It ran rivers from the corners of her mouth, darkening her emerald blouse and pooling at her feet.
Crimson Footprints lll: The Finale Page 4