by Diana Renn
That almost happened this fall. We were at Deluxe Junk in Fremont one Saturday, trying on vintage clothes for a short film Edge was working on. I came out of the dressing room in a flouncy gold prom dress from the eighties. He emerged in a powder-blue tuxedo with ruffles down the front. We cracked up, looking at ourselves in the mirror. “The seventies? Wrong decade,” I told him, since he usually dresses like he’s from a 1940s film—trousers, a waistcoat, the occasional gray fedora.
“It’s good to branch out now and then,” he replied.
An old Michael Jackson song came on the radio, and we danced. Edge did disco moves, his honey-brown hair falling into his face, and I tried out some robotic 1980s dance moves.
“There’s this homecoming dance next weekend,” he said while boogying my direction.
I walked like an Egyptian. “Yeah. It’d be so funny if we showed up in these clothes.”
“Together?” he asked. Suddenly, the mirror version of Edge stopped dancing and looked directly at the mirror version of me, and I stopped dancing, too.
For a moment, I could picture us walking boldly into the decorated Crestview High gym, to the center of a dance floor, hand in hand, not caring who looked at us. And suddenly, that gold dress felt too tight. “Of course not. We don’t go to lame school events, remember?” I laughed.
He looked down. “Right. No. Of course not. I was just kidding, too.”
Something had shifted, or the air had changed, and our mirror-selves didn’t look at each other. We didn’t dance anymore. We changed back into regular clothes. Things stayed weird for a whole week, until homecoming passed, and then we were fine.
That one weird week was enough to make me realize I had to keep my feelings for him bottled. I felt like I could lose him. I already know what it’s like to lose a great friend.
But right now, I just have to hear his voice. I call his house. Edge’s mom answers.
“Hi, Mrs. Downey, it’s Violet. Can I talk to Edge?”
“He’s still out. He’s not answering his cell?”
“No. I thought he was staying home to work on his video.”
“He was, but then he went over to help someone with a demo, someone who’s going to the same camp. Wait, I have their home number. Let me find it.” Paper rustles.
I’m not surprised his services are in demand. A few months ago, Edge shot this amazing, short film-noir spoof. It followed staff members at our school—the parking lot attendant, janitors, bus drivers, cafeteria workers. He made it seem like they were all up to something suspicious as they carried out day-to-day tasks. When he posted it online, it went viral. In the last month of school, our lunches at school were interrupted by people coming up to congratulate him. Suddenly, Edge was visible. I felt proud, sure, but scared. I wanted to grab his arm and yank him back into our circle of friends and never let him go. I wasn’t ready to share him.
“Here it is. He’s at Mardi Cooper’s house.” Mrs. Downey reads me the number, but I don’t write it down. That’s the last place in the world I’m going to call.
6
Early in the morning, I slip out of the house and catch a bus back to North Seattle while my dad’s still snoring away. I lean my throbbing head against the bus window. I barely slept last night. The paint fumes got to me, and I had to get up and open my window. Then I was thinking about the rock through the dining room window, and how now I was basically opening a portal for any aspiring robbers or vandals to enter through. And lacing through worries about my dad and the mystery were my new worries about Edge and Mardi.
Around midnight, I ended up turning on my laptop to distract myself. First, I emailed Reika about the mystery and my upcoming trip, so we could try to meet up in Tokyo. Then I did an Internet search on the Yamadas and the missing van Goghs. I read articles about them and watched video interviews of Kenji until almost two in the morning.
Now, unable to doze on the bus, I take my sketchbook out of my backpack and draw what I learned, in manga-style panels, to try to make sense of it all.
In a panel labeled February, Kenji Yamada sifts through a box in his Tokyo office. He finds the portfolio of drawings mixed in with old blueprints.
In the next scene, Kenji has the drawings appraised by a top art expert and a team of van Gogh scholars. “Congratulations,” the appraiser tells him. “Though unsigned, these are authentic van Gogh drawings, in good condition, worth two million dollars.”
Kenji appears on the Today show. “My brother, Tomonori, bought these drawings, with a corresponding painting, from a small art dealer in Paris, in April 1987.”
An incredulous Matt Lauer asks, “Are you saying you had van Goghs in your Tokyo office for decades? In a box of old construction blueprints?”
Kenji replies: “We didn’t know they were van Goghs until a few months ago. Back in 1987, appraisers told my brother that the unsigned drawings and painting were old, but imitations of van Gogh. Tomonori put them in storage—we didn’t know where—and when I found them a few months ago, I immediately had them reappraised.” A new panel, with Kenji’s voice floating above an appraiser with a magnifying glass. “Thanks to advanced technology and more knowledge of van Gogh’s style today, appraisers could now properly authenticate them and attribute them to the great Dutch master.”
Matt Lauer leans forward. “And there’s a painting that goes with these studies? If it’s a van Gogh, too, and in reasonable condition, it must be worth millions more.”
A close-up of Kenji, his eyes brimming with emotion. “Yes. My brother told me he had put the painting somewhere separate from the drawings, for safekeeping. I never had the chance to learn where. My brother took his own life just two weeks after returning from Paris in 1987.”
Flashback panel. The back view of a man in a suit on a Tokyo subway platform, one foot dangling over the edge. A bare foot. I know from a manga series I read that Japanese people usually remove their shoes and socks before committing suicide.
Last night, I also read an article that came out a few months before all this van Gogh business, about how the Yamada Corporation is in a ton of debt. And financial troubles aren’t the only thing that’s been plaguing them since February of this year. There’ve been accidents. Some real doozies. I turn to a fresh page and list them now:
1. Scaffolding collapsed on three building sites.
2. Equipment exploded in a tunnel.
3. A mini-excavator on an office park construction site went into reverse instead of forward, and the driver plunged into a ravine, narrowly escaping death.
4. Last month, a bridge the company is building in Kobe collapsed, killing two workers, injuring a dozen more.
I stare at my sketches and my list. Images and words swirl together but don’t form a picture that makes sense. Tomonori hid a painting that wasn’t known to be valuable. He separated the painting from the drawings. He didn’t tell anyone where the art was, not even his own brother. And he committed suicide just two weeks after buying this amazing art. Why?
I’m so lost in thought that I miss my bus stop and have to run back four blocks.
By the time I get to work, I’m ten minutes late. Still, I dash into the 7-Eleven next to Jet City Comics, buy some yogurt and a bagel for breakfast, and pour myself a huge cup of coffee. I’m feeling a bit low on chikara today. It will take a major caffeine hit to give me the strength to tell Jerry, my boss, I’m quitting at the end of the week.
Three girls come in, their flip-flops flapping. “Hey, isn’t that one of the Manga-loids?” one of them says, just loud enough so I can hear. Giggling ensues.
Through the curved security mirror, I see them in more detail. There’s a beach club on Lake Washington that the rich kids belong to. That’s probably where they are heading, since it’s a rare Seattle day of milky sunlight. I see Kelly Morgan and Emily Woodside loading up on celebrity rags
while the third girl makes a beeline for the candy aisle. Guess they’re planning some intellectual stimulation while they rot their teeth and get skin cancer. Good times.
And who’s the girl in the candy aisle? She turns. It’s Mardi freaking Cooper.
If I’m with my friends at school, lost in our fantasy worlds of comics and anime and role-playing games, we don’t have to deal with these idiots. But if I’m not with my friends, I’m visible. Someone to laugh at.
“I don’t know.” Mardi sighs. “Starbursts or Kit Kats?”
“Are you in a chocolatey mood or a fruity mood?” Emily asks.
“Do they make a candy that’s fruity in the middle and chocolatey on the outside?”
Through the security mirror, I steal another look at Mardi. Would Edge like her? She’s pretty, with emerald eyes and long, red hair, both of which I once envied. But she’s not Edge’s type. She’s in honors classes with us, but smart in a memorize-the-textbook way. In junior high, she turned into one of those people who is endlessly painting and hanging signs in the halls promoting School Spirit Day, or Alcohol Awareness Day, or Pajama Day, or the Homecoming Dance. It’s like her dedication to school spirit sucked away her soul.
I know there used to be more to Mardi, and I know this because we used to be friends. Years ago, when she, too, lived with a single mom in the Hunters Run condos. In grade school, we rode our bikes together in the parking lot and made fairy wings out of crepe paper. We walked to and from school together. We swapped books and Sailor Moon anime DVDs. We memorized Kiki’s Delivery Service and pretended that we, too, were witches in training. We shared our deepest secrets and our wildest dreams.
Then her mom got remarried. Mardi and her mom moved into the guy’s fancy house near Sheridan Beach. That’s where her shape-shifting began. She tossed all her Sailor Moons and declared herself too old for Kiki. She got herself some trendy clothes, followed by rich, snobby friends. She joined a bunch of sports teams and got too busy to hang out. One day in seventh grade, she just stopped talking to me. She erased our whole friendship with one blank stare.
These days, she still ignores me, except when her friends call me Manga-loid, and she laughs along with them. And this month, the yearbook came out with a caption by my only extracurricular picture. VIOLET ROSSI, NATIONAL FART HONOR SOCIETY. I found out that Mardi, a yearbook staffer, was responsible for proofreading the National Art Honor Society page. She’d let the joke slide all the way to the printer.
Edge knows all this. So why would he hang with her now? Maybe he can see glimmers of the Mardi I once knew. Or maybe Mardi in her new form has bewitched him.
I hurry to the register and throw ten dollars down on the counter.
“So Mardi, what happened with you and Steven Spielberg last night?” Emily asks.
I can’t hear her whole answer. The cashier loudly counts back my change.
“. . . was really, really good. And then, after that, just totally crashed,” Mardi finishes.
Crashed? He crashed at her house? And he was good. At what?
“You know, he hangs out with the Manga-loids,” Kelly says.
“Yeah, but he’s not really one of them. He’s a serious film buff, not just into cartoons.”
Cartoons! I grip my coffee cup. How can she lump anime in with Scooby-Doo?
“And he could be soooo much better,” Mardi goes on. “Some new clothes, the right hairstyle, maybe ten minutes of crunches a day to tone up. I see a lot of potential. He’s my special summer project. Come September, people are not going to recognize Edgerton Downey.”
I can’t listen to this. I bolt from the 7-Eleven, spilled coffee burning my hand.
7
As soon as I burst into Jet City Comics, Jerry approaches with a Big Gulp in one hand, a box cutter in the other. “Well, look who’s here. Thanks for showing up.”
“Sorry.” I toss my backpack on the floor behind the counter. “I’m staying at my dad’s in Fremont, and I have to take two buses to get here.”
“Lots to do today. The Yoops came in.” Jerry nods at a massive stack of UPS boxes, then hands me the box cutter. “I need these babies on the racks, and subscriptions pulled, pronto.”
I cringe as he picks up a notepad by the cash register. It’s filled with characters I copied from the Death Note manga series yesterday. I forgot to throw them away. “I found your doodles. Obviously, you have way too much time on your hands,” Jerry says. “Now get busy.” He flings the notepad down and retreats to his office, belching loudly.
Doodles! Ugh! Jerry is such a baka! And I guess this isn’t the best time to give notice.
I restock the small box of manga first, setting aside Vampire Sleuths 43 for myself. I’m just starting in on the Marvel and DC boxes and stealing a sip of coffee, when the door opens.
In walks Edge. Smiling, flashing his adorable dimples, he hands me a Venti Starbucks. “I figured you had a long commute this morning. Thought you might need fuel.”
“Thanks. I did. And I do.” I take the coffee from him, and our fingers brush for one split second. My eyes turn into hearts like in a romance manga.
Edge is not movie-star cute. Maybe the space between his front teeth and his slightly chubby waistline have kept him from being a total girl magnet. But those are two things I happen to love about him. And the way his hair falls into his eyes. Oh, and his clothes. Today he wears a crisp white button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. A 1940s waistcoat, brown twill pants, and spectator shoes. How could Mardi even think of trying to change him? “Did you walk all the way here with this coffee?” I ask, suddenly conscious of staring at him.
“My mom dropped me off. We hit a drive-through Starbucks on the way. I mean, we didn’t hit it, literally, but we drove through. Through the drive-through part. Where the cars go.” He looks down. Guess he’s pretty nervous about revealing his rendezvous with Mardi. “Oh. It looks like you’re already fueling up,” he adds, noticing the 7-Eleven cup in my other hand.
“It’s okay. I’ll drink them both. I had a really long night.”
“Yeah? Me too.”
“Oh?” I take a sip from each cup and set them both down. Then I continue my X-Men restock. “I left you some messages,” I say cautiously.
“I know. I’m sorry I didn’t call you back. I was at, um, at Mardi Cooper’s.”
I shove a stack of X-Men into a rack so hard I crease a cover. Jerry will kill me.
“Turns out she’s going to the same film camp. She has a music video she made for some friends. That’s the demo she’s bringing to camp. But she’s having trouble with her editing software. We had to reinstall everything and start over. I didn’t get home till midnight. I figured it was too late to call you back.”
Now I feel stupid for assuming the worst. Edge was just being his helpful self.
“She shot her video at Sheridan Beach,” he goes on. “She’s got the band out on a dock. Dry ice. Superimposed ghosts on waverunners. Pretty spiffy stuff. She’s got some talent.”
“Ghosts on waverunners. Wow.” Frowning, I grab a stack of Supermans.
“You okay?” Edge asks.
“It’s nothing. I just . . . hate . . . Superman,” I mutter.
“How can you hate Superman? He can leap tall buildings in a single bound.”
“Because. Look at this. Superman, and all his spinoff titles, take up three whole rows on this rack. All these male superheroes, actually, take up three-quarters of the racks in the stores. Now look at the manga. Just that one small bookshelf over there. I keep telling Jerry we should order more titles. But he’s clueless. He thinks manga’s just for girls, and that we won’t sell enough here.” I’m babbling, but I can’t stop. I can talk about comics on and on, but I just can’t talk about the one thing that really matters.
“Once Kimono Girl is p
ublished,” Edge says, “your boss will realize the error of his ways. And he’ll have to stock it.”
“Yeah. Right. Like I’m going to publish it and fill a shelf in this store.”
“Who said anything about a shelf? I’m talking wall, Violet. Picture it.” Edge makes a sweeping gesture. “A wall of shelves full of Kimono Girl episodes. Floor to ceiling.”
For a moment, I can picture it. I manage a smile. “I guess then Jerry would be on his hands and knees, begging me to do signings.” And Edge would be standing there, his arm slung around me, staving off the reporters and throngs of fans.
“You seem kind of far away today,” Edge says. “What’s up?”
“I’m just tired.”
“You’re not mad at me?”
“Why would I be mad at you?”
“I know you’re not the president of the Mardi Cooper fan club.”
“Oh. That.” I shrug. “Ancient history. Anyway, it’s nice of you to help her out.”
“That’s a relief to hear. Because, um, I’m sort of taking her to the Hitchcock film festival.” He scrapes at a piece of tape stuck to the glass countertop.
“What?” A thought bubble explodes above my head. Asterisks, number signs, ampersands, and exclamation points shoot off in every direction.
“Yeah, at the Egyptian. Tomorrow night. Can you believe she’s never seen a single Hitchcock movie? She’s going to get laughed out of film camp.” Scrape, scrape, scrape.
“That’s a shocker.” I practically dive into the nearest box and take my time rummaging for a stack of Spawn so Edge won’t see my face.
What would it take to get noticed by Edge? By my dad? By anyone? Everyone but me has a Special Thing they can do. Edge has his films. Mardi has her school spirit, and now, apparently, killer music videos with waverunning ghosts. Reika rocks the school literary rag with her poetry. My parents have careers that are taking off. What do I do? Doodle in a sketchbook, knowing I’ll never be brave enough to share Kimono Girl with the world.