“Hey, Dad.” He stops as if he’s just remembered I’m with him, and I think this bodes a little better for him agreeing. “Finn and I are going to go out, okay?”
“Out? Where?” Dad stopped imposing a curfew on me when I graduated high school. All he asks is that I let him know if I’m going to be really late or out all night. Of course, whenever I’m really late or out all night in Westfield, it’s inevitably with Mindy. This is different.
“There’s a place that has live music after hours. I thought Zosia and I could check it out.” Finn doesn’t even look at Eloise.
“Zo, you just got here.” Dad’s eyes go from me to Finn and back again. He takes a deep breath, and I can practically see him reminding himself I’m not a little girl anymore. He wanted this for me. More independence. Experiences. Capital E. “It’s fine. But I’d feel better if Finn walks you back. It’s easy to get lost.”
“Don’t worry, Greg. I’ll make sure she’s fine.” Finn sounds very confident. And he calls my father Greg?
Dad’s eyes are still on me. “Have a good time, then. I probably won’t wait up.”
“No, you shouldn’t.” I stammer a little, realizing how that sounds. “I mean…it’s been a long day for you with work and everything.”
A few words from Eloise, and Finn and I veer down an alleyway, dim and filled with plastic crates and empty kegs. It smells like stale beer and urine. I’m about to ask him where the hell he’s taking me when suddenly we reach the edge of a brightly lit street filled with people and shops and restaurants. There are at least four pachinko parlors in sight, and the sound of the tinny circus-like music and clanging metal balls fills the air around us. I don’t know anything about pachinko except it looks like it’s played on rigged pinball machines. Apparently it’s a form of gambling and, judging from the men visible through the smoke inside, really, really popular with the grandfather set.
I follow Finn through the crowd toward a door with a red lantern that, if I remember right from my reading, means it’s an izakaya. It’s crowded and filled with small wooden tables. A bar takes most of the far wall, and aside from a few salarymen perched at the end on stools, the rest of the crowd looks our age. Finn jostles his way to a table against the wall. Two seconds later, a woman puts a menu down in front of us and says something in Japanese I can’t understand at all.
“She asked if you want a drink,” Finn says. The bar is noisy, and he leans in close enough that I see his individual eyelashes.
“Um, water?” I look at the woman. “Mizu, kudasai.”
She nods, Finn says something in Japanese, and she leaves. “Are you hungry?” he asks.
“No, we just ate. Do you speak Japanese?” MIT, Dean’s List, and now Japanese. Finn’s full of surprises.
“I can order a drink. That’s pretty much it. Do you?”
“No, but I panicked about two weeks ago and got really into Dad’s Rosetta Stone. So I can ask for water and say ‘nice to meet you’ with the appropriate level of politeness to both a dignitary and a seven-year-old. I think it will be useful, especially if I ever meet a dignitary.”
“Very useful.” He laughs and I let my shoulders loosen a notch.
The waitress comes and sets glasses down in front of us. Beer for Finn, water for me, and something else. When I open my mouth to protest, he says, “I ordered it for you. It’s umeshu. Plum wine and soda or something. Try it.”
“Isn’t the drinking age twenty?” I feel stupid as soon as I’ve said this. I could pass for twenty, and the waitress isn’t concerned about my age. “I just…I don’t really drink wine.”
“Why not?” He takes a sip of his beer as he asks. It’s weird, but I’ve never had a drink with a guy—not like this. Finn is so matter-of-fact about it. He’s definitely not drinking to get his courage up or to impress me.
“I don’t know.” I hesitate and tell him the truth. “The whole getting-drunk-and-losing-control thing kind of puts me off. Especially with people I don’t know.”
“And you don’t know me.” I listen for teasing, but there isn’t any.
“No. I mean, well, no.” I feel weird, like maybe I was supposed to answer differently. Flirtatiously. I give a grin I hope looks more natural than it feels. “I’m also a little bit of a control freak. There’s a reason I didn’t play a team sport in high school.”
Finn laughs loud enough for the table next to us to turn and look. “Yeah, me neither.” He takes a sip of beer. “I ran track back in Baltimore.”
“Were you good?”
He bites his lip and smiles a little. “What do you think?”
Okay, he’s flirting. He is. “So why didn’t you do any sports at Westfield?”
Another sip of beer. “I just didn’t.”
I can’t think of a single flirty thing to say so I take a sip of the umeshu. Finn’s right. It’s good. Tastes like a fruity soda. “Do you miss it? Baltimore?”
“I did, but I went down a few weeks ago and it wasn’t the same. It’s not home anymore.”
I remember my conversation with Mindy the night I found out about Tokyo. “Home is where you hang your heart, isn’t it?”
“I think the saying is ‘home is where you hang your hat.’”
“I know, but that’s not what I meant.”
He looks like he’s going to ask, but a voice comes over a microphone and everyone turns to look. A tiny girl sits on a stool with a microphone and a guitar. I understand about three words of what she says before she picks up the guitar and starts to play. I don’t understand anything she’s saying, but her singing is melancholic and beautiful and I have to cross my arms over my chest because I feel like I might cry. It probably doesn’t help that I’m downing the umeshu like it’s only soda, either.
She sings a bunch of songs, including a couple in English, before she invites others to take the stage. At least that’s what I assume she does because there’s a succession of people who take the mic to sing. Midway through a guy’s bad rendition of “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” I turn to Finn.
“Are you going to have a go?”
He’s just taken a sip of beer and nearly spits it out. “Me?”
“You told me that night that you play guitar.” I gesture back to the guy, whose voice is breaking on the refrain. “And this seems like a pretty forgiving crowd.”
“That’s right. The night I saw you in the playground.” He seems surprised I remember, then shakes his head. “They’re drunk.”
“That’s not a no,” I tease. Compliments of umeshu number two, no doubt.
“Are you going to sing with me if I do?”
“No. But I’ll clap the loudest, I promise.”
“Lame.” He shakes his head. “I need more than that if I’m going to make a fool of myself.”
I let out an exaggerated sigh. “Fine. What do you want?”
He eyes me over the rim of his glass. “Sing one with me and I’ll do one alone.”
“If it’s an original, you’ve got yourself a deal.”
“An original?”
“Sure. One you wrote yourself.”
“I don’t sing my stuff for other people.”
“I don’t sing at all, so we’re even.” I sound cool and offhand. Like I flirt with guys like Finn every day. Like the prospect of singing at a bar in Tokyo at whatever-oclock in the morning doesn’t faze me at all.
I don’t expect him to agree, but he does. Slowly like he can’t quite believe he’s doing it. “Okay. Deal.” He takes another sip of beer. “So what do we sing?”
My heart pounds. I am SO fazed by this. Fazed shitless, in fact, despite the umeshu. But the fact that he’s agreed to actually do it makes me say, “I don’t know. What can you play?”
“How about ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’?”
“No.” My refusal is practically a shout. That was the song my mom sang to me before bed when I was little, her voice soft while she sat on the edge of my bed, tickling my back through the thin cotton of my ni
ghtgown. I still can’t hear it on the soft rock station Babci likes without having to bolt from the room. “I…I don’t think I can sing that one.”
Never mind that I don’t think I can sing, period. Finn nods and asks, “How about ‘The Sound of Silence’ or are you anti-Simon & Garfunkel in general?”
“No, that’s okay.” I smile and ask because I can’t quite stop myself, “Why do you know so much Simon & Garfunkel? What about Dave Matthews or something?”
He shrugs. “Anyone can play Dave Matthews.”
Um, I can’t.
But it’s too late. Finn heads off to talk to the girl in the corner, volunteering us. Ten minutes later, we’re in the middle of the little makeshift stage area. Someone’s lent him a guitar and two stark microphones stand in front of us, although I’m at least two feet from mine. I’m pretty sure I might hyperventilate and I’m having pretty significant second thoughts with all eyes on us, but he plays the first chord and leans close to me. “Come on. Let’s see how we do.”
His voice is low when he starts and he keeps looking at me until I join in. My knees shake and I have to dig my fingernails into my palms to keep my hands from trembling, but as long as I keep my eyes on Finn’s fingers running over the strings, I can actually do it. There’s a minute where someone scrapes a chair and I turn to look, which totally freaks me out, so I have to pretend there’s no one else here. Because, honestly, the fact that I’m singing in a bar in Tokyo with Finn O’Leary is weird enough.
I falter as I wonder how much of an idiot I’ll feel like afterward until I remember he’s promised me another song after this. And if I get through this, I’ll get that.
We finish and the applause is loud. A few people shout. I have no idea if we were good, but my knees feel like they’re about to give out completely and I don’t care.
Finn begins speaking as the applause dies down. “I promised Zosia if she sang with me, I’d do another, so if you’ll humor me for one more.”
I start back to our seats, and he takes a deep breath through the microphone.
“She looks like she’s flying on gossamer wings
The night is so black, you can’t see the strings
She’s soaring, she’s floating, she’s touching the sky
She’s an angel, a vision, a trick of my mind.”
I freeze in the middle of the sea of chairs and face him. His voice is low, but sure. He’s done this kind of thing before. His eyes are steady on mine. He doesn’t look away once. Even when I sink down into a chair, his gaze stays locked on mine.
My hands start to tremble, so I clasp them between my knees, and the back of my neck prickles with sweat. I feel my breath catch in my chest, like my heart needs to hold on to it just a little longer. I don’t know if I’ve ever sat straighter.
“I can’t help it, I watch her, frozen in place
Afraid if I blink, she’ll go away
I need her, I want her, an unbearable ache
To touch her, to feel her is all it would take
For my heart to break open, for my soul to heal
She’s not even there, yet somehow she’s real.”
My heart fills my chest, edging out the breath I’ve been holding. My God. He can’t possibly be singing about that night in the playground. About me. But, good Lord, the way he’s looking through me makes me think it’s possible. Hell, the way he’s looking through me right now makes me think anything’s possible. I’m transfixed, hanging on every word, every chord.
“My heart will break open, my soul will heal
Maybe she’s there; God, let her be real.”
And it’s over.
Everyone claps. A lot.
Except me.
I stare and he stares back. The air crackles between us. His dark eyes drink me in; his lips part and I feel mine open in response. I’d kiss him if we weren’t twenty feet apart. I would. If he didn’t kiss me first. It could go either way, I think.
At least until he drops his gaze. He looks back to bow at the girl organizing the singers, and when he glances back up, his face only holds a trace of the softness that was there five seconds ago. It’s gone completely by the time he meets me back at our table. His voice is casual, like the past three minutes didn’t just happen.
“You didn’t clap at all. Good thing I got you to sing first.”
I’ve completely forgotten that. “I…sorry. I just…your song was beautiful.” I sound as flustered as I feel.
He shrugs and I know before he says anything else he’s going to blow it off. “It’s something I’ve been playing around with.”
Right. My face stings, and I’m glad for the dark. My earlier facsimile of cool and flirty has been replaced by tongue-tied and bumbling. “It was really good.” My voice trails off at the end. I twirl my empty glass on the table and wait for him to say something, but he doesn’t. He’s not the type to fill an uncomfortable silence, but I can’t help it. “You know, I’m getting tired. Sorry, it’s just—”
“No, it’s fine. It’s late.” He rises before he’s even done talking, and I follow him out of the bar. The crowd has thinned in the past couple of hours, although those who are left are definitely worse for the wear. Two guys in business suits puke outside one of the pachinko parlors, and there’s a lot of bowing and staggering going on as groups say goodbye on the sidewalk.
We walk back in silence. It’s less than ten minutes but feels like an hour. I try out a million questions in my head, but everything feels forced. Because I feel dumb. Like I got taken in by Finn’s song and made it into something it’s not and is never going to be. Granted, that doesn’t explain the way he looked at me, but maybe I’m reading that wrong, too.
We’re outside my building before either of us speak, although I don’t actually know it’s my building until he says, “Here you are.”
“Oh. Wow. Okay, thanks.” I look off beyond his shoulder like I’m checking out the street so I won’t have to make eye contact. “Thanks for the night out.”
“Thanks for coming.”
He does that uncomfortable foot-shuffle thing he was doing on the train, so I turn toward the door. I fumble with my key ring and have to try two different keys before I get the right one. I twist the lock and then drop the keys as I grab the handle.
I bend to get the key ring at the same time as Finn. My bag flies over my shoulder, and as I try to grab it before everything spills all over the sidewalk, I catch the skirt of my dress on the latch of the door. I stretch to reach for my bag, and my dress twists up past my ass. Which is bare because I tossed my underwear a lifetime ago in the ladies room at the restaurant.
It takes the expression on Finn’s face to remind me. “Um, your dress…”
I look down. “Oh. My. God.”
I try to yank the material, which isn’t coming loose, so I move my foot holding the door open and it slams.
On my dress.
The only good thing is Finn has the keys in his hand.
“Can you unlock the door, please?” I say this with as much dignity as I can, given the circumstances, but the only way I can even ask is not to look at him.
To my surprise, he laughs. “Okay. Why aren’t you wearing underwear?”
If I could drop through the floor right now, I would. “I lost them. Open the door.”
He’s grinning. “You lost them? You’re lying.”
My God. I’m going to die. “Okay, I’m lying. Open the door.”
“Why won’t you tell me?” He leans against the doorframe, his smile still wide.
“Because whatever you’re making up in your head is a lot more interesting than the truth.” Anything is more interesting than the truth. “Open the door.”
Finn reaches toward the lock, although he’s definitely taking his time about it. I could grab the keys out of his hand and I’m about to when he says, “And here I thought you might be starting to trust me.”
I force myself to meet his gaze then. “I peed on them trying to negotiate the
hole in the ground doubling as a toilet at the restaurant so I chucked them.”
He laughs really loud. “That’s kind of priceless.”
I try not to smile. “It’s rude to laugh. Now unlock the damn door.”
He does it, turning the key in the lock and dropping them in my hand. I twist around to try to unhook my dress from the lock, but my angle is all wrong and the more I yank at it, the higher it rides up on my hips.
I’m not sure what kind of expression is on my face when I look up at Finn, but it’s mortified enough that he reaches over to give my dress two firm tugs and, although it rips, at least it covers my bottom half again. I wedge my foot back in the door and cross my arms over my chest. “Thanks.”
“Any time.” He’s still smiling, and it’s a really good smile. Not laughing or mocking. Just nice.
“I think you need to tell me another embarrassing story so I don’t feel so dumb.” I don’t mean it as a challenge, just a fact.
His mouth twists a little. “I’m not sure I can top that.”
“Oh, and here I thought you were starting to trust me.” I splay my hand on my chest for effect, but my tone doesn’t match my words or my dramatics. I sound almost sad, which may be because of the umeshu or the roller coaster ride this night has turned into.
Finn hears it, too, and bites his lip. “Okay, fine. The summer I was twelve I broke my leg, cracked it in three places. It sucked. All my friends were out playing basketball or street hockey, and I could barely move. I watched them from the front porch sometimes, but it was so hot and my cast would itch, so I’d end up going back inside. One day the guy across the street brought over a guitar. Said it belonged to his daughter but she never played it anymore and maybe I’d like it. I had nothing to do anyway, so I started messing around. The first song I learned to play was ‘Stairway to Heaven.’I started making up my own stuff a couple years later when I realized it was a way to figure out things that didn’t make any sense at all.”
That’s not an embarrassing story. It’s an invitation to ask about the song in the bar. I don’t want to hear him say he thought I was somebody or something else, but I have to acknowledge it somehow. “Your song earlier—what’s it called?”
Swimming to Tokyo Page 6