by Rachel Cohn
Uncle Masa vehemently shook his head. “No rehab, no AA. Rehab is not a big business like in America. In Japanese culture, once someone becomes an addict, he or she is looked down on. It’s very hard for that person to regain their previous status after recovery. They must go cold chicken—”
“Turkey. Cold turkey.”
“Yes. They must go cold meat or be considered weak. It’s a common struggle in Japan, between giri-ninjo, social duty, and ninjo, personal inclination.”
“If he can’t go to AA, then his mother should support him more,” I said. “She’s always bickering with Kenji in Japanese when I see them together.”
“Or, she’s trying to keep him on track with sobriety so he can have his daughter near him.”
I was too stunned to respond. That possibility had never occurred to me. Mrs. Takahara had a heart?
My mom had nearly destroyed her life and mine with substance abuse. Kenji got clean to make a life for me.
With Uncle Masa good and tipsy, I could really get some answers from him. I poured the remainder of the bottle into his glass. He happily sipped it.
I confessed, “Kenji doesn’t seem that interested in being a father. To be honest.”
Uncle Masa said, “He wants to be your father. He wouldn’t have gone to all the trouble to bring you to Japan if he didn’t. But it’s going to take some time for him to figure out how to be a parent. His own father was very stern and always treated Kenji like he was a disappointment. You’ve seen how challenging his mother is. Try to be more patient and understanding.”
I was the kid. I didn’t want to be understanding. I wanted to be understood.
Ryuu killed the 200M backstroke heat, winning easily, clocking in at 2 minutes and 31.25 seconds. I was almost hoarse from screaming so loud to cheer him on. From the bench, Coach Tanya called to him, “Your best time yet, Kimura! Way to go!” She turned to me, sitting behind her. “I notice he swims his best times when you’re around.”
I looked down so she wouldn’t see, in case I was blushing. “He says he swims best in indoor pools,” I said. The ICS-Taipei pool wasn’t as nice as the ICS-Tokyo outdoor pool, because it wasn’t surrounded by lush green landscaping, but it did have the advantage of a stable temperature and a more intimate environment, where swimmers on the sidelines could cheer on their teammates and really be heard (to the dismay of the ICS-Taipei parents in the stands, many of whom put their hands over their ears at Tokyo’s unofficial cheer squad led by me).
Ryuu came and sat down beside me while the next heat prepared to start. I high-fived him. “Great swim!” If Kenji just took time to get to know Ryuu, he’d never tell me not to associate with this awesome guy. But then, Kenji couldn’t be bothered to take the time to get to know his own daughter.
“Thanks,” Ryuu said. “Felt good.” But his uncharacteristically happy face quickly turned to a scowl as unexpected team support arrived in the stands and sat behind us: the Ex-Brat crew of Nik Zhzhonov and Oscar Acosta.
“What are you guys doing here?” I asked them.
“Supporting the team,” said Oscar, like it was obvious.
“In Taipei?” I asked. What the fuck?
Nik said, “We had a polo match yesterday in Brunei. I directed Zhzhonov Air to stop here on the way home to see your first meet.” He looked like he expected me to be flattered. I felt stalked. I said nothing, so finally Nik added, “You’re welcome.”
I could feel my swim mojo disappearing, and mine was the next heat, the 100M butterfly. From the top row of bleacher seats, Uncle Masa looked down at me and gave me an enthusiastic thumbs-up. It would be the first time he’d seen me swim since I was a kid. I wanted to impress him. I didn’t need my mental preparation ruined by unexpected company who’d “stopped off” on their way back from a polo match in a place I’d never heard of.
Nik told me, “We can give you a lift back to Tokyo if you want.” He directed his gaze at Ryuu and then back at me. “But only you.”
“I’ll stay with Ryuu and the team,” I said. I was pretty sure I saw the sides of Ryuu’s mouth curl up into an almost-smile.
“You don’t know what you’re missing,” said Oscar.
Actually, I did. And no thank you. I couldn’t believe I’d ever kissed Nik. I looked at him now, all arrogant and creepy, and thought: Never again.
“Go, Zoellner!” I heard Nik shout right before my swim relay. I looked up into the stands. He blew me a kiss.
The starting gun rang and I dove in. And promptly choked on the fly. My 100M time usually averaged around one minute and ten seconds. My time in Taipei was one minute twenty-five. Terrible. I should have used my anger to power my arms and legs. Instead, my body flailed. My concentration was on the uninvited Ex-Brats in the stands, not in the water. What was that air kiss supposed to mean? From someone who just randomly showed up, uninvited, to a meet in a foreign country? Should I just tell Nik to back the fuck off, or let a restraining order give him the message?
“You were amazing!” Uncle Masa lied as he came to say good-bye before leaving to catch his flight back to Geneva.
“I came in last,” I reminded him.
“You were clearly the most powerful swimmer in your race. But you seemed distracted.”
“Focus, focus, focus,” I muttered, remembering Reggie’s constant reminder before a race. Too bad I was remembering it after the race.
In very un-Japanese fashion, Uncle Masa gave me an American hug.
I needed it.
I headed to the locker room to change before getting onto the chartered bus that would take the team back to the Taipei airport. It was pretty deserted, since most of the team had been through there while I was talking with Uncle Masa. I took a shower and put on my clothes, stuffing my loser’s swimsuit into my gym bag, then found my way back outside. Like the ICS-Tokyo campus, the Taipei campus was large, and it was dark, and I had to use my phone as a flashlight to find my way back to the central driveway where the bus was waiting.
I passed the side of the main building, about to round the corner to the central quad, when a guy jumped out from behind a tree and scared the bejesus out of me. “Boo!” said Nik.
“Don’t do that!” I said, shoving him.
Before I could tell him I was possibly about to have a heart attack from the sudden fright in the dark, he pulled me to him. “You’re such a tease,” he murmured, and then his mouth descended on mine.
“Get off!” I stammered, turning my face so his lips couldn’t touch mine.
“You wanna play rough?” Before I knew what was happening, he pushed me down to the ground and tried to kiss me again. Was this actually happening?
Focus, focus, focus, I heard Reggie’s voice say, overruling the panic and revulsion I was feeling while I . . .
“OW!” Nik screeched, falling off me and onto his side. He hunched over, his hands over his crotch, where I had finally found my swimmer’s power and kneed him as hard as I could. “You fucking bitch, that hurt like shit! I was just playing with you.”
“Don’t ever play with me like that again.” I stood up. Someone’s phone flashlight glared onto us.
Ryuu. He looked at me and said, “Let’s go, Elle,” his eyes reassuring me that I was safe. Then Ryuu looked down at Nik. Ryuu told him, “If you ever try that again, I’ll kill you.”
“It’s not a big deal.”
This was Jhanvi Kapoor’s reaction on Monday when I told the girls what Nik had done over the weekend. We were on a class field trip to the Meiji Shrine, a Shinto shrine dedicated to the spirits of a former Japanese emperor and his wife. It was an incredibly peaceful, evergreen forest of towering trees smack in the middle of the city, with an enormous cedar gate called a torii, leading to a path featuring stunning temples, a treasure museum, walls of white sake barrels stacked in neat rows, and Shinto priests and maidens wearing traditional clothing. The serenity of the setting felt at odds with the pounding of my heart—my body’s reaction to the crazy nonresponse of the Ex-Brat
girls to my revelation.
Ntombi said, “He was probably drinking too much. He gets like that.”
“Date-rapey?” I asked, shocked by their indifference.
“Inappropriate,” said Imogen. “He was just horsing around. He wasn’t going to hurt you.”
Jhanvi said, “He’s a good guy that gets dumb when he drinks.”
I said, “He must have known it was wrong! Look who was conspicuously absent from school today.”
Jhanvi said, “Thanksgiving is this week. Half the school is out visiting their families in America.”
“Nik’s not American,” I pointed out. My guess was Nik was probably absent because Ryuu had threatened to kill him; I didn’t tell the Ex-Brats that part. Ryuu never had a lot to say, but when he did speak up, it counted. I wished he was on this class trip now so I could hang out with him instead of these so-called friends. I thought back to the night before, when Ryuu sat beside me on the flight home to Tokyo from Taipei. He barely spoke a word to me. His silence said everything: I’m here for you. Under the cover of the darkened plane in the nighttime sky, I put my head on his shoulder and he put his hand on my knee, and I hadn’t felt so safe and cared for since coming to Japan.
Imogen pulled ahead, then turned around and directed us to stop walking. “Girl-talk time,” she said, directing her gaze at me. “Elle, Nik’s our friend. You can’t have it both ways.”
“What ways?” I asked, confused.
Jhanvi said, “You can’t say he’s date-rapey and still expect to be part of our group.”
I gasped. Was this conversation actually happening? Weren’t girls supposed to be supportive of one another? I was too disgusted to respond.
Ntombi said, “We’ve known him awhile. We hardly know you.”
I couldn’t take it anymore. I said, “Then get to know me now. Know why I moved to Tokyo? I was in foster care before I came here because I had no family to live with when my mom went to jail. All my clothes came from Target or Old Navy, and I’d never even been on an airplane. I might not have come from all your privilege, but at least I know the difference between right and wrong. At least I know a guy jumping from behind a tree and then pushing a girl to the ground is not a good guy.”
No one had a retort until Imogen clapped her hands and announced, “Well said, Meryl Streep.”
Ntombi said, “I’m sorry things have been hard for you. But Nik’s still our friend.”
Imogen latched on to my arm and resumed our walking. “Don’t be sore, Elle. I’ll have a talk with Nik and smooth it over.”
“I didn’t ask you to smooth it over,” I said.
“That’s what a Joushi does,” Imogen said.
I was even more confused. Did we have an argument or was everything okay? Did I even want it to be okay?
Three days later, I was still confused. But I was trapped. Since none of the Ex-Brats were American and their families didn’t celebrate Thanksgiving, they had wanted to celebrate the holiday at Ikebana Café. Their original queen was in town and Imogen wanted to take her to Destiny Club. Imogen had promised me she wouldn’t invite Nik to join us.
Arabella Acosta had an angular face featuring intense brown eyes, thick eyebrows, a perfectly imperfect hooked nose, and a regal air. Her wavy, dark brown hair looked as if there was an invisible fairy hovering over her head to keep it casually tousled at all times. I didn’t hate her on sight because she was beautiful. I hated her because Ryuu Kimura once dated her.
“So let me understand this,” Arabella said to me with an aristrocratic accent that bugged the hell out of me. “You didn’t even know who your father was until the day you came to Tokyo?”
“So?” I said. Did Imogen have to blab everything?
Kenji had requested that Ikebana Café have a Thanksgiving menu for dinner that night. It was a nice gesture in my honor, but what he didn’t seem to understand was that Thanksgiving was supposed to be about a meal a family shared together, and not one where a father casually said he would drop in “if I find the time.” (So far, he hadn’t.) Even though most of the clientele was not American and probably couldn’t care less, the food options featured a turkey carving station, mashed potatoes, creamed spinach, and an array of pies—apple, pecan, lemon meringue, sweet potato, and pumpkin. It was certainly a more sumptuous offering of food than my Thanksgiving last year, just before Mom was arrested. She was passed out on the sofa and I microwaved a frozen meat loaf dinner for the holiday. For dessert, some stranger off the Internet showed up to buy pills off Mom and mistakenly left behind a McDonald’s apple pie. I threw it out but woke up the next morning to see that Mom had dug it out of the trash and eaten it.
Interestingly, with Arabella back in town, Imogen seemed to be temporarily displaced as Ex-Brat boss to Ntombi and Jhanvi.
Jhanvi eagerly told Arabella, “We came in second in the field hockey league this season!”
“Should have been first,” Arabella sniped. But then she gave Jhanvi a consoling expression. “I’m sure you tried.”
“How come Oscar’s not here with you?” Ntombi asked Arabella.
“He and Nik are working with a polo trainer in England this week. Imogen, stop fidgeting. You keep bumping my leg.”
I honestly could not understand what Ryuu ever saw in this girl. Besides her beautiful face and body.
Akemi Kinoshita appeared in the dining room and looked mortified to see a meeting of the Ex-Brat girls sitting at a table by the dessert buffet station.
“Hi, Akemi!” I called out. “Want to join us?” I knew she’d never accept, to the Ex-Brats’ relief, but I wanted her to know she was welcome.
“No, thank you,” she said meekly, not making eye contact with the other girls. “My mother asked me to bring a piece of pumpkin pie up to her. She loves American pie.”
“How cute,” said Arabella. “Bye-bye, now.”
Akemi scurried away. I’d had it. “Please don’t be rude to my friend,” I said to Arabella.
Arabella said, “Oh, that nobody is your friend?”
Jhanvi told me, “Elle, quit with the charity cases.”
Ntombi said, “Nik says you’re, like, friendly with you-know-who Kimura, even though he’s iced out.”
“Really.” Arabella raised an eyebrow at me. “I guess that makes sense. I heard your new father is yakuza, too.” She gestured around to the lavish Ikebana Café setting. Like it was so obvious, she added, “You don’t build a palace like this in Japan otherwise.”
I was done with these girls. I told Arabella, “Well, I heard you got knocked up by a guy who dumped you.”
Loud gasps ringed around the table.
Already, I knew. Now it was my turn to be iced out.
DECEMBER
Dear Mom,
Guess whose grade in Spanish went up to an A? Sí, sí, sí—me!
Good result, bad reason. The popular girls I was hanging out with at school when I first arrived in Tokyo dumped me. Muy bien—now I have more time to study and less reasons to be distracted. You know how sometimes when your fears come true, you realize the fear was harder than the actual circumstance? (Maybe Jessup Correctional Institute is like that? I hope?) Don’t worry, I’m fine. (Thanks for your last letter and letting me know you are, too.)
It doesn’t make sense, but no one at my school seems to actually like the popular people. Students follow their lead, but otherwise dread them. Now that I’m not walled in with the popular kids, I’ve been getting to know other students who are more normal and not so snobby. There is this girl in my Spanish class who I never talked to before and it turns out she is from Maryland, not far from where we lived! She is originally from Bethesda but moved to Tokyo when her mom got a job at the American Embassy here. She’s been telling me interesting things about the holidays in Japan, like how people here don’t celebrate Christmas as a religious holiday, but it’s a big deal for dating. People order buckets of Kentucky Fried Chicken way in advance (because it sells out!), and then on Christmas day, couples
wait in line to pick up their order where guys dressed up as Santa Claus versions of Colonel Sanders keep the crowds entertained. And people eat a special treat for dessert that’s a lot like strawberry shortcake. KFC and strawberry shortcake—sounds more like a July Fourth meal, right? At New Year’s, there’s a five-day work holiday so employees can go home to their prefectures to see family and honor their ancestors and bring them mandarin oranges. They welcome their ancestors home and then say good-bye to them again at the end of the holiday. I like the idea of that tradition. If I was dead, I would be so happy and honored if someone welcomed me back for visits from the afterlife and brought me mandarin oranges.
It’s beautiful here right now. Japanese people don’t have Christmas trees in their homes or exchange gifts on December 25, but the streets have white lights in the trees shining bright at nighttime, and the stores are all decorated, and Tak-Luxxe even has a super-tall Christmas tree set up in the hotel lobby decorated with giant gold balls and sparkly Christmas lights. The weather is cold and there’s even been snow flurries a few times. It really feels like Christmas! I love it. Except for how much it makes me miss you. I miss making Christmas cookies with you and planning the fun things we will do together over Christmas vacation like when we lived at the old house. I can’t imagine Christmas with Kenji and not you.
I love you,
Elle
Ryuu no longer sat alone at lunch. Now he had company. Me and Akemi Kinoshita.
It was too cold to eat outside, so the table dynamics had moved to the indoor cafeteria, where the Ex-Brats took the center round table, and everyone else ate at satellite tables outside of their exclusive orbit.
“Do you think they talk about you?” Akemi asked me as she bit into her favorite cafeteria food, a classic American PB&J sammie.
“Maybe.” I shrugged, trying not to care. I stole a furtive glance in their direction, but none of them were looking at me, so it was impossible to say if their bitchy conversation included trashing me. I wanted to think they didn’t talk about me, but I knew how many lunches I’d spent with them where they couldn’t gossip enough about Ryuu Kimura, and I doubted they were silent where I was concerned. As if to confirm my suspicions, Nik Zhzhonov caught my glance, flashed me his middle finger, and then the rest of the Ex-Brats broke out into laughter.