by Camy Tang
“That’s Kazuo.”
“Really?” Lex whirled around and started to peer through the doorway into the front room. “We never met him — ”
“Don’t look now! Hide me!”
Venus lifted a sculpted eyebrow. “Oh, come on.”
“How does Grandma know him?” Jennifer’s soothing voice fizzled Venus’s sarcasm.
“She met him when we were dating.”
“Grandma loves Kazuo.” Lex tossed the comment over her shoulder as she stood at the doorway and strained to see Kazuo past the milling relatives.
Venus’s brow wrinkled. “Loves him? Why?”
Trish threw her hands up in the air. “He’s a Japanese national. He spoke Japanese to her. Of course she’d love him.”
Jennifer chewed her lip. “Grandma’s not racist — ”
Venus snorted. “Of course she’s not racist, but she’s certainly biased.”
“That’s not a good enough reason. Don’t you think there’s something fishy about why she wants Trish to get back together with him?”
Venus opened her mouth, but nothing came out. After a moment, she closed it. “Maybe you’re right.”
Trish flung her arms out. “But I have no idea what that reason is.”
“So is she matchmaking? Now?”
“What better place?” Trish pointed to the piles of food. “Fatten me up and serve me back to him on a platter.”
Venus rolled her eyes. “Trish — ”
“I’m serious. No way am I going to let her do that. Not with him. ” The last man on earth she wanted to see. Well, that wasn’t exactly true. Her carnal body certainly wanted to see him, even though her brain and spirit screamed, Run away! Run away!
“Was it that bad a breakup?” Lex looked over her shoulder at them.
Trish squirmed. “I, uh . . . I don’t think he thinks we’re broken up.”
“What do you mean? It happened six months ago.” Venus’s gaze seemed to slice right through her.
“Well . . . I saw him a couple days ago.”
Venus’s eyes flattened. “And . . . ?”
Trish blinked rapidly. “We . . . got along really well.”
Venus crossed her arms and glared.
How did Venus do that? Trish barely had to open her mouth and Venus knew when she was lying. “We, um . . . got along really well.”
Jennifer figured it out first. She gasped so hard, Trish worried she’d pass out from lack of oxygen.
Venus cast a sharp look at her, then back at Trish. Her mouth sprang open. “You didn’t.”
“Didn’t what?” Lex rejoined the circle and the drama unfolding. She peered at Jenn and Venus — one frozen in shock, the other white with anger.
Trish’s heart shrank in her chest. She bit her lip and tasted blood. She couldn’t look at her cousins. She couldn’t even say it.
Venus said it for her. “You slept with him again.”
Lex’s jaw dropped. “Tell me you didn’t.” The hurt in her eyes stabbed at Trish’s heart like Norman Bates in Psycho.
Well, it was true that Trish’s obsessive relationship with Kazuo had made her sort of completely and utterly abandon Lex last year when she tore her ACL. Lex probably felt like Trish was priming to betray her again. “It was only once. I couldn’t help myself — ”
“After everything you told me last year about how you never asked God about your relationship with Kazuo and now you were free.” Lex’s eyes grew dark and heavy, and Trish remembered the night Lex had first torn her ACL. Trish had been too selfish, wanting to spend time with Kazuo instead of helping Lex home from one of the most devastating things that had ever happened to her.
“I just couldn’t help myself — ” Trish couldn’t seem to say anything else.
“So is Kazuo more important to you than me, after all?” Lex’s face had turned into cold, pale marble, making her eyes stand out in their intensity.
A sickening ache gnawed in Trish’s stomach. She hunched her shoulders, feeling the muscles tighten and knot.
Her cousins had always been compassionate whenever she hurt them, betrayed them, or caused them hassle and stress by the things she did. She knew she had a tendency to be thoughtless, but she had always counted on their instant hugs and “That’s okay, Trish, we’ll fix it for you.” But now she realized — although they forgave her, they were still hurt each and every time. Maybe this was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
“Where’s Trish?” Grandma’s refined voice managed to carry above the conversations. “I’m sure she wants to see you.” She was coming closer to the kitchen.
“I can’t face him.” Trish barely recognized her own voice, as thready as old cobwebs. “I can’t face Grandma, either.” A tremor rippled through her body.
Venus’s eyes softened in understanding. “I’ll stall them for you.”
Trish bolted.
Out the other doorway into the living room. She dodged around a few relatives who were watching sports highlights on the big-screen TV. She spied the short hallway to Aunty’s bedroom. She could hide. Recoup. Or panic.
She slipped down the hallway and saw the closed door at the end. A narrow beam of faint light from under it cast a glow over the carpet. Her heart started to slow.
Maybe she could lie down, pretend she was sick? No, Grandma might suggest Kazuo take her home.
She could pretend she got a phone call, an emergency at work. Would Grandma know there weren’t many emergencies with cell biology research on New Year’s Eve?
The worst part was, Trish hadn’t even gotten to eat yet.
She turned the doorknob, but it stuck. Must be the damp weather. She applied her shoulder and nudged. The door clicked open. She slipped into the bedroom.
A couple stood in the dim lamplight, locked in a passionate embrace straight out of Star magazine. Trish’s heart lodged in her throat. Doh! Leave now! She whirled.
Wait a minute.
She turned.
The man had dark wavy hair, full and thick. His back was turned to her, but something about his stance . . .
The couple sprang apart. Looked at her.
Dad.
Kissing a woman who wasn’t her mother.
TWO
Trish stared at them.
They stared back.
Nobody moved.
She waited for him to say something. He was the one caught, shouldn’t he say something? She wasn’t going to say anything. What could she say? “Well, hey, Dad. Introduce me to your adultery partner”?
Maybe something melodramatic like, “How could you?”
Or maybe voicing the rumbling, burning in her chest with, “You selfish, detestable worm.”
The woman regarded her with expressionless eyes. She was beautiful. Trish hated her.
Maybe Trish should say something to her like, “Why’d you have to go after a married one?” or “Are you married, too?”
The room began to tilt and dip. Trish sucked in a dry breath and realized she had stopped breathing. The murmuring from the cracked door behind her eased into the quiet room like waves at the shore, lapping toward the beach.
“Where’s Trish?” Grandma’s cultured voice carried over the din from the family room.
Suddenly, Grandma didn’t seem so bad anymore.
Trish turned and flung open the door. Leaving it wide open, she walked out into the hallway. She slapped the wall switch to turn on the hallway light and flood her path.
She focused on the cream carpet. She hated it. It was pure and clean and soft.
Jenn rounded the corner into the hallway and nearly collided with her. “You better come rescue Venus — ” Her face flipped from cool to concerned. “What’s wrong?”
Trish opened her mouth, but the only thing that came out was something between “erk” and “ugh.”
Jenn got the “really concerned” face. “Trish?” She peeked over Trish’s shoulder.
“No!” It came out sounding like a croak, but she got her po
int across. With shaking hands, she prodded Jenn back down the hallway. After initial resistance, Jenn complied. Like she usually did.
They erupted into the living room filled with relatives, most of them eating. The noise was too loud, the lights too bright. Trish had a fleeting fantasy of shrieking, “Shut up!” and then racing out of the house.
This was too much. She needed to go somewhere with her three cousins and best friends, where she could rage and cry and doubt and scream and cry some more.
She needed to leave, but in order to do that, she had to find her other two cousins to inform them they were leaving with her, and she had to find Grandma. Oh, and avoid Kazuo. “Where’s Grandma?”
“In the kitchen.”
Trish pushed her way through people. “I have to say hello and then tell her we’re leaving.”
“We’re leaving?”
“And Lex and Venus, too.”
“They are?”
“It’s an emergency.”
Jenn’s eyes got round. “Oh. Okay.”
“But I have to avoid Kazuo.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want to see him.” Actually, she wanted to see him too much. “Can you divert him or something if he comes near me?”
“He’s already diverted. He’s talking with Venus. In the kitchen.”
Rats. “Okay. Um . . . I’ll pop in and say hi to Grandma — ”
“She brought him to see you. She’ll call him over.”
Jenn was too logical for Trish’s overworked brain right now. “Well, do something so he can’t. And I’ll tell her we’re leaving.”
“She’s not going to like that.” Jenn bit her lip.
No, she wasn’t. And although Lex and Venus seemed to enjoy antagonizing Grandma, Trish and Jenn liked to keep her happy. Life was easier that way. Trish swallowed a sob. “I don’t want to talk to him.”
Jenn’s brow furrowed. “Why don’t you wait here instead of seeing Grandma just yet? I’ll get Lex and see if she has any ideas.” Jenn switched directions and dove into the crowd of people.
Good thinking. Trish backed into a vacant corner in the living room and tried not to eye the food on people’s plates. Her stomach rumbled. She smoothed the creases on her skirt — did she have cornstarch from the mochi on there this entire time? Plus some sticky patch that was probably a gift from Allison, the brat.
“Trish, there you are.”
Nonononononono. “Grandma, I was going to find you.” She gripped her hands in front of her chest to try to keep her heart from flying out. She sucked in her gut and tried to shrink a little.
Grandma always made Trish feel hulking and fat. She never seemed to eat — even at lavish family gatherings like this — and she always wore the most fab business suits that must take off at least ten pounds from her already-slender figure. She fingered the gold filigree pin on her cream lapel as she waltzed up to Trish’s corner.
“You’re looking good. New haircut?” Flattery might work. Trish was so in the doghouse for not coming up to say hello to Grandma as soon as she arrived.
Grandma patted her permed gray-bronze curls, but her perfectly stenciled lips never broke their straight red line. “I’ve been searching for you.”
“Oh?” She widened her eyes and hoped she looked innocent rather than like a deer in the headlights about to be completely slaughtered. She clenched her hands at her stomach to stop it from gurgling.
“I met Kazuo yesterday when I was in Japantown.”
“You did? But Kazuo doesn’t work at the sushi restaurant anymore.” His “artistic loner” personality hadn’t won him any friends with his coworkers, so when they had to lay off someone, he was the first man booted. His parents in Japan had responded with larger monthly checks so he didn’t have to find another job.
“I saw him outside the Shiseido shop. He seemed rather sad, so I talked to him.”
That, or she had wanted to pick his brain about why they broke up. “He seemed happy the last time I saw him.” Well, as happy as brooding Kazuo ever got.
“He told me he hasn’t seen you for a few weeks.” Grandma’s stern expression melted. Her bright brown eyes pleaded with Trish. “I hoped you two would get back together. He’s such a good boy.”
“We weren’t right for each other.” He just made me feel beautiful and loved. No, she had to remember the bad times. Trish had a flashback of Kazuo in one of his frustrated artistic rages, flinging paint on his masterpiece and raining spit on her shocked face as he ranted.
Grandma’s gaze dropped.
Trish’s heart fell a notch with it. “I’m sorry. I know you liked him.”
Grandma sighed.
Trish wrung her hands. “We really tried hard to make it work.” Well, she tried. He just agreed with her when she wanted to talk things out, and then tried to make love to her with his words and gaze.
Grandma’s face suddenly came to life, sparkling like the diamond choker at her throat. “Well, Kazuo is here tonight.”
“Uh . . .”
“And he says he’s a different person now, and he wants to try again with you.”
Kazuo had said he’d try harder or turn himself around after every fight they had. “But . . . Grandma . . .”
“Isn’t that romantic? Girls love when men chase them.”
Trish couldn’t picture Grandpa ever chasing Grandma. More like the other way around. “But I don’t like Kazuo anymore.”
Grandma’s immaculate Shiseido makeup cracked as she frowned. “Trish, I can always tell when you’re lying to me.”
She bit the inside of her lip. Everyone could tell when she was lying. “It’s kind of like french fries.”
“What?”
“You know how we all love french fries?” Well, with her slender figure, Grandma might not know. “But they’re bad for you. Very, very bad. Lots of calories and bad carbs.”
“I don’t know what that — ”
“Kazuo is like french fries.”
Now Grandma was looking at her like she’d given a speech on DNA cloning vectors.
“I do still like him. But long-term, he’s very, very bad for me. So I’m going on a diet.”
Grandma patted her arm. “Well, you could stand to lose a few pounds, dear.”
What? “That’s not what I meant.”
“And I’m certain Kazuo would appreciate a more youthful figure on you.”
Youthful? She was only thirty. “I’m not fat.”
“No, you’re not fat, but you’re not as slender as Lex.”
Lex was an athlete and she exercised 24/7. But Trish consoled herself with the fact she actually had a bosom. “I’m not like Lex — ”
“Kazuo loves you just the way you are.”
“But I don’t want him to love me.”
Grandma’s eyes took on a sharper cast, and her voice had a ring of steel like a samurai drawing his sword. “It would make me very happy if you two would get back together.”
Trish blinked. Was that a threat? Grandma never threatened her. Sure, she threatened Lex and Venus because they went out of their way to annoy her, but Trish? Grandma loved Trish. Trish always had boyfriends to bring to family parties. Trish listened when Grandma said she wanted her to get married. Trish wanted to give Grandma great-grandchildren.
Grandma’s hard look made her squirm. Well, maybe she’d at least talk to Kazuo. It was the middle of a big party. Nothing would happen, right?
“Where is Kazuo?” She fiddled with her earring and half-heartedly flickered her gaze around. Maybe if she didn’t look too closely, he wouldn’t show up.
Better yet, maybe he’d be so captivated by Venus’s drop-dead-gorgeous face and figure that he wouldn’t want to see Trish. Although the thought of him and Venus twanged in her breastbone like a snapping guitar string.
“I’ll go get him.” Grandma disappeared faster than a ninja.
Trish considered — for a brief moment of insanity — simply walking out the door. But imagining Gran
dma’s wrath kept her chained to the floor. Even an army of rushing Japanese warriors — like in that Kadokawa movie Heaven and Earth, which she saw in the original Japanese, thank you very much — was preferable.
How sad. She was less afraid of death by dismemberment than displeasing Grandma.
He appeared through the crowd of people like a ship parting the waves. His emotional pull on her sucked at every square inch of her skin like a vortex trying to drag her into a black hole.
She wasn’t going back to him again. No matter how absolutely muscular and protective he looked in that black turtleneck sweater —
No, stop thinking about his muscles.
A woman nearby gasped. Yeah, Kazuo had that kind of effect on women. Something about his silky long hair pulled into a ponytail and his dark, fathomless eyes —
Stop thinking about his eyes.
“There you are, Trish.” His deep voice had that sexy lisp of an accent that marked him as a Japanese national. Trish wondered if anyone had thought to record his voice on MP3 to fall asleep to —
Stop thinking about this man and sleep, you idiot.
She was doomed.
“Hi, Kazuo. Did you eat yet? Good party, huh? My relatives always have great food. Did you know that some of my aunts and uncles married Chinese spouses? So they bring a lot of really great Chinese food to these family parties. My cousins Venus and Jenn are half-Chinese. They both speak Chinese. Jenn speaks Mandarin and Venus speaks Cantonese because their dads are . . . well, Chinese. And — ”
“I’ve missed you, Trish.”
He said it with a kind of strong, passionate look, the kind that preceded some heart-pounding grabbing and kissing.
No, no, no. No kissing in the middle of the New Year’s party. Trish swallowed and eased backwards.
Kazuo leaned toward her.
Besides, what was she doing thinking about kissing when she’d just caught her father kissing another woman? She had to get away from her parents, from the party, from Kazuo. “Kazuo, you know we’re like oil and water — ”
“You are my muse. I am an empty shell without you.” He reached out one long-fingered hand, pale and graceful, barely smoothing over her cheek. It made her tingle. “I need you to breathe life back into me.”
She had life. Lots of life. And she liked his touch way too much. She drew a shaky breath, filling her lungs with his sandalwood scent, sharp and musky. He’d make her the center of his world, and he’d hold her with those strong arms —