And then I ran right into Jamie Foster-Collins.
I’m running through the cemetery. Cutting across lawns, weaving around gravestones. Everything is gray and muted, and the air feels like static.
It’s going to rain.
Great. I’m gonna go home looking like a bedraggled cat. On my birthday. And the last day of middle school, the last day of my first year at the Tokyo International Academy…
“Sophia?”
The sound of Jamie’s voice breaks my stride. I stumble and grab the top of the nearest gravestone.
I can’t face him. The thought of it stretches me thin, like I could snap apart at any second. But he’s standing next to me now. “Hey. Um, are you okay?” he asks. “You just ran off campus, and—well—you forgot this. It’s your birthday present, remember? And a good-bye present, I guess.” His eyebrows bunch together and he holds out his palm. In the center, there’s a small button with a picture of Totoro on it.
But I don’t take it. I’m still clutching my phone, the edges of it imprinting on my palm.
Jamie’s hand drops by his side. There are red splotches on his neck, and he looks so small and young. His shirt is a size too big, and the belt on his jeans is pulled too tight. “You don’t want it?” he asks.
I swallow, and it takes me a second to find my voice. “Did you mean to send this to me?”
“Send what?”
I hold out my phone for him to read. His eyes swipe over the screen, and his face crumples.
I had been standing by my locker with David when my phone buzzed. A text from Jamie.
Ladies and gents, it’s the Sophia Throws Herself at David Show. Airing all day, every day. Come on down and enjoy the desperation!
And now I can’t think straight. I should cry, but I’m too confused to cry. I should scream at him, but I can’t, because I still can’t believe he did this. Jamie is sweet and goofy and kind. Jamie would never be cruel to anyone.
Jamie would never be cruel to me.
“Shit,” he whispers. “I—I meant to send that to Mika.”
Pain rips me up from the inside. “So this is what you do? You pretend to be my friend, and then you say this kind of stuff behind my back?”
The splotches on his neck intensify, but he sounds so cold when he says, “I just don’t get it.”
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t get why you like him so much. Why you try so hard to make him like you.”
My head swims. I stagger backward, holding the phone to my chest. “Get away from me, Jamie. Get away from me right now.”
He kicks at the ground, and a few clods of dirt explode into the air. “I am getting away, remember? I’m going to the States, and then I’ll be in boarding school, and you weren’t even going to say good-bye, were you? Because you were too busy flirting with David.”
“You know what?” I shout. “I’m glad you’re leaving! At least now you’ll stop following me around like a sad, pathetic puppy dog all the time!”
His expression hardens. “You mean the way you do to David?”
“Oh my God, what is wrong with you?” I shove him. My cheeks are warm and wet, and I know I sound totally crazy, but I want to hurt him as much as he’s hurt me. “Do you think I’m completely oblivious? I know you like me, Jamie. I know you’ve LIKED me all year. But nothing was ever going to happen. You’re a loser. A twitchy little loser who hides behind Mika because you can’t make friends for yourself—”
My last breath is a sob, and it seems to wake him up from a spell. His wide-open eyes fill with sadness, but he doesn’t apologize. It’s starting to rain, and he tugs at his curly hair. His stupid, curly hair that always sticks out.
I pull something from my messenger bag. A collage of pictures of us I downloaded from my phone and edited together. In the middle, I wrote, “I’LL MISS YOUR NERDY WAYZ. COME HOME SOON.” I ball it up and drop it at his feet, and I think maybe he’s crying or maybe he just can’t look at me anymore.
I turn around and run away without looking back. Without even saying good-bye.
CHAPTER 4
SUNDAY
JAMIE WAS RIGHT BELOW ME ON THE STAIRS. There were people moving around us, into the station, out of the station. But we were standing still.
“Hey,” he said. His hey sounded different. Warmer somehow and slower.
“Hi,” I said. “I was looking for you.”
“You were?” He quirked up an eyebrow and smiled. Same overlapping front teeth, same green-gold eyes. But he was taller now. Not David tall, but taller. And he had broader shoulders and thicker arms. His hair had grown just past his ears, and it was less curly. Although I couldn’t say that for sure. He was wearing a knit maroon hat that covered most of his head.
A hat. In this heat.
“We’re blocking the way,” I said, and turned around before he had a chance to respond.
“It’s cosmic destiny!” David said when we were standing in line for a karaoke room. The karaoke place was busy for a Sunday night. Workers in red shirts moved briskly from the bar to the nearby elevator bank, balancing trays of drinks on their shoulders. Loud J-pop played from speakers built into the walls.
“It wasn’t cosmic anything,” I said. “That doesn’t even make sense.”
“Thousands of people walk through that station every day!” David said. “What are the chances you’d find Baby James for us?”
“There aren’t that many people with blond hair,” Caroline said, smiling generously at Jamie. “We stick out.”
“Or orange hair.” David tapped the braids on the top of my head. “Don’t forget the orange-haired people.”
I was ignoring Jamie. At least I was trying to, but I kept failing spectacularly. Ignoring him was like trying to ignore a solar eclipse. And besides, no one else was ignoring him. They were all cooing over him and lavishing him with attention like it was his freaking birthday or something.
“Are you excited about being a senior?” Caroline asked him. She had her arm linked through mine and kept squeezing it encouragingly whenever I said things. I was cordial and didn’t try to strangle her in return.
“He’s not going to be a senior,” Mika said.
David pointed at Jamie with a cigarette. “Baby James here is in the year below. A mere junior.”
“Yeah. Thanks for clearing that up.” Mika shot an annoyed look at David, who gave her a broad smile in return.
The line moved forward.
“So.” Jamie nodded his head. “Karaoke. I’ve really missed this.”
“Yeah?” Caroline said. “I only moved here last year. My friends in Tennessee think it’s weird that I go to karaoke all the time. They think it must be super embarrassing.”
“I like that,” he said. “The embarrassing part. I tried to bring karaoke to the dorms of Lake Forest Academy, but I wasn’t successful. My most recent roommate was really against it. Very low threshold for public humiliation. Or for music. Or for me, if we’re being brutally honest about the situation…”
He was rambling like a crazy person. Which actually made me feel a whole lot better. He might have been taller and broader and theoretically more attractive, but at least he wasn’t cool now. He was still awkward, nerdtastic Jamie. Ridiculous hipster hat or no ridiculous hipster hat.
“I can’t fucking believe you’re back.” Mika punched his shoulder.
Jamie beamed. “Well, I am.”
David rubbed one of Caroline’s hands between his. “You’re back. Sofa’s leaving. The world giveth, and the world taketh away.”
“Totally sad!” Caroline said.
“Sofa?” Jamie said, acknowledging my existence for the first time since the station.
I took a sudden interest in the front of the line. Two TV screens behind the counter played the exact same music video of girls in frilly dresses dancing in a hot-pink room. “It’s my nickname,” I said.
“A lot has changed since you left, James,” David said.
Mika si
ghed and rolled her eyes.
Jamie was still studying me. “Mika told me you were moving at the end of the week. Where are you heading?”
“To New Jersey,” I said, pulling away from Caroline under the pretense of fixing one of my daisy pins. “Well, back to New Jersey. My mom teaches at Rutgers. We only came here because she got a four-year sabbatical with Tokyo University.”
“Yeah,” Jamie said. “I remember.”
“Oh.” I circled my watch with the forefinger and thumb of my other hand.
“Right! Jamie!” Mika said. “Things you need to know. Number one, it’s my birthday this week, and Sophia’s leaving on Sunday, so we’re all going out on Friday night, and we’re going to party so hard. Number two, I’m really happy you’re back, oh my God. Number three, you are singing ‘Giroppon’ tonight, and I won’t hear another word about it.”
Jamie grinned. He seemed so infectiously, perfectly happy, it almost made me smile. But I didn’t. “That,” Jamie said, “is definitely happening.”
“‘Giroppon’?” Caroline asked. “Isn’t that a cartoon fish?”
Jamie and Mika glanced at each other, then burst out laughing.
Caroline crinkled up her nose. “I don’t get it.”
“You’re not the only one,” I muttered, too quiet for anyone to hear.
But I wasn’t quiet enough, because David laughed and nudged me with his elbow. I felt this incredible swell of gratitude for the fact that he existed.
We took an elevator to the fourth floor, to a narrow, winding corridor lined with karaoke room after karaoke room.
“Whoa!” David said. “They gave us a huge-ass room!” He ran over to one of the three faux-leather couches that lined the walls and jumped on it.
We were in room 47, which was, admittedly, pretty big. I’d been in some karaoke rooms that wouldn’t have passed for walk-in closets. Room 47 had all the standard karaoke-room accessories: a black table in the middle with drinks menus scattered on top, a TV screen mounted on one wall, and a basket that held two controllers and microphones.
David grabbed a controller and started pushing buttons. “Where are all the frigging English songs?”
“You have to press the kanji for foreign songs,” Mika said, walking in behind me. “Just like you had to the last ten thousand times we were here.”
“What’s the point remembering things other people will remember for you?” He shook the controller and gave Mika puppy-dog eyes. “Help me, Miks. How the hell am I supposed to know which button to press?”
“It’s that one.” Jamie pointed at the controller screen.
David raised an eyebrow at him. “Well, well. James can read kanji now.”
“A little,” Jamie said, clutching the back of his head with one hand, suddenly shy.
I was still standing by the door. Caroline had already curled up next to David on one couch, so I couldn’t sit with him. Jamie took the one across from them, so no way was I sitting there. But if Mika sat with Jamie, I’d be all on my own. On the third couch.
Since Mika was the only one of us who spoke fluent Japanese, she picked up the phone by the door and ordered drinks from the bar. My own Japanese was terrible. Mom blamed the T-Cad. She said I used to speak a lot more when I was a kid. I said I didn’t really need the language. The T-Cad was an English-speaking school, and anyway, I could always point at things.
Or get Mika to talk. She asked for a round of beers and a melon soda for me, then sat down next to Jamie.
So. Third couch it was.
“Okay!” David said. “I picked a song!”
“Surprise, surprise,” Mika deadpanned.
As David started to sing, the lights in the room dimmed, the TV blared to life, and all these neon images lit up the walls. They were dolphins and mermen and starfish. I guess it was supposed to make us feel like we were under the sea, but it just made everyone look insane. Our teeth got whiter, and our skin glowed like we were radioactive. Still, it did make me a little less self-conscious. It’s hard to be socially awkward when you’re surrounded by a bunch of fluorescent mermen.
My friends were getting drunk.
Really, really drunk.
It didn’t matter that we were all underage. Horrifically underage, as a matter of fact. The drinking age was twenty, and Mika, the oldest one of us, was just about to turn eighteen. But that didn’t matter. We could all buy booze wherever and whenever we wanted. No fake IDs required.
This, as Mika had explained to me four years ago, was just how things ran. Expat kids got away with drinking and spending all night in bars because Tokyo was a safe city with reliable trains and a lax carding policy for foreigners. Mika thought our parents had no idea what was going on, but I figured they were just willfully ignorant of the debauchery. It was probably easier than locking us in our rooms and flushing our train passes down the toilet. Although, to be honest, I told my mom everything—willful ignorance was not her strong suit.
Mika kept going to the phone to order drinks. Beer, whiskey sours, something called a ginger-hi that I think had ginger ale in it. She ordered melon sodas for me because I was the semi-responsible one who never drank. (“Because someone’s got to talk to the police if the police need talking to,” Mika had once slurred, her arms around my neck. Which had made me feel exactly like the Boring Friend.)
“Mika and James should sing a duet,” David said. He’d just finished an Iggy Pop song and was swinging the microphone over his head.
“Yeah, great idea.” Mika smirked at Jamie, who smirked right back at her. The smirkers.
“Does anyone want to sing Katy Perry with me?” Caroline asked.
“Seriously!” David said. There was no music playing, and he was talking a lot louder than necessary. “Look at you two! Just like old times. Except Baby James is all grown up now.”
“Yeah, thanks, man.” Jamie stared determinedly at one of the controllers.
“For Christ’s sake,” Mika said. “Rules!”
Jamie glanced up at her, confused.
David held the microphone up to his face and sang scratchily, “Baby J. and Mika, sitting in a treeeeeeee—”
“Hey! Sophia.” Mika tossed the other microphone my way. “You’re up.”
The title of the next song appeared on the screen in English and katakana: “Last Nite” by the Strokes. I gave Mika a quizzical look—what is David talking about?—but she just shrugged it off. I sang jumping up and down on the couch, rocking my head until my braids fell out. When I was done, David whistled and applauded. I opened my eyes and—Jamie was staring at me. Smiling at me, actually, with his mouth closed. What right did he have to stare at me? And smile? And stare at me?
I sat down and pressed my hands against the hot surface of the couch. My phone buzzed in my bag. A text from David:
THAT FUCKING HAT!!
I laughed and then covered my mouth. Thank God someone was on my wavelength. I texted back:
careful!! or mika will challenge you to a duel…
His response came a few seconds later:
Pah!! Mika always forgets her dueling pistols. PS, Why is Lonely Sofa on the lonely sofa?!
A content, dreamy feeling flooded through me. I started to type back when someone plopped down next to me. I jumped in surprise.
Caroline.
“That was great!” she said.
“Uh-huh.” I shoved my phone back in my bag, covering the screen with my hand. “Thanks.”
Nirvana started playing, Mika screaming along in a way that didn’t exactly resemble a tune. I picked up my melon soda from the table. Caroline fanned herself with a menu and whispered, “Oh my God! That Jamie guy is cute. Did he used to be that cute?”
“No,” I said. “Definitely not.”
Caroline checked him out, like she was weighing up his pros and cons. “Well, he’s cute now. In a geeky way, but I think it’s charming. He does seem kind of nervous, though.”
“Trust me. He used to seem way more nervous than that.” A
lso fidgety. He was always tugging at his hair or shuffling his feet or drumming his fingers against something.
“It’s probably because he’s so in love with Mika,” Caroline said.
I spat a watery ice cube back into my glass. “What? He’s not in love with Mika.”
“Look at him!” she said. “Look at them! They’re all over each other.”
I looked. “They’re just sitting.”
Caroline shook her head, and her ponytail smacked my face. She smelled like an abundance of raspberry body lotion. “Sophia, I know you’re super smart and all, but you have no idea how to read signals.”
There was a signal I would have really liked to give Caroline, but didn’t.
“Who needs more drinks?” Mika asked.
“I’m okay,” Jamie said, sipping his beer.
Caroline made a show of yawning and leaned across me so she could talk to Jamie. “I’m so tired. Hey. Aren’t you tired, Jamie? You’ve been on a plane all day!”
Jamie sat back against the couch and put one hand behind his head. Everything about him seemed easier than it used to. There was even a lazy southern twang to his vowels that definitely hadn’t been there before. “I’m all right. If I go home now, I’ll have to unpack. Besides, you only move to Tokyo for the second time once, right?”
Caroline pouted. “Mika said your parents made you go to that school in the States. Why’d you come back?”
“Hello!” Mika said. “Did anyone hear me? Drink orders, please.”
Mika called for the drinks. She asked for takoyaki as well, and my stomach growled when they arrived; I hadn’t even realized how hungry I was.
As I broke apart my tiny ball of fried dough with octopus in the middle (more delicious than it sounds), Caroline leaned over me again. “Anyway,” she said to Jamie, “I bet your parents are super thrilled you’re back.”
He shrugged, and I noticed his gaze flicker down. “Yeah,” he said. “Super thrilled.”
An hour or so later, room 47 was hot.
Seven Days of You Page 3