Southern Fried Sushi (17 page)

My eyes popped open. “You know how to hack, too?”

“Hmm.” Kyoko’s way of saying yes. What could she not do?

“Then hack into Carlos’s page and take down his pictures of Mia.”

“It’ll just make him more protective of her, Ro. Men are like that. It’ll be counterproductive.”

“How do you know so much about men?” I snapped. “Life, Ro-chan. Makes a believer out of you.” “A believer in what?”

“Reality. Just live it up while you can and play some really good music. I don’t need a man to be complete.” “But you date way more than me!”

“I date. Never said I intended to keep them around very long. Live and learn, babe!” Her voice was hard. “And I’m certainly not wasting my time on clowns that aren’t worth the time of day. Like your egocentric, ‘world-revolves-around-me’ Carlos. What a snob.”

“But he’s gorgeous!”

“Incredibly. His pretty face, however, didn’t stop him from being a jerk.”

I played with the satin hem of my pajamas, raw heart aching.

“I guess not.”

“Guess not? You’re a sucker, Ro. I could see him lying through his pearly white Argentinian teeth a mile away! Why can’t you stop seeing things like you want them to be and just face reality?” “Maybe reality stinks.” My voice shrank to a whisper. “Well, welcome to life!” Kyoko’s harsh tone made me pull the phone away from my ear.

No one spoke for a while. Maybe she was right. In her own dark, depressing way, Kyoko often was.

“I know one thing that would really make him mad,” I said finally.

“Spill it.”

“Can you hack into Azuki and change his nationality from Argentinian to Brazilian? Those two countries have a huge rivalry. Soccer and so forth.” I’d learned that much in my four days in Rio de Janeiro.

I could almost see her smiling. “Now that I like,” she replied evilly. “Now you’re finally using your head.”

As soon as I hung up with Kyoko, the hotel phone jangled. I snatched it up, half-wishing for Carlos’s voice on the other end. Begging my forgiveness.

“Hi, sugar. It’s Faye. Just called to see how you’re doin’. Feelin’ all right?”

My heart slumped. “Me?” I tried to laugh. “Okay.”

“Just okay?”

“Sure.” I scrunched my eyes closed. But for some reason I couldn’t lie to Faye. “Well … uh … not exactly. Carlos has been sort of … you know. Seeing another girl.” My throat swelled until it felt like choking.

“Sugar. I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah.” What else could I say? I’d successfully lost everything that had ever mattered to me. Not a bad feat even for me.

“Oh, sweetie … I wish I could take ya to lunch, but I work until three.”

Funny how everything revolved around food in the South. Which made it, in that aspect, my kind of place.

“Don’t worry about me. I’ll get a salad at Cracker Barrel. I’m not hungry.”

“You’re still comin’ to Becky’s tonight, aren’t ya, sugar plum? I think it’ll do ya good.”

I looked around at the charming but impersonal wall decor, feeling startlingly lonely. Everything was plastic, strange, cold. “Sure. I’ll come.”

“I’ll come pick ya up then. An’ if you want, I’ll take ya to Mrs. Rowe’s fer coffee beforehand so we can chat. How about it?”

“Why?” I blurted. “Why do you take time for me?”

“Why not, sugar? You’re Ellen’s sweet girl, and you’re both so special to me. Besides, I’m always up for some gab.” She chuckled, trying to lighten things. “Aren’t you?”

You’re both so special to me. You are. She had used the verb inthe present tense. Faye, in her own gentle way, hadn’t forgotten Mom. She hadn’t swept her up like a day’s work and tossed her in the trash. My heart flickered
.

“I’ll wait for you in the lobby.”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world, doll.”

I grabbed the stiff hotel towel and headed for the bathroom. A shower made everything feel better, as if all my problems were swirling down the drain. Kyoko would probably tell me it was psychological, like Lady Macbeth.

I dried my hair, donned my darkest blue jeans, a frilly red shirt that made me feel like a femme fatale, and sassy heels. Tied an imaginary
hachimaki
, or Japanese warrior-student-whoever-needed-extra-oomph headband, around my forehead.

Time to do battle with the bureaucracy dragons.

After an hour on the phone with the Japanese consulate and Japan Airlines, alternately on hold and arguing my throat hoarse, my Karate-Kid pose began to waver.

Japan Airlines was unapologetic. The emergency flight had been to the funeral, not back from it, so I couldn’t change the date without a hefty fee—nearly the price of a new ticket. And the last thing I needed to do was spend more money.

“I’m sorry, Mizz Jacobs,” chirped the attendant’s voice. “Is there anything else, Mizz Jacobs?”

“Yes. I still want to change the flight, and you haven’t helped me.”

“I’m sorry, Mizz Jacobs. We cannot rebook once the flight is reserved. Is there anything else, Mizz Jacobs?”

“Stop calling me Mizz Jacobs. You don’t know me.”

“I’m sorry, Mizz Jacobs. Is there anything else I can help you with today?”

And so it went until I banged the phone down in frustration.

I talked to the rude woman at the Japanese consulate until Iturned blue in the face, but my efforts got me a headache—and nothing else.

I had a journalism visa, tied directly to AP, and without them backing me I no longer qualified. In fact, not only was I unqualified for any other work visa whatsoever, but I couldn’t even get a tourist visa.

A tourist visa, for crying out loud! And why not? No medical insurance, which was also tied directly to AP, and no financial means to (1) support myself in Japan or even (2) buy a return ticket to the US. Even if I wanted to go back as an English teacher, which I wasn’t sure I did, I had all the wrong qualifications. How many years would it take to go back to school and get a teaching license?

I tried buttering up the consulate woman by speaking flawless Japanese, but I might as well have read the ingredients off a corn-chip bag.

I groaned and dropped my head in my hands. I needed air. Now. And a temporary place to stay in the US until I worked things out. I slammed the door on the stifling air-conditioned room and stalked down the stairs to a bench in the shade. Then flipped desperately through my cell-phone list.

“You’re welcome to stay with me, Shi. Any time.”

“Uh … no thanks. I’m not Mia Robinson.”

“Huh?” My old Brooklyn friend Vito strained to hear over the background noise. “Mia who?”

“Never mind. I appreciate the offer though. I’ll keep looking.”

“You’re always welcome at my sister’s place, too. Keep in touch, okay? We’ve missed you.”

I hung up and crossed his name off the long list, a knot forming in the pit of my stomach. People my age weren’t settling down. They were moving. Changing. Marrying. Studying. Going places.

Unless I wanted to live with Vito’s sister’s crazy Italian family (three kids and one on the way) in Indianapolis, my luck had run out.

I hadn’t helped myself by going off to a foreign country and letting contacts fall by the wayside. I hadn’t meant to. But my life was there, not here. Japan had been everything to me. And Carlos.

Suddenly I had neither.

I slumped in front of a country hotel in the middle of Nowhere, Virginia, sun sweltering over a land as far from my own as Shiodome.

I found one small moment of evil pleasure between crossing out names. Just before closing time, I drove to the nearest post office and requested a padded envelope. Chucked the ring inside and wrote Carlos’s address. Started filling out the customs form.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF CONTENTS: I tapped my chin purposefully with my pen. Just how spiteful was I?

Very.

Waste of eight months
, I wrote neatly in the blank. APPROXIMATE VALUE IN US DOLLARS:
$9,000
.

And I signed the form. Sealed the envelope. Handed it to the postal worker.

His face whitened. “Is this a …”

“Ring. Yes.”

“You don’t want to send a ring that way.” He shook the flimsy envelope and pushed it back across the counter.

“I absolutely do.” I pushed it back.

“You know envelopes are the worst way ever to send something valuable, that anybody could slit open the side and take it out?”

“Of course.”

His eyes bugged. “You know somebody’s gonna have to pay one whopper of a tax, right?”

“I know. It’s not a problem.”

He shook his head, muttering something about crazy females. “So I guess you’re gonna want a ton of insurance?” He clicked the computer keyboard, hand on his forehead. “We start at—”

“No. None.”

He dropped the mouse with a clatter. “Aw, no. No way. You can’t send it like this.”

“Why not? I’m paying the postage. You’ve offered me insurance and I’ve refused. So … if you’ll just tell me the amount?”

“Lady, do you have any idea what’s gonna happen to this?” He jabbed his finger at the envelope, everyone in the post office turning to gawk. Including the advertising cardboard cut-out dangling overhead.

“If it even makes it out of this post office intact, and I’m not guaranteeing that, somebody’s gonna slit this thing open and take it home to his girlfriend within five minutes. Do you know what you’re doing?”

“Are you going to tell me the postage, or do I need to go somewhere else?”

He shook his head in disgust and slapped on a label. “Five dollars and ten cents.” He glared.

I counted out the bills and change. “Thank you.”

And I took my receipt, smiled, and left. It was my finest moment.

“Ready for that coffee?” Faye pulled up at four o’clock in a snappy emerald-green jacket and that violet perfume.

“You have no idea.”

A waitress seated us near a window, and I looked out over the railroad tracks in the back, all flanked with trees. Listlessly stirred sugar and cream into my coffee cup.

In Japan, coffee came in vending machines in skinny metal cans, black and bitter and cold and slightly sweet. Or pipinghot, depending on the preference. We could buy pretty much anything from vending machines: cigarettes, beer, tea, juice, bags of rice, meal tickets, live beetles. Kyoko told me it was so people didn’t have to talk to each other to make a transaction.