Swimming to Tokyo (3 page)

Mindy straightens from where she’s hunched over the dip. “Really? And? What’s her name? Astrology sign? Does she have Instagram? Twitter? Please don’t say Facebook.”

“I don’t know. I didn’t ask that stuff, and don’t knock Facebook. I like it. But her name’s Sarah and she’s transferring in from Richmond.”

“Does she seem cool?”

I smile a little. “Uh, as cool as someone can sound when they’re talking about color schemes, I guess.”

“Oh God. Tell me she doesn’t want you to go out and buy matching comforters. She didn’t send you links to Bed, Bath & Beyond, did she?”

She did, actually, but I’m not going to tell Mindy that. I take another chip and shake my head. “We’re supposed to Skype over the weekend. I’ll tell you once we set it up, and you can lurk in the background.”

“Hey, someone has to do your due diligence. Besides, when I come to visit you, I don’t want to spend weekends with some whackjob.” Mindy grimaces, but softens it with a grin.

“This would be a nonissue if you’d applied to Rhode Island with me,” I remind her.

“Or if you’d applied to NYU,” Mindy counters.

Mindy and I have had this conversation at least 726 times in the last eight months, and we’re just going through familiar motions. Mindy knew she wanted to go to NYU from seventh grade, but when her mom said they wouldn’t be able to afford it, Mindy deferred admission for a year and started waitressing at the diner, in addition to babysitting, taking photos at the nursing home, and whatever other random jobs she could find. She called it a gap year, a la the European mindset, but the truth is Mindy refused to settle. Even for UCC.

I, on the other hand, have done nothing but settle. At least according to my dad, who is/was less than impressed when I didn’t actually apply anywhere senior year, leaving me with UCC as my only option. I couldn’t explain I wasn’t ready then. I wasn’t ready to leave everything I knew—him, Westfield, the house that holds so many memories of Mom, but not enough actual Mom.

Oh, the irony.

“Maybe I should’ve applied to NYU,” I say softly.

Mindy’s voice lowers a notch. “Look, it’s not like you won’t ever be back here again. I’m going to drag you back from Rhode Island for at least one holiday a year with me and Liz, and the rest of the time I’m totally barging in on you and Babci in Queens. So don’t, like, second-guess yourself because of all this.”

“I know, but what if Sarah’s nuts? At least I know you are.” I throw a chip at Mindy’s shoulder, and she makes a face at me. Mindy has a point and she knows it.

“Kingston is close to Boston. You can track down Finn O’Leary for that coffee.”

“Yeah, great idea. I’m sure if he saw me again, he wouldn’t even recognize me.”

“Well, didn’t you say you saw him after you went running? You weren’t exactly at your best then.”

I yank at my hair. “I’m not exactly at my best now.” And all of a sudden I’m crying again. Not the hysterical crying from before, but tears spill over and run down my cheeks. Mindy gets up from the floor and picks up her keys. “Where are you going?”

“You need to talk to your dad. Come on.” She pulls me up before I can tell her that’s the last thing I need and leads me downstairs.

Dad’s left Babci to her programs and the door to his so-called study is ajar. It used to be a walk-in closet, but when Mom’s hospital bed got set up in the dining room, Dad moved a desk in and the coats out so he could be near enough to hear her but far enough away not to wake her with his typing. I’m not sure why he’s kept it, except that it gives him a door to close like a desk in the corner of the dining room doesn’t.

Mindy knocks and then pushes the door. “Mr. Easton, I have to go. But I think Zo needs to talk to you.” She hugs my shoulders and leaves me standing in the middle of the rug my mom bought in Dubai when I was thirteen. Mom and I had tagged along on one of Dad’s work trips and turned it into a family vacation. It was our last one. Pre-cancer.

Dad comes up and stops just shy of embracing me. Between him and Mom, he was never the touchy one, and he still isn’t. But I’m still teary, so he closes the gap between us and puts his arm around me to lead me to the tiny loveseat crammed between the door and the desk. He kisses my hair, and I let myself sink into him in the soft cushions.

“I’m sorry, Zo,” he whispers, and it sets off a fresh batch of tears.

It takes a while for me to get it together, but I finally lean away, dabbing my eyes with the soggy tissue I’ve been clutching. “It’s fine, Dad. It is.” My words are automatic.

“I know, Zo. It is.”

It’s not even a little bit fine, but the lines in Dad’s forehead are deep, like they get when he’s really worried. They’ve smoothed out over the past year, but now they’re etched in and I can tell he’s off-the-chart anxious. I’ve tried my damnedest not to add to them, and I’m not about to start now, even as I swallow the lump in my throat and squeak, “I’ll be off at school anyway and you’d be here alone. I was just so surprised about Tokyo and the house. I can’t imagine not coming back here on break, and someone else living with our stuff. Mom’s stuff. She was always so…particular…and what if they’re not? What if they don’t care the way she did?”

“I know. I just…Zo, I can’t.” His voice cracks, and I’m so shocked I sit there staring at him for a good twenty seconds before I throw my arms around his neck. Dad hasn’t cried since we packed Mom’s things away in the attic. When he finally leans away, he’s really flustered. “God, Zo, I’m sorry. It’s so hard.”

I want to scream, “If it’s so fucking hard, don’t do it.”

But I don’t.

“Mom would want you to. She would, even if the people who move in here are total slobs. I mean, that’s why she didn’t want a grave, because she didn’t want us to be obligated to a place. I mean, Tokyo. She’d be all over that.” Even though I’m saying this for Dad’s benefit, it’s actually not far from the truth.

“Can you imagine your mother speaking Japanese?” Dad and I both smile at the image of my mom with her strong Polish accent trying to say
arigato
.

“Can you imagine you speaking Japanese?” I smile a little more at this, since Dad’s horrible with languages. Even after twenty years of Babci’s efforts to teach him Polish, he still only knows the basics, although that might be a little passive-aggressive on his part.

“I got a computer program that’s pretty good.” Dad goes over to his desk and roots around until he finds a copy of
Rosetta Stone for Japanese
. “I’ll leave it for you. You’ll probably be fluent before you get there.”

“I’ll learn some key phrases, but I’ve got a little thing called college going on right now and I might be a little busy.”

“Well, you have all summer to learn. And don’t worry, some of the other ex-pats have kids, so it’s not like you’ll be stuck on your own all the time while I’m working.” Dad smiles, the lines in his forehead receding as he does.

I roll my eyes. “Great, I can babysit. What’s the going rate in yen? Any idea?”

Dad laughs. “I’ll find out, but there are a few older kids. One of my colleagues, Eloise, has a boy who’s around your age, and he might come out.”

“Is he cute?”

“I’ll find that out, too.” Dad turns serious. “It’s going to be good, Zo. It’s a great opportunity for both of us.”

“Yeah, Dad. I know.” I get up and smooth my shirt across my stomach, which growls underneath my hands and gives me the perfect out. “Babci said she saved me some food. I’m going to go find some. You want anything?”

“No, you go ahead.” Dad opens his laptop and is already lost in the screen by the time I’m out the door.

I pad down the hallway to the kitchen and pull out the meatloaf, still in its Pyrex dish, the grease congealed at the sides. I grab a fork and take a bite, closing my eyes as I chew. When I open them, Babci is leaning against the doorway, looking at me. I open my mouth to apologize for eating right from the pan, but close it again when she shakes her head. Her voice is soft.

“Jesteś mocne.”

“
Będę
.”

You are strong
.

I will be
.

Babci comes and places her hand over mine, and I take another bite of cold meatloaf, even though it’s turned to sawdust in my mouth.

B
y the time Memorial Day weekend comes around, I’m actually starting to get excited about Tokyo—in between severe pangs of nostalgia. Dad’s home, and judging by the murmurs of conversation I’ve overheard drifting from behind his study door, it seems possible he’s spoken to the renters, but no one’s shown up with suitcases, so I don’t know what’s happening and I’m not asking. In fact, aside from his suggestion that I might want to work a little harder on cleaning out my closet before we leave on Wednesday, I’d hardly know we were preparing for renters to move in.

Dad and Babci have invited Mindy and Liz over for a Memorial Day barbecue, keeping up the tradition we’ve had forever. When Mom was alive, she’d spend all day Monday making pierogies and weird appetizers that tasted better than they looked. This year, Babci’s bought some weird appetizers because she can’t cook much with her arm, and while her, Dad, and Liz relax and drink wine out on the deck, Mindy and I take the rest of the bottle to my room to sort through my closet.

“I can’t believe you still have this.” Mindy holds up my junior varsity swimsuit. “Look how tiny you were.”

“That’s why I keep it. To remind myself I wasn’t always an amazon.” I take a sip of Chardonnay. I prefer beer, but we don’t have any in the house.

“And this,” Mindy squeals. “Oh my God. Your prom dress. You have to put it on.”

I eye the knee-length silvery chiffon, glimmering on its hanger. “I loved that dress.”

“Put it on! Bring some style to this party.” She thrusts the hanger into my hand.

I laugh and take the hanger, fingering the flimsy material. “I hate to tell you, but this isn’t exactly a party.”

“So? It’s close enough,” Mindy says. “Come on. I can tell you want to.”

She’s right. I do. I loved the dress from the second I saw it. It’s been buried in the back of my closet since last year’s senior prom, which is such a waste.

I slip the thin spaghetti strap off the hanger. “Maybe we should call Pete Christensen. You know, for old time’s sake.”

“Let’s leave Pete Christensen back in those prom photos where he belongs. This dress, however, deserves as much air time as it can get,” Mindy says.

I pull my T-shirt over my head and let the straps fall over my shoulders, unbuttoning my shorts beneath the skirt. “Pete wasn’t that bad. He was just boring.”

“Exactly.” Mindy comes up behind me and twists my hair into a quick knot at the base of my neck. For prom last year, Babci curled it into careful ringlets, making me look more like Mom than I ever have, before or since. Mom was all sleek curls and casual elegance. Mindy’s rendition isn’t sleek or elegant, but wearing the dress again makes me feel glamorous, despite the curls that escape. “Come on. Let’s go downstairs. We’re out of wine.”

She takes the last gulp straight from the bottle to prove it and we both laugh. Since we’re not driving, Dad’s policy on drinking is pretty lax, even though we’re underage. He gave me a big spiel last year about drinking responsibly and how he’d come to get me, no questions asked, if I was too drunk to drive, but we both know there’s no way in hell I’d ever call him. I wouldn’t drive drunk either, so the end result is that my drinking is perfunctory. At best.

Mindy, on the other hand, has not only a taste for wine, but a preference. And Chardonnay is her favorite.

When we walk through the French doors onto the deck, Mindy heads straight for the ice bucket that’s chilling the second bottle of wine and pours us both a refill. I intend to slide into an empty chair, but Babci’s voice stops me. “Zosia. Look how lovely. Come, let me see you.”

I smile and Babci reaches out, her hand running softly over the bodice of the dress. “We found it in my closet and I had to put it on,” I explain.

“If I had your figure, I’d wear that dress every day,” Liz says. “This is the one you and Mindy found at Van’s Vintage, right?”

I nod. “I got this and Mindy found her blue Sgt. Pepper jacket.”

“God, it seems like just yesterday you were walking out the door to your prom,” Dad says. “You’re growing up too fast, Zo.”

I resist the urge to remind him I’m nearly nineteen, not nine.

“I met your
dziadzia
when I was your age, you know,” Babci says.

“I doubt I’m going to be meeting anyone,” I say with a laugh.

Mindy puts an arm around me. “Not with that attitude, you won’t. Maybe there’s some Japanese guy out there just waiting to sweep you off your feet.”

Even Liz laughs at this, and she’s the eternal optimist when it comes to dating. Although, to be fair, she actually dates.

“You know I’m taller than most Japanese guys.” I do my best to keep my smile in, but I feel my lips turn up. “The average Japanese guy is five-foot-seven, and there is no way I’m dating someone shorter than me.” Even if it is only an inch.

“Kevin Morgan was shorter than you,” Mindy says, wiggling her eyebrows.

I blush, but I think Mindy’s the only one who can tell. Kevin Morgan is the guy I dated sophomore year, my first and last serious boyfriend. My first and last, well, everything and anything guy-related. There have been others since, a month here, a couple weeks there, even a few blind dates, but no one else I’ve been close with—and sure as hell no one else I’ve been naked with.

Dad smiles and says, “There’s no hurry, Zo. Like I said, it all seems like it’s going too fast as it is. Just think, one of these days, you and Mindy will be here with your boyfriends, maybe even your kids.”

“Stop right there before you start getting sappy,” I say as sternly as I can. “There will be no more talk of kids. Or my boyfriends and lack thereof. From now on, I declare the only acceptable topic is food because I’m starving.”

Dad jumps up. “Wait. Before we start talking about who wants burgers versus hotdogs, I have something for you.”

He walks into the living room, and I hear him rustling around in a drawer. I glance over at Babci, but she just shrugs a little. When I hear Dad’s footsteps behind me and turn around, he holds out a black velvet box and places it in my hand.