I’ve changed twenty times. Discarded clothes lay all over my futon, trailing onto the floor. I trip over a skirt on my way out to the living room where my now-cold cup of coffee sits on the kotatsu. I take a sip, make a face, and click on Skype again. Still no Mindy. Not that there’s any reason she should be around at ten o’clock on a Saturday night, but I have an hour to go before Finn gets here and I can’t do this for the next five minutes, let alone sixty.
Thank God Dad’s not here. It was bad enough last night trying to sound nonchalant. Yes, Kamakura was gorgeous. We had a great time. A lot more interesting than I expected. None of it was a lie. If lies of omission don’t count.
I press the button on my phone and go to my texts. After spending twelve hours together yesterday, Finn and I spent another hour texting last night. I was barely out of my wet shorts when my phone buzzed with, What time tomorrow? Somehow we’d agreed on noon, lunch instead of dinner. Maybe both. No, he wouldn’t tell me where we were going. And, yes, goodnight would be way too long to wait for that kiss. Another zing through my chest.
I glance at Skype again. I have $4.82 in Skype credit to call actual phone numbers. God, I miss Mom. I don’t even know if we’d be close, what I’d tell her about Finn, but I want to think I’d tell her everything. I click on Babci’s number and listen to the ringing at the other end. Calling the US is $.02 per minute. I need $.40 of Babci’s time, tops. She’s not Mom, but she’s good at talking me down.
“Hello?”
“Babci. It’s me. Jak się masz?”
Babci’s voice rises, and she says ten things in a row. She’s fine. She misses me. How’s Dad? How’s Tokyo? What am I doing? What am I seeing? I’ve called her a few times from here, and the first five minutes are always the same. Like she has to get everything in as quickly and as loudly as possible. I’ve tried to explain that calling her via Skype is cheap, but to no avail. So I answer her questions just as quickly before we settle into a less frantic conversation.
She finishes telling me about her last doctor’s appointment and asks what I’m doing today. “Dad got called to work really early. Some server went down, I think?”
“But you have friends there.”
“I actually have a date.” I take a breath and plow through the rest. “A guy I knew in high school. Well, sort of knew. He’s here. His mom…we’ve been hanging out. But today we have a date.”
“Where are you going?”
“I don’t know. He won’t tell me.” I suck in a breath that sounds a lot like hesitation.
Babci hears it, even over six thousand miles. “What is it, Zosia?”
“I like him. And he likes me. But something bad happened to him. I don’t know the whole story, but…it was bad, Babci.”
Babci’s quiet for a minute, then she asks, “Is he in trouble?”
“No. No, it’s nothing like that…”
She doesn’t let me explain. “So what’s the problem? You like each other. He has something bad before. So do you. So does everybody.”
“I know.”
“So what are you afraid of?”
“I’m afraid I can’t handle the truth.” I have a ridiculous flashback to that Tom Cruise movie.
“Can’t or won’t?” Babci takes a deep breath in. “Zosia, your mother. She won’t tell me about the cancer. She thinks it will kill me. But I know something is wrong. She can’t eat. She’s thin. Tired. But I let myself think she’s fine. Just tired. Just thin. Because I am afraid of the truth. So afraid. I should have made her tell me.”
I’m biting my lip. “I can’t make him tell me.”
“But you can make it easier for him if he wants to.” Her voice softens. “I make it so hard for your mother. I pretended she was fine and she thought she has to be.”
“He doesn’t have to be fine.” I think back to yesterday at the shrine, and my voice drops three notches, remembering how Finn looked when he told me. “He doesn’t have to be fine.”
“What does your father think?” Babci asks.
“He doesn’t know.” I let it hang out there between us and hold my breath.
“Why not?”
“He thinks I’ll get hurt.”
“Will you?” Babci’s tone is matter-of-fact.
I don’t answer for fifteen seconds. I know because I’m watching the counter on Skype. “It’s definitely possible.”
Babci doesn’t answer right away either. “You weigh the risks, no?”
“Of liking him or not telling Dad?”
Babci laughs. “Both. But your father…he might surprise you.”
“If we weren’t in Tokyo, he wouldn’t even know.” In Westfield, Dad and I barely saw each other during the week and we didn’t do a lot of hanging out when we were home. It’s not so different here, except this tiny apartment makes it seem like we’re involved in each other’s lives when, really, we just navigate around each other in a much smaller orbit.
“And that makes it okay?” Babci’s tone makes it clear it’s anything but okay.
“I just…” I struggle to find the right words. “I just wish I could figure out if this is even anything before Dad starts telling me all the ways this guy is bad for me.”
Babci laughs. “Well, I didn’t like your father for a long time. You can remind him of that.”
“That would go over well.” I can just see Dad’s expression if I brought that up like it’s something anyone’s ever talked about.
“Maybe. But, Zosia, give your father a reason to trust you.”
“I’ve never given him a reason not to trust me.” My voice rises.
“Well, if you think you like this boy, don’t let this be the first.” She says this like that settles it. And maybe it does.
We talk in Polish for a few more minutes about her neighbors in Queens and my latest debacles trying to navigate in Japanese before I glance at the clock and realize I’m still not dressed and I need to be.
I finally end up settling on the white skirt and sleeveless green blouse from Harajuku that, with a little bit of makeup, makes my eyes glow. I’ve left my hair down for now, even though I’m pretty sure it will be up in an hour. One more glance in the mirror for no obvious straps or snags and I start picking up my scattered clothes, making a project of hanging them and folding them just so to fit in the tiny drawers.
I’m not quite done by the time the knock sounds at the door, and I slam the drawer on my finger when I jump. I have the red tip of my forefinger in my mouth as I open the door.
Finn raises his eyebrow at me as he comes in. “What are you doing?”
“I slammed my finger in the drawer. It hurts like hell.” At least it keeps my nerves at bay a little, gives me something else to focus on besides the fact that the black T-shirt he’s wearing clings to his muscles in all the right places.
“Let me see.” He takes my hand and looks at my finger. “You should put some ice on it.”
“We don’t have a freezer.”
He presses my finger to his lips. It’s still throbbing, but now other parts of me are joining in. He kisses it lightly before taking it away, although he doesn’t let go of my hand. “Sorry. That probably doesn’t help.”
“I think it might actually.”
The next minute we’re kissing.
His hands cradle my neck and my face, tangle in my hair. Our lips are soft and tentative for twenty seconds before he draws me closer, teasing with his tongue. Little pinpricks of light explode everywhere he touches me. My back. My arms. My ribcage. His touch is gentle at first but grows more demanding as our kiss deepens. I rake my nails down his back, and he moves from my lips to my throat. My body arches against him, and his lips follow the collar of my blouse. I gasp as he reaches the V of the button and his mouth is on mine again, demanding and urgent. He backs me up against the door; there’s no air between us and it’s still not close enough.
I don’t know how long we kiss like that, but I know it’s Finn who pulls away. “Jesus, Zosia.”
I lick my lips. They’re swollen and pulsing. Pretty much like the rest of me.
“Yeah. Wow.”
“We should probably, um, go out.”
As opposed to staying here. Even I can see that. “I just need my stuff.”
I brush by him and head back to my bedroom. I’ve been kissed my fair share and I would guess Finn has too, but I’m pretty sure he’s as unnerved as I am. Not from the fact that it was good because it was always going to be, but from the way we went from zero-to-wild in 4.4 seconds. Maybe less.
I’m not sure whether to mention our kiss, let alone how. So I don’t. But that doesn’t mean Finn’s not going to. We’re on the train when he brings it up. “So what happened back there?”
I glance around. It’s crowded, per usual, but speaking English in a sea of Japanese always feels like a private conversation, despite the very public place.
“I don’t know.” I shrug a little. “I don’t have a lot of experience with that kind of thing.”
“Is that your way of telling me you’re not that kind of girl?”
“Well, apparently I am.” I hesitate for just a second because if we’re going to talk about this, we’re going to talk about it all the way. “And you? Are you that kind of guy?”
He nods. “You could say that.”
Jealousy makes me grip the pole a little tighter, but my voice stays even. “Why?”
This isn’t the question he’s expecting. “What do you mean, why?”
“Why Lexy Newton and not, say, Mindy?” I know by saying this I’m pretty much admitting I’ve scoured his Facebook profile, but we’re friends on Facebook now. He doesn’t have to know when said scouring occurred.
“Lexy Newton.” His mouth twists a little as he says her name, and I wonder if she’s not one of those girls, but something more. “She’s the one who hooked up with my father.”
Oh. Wow.
“Sorry. I didn’t know.”
His hand is no longer near mine on the pole, and I’m pretty sure that’s not an accident.
“We were together before I moved to Westfield. Did the whole break-up/make-up thing and then got back together over last spring break. She came to Boston a couple of times; I went to see her. I knew she hooked up, but she was familiar. Easy.” He gives a wry smile. “I went down there before I came here to break it off. It wasn’t like I thought she’d be pining away for me, but I figured I’d never see her again and, you know, one more…”
“Fuck?” The word feels strange rolling off my tongue in its true meaning.
“Yeah. I guess.” He looks away. “It feels weird. To tell you this.”
“Really?” I’m surprised. We’ve talked about worse, as far as I’m concerned. “Why?”
“I want you to think I’m a better person than that.” He still doesn’t look at me when he says it.
“Don’t put things I haven’t said into my mouth.” I slide my hand up the pole to cover his. “What happened?”
His throat bobs, but he continues, “We talked and it was cool. It didn’t change anything. We still hung out. And then I stayed with Jamal for a couple days. The day I left, I stopped by my father’s. He’d sent the ticket. I wasn’t going to take it. I was never going to take it. But my mom convinced me and I finally agreed. I was going to stop by and…I don’t know what. I hadn’t seen him since…” Another hard swallow. “When I got to the house, Lexy was there and it was pretty clear she wasn’t selling Girl Scout cookies.”
“Wow.” I can’t imagine.
“I should have known. What you see is what you get.” Finn twines his fingers with mine around the pole and raises his eyebrows. “Although you come across as all sweet and innocent.”
I flutter my eyes at him. “I am. I told you.”
“Bullshit. You’re about as sweet and innocent as I am.” His face is close to mine, his breath hot on my cheek, and it’s very hard not to squirm.
“I think you’re forgetting you kissed me. I was just following your lead.”
“That’s never a good idea.” His eyes are steady on mine, and he doesn’t close them as he brings his lips to mine. It’s a totally different kiss from the one in my apartment. Soft, sensual, barely there. But I feel it just as much.
Maybe more.
He breaks away, and his arm goes around me like it did last night, although it wanders from my shoulder to my waist and back again. And even though I thought I’d gotten used to it yesterday, I’m really conscious of him touching me.
The way his fingers skim my neck. His hand, hot on the small of my back. His thumb tracing the waistband of my skirt. The only saving grace is we get off the train at Odaiba, and I don’t think he notices the way I startle when his hand hits skin he hasn’t touched before. Because Odaiba is this crazy man-made island on the other side of Tokyo that has something like four major shopping malls, a boardwalk, museums…even a coliseum. From the replica of the Statue of Liberty to the giant Ferris wheel, it’s another world, over-the-top even by Tokyo standards.
We spend the first couple of hours walking around gawking. There’s no other word for it.
“Did they film Transformers here or something?” I ask, pointing to a huge robot-like statue in front of us.
“Not that I know of.” Finn peers at the plaque, written in Japanese and English. “It says here this guy’s name is Gundam, from some anime series. Apparently there’s a whole museum inside if you want to take a look?”
“Me and anime? I don’t think so.” I laugh and hold up my hand. “And before you give me a hard time, remember I read your damn book.”
“My damn book? Is that any way to talk about my extremely thoughtful gift to you?” Finn asks, his face contorting in mock-horror.
The book he bought me in Kinokuniya, Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami, was an extremely thoughtful gift. If only because Finn said it’s one of his all-time favorites. If I’d loved books—or, hell, even liked books—I’m sure I’d have thought it was amazing. As it was, it was long and confusing and I’m still not really sure I understood it. Finn said that’s part of the whole Murakami reading experience, but it’s not an experience I’m eager to repeat.
“Sorry. You’re right.” I bow and we both laugh.
“I’ve learned my lesson. No more books for you. How about food instead?” Finn slides an arm around my waist and steers me toward an izakaya. It’s early for dinner, but I’m starving since I didn’t eat this morning, and I’m happy to spend the next couple of hours across the table from Finn, laughing and talking, brushing my bare legs against his. We stay way too long, but as long as we’re both nursing beers, no one seems in any hurry for us to leave.
It’s almost dark by the time we trip out of the izakaya, and we’re debating heading for the Ferris wheel when my phone buzzes. I ignore it, and two seconds later, it buzzes again. I fumble for it in my bag. Missed calls from Dad. I texted him this morning that I was going out with Finn. A little bit of truth couldn’t hurt. Because Dad didn’t say I couldn’t go out with him at all. Still, my heart pounds a little. If he’s calling about that, I have no idea what I’m going to say.
As I navigate to his number, the phone buzzes again, and I answer it. Dad doesn’t let me get past hello before he’s talking.
“Zo, I’m sorry. It’s crazy here. I have to go to Kitakyushu tonight. There’s been a problem at the data center, and if we don’t get it back up and running for the opening of the Nikkei tomorrow, all hell will break loose.”
“Dad, are you okay?” He sounds scattered. “Do you need me to do something to help?”
I can practically see him shaking his head. “No. I’m heading to the station. But I want you to stay with Eloise tonight. I should be back sometime tomorrow, and I’d feel better if you weren’t staying alone.”
Wow. Okay, he has no idea. If he did, there’s no way he’d be suggesting this. “I’m fine. For God’s sake, I can stay in the apartment.”
“Zosia, please. I don’t have time to deal with you being annoyed. If you could just do it, it will give me one less thing to worry about. Eloise expects you to come home with Finn. Can I speak with him?”
I don’t answer, just hand the phone over. Finn’s side of the conversation is short, although he raises his eyebrows at me at one point, which means Dad’s told him about the sleeping arrangements for tonight. Finn hands the phone back to me, and Dad and I exchange a few more words and then I’m left standing in the middle of the sidewalk facing Finn, who’s looking at me with a totally unreadable expression on his face.
“So,” he says. “I guess we’re having a sleepover.”
His tone sounds mocking, and my anticipation deflates like a tire running over a nail.
“Yeah. Look, I’m fine at my place. My dad’s just being paranoid.”
“He made me promise.”
I shuffle my feet, fiddle with my bag. “I know. I’m sorry. I know it’s weird.”
“I just didn’t think you were that kind of girl. You know, to sleep over on the first date.” The way he laughs makes me feel worse.
So I get defensive. “Very funny. Really, I’m pretty sure my dad wouldn’t suggest it at all if…”
Shit.
“If what?” He raises his eyebrows at me.
At least ten thoughts pass through my head in the span of the next five seconds, but in the end I go with the truth because I can’t think straight with Finn looking at me that way.
“If he knew I was on a date with you right now.”
From the expression on his face, it’s clear Finn has a few thoughts of his own, but his voice is cool when he asks, “Why’s that?”
“Because he said you had a rough past. And you spent some time in juvie.” If Finn doesn’t ruin our first date by mocking me until I get defensive, I’m going to. Right now.
“True on both counts.” He kicks the ground with his shoe, not looking at me.
His lack of eye contact makes it easier to ask, “What did you go to juvie for?”
“I got into a fight.” He’s still not looking at me.
“You don’t go to juvie for getting in a fight.” I say it like I know.
“You do if there’s a knife involved.” His eyes lock with mine this time, and I try not to blink. “Any more questions?”
“You mean besides the couple hundred that brings up? No, not at all.” I sound cool, verging on annoyed. One hundred and eighty degrees different from a minute ago. One hundred and ninety degrees different from how I really feel. My insides jump around like water in a hot pan.
“Good. Did you want to find the onsen?” His eyes are flint, and in that second, he’s the guy Dad warned me about. Which makes me nod and keep my mouth shut.
We don’t touch as we walk through Odaiba toward the Japanese bath, even though it’s a good twenty-minute walk, what with navigating the crowd and pausing to watch a group of guys doing a street dance. We don’t really talk either, so by the time we’ve reached the front of the onsen, the last thing I feel like I can do is back out.
As I see the people streaming in and out, a heaviness settles in my stomach.
“You want to do this?” Finn asks.
“Um, yes. Maybe. I don’t know.”
“What are you worried about?”
We’re talking about the onsen, not this tension between us, right?
“I don’t know. It just feels weird.”
“What can go wrong? You bathe.” Well, he’s talking about the onsen.
“Seriously? Me naked with a bunch of Japanese women who are going to stare at my hair and point at my tan lines? You’re right. What’s the problem?” I walk toward the door because I don’t know how to talk about how defensive we’re both being. And I sure as hell don’t know how to talk about why.
I point to the sign and then to me and Finn. The woman nods until Finn turns, and then her face changes and she makes that motion with her hands that’s universal for no. She points to him, shaking her head, but I have to ask her to slow down three times before I understand.
“You can’t go in because of your tattoo,” I explain.
He looks like he’s about to protest, but the woman’s face is clear. No means no.
“You can go if you want,” he says.
I don’t even bother to reply, just bow my head to the woman at the counter and head back outside. If anything, the sidewalks seem more crowded now after dark than they did mid-afternoon, and suddenly I just want to get away from there.
“Can we go?”
“Sure.” His eyes have softened, but there’s still more than a hint of our earlier conversation in them. “You still coming home with me?”
“Am I still welcome?”
“What do you think?”
“I don’t know.” My tone is wary, but not for the reason he thinks.
Finn bites his lip and keeps his gaze on my throat. “Would it matter to you if I said I didn’t do it?”
Juvie. And whatever it was that landed him there. “It wouldn’t really matter to me if you said you did.”
He jerks his head up to meet my eyes, and his are narrow with disbelief. “Why not?”
“What’s done is done. I mean, yeah, I want to know, but…”
“Why don’t you ask?” His tone has lost its hard edge.
“Because, Finn, if you wanted me to know, you’d tell me instead of saying shit like that.” I close my eyes and take a deep breath, then open them again and meet his gaze. “You aren’t the mistakes you’ve made. Not to me.”
He stares me down for a good thirty-seven seconds. I have a feeling he’s waiting for me to look away, but I don’t. Which I’m pretty sure is why he tells me.
“I was sixteen and got caught up in a bad situation in downtown Baltimore at an arcade. It was a shit part of town. There was a fight. It got out of hand and someone pulled a knife. Thirty seconds later the cops showed and arrested everyone. I had my phone call from the station, but my father wouldn’t come. Neither would my mom. He didn’t care and she was pissed off that I was in trouble again. I’d had enough brushes with the principal’s office and mall security that she figured time in the big house could only help. So I stayed in juvie for a couple weeks to learn my lesson and then came to Westfield with my mom when she got me out.”
“How did you get out?” Law & Order is about the closest I’ve ever come to what Finn’s talking about.
“The usual way. I went to court and the judge told me to get my shit together before I turned eighteen or next time I’d be in prison.”
“What was the fight about?”
Finn half-laughs and shakes his head. “You’re the only person in the world who would ask me that.”
“Why’s that funny? I want to know.”
“Money.” His face turns serious, but it’s softer now. “That answer your question?”
“One of them.”
“Good.” He takes a step closer. “Then it’s my turn.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Your dad…”
I don’t even let him finish. “He thinks I’m naïve and I’ll end up getting hurt.”
“He’s right. You are naïve.” Finn reaches out and pushes a strand of hair behind my ear, and my heart ricochets through my chest. Partly from the sensation of his fingertips against my skin and partly from the hope that he doesn’t agree with my dad on both counts.
He doesn’t. At least not that he says. In fact, he doesn’t say anything, just cups his hand on the back of my neck and pulls me toward him. And kisses me. Good God, does he kiss me. He pulls me close enough that I feel the thump of his heart in his chest. There’s no tentativeness in the way his tongue parts my lips. Or in the groan that escapes the back of his throat when I cup his face in my hands. I respond with a moan of my own, and our kiss deepens in a way that’s far too intense for the middle of the sidewalk in Odaiba. Even if the Japanese didn’t frown on PDA like they do.
I pull away first and put my head on his shoulder. “I don’t think we…” My voice is breathy and soft.
He speaks over me. “You know you can’t lie for me.”
“I’m not lying for you. I’m lying for me.”
Finn closes his eyes for a beat and nods. “Good to know, but way worse.”
I shrug. “It is what it is.”
“No, it’s not. You need to tell him.”
“I’m almost nineteen.” Regardless of what Babci said, no good will come of telling my dad the truth about me and Finn.
“All the more reason,” Finn says softly. He traces his finger along my jawbone and over my lips, holding it there when he finally speaks. “I don’t trust anybody, Zosia, but damn I want to trust you.”
“You can trust me.”
“Not if you have to lie,” Finn says. “I don’t want to be the guy you lie about.”
Who do you want to be?
I almost ask. My mouth opens then closes, then opens again. The question is right there, half-formed.
Where it stays. Through whatever words I find to agree. To promise I’ll tell Dad. I don’t know exactly what I say, but I must sound like I mean it because Finn nods and takes my hand.
The whole time I’m looking at him like he might tell me. Like he can read my mind.
He can’t, of course. And as we walk through the crowds, the moment gets lost, but the question doesn’t. I hear it echoing with the clack of my shoes on the concrete.
Like a poem.
Or a song.
Or a plea.
Who do you want to be, Finn? Who do you want to be to me?