“Hello?” The man who answers my calls sounds like he’s been waking and baking since the 70s.
I put the phone on speaker so that I can be hands-free. “Hi, is this Mr. Norman Rothwell?”
“You can drop the Mr. But yeah, this is Norm.”
“Hi, Norm,” I say cheerily. “I’m calling on behalf of Sara Jane McClintock.”
“Who? The only Sara Jane McClintock I know died in a sailing accident over fifty years ago!”
“Yes, that’s her. And she asked me to tell you…”
I pick up the notes Hayato gave me.
“She knows you were too busy kissing some moofy below deck to notice your girlfriend fell overboard. Everybody else felt sorry for you, but she knows the truth.”
“Wha…What? How did you know that?”
After making over a dozen of these calls today, I’ve learned to push past all the questions. Like… Who are you? Are you serious? And so, so many, how do you know that’s?
I mean, it’s not like they’d believe me if I told them.
“Also, your record deal falling through and you never getting to live out your rock star dreams even though you had rad hair? That’s because Sara Jane’s been cursing you every day from beyond the grave. With ah…career ruin, and apparently, several venereal diseases.”
“So, she’s the reason I keep on getting crabs!”
“Yeah, pretty much.” I wince at the next note. But I’ve come this far, so I might as well get it over with. “She also wants me to say fuck you, you tiny dick pothead.”
“Wait! That’s all she had to say to me?” he says, sounding offended. But then he asks, “Is she still a stone-cold fox?”
I glance at Hayato, who’s staring into what I’ve learned isn’t the distance this afternoon. A few more seconds pass, then he makes the hand sign we established to mean a ghost has successfully faded.
I let out a relieved breath, glad to have that done.
“Okay, have a nice rest of your day. Bye,” I say to Shaggy Senior.
“Wait, you can’t just hang up on me. What else did she say? How does she l—”
Proving him wrong about me not being able to hang up, I hit the call end button.
Then I grin at Hayato. “I hope she heard the part where he called her a stone-cold fox before she faded.”
“She did,” Hayato answers, his expression faintly amused. “She looked very pleased when she faded.”
“I’m glad… please tell me she really was the last one.”
I’d saved the worst call—or at least the one that went the most against my character for last. But the list of calls had already been expanded twice.
Once when a groundskeeper who’d been hermiting away in the boiler room made his way upstairs after hearing all the ghosts chattering about “the oriental who could see sheets.” And once when Declan was able to find the great-granddaughter of the son the robber baron had never acknowledged on one of those ancestry sites.
Apparently, the robber baron actually wore a monocle like the guy from Monopoly. That call had been way more complicated than Sara Jane’s, but a lot less bitter. The descendent I spoke to didn’t know she had a wealthy great grandfather, and she was more than thrilled to find out she was entitled to a portion of the estate he left behind.
“Yes, Sara Jane was truly the last one,” Hayato assures me. He takes my hands and helps me to my feet. “Let’s go home, finally.”
Just like that, we depart the inn. And an hour and many hugs goodbye later, we take off in Hayato’s private plane, leaving Maine behind.
I don’t realize it’s New Year’s Eve until a flight attendant tells us “Happy New Year,” while handing us two champagne glasses.
“Will Tokyo be celebrating when we land?” I ask Hayato, who’s tapping on his laptop in the seat across from me.
“Not quite. We’re almost a full day in front of San Francisco, so it will most likely be New Year’s Day.” Hayato closes his laptop. “Also, New Year’s is considered more of a family holiday in Japan. Much like your Thanksgiving or Christmas.”
“That sounds nice.”
“I’ve heard it can be. I have not had a proper New Year’s celebration in years. Not since my brother left Japan and started a family. Usually, I spend the holiday in gaijin clubs, celebrating the Western way in places that cater to foreigners. I’ll take you to one when we land if you’d like.”
I grimace. “Pass. I don’t want to tell folks someone they love is about to die on New Year’s Eve.”
“Aso…I understand.”
Hayato stows his laptop, and we sink into a comfortable silence as we sip our champagne.
But then I have to ask, “Hayato?”
“Yes?”
“Um, why did you do that? Help Rodge’s mom and all of those other ghosts when you were so against it at first?”
Hayato looks at his champagne glass, then out the window. Then back to me. “I am finding, Kristal-san, that I have a tough time saying no to you.”
A weak feeling comes over me as he holds my gaze.
Luckily, the flight attendant chooses that moment to come by with a two dish amuse bouche to start dinner.
After we’re done, Hayato pulls back out his laptop, so I start to read a People. Initially, I’d only meant to go through one or two. I figured I could read one a week when I got back to the workshop. That way, I could pretend that I was actually living out the year in the real world as I originally planned.
But I’m already well into May. So I guess that plan didn’t work out, just like my one to start living my life outside the workshop finally.
I doze off with those regrets on my mind, only to wake up who knows how long later with my head on Hayato’s shoulder. He’s typing something in Kanji on his computer. When did he come to sit beside me? And did my head fall on his shoulder, or did he put it there?
I quickly sit up. As no-holds-barred as we’ve been in bed, it’s still these little moments of intimacy that flummox me.
“How long was I out?”
“A couple of hours only,” he answers. “Perhaps it is good for you to sleep. Do elves experience jet lag?”
I stretch. “Not really. Our body rhythms can pretty much adjust to anything Earth throws at us after a few multi-verse trips. Luckily, I won’t have to worry about that when I return to San Francisco from Japan.”
His eyes darken. “I still don’t understand why you decided to do another rotation in Santa’s workshop after saying last year that you were ready to move on. Don’t you want to start your life in the real world?”
“Yes, I do. And yes, I said that,” I answer. “But I changed my mind.”
I push forward to the next subject before he can ask me any more questions I’ll feel truth bound to answer.
“That reminds me…” I lean forward and pull out today’s sketch of Jae-Hyun and gently set it down on top of Hayato’s keyboard. “I’ve meant to ask you about this man….”
Hayato stiffens. “Yes, what about him?”
“Is it possible Jae-Hyun is you know, your real father? The Korean caretaker you told me about?”
Hayato cuts his eyes to the side, considering my question. Then he says, “I don’t consider my biological father a loved one. He slept with a married woman and fathered two children he never acknowledged. Also, his wife delivered the poison to my mother at my father’s behest.”
My heart squeezes, listening to his tragic backstory. Santa always says hate is a very well-hidden opportunity for love. But right now, I can easily see why Hayato might not hold the same opinion about his biological father.
“I’m sorry you had to grow up with a man who never acknowledged you and who didn’t prevent your mother’s death,” I whisper. “But maybe…”
“He’s dead. Truly. My father executed him in front of my brother and me. And his ghost did not linger on this plane. I checked.”
Well, those additional gory details kill my long lost father theory. Darnit!
I peep sideways at Hayato. Maybe his spirit didn’t linger, but I get the sense the ghost in Hayato’s head haunts him most of all. I cover his hand with mine, offering him silent comfort.
He glances at my hand on top of his, and I can almost tell when he decides to accept this simple consoling gesture. Like I said, sex is no problem with us.
But the little intimacies….
Still a work in progress.
Which makes it even harder to keep pushing forward on a subject he clearly doesn’t want to talk about. But I have to. For him. For Jae-Hyun.
“The thing is, love doesn’t quite work the way we think. And some loves are biologically preset. So maybe this an uncle, or another relative you didn’t know you had.”
“Do you know that for sure?” he asks. “Have you ever drawn a sketch that turned out to be a biological relative the person didn’t know?”
“Well…no, not that I know of,” I admit.
“Then this biological love you speak of is only theory,” he says.
He takes his hand back and starts typing again.
“Hayato…” I start.
“The caretaker was killed by my father, as was his wife. That was my father’s way. He never left witnesses. My father would do anything, kill anyone to preserve the Nakamura image. He made sure my brother and I knew this about him. And for a long time, we were both too scared to cross him, until one day we weren’t.”
What had that been like for Hayato to grow up, believing such a cruel man was his father? What had it been like to work for him? To finally stand up to him?
I have so many questions, but Hayato says, “Excuse me. This is a sensitive document. I should work in my original seat.”
With that excuse, Hayato rises and returns to the seat across from me. There are only a few inches of legroom between us, but at that moment, it feels like a gulf. I got too close, and now he’s pulling away. Again.
I clamp my lips and don’t say anything. After all that progress, our dynamic’s back to toxic. But five more days, I remind myself. Five days then I’m returning to the workshop. And that will be that.
I’ve watched my cousin make True Love matches for years now, so I know better than most. Happy endings aren’t guaranteed. Sometimes people refuse to leave their current safe partner. Sometimes they’re in situations where living their best lives with their True Love would be too dangerous. And sometimes people just aren’t willing to change to become the person they need to be to deserve True Love.
A lot of people get married off Krista’s matches. But a lot of people don’t.
Anyway, maybe it’s better this way. We only have five more days, and it’s not like I can stay.