Rain Song (8 page)
Harrison writes to say he knew me as a child. Truth is stranger than fiction. Yes, that’s it, yes.
Now, I figured that if his mother, Rita, was friends with Mama and was there the night I was born, then it would be probable that Harrison might have seen me, too. But remember me? No, I never would have guessed that.
He claims he remembers eating pineapple chutney on rice crackers with me at my house when I was two years old. It happened, he claims. He wore leather cowboy boots a relative in Texas sent him, and I wore a pink kimono with sakura blossoms. I draped a green feather boa around my neck. The tip of the boa often dangled in my plastic cup of Milo.
“What’s Milo?” I wrote.
“A chocolate-flavored powder that comes in a can and mixed with milk makes pretty good chocolate milk” was the response.
I write to him that my mind is on overload, that reading the words on my computer screen is becoming harder and harder. And because I do not want him to think that he can quit writing to me or that I will stop corresponding with him, I type, “I’ll continue in the morning.”
His response, just three hours later, is, “Want to talk by phone?”
———
When asked what I do for exercise, I can’t say I jog or play tennis. But I once read an article in a magazine in the teachers’ lounge that said cleaning is physical exercise. Now my reply to those who ask what I do for exercise is, “I clean.” They usually look at me as if I am the sinking
Titanic
, in need of more help than they can give. But like washing dishes by hand, doing chores around the house is good therapy. Cheap, too.
Tonight, dressed in my oldest and most comfortable pair of Wrangler’s and a UNC-Greensboro T-shirt, I start with my ceiling fan in the kitchen. Standing on a chair, I reach the long blades and, using a wet paper towel, slowly remove the dust. As I wipe, some of the dust sticks to the towel, but most of it drifts onto the floor. I wonder if dust looks the same all over the world. Is Japanese dust identical to American dust?
When I step down off the chair to get another paper towel, there’s a knock on the front door.
There, in the brisk April night, stands Richard. He has one long-stemmed red rose in his hand. He smells of cologne. Yes, I recognize it—Brut.
“I don’t have your Michael Bolton CD.”
He laughs. “Oh, Nicole, I’m not here for my CD.”
Goodness, what are you here for, then? I run a damp and dusty hand over the hem of my T-shirt.
“How have you been?” he asks.
Do I detect sincerity in his tenor voice? I hope my eyes don’t look as if I’ve been crying. “Fine.” I let politeness step up to my side and ask, “And how are you?”
“Great!” His eyes hold mine. He smiles as I think how broad his shoulders look in the moonlight. I didn’t recall them being so wide. “Would you like to go with me to the Pickle Festival?”
If my heart were a bullet, it would be shooting out of my chest now. Clear to New Bern. “What?!”
He rests a hand, the one not holding the rose, against my shoulder. “In three weeks.”
I know when the festival is; it’s always the last weekend of April.
He wants to come in. I block the door. “Richard, what are you doing?”
His eyes twinkle, bright and full. Why did God waste such long eyelashes on a guy? “Nicole, I thought we could just spend some time together.”
“Why?” I feel like my students, like Clay asking why Shakespeare used such weird language in his plays.
“Oh, Nicole.” He displays his handsomest smile. “I’ve missed you.” Softly, “Us.”
I remember falling snow and hot chocolate and the coziness of sharing an afternoon with him. I remember how he grew bored with me. How he wanted to rush me into marriage. How he crushed my heart by breaking up. I shake my head.
“Nicole, we did have a lot of fun.”
“No. No.” I take a few steps back. Far enough back that his warm hand can no longer rest against me.
His brow wrinkles, a sign he is growing aggravated with me.
“Richard, we said it was over. You told me I don’t know what I want.” I breathe in. I have always liked the smell of Brut. And Brut and the spring air, they seem to go together, like the ocean and sand.
“We could try. . . .” He is using his gentle voice, the one he uses when an irate customer at his shoe store wants to know why he can’t return a pair of shoes purchased months ago, clearly worn many times.
I wonder if he is here because the librarian has rejected him.
“We could hang out and talk. Watch movies.”
I look at him. He’s wearing a forest green Izod shirt. He always did look good in green. He asked me months ago if I knew what I wanted in life. I didn’t then, but now I think I do. Slowly, I tell him, “I don’t think so.”
His eyes turn dark. He extends the rose to me anyway.
I take it and watch as he walks toward his car, gets in, and backs out of my driveway.
I am almost sorry for him. He is gorgeous, but I could never love him.
As I continue with my kitchen fan cleaning, I can’t believe he was just here.
Truth is stranger than fiction.
———
At the aquarium, my fish beckon me to watch them dance.
Besides a clean place to live and food, that’s all they really want.
Watch us, see us swim. We are tranquil and beautiful. Enjoy us just because God made us. Observe the way our fins swish past the seaweed, causing the green plants to sway. State-of-the-art perfection. We know how to bask in the salty, cool water because that’s what we were created to do.
I tilt my head to the left and quickly jerk it to the right to see if Monet’s method of viewing my marine creatures works. Not for me. I just feel dizzy.
I don’t wait until morning to send a few lines to Harrison. Before climbing into bed, I write, “I prefer not to talk by phone. Let’s continue with email. Thanks, though. Thank you so much.” He does get the idea I am appreciative of him, doesn’t he? That because of him, I have a new lease on my life? I hope my words hold enough gratitude to carry over the cyberspace miles.
No, I’m not able to talk on the phone. My voice could break up or I could cry as we talk, become hoarse, or lack any words to fill the pauses—these fears, however, I don’t share with him. Email is so safe—my time, my choice of words, and always the ability to delete a line or two. Spoken thoughts are so final.
Four hours later I sit up in bed, clutching Sazae. My dream was so vivid, it had to be real. I click on my bedside lamp, see Mama’s smiling face in the frame, and wait for my mind to convince me that I have been only dreaming.
I swam alone in a dark, cold ocean. Water raged around me, and each time I lifted my head to breathe air, a wave slammed against my face. The pain was strong as my struggle continued. I tried to swim out of the ocean, but instead, my foot became lodged under a large rock. I screamed for help as loudly as I could, but no sound came out from my lungs. I tried again. No one came. I was desperately alone, although I kept sensing that Harrison was somewhere.
Then I heard a voice above me say, “You have to be in the same ocean for Harrison to hear you.”
I looked up to see Monet, of all people. It was not peculiar to me that she was speaking clearly and in a full sentence. All I knew was, this girl—wild child—made sense.
Suddenly I was able to twist my foot from under the rock, freeing it from its bondage, and swim.
I swam for miles, knowing that I was going to find my way. At last the sun broke through the clouds and I reached warm, bright waters, the ocean of my past dreams. Inside a golden pagoda was Harrison. He greeted me in his deep voice. “Nicole,” he said, “I’m glad you made it.”
My foot was bruised, but I didn’t mind. I had made it. I had found my way. And he was there.
———
My plans are few for this week of Easter break. Kristine and Salvador are on a motorcycle trip to Myrtle Beach. Kristine says she’ll send me a postcard. She can’t wait to go to this restaurant Salvador mentioned, one where you’re served peanuts and allowed to throw the shells on the floor. From a large tank, guests select their own catfish for the cooks to fry up. While waiting for your meal, you drink iced tea from a conch shell and listen to a band play the blues.
Ducee is attending all of the special church services, but when I drop by for tea Thursday afternoon, I tell her I will join her and Iva only for Easter Sunday. My grandmother asks if I need to tell her something. I say there is nothing to tell. She adjusts her bifocals, wipes her mouth with a pink cloth napkin, and examines my face. “Nicole,” she says after too much silence, “you know, I may be old—I suppose some would think I am—but I am here.”
Quickly, I tell her that I am glad she’s here and that I’d like another cup of ginger tea.
I don’t really care for more tea, but I can’t let her continue talking. My gut senses that she is going to add, “I am here, but one day I will be gone.” No, no, I can’t hear her vocalize those fears of mine.
———
While writing an article for the Pretty Fishy site on Saturday evening, I hear from Harrison. It is Easter morning in Kyoto, and he is getting ready for church. He writes that he just got off the phone with his mother, who now is in Texas. “She says Watanabe-san lives in a nursing home in Katsura. I plan to visit Watanabe-san this afternoon. I’ll let you know what I find out.”
Well, I think that is just dandy, but what has Watanabe-san got to do with any of this?
First off, who is Watanabe-san? I check past messages from Harrison to make sure I haven’t missed anything. No, in all of the messages he’s sent, there is no recording of anyone by that name.
So I write back, “Okay, I’m clueless. Tell me who she/he is.”
———
I love Easter Sunday, although I wonder if God thinks it is the epitome of human deceit. On one Sunday of the year, folks show up at church. Not just the regular church attendees, but people who haven’t been in, well, since last Easter. There they are in all their finery. Women in pretty, delicate, pastel-colored dresses and men sporting cotton suits with silk ties. The church looks full of life—although today as Reverend Donald preaches, I wonder if anyone is really listening. I wonder how many are pondering on the miracle of the resurrection of Jesus and how many are thinking about ham or chicken, or whether Aunt Martha will serve her delicious deviled eggs at lunch this year.
I may let my mind slip a bit here and there, especially as my own stomach rumbles with hunger. But during much of the service I thank God over and over for bringing Harrison into my life. You know, I tell God, Harrison is a much better choice for bringing light on my past than that heavy-coated mothballsmelling old relative of my imagination.
Our Easter lunch is at Great-Uncle Clive’s farm. Iva excitedly tells him to make sure his cucumber crop is productive this summer because we are going to need a dozen of his vegetables for the reunion.
Clive is six-foot-four and, like Joseph McGuire, has one outfit he wears daily—faded overalls and a T-shirt with the Pepsi-Cola logo. I wonder where he finds overalls long enough. I know where he gets the Pepsi shirts. There’s a small shop in New Bern, the town where Pepsi was first created, that sells T-shirts and all kinds of Pepsi paraphernalia. He bends close to his sister Iva and says, “Why do you need cucumbers?”
“For the reunion.” Proudly, she announces, “We are going to have cucumber sandwiches.”
Clive chews on the end of a toothpick he is holding. His hand is broad, and the wobbly toothpick looks as if it could snap at any moment. “I thought it was against southern etiquette to have both cucumber and egg salad sandwiches at the same meal.”
It is the first time I’ve ever heard him speak such a long sentence. He usually prefers one or two words.
Iva’s grin stretches across her face. “Not anymore is it against all that etiquette baloney,” she tells her younger brother. “Ducee is making an exception.” Iva draws on her cigarette, watches the smoke evaporate, and grins some more.
I don’t think she would be any happier if she’d just gone to Virginia and won the lottery.
———
The rose Richard brought over is in a narrow glass vase on my kitchen table. The flower is elegant, regal. So much so that it doesn’t look real. It only has two tiny thorns on its green stem. I wonder if that adds to its unnatural look. I finger the velvet petals as I wait. I’m ready to hear from Harrison.
By midnight, when my inbox is still empty, I decide he must be busy. Who was this person he was going to see? A connection to my past? What if she or he is a bad person? What if Harrison got in a fight because this Watanabe-san refused to disclose any information? What if Harrison’s life is in danger?
A cup of hot Earl Grey doesn’t soothe my worries. In fact, after only two sips, I abandon the mug and go to the computer to check once more for an email message. But the inbox produces nothing new.
As I get ready for bed, I pour the cold tea down the sink. What is wrong with me? Here I am throwing out my favorite Earl Grey.
I lie in bed stroking Sazae’s shorter kimono sleeve and pray that Harrison is safe. But when the digital clock on my bedside table shows 2:00, I sigh and get out of bed. Then I do what I often do when I can’t sleep—a load of laundry. As the water rushes into the machine, my mind wanders. What will happen if Harrison stops writing? Surely, he knows he holds the answers to my many questions from the past. Certainly, he wouldn’t abandon me after all this. “Would he?” I ask aloud to the washing machine.
I close my eyes to try to recall something about this childhood friend, but nothing is there. No sharing drinks of Milo. No feather boa around my neck. No Watanabe-san.
The washing machine rapidly ushers in the next cycle.
Sometimes I think the passage in the Bible that commands us not to worry is one of the most profound pieces of advice around. “Therefore I tell you,” Jesus says to the crowds following Him, “do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?” And then, of course, comes Ducee’s favorite passage: “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?”
Of course, Harrison writes again—in spite of my worrying that he may have encountered something awful or decided to give up on our correspondence. Watanabe-san, I find out, is a woman in her late sixties. When Mama, Father, and I lived in Kyoto, she lived with us, in a small
tatami
room in our two-story house. She was our live-in maid.
She now resides in a nursing home outside of Kyoto, in Katsura. Harrison’s mother, Rita, did some searching and found out from their former maid that Watanabe-san had been living in the home for six months.
She’s in a wheelchair. She suffers from dementia, and there are days she won’t talk at all. But the nurses say that on good days, she converses. Luckily, when I told her who I was, she responded with a smile. She remembered that I used to come over to your house with my mom. Your mom and mine would sit, drink tea, and eat pineapple chutney on crackers. You and I, Nicole, would drink Milo. And you’d gobble up your serving of chutney, but apparently, I hated the stuff. (I have never been fond of pineapple and blame it on the time I was three and we went on furlough to Texas. My parents were speaking at a church in Fort Worth, and I was with my aunt and uncle in Houston when a hurricane came through. I was afraid I’d never see my folks again, and my aunt tried to console me with chunks of pineapple.) When I asked Watanabe-san about the fire, her eyes filled with tears. She kept crying, “Is she okay? Did she live?” I told her that your mother died and she nodded her head, yes, she did remember that tragedy. But what she wanted to know was if you survived, Nicole.
Here, I stop reading and walk over to my aquarium. The fluorescent light that is always on shines on the water and makes each fish sparkle. I find the eel, sunk in the gravel by the pagoda. If I were to name him, he’d be Sinker or Slinky. But the truth is, I quit naming my fish in college.
One of my professors, my favorite, Raymond Kelly, pointed out that naming something was a human characteristic and that in the animal kingdom there were no names. Lions didn’t walk around referring to their cohabitants as Fuzzy or Curly. He and I actually had debates on this topic, me saying that to name a pet was to accept it and make it part of your life. He disagreed. We found arguments to support our views and, for a semester, discussed this in mutual appreciation. Sometimes I just think he liked to argue for the sake of being different. What can I say? I enjoyed it, too.
When we returned to campus after spring break my junior year, we heard the news. Professor Kelly would not be with us any longer. One day during the two-week vacation he’d gone to an amusement park with his wife. He’d ridden the roller coaster. His wife refused to ride, petrified of the motion and noise. She went to get a Sno Cone. When she returned, her husband was dead. A part of the roller coaster, the very car he was in, broke and he was flung from the car to an instant death.
I hate roller coasters. Motorcycles and airplanes, too.
And in honor of Raymond Kelly, I don’t name my fish anymore. I just let them live with me as one big family. Beautiful, but nameless.
I watch my fish for a few more silent moments and then return to the computer.
The screen still holds the message from Harrison. I suppose I should read about the house fire. Isn’t this the mystery I have wanted revealed for as long as I can remember?
Chewing my thumbnail for a moment calms me. I rub my scar.
When the phone rings, I run to get it.
Iva wants to know if I want to go to New Bern with her and Clive. “We’re leaving in about an hour and can swing by your house to get you. Clive’s driving his Pepsi truck.”
I love the coastal town. And riding in Great-Uncle Clive’s truck with a bottle of the drink painted on each side and a few other decals of bottles on the rear window is an experience like no other. Inside the truck, the cooler is always filled with icy cans of Pepsi, and a small, plastic, scantily clad woman sits on the dashboard, embracing a bottle of the drink.
“We’ll eat at that barbecue restaurant on the way,” my aunt says.
I say I’m busy, sorry.
She tells me she is sorry, too. “Maybe next time.”
“Yes, maybe so.”
“Oh, Nicki?”
“Yes?” Is this going to take long? I’ll have to find a chair to sit on if my aunt is going to dive into her list of questions.
Iva surprises me. “Isn’t it just grand that we’re having cucumber sandwiches at the reunion?” I can feel her smile across the telephone line.
“Yes, Iva, it is.”
That’s it. She’s finished. She hangs up with a quick click.
Slowly, I place the receiver back in its cradle and head back to my computer. A sensation overcomes me, one I cannot shake. My heart pounds, my ears feel as if cotton is wedged inside, and my fingers are numb. I close my eyes, breathe in and out. Steady.
Maybe I should go to New Bern instead. I do like The Cozy Barbeque, the tiny restaurant outside of Kinston on Highway 70. The iced tea served there in mason jars is so sweet it could give you cavities just looking at it. The barbeque sauce is every bit as good as Smithfield’s.
What am I afraid of ? What could be worse than all the years I’ve spent not knowing what really happened the night of the fire? Goodness, I remind myself, you’ve been crying out to God, just as King David did in Psalm Six: “My soul is in anguish. How long, O Lord, how long?” Well, now the answers are here. Just go ahead and read them.
In my mind I see my grandmother’s face, nodding for me to, yes, yes, read.
The pep talk works.
I open my eyes. With the afternoon sun casting streaks of light across my computer, I enter my inbox. And as the expression goes, I am ready to face the music.
Watanabe-san says she rescued you from the fire. Your father wasn’t at home that night. He’d gone to Tokyo to a church conference. The fire started downstairs in your parents’ bedroom. Watanabe-san had an upstairs bedroom and suddenly woke to the smell of smoke.
When she got to your mother, your mother was facedown on her bedroom floor. Watanabe-san rushed over to her, and then heard your voice down the hallway. You were standing in your crib with heavy smoke all over and you were singing. Watanabe-san couldn’t see because of the smoke and her eyes were burning, but she heard your voice singing a song you and she often sang together. She says your singing helped her know where you were and she was able to reach you and get you out of the house. She has always felt if she’d been quicker and younger, she could have saved your mother as well.
The fire did burn her hands. They are scarred. She thinks they were burned when she opened your bedroom door. The knob was like an iron and it took a few tries using both hands to get it opened. She says it doesn’t matter.
By the time a neighbor called the fire department and the truck got to the house, the wooden house was demolished. Your father was immediately called and flew back from Tokyo. A few items were not harmed and neighbors boxed them up and gave them to your father.
Watanabe-san regrets that you and your father left Japan. She has often wondered how you were. She never heard from your dad even though she found his new address in Virginia by contacting the mission board and wrote a few letters. There are days, the nurses tell me, when her mind isn’t fluid, that she is in a panic, wondering if you survived.
Nicole, I remember hearing my parents talk about the fire. I woke up the next morning and heard my mother crying. I’ve never heard her cry like that since.
This has got to be hard for you to handle. I would prefer to tell you over the phone but respect your wishes.
I plan to visit Watanabe-san again later this week and will ask whatever else you want me to ask.
Also, Nicole, if you want me to tell you about your scar, I can. Whenever you are ready to hear, let me know. I was there.
Only an email away.
Fondly,
Harrison
I admit, I like his fondness.