Swimming to Tokyo (7 page)

Now that we’ve left the others, Eloise stands closer to Dad, and they murmur quietly a few steps away from us. She touches his arm as he talks, his hand skims her back. Yeah. New girlfriend, my foot.

When Finn walks up beside me, I find myself blurting out the thought in my head to him like we’ve been talking all along. “Do you think they were living together? Before they got all proper for the kids?”

He looks surprised and I can’t tell if it’s because my tone isn’t as casual as I’d intended or because it hadn’t occurred to him either, but he shrugs. “Probably.”

“Do you mind it? Them together?” My tone moves up to defensive, bordering on confrontational, but Finn doesn’t hear it. Or maybe it only sounds that way to me. Mindy always says I don’t do mad nearly as well as I think I do.

“No. Your dad’s cool. Do you?”

“I don’t know. I just found out. I mean, I knew, I guess. But I didn’t
know
.” Didn’t admit is more like it. I have an instant flashback back to the night I picked up the phone and the ice cube in the pit of my stomach when Eloise called Dad “sweetheart” like she’d said it a hundred times before. I hung up the extension as fast as I could, but it wasn’t fast enough. “She seems nice.”

Finn looks like he might smile but doesn’t. “She’s all right.”

“She must be happy you’re here for the summer.”

He shrugs. “I guess.”

“Do they have orange soda over here?” I’m not sure why I say that except maybe to remind him we’ve actually spoken before. Every word feels like I’m dragging it out of him.

“Yeah. You have to look for it, but definitely.” His face relaxes a little into the almost-smile.

But I erase it all when I ask, “What’s the deal with your dad?”

His mouth pinches. “He’s fucking my girlfriend. You know, because he can.”

“Wow. I hope she’s your ex-girlfriend by now.” Eloise said Finn was sensitive about his father. No wonder. I want to know if it’s Lexy Newton, but her message on his Facebook page was only five days ago.

“Good point.” His lip twists a little. “He’s fucking my ex-girlfriend.”

The train arrives, and we step on, although we’re a ways down the car from our respective parents. I can’t even think about them and Finn O’Leary at the same time, so I pick up the conversation with Finn where we left it. “Were you serious with her?”

He grabs the pole above his head and his biceps tense.

“No. It was all…it wasn’t that kind of thing.”

He was going to say it was all physical and I’m tempted to say it for him, but I don’t. “So why are you mad?”

“Principle of the thing. Imagine your mom hooking up with one of your ex-boyfriends.”

“My mom’s dead.” My voice is flat and hard. I sound angry now, but at least it’s about something.

He jerks his head up. “Wow, I’m sorry. What happened?”

“Pancreatic cancer. She died junior year.”

“I’m really sorry.” And he sounds like he is. Like, really sorry.

I don’t want to talk about my mom, even if it means he’s looking at me for the first time all night. “So where does he live? Your dad?”

“Outside Baltimore.”

Right. All those Facebook friends. I knew that. The doors open and close. First stop. “You probably shouldn’t hate him for it.”

“No?” Finn grabs the bar again, and the sleeve of his T-shirt creeps up over his tattoo. It’s big and I take an instant bet with myself on the odds that I’ll ever get to see the whole thing. One hundred and twenty to one?

“He’s being stupid and she’s not worth it.” I’m making wild assumptions here, but if Lexy Newton is anything to go by…

“That’s about right,” he says.

“Time wounds all heels, they say.”

He gives me a hint of a smile. A real one that reaches his eyes. It feels like a victory. “So they say.”

“Besides, someday he’ll be gone and it sucks to think about what you wish you’d done differently after the fact.”

“Maybe.” He pauses for a beat. “What do you wish you’d done differently?”

I shrug. “It depends on the day.”

“So what about today?” I realize, now that he’s looking at me, that the last time we spoke it was dark. Here in the fluorescent lights of the train, I can see the dark stubble dotting his chin. His angular cheekbones. His dark eyes, deep enough to fall into and not resurface for days. They’re steady on my face, not flinching or doing that sideways glance people do when they’re hoping you won’t give them a real answer.

So a real answer is what he gets. “I just wish my mom could have been here. She would have loved it.”

Another half-smile. “Yeah? Why?”

“The people, the food, she loved trying new things…” I notice him glance down the car to Dad and Eloise. “No offense. To your mom, I mean. I’m sure she’s…”

“You’re not obligated to like her. I won’t tell.” The train lurches to a stop, and Finn starts toward the door before I can respond. “This is us.”

Any thoughts I might have had about what I think of Eloise get swallowed up as I file off the train and join the crowd leaving the platform. It’s not as bad as before, but it’s still a lot of people, mostly drunk, ties loose, faces red. Finn’s easy to see at the top of the stairs. He towers over everyone as he falls into step with me.

“You live near here?” I ask.

“We’re a couple blocks farther than you.”

Really? He knows where I live? “Is there anything around here worth seeing?”

“There are a few places. Are you tired?”

I shake my head before I realize what he’s asking. “Not really.”

“Do you want to go check out the neighborhood?” The way he asks, I’m pretty sure he expects me to say no. Or he’s giving me an out. But Finn O’Leary just asked me…not out, but something, and I walk a little faster to catch up to Dad and Eloise before I lose my nerve.

“Hey, Dad.” He stops as if he’s just remembered I’m with him, and I think this bodes a little better for him agreeing. “Finn and I are going to go out, okay?”

“Out? Where?” Dad stopped imposing a curfew on me when I graduated high school. All he asks is that I let him know if I’m going to be really late or out all night. Of course, whenever I’m really late or out all night in Westfield, it’s inevitably with Mindy. This is different.

“There’s a place that has live music after hours. I thought Zosia and I could check it out.” Finn doesn’t even look at Eloise.

“Zo, you just got here.” Dad’s eyes go from me to Finn and back again. He takes a deep breath, and I can practically see him reminding himself I’m not a little girl anymore. He wanted this for me. More independence. Experiences. Capital E. “It’s fine. But I’d feel better if Finn walks you back. It’s easy to get lost.”

“Don’t worry, Greg. I’ll make sure she’s fine.” Finn sounds very confident. And he calls my father Greg?

Dad’s eyes are still on me. “Have a good time, then. I probably won’t wait up.”

“No, you shouldn’t.” I stammer a little, realizing how that sounds. “I mean…it’s been a long day for you with work and everything.”

A few words from Eloise, and Finn and I veer down an alleyway, dim and filled with plastic crates and empty kegs. It smells like stale beer and urine. I’m about to ask him where the hell he’s taking me when suddenly we reach the edge of a brightly lit street filled with people and shops and restaurants. There are at least four
pachinko
parlors in sight, and the sound of the tinny circus-like music and clanging metal balls fills the air around us. I don’t know anything about
pachinko
except it looks like it’s played on rigged pinball machines. Apparently it’s a form of gambling and, judging from the men visible through the smoke inside, really, really popular with the grandfather set.

I follow Finn through the crowd toward a door with a red lantern that, if I remember right from my reading, means it’s an
izakaya
. It’s crowded and filled with small wooden tables. A bar takes most of the far wall, and aside from a few salarymen perched at the end on stools, the rest of the crowd looks our age. Finn jostles his way to a table against the wall. Two seconds later, a woman puts a menu down in front of us and says something in Japanese I can’t understand at all.

“She asked if you want a drink,” Finn says. The bar is noisy, and he leans in close enough that I see his individual eyelashes.

“Um, water?” I look at the woman. “
Mizu, kudasai
.”

She nods, Finn says something in Japanese, and she leaves. “Are you hungry?” he asks.

“No, we just ate. Do you speak Japanese?” MIT, Dean’s List, and now Japanese. Finn’s full of surprises.

“I can order a drink. That’s pretty much it. Do you?”

“No, but I panicked about two weeks ago and got really into Dad’s
Rosetta Stone
. So I can ask for water and say ‘nice to meet you’ with the appropriate level of politeness to both a dignitary and a seven-year-old. I think it will be useful, especially if I ever meet a dignitary.”

“Very useful.” He laughs and I let my shoulders loosen a notch.

The waitress comes and sets glasses down in front of us. Beer for Finn, water for me, and something else. When I open my mouth to protest, he says, “I ordered it for you. It’s
umeshu
. Plum wine and soda or something. Try it.”

“Isn’t the drinking age twenty?” I feel stupid as soon as I’ve said this. I could pass for twenty, and the waitress isn’t concerned about my age. “I just…I don’t really drink wine.”

“Why not?” He takes a sip of his beer as he asks. It’s weird, but I’ve never had a drink with a guy—not like this. Finn is so matter-of-fact about it. He’s definitely not drinking to get his courage up or to impress me.

“I don’t know.” I hesitate and tell him the truth. “The whole getting-drunk-and-losing-control thing kind of puts me off. Especially with people I don’t know.”

“And you don’t know me.” I listen for teasing, but there isn’t any.

“No. I mean, well, no.” I feel weird, like maybe I was supposed to answer differently. Flirtatiously. I give a grin I hope looks more natural than it feels. “I’m also a little bit of a control freak. There’s a reason I didn’t play a team sport in high school.”

Finn laughs loud enough for the table next to us to turn and look. “Yeah, me neither.” He takes a sip of beer. “I ran track back in Baltimore.”

“Were you good?”

He bites his lip and smiles a little. “What do you think?”

Okay, he’s flirting. He is. “So why didn’t you do any sports at Westfield?”

Another sip of beer. “I just didn’t.”

I can’t think of a single flirty thing to say so I take a sip of the
umeshu
. Finn’s right. It’s good. Tastes like a fruity soda. “Do you miss it? Baltimore?”

“I did, but I went down a few weeks ago and it wasn’t the same. It’s not home anymore.”

I remember my conversation with Mindy the night I found out about Tokyo. “Home is where you hang your heart, isn’t it?”

“I think the saying is ‘home is where you hang your hat.’”

“I know, but that’s not what I meant.”

He looks like he’s going to ask, but a voice comes over a microphone and everyone turns to look. A tiny girl sits on a stool with a microphone and a guitar. I understand about three words of what she says before she picks up the guitar and starts to play. I don’t understand anything she’s saying, but her singing is melancholic and beautiful and I have to cross my arms over my chest because I feel like I might cry. It probably doesn’t help that I’m downing the
umeshu
like it’s only soda, either.

She sings a bunch of songs, including a couple in English, before she invites others to take the stage. At least that’s what I assume she does because there’s a succession of people who take the mic to sing. Midway through a guy’s bad rendition of “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” I turn to Finn.

“Are you going to have a go?”

He’s just taken a sip of beer and nearly spits it out. “Me?”

“You told me that night that you play guitar.” I gesture back to the guy, whose voice is breaking on the refrain. “And this seems like a pretty forgiving crowd.”

“That’s right. The night I saw you in the playground.” He seems surprised I remember, then shakes his head. “They’re drunk.”

“That’s not a no,” I tease. Compliments of
umeshu
number two, no doubt.

“Are you going to sing with me if I do?”

“No. But I’ll clap the loudest, I promise.”

“Lame.” He shakes his head. “I need more than that if I’m going to make a fool of myself.”

I let out an exaggerated sigh. “Fine. What do you want?”

He eyes me over the rim of his glass. “Sing one with me and I’ll do one alone.”

“If it’s an original, you’ve got yourself a deal.”

“An original?”

“Sure. One you wrote yourself.”

“I don’t sing my stuff for other people.”

“I don’t sing at all, so we’re even.” I sound cool and offhand. Like I flirt with guys like Finn every day. Like the prospect of singing at a bar in Tokyo at whatever-oclock in the morning doesn’t faze me at all.

I don’t expect him to agree, but he does. Slowly like he can’t quite believe he’s doing it. “Okay. Deal.” He takes another sip of beer. “So what do we sing?”

My heart pounds. I am SO fazed by this. Fazed shitless, in fact, despite the
umeshu
. But the fact that he’s agreed to actually do it makes me say, “I don’t know. What can you play?”

“How about ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’?”

“No.” My refusal is practically a shout. That was the song my mom sang to me before bed when I was little, her voice soft while she sat on the edge of my bed, tickling my back through the thin cotton of my nightgown. I still can’t hear it on the soft rock station Babci likes without having to bolt from the room. “I…I don’t think I can sing that one.”

Never mind that I don’t think I can sing, period. Finn nods and asks, “How about ‘The Sound of Silence’ or are you anti-Simon & Garfunkel in general?”

“No, that’s okay.” I smile and ask because I can’t quite stop myself, “Why do you know so much Simon & Garfunkel? What about Dave Matthews or something?”

He shrugs. “Anyone can play Dave Matthews.”

Um, I can’t.

But it’s too late. Finn heads off to talk to the girl in the corner, volunteering us. Ten minutes later, we’re in the middle of the little makeshift stage area. Someone’s lent him a guitar and two stark microphones stand in front of us, although I’m at least two feet from mine. I’m pretty sure I might hyperventilate and I’m having pretty significant second thoughts with all eyes on us, but he plays the first chord and leans close to me. “Come on. Let’s see how we do.”