Jamie pulls his mouth to the side and his right cheek dimples. “What do you think?”
I look at his computer screen and see a picture of me. He took it when we were at the beach earlier. I was standing at the edge of the water, waiting for the waves to come in so the sand could swallow up my feet. I like how it feels—like I’m not going anywhere, and that’s okay.
Jamie is noticeably surprised when I don’t pull a face. To be honest, it surprises me, too.
“I like it,” I say honestly. I’m not looking at the camera. I’m looking somewhere over my shoulder, probably trying to find Jamie, who moves around so silently when he’s taking photos it sometimes feels like he’s not there at all.
But I look peaceful. Peaceful is good.
He nods a few times before he smirks. “Let’s see yours.”
I turn my sketchbook around, and this time I do make a face. “I’m trying to figure out what I want the woman in my painting to wear. I’m adding all the details onto her dress tomorrow.”
“Are those tentacles?” he asks with a quizzical brow.
I shut the book and laugh too loudly. “It’s stupid. Forget it.”
“No, it’s not,” he insists. “Is she some kind of sea creature?”
I shrug. I don’t know how to tell him she’s a human starfish without telling him everything. It’s a conversation I don’t know how to have without baring my entire soul. “They’re only sketches. I haven’t decided what I’m going to do yet.”
Jamie looks back at his computer screen, tapping his finger against the edge of the keyboard in time with the music. After a few minutes, he turns back to me, his eyes overflowing with blue concern. “Is the woman in your painting supposed to be your mom?”
It takes me a while to answer. When I do, my voice doesn’t waver. “No. The painting is about how she makes me feel. It’s not about my mom—it’s about me.”
There’s something hidden beneath his brow that tells me he wants to ask more, but he doesn’t. He goes eerily quiet, and I have no idea why.
• • •
Hiroshi doesn’t stop smiling when he sees the clothing ideas for my painting.
“These are wonderful. The details are so thoughtful, so visually interesting.” He pauses before snapping his brown eyes to mine. “Kiko, have you ever considered going to school for drawing instead of painting?”
My throat catches. Maybe I’m not a good enough painter. Maybe Mom was right. Maybe—
Hiroshi interrupts my thoughts. “I’m only asking because you have an amazing style and a much stronger body of work with your sketches than with your canvases. You have a solid portfolio here already—have you ever thought about submitting it to Prism?”
I swallow what feels like a giant chunk of cardboard lodged in my throat. “Most of them are just doodles. They’re unfinished.”
“Artwork isn’t finished just because you’ve colored up to every corner on the page. Artwork is finished when you get to the end of your sentence.” He shakes the book in his grip. “You have a great many stories in here that are worth sharing.”
I take the sketchbook back and I feel like I’ve been wounded even though he’s trying to compliment me. Painting is my life—it’s what I want to do. I draw in order to paint. It’s the order of things.
Isn’t it?
Hiroshi shrugs. “Perhaps it’s something to think about.” He moves back to his desk in the corner, and I step closer to my borrowed easel.
I think about it. I don’t stop thinking about it, even after I finish painting the woman’s dress with burnt orange and crimson and topaz yellow. I paint because it’s the next step—what does it mean if there isn’t another step? Drawing feels so open and skeletal. My sketchbook is a collection of imprints from my soul. They aren’t finished—they need to be colored in, and decorated, and turned into something much prettier than what they are.
If I don’t have emerald greens and magentas and lilacs, I just have Kiko. Black-and-white. Bare and smudged.
I’m not confident enough to let my drawings speak for me. I need my paintings to say something else entirely.
Maybe this is my problem. Maybe this is what Hiroshi has been trying to tell me.
My paintings aren’t honest enough.
Cringing, I close my eyes and picture what the starfish woman will look like when she is finished. She’s vibrant and beautiful and commands the attention of the painting. But this isn’t her story.
And then my mind pictures the girl standing behind her, hidden behind the luminous splendor. She’s gray and plain, but she’s beautiful, too, in her own way. But the woman will never see it because she’s too busy being beautiful herself.
This painting isn’t about the starfish. It’s about the girl who wants to venture out into the ocean, away from the starfish, so she can feel like she matters.
Because the girl will never matter to the starfish.
In the finished painting in my head, the girl will finally know this.
It’s the honest story I want to tell.
I will make this painting the truest painting I’ve ever done. And after that . . .
I will swim into the ocean.
• • •
I paint a crown of starfish and golden hair, all jumbled together because the body and the mind are all part of the same being.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
In the middle of the night, my phone rings. It takes me a while to wake up, and by the time my fingers fumble against the plastic, I’m hurrying to press the answer button without bothering to look at the caller ID.
“Hello?” My voice is raspy and quiet because I don’t want to wake up Jamie’s parents.
“Hi,” says a timid voice.
“Shoji?” I sit up, letting the quilt fall to my waist.
“Yeah,” he says. “Umm, I just wanted to know when you were coming home.”
I pause. Did Mom put him up to this? Does she think she can get to me through my brother? I wipe the sleep out of my eye with my finger. “Well, I’m not sure, to be honest. I’m sort of here on a trial basis.”
There’s a long pause. “But are you coming back?”
“Probably. Maybe. I mean, I don’t want to.”
Another long pause. “Okay.”
I frown, my eyes adjusting slowly to the shadows around the room. “Are you okay? Is everything . . . okay? At home?” My mind goes straight to Uncle Max.
He clears his throat into the phone. “Yeah. Mom’s kind of being worse than usual.” He forces a laugh. “It’s easier when you’re home. She notices me too much when you’re not around.”
It’s my turn to pause. I didn’t think about how Mom would be when I left. Maybe she can’t help herself. Maybe she has to be herself at all costs, no matter who is standing in her line of sight.
Did I leave Shoji to take my place on her target board? Because Taro’s too strong for Mom to break, and with me gone and Uncle Max gone and Dad gone, Shoji’s all that’s left?
“Okay, well, I’m going to go. Bye.” He hangs up the phone before I get a chance to say anything else.
I sit in the darkness for a long time, watching the shadows shift when the moon does, and I wonder if maybe Mom doesn’t really hate me—maybe she doesn’t hate any of us. Maybe she doesn’t know how to be any other way.
• • •
I decide to call home after I’m finished painting at the studio. Not because I’m planning on telling anyone Shoji called, but because I want to know if everything is okay. My brothers don’t normally call me—I’m still trying to figure out why Shoji made an exception last night.
I call Taro first. He sounds surprised to hear from me, which I guess is a good sign. If there’s a problem with Shoji, he must not know about it.
“Why are you calling?” He laughs into the phone awkwardly.
“I wanted to see how everything is back home,” I say carefully.
He grunts. “So are you and Jamie dating now? Mom says you guys are livi
ng together.”
“Mom exaggerates everything,” I say. “I’m just staying at his parents’ house while I look at schools.” I pause. “Have you hung out with Shoji lately? How is he?”
“Trying to pretend he’s a foreign exchange student living in our house, like he always is.” Taro laughs louder, sighing at the end like he finds himself incredibly amusing. “Did you know he speaks Japanese now?”
“I mean, I guess I assumed. I know he reads all those comics,” I say.
“Yeah, but he can actually speak it. Even Dad doesn’t know Japanese. It’s kind of weird.”
I raise my eyebrows even though we’re not in the same room. “I think it’s kind of cool. I wish I could speak Japanese.”
“Maybe.” Taro snorts. “I’m pretty sure he only learned it so he could cuss at Mom without her knowing.”
I stiffen. “What makes you say that?”
“Because every time she talks to him he starts muttering in a different language under his breath. What else would he be saying?”
“I bet she hates that.”
“Of course she hates it,” he agrees. “Can you imagine anything she hates more than not knowing what people are saying about her?” After a pause, he asks, “When are you coming back? Are you coming back?”
“I don’t know yet,” I say. “I’m still figuring it out.”
There’s a long, awkward silence. “Well, uh, I hope you’re having fun or whatever. I remember when I first moved out. It was great.”
“Yeah. It is,” I say. “What about you? Are you okay?”
“I’m always okay. You’re the one who lets her get to you too easily. You’re just wasting energy if you try to get her to understand anything. It’s easier to not care.” He takes a deep breath and lets it out like he’s bored. “Plus, I get to leave whenever I want, remember?”
And when there’s another long silence, I add, “Well, I’ll let you go.”
“Okay. I’ll talk to you”—Taro laughs into the phone—“sometime?”
“Yeah, okay,” I say, even though both of us know “sometime” will be a long time from now. Because this is how we are with each other—we don’t linger.
After he hangs up, I call Mom because I’m still not positive everything is okay with Shoji. I don’t know what I’m expecting to hear. I guess I’m just trying to find out if something happened—if there was some kind of a massive fight or Shoji’s done anything out of the ordinary beyond muttering possible Japanese curse words under his breath.
Mom talks about her blog, and work, and a new show she’s watching.
“How are Taro and Shoji?” I ask, as delicately as I can.
She grunts noncommittally. “Still unable to cook a meal or clean a toilet. You know, sometimes I just want to sell the house, get a one-bedroom apartment, and tell them they can go live with their dad for a change. Let him see how hard it is.”
My chest tightens. I don’t want to argue with her—I want to ask about my brother. Because he opened a door last night—a door he might want me to look inside. But I don’t know how else to follow up on it without going through Taro or Mom. Even if my brother made a phone call, he’s still wearing his armor.
I think of something simple to ask, something that won’t set off any alarm bells. “Is Shoji still doing tae kwon do?”
Mom ignores my question. “Your dad had it so easy. I wish you guys could see that.”
I feel my head start to throb. “I don’t want to talk about Dad with you.” I want to talk about Shoji.
“Yeah, because you always side with him.”
All my organs start to feel tight and cramped, as if there’s not enough room for them. They’re being pushed out of the way to make room for all the frustration boiling inside of me. Maybe that’s why Shoji called—maybe his frustration is boiling over too. “Well, go get an apartment, then,” I snap.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing,” I say quickly. “It was your suggestion. It’s not like Dad didn’t want to see us more.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Oh my God, why am I falling into this sand trap? Just stop talking, Kiko.
She sighs heavily into the phone. “I didn’t force your dad to stay away. He could’ve seen you guys as much as he wanted to.”
“I think maybe he thought it was easier for us to go to him. So you two didn’t have to fight,” I offer.
“Is that my fault? That he couldn’t have a mature conversation with his wife?” she growls.
“Ex-wife,” I mutter.
She keeps talking, the volume in her voice growing with every word. “He always blamed me for making it hard to see you guys, but he could have made more of an effort.”
My agitation builds. Sometimes I have an uncontrollable urge to defend Dad because he’s always defended me. I know he left, and maybe that wasn’t right, but he’s always felt more present in my life than Mom, and she was living in the same house as me. “You had full custody, Mom. You argued for that. He was trying to give you what you wanted.”
“Well, I wouldn’t have asked for it if I’d known I was going to be punished for it!”
“Mom, calm down. Nobody is punishing you.” I squeeze the bridge of my nose and close my eyes. I think I made a mistake calling her today.
“If I could go back in time, I would never have married him. I was too young. I could’ve done so much better,” she says.
My eyes flash open. Okay, what’s that supposed to mean?
“People look at me different, you know. Having his last name. They treat me differently. It’s not easy when people look at you differently just because of a name.”
WHAT I WANT TO SAY:
“Of course you were never going to love my face—you can’t even love a name!”
WHAT I ACTUALLY SAY:
“You have a maiden name. Change it back.”
She tuts into the phone. “I’m not paying to have that changed. What, so Serena can say she’s the ‘real’ Mrs. Himura? No thanks.”
I roll my eyes. I want to tell her Serena isn’t as petty as she is, and that maybe Serena would be better off as the only Mrs. Himura because she probably thinks it’s beautiful and special and not in any way inferior.
But I don’t.
“I have to go, Mom.”
“Okay. Oh, by the way, have you read my last blog post?”
I clench my teeth. “I don’t read your blog.”
“It’s really good, you know. Everyone at works thinks so. I kind of feel like a celebrity.” She laughs.
I want to tell her I’ll read her blog when she looks at my sketchbooks, but I bite my tongue. I don’t want to engage anymore—I want the phone call to be over. “I’ll talk to you later.”
“I love you. Bye.”
I stare at the mirror, running my fingers around my round face and my wide nose and wondering if Mom really does think she could have done better than Dad—better than Asian—and if she does, does she think she could have done better than me?
It hurts. It hurts hearing her vocalize my fear—that people might not look at me the way they look at her. And it hurts to think she looks down on Dad, and maybe down on me, and Taro, and Shoji.
Closing my eyes, I think of all the faces in my sketchbook. The ones I’ve drawn since Hiroshi told me beauty isn’t just one thing. They’re all different and special and unique. I don’t look at them the way Mom looks at the faces in a yearbook. Because it wouldn’t be fair. It feels cruel, like I’m saying one type of face is better than another. Like I’m saying one kind of heritage is better than another.
It’s an ugly thing to do. I’d rather have an ugly face than an ugly heart.
I let my hands drop to my sides and shake my head at the mirror.
And I decide, right there and then, that I don’t care if I’m not someone’s idea of pretty. I don’t care if my name might disappoint someone, or if my face might disappoint someone’s parents. Because that says s
o much more about them than it does about me.
Who cares what anyone else thinks? Who cares what Mom thinks, when she’s immature enough to keep a last name she hates just to maintain an imaginary war with Serena?
I love my last name. And maybe I’m even learning to love my face.
That can be enough. It has to be. It will be.
• • •
I draw a girl pulling her reflection out of the mirror and holding it close to her heart.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
Jamie takes me to Chinatown because he can’t believe I’ve never been to one before. I don’t understand why he’s surprised—I’ve never felt the need to go to Chinatown, which probably stems from the fact that Mom never told me I should feel otherwise.
She once told me she wished she had given me and my brothers more “traditional” names because she was “kind of over the Japanese thing.” You know, because being Asian is a trend or something.
I guess it explains why she doesn’t think I’m pretty, or why she always hated when Dad watched his old samurai shows. To her, we’re an interest she’s outgrown.
Why would she ever point out the benefit of going to Chinatown?
But she should have. Somebody should have. Because Chinatown is amazing.
There’s so much red and green and gold everywhere, it feels like we’re in a different country. Every shop is full of things I’ve never seen before, and every restaurant is filled with foods I’ve never heard of. There’s a grocery store that only sells imported foods with labels I can’t read. And it’s not just stuff from China—there’s stuff from South Korea and Thailand and Japan too.
It’s a pocket of culture—some of it my culture—surrounded by the world I grew up in. The world I’ve never felt a true part of.
And I can’t help but notice something that stands out even more than the bronze lion sculptures and the overpowering aroma of noodles and soy sauce.
Almost everyone in Chinatown looks more like me than any of the kids at my high school ever did.
It feels like a dream. I’ve never been around so many Asian people before. I’ve always felt out of place, but I’ve never realized quite how much until this exact moment, when I feel completely in place. They have eyes like mine and hair like mine and legs like mine. When they smile their skin creases the way mine does, and their hair mostly falls flat and straight the way mine does.
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