by Chessy Prout
After a few hours, we dragged the board back to shore. I tried balancing while the board was resting on the sand.
“No, no, Chester,” Lucy warned, using the nickname she’d given me. I was her Chester, she was my Lester. “Don’t do that.”
“You could break it,” Zach’s sister chimed in. “There’s a fin on the bottom.”
“I’m just practicing,” I insisted. “I’ve got this!”
Nope. I broke the fin. Lucy shot me the I told you so stare. I hated that look, but I was also thankful that she was there with me. I was afraid of being alone with people, especially when I pulled moves like this. Lucy was my best protector. She understood me better than anyone.
“It’s okay,” Lucy reassured me. “It’s just a board.”
What was I going to do when she left for St. Paul’s? It was really happening. Wouldn’t she miss me? Didn’t she need me, too?
Mom and Christianna arrived to pick us up soon after the paddleboard fiasco. Rather than wait in the car, they joined us on the beach. Christianna ran over to me and began inspecting the broken board. Mom chatted with Zach’s mom, and they hit it off immediately, as if they’d known each other for years.
All I wanted to do was get out of there. Somehow, my first date had turned into a family affair.
As the summer wore on, Lucy retreated further and further away from me. At sleepaway camp in Maine, she wouldn’t even sign up for activities with me. All she wanted to do was hang out with her friends.
When we got back to Florida with just a few weeks left together, Lucy and I kept getting in fights. She had one foot out the door and I wanted to glue her body next to mine. She babbled on about her new boarding school, how awesome her new roommate at St. Paul’s seemed.
“Lauren’s going to be on the volleyball team with me. Her older sister is already there and captain of the team, and she’s going to look out for us,” Lucy prattled on.
“Whatever,” I said, kicking my toes into the ground.
Lucy was so strong. She didn’t need anyone’s help. Who was going to look out for me, for Christianna, for Mom?
I’d start in with Lucy over stupid things, just to rile her up, so I could feel her presence, absorb every part of her before she vanished.
“Honestly, I just want to get away from here and from everything,” Lucy groaned.
“Fine, leave!” I snapped. “I don’t care.”
But I did care. And Lucy left.
Dad swore he was searching for someone to lead the company so he could move to the United States. I understood that he wanted to put the business in good hands, but really, how long was this going to take? It had been six months already and it was just three of us in Florida now that Lucy was away at St. Paul’s.
I should have been thankful that I escaped a natural disaster, but I was twelve and focused on my little universe. My family had fallen apart and I was floundering.
I worried about Dad’s safety and missed our time together: inhaling the scent of purple wildflowers on our morning walks to Sacred Heart, licking the empty salt packets during our yakisoba cooking sessions, and embarrassing Lucy at her sports games by starting a two-person wave.
I tried to make things less stressful for Mom, since she was basically a single parent now. I cleaned up after my little sister and attempted to keep my behavior in line, but I was constantly filled with rage. I blamed Mom for bringing us to the United States and keeping me from my perfect world in Japan.
“You took my life away from me. Why is it that we always have to do what you want?” I yelled. “When are we going back home?”
“Chessy, I’m not in control of the world right now,” Mom sighed with exasperation. “You have to understand that I’m not trying to do this to you. I didn’t want the earthquake to happen. I don’t like being separated from Dad either. But this is what life is right now.”
“I know the earthquake wasn’t your fault, but that doesn’t make me any less angry,” I hollered back, with poison darts shooting from my eyes.
I was also scared that Mom and Dad might separate. I couldn’t believe that life was going on without Dad. Maybe Mom would realize she didn’t need him. Whenever he came home for short visits, they seemed to fight about his job.
I was bitter that I never got a chance to say good-bye to my friends at Sacred Heart. It was so hard to start over in middle school, especially when all the kids had known each other since they were five.
To make matters worse, Lucy was totally MIA. She wouldn’t respond to my messages for days at a time, and I was pretty sure she blocked me from seeing her photos on Facebook. She was missing my thirteenth birthday, my first teenage year. We’d never celebrated a birthday without each other. I guess this was the new normal.
I was in a fight with everyone, including God. Why would he let an earthquake kill thousands of people who didn’t deserve it? Why would he allow the earth to be destroyed, all these people’s lives to be destroyed, my precious world to be destroyed? What was the purpose of all this if everyone was going to die?
I was spiraling into darkness and feeling tired and sad all the time. Mom took me to a few doctors, who diagnosed me with a severe vitamin B12 deficiency, multiple food allergies, and a high gluten intolerance. Go figure, my favorite meal was pasta.
I started seeing a therapist, Dr. Sloane. At first I pretended nothing was wrong. I kept up the perfect facade I had been trained to have in Japan. It was really awkward because Dr. Sloane would sit and wait for me to say something.
I realized it was going to be a waste of her time if I kept acting like everything was fine. Anyway, she was an expert, so she could probably see right through me. After one session and a week of contemplation, I started talking. And talking. I was relieved to have an outlet where I could say anything and not be judged.
I told her I was exhausted from trying to infiltrate the tight-knit groups at middle school. I wanted people to like me and respect me even though I was new. I was worried that the students thought I was damaged because of the earthquake. Dr. Sloane introduced names into my vocabulary for the torpedoes in my stomach and the black blanket wrapped around my brain: anxiety and depression.
I let my new best friend, Arielle, in on a few secrets, like how I was feeling tired of life and of being a burden to Mom. Arielle came with me every day to get my vitamin B12 shots at the school nurse’s office. Arielle was also new at CSN and had strawberry-blond hair and a laugh that was, incredibly, louder than mine.
We spent every moment together, except when Dad descended on Naples. Then the world came to a standstill. I wouldn’t let him out of my sight. We rode bikes, played volleyball and catch, and cooked our favorite meal of fried spaghetti. We stayed up late watching YouTube videos of funny pranks or episodes of NCIS: Los Angeles.
When we were throwing footballs around, I realized I was sick of sitting at the picnic tables with the other girls. I had a good arm and I could take on these boys. So during lunch at school, I marched onto the field with Arielle by my side. I saw Scott and Zach (we hadn’t lasted beyond that first date when I broke his paddleboard). We told the boys we wanted in.
“Wow, you’re good,” Scott said as I hurled a football. “You can play with us anytime.”
I was excited to tell Lucy about my new friends when she came home for winter break. We’d seen each other a few times, but I didn’t really understand her life. Mom was mad because Lucy never called. She claimed she had bad cell reception in her dorm room and was too embarrassed to talk on the landline in front of other people.
It was a pure lovefest when we finally got Dad and Lucy together with the Naples gang of three. I stole glances at Lucy out of the corner of my eye. She was wearing more makeup and had that carelessly tousled prep-school hair.
I was desperate to get her alone. I wanted to know everything. Was St. Paul’s like Gossip Girl? Or more Hogwarts? Dad had his stories, of course, but they were ancient history. Lucy wasn’t sharing much when everyone was around.
After Christianna went to bed one night, I finally cornered Lucy on our brown couches outside.
“So, seriously, what’s it like?” I asked.
“It’s kind of crazy.” Lucy smiled slyly. “You’re totally free to do whatever you want after class is done. There’s no one to check in on you. No one is looking over your shoulder.”
“Wow, that’s pretty amazing,” I said. Sometimes Mom made me write up lists that broke down what I was doing minute by minute so I could keep “on task.” I craved the freedom that Lucy described.
Lucy talked about how great the volleyball team was, how her teammates got breakfast and dinner together.
“I’m thinking of doing club volleyball here in Naples,” I chimed in.
“That’s awesome!” Lucy said enthusiastically. “It will totally put you at an advantage if you come here to St. Paul’s.”
I got goose bumps hearing that Lucy wanted me there with her. I missed her so much. I pictured us strolling through campus together and sharing sister dinners. Then Lucy began to word vomit.
“I have to tell you the boy stuff is crazy. There were all these guys who wanted to score me.”
“Score you?”
“Yeah, that’s the word everyone uses for hooking up,” Lucy explained. “You can’t have too many of them, but you need to do some or else people will get mad.”
My eyes were saucers about to fly out of my head.
“That’s weird,” I said.
“Everyone does it.”
I couldn’t get words out of my mouth. I looked away. I was afraid of saying something to upset Lucy. She usually stopped talking to me when she got mad, and that was the last thing I wanted.
“Okay, if you say so,” I said.
I hoped that Lucy knew what she was doing, but she was only fifteen. I thought she was way out of her league. I couldn’t stop worrying about her, so I eventually told Mom. To be honest, I always told Mom everything.
A little later, Lucy stormed into my room, whirling with anger.
“I’m never going to share anything with you,” she screamed. “Never mind. I’m never going to speak to you ever again.”
“I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I didn’t know Mom would get upset,” I said. “But you can’t tell me things and assume I’m not going to say anything.”
“I thought you were my friend,” Lucy snarled. “But I guess we’re just sisters and not friends.”
She scorched me with her eyes. My heart crumpled. Then Lucy slammed the door. What had St. Paul’s done with my sister?
The following June, Lucy and I traveled to Japan for the first time since the earthquake. Things were good again between us, and I wanted to keep them that way for our big journey abroad to visit Dad. Mom was staying home with Christianna, and I felt so grown-up traveling on my own. Mom and Dad could be protective, but they always encouraged me and Lucy to explore and be independent.
I could barely sit still for the twelve-hour flight. My toes tingled each time I thought about walking the streets of Hiroo, visiting Sacred Heart, devouring tonkatsu (fried pork cutlets) and endless rolls of sushi. I was so close to getting my world back, even if it was just for a short farewell tour.
But once we landed, I quickly realized that nothing was the same. Dad had moved out of our beloved apartment and was staying at a hotel in another neighborhood. Many of my Sacred Heart friends had left Tokyo. The rest of the students were on summer break, and everything there seemed to be under construction.
Dad worked during the day, so Lucy and I slept late, swam at a nearby pool, and then watched a marathon of NCIS: Los Angeles episodes. We could have been anywhere.
One afternoon Lucy and I finally got motivated to return to our old neighborhood, then walked up and down the main street, Nisseki Dori. Only a year had passed, but some of our favorite shops had closed. Our kind sushi lady was still in business, and we placed our usual order.
We took our food to a nearby playground and sat down on some rocks. I devoured my toro and scallion roll, ikura nigiri, and inarizushi. But nothing could fill the emptiness that gnawed at me.
“So much has changed in just one year,” I said to Lucy between bites. “I thought I’d be at home here, but I’m not. I feel like I don’t fit in anywhere.”
“You’ll come with me to St. Paul’s in a year,” Lucy said. “You’ll find your place there and we can be together again.”
I smiled. I wanted my Lester back. And I wanted a community, a place where I truly belonged.
Lucy and I leaned on each other when we relocated to Florida after the earthquake. It took me a while to adjust to my coed school, and I went on my very first date (above).
THREE
October 2012
My stomach was doing flips as I walked up the steps to a gray stone building, Sheldon Library. It housed St. Paul’s admissions office and featured a sweeping view of Library Pond and the redbrick chapel across campus.
I followed Mom and Dad into a rotunda decorated with portraits of the rectors who had run the school since 1856. I turned around to look at them and saw a bunch of old white men staring down at me. I shifted my weight from side to side, trying to shake off my nerves, and pressed my sweaty palms against my new skirt.
“Just be yourself,” Dad said as I stared stoically ahead.
A soft-spoken woman named Ms. Carega introduced herself and brought me upstairs to a room lined with books. I sat across from her on a couch and shared my background growing up in Tokyo and then moving to America. I had memorized all the points I wanted to make about my dreams of studying Japanese and piano, two things I’d lost after the earthquake. I mentioned that I hoped to play volleyball with my sister and was excited about the international community at St. Paul’s.
My chest puffed up a little as I hit everything on my list. Then Ms. Carega asked, “Do you have any questions about the school?”
I wasn’t prepared for that. I sat dumbfounded for a few seconds.
“Um, well, my sister goes here and my dad went here, so I got a lot of information from them,” I said, my body deflating.
I walked downstairs, irritated that I hadn’t come up with a single question. I stood in the rotunda and prayed that I could follow in Lucy’s footsteps, in Dad’s footsteps.
Dad’s position was likely getting transferred to the Hong Kong office, and I loathed the idea of starting over again in a new country. I had just gotten used to life in the United States, but I was ready to leave Florida.
Naples was beginning to feel suffocating, especially with the 2012 election. I was surrounded by white, wealthy conservatives who had never really accepted that we had an African American president. I yearned to be in a place that was progressive and diverse. St. Paul’s seemed to promise that as I thumbed through yearbooks and glossy brochures that featured students of different races and ethnicities and information about financial aid.
I looked out the wall of windows into the pond reflecting October leaves streaked with crimson and tangerine.
The school’s two thousand acres of rolling green hills felt indulgent after spending twelve years in densely packed Tokyo. I still missed having chocolate cake fights with my friends on the roof of our apartment building and scootering in the alleys around our neighborhood in Tokyo. But my favorite memories of Japan were the weekend trips we took to Mount Fuji, where I ran with Lucy through plains of susuki grass taller than me. St. Paul’s had that same expansive feeling.
Mom and Dad went upstairs to meet with Ms. Carega and talked about their potential move to Hong Kong. They explained how they saw St. Paul’s as a place to rebuild a community for me and Lucy, something that had crumbled after the earthquake.
St. Paul’s stitched together the people and places that were important to Mom and Dad. Mom was a New England girl who grew up in Connecticut and attended College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts. She had family and friends who lived nearby. St. Paul’s was home to all of Dad’s fondest memories, and some of his old classmate
s and teachers were still there and could look after me. My parents thought St. Paul’s would provide a world-class education and a safe, gentle transition to college.
After we finished the interview, Lucy stopped by Sheldon with a Nikon camera hanging around her neck. She wanted to take some black-and-white pictures of me and develop them for her photography class.
I grasped the wrought-iron railing with one hand and stood at the top of the stairs to the admissions building. I smiled confidently, my eyes captivated by the opportunity all around me. When I looked at that same photo years later, I saw a girl who knew nothing about St. Paul’s, a girl who was too young and naive to go to a place like that.
I was walking with Mom and Dad to Lucy’s volleyball scrimmage when Lucy called and said the team might need an extra player.
“Grab some clothes from my dorm. This could be awesome.”
Holy crap. I was going to play with the St. Paul’s varsity team? I raced past Library Pond to Kehaya, the nicest dorm on campus. It looked like an old English manor house, with a brick exterior, a stone courtyard, and a sprawling manicured lawn. Lucy had one of the biggest rooms, with a floor-to-ceiling window and a spacious loft. At St. Paul’s, it was the lap of luxury—so much so that the girls living there were called the Kehaya princesses.
I ransacked Lucy’s room, grabbing spandex shorts, a gray tank top, athletic socks, and sneakers. I couldn’t find any extra ankle guards or knee pads. I was just going to have to tough it out. I took deep breaths.
“Don’t get your hopes up, Chess,” I muttered to myself. “Enough girls may show up.”
But what if they didn’t? This could be like an unofficial tryout for the team! I walked slowly into the athletic center, which had recently had a $24 million makeover. I marveled at the vastness of the place—an Olympic-size swimming pool, an indoor track, a wrestling arena, and two basketball courts. I climbed the V-shaped staircase to the volleyball court and stood awkwardly behind the glass. The coach, Doc Reynolds, waved me onto the court.
