by Alexa Land
“No, but he comes over a lot. He’s unemployed and living at home, and he and my brother always seem to be fighting. It’s funny. Our parents are fairly open-minded, but somehow Shigeo ended up pretty uptight. He hates Max’s long hair, tattoos, and piercings and is always getting on him to ‘clean up his act’. Actually, as far as that goes, Dad’s not a fan of tattoos either, which is why I haven’t told him I’m getting one tomorrow. I mean, I know I’m an adult and it’s my decision, but I don’t want to argue with him.”
“What does your dad have to say about your piercings?”
“He only knows my ears are pierced. I decided the nipple piercings are on a need-to-know basis. Not that he’d care all that much. I can take them out when I perform, so they’re not a big deal. Tattoos are another story. My dad’s main argument against them is that they might make me less employable as a ballet dancer.”
“Why would a ballet company care if you have tattoos?”
“Almost all mainstream companies consider them visually distracting, so they require dancers to cover them with makeup before they perform. That’s less than ideal, though. Not only are you prone to sweating off the makeup, but you’re probably going to end up smearing it all over your costume, and anyone else you come in contact with.”
“I see. So, given that, why are you getting a tattoo?”
I paused outside my mother’s studio and said, “Besides the fact that I like them and have always wanted one, I think it’s my way of embracing the fact that I don’t want to be mainstream and fit the mold of some big, pretentious ballet company.”
“Makes sense to me.”
I pushed open the door to the studio, and Duke followed me inside. The spacious, octagonal room was lined with windows and skylights, and it contained a dozen canvases in various stages of completion. My mom stood right in the center of the space, totally focused on the canvas in front of her. She was barefoot and dressed in a colorful caftan and matching headband that held back her chin-length white bob. All of that made me smile. She’d been a surgeon before she retired, and I loved the fact that she’d totally reinvented herself in the last few years.
Duke stopped in his tracks and whispered, “Is she painting a…oh, never mind. I just got that it’s a close-up of a pink flower.”
The flower in question filled a five-foot-square canvas, in a style similar to Georgia O’Keeffe, with a dash of Roy Lichtenstein thrown in for good measure. She painted in bright colors and added black outlines, which gave her macro florals almost a comic book feel. I thought they were fantastic.
She glanced over her shoulder and exclaimed, “Hi sweetie! Come on in and introduce me to your friend.”
I crossed the room and kissed her cheek, then made the introductions. Duke seemed even more formal than usual as he shook her hand and said, “Thank you for allowing me to join you for dinner, Doctor Takahashi.”
“Call me Toshiko, and you’re welcome any time.” She turned to me and asked, “Did you stop off in the kitchen, and if so, what’s your father making for dinner?”
“I don’t really know what it was,” I said. “It just looked brown. He wanted me to tell you it’ll be ready in half an hour.”
“He took another healthy cooking class,” my mom said as she turned to the canvas and assessed it critically. “Last week, he came up with nine different things to do with kale.”
“I only know of one thing to do with it: throw it away.”
“The kale smoothie actually wasn’t horrible.”
“Not horrible isn’t exactly a ringing endorsement,” I said, and then I headed for the door with Duke right on my heels. “We’ll let you get back to work. See you at dinner! I like your newest giant lady parts painting, by the way. So does Duke.”
My roommate looked stricken, and I grinned as my mother clicked her tongue and said, “Why does everyone have such a dirty mind?”
“Because you’re painting a giant vag, Mom. It’s cool, though. I totally respect your righteous feminist statement.”
“It’s a peony!”
I called, “Keep telling yourself that,” a moment before the door swung shut behind Duke and me.
I chuckled as we crossed the yard again, and Duke said, “Your parents seem so nice.”
“They are.”
“I’m sorry they got rid of your swing set, though.”
“It’s my own fault. I told them they could, because I was trying to be mature about it. Good thing I didn’t make the same mistake with my room.”
I waved to Max and my dad on the way back through the kitchen, and Duke and I headed to the other wing of the house. When I opened my bedroom door and flipped on the light, Duke exclaimed, “No way!” He looked awe-struck as he wandered into my room and spun in a slow circle, and then he surprised me by saying, “You grew up in a Studio Ghibli movie.”
“I can’t believe you know what this is!” The walls and ceiling of my room were painted to look like we were in the country. The background was a forest of fluffy camphor trees, and rendered in perfect detail in the foreground were the house and characters from the animated movie ‘My Neighbor Totoro’.
He said, “I stumbled across one of their films by accident years ago when I was flipping channels, and it was so charming that I sought out more of them. Who did the painting? It’s extraordinary.”
“My parents hired a student from CCA. I always wondered what she went on to do after she graduated. I hope she ended up at Pixar or some other fabulous place.”
“CCA?”
“California College of the Arts. It’s here in Oakland.”
“Oh, right.”
“I have to show you one of my favorite things,” I said. “Well, two of them, actually. For the first one, you need to get comfy on the beanbag.” I gestured at the big, dark green lump in the center of the room. He grinned and awkwardly lowered himself onto it, as I went around and turned on every light.
“It’s just going to take a minute,” I said. “I need to charge it up.”
“Charge what up?”
“You’ll see. Here, you can play with this while we wait.” I handed him my Totoro, a round, grinning stuffed animal with gray fur and a white belly. It looked a bit like a rabbit with short ears and wide-set eyes, but according to the movie, it was a forest spirit. Duke smiled at me and tucked the toy under his arm. After a pause, I said, “Close your eyes.” He did as I asked, and I went around and turned off all the lights before dropping down beside him on the wide beanbag. “Okay. You can open them.”
Duke drew in his breath when he saw the way the room was transformed in the darkness. The artist who’d painted the mural had added hidden details with clear, glow-in-the-dark paint, and the scene came to life around us with all kinds of wondrous things that had been invisible when the lights were on. There were flowers, cute little animals, a full moon, and a starry night sky. Best of all, a long, wide ribbon of the little puffball dust creatures from the film streamed from a crack in the old house. I put my head on Duke’s shoulder and whispered, “Isn’t it amazing?”
“It really is.”
“The other thing I wanted to show you is the nighttime view outside my window, the one that made me want to move to San Francisco when I grew up. From this distance, the city looks like Neverland.”
He took it all in, and after a while, Duke murmured, “You and I might as well have grown up on different planets. All of this is so far above and beyond anything I ever experienced.”
“I don’t know why I got so lucky.”
There must have been something in my voice when I said that, because Duke turned his head to try to look at me in the darkness. After a moment, he said softly, “You feel you don’t deserve this.”
“I’ve felt that way all my life.”
Duke said, “That’s surprising. Growing up with such a loving family, I wouldn’t have expected you to be so insecure.”
“According to the therapists I saw for most of my childhood, by the time I was adopte
d, the damage had already been done. Sometimes I wonder if I’m doomed to spend my entire life as this needy, pathetic little thing, desperate for love, praise, and attention.”
“You’re not pathetic. Far from it. You’re just someone who was badly hurt, and you’re doing the best you can, despite what was done to you.” He took my hand and was quiet for a while before saying, “It’s odd. I was convinced we had nothing in common. But I just realized I was totally wrong.”
“I’m so sorry you were hurt too, Duke.”
“I didn’t mean to tell you that last weekend, when I said nobody hurts me anymore. It just came out.”
“I know, and you don’t have to tell me anything else if you don’t want to,” I said as I held his hand in both of mine. “I know how painful it is to talk about the things that were done to me before I was abandoned.”
Duke whispered, “Oh God. You remember.”
“Yeah. Not everything, but bits and pieces.” I took a deep breath, and then I got up, turned on the small lamp on the nightstand, and said, “I didn’t mean for this conversation to get so heavy.”
“It’s my fault. I’m always too serious.”
“Come on,” I said as I headed to the door. “I want to show you the rec room. Maybe we can work up an appetite over a heated game of ping pong.” It was a pretty clunky attempt at changing the subject, but Duke was more than willing to go along with it.
As we headed down the hall, he said, “Thank you for letting me tag along today, Quinn. It meant a lot to me.”
“You’re being nice. I’ve probably bored you out of your mind.”
“Just the opposite. This look into your life has been fascinating.”
I pushed open the last door on the left, and Duke murmured, “Just when I thought the house couldn’t get any better.”
Half of the huge room had been converted into a dance studio for me, with smooth wood floors and a mirrored wall spanned by a long ballet barre. The other half included a pool table, ping pong table, dartboard, and a comfortable seating area. I crossed the room and picked up a pair of paddles, and then I smiled at Duke and asked, “Are you one of those people who holds a grudge when they lose?”
“Doesn’t matter,” he said as he took a paddle from me, “because there’s no way I’m going to lose.” There was a playful sparkle in his eyes.
“Oh, it’s on,” I said as we took our positions at either end of the ping pong table. “What should we play for?”
“Bragging rights.”
“That’s a given. But what else?”
“You tell me.”
I thought about it for a moment, then said, “If I win, you have to bake me cookies when we get home.”
“And if I win?”
I smiled at him as I tossed the paddle in the air and caught it by the handle. “That’s not going to happen.”
“Okay, so when I win, you have to make me dessert, and possibly buy me a sandwich later, because I’m not so sure about whatever your dad’s cooking. What on earth is keen-wah anyway?”
“Quinoa is a grain. It’s supposed to be good for you.”
“So definitely a sandwich and dessert.”
“You’re on,” I said as I tossed him the little, white ball. Then I grinned and said, “Let’s see what you’ve got.”
When Max came to tell us dinner was ready maybe fifteen minutes later, we were right in the middle of a prolonged rally for match point. I’d been surprised to find Duke was actually a great ping pong player, and we were pretty even. I jumped out of the way when he hit it off the end of the table, and then I exclaimed, “Yes! Victory and cookies are mine!”
We put down our paddles and headed to the door, and Duke said, “That was fun.”
“Why are you so good at it? I thought I’d smoke you.”
“There was a ping pong table in the rec room at my old church in South San Francisco,” Duke explained. “I taught Sunday school, and the kids and I used to play afterwards, while they waited for their families to pick them up. But then our pastor moved to a church here in the city, and my parents and I followed him, so I haven’t played in about a year.”
Max was staring at Duke as if he’d just said, ‘I eat live crickets for the extra protein.’ I asked, as we headed to the kitchen, “What does the Lutheran church think about homosexuality? I asked you once before, but I never got an answer.”
“The church is divided on the subject. Unlike the Catholic Church, we don’t have a single governing body that dictates to the entire organization. Instead, we’re overseen by several synods, each with their own take on it,” Duke said. “Unfortunately, the pastor my parents are so enamored of is pretty intolerant. If it were up to me, I’d go back to my old church. The person who took over is much more progressive.”
I asked, “How is it not up to you?”
“I guess it is, but right now, the Sunday morning tradition of going to church and then lunch with my parents is working for me. If it wasn’t for that, I’d be expected to go to their house once a week for dinner, and…let’s just say, I’d rather not. Ideally, I’d have liked all three of us to remain at our old church. I think hearing what the new pastor had to say would have gone a long way toward boosting my parents’ tolerance and understanding.”
“But you’re a grown man,” Max said. “Why not just go to the church of your choosing and say thanks but no thanks when they ask you to come to dinner?”
I knit my brows and said, “Just like you always stand up to your dad, Max? It’s easier said than done, and you know it.”
“My relationship with my parents is already precarious, and it wouldn’t take much to drive the last nail into that coffin,” Duke said. “Anyway, enough about that.”
We’d arrived in the kitchen, where my parents were making some last minute adjustments to the stew’s seasoning, and my mom said, “It’s a nice night, so I think we should eat on the deck. Will you kids set the table?”
Place settings for five were already stacked on the counter, and I grabbed the plates and napkins and said, “On it!” Max and Duke followed with the glasses, placemats, and cutlery. As we worked our way around the long, redwood table, I lowered my voice and told Max, “I’m getting my first tattoo tomorrow. Don’t tell Mom and Dad.”
“Dude, you have the coolest parents in the world,” he said as he tossed a red placemat on the tabletop. “There’s no reason to hide that from them.”
“My dad thinks tattoos are a mistake,” I said as I straightened the placemat and put a plate on top of it. “I don’t want him to be disappointed in me.”
Max rolled his eyes and said, “Whatever. It’s your body. So what if he’s less than thrilled? He’ll get over it.”
“Just don’t say anything.”
“I won’t. Where are you getting it done?”
“At this studio called Artifact in the city. The owner is a friend of a friend. His name’s Yoshi Miyazaki.”
Max’s eyes went wide. “No freaking way! You know Yoshiro Miyazaki?”
“Keep your voice down,” I said. “Kind of. Like I said, we have some of the same friends. Do you know him?”
“I wish! He’s an insanely talented, nationally recognized tattoo artist. Do you realize what an honor it is to get inked by him?”
I said, “All I know is, he’s a nice guy, and I like his work. I’ve only seen this sleeve of a cityscape he inked on himself, but it’s incredible.”
Max asked, “Do you suppose I could, you know, just happen to drop by during your appointment? I’d love to meet him.”
“Sure. It’s at three, and he blocked off four hours. You could also just book an appointment with him, you know. It takes a couple months to get in, but still.”
“I’ve thought about doing that for years,” Max said, “but I always chickened out, because I wouldn’t just be going for a tattoo. I always wanted to ask him if he’d take me on as an apprentice.”
“You totally should! You’ve talked about becoming a tattoo artist s
ince high school. Come by during my appointment tomorrow, and bring your sketchbook. I’ll ask to see some of your drawings, and then we can casually work apprenticing into the conversation.”
Max looked worried, and he began to fidget with a silver stud in his right earlobe. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m aiming too high. I should probably build up a little experience somewhere else before approaching someone of his caliber….”
“Come on, just give it a shot,” I said. “What’s the worst that could happen?”
“He could tell me my drawings are terrible, and that I have no business wanting to tattoo my homely shit onto people’s bodies.”
“There’s absolutely no way that would ever happen.”
Max chewed his lower lip, and after a moment, he said, “Yeah, okay. I’ll drop by maybe an hour into your appointment. But try not to oversell me, okay? You tend to be really enthusiastic about stuff, so don’t, like, introduce me as the world’s greatest illustrator, or some crazy shit like that.”
“I promise to tone it down.”
“Good.” Max continued his path around the table and asked, “What are you getting?”
“It’s going to be Totoro wearing his leaf hat, right here,” I said, touching my ribcage. “How perfect is that? My favorite character from my favorite movie, which was, of course, written and directed by the great Hayao Miyazaki, and I’m having it inked by, wait for it…Miyazaki! Yoshi isn’t actually related to the filmmaker. I asked. But still, I think that’s oddly perfect.”
Max raised an eyebrow and said, “You’re such a dork. Also, you know the ribcage is one of the most painful places on the body to get a tattoo, right?”
“I heard, but that’s where I want it.” I wrapped my arm around myself and rested my hand on my ribcage. Then I glanced through the sliding glass door and said, “Here come my parents. Let’s change the subject.” Max sighed, and I blurted the first thing that came to mind, which was, “Did you know people thought tomatoes were poisonous in ancient times? I always wondered how they found out that wasn’t the case. Like, maybe it was because of some poor guy who’d given up on life, and he staggered into the town square with a tomato, ready to end it all, and was like, ‘Goodbye, cruel world!’ And he took a huge bite of the tomato, but then he was like, ‘Shit.’ But maybe he went on to invent marinara sauce and totally turned his life around, and it was a happy ending after all.”
