“I’ve got Art History,” I say. “In the Humanities building.”
“I know. I’m in it with you. I’m Penny Collins.”
She’s in my class? I pretend like I knew that. Like I know who she is.
“So, um, we should probably head over,” I say, still smiling.
We walk in silence, but she keeps looking at me like she’s expecting me to do something. Or say something.
“Thanks again for the Diet Coke,” I say. “I, uh, I owe you one.”
“Great!” she says, beaming at me like I’ve just given her a present.
I watch her sit down and try to remember if I’ve ever noticed her before. Then I look around the rest of the class and try to see how many other classmates I don’t know by name.
Finally, in Advanced Physics, my last class of the day, I see Seth. I notice him in a way I’ve never noticed him before − how he folds himself into his desk, eyes down, knees jittery, fingers twirling a pen. I think about going up to him, but what would I say? Inside the walls of our real life, our desert encounter seems like a dream. So, instead, I sit at my own desk and wonder if he’s looking out for me too.
Usually, people like him kind of fade into my background. I’ve got my group of friends, and I don’t usually notice anybody else.
Everybody notices our group, though.
And everybody notices me.
* * *
Near the end of the lesson, our teacher, Ms. Crawley, asks why stars twinkle but planets don’t.
I raise my hand. “Because planets don’t emit their own light. Not the way that stars do.”
“That’s not it,” says a voice from behind me.
I whip my head around. It’s Seth. He’s leaning back in his chair and he’s smirking. This is the first time I’ve ever heard him speak out in class, and I can tell from Ms. Crawley’s expression that she’s just as surprised as I am.
“What do you mean?” I say. I know I’m right.
“Well,” he says, in a bit of a drawl. “It’s about the refractive index of the earth’s atmosphere changing.” I like his voice. It’s all gravelly and low and raspy. He sounds like Liam Neeson or a young Willie Nelson or something. I noticed it at Joshua Tree, but it suits him better out in the desert than in a high-school Science classroom.
“That might be part of it,” I admit, “but I’m still right.”
“It also has to do with the distance of the stars and the planets,” he goes on. “Stars appear to twinkle because they are so far away. Everything always looks better from a distance.”
“Not everything,” I say with a wink, getting a laugh from the class.
Seth grins at me, and, to my surprise, I find myself grinning back.
“Maybe,” he says.
“You’re both right,” says Ms. Crawley. “Now, can someone else explain to me the refractive index of the atmosphere in more detail?”
We’re still smiling at each other when the bell rings.
CHAPTER 5
And then life goes on, and it’s like Seth and I never spoke, like we never found each other out in the desert. I stay in my sparkly orbit with my friends − the one that all other planets are drawn to − and he goes back to the outer reaches of the social galaxy. I catch him looking at me in class sometimes, and sometimes I look back, but that’s it. Still, I can’t shake the feeling I discovered a different Seth in the desert.
Then I come down with the flu and miss a week of class. Dre gets all my assignments for me from my teachers, but I need the lecture notes from Advanced Physics.
“There’s got to be somebody you can call who can share their notes with you,” my mom says. She’s got her blonde curls pulled back in a bun, and she isn’t wearing any make-up, which is rare for her. Right now, you’d never guess that she used to be a famous supermodel. Never guess she was once the Suzie Smith. Right now, she’s just my mom and she’s stressed out about me getting these notes in case I miss key information about what’s going to be on the final in a few weeks.
“Well,” I say, “there’s this one guy I could call.” That’s a lie. I could call anyone in class. But it feels like … an opportunity.
I look up “Seth Rogers” in the school directory, but when I call, nobody picks up. I’m not surprised. Who even uses landlines anymore?
“No answer,” I say.
“Well, darling, do you want me to drive you over there? I really think you need to get the notes this weekend, so you can prep for finals.”
I groan because I know that she won’t let up unless I get these notes. Both of my parents take my grades very seriously. They take everything about me very seriously. If Mika were here, the pressure on us would be split, the expectations divided. There is still my little brother, Koji, of course, but it’s not the same. Mika was the oldest, and all their hopes for her have been crushed onto me, the next eldest. And I hate to disappoint them. It’s why I try so hard to be the best, to be everything they want me to be. To be everything they wanted Mika to be. It makes me wonder what high school would have been like with Mika. We would have been the Smith-Mori sisters.
We would have been legendary.
“I can drive myself,” I say. If I’ve got to go over there, I’m at least going on my own. It’ll be weird enough for me to just show up at Seth’s house. I don’t need to make it weirder by having my mom there with me.
I put the address into my phone and drive off into the darkness. He lives further out than I thought. I’m practically in the high desert, and the dark is the kind of desert dark that can swallow you whole if you aren’t careful.
“Well, shit,” I say, starting to wish I had let my mom drive me.
Finally, I pull up in front of a small trailer, tucked next to a low mountain. No neighbors. No nothing. I wonder if this is the right place. But the number on the mailbox matches the one in the school address book, so it has to be.
I knock on the gray door of the trailer, and a small woman with graying curls opens it a fraction and peers out at me, like she’s scared who might be on the other side. “Who are you?”
I blink, her rudeness taking me by surprise. I’m not used to it. Most people aren’t rude to me. “I’m Reiko Smith-Mori.”
“Smith-Mori? What kinda name is that?”
I bristle. My last name is double-barreled. My mom’s American surname meets my dad’s Japanese one. And it is a name that I’m proud of. To me, my last name perfectly represents who I am.
Seth appears behind this small, sharp-tongued woman. “Reiko?” he says.
It’s the first time I’ve heard him say my name since we met out in the desert, and it does something funny to my insides.
“Hey,” I say.
“Who are you?” His mom is still glowering at me.
“Just a girl who goes to my school,” Seth says.
“We’re in the same Science class,” I explain, going on full charm offensive. “I’ve been out sick for the past week, and I wanted to find out what I missed.”
“Was I supposed to be taking notes for you?” Seth asks.
“Um. No. I just thought I could copy yours?”
I’m still talking to them through a crack in the door.
“I could come back tomorrow?” I’m starting to wonder if showing up unannounced at night like this was a bad idea. I just assumed Seth would say yes and get his notes, because that is what most people do when I ask them for something. It doesn’t matter what time it is.
“No, no. Now’s fine,” says Seth, but his mom doesn’t move.
“Now isn’t a good time for guests,” she says in a tight voice.
Seth sighs. “It’s fine, Mom − Reiko won’t care.” He opens the door. “Come on in.”
* * *
The trailer is small, and it looks like the sofa is in the kitchen, but that isn’t what makes me blink and squint in the dim light. The floor, the table, the couch, every available surface, are covered in scraps of metal, glinting gently. Seth steps over a pile of it and
makes a space on the couch.
“Welcome to our castle,” he says, stretching his arms out wide above his head. “It’s small, but shiny!”
The whole trailer could fit inside the swimming pool in my backyard. I’ve never seen a home this small. Even the apartments in Tokyo that we used to stay in were bigger than this. I feel like I’ve fallen into a documentary or something. That this isn’t reality.
I wonder what Seth would think if he saw my house.
“Thank you for having me in,” I say. Then I crouch to get a closer look at all the shining scraps gleaming on the floor. “What’s all this?”
“You’d be amazed what people lose in the desert,” says Seth’s mom. Now that we’re inside, she’s friendlier.
“Mom, you sound like you are some kind of pickpocket. Or a hustler.” Seth looks up at me. “Before her shifts, my mom goes hunting for treasure.”
“What kind of treasure?” I ask.
“Any kind! All kinds! I search with my trusty metal detector and haul home my finds and sort it.”
“How’d it go today, Mom?” says Seth, and the tenderness in his voice hurts my heart because I know what it is like to feel tender and protective of your parents. “Find any diamonds?”
“Maybe,” she says, inspecting something that looks like a melted watch, like out of a Dali painting. “But then again, you never know until you look,” she says with a wink. “Especially near the casino.”
“My mom works at Morongo,” Seth explains.
“What do you do there?” I ask. Morongo is a nearby resort with a casino and a nightclub. Dre and I have been known to sweet-talk our way in on occasion. Then we dance all night, and I turn into yet another Reiko, one who doesn’t give a damn about anything but having a good time. When I go dancing, I feel alive. It’s like when I go out in the desert and explore on my own. Sometimes I feel like I have to grab hold of anything I can, everything I can, and live live live.
“She’s a server on the floor,” says Seth, his voice spiked with defensiveness.
I nod and smile to reassure him that I’m not judging his mom. At least, I don’t think I am. I’m trying not to.
“I’m also an occasional blackjack dealer!” his mom declares.
“Yes, that too. Treasure hunter, cocktail waitress, and blackjack dealer,” Seth says. But his tone has softened, his earlier defensive spikes have melted away like icicles in the spring.
“The boss doesn’t like when I play because I always win,” his mom whispers, like her boss might be right around the corner.
“I thought the house was always supposed to win?” I say, because that is what my limited experience of gambling (from watching James Bond movies) has taught me.
“House has gotta let the little guy win sometimes. Just enough to give him a taste. Just enough to make him keep coming back.”
I smile politely. “I’ve never played blackjack.”
Seth’s mom’s eyes widen. “Never played blackjack! Well, sit down then. And then Sethie can give you those notes. Oh, Sethie, you should show her your games too. He’s got so many. He’s been collecting them since he was a little kid. He’s a bit of a hoarder, just like me!” There’s a pride in her voice. She smiles at me, and it transforms her face.
“Games? Sethie?” I mouth at Seth.
“Don’t you dare,” he mouths back as his mom starts dealing out cards on the table.
I smile. It’s funny that this is only the second time we’ve ever really hung out; it already feels like we have inside jokes.
We play cards for hours, and while we do, we talk about silly things like what our favorite flavor ice cream is (salted caramel for me, Oreo for Seth, mint for his mom) and what Harry Potter House we are (we’re surprisingly both Slytherins, and his mom is definitely a muggle) and what we think our Patronus would be (mine is an eagle or an owl, something with wings, something that flies, and he thinks he’d have a stag, like Harry. I try to tell him he can’t have the same Patronus as Harry, but he insists). I can’t remember the last time I talked about Hogwarts Houses with my friends, and I like it. But then my phone buzzes, and it’s Dre and I suddenly wonder what she, what everyone would say if they knew I was hanging out with Seth Rogers.
I close my eyes for a second, and remind myself who I am at school and who I have to be. I’m going to be a senior this fall and it means so much to my mom for me to make homecoming court. No, not just court. Homecoming queen. Like she was. And I want it to. I know Mika would have been, and I owe it to her and to my mom to make sure I am too. And disappearing into the night with a guy like Seth Rogers is not the kind of thing a homecoming queen would do.
I stand up, my folding metal chair scratching against the linoleum floor. “I should get going,” I say.
“But we haven’t even finished this hand,” says Seth’s mom. “And Sethie still needs to show you his board-game collection!”
Seth blushes, and I smile, and then it’s like I can see all my friends, my group, right in front of me, brows raised, giggles muffled, and I can taste their judgement in the air.
“I’m so sorry,” I say, and I am, but I also need to get out of here now. “I really need to get home.” I smile at Seth’s mom. “Thank you for having me.”
Seth walks me to my car. I pause before I get in, remembering something he said earlier. “Why did you tell your mom I wouldn’t care about…” I struggle to find the right words.
“The trailer? The junk everywhere?”
“It’s not junk,” I protest. “It’s like buried treasure.”
“Exactly. I knew you’d see it like that.”
“How did you know?” I say, feeling suddenly seen out in the desert dark. But not in a bad way, in the best way.
He shrugs. “I could just tell. I don’t know. Maybe it was from that night…”
His voice trails off and I know he’s been thinking about that night too, and I know that he saw me the way I saw him. Different to how anyone else sees us.
And I like it.
“So … what is the deal with this mysterious game collection your mom mentioned?” I ask, grinning.
“If you wanted to see it, you should have stuck around,” he says, smiling back.
“Well” − my words come out before I’ve thought them through, before I know if I mean them − “I guess I’ll have to come back.”
“Really?” And he’s so eager, so hopeful, I almost can’t bear it.
“Really.”
You know the expression, “they lit up”? Seth really does light up when I say we should exchange numbers. It looks like someone has lit a match inside of him – no, more than a match. It’s like a bonfire is alight inside of him, and the light is just pouring out of him.
It makes me light up too.
CHAPTER 6
My sister is sitting in her favorite spot, at my vanity table, when I walk into my bedroom after getting back from Seth’s.
“Where have you been? I’ve been waiting for you,” she asks, her dark eyes full of hurt. “You said you’d play chess with me.”
“Sorry.” I flop down next to her.
“You never spend time with me anymore.”
“What are you talking about? We spend plenty of time together.” The lie tastes sour in my mouth.
“I always had time for you.” The past tense of her comment, and the bitterness of it, startles me.
“Mika-Mouse,” I say, but she turns away.
“I don’t want to be Mika-Mouse anymore. That’s a baby name. I’m fourteen, not a baby anymore.”
For ever fourteen. It’s so painful to think about how she’s gone from being my older sister to my younger one.
“You’ll always be Mika-Mouse to me. But I’ll call you Mika if you want.” Her name is pronounced Mee-ka. My mom wanted to spell it M-e-k-a to make it easier for people to know how to pronounce, but my dad said she meant easier for American people to pronounce, and Mika should be proud of her Japanese name.
And then Mika di
ed and it didn’t matter how her name was spelled or pronounced.
I told Dre once, years ago, that I still see Mika. And she didn’t laugh at me. She did something worse. She told her sister. Who told their mom. Who told my mom.
And then I had to go to a therapist, who told me over and over that Mika is dead.
I know that.
After all, I was there when it happened.
But that doesn’t mean I don’t still see her. I just don’t tell people that I do.
I haven’t said Mika’s name to anyone after that conversation with Dre. Her name has become some sort of unutterable curse.
Now I only say it to her.
“Hang out with me, Reiko,” she says now, getting off my bed and twirling around the room. “You promised you would.” She’s switched into Japanese. We used to always speak Japanese together. It felt like our secret sister language. We were going to move to Japan together and study at our dad’s alma mater, the University of Tokyo. She would have gone two years before me, of course, but I was going to follow her, and then we’d get an apartment in Tokyo. We even had a scrapbook with pictures of all the places we were going to go to in Asia together and what our dream apartment would look like. Mika would spend hours online, looking up maps and cool furniture and then print everything and painstakingly cut it out and put it in our “Japan” scrapbook. We’d planned it all out.
After Mika died, I stopped speaking Japanese out loud, and this year I’m applying to UCLA with Andrea. I won’t go to Japan without my sister and I won’t speak Japanese with anyone else. Even if I wanted to, I can’t; the words won’t come. They died with Mika. And when she speaks Japanese to me, I answer in English.
But I still look at the scrapbook sometimes.
Mika walks away from the bed and absently picks up a small blue stone on my dresser. “Is that guy Seth your boyfriend? I think he looks weird.”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” I say. I don’t try to figure out how Mika knows about Seth and what he looks like. I don’t question anything with Mika. I’m scared that if I look too hard, she’ll disappear for ever.
And then her voice drops to a whisper. “I’ve never had a boyfriend. Not a real one. Nothing that really counts.”
Only Love Can Break Your Heart Page 2
