Starling Days

by Rowan Hisayo Buchanan

  “So women order the beer?” he asked.

  “I guess.”

  But Jim paid more attention to the drink orders made by cute girls. This was not exactly an unbiased accounting.

  The pelicans took flight. They moved together, like dandelion seeds blown across the water.

  “Do guys ever order it?” Oscar asked.

  “Yeah, a couple. You know, I think we’re out, actually. I can check later.”

  “That’d be brilliant.”

  Oscar made it home with no wrong turnings.

  He placed the sake bottles on one side of the table, the beer and chūhai on the other. Each bottle gave a heavy clink as he moved it aside. Pure sake was too searing for the puritanical regulations of most American states, which would not allow spirits into a grocery store. A beer with 3.2 percent ABV or under would be ideal. That would pass the grocery test in the majority of states. The sobriety of American shopping aisles had confused him when he’d first arrived from Britain, where all beacons of drunkenness stood proudly together under the banner of Beer, Wine and Spirits.

  The chūhai was lower in alcohol, but harder to classify. It was a mixed drink and was likely to fall foul of the intricate grocery-store laws, which differed from state to state. Better to stick with beer. In most states, if a drink was classified as a beer, it could be sold down the aisle from dog food and toilet paper.

  He filled a glass with water, as he’d need to clear his palate. He wrote the date in the top-left corner of a clean page of his notebook.

  “I don’t want to interrupt,” Ami interrupted. She was holding a blue bowl in both hands as if she was making an offering at the temple of an obscure god. She laid it at his elbow and he looked down to see goldfish crackers. “Snacks. It’s not good to drink on an empty stomach.” She pulled up a chair beside him and picked up a fish. “I shouldn’t be having these, not at my age. There’s too much salt. My doctor told me to avoid salt, oil, red meat, coffee.” She talked fast. The sleeves of her cardigan were pushed over her elbows.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “About before, what I said about working for your father. I didn’t want you to think . . . I don’t have any children, you know that. We wanted to, but . . .” She paused. “That doesn’t matter. What I’m trying to say is, I haven’t had a lot of practice at that sort of advice.”

  “It’s not a big deal,” he said. She must have thought so many times how much simpler her life would have been without him. As a boy, he’d certainly wished her dead. He’d thought that was all it took to play happy families. One mummy. One daddy.

  He asked which was her favorite beer, and she pointed at one with blossom emblazoned on the front. He popped it open and she poured it into two glasses.

  “Does Mina like London?” she asked, as she took her first sip.

  He should never have left Mina alone in London. He should never have let her go to that appointment by herself. Weird that there might never be a child with his face and hers. He hadn’t focused on it long enough to wish for it. But he’d always assumed there would be a kid he’d teach to recite two times two is four, three times three is nine, four times four is sixteen. He’d figured they’d sign up to the YMCA and he’d hold a little body while it kicked water and held onto his neck, always knowing it could rely on its father. “I think so,” he said.

  Ami said, “I loved it. I loved those houses in Notting Hill with all the different colors. And those kids on Carnaby Street in their corduroy flares and those flowery shirts. They looked so wild. You just wanted to pluck them and put them in a vase. We almost lived in London, you know.”

  She looked down at her drink. Oscar grabbed a handful of the goldfish.

  Ami undid the loose knot of her hair so it flowed down her back. “I suppose Ichiro wouldn’t have had much space in London.”

  “No,” he said, “I suppose not.”

  The drink was sweet.

  “What do you think?” he asked Ami. “Would women buy this? Would your friends buy this?”

  Ami tilted her head. “I’m not sure.”

  He spun the bottle around to the nutrition label, scanning for エネルギー enerugii, energy, i.e. calories, and winced. That number would not be female-friendly. “But you’d drink it?”

  Ami shrugged, and a shoal of wrinkles appeared in her neck. He’d never drunk with his own mother. They had tea and custard creams. Though one of his early memories was of an empty white-wine bottle on the side table. His mother and some woman lay on the sofa. The woman’s head rested in his mother’s lap and his mother was stroking her hair. The woman had been crying. He hadn’t seen an adult cry before.

  Oscar downed his drink. Then he swilled water over his molars and the top of his mouth. He dug the bottle opener’s beak into another beer. It gave a satisfying pop. It was one of the best parts of a drink, that hiss. A mushroom of foam rose to the surface. Oscar knew the brewery but he’d never had their red rice ale. The liquid was as red as strawberry coulis. The taste was yeasty. Fruity too. It would be good with fried noodles, he thought. Or a fry-up. Or a burger, even.

  “Aniseed,” Ami said.

  “What?”

  “That’s the aftertaste.”

  “Let me write that down,” he said.

  Somehow the conversation drifted to the first drink Oscar’s father had bought Ami—a vodka lemonade. And from there to how he’d come to her small apartment to smash every roach using his own copy of the phone book. That somehow, even in the hard years, he’d found a way to buy her tickets to the zoo.

  They were halfway through a peach-jelly drink that Ami had discovered at the back of a cupboard when his father came downstairs.

  “I haven’t made dinner,” she said. “I’ve been helping Oscar with his research.”

  Oscar held up the notebook. His father stood looking at them. He was wearing a blue golf shirt. Had he been playing golf? Oscar didn’t own any golf shirts. Oscar owned clothes for life and clothes for exercise and he didn’t allow them to cross-pollinate. As he stared at the shirt, he felt his face get warm. He touched his cheek. When this happened with friends, he always said, “Oops. Asian glow.” But it would be weird to say that now. It would sound like he was blaming them. Look what you did to me. Oscar laughed for no reason.

  “I’ll cook,” his father said. Ami laid her head on her arms, like a kid slumped over her desk.

  “You should visit more often,” she said. “I need a drinking buddy.” Her eyes glittered. One arm lay extended outwards and each knuckle was the size of a hazelnut, but the fingers themselves were narrow splints. How had her hand looked when she was young? When he was a child, Ami was only a figure judging them from a distance, like a CCTV camera. She yawned and swirled her glass.

  “You’re a lightweight,” he said.

  “Takes one to know one.”

  Oscar wasn’t sure how much time passed before his father returned carrying two plates. Fried eggs on toast and a handful of greens.

  “I don’t know how much salt and pepper you like,” his father said. The edges of the eggs were curled and crisped.

  “Thanks, Dad.”

  After Oscar’s father put Ami’s down in front of her, she grabbed his now empty hand and kissed the back. Oscar’s face heated up as if he’d been spying. He looked away and out of the window. The sun was a yolky yellow at the edge of the sky. Oscar split the yolk on his plate and watched it spread to match the sunset. His tongue was booze-numbed, but the egg whites were flaky and the butter was sweet. They didn’t talk as they ate. Every now and then he heard the rush of a car on the road. He was glad to be staying put.

  When are you coming home? Mina texted Oscar.

  Soon.

  That’s what you said yesterday. When?

  Soon.

  I miss you, she typed.

  I miss you too.

  No, but I really miss you.

  No reply.

  Mina wrote, What if there was an emergency?

  Is it an emergency?
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  No.

  How do you tell if it’s an emergency before it’s already too late? She’d wanted to understand the floor plan of her sadness. Here it was. She managed half an hour on the wall, flecks of paper getting under her nails, until she gave up.

  After a break for hummus and bendy carrot sticks, she tried again at research. Her mouse flicked to JSTOR to download yet more articles about surviving women. She couldn’t decide if JSTOR’s seemingly unending database of academic thought was a horror or wonder. Every time she typed in the words, she expected to see a review or thesis outlining everything she wanted to say but better. Other times she wondered if it was possible to construct any argument at all. Take, for example, the beautiful Ariadne, sorceress, priestess, and keeper of the Minotaur. Ariadne, who fell for Theseus, son of Poseidon, sinewy and strong. Ariadne taught Theseus how to escape her father’s labyrinth. She rode with him on swift ships away from her home, her father and all she knew. She survived her father. She survived the escape. She must have felt she had earned her hero’s love. Yet on the island of Naxos, he abandoned her sleeping form. What would it have been like to wake up to a blue Mediterranean sky and no lover? What happened to her afterwards? In some tales, she was killed by Artemis, in others by Perseus. In some versions, she hanged herself from a tree. How long did you have to live for it to count as survival?

  “As it’s a special occasion, I thought I’d break out the daiginjō.” His father proffered the bottle with a sommelier’s poise.

  “Thanks. You didn’t have to.” Oscar smiled.

  “Nonsense. I wanted to.” His father explained how this brand used only Yamada-Nishiki rice. “The strain predates the war. None of this bio-engineering anti-pest shit. Emperors drank sake made from this rice.”

  It was not a brand they sold to Americans. Few would know to value it. It must’ve been from his father’s personal stash. The sake cup was the soft white of the feathers Oscar bounded across, running to the shore. He closed his eyes to catch the drink’s bright notes. His palate was dulled from the champagne Ami had served with the first course. Even so, he was impressed by the complexity of flavor.

  Ami brought out the cake. Strawberry slices formed a 33. The numbers were so close they were spooning. Smoke drifted up from the single candle. Ami passed him the knife. “For the birthday boy.”

  He recognized that triangle of steel and his hand clenched. The black handle with the dots of steel was the doppelgänger of the one in the London flat. He took this knife. Stupid to be upset. Mina was far from this steel edge.

  “Go on,” Ami said.

  He lifted the knife and saw a small inscription, a German brand, a good one. This was more expensive than the cheap implement in the London flat. A false twin.

  The cake was frosted. As he pressed the knife, icing cracked, like a lake in spring. The cake was too big for three people, but he cut and served and made the required appreciative noises.

  “Is this the famous rice-cooker cake?”

  “Nah,” Ami said. “I saw the recipe on TV.”

  “Did you see this?” his father asked, holding up his phone. The president’s face shone in an expression of contorted rage. For a while Oscar, his father and Ami talked about the people on the news as if the politicians were mutual friends. Unfortunate and idiotic friends, but people they all had in common. People they shared. The conversation was easy, nice, even.

  There was a pause during which he realized his brain was a warm buzz. The empty champagne magnum was on the table, brandishing its torn golden flag.

  “I’m sorry,” Ami said. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

  At first he didn’t understand what she was sorry for and he looked around to see if the champagne had spilt. Her face was red, not just drink-pink, but red around the eyes. Her mouth twisted, and the wrinkles sliced deeper.

  His father leaned over and rubbed her shoulder. He made the noises you’d make to a lost animal or a small child. “Sssh . . . sssh . . . sssh . . .”

  Oscar stood, but then he didn’t know what to do so he sat again. A crying woman was a strange object. He never knew how to interact with one. Mina, he just held. But this person? The strangest thing was that Ami was smiling tentatively behind the tears.

  His father looked up. His hand was on Ami’s neck. Ami wiped her eyes with her index fingers. There weren’t many tears, just a smear of liquid and a shine on her short eyelashes. “It’s silly. I was just thinking about the cake.”

  “It’s delicious,” Oscar looked down at it. “Really good. Nothing to cry about.”

  “No, not this thing.” She waved a hand over the assembled crumbs. “About all the cakes we didn’t make you.”

  Why should this woman be baking him cakes? “It’s fine.”

  “I . . . We were going to live together. You’d live with us. Your dad planned it. I knew by then. I knew, and I was so angry. I was fucking angry. On top of everything else, this woman was going to have a baby.” She glared into the grain of the table.

  His father kept making that “Sshh . . . sshh” noise.

  “I held you and you were such a cute baby. You tugged onto the ends of my hair like this.” She made two tight fists. “I wanted to chew you up. To nibble on that cute little leg. But she was always there—your mother. Watching us. I just wanted her to go away. I thought maybe we could just pretend she’d died. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be saying this about your mom.”

  “What do you mean I was going to live with you? You were going to adopt me?” Oscar asked. He didn’t want to think about Ami chewing his leg.

  “We’d been trying for a while by then to have a baby so your dad offered to raise you and take care of everything. But your mother refused. Said she didn’t like the idea of a son on the other side of the world. Your dad came up with a second plan. We’d go to London. He didn’t tell me what was going on until he’d bought the flats. Wanted to have all his chips in place. She’d live upstairs and you’d be downstairs with us. Your mom could be a career woman or whatever. He even did the wallpaper the same so you’d feel like it was one big home. Birds. Your dad said your mother liked birds.”

  “Wait. The flats? You all were going to live in the flats?” He looked to his father for confirmation, for sanity, for context. How would the visas even work? But Ami kept talking. His body got hotter and hotter, as if he were sitting too close to a fire. He swiped at his forehead with the back of his hand.

  “You were so cute but . . . there was your mother. She didn’t even want a baby. She wanted to be some hotshot journalist. And yet she had you. I guess I wasn’t very nice. But I couldn’t share you with that woman. A home with that woman. I . . .” She wasn’t crying now, just looking at her hands. “I told your dad he had to choose. It was you or me. I’m ashamed of it now . . . but I don’t know if I could have said anything different.”

  “Journalist?” Oscar asked. His mother was not a journalist. His mother laughed at the TV journalists whose inane questions she typed up. Whenever she said, “The press,” she rolled her eyes.

  The chair’s spindles dug into his back and he had the urge to stand, to pace, but he stayed put.

  His father said, “When I met your mom she was writing articles for this women’s magazine, but she told me she wanted to be a serious reporter. Investigative journalist, that’s what it was. She was uncertain about raising a child. So I suggested an arrangement.” He said these things as if he had had nothing to do with the situation, as if he were merely reporting the facts.

  Ami sucked the tines of her fork. There was no cake left on her plate.

  Oscar’s mother had never said anything about journalism. What was his father trying to imply? What did uncertain mean? That Oscar might’ve been aborted?

  Oscar closed his eyes. He felt the cake gumming the roof of his mouth.

  Abortion was normal, sensible, even. He was the result of infidelity, of an inadvisable fling. He was an inadvisable child. His mother must have considered it. He clenched his han
ds under the table, then unclenched them. This was the sort of thing Mina would make a big deal of. But he wasn’t Mina.

  His mother had held career ambitions beyond typing up other people’s words. But who did the things they’d planned? He’d grown up fine without Ami’s birthday cakes. At the end of a run, you had to force your body to slow, to ease the breath in and out, and that was what he did.

  His father gathered up their plates. Oscar scooped up the empty flutes. He inserted the champagne bottle into the recycling.

  “Oh, bubbles in the brain,” Ami said. “I’ve ruined everything.”

  “No, you haven’t,” Oscar said, because it seemed the thing to say.

  They were silent as his father plastic-wrapped the remaining cake. The cling-film pressed down and smeared the icing. The center sagged. The cake disappeared into the refrigerator. His father shut the fridge door slowly, carefully.

  “It was an idea. It didn’t work out,” his father said. “I guess I don’t always understand women that well. But the rent on those apartments paid for your school. So, in the end, they weren’t a bad buy.”

  Was this it? The talk they were supposed to have? Big whoop. They had failed to adopt him decades ago. Strange how when people let you down there are rarely explosions. Rarely blood. Just that sense of a dimming of light in the room.

  Ami blotted her eyes with the kitchen roll. These people were better suited to raising a llama than a child. His father stood there in that ridiculous aquamarine golf shirt, the Brooks Brothers lamb stitched on the pocket. Ridiculous. This was all ridiculous. Oscar’s mouth was sharp with too much sugar from the cake he’d eaten out of politeness.

  “This is why you asked me here? To tell me this?” His throat was taut.

  “Oscar.” Ami was standing, coming towards him, as if to hug him. And he knew then that he did not want to be touched.

  “I’m going for a run,” he said.

  “It’s dark,” she replied.