Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Two
Kit
A few weeks into their friendship, Kit realized that Amy was always late, unlike Ryo, who always stood waiting for her with a broad smile on his face at whatever place they had agreed to meet.
This was a new dynamic for Kit, who was used to Sabrina waiting for her—there was an unspoken law of friendship that the person who waits was always more invested than the late arrival.
Amy didn’t wear a watch. It’s too stressful, those pings and being controlled by time. Which meant that she was always late—by at least half an hour, if not more. Kit almost expected her to say that “time is just a construct”—but she wasn’t sure yet of how philosophical Amy actually was.
So she sat, waiting for Amy in the American Club reception, the recreational club where Amy often chose to meet, so she could sneak off for a pedicure and put it on my parents’ tab.
She finally realized how Sabrina felt every time she met her at the country club, where she was forced to wait in the reception area before she was signed in and allowed on the premises.
When they met for lunch, she always ordered the same thing: a taco salad, finely shredded lettuce, tomatoes, jalapenos, and chicken in a bowl made of crispy taco shell that she left untouched, and a Coke Zero.
She also always ordered the same thing for Kit.
Kit sighed and looked at her watch. Twenty-eight minutes late.
She shook her leg impatiently and began to scroll her phone.
She opened up Sabrina’s Instagram and wrote a message to her.
Hey Rina, miss you. Hope you’re not too sad about China.
Been thinking about you. For a moment, she hesitated before sending it.
She thought about all the times she had been late to meet Sabrina, and pressed send.
She typed Ryo’s name into the search window.
She found his account and saw he had posted a picture of Genji with his tongue hanging out of his mouth and a comment in Japanese she couldn’t read.
There would always be parts of him she could never reach.
A part of his mind that would think in Japanese, his life in this country where she felt so foreign.
Perhaps she was ha-fu like Amy had said, but she had not been raised in the same way as Ryo and his sister.
Kit’s world was confined to the familiarity of Chestnut Hill, where nobody even knew what that word ha-fu meant.
Amy’s arrival was always unpredictable: either silently appearing from the shadows or announcing herself with the most ceremony she could muster. Today it was the latter. The word bloodsucker ran through Kit’s mind.
“Oh, honey, I’m sorry, I was totally distracted and lost track of time. You know me.”
She kissed the air around Kit’s cheeks.
“It’s okay. Where are you coming from?”
“I was at Christian’s.”
Kit paused for a moment, certain that the older music teacher Amy had met up with at the bar was called Sean. She couldn’t adjust her face in time, but Amy didn’t seem to notice, or maybe she didn’t care.
“Hold this for a second, will you, while I sign us in.” Amy handed her bag to Kit. Amy signed at the desk and walked straight to the entrance without reclaiming her bag. The door closed on Kit’s shoulder as she tried to balance Amy’s bag, her own bag, and her water bottle in her arms.
“Christian?” Kit called after her as she followed her through to the café. “I thought it was Sean? At the bar? Christian, as in Ryo’s friend?”
Amy flung herself noisily into a booth and scanned the restaurant.
“Yeah, things got kinda complicated.”
Amy ordered for both of them. Kit didn’t like Coke Zero; she preferred water. She tried to say as much, but Amy’s attention had already moved on.
Kit looked around. There was a depressing lull in the air.
Hushed voices, a canteen-like echo of plates and glasses being moved around.
She understood now why Amy liked to go there—her parents paid the bill, and there was nobody she knew, no young people to impress, the older members eating there midweek were meaningless on Amy’s social radar.
“So I think Ryo has planned this trip to Kyoto. I heard him talking to Christian last night. Guys are not good at these things, you know? Like, they don’t think about numbers. Whether it will be even. Boys never seem to think that way, that someone might be left out or whatever.”
Kit realized that to Amy, having a place within the group dynamic was of great significance to her, while Kit’s only concern was whether she had a place beside Ryo.
When lunch arrived, Amy began to explain that last summer she had been involved with Christian, Ryo’s best friend.
A fling, she called it. Ryo had been away, staying with their uncle and aunt in California for three weeks.
Kit wondered what he might have been doing in California during that break, who he had been spending time with.
She hated the thought of him on a beach beside another girl.
Amy explained how she had had sex with Christian and lied to him about it being her first time.
“I lost my virginity in tenth grade to Paul Lehman, I think I was fifteen or something. He was a senior. I was so into him. I’d sneak off in the afternoons to the gym when I was supposed to be in my singing lessons, and he’d fuck me on the mats in the storeroom. ”
Kit was shocked to hear Amy describe her first time like this.
The aggressiveness of the words. There was no romance, as though it were something that had to be endured.
She still promised herself that her first time would mean something, and felt a relief that she still held on to her first time as something sacred.
“I had no idea what I was doing, most of the time he just guided my hand down there, it was kinda gross, I guess. But also, like, it wasn’t pleasurable for me.”
Kit couldn’t disguise her surprise, and wondered whether Amy was saying all this for dramatic effect.
When she was around Amy, she teetered between nervous fear of what she would do next and excitement at being around someone so different from anyone she had ever known.
She felt this with both Ryo and Amy, that their world was so far and foreign from the one she had grown up in. It made her miss home.
“Did you love him?”
“Christian? No way. But I was super into him, so I just went along with it all. But I guess that’s not very sexually empowered of me or whatever. I think he got bored of me, it only lasted a month, but we never told Ryo about it and I made him swear all of it to secrecy.”
Kit thought about Dave. Maybe he had used the same words as Amy: We keep this between us, okay?
“I’m glad I got it over with. So I knew what to expect with a guy.”
“And that was…”
“A couple of other guys, and then Christian.”
Kit’s eyes widened for a moment, her brain couldn’t catch up. She wondered how many guys Amy had been with—and if this was all true. She wanted to grab her hand and ask her if that was what she really wanted.
“Can I ask you something, Amy?” Kit didn’t wait for a response. “Don’t you want to love them? Like, isn’t it better when you’re with a guy in that way, if you love them?”
Kit readied herself for Amy to laugh at her or brush off her question.
“Maybe, but it’s not how it has been for me so far.”
They were silent again. The only sound was Amy’s taco shell being snapped off in her fingers as she looked away into the room full of people she didn’t care about.
“Christian is pretty sensitive, but I don’t know how he’d feel if he knew about Sean. Or that I’d been dating other guys. I mean, we haven’t had the talk yet about whether we’re exclusive. But I don’t think he loves me either.”
“Do you love him?” Kit asked, her voice coming out in a whisper. She realized that she sounded childish. All this talk about love.
Amy shook her head, confused. “God no.”
“So you’re not going to keep it going with Christian, then?” Kit asked.
“I mean, probably not. I don’t know. But I am definitely not looking for anything serious with him. What about you, honey? You’re not hungry?”
Kit hadn’t touched her salad. She didn’t know why. And she didn’t tell Amy about her feelings toward Ryo, or that anything had happened between them at all.