Chapter Fourteen #2
“Yeah, it’s great up there. I feel bad, I forgot about this party. Your mom mentioned it to me this morning and I just lost track of time in town,” she said.
Kit rubbed the skin on her chest and wondered if she could take a cold beer from one of the girls passing drinks trays around the room.
Ryo stood before her and she felt like he took up the entire room, and suddenly, her entire universe.
He pushed back his thick dark hair, watching her with a smile that seemed to know more about everything than she did.
She wanted to notice things about him that made him less perfect.
Maybe he wore too much gel in his hair, maybe there was something affected about him, maybe he was a poser.
But his hair was soft, just washed, he wore shorts and walked barefoot through the house.
If anything, he was as underdressed for the party as she was.
He was wearing a white shirt, and suddenly white shirts were her favorite thing for any boy to wear.
She stared at him and committed everything about him to memory.
He greeted adults in a way she hadn’t yet learned to, meeting their eye, an affectionate embrace as though they were old friends, equals even, and this made her feel a vast expanse separated her from the world he seemed so comfortable in.
“These things can be kinda boring, don’t you think?” he whispered. Kit felt his shoulder brush against hers.
“Well, I can’t say I’ve been to a lot of them.” Kit surprised herself with her candid honesty, but seconds later she hated the sound of her own voice.
“What do you think so far?” he asked. Kit didn’t dare look at him as she stood beside him.
“Definitely not like the parties my parents throw back home.”
“And that’s Philadelphia, right? I heard you’re starting Penn this fall? I’m headed to Berkeley.”
The Buchanans had spoken about her before she arrived. Maybe they’d spoken about her since she’d arrived too. Having not cared too much about the impression she made, she suddenly realized she cared very much.
“Hey, you want a sharpener? A day of sightseeing can really take it out of you.” He smiled, and she noticed he had dimples. “It’s my pick-me-up when I have to go out and I’m tired.”
Kit didn’t know what was being offered to her, and she felt herself tensing through her legs and up to her ears.
Her life in Chestnut Hill so far had been free of peer pressure, largely due to the safe protective force of her friendship with Sabrina and nonrelationship with Dave Harrison.
She followed Ryo to the kitchen, where trays of hors d’oeuvres and drinks had been left out for the servers to take.
“Here, hold these for me.” He passed her two tumblers from the freezer. Her fingers created little circles on the frosted glass. “My pops is obsessed with frosted glasses. I’m starting to get it now though.”
He took a bottle of Patrón Silver tequila from the back of the freezer and she watched him pour the thick liquid into the glasses and squeeze in fresh lime.
“This might just make the party a bit more interesting.” He winked and passed her a glass.
Kit looked at the shot and a small breath of relief escaped her mouth. This was a real drink, the kind people drank in penthouse apartments in the city. Not the kind of drinks she’d had under the bleachers at school, or at Casey Steinham’s house parties when her parents were away.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“I didn’t know what kind of sharpener you were talking about.” Kit laughed and put the glass to her mouth.
“Oh really?” Ryo looked at her with an amused glint behind the eyes.
“Oh no. I’m not into drugs and stuff. I just, well…”
“You just didn’t know whether I would be.”
A silence fell between them and they both started to laugh. They finished their drinks, then Ryo heard his mother call for him and brought Kit back to the party. “I’ll come find you later. Welcome Katherine…Kit.”
She watched him disappear through the crowd toward his mother. Kit felt like she was watching him in slow motion.
Out beyond the grand reception room and through the wide doors that had been opened up for the party, she could see an American flag waving over the pristine lawn.
It looked strange and out of place. Kit looked around the room again, her body warm and fuzzy from the drink.
She rubbed her arm. There would be a streak of red skin now from the friction.
She stopped in front of a cluster of photographs on a baby grand piano, all in glistening silver frames.
She touched the edge of a frame and saw the fog of her finger make a halo, then disappear, leaving a smudge mark.
The photograph was of Rick and Yuriko Buchanan, standing beside the Clintons.
Rick was a handsome dad. There was a picture of Ryo and his sister in traditional Japanese kimonos outside a temple.
A high school graduation portrait of Ryo.
Yuriko’s modeling pictures from the 1970s were displayed in a perfect line, and Kit thought of the photo on the wall back home, of Sally smiling with her lacrosse team from high school. Something pulled at her throat.
“You wanna beer or wine, Katherine? Kit, is it?” Amy Buchanan, Ryo’s younger sister, was standing beside her.
“Kit, call me Kit. I, uh, I’m not sure. You’re Amy, right?”
Amy ignored Kit’s question and any introduction.
“You don’t drink?”
For a moment, Kit tried to translate Amy’s tone.
Her accent fell somewhere between American and European, and she sounded different from her brother and father.
There was a clipped ending to her words, the way she would expect a British person to speak, embedded into her American accent.
She couldn’t tell by her tone whether Amy was judging her or if it was just how the words came out of her mouth.
“I do. I just, I guess I don’t know if I feel like it right now. And, you know, I’m staying at your parents’, so I don’t know how they feel about drinking. It’s kind of different back home.” Why was she speaking so much? Kit realized she could feel that tequila now.
“Your parents or like generally in America? Where are you from again?” Amy didn’t wait for Kit to answer.
“Because my mom can be a total bitch about things, but she is kind of relaxed about a little drink at a party, especially when it’s not a sit-down thing.
” Amy talked fast, and Kit realized quickly that if she hesitated, Amy would fill the silent space.
She didn’t know whether she found Amy rude or refreshing.
“Wait here, okay?”
Kit watched Amy move as fast as she spoke.
Amy’s glass, set down on a sideboard, dripped heavily with condensation, and Kit quickly put a coaster underneath it.
Amy’s skin was pale compared to Ryo’s. They didn’t look similar to her at first, but there was something in how they carried themselves that said they were from the same world.
Amy had freckles scattered over her nose that matched her light auburn hair.
It was pulled up into a top knot, and it was hard to tell what its natural color was.
She returned with two glasses of white wine. “It’s cool,” she said, triumphant, and handed Kit the drink.
“Are you sure?”
“Oh totally. If my parents are cool with me drinking they’re cool with you. Relax, you’re our guest.”
“Right, as long as you’re sure.” Kit looked around but neither Rick nor Yuriko looked her way.
“Dad said he knows your mom too. They were at high school or neighbors or something.”
“That’s right, I think they grew up together or something. Do you know my mom?” Kit asked, hoping Amy would say she did.
“I don’t know. I meet so many of my parents’ friends and work people, it’s hard to keep track.”
They sipped their wine, Amy’s glass already almost empty while Kit tried to hide the urge to wince as the sour liquid hit the inside of her mouth.
“Hey, did you bring your suit? We can go swim. I think Ryo and his friends are going to the pool soon, so we can bail on this lame party. I’ll get one of the girls to bring a tray of drinks down.
Come on.” Amy grabbed Kit’s hand, and her palms started to sweat.
There wasn’t enough time for Kit to respond or react, Amy was already pulling her away.
She tried to wriggle her hand away from Amy’s grip, but it only made Amy hold on tighter.
Kit wished she could change. Her high-waisted denim cut-off shorts were sticky around her lower back, and her J.Crew T-shirt made her feel so ordinary.
Amy wore a baby-doll dress that skimmed her midthighs when it fell, but as she ran down the lawn, the hem floated up, and Kit saw her lacy neon pink underwear.
She caught a glimpse of Yuriko’s face in the background, lips pursed.
For a moment, she looked like the Dover sole her mother bought from the market on Saturdays.
I’ve been sole searching , Sally would giggle, and Kit always rolled her eyes .
Amy’s legs were long and thin, and she wore nothing on her feet. She hopped through the grass, while Kit tripped clumsily in her Vans. She awkwardly tried to stop herself from treading on Amy’s toes.
At the bottom of the lawn that sloped down at the end was a small outhouse that had white walls and lounge chairs folded up against it.
Kit could see the piles of stacked cushions that would have been put away at the end of the day, the way they were at the country club back home.
The far side of the pool was lined with a wall of bamboo plants that formed a fence and Kit could see the lights in the water.
She thought it looked cold, and noticed how the sound of the party had become muffled and distant.
“I didn’t bring a suit, but it’s cool, I can hang out by the pool instead, seriously.”
“I have your size, don’t worry. I keep a bunch of bikinis down at the pool house.”
Kit went into the pool house to change, her stomach churning at the thought of borrowing a bikini from Amy.
She listened for voices outside by the pool and silently prayed that Ryo and his friends would stay away until she was fully immersed in the water.
She heard a loud splash and started to feel dread in her gut, and needed the bathroom suddenly.
She felt uncomfortable in Amy’s black bikini; she longed for her favorite Adidas one-piece she used for her swim meets.
Kit stared at her reflection in the bathroom mirror, at the pale skin of her stomach, where the waistline of her jeans had left a mark.
The buzz of her fancy chilled tequila and white wine was wearing off.
She tried to push down the slight swell of her belly into the line of the bikini bottoms. She wrapped herself in a towel and walked out to find Amy waiting outside the pool house.
Ryo and his friends sat on the other side of the swimming pool.
Where were his friends earlier? Had they just arrived?
“Let’s see,” Amy said, tugging at the towel, and Kit opened it fast and closed it again.
She saw Ryo glance up at her, and her face flushed, heat rising through her neck and cheeks.
“Okay, I hardly got a look, but so cute. You have such a good figure, and the boobs. I’m flat as a pancake.
” She looked down and tugged at her bikini as if to show her.
Amy’s familiarity was strangely flattering; Kit felt like she was accepted, but she wished she wouldn’t touch her so much.
Kit never hugged Sabrina, and rarely her own mother.
“I feel a bit exposed.” Kit held the towel over her chest, hating the sound of her voice as she trailed behind Amy.
“No, you look so cute. Come on, let’s go swim.
” Kit followed Amy, who walked along the side of the pool in her tiny bikini in front of everyone, though nobody looked.
Kit was relieved that the swimming pool was some distance from the main house and the formal party.
She flung her towel aside and sat on the edge of the pool and eased herself in.
Amy was shouting something in Japanese to Ryo, who smiled at her and turned back to his friends. The water cooled Kit down instantly.
“How long are you in Tokyo for?” Amy asked, sitting on the side of the pool and dangling her legs in the water. Kit noticed her toes were painted red.
“I love your pedicure.”
“Oh thanks. It’s from the best place in Harajuku.
It’s classy enough that even my mom likes it.
Like amazing Japanese nail artists, not one of those dodgy nail bars with like illegal Vietnamese girls—I read this article about it.
I’ll take you next week if you like.” Kit rubbed her feet together underwater.
“I’m here for the summer, well, six weeks. Until August.”
“And then college? Where are you going again? Are you excited, my god, I’m so excited to be done with high school soon. Just like the freedom, and the guys at college, new friends.”
“Yeah, totally. I’m going to Penn. I’m not sure yet what I’m going to major in.
I wanted to travel a bit before school started, so I came here.
” The pretense of her independence felt good coming out of her mouth.
I wanted to travel. I came here alone. As though she had dreamed up the trip on her own, booked her tickets alone, and, having her own money, took sole responsibility for herself.
The same way she would walk into Target with her handbag in third grade, clutching the pocket money she’d saved from setting the table or helping her dad clean the car.
Nobody here knew any better. This was her story. Kit had chosen to travel alone.
“You’re ha-fu ?” Amy asked.
“Ha-fu?”
“You never heard that? It’s when you’re half Japanese, like one parent is Japanese and the other isn’t. You look like you’re mixed something, like us.”
The way Amy said it, it was completely different from any other time Kit had been asked the loaded question Where are you from from though.
It wasn’t an awkward obstacle that stood in the room, to be avoided or dealt with head-on.
She felt it all the more today after walking around Tokyo, where she felt deeply foreign, a clear gai-jin .
Instead, Amy was actually asking if she was like them, if she was one of them.
And nobody had ever asked Kit this question before.
“I am. I guess I am ha-fu ,” Kit replied quietly.
“Cool,” Amy said and dove into the water, splashing Kit in the face.
She watched Amy swim to the other side of the pool, and for a moment, time stopped.
She felt like she had been falling from a great height for years and finally landed on a pillow.
Relief swept over her as she realized that nobody wanted her to explain.
Nobody asked her where she was really from. Ha-fu was enough. She belonged.