«So you want me to take the money?»
«If you did, I wouldn't feel so guilty.»
«You don't get it, Yuki,» I said. «I don't want money for being your friend. I don't want to be introduced at your wedding reception as 'the professional male companion of the bride since she was thirteen.' Everyone would be tittering, 'professional male companion, professional male companion.' I want to be introduced as 'the boyfriend of the bride when she was thirteen.'«
Yuki blushed. «You turkey. I'm not going to have a wedding reception.»
«Great. I don't like weddings. All those absurd speeches and the bricks of wedding cake you're supposed to take home. Strains the boundaries of propriety. But all I want to say is, you don't buy friends. Especially not with expense account money.»
«That makes a good moral for a fairy tale.»
«Wow! You're finally getting the proper gift of gab. With practice we could be a couple of stand-up comics.»
Shrug.
«But seriously, folks, ...» I cleared my throat. «If you want to hang out with me every day, Yuki, I'm all for it. Who needs to work? It's just pointless shoveling anyway. But we have to have one thing clear: I'm not going to accept money for doing things with you. Hawaii was different. I took money for that. I even took the woman thrown in. Of course, I thought you weren't ever going to talk to me again. I hated myself for allowing the whole business about payment for services to happen at all. From now on, I'm doing things my way. I don't want to answer to anybody, and I don't want to be on somebody's dole. I'm not Dick North and I'm not your father's manservant, whatever his name is.
You don't need to feel guilty.»
«You mean you'll really go out with me?» Yuki chirped, then looked down at her polished toenails.
«You bet. You and me, we could be this pair of outcasts. We could be quite an item. So, let's just relax and have a good time.»
«Why are you being so kind?»
«I'm not.»
Yuki traced a design in the dirt with the tip of her sandal. A squared spiral.
«And I'm not a burden on you?»
«Maybe you are and maybe you aren't. Don't worry your pretty little head about it. I want to be with you because I like you. Sometimes when I'm with you, I remember things I lost when I was your age. Like I remember the sound of the rain and the smell of the wind. And it's really a gift, getting these things back. Even if you think I'm weird. Maybe you'll understand what I mean some day.»
«I already know what you mean.»
«You do?»
«I mean, I've lost plenty of things this far in my life too,» said Yuki.
«Well, then, there you are,» I said.
She said nothing. I returned to looking at the visitors to the shrine grounds.
«I don't have anybody I can really talk to but you,» Yuki spoke up. «Honest.»
«What about Dick North?»
Yuki stuck out her tongue. «He's a goon.»
«Maybe he is and maybe he isn't. But I think you should know, he does good, and he's not pushy about it. That's pretty rare. He may not be up to your mother's level, and he may not be a brilliant poet. But he genuinely cares for your mother. He probably loves her. He's a good cook, he's dependable, he's considerate.»
«He's still a goon.»
Okay, okay. Yuki obviously had her feelings on the matter. So I changed the subject. We talked about the good times we had in Hawaii. Sun and surf and tropical breezes and pina coladas. Yuki said this made her hungry, so we went to eat pancakes and fruit parfaits. Then we took in a movie.
The following week, Dick North died.
34
Dick North had been doing the shopping on a Monday evening in Hakone and had just stepped out from the supermarket with a bag of groceries under his arm when a truck came barreling down the road and slammed into him. The truck driver confessed that he didn't know what possessed him to gun full-speed ahead in such poor road visibility. And Dick himself had made a telling slip. He'd looked to his left, but was one or two breaths behind in checking his right. A common mistake among people who have lived overseas for any length of time and have just returned to Japan. You haven't gotten used to cars driving on the left-hand side yet. In most cases, you come away with chills, but sometimes it's worse. The truck sent Dick sailing into the opposite lane, where he was battered again by an oncoming van. He died instantly.
When I heard the news, the first thing that came to mind was going shopping with Dick at a probably similar supermarket in Makaha. How knowledgeably he selected his purchases, how he examined the fruit and vegetables and unembarrassedly tossed a box of Tampax into the
shopping cart. Poor bastard. Unlucky to the last. Arm blown off in Vietnam when the guy next to him stepped on a mine. Running around morning to night putting out Ame's smoldering cigarettes. Now dead on the asphalt holding onto a load of groceries.
His funeral saw him returned to his rightful family, his wife and child. Neither Ame nor Yuki nor I attended.
I borrowed the Subaru back from Gotanda and drove Yuki to Hakone that Tuesday afternoon. It was at Yuki's urging. «Mama can't get by on her own. Sure, there's the maid, but she's too old to do anything and she goes home at night. We can't leave Mama alone up there.»
«Yeah, it's probably good for you to spend some time with your mother,» I said.
Yuki was flipping through the road atlas. «Hey, you remember I said bad things about him?»
«Who? Dick North?»
«Yeah.»
«You called him a goon,» I said.
Yuki stowed the book in the door pocket, rested her elbow on the window, and turned her gaze to the scenery ahead. «But you know,» she said, «he wasn't so bad. He was nice to me. He spent time telling me how to surf and all. Even without that arm, he was a lot more alive than most people with two arms. Plus, he took good care of Mama.»
«I know.»
«But I said nasty things about him.»
«You couldn't help yourself,» I said. «It's not your fault.»
She looked straight ahead the whole way. She didn't turn to look at me. The breeze blowing in through the window ruffled her bangs.
«It's sad, but I think he was that sort of person,» I said. «A nice guy, maybe even worthy of respect. But he got treated like some kind of fancy trash basket. People were always dumping on him. Maybe he was born with that tendency. Mediocrity's like a spot on a shirt—it never comes off.»
«It's unfair.»
«As a rule, life is unfair,» I said.
«Yeah, but I think I did say some awful things.»
«To Dick?»
«Yeah.»
I pulled the car over to the shoulder of the road and
turned off the ignition.
«That's just stupid, that kind of thinking,» I said, nailing her with my eyes. «Instead of regretting what you did, you could have treated him decently from the beginning. You could've tried to be fair. But you didn't. You don't
