Dead Ringer

“And I mean it, each and every time.”

Maggie smiled. Dick could always make her laugh. “Save my place.” She slid off the stool.

“I’ll have another drink waiting, on the house.”

“Hey, maybe you really do love me.”

She moved through the crowd toward the Japanese woman. The middle of the day and the bar was full. A testament not only to the bartender, but to the food. When Dick and his partner bought the place it had been called Taco Town. They changed the name and decor, but kept the staff and the Mexican food, because everybody said the cook, Juanita Juarez, did the best Mexican this side of the border.

“Konnichi wa. Watakushi wa Maggie desu. Anata no onamae wa?” Good afternoon. My name’s Maggie. Yours?

“Oshima Tomoko desu. Nihongo o hanasu desu ne. Sore wa ii desu ne.” I’m Tomoko Oshima. You speak Japanese. That’s good. And she continued on in her own language. “My husband was supposed to meet me here, but I don’t see him.”

They talked for a few more minutes, then Maggie turned to Dick, standing behind the bar.

“What?” He had his hands spread wide, palms upward.

“She says an American friend, who works for Visa in Tokyo, said this place has the best Mexican food in the world. Her husband was supposed to meet her here after a business appointment, but apparently he got hung up.”

“Did you hear that?” Dick said to the couple in the tennis outfits. “Even in Tokyo, they know about the Lounge.” He was beaming. Then to Maggie, “Tell her I got a Japanese car. Wait, no don’t, I’d sound like an idiot.”

“You are an idiot,” someone said.

Laughter.

“Show her to a table. Tell her lunch is on the house, drinks too.”

“Hey, Dick, you never gave me a free drink,” someone else said.

More laughter.

“You didn’t come halfway around the world just to eat in my restaurant either,” Dick said, “so get hosed.”

Everybody was laughing now, Maggie too.

They took a table in the middle of the dance floor. The Lounge served a mean Mexican lunch, but when lunch was over and the tables were cleared away, the Lounge became the classiest pickup place in the Shore.

“You speak Japanese, do you read as well?” Tomoko had her purse on the table in front of herself. She was fidgeting with the handle.

“Yes.”

“Good, because I don’t, not without my glasses.” She took an envelope out of the purse and handed it to Maggie. “Can you read this? My husband left it at the hotel reception for me, but I lost my reading glasses somewhere in Disneyland yesterday.”

“KCS,” Maggie said.

“What?”

“Kanji Chicken Scratch. It means your husband has sloppy handwriting. It’s what my mother called my Kanji when I was a little girl.” She smiled, read the note. He says he had to reschedule the appointment. He wants to meet you here an hour later, at 2:00.”

“I feel so stupid.”

“Don’t. Actually it’s a good thing, for me anyway. I’m meeting someone myself, but not till 3:00. We could have lunch together, if you don’t mind. I really need somebody to talk to.”

“I’d like that.” Tomoko’s fingers were calm now. She was smiling.

“Do you know Mexican food? Or would you like me to order for you?”

“I’ll trust you,” Tomoko said. “And I’d like to have one of those margaritas.”

Gloria, Juanita’s daughter, was working the section they were sitting in. Maggie signaled her.

“Hola, mi amiga,” Gloria said

“Hola yourself.” Maggie laughed. Then ordered them each a taco combination plate. “Y dos margaritas, tambien.” And two margaritas also, she added.

“So, you speak Spanish, too,” Tomoko said. “Do you speak any others?”

“French, but Japanese was my first language. It’s my favorite. I like to think in it. It gives my thoughts clarity.”

“Your first language after English, you mean.”

“No, my mother was Japanese. It was first. My father was American. English was second. A close second, but second, nevertheless.”

“You don’t look Japanese.”

“I know, there’s a story behind that.” Maggie studied the woman, wondering how much to tell her. She’d probably never see her again and she desperately wanted to talk to someone. She’d start at the beginning, but she’d make sure she got to the end.

“In 1970 the Vietnam war was going strong. My dad was in the Marine Corps and he had an affair while he was stationed at Camp Pendleton. He told me he didn’t love the girl, but he was going to war soon and, well, you know how it is. The girl got pregnant, but she didn’t find out till after my dad met my mom, got married and shipped out.

“She wrote and told him, but by the time the letter caught up to him, he was in a VA hospital in Hawaii, I was already born and she was dead.”

“Dead, your mother died?” Tomoko said.

“Yeah, her name was Belinda Moorehead. She was nineteen years old, estranged from her parents and living in this motel in San Diego. Two weeks after she got out of the hospital, she flew off with some Marines in a small plane to see a Grateful Dead concert in Santa Barbara.

“They never made it. The plane went down over the ocean. The bodies were never recovered. I had a twin and till the day I die, I’ll never understand why Belinda took her and left me.”

“Why would a woman leave a two-week-old baby behind?” Tomoko said.

“I don’t know,” Maggie said. “But that’s what she did. The authorities took the surviving baby, me, to Belinda’s parents. But they’d written their daughter off and didn’t want anything to do with her child and since it wasn’t possible to get a hold of my dad, they contacted his wife, my mom. She grabbed right on to me. She couldn’t have kids of her own, so I was like an answer to her prayers. When my dad found out, he took care of whatever had to be taken care of and he and his wife raised me. So you see, I’ve had a Japanese mother ever since I was two weeks old.”

“Your mother must have been pretty special, most women wouldn’t accept a baby born like that, the product of a husband’s affair, even if she couldn’t have kids.”

“They didn’t even know each other when he had the affair, remember? But, yeah, she was special, my dad too. They met on a Monday and were married on Friday. It really was love at first sight.”

The drinks came.

They picked them up, held them to toast. “Kanpai,” they said and sipped.

“They sound like exceptional people, your parents.” Tomoko set her drink on the table.

“Oh they were. My dad was a geologist and worked in Libya and Saudi Arabia while I was growing up. His work schedule was usually three months on, three off, so we lived in Europe. Majorca when he worked in Libya and Paris when he was in Saudi. We came back to California because Dad wanted me to go to high school in America.”

Tomoko sipped at her drink, looked at Maggie with liquid brown eyes. “I had three brothers, they all went to Too Dai, Tokyo University. For me they found a husband. One didn’t waste money on girls back in those days.”

“They married you off?”

“Yes. Oh how I hated them for that. I suspect my husband wasn’t so fond of me either. He was the youngest son of four brothers. His siblings also went to Too Dai, but Kendo wasn’t considered bright enough. However, we learned to love each other and together we worked, bought a small business and