Gaijin Read online

  “Wow,” Rose said, as if channeling my thoughts. “He’s something.”

  Chapter Six

  Each day of the first two weeks back at school Owen Ota wore skinny black jeans and t-shirts emblazoned with Japanese sayings or names like, Eat Aaaaaahiiii, Radiation Dolls, Red Zombies, Edo Warriors, and other things or bands I’d never heard of. Rose and I waved hello to him each day, but he always rushed in and out, leaving no time for conversation, not that I was brave enough to start one.

  Owen was the first bright thing to attract my interest since my dad died. I became intensely curious about him, which magnified my gut-searing attraction. I yearned to learn about his life in Japan and what he thought of the U.S., what he liked to eat, what he liked to do for fun, what his skin felt like. On the superego level, I found him different, intriguing. My id wanted to smell his lips.

  He distinguished himself in class right away with an essay comparing F. Scott Fitzgerald and David Foster Wallace, which the professor had him read aloud. Owen slouched a little as he stood in front of the class, not stiff and straight or trying to stifle a twitching eye or lip like most nervous young men did.

  “Both authors were hamstrung by mental illness,” Owen read, with no trace of self-consciousness. “Fitzgerald with addiction, Foster Wallace with depression. Their illnesses may have served as creative fuel for their earlier work, but in the end, cost them their lives.”

  The deep masculine quality of Owen’s reading voice startled me, and I felt conspicuous and awkward at my front-row desk, embarrassed by my giraffe-thin legs poking out from wrinkly jeans shorts. I was too skinny, and my face was unremarkable, but at least my eyes were pretty. One sophomore-year date had told me my eyes were, “ocean beautiful,” a compliment I conjured up at times I needed more confidence. Anyway, I was sure Owen hadn’t looked at me long enough to notice my aqua eyes or much else about me.

  As he continued to speak, I caught Rose’s eye and she gave a little nod. We were both impressed by his literary panache. He knew a thing or two, it seemed, just another reason for me to be intrigued.

  After class Rose teased me. “Bet you wish you wore something cute today. But you’re not ugly, so you have that going for you.”

  “Whatever. He’s interesting, right?”

  “Yeah. Interesting.” She pushed me on the shoulder, something she always did when teasing me, an affectionate jesting jostle. Rose kept her long auburn hair brushed in place and she wore chic Kate Spade sunglasses. She enjoyed poking fun at my unkempt curls and wrinkly denim. “Someday you’ll grow up,” she liked to say, meaning, if and when I grew up, I’d learn to dress better.

  “I’m a bohemian intellectual,” I’d say. “We don’t care about appearances.” Though in truth, I was starting to think about mine, the need for more attention to my apparel and grooming.

  Later that afternoon I ran into Owen in the packed student union hallway, our shoulders collided as we tried to pass each other. “Sorry,” I said, then inhaled sharply when I realized he was standing in front of me, close enough to kiss. He grinned. Could he read my mind, perceive my nascent fixation on him?

  “Hi Lu,” he said, with no trace of the testosterone-jacked overconfidence of most guys his age. He edged us over to the side of the busy hallway.

  “In your class introduction you said you write for North by Northwestern?” He rubbed his chin and I nodded. His breath was minty, and an unfamiliar spice wafted off his skin. “I will be too. Maybe we can work together?” From the way my heart jumped, he might as well have said, I am in love with you.

  “Yes,” I said, and looked down to fumble with my books so he wouldn’t see my cheeks go pink.

  “Seems like fun. At North by Northwestern you get to meet people and learn stuff, right? Like real journalism?”

  “Yep.” Just yep. I couldn’t think of what else to say.

  “Okay, well, see you Wednesday, Lu,” he said, and walked off, and I stumbled away as if I’d been sipping wine instead of attending classes.

  * * *

  For the next two nights I cooped myself up in my stuffy dorm and refamiliarized myself with North by Northwestern. It was the university’s well-respected online newspaper and I’d written simple campus news for it during my first three years—blurbs about the appointments of new deans, lists of academic award winners. But now I needed to get a better fix on all its sections, so I could start imagining what types of stories I could be assigned to co-write with Owen. I wrote an email to the editor asking for bigger stories than I’d done in the past.

  Two days later, I got an email back from the editor, informing me that I was welcome to write for the “Life & Style” section, in addition to my usual news blurbing duties. It was a letdown. At the little newspaper in my hometown, the “Life & Style” section was parties and fashion, topics I had no interest in. North by Northwestern’s “Life & Style” had more substance, but not much. I combed through it until I found a powerful piece about students whose mothers or fathers were in the Army serving in the Middle East, and another story about a professor who spent his summers in Honduras building homes for the poor. So, there would be some small potential to write serious pieces, to show Owen I could string together sentences that contained more than one word.

  On my walk to English class I cobbled together a plan; I’d make the most of every assignment, learn all I could, research every detail, interview anyone and everyone, and of course, spend time collaborating with Owen when possible. At best, I’d get to work with him, at worst, I’d gain some valuable experience that might help me land a job when I graduated.

  As I took my seat, I tamped down my sweat-frizzed hair and dabbed at my face with a Kleenex. Owen took the seat next to me, the first time he’d done so. Usually he sat across the room.

  “Hi Lu,” he said. “Hot enough for you?”

  He sounded just like anyone from Oakville, both in phrasing and inflection. “Your English is perfect,” I said, and immediately felt stupid for saying such an impolite thing.

  “Good education,” he said with a wink. “Nice hair, by the way. No one in Japan has such interesting hair.”

  Interesting. Heat rose up my neck. It was the same word I’d applied to Owen when I talked to Rose. I couldn’t stop myself from patting at my hair to settle my nerves.

  “Did anyone ever tell you your eyes are a pretty blue?”

  I thanked him and turned away, but he thrust his cell phone toward me. The North by Northwestern site was on his screen.

  “I made it on to the ‘Writing’ team.’”

  “That’s great,” I said, adding an upbeat inflection to my voice.

  Owen had been assigned to the most intellectual section of the publication, the one students who considered themselves writers wanted to work for. In the “Writing” section, there were stories about poetry and literature, poems, personal essays and short stories. Everyone knew that only the most creative, smartest students got to write for “Writing.” A stab of jealousy poked me. Then I reminded myself that a year ago I was sitting morose and silent in my Oakville bedroom and now I was on the verge of, I wasn’t sure. Everything?

  “They have me in ‘Life & Style.’”

  “Good for you, Lu. That should be fun.”

  “My father used to call me Lu,” I told him, and before he could respond I added, “I doubt we’ll ever get to do a story together.”

  “Not unless someone throws a poetry-writing party,” he said, with a teasing tone.

  “You’re funny.”

  “You’re funny too, Lu. And I don’t just mean funny looking.”

  Surprised by his silly joke, I burst out laughing. “You should talk. What’s that on your t-shirt today? A two-headed dog? Talk about funny looking.”

  He laughed too and shoved me gently on my shoulder. The gesture was similar to the one Rose always did, but his small nudge sparked my skin. It was progress. We were having an entire conversation and I’d strung together words into full, clear sentences
. Emboldened, I said, “Do you like living in Illinois?”

  “I do. But, I’m a gaijin. People look at me funny because I’m a foreigner. That’s what gaijin means in Japanese, foreigner.”

  Later, I looked up gaijin, and was surprised that Owen referred to himself with a word often considered a slur in Japanese. It meant foreigner, but its common usage was more like unwanted alien than welcome visitor. Of course, I knew people at Northwestern stared at Owen because he was magnetic, not because he was a gaijin.

  * * *

  For the next two weeks Owen and I walked together to the dining hall after English class. The awkwardness I’d felt in his presence started to ease and I was relieved to be able to focus on this intriguing newcomer, instead of on my grief about my father. Our conversations centered around North by Northwestern and our English class, and one day, I had a bone to pick with him.

  “In your first presentation, you said Fitzgerald had mental illness. Do you really think alcoholism is a mental illness?”

  “Did I say that?” He stopped in front of the student union, a serious expression on his face.

  “You did. Alcoholism isn’t a mental illness. It’s a disease,” I said, more aggressively than I intended.

  “Okay then. I guess you’re right.” He pursed his lips and did a small eye roll. “Are you an expert on this?”

  “No. Just pointing it out.” No way I’d tell him about my father. Never.

  “Okay,” he said. “I misspoke.” We threaded through the crowd, changed the subject to our upcoming interviews and essays and articles. When we entered the dining hall’s side door, he said a quick goodbye and zipped off to who knows where. I kept hoping he’d stay and have lunch with me, but he never did. After two weeks of this routine, I found the courage to ask him to stay.

  “Thanks, Lu, but I’ve gotta run.” Dejected, I watched him weave through the throng of lunchtime students and out the door.

  “Hey.” Rose stepped in front of me, dabbed on lip gloss. “C’mon,” she said and dragged me off to the cafeteria, trailing a wave of musky perfume. “Don’t worry. You’ll get your chance with him. Besides, you practically gave up dating after senior prom.”

  True enough. I hadn’t dated much after the incident with my father, but no one dated much in Oakville, they mostly just hooked up. Even in college, though I’d had a few casual boyfriends, I hadn’t considered any of them serious, as if I knew all along that Oakville and Northwestern guys were not going to be a part of my future. With Owen it was another story. I burned with rejection from the offhanded way he’d turned me down for lunch. I’d already spent hours fantasizing about him as my boyfriend, willing it into reality.

  Rose and I were sharing a plate of tangy Lake Michigan whitefish and rice when my phone chimed through the din of student voices and clattering dishes.

  “Who’s that?” she said, grabbing my phone, bobbling it and almost dropping it onto the fish. “Knew it. Owen.”

  I took my phone back. Owen had texted, “Wanna do the book project together? The one for English class? At my house?”

  “Yes,” I replied. We’d been assigned to read a poetry book of our choosing and attempt to write a similar poem.

  “Start soon,” he wrote. “Next week?”

  “Sure.” One-word texts, Rose reminded me, would make me seem casual, not over eager.

  “Here’s your big chance,” she said, twisting a small bit of her hair through three fingers, a tic she usually did when she flirted.

  “We’ll see.” I hadn’t told her about the electricity I felt when Owen touched my shoulder. I didn’t want to jinx it. “I don’t know if I get a romantic vibe,” I said. It was a half-lie. I knew how I felt, but I hadn’t been able to read him at all.

  “Yeah, right,” she said. “You’re a terrible liar.”

  Rose and I had shared everything since we were kids. Unlike most girls back home, we didn’t have any bitter breaks where one of us got mad over something silly and pulled away for a time. We’d stayed tight all the way through. She was the hip fashionable friend and I was the academic nerd, but it worked for us. But I didn’t want to discuss Owen. I wanted to keep him to myself.

  “Keep me posted about how things progress,” she said with theatrical emphasis, “with Owen.”

  The heavy hot air pressed on me as I exited the student union. I inhaled the scent of wet grass and squinted in the shafts of afternoon sun that slanted through the leaves of the tall oaks. When my phone rang, I couldn’t see the caller ID through the reflected sun on the screen.

  “Hi Lu.” It was Owen. Another jolt under my ribcage. “My mom asked if you’d like to come to dinner Friday. At our house. And since we have to work on the book project anyway….”

  I agreed and the next few days were a dreamy blur. Not even Leonard Cohen’s sultry poetry could lull me to sleep on Thursday night.

  Chapter Seven

  I rummaged around in my matchbox dresser trying to select an outfit. It wasn’t a date, I told myself, it was a study night and dinner with Owen and his mother at their suburban Evanston house. Owen didn’t live in the dorms like the rest of us, but a shared bunk room and a moldy, soap-glazed group bathroom would not have constrained his urbane coolness.

  I took a swig from my water glass to cool down and splashed a little on my cheeks. I put on a yellow dress that displayed my shoulders and neck but wasn’t too revealing. I took pains to hide what I considered my worst flaw, my scrawny arms, which made me look like an anorexic or a refugee from some foreign starvation. My legs weren’t much better, but at least they were toned and tan from walking around campus every day.

  The sun set purple grey as I walked the ten blocks from campus to Owen’s house, and the air held the first stages of autumn decay, sweet green leaves bleeding tart orange and brown at their edges. The further I got from school, the more elegant the streets became. Neighborhoods morphed from faded wooden duplexes fronted by scraggly bushes, to large well-kept homes with flowering dogwoods shading rolling green yards. It was nothing like my Oakville cul-de-sac where each tract house was a mirror image of the next one, with white aluminum siding and prefab front doors.

  As I walked further from campus, homes mirrored the diversity of the student population; big, small, messy, tidy, colorful, plain, ornate. One had a gunmetal Pi sculpture in the front yard, another a white rocking hammock, and another a tumble of children’s toys. I took slow breaths to compose myself.

  “No need to be nervous. Not a date,” Rose texted, as if reading my mind.

  When I arrived at what turned out to be a mini mansion complete with perfect hedge rows, I stopped in front of towering front doors with inlayed, etched art deco glass. Suddenly they swung inward and a striking woman was squeezing my hand.

  “I’m so glad Owen has a friend in Illinois,” she said, with warm formality. She had on chic black eyeglasses and a red silk blouse, and her skin was the smoothest I’d ever seen. I stared at her too long and she smiled. “Welcome,” she said. “Please come in.” She pushed the door open wider, to reveal glowing white marble floors. Unlike Owen, Mrs. Ota had a slight accent.

  “Thank you,” I said, handing her the small bouquet of pink spray roses I’d picked up at the corner market. I tried not to stare, but I’d never seen the luxurious shade of red silk she wore or skin that shone like glass.

  She ushered me through a high-ceilinged foyer into a large dining room, where Owen was seated at a black lacquer table, much too long and wide for just three of us. My heart jumped as it always did at the sight of Owen.

  “Lu!” he said, more loudly than necessary. He stood and stiffly half hugged me, more of a shoulder bump than an embrace. Cold air slapped my face as it tumbled down from open vents up in the wall. Owen’s face was blank, as though he’d never seen me before, his expression guarded, semi-friendly. Not knowing what to make of this, I took a seat across from him and commented that his house was beautiful.

  “Yeah, it’s fancy, I know,” he said, sa
rcastic.

  I assured him that I meant it as a compliment, told him I had never been in such a nice home. His face softened then, and he stopped looking through me. Finally, he smiled his perfect smile, and a wash of relief trickled over me. There was Owen, not the robotic stranger who’d greeted me.

  He told me I looked “nice” and reached for one of the tiny pink teacups on the table, handed it to me. We sipped warm green tea while his mom jostled around in the kitchen. The dining table’s edges were ornately carved with swirling vines and it was decorated with delicate white orchids and votive candles. I almost giggled aloud at how different this was from my parent’s functional Pier One dining set, pressed wood with plastic hinges, and store-bought pizza as its centerpiece. I couldn’t identify the tangy scents wafting around. Aside from kitchen rustlings, Owen’s house was quiet, as if pausing so we could have a private moment before his mother joined us. I wanted to say something to draw out his perfect smile again. But we didn’t speak, we just sat sipping our tea. I burned with anticipation about the evening and what might happen between us.

  Finally, Owen broke our silence, not with something romantic or personal, but with talk of schoolwork. He asked if I’d be okay doing our report on haiku, told me he had two copies of an excellent haiku book. I’d never studied haiku before and I paused, unsure.

  “I’ll teach you,” he said, in a lowered voice, reaching across the table for my hand. “It will be my honor to show you this Japanese art.”

  His mother came into the room carrying a platter and she noticed our clasped hands. Owen was slow to release my hand while his mother’s eyes were on us. A tinge of unease hit my back and suddenly I was unsure. What were we beginning with this dinner and why was he so cold at first? Not a date, but do people not on dates hold hands? I pushed my questions away, decided that anything was possible. He’d held my hand and that meant something.