Since our house was surrounded by apartment buildings, I had to crane my neck to look above them at this bright blue strip of sky. There was an object about the size of a fingernail moving through the clouds, leaving a streak of white in its wake that grew longer and then broke apart.
I watched the plane until there was no trace of it left. Then I held up my hand to blot out the sliver of sky where it had been—but wasn’t anymore.
CHAPTER 2
SUNDAY
I WAS BORN IN JAPAN, but I’m not Japanese.
Technically, I’m French and I’m Polish. (Well, my dad is French and my mom is Polish, but Mom moved to New Jersey when she was a baby, so I guess she’s basically American?) Alison said we were American by default, but I’ve lived in Japan more combined years than I’ve lived in the States, and I spend at least a month a year in Paris, so… I’m not sure.
I was five the first time I left Tokyo, when Mom, Alison, and I moved to New Jersey so Mom could teach at Rutgers. Then, when I was thirteen, Mom got a research grant that brought us back to Tokyo for four years. Now I was seventeen, and the research grant was up, and we were New Jersey–bound. Yet again.
Sometimes, this whole good-bye thing wasn’t so bad. Like, I’d had no problem leaving the giant public school I’d gone to in New Jersey or the few math and science geeks I’d occasionally sat with at lunch. And the things I actually did miss—my favorite brand of hot sauce and cheap pairs of jeans—I had my grandparents send me for my birthday.
But other times, it was awful. It was moving from Tokyo when I was a little kid and knowing my dad would be far away. It was going somewhere new and knowing that, eventually, I’d have to leave it behind. Like I was constantly floating in the second before a dream ends, waiting for the world to evaporate. Waiting for everything that seemed real to suddenly be gone.
That’s what this good-bye would be like.
I knew it.
With Alison safely back in her batcave of misery, I cranked my laptop to life, put on a mix of thrashy punk songs David had made for me, and decided to go to the konbini for my mom. I shoved my wallet into my pink Musée d’Orsay tote and, since my clothes were getting sweatier by the second, picked a new outfit. A sleeveless Laura Ashley dress I’d bought at a secondhand store in Paris and a pair of bright blue sandals. I fastened my hair into two braids on top of my head, holding them in place with a couple of daisy pins. I loved this—poring through my mismatching dresses and headbands and blouses, finding stuff I’d forgotten about, combining things in a way I never had before.
Like a cracked-out preschool teacher, Mika would say.
I headed down to the kitchen and saw… Mika. Sitting on a countertop, eating from a box of koala-bear-shaped cookies.
“There you are!” she said mid-chew. Her bright blue hair was gelled into spikes, and she was wearing baggy men’s jeans and a ripped T-shirt held together with a couple of safety pins. “Why didn’t you answer your phone? Did you know it’s really fucking hot in here?” She shook the box at me. “It’s okay if I eat these, right?”
I didn’t get the chance to answer, because David strode in from the living room.
“Sofa!” he said. “We were going to come find you, but then Mika started eating herself into a coma and I was going through your books. You own a lot of excellent books. This one, for example, is a personal favorite.” He tossed my sister’s volume of Emily Dickinson poems into the air and caught it.
“Oh my gosh!” Mika pressed her hand to her chest and fluttered her eyelashes. “Your opinion on books is, like, so fascinating!”
“Watch it,” he said, flipping through the pages. “You might think Ms. Dickinson is all about weird grammar and death, but there’s some seriously sexy stuff in here. Hold on. I’ll read you one.”
Mika flipped him off, and he playfully ruffled her spikes. And I kept standing there, trying to breathe evenly, trying not to stare at his red, smirking mouth or his dark, styled hair.
It always took a minute to acclimate to David’s presence. Not just because he was gorgeous—although let the record show that he really was gorgeous. Tall with lanky muscles and deliberately tousled hair and stupidly perfect clothes. He was also the son of the Australian ambassador, which meant he had an Australian freaking accent. I wished Mika hadn’t stopped him from reading that poem.
“Anyway,” David said, putting the book down, “you need to get a move on, Sofa. We’re going out.”
My attention snapped back. “I can’t. I have to pack.”
“Screw that,” Mika said dismissively. “You can pack after my birthday.”
“Your birthday’s on Friday,” I said. “That’s when the movers are coming.”
“No!” She tossed a koala in my direction, and it landed on the floor. “Don’t you ruin my birthday and your going-away party by talking about movers. Boo and hiss.”
“It’s not a party,” I said. “You just want to go clubbing in Roppongi.”
“Duh,” she snorted. “Roppongi is the party.” The stud in her right eyebrow glinted in the light coming through the window. She’d gotten the piercing only a few weeks earlier, when she was visiting her grandma in California. She said she’d done it for the pure pleasure of seeing her parents’ faces when she landed back at Narita Airport.
“Does my mom know you’re here?” I asked, feeling exactly as childish as I sounded.
David cracked up. “Who do you think let us in? She had to leave, though. Something about dry cleaning.” He draped an arm around my shoulder. “Now, seriously, Sofa. Shoes on. Can’t you see Mika’s on the verge of a nervous breakdown?”
“Here’s a thought.” Mika slammed the koalas down on the counter. “Shut up.”
David pulled me closer. “Don’t get snippy with me. You’ve been peeing yourself with excitement all afternoon. All because Baby James is coming home.”