Jamie was still studying me. “Mika told me you were moving at the end of the week. Where are you heading?”
“To New Jersey,” I said, pulling away from Caroline under the pretense of fixing one of my daisy pins. “Well, back to New Jersey. My mom teaches at Rutgers. We only came here because she got a four-year sabbatical with Tokyo University.”
“Yeah,” Jamie said. “I remember.”
“Oh.” I circled my watch with the forefinger and thumb of my other hand.
“Right! Jamie!” Mika said. “Things you need to know. Number one, it’s my birthday this week, and Sophia’s leaving on Sunday, so we’re all going out on Friday night, and we’re going to party so hard. Number two, I’m really happy you’re back, oh my God. Number three, you are singing ‘Giroppon’ tonight, and I won’t hear another word about it.”
Jamie grinned. He seemed so infectiously, perfectly happy, it almost made me smile. But I didn’t. “That,” Jamie said, “is definitely happening.”
“‘Giroppon’?” Caroline asked. “Isn’t that a cartoon fish?”
Jamie and Mika glanced at each other, then burst out laughing.
Caroline crinkled up her nose. “I don’t get it.”
“You’re not the only one,” I muttered, too quiet for anyone to hear.
But I wasn’t quiet enough, because David laughed and nudged me with his elbow. I felt this incredible swell of gratitude for the fact that he existed.
We took an elevator to the fourth floor, to a narrow, winding corridor lined with karaoke room after karaoke room.
“Whoa!” David said. “They gave us a huge-ass room!” He ran over to one of the three faux-leather couches that lined the walls and jumped on it.
We were in room 47, which was, admittedly, pretty big. I’d been in some karaoke rooms that wouldn’t have passed for walk-in closets. Room 47 had all the standard karaoke-room accessories: a black table in the middle with drinks menus scattered on top, a TV screen mounted on one wall, and a basket that held two controllers and microphones.
David grabbed a controller and started pushing buttons. “Where are all the frigging English songs?”
“You have to press the kanji for foreign songs,” Mika said, walking in behind me. “Just like you had to the last ten thousand times we were here.”
“What’s the point remembering things other people will remember for you?” He shook the controller and gave Mika puppy-dog eyes. “Help me, Miks. How the hell am I supposed to know which button to press?”
“It’s that one.” Jamie pointed at the controller screen.
David raised an eyebrow at him. “Well, well. James can read kanji now.”
“A little,” Jamie said, clutching the back of his head with one hand, suddenly shy.
I was still standing by the door. Caroline had already curled up next to David on one couch, so I couldn’t sit with him. Jamie took the one across from them, so no way was I sitting there. But if Mika sat with Jamie, I’d be all on my own. On the third couch.
Since Mika was the only one of us who spoke fluent Japanese, she picked up the phone by the door and ordered drinks from the bar. My own Japanese was terrible. Mom blamed the T-Cad. She said I used to speak a lot more when I was a kid. I said I didn’t really need the language. The T-Cad was an English-speaking school, and anyway, I could always point at things.
Or get Mika to talk. She asked for a round of beers and a melon soda for me, then sat down next to Jamie.
So. Third couch it was.
“Okay!” David said. “I picked a song!”
“Surprise, surprise,” Mika deadpanned.
As David started to sing, the lights in the room dimmed, the TV blared to life, and all these neon images lit up the walls. They were dolphins and mermen and starfish. I guess it was supposed to make us feel like we were under the sea, but it just made everyone look insane. Our teeth got whiter, and our skin glowed like we were radioactive. Still, it did make me a little less self-conscious. It’s hard to be socially awkward when you’re surrounded by a bunch of fluorescent mermen.
My friends were getting drunk.
Really, really drunk.
It didn’t matter that we were all underage. Horrifically underage, as a matter of fact. The drinking age was twenty, and Mika, the oldest one of us, was just about to turn eighteen. But that didn’t matter. We could all buy booze wherever and whenever we wanted. No fake IDs required.
This, as Mika had explained to me four years ago, was just how things ran. Expat kids got away with drinking and spending all night in bars because Tokyo was a safe city with reliable trains and a lax carding policy for foreigners. Mika thought our parents had no idea what was going on, but I figured they were just willfully ignorant of the debauchery. It was probably easier than locking us in our rooms and flushing our train passes down the toilet. Although, to be honest, I told my mom everything—willful ignorance was not her strong suit.
Mika kept going to the phone to order drinks. Beer, whiskey sours, something called a ginger-hi that I think had ginger ale in it. She ordered melon sodas for me because I was the semi-responsible one who never drank. (“Because someone’s got to talk to the police if the police need talking to,” Mika had once slurred, her arms around my neck. Which had made me feel exactly like the Boring Friend.)
“Mika and James should sing a duet,” David said. He’d just finished an Iggy Pop song and was swinging the microphone over his head.
“Yeah, great idea.” Mika smirked at Jamie, who smirked right back at her. The smirkers.
“Does anyone want to sing Katy Perry with me?” Caroline asked.
“Seriously!” David said. There was no music playing, and he was talking a lot louder than necessary. “Look at you two! Just like old times. Except Baby James is all grown up now.”
“Yeah, thanks, man.” Jamie stared determinedly at one of the controllers.
“For Christ’s sake,” Mika said. “Rules!”