Sisters of Heart and Snow (20 page)

Or her.

“Hey!” Drew shouts. “Chase!” The girl adjusts her jersey, pulls it down over her belly, and Chase lifts his head sleepily. No time for niceties. “Get over here. Now.”

Chase finally looks properly startled. He straightens and lifts his hand in farewell to the girl, who pretty much sprints in the opposite direction. Drew's never yelled at him in her life. She hasn't been around enough to have the privilege. Chase lopes over to her.

When he gets close enough, she leans in. “Just what in hell do you think you're doing?” She's bursting with anger and fear, something she's never felt together. She wants to both shake him and lock him up forever. She motions for him to come to the car.

“I was just talking to my girlfriend.”

“Talking. Right. She's your
girlfriend
?” Drew peers after the girl, who's heading away from them, toward the pool, in her high school jersey. “Are you allowed to have a girlfriend? Is she in
high school
?”

Chase blushes. “Yeah. So?”

“What grade?” Drew tries really hard not to shout, but it's not working.

Chase won't meet her eyes. “Junior. We played club water polo over the summer. Look, I have to get my backpack from inside the library.”

A junior. Holy smokes. “What is she, sixteen? Seventeen?”

“The second.” Chase stuffs his hands in his pockets, heads to the building. “She just turned seventeen.”

Seventeen. Lord. This kept getting worse. A girl in high school should have her own peer group dating pool, not scavenge the middle school for a boyfriend. Something's wrong with her. “Does your mother know?” Drew stops so suddenly. “You didn't need a book at all. You were going to meet her.” Is that how Alan knows him?

Chase stops moving and sighs, turning to look at her. Christ. He's so tall. “It's not a big deal.”

“From where your hands were, I'd say it was.” Drew squinches her eyes shut. Should she tell her sister, or keep it quiet? On the one hand, she doesn't want Rachel to strangle her only son. She can just hear Rachel's voice.
You should have been watching him instead of trying to impress the hot librarian. You're unfit for aunt-hood.

But how could she possibly have predicted this? Maybe she can tamp it down herself. That's all that matters. That he doesn't do it again. “Listen.” Drew's face heats. “Do you know about birth control? Two forms at all times. Don't believe the girl if she says she's on the Pill. You need proof.” A boy from inside the library emerges and stares. Drew doesn't care. She glares back at the stranger. Maybe he could use a lecture, too. Bring it on.

“Aunt Drew.” Chase covers his face with his hands. “Oh. My. God.
Please
stop talking.”

She leans into him. “I'm serious, Chase. You're old enough. You could get her pregnant.” Scare him straight. That's what she'll do to him. “How would you support a baby?”

“Do you think I'm going to do it with her right in the open?” Chase takes his hands off his face, his face a mottled red. “I'm not some kind of degenerate.”

“Okay.” She holds up her hands.

“We're in a relationship.” He says the word like it means something to him. “She's important to me.”

“How? You're fourteen. In
middle school
. I'm pretty sure you're not allowed to date. In fact, I'm a hundred percent sure. Three years is a huge age difference when you're fourteen, Chase. She should know better, even if you don't.”

Chase sighs and looks at the sky. “I'm not going to do it with her.”

Right. Maybe not at the park, but at someone's empty house? Drew jerks her head toward the building. “Get your backpack.”

Chase goes into the library. Drew leans against the car and waits. Chase returns and gets in, slamming the door so hard it hurts Drew's eardrums. She gets in, too.

They're silent for a while. Then Drew says, “You know it can go too far really fast, right?”

Chase closes his eyes. “I will get out of the car if you keep talking.” He grips the handle. “I swear to God, I'll roll out onto the street.”

Drew clicks the lock. “Stop being so dramatic.”

Chase turns his head away. “Are you going to tell Mom?”

“Do you think I shouldn't?” Drew backs out and heads onto the street, bumping the undercarriage on the sidewalk.

Chase shakes his head. “My mother will freak out. She'll lock me in my room until I'm eighteen. Please. You know how uptight she is.”

Drew thinks about Rachel and their father and how she got kicked out. “She might be more understanding than you think, Chase.” They stop at a light, watching a stream of kids heading to the convenience store pass in front of them. The girls are in middle school and all of them in this group wear tight clothes, low cut, short—the kind of clothes Drew would have worn to a club in her twenties. It makes her feel old and sort of judgmental to think this, but really. She wants to yell at them to have some self-respect. When did this happen? She feels desperately sorry for Rachel and Tom, raising kids now.

“Please.” Chase grabs Drew's arm. “I know her better than you do. You haven't been around.”

Drew ignores the sting. Maybe he does know her sister better. “I know I can't control you, Chase. But.” Drew thinks of the promise she wants to extract. She can't put a chastity belt on him. She can't track down the girl and order her away. “I won't tell Rachel, if you cut it off with this girl. Don't see her anymore. Don't talk to her anymore. Don't text. Agreed?”

He sucks in air, thinking. Drew thinks she even sees relief flicker across his face. Maybe it was too much for him, and he's glad he got caught. He crosses his heart. “Okay, Aunt Drew.” The light changes to green.

•   •   •

In the evening,
I snuggle up under a blanket on the sectional and pick up
The Tale of Genji
. It's considered the first true novel ever written. A noblewoman, Murasaki Shikibu, wrote it in the eleventh century. It's one of the background books Joseph recommended.

“How is it?” Drew sits and opens up her laptop. “Intriguing?”

“It's kind of dense. She only uses titles instead of names, so it's hard to follow. Plus, everybody tries to talk in verse, which apparently was what people really did try to do.” I flip through it. For the first time in my life, I consider just getting the SparkNotes version. Even in high school, even at my laziest lowest point, I'd been too stubborn to stoop to anything like that. This book is very long. “It's about Genji and the Japanese court and all the romances he had. He's a son of the emperor, but he's no longer royal and has to take the name Minamoto.”

“Minamoto. Like the clan name in the Tomoe Gozen story.” Drew's face lights up. “I remembered today, Rachel, that Mom told me we're descended from samurai.” She taps away. “Oh.” She purses her lips. “Mom's name was Sato. That's like Smith in Japan. But maybe she was talking about her mother's maiden name.”

“I don't know.” I tilt my head, curious. “When did Mom tell you that? You never mentioned it.”

Drew waves her hand. “She said it during an argument. I forgot—I was more focused on being mad at her.” She smiles ruefully. “It was pretty much the most personal thing she ever told me.”

“Mom was more about action than words.” I lean over to Drew, who's gone from happy to downcast in one sentence. Preoccupied. It's Mom. And probably Drew's lack of a job. I wonder if she needs a loan. “Are you okay?”

She nods.

“If you need to go back to L.A., I totally understand.” I smile at her, trying to convey that I really don't mind if she stays longer.

“Well. You know what they say about fish and houseguests.” She sinks farther down and clicks on her laptop. “I'm thinking about moving down here.”

“Really?” I purse my lips, considering logistics. “What neighborhood? What would you do?”

“I don't know yet.” Her tone is terse. “I just thought of it. I mean, there's nothing keeping me in L.A. I can drive up there if I get a music job.”

“Okay,” I say simply. I don't want to offend her. “You can stay here as long as you like. You're not a houseguest—you're earning your keep. Thanks for getting Chase.”

She nods once, focusing on the screen.

I swallow. Sometimes we just seem to be from two different planets, speaking some version of English neither of us quite understands. “Hey.” I change the subject. “I stopped by the post office and got airmail stationery. Shall we write to Hatsuko?”

Drew stops typing. “I don't know.”

“You don't know? Why? That was really more of a rhetorical.”

My sister purses her lips. “I don't know. It's just that when we hear back from her, that will be it. Like really it. This mystery will be solved. Over.”

“But we want that. Don't we?” I feel a pang. It's a bit like we're putting end caps on my mother's life, too. I take the airmail paper out of the back of the book, where I've stuck it. “We need to do it. This Hatsuko might know things.”

Drew picks up a magazine. “If I write the letter, you can call Killian.”

I shake my head. Drew's told me what he said to her in the waiting room. He'd have no problem disposing of us. “I really don't see the point of asking him. He's going to say no.”

“But it's his granddaughter. Maybe it'll make him soften. Maybe he's just like that because we never actually invite him anywhere. You edged him out with Mom. It could be a peace gesture.” Drew takes the paper, uses the magazine as a flat surface.

Maybe I should phone him, but I don't know if I'd be able to get any words out. I fear it'll turn into an ugly fight. I type up an e-mail quickly, before I think better of it.

DAD,

I KNOW WE'VE HAD OUR DIFFERENCES, BUT I'M ASKING YOU TO PUT THEM ASIDE FOR A MINUTE. OUR DAUGHTER QUINCY
[I have to write “daughter Quincy” because I'm not sure he's aware that I have a daughter, much less her name]
IS GETTING MARRIED IN MID-MAY. SHE WOULD LIKE FOR YOU TO ATTEND THE WEDDING AND THE FESTIVITIES SURROUNDING.

THANKS,
RACHEL

“How's that?” I show my sister.

She shrugs. “Kind of impersonal, but whatever.”

“I don't know him, Drew. I can't be chummy. Are you chummy with him?”

She sighs. She's not. She knows she's not. “Okay. Read mine.”

Dear Hatsuko,

We don't know each other, but we might have someone in common. Hikari Sato. She is our mother. Recently, she fell ill, but she gave us the samurai book you sent. Can you tell us where it came from and how our mother came to have it?

It would be most appreciated.

Sincerely,
Drew and Rachel Snow

“I'm Perrotti.” I hand it back to her.

“That just complicates it.” Drew folds it carefully.

“Don't you think you should put in a stamped self-addressed envelope? And have the letter translated into Japanese?”

“First you don't want to do it. Now you're micromanaging.” Drew sighs noisily. “Fine. I'll ask Joseph to translate it and I'll include an SASE. It'll cost more. Why'd you bother with the airmail paper?”

I shrug. “I didn't think of the other things.”

“But you said them like you had and you were telling me I was wrong.”

“Sorry.” I hadn't meant to put it like that. Only my sister would scrutinize the meta-meanings of my word choices so intensely. Once she'd asked, after playing a song, how it was. I was busy doing homework and just said, “Okay.” She'd pouted and wept for hours.

Drew waves her hand in front of her face. “Never mind. Let me tell you something good.” She folds up the letter and speaks brightly. “Did you know that your local library was harboring a very hot single Englishman?”

“Alan?” I think of him. He's always wearing a sweater vest of some kind. I hadn't paid much attention. “He waived a fine for me once. Seems nice.”

“Don't you think he's hot?” Drew's disappointed.

I try to remember what his face looked like. “Um. I guess. He wasn't horribly ugly or anything.”

“Oh my God, Rachel.” Drew throws her hands up. “He's the hottest man in a thirty-mile radius.” She puts her hand on my arm. “Single man. I'm not counting Tom or anything.”

“Okay, okay.” I cross my arms. “What about him?”

“I'm going out with him.” Drew draws her shoulders up.

I clear my throat, thinking of how Drew's got to go back to her own home sometime. “Are you sure that's a good idea?”

“It's just for fun.”

I kick my feet out in front of me, sending the blanket flying up.

“What?” Drew turns to me. “Say it. I know you're thinking something.”

“At a certain age,” I begin, trying to choose my words carefully. I want the best for my sister. I don't want her to wander around getting into go-nowhere relationships for her whole life. I trail off. “Don't you think you should concentrate on men with whom you might have a future?”

Drew visibly bristles. If she had hackles, they'd be raised. “You never know. I might move here, like I said.”

“True.” I watch Chase walk through the family room, a stack of chocolate chip cookies in one hand and what looks like a liter of milk in the other. He's still such a little boy in so many ways. He still plays with his Star Wars action figures sometimes—I can hear him mumbling commands under his breath when I go by his room.

Drew gets up, stomps away. I shouldn't have said anything. Let her make her own mistakes. She returns with a package of cookies. “Want one?”

Chips Ahoy. Crunchy. “Remember when you ate a whole pack of these and threw up?” I ask.