Say Uncle Page 5

  “Are you mocking her?”

  “No, not at all. Definitely not. Uh-uh…” I was shaking my head like a dog with a dishrag in its mouth.

  Flake.

  “We’re very close,” she explained. “Like sisters.”

  “How do you know each other?’

  “You could say we went to school together.”

  “College?”

  “College,” she repeated, amused. “No.”

  “Well, then—”

  “Some men are watching us,” she interrupted, looking past my shoulder.

  “Let me guess,” I said. “Tall, handsome, mesomorphic in stature, or is it mesolithic? A little ivy spilling from their pockets?”

  “But you know them, right?” she asked.

  “In a former life, but I’m still paying for the bad karma it earned me.”

  “What do they want?”

  “To be standing in my shoes right now, most likely,” I said, more to myself than to her.

  “Well, they’re coming over.”

  Without thinking I took her hand and began to walk. She didn’t resist. Fielding called out my name like I was an old friend, but I ignored him and picked up our pace.

  “Do you have a car?” I asked.

  “No, I took a taxi.”

  “Can I buy you a cup of coffee?”

  “Can I trust you?”

  “Of course not,” I said. “I’m a guy.”

  “Okay, but I warn you. I know jujitsu, escrima, aikido and Krav Maga.”

  Cool, I thought, but didn’t Melody say almost the same thing? What a weird night. What a great night.

  The Cosmopolitan

  Her name was Noriko, and I knew that going to a 24-hour coffee shop with her was a fluke. My previous debacles in mind, I wasn’t about to put my heart through the wringer for a third time in one evening. I was cautious. I was cool. I was casual and cavalier. I was so doomed.

  She told me she was a model, and that after finishing an assignment in Los Angeles she decided to fly to Phoenix to meet with her friend, Johanna. It wasn’t hard to believe that Noriko was a model. She was beautiful and exotic looking, and she carried herself well too. I had never seen such perfect, unblemished skin before. Her smooth, slender neck was exquisite and I ogled it like a vampire.

  I didn’t know anything about the world of modeling, but I got the impression that Noriko was fairly successful. She said she had done covers for Vogue and Cosmopolitan, as well as a number of European and Asian glossies that I had never heard of. I was surprised how down to earth she was. I had always considered modeling, like acting and politics, as professions populated with phonies, but Noriko was modest and unaffected. She said that she didn’t plan on staying in modeling much longer; that she had promised herself that soon she would get out and do something else.

  “How did you get into modeling anyway?” I asked.

  “Like everything else,” she said, “it was a mixture of luck, will, and fate. I inherited my looks from my mother.”

  “And what did you get from your father?”

  She sipped daintily at her coffee and then said, “His balls.”

  “Well,” I said, my last sip of coffee in my nose, “is anything you have your own?”

  “Certainly. The biggest part—my life.” She lifted her cup to her lips and eyed me over the rim. “What about you, Guy? What do you have?”

  “Have? … Me?”

  She nodded.

  I could think of only two things I had: diddly and squat. I cleared my throat. “Well, my sisters got my mother’s beauty and brains. I got her flat feet. They also got my father’s drive and common sense. Last year, however, I did inherit his old golf clubs, but I have to buy my own balls.”

  Noriko chuckled into her cup and took another sip of coffee. “And your life?”

  “To be honest, at the moment, I’m afraid my life has me more than I have it.”

  “If you don’t like your life you can change it. So change it.”

  I was sorry she said that. I thought she was being smug and presumptuous, just like Melody and Johanna before her. I didn’t call her on it because I didn’t want to make the same mistake thrice. The waitress had just brought our meals and I was determined to ingest my runny eggs and flaccid toast without incident.

  “It’s not so easy,” I said. “It’s kind of like an old pair of frayed jeans. They’re comfortable and you hate to get rid of them. Really, it’s okay. I can’t complain.”

  What a crock, and I could tell she didn’t buy it for a second. Hell, everybody wants to change his life. Noriko didn’t say anything, though. Instead she took up a slice of apple from her bowl of fruit, and I crunched on a strip of overcooked bacon.

  “So you’ve known Johanna a long time, huh?” I said, changing the subject.

  “Since we were kids.”

  “But you lived on opposite ends of the world, didn’t you?”

  “That’s right.”

  “But you went to school together?”

  “We still do, actually.” She smiled. “Confusing, I know.”

  “Interesting,” I corrected.

  “It isn’t really a school. It’s more like what you might call a summer camp. I’ve spent every summer with Johanna since I was six.”

  “And where is this camp?”

  She smiled apologetically. “It isn’t really a camp either. Every year we meet someplace different—France, Sweden, Germany, Japan, Italy, Australia, Spain, Israel, Thailand, America…”

  “Really? That’s so cool. What do you do at these places?”

  “Every year is a little different. But there has always been a lot of hiking and camping and that sort of thing. We read. History, philosophy, literature, economics and finance. We talk a lot…”

  “This might sound like a dumb question, but what language do you use? English?”

  “It depends. We both speak twelve languages.”

  “Get outta here! Twelve?”

  She chuckled at my gushing and picked some more at her bowl of fruit. Man, I thought, all the while I was on my back squealing uncle, Noriko and Johanna had been traipsing around the world discussing the likes of Toynbee, Plato, Voltaire, and Adam Smith, and in twelve different languages. It was romantic and I envied them. No wonder she and Johanna seemed unique. Had things been different, I thought, my sisters could have been a lot like Noriko and Johanna. They could have been living more romantic lives than they were. I thought they had sold themselves short. Especially Doreen, who I always felt was a romantic at heart. She should be traveling and speaking a dozen languages and hanging out with women like Noriko and Johanna.

  Noriko said, “Your food is getting cold.”

  I picked up a piece of limp toast. “What do you and Johanna talk about?”

  “When we were young we talked about our lives back home. Later we talked about more serious things, books and world events. We all—”

  I flagged her down with my floppy toast. “Halt. You mean there are others? Other…girls?”

  She smiled. “There are four of us girls.”

  Naturally, I wondered if the other two were as pretty as Noriko and Johanna, but I couldn’t ask her such a boorish question. She would surely have pegged me for the base and superficial guy I was trying so hard to conceal.

  “So, um, are the other girls as pretty as you and Johanna?”

  “I think so,” she said.

  “Just wondering. What else do you girls talk about?”

  “Why are you so interested in what we talk about?”

  “I’m just startled to learn that anyone today talks about anything other than food, movies, getting laid, shopping, sports, or TV. Go on…”

  After looking at me thoughtfully, plumbing my shallow waters just as Johanna had, Noriko continued.

  “We are rather idealistic so we’ve always talked a lot about the future—ours, the world’s, what we could and would do about them. As we grew older we lost faith in politicians and the media. Our p
ersonal experiences contradicted everything they said. We became convinced that we could count on only one thing in this mad, fickle world, and that was the love we shared for one another. We’re like family, you see, though something more too. We are ishin dotai, which is Japanese meaning one spirit in many bodies.”

  “Ishin dotai. Like the four musketeers, all for one and one for all?”

  “Yeah, sort of.”

  “Cool. How did you girls meet anyway?”

  “Through my father. His work took him all over the world.”

  “Did you resent him for being away so much of the time?”

  “No. When I saw him I saw him a lot. When he was there, he was all there. I’m sure I’ve spent more quality time with my father than most children ever do.”

  “So your father and Johanna’s father are good friends, right?”

  “The best.”

  “And the fathers of the other two girls?”

  Noriko smiled. “They don’t come any closer.”

  “You’re a very lucky person, Noriko.”

  “I know.” She said it like she meant it too.

  “So where are you all going to meet this summer?”

  She shook her head.

  “What, you can’t tell me?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because we like it that way.”

  “Why so secretive?”

  “Don’t you have any secrets, Guy?”

  “Nothing like what you’re talking about,” I said. “Embarrassing confessions, plenty. Cool secrets, none. But I guess everybody has done things that they are ashamed of. Even you, I bet.”

  “If I’m going to feel ashamed, then I don’t do it in the first place.”

  “Come on,” I said, dubious. “There are such things as mistakes and bad judgment.”

  “Yes, but not where one’s conscience is concerned. One’s conscience does not rely upon guesswork. I believe we know beforehand if what we are thinking of doing or not doing will require a big fat lie to cover it up.”

  “What about little white lies?”

  “I’m not talking about that sort of thing. I’m talking about the lies of the soul. The kind of actions you do for which you are unwilling to take full responsibility.”

  “Do your girlfriends think the same way you do?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “It’s just that it’s so high and mighty sounding. No offense, please.”

  Noriko shrugged, unperturbed. “It isn’t really. Or it shouldn’t be, anyway. But we live in a very jaded world, and believing in anything sounds overly moralistic. That said, I am also not a fan of anyone that preaches ‘collective salvation’ or ‘social justice,’ or any other drivel that negates my own conscience and common sense.”

  Now she was beginning to sound like Melody, who I had nearly forgotten, though Melody was more foul-mouthed and angrier. Essentially, however, they seemed to be in agreement.

  “Enough about me,” she said. “How about Guy? What’s your story?

  “I hate to disappoint you. Believe me I do, but I just don’t have much of a story. You know, some people are born to mediocrity and others have it thrust upon them, but even mediocrity evades me.”

  “You’re just being glib,” she said, unamused.

  “Maybe, but really, compared to you I have nothing to say.”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  “Hey, I can hardly believe it myself! That’s what I’m trying to say. You’re looking at the guy who put the ‘um’ in humdrum. What I wouldn’t give for a little novelty and excitement in my life.”

  “Be careful what you wish for, Guy.”

  You mean like a heart-twisting, mind-spinning, affaire de coeur with a certain hot Japanese model? “Yeah, well, if I believed for a moment that my wishes could come true, I wouldn’t hesitate.”

  “You’re really not that desperate, are you?”

  I nodded dismally and stuffed another piece of soggy toast into my mouth.

  “You talk as if life is something only other people get to live. But it doesn’t work that way. It’s a conscious choice. It comes from within, the expression of an educated will.”

  I had no reply. The sincerity I saw in her eyes was convincing, but her words skimmed across my shallow waters like skipping stones.

  Noriko clarified for me. “In other words, Guy—you’re lazy.”

  Now those were words I could understand!

  “And,” she continued, “until you begin to live intentionally and deliberately, nothing will ever change.”

  I wanted to ask her how I could do that but I felt pathetic and stupid enough already. I stared at my plate and pushed my liquefied eggs around with my fork. What a zero she must have thought me.

  Noriko yawned and I knew it was over. There would be some clumsy formalities, and then I’d never see her again. I couldn’t bear to hear her say it, so I made the suggestion that we leave. She smiled and nodded, and again that cute little crinkle around her nose made my heart skip a beat. She said that she was staying at a hotel near the airport and I told her I’d drop her off. I insisted on paying the bill, and then we left.

  As we were about to pull out of the parking lot onto Scottsdale Road, I saw the same Mercedes and man I had seen twice earlier turn in. He stopped beside me. I was with another beautiful woman, and he was still alone. Noriko, who was busy taking off her coat, didn’t notice him. The guy was talking to himself. He glanced at Noriko, whose chest was busting forth as she removed an arm from a sleeve. A breathtakingly glamorous fashion model was disrobing in the cab of my truck. I glided out onto the street and left the guy banging his head against the steering wheel.

  ···

  I pulled up in front of Noriko’s hotel and offered to walk her to her room. She thanked me, but declined. I wanted to kiss her. I was so nervous that I could hear the blood bubbling in my ears and had to struggle to cover my jitters.

  She opened her door and put out one leg. Thigh! Then, as if on second thought, she leaned across the cab and pecked me on the cheek, her own cheek gently brushing up against mine. Soft, smooth, the faint scent of perfume… I thought, I love you.

  “Can I see you again before you leave?” I croaked.

  She said gently, “No.”

  “You’re a remarkable person, Noriko, and I truly hope—”

  “Hope is an impotent word, Guy. If I ever needed your help could I count on you?”

  “Yes, absolutely,” I said without hesitation. “But why would you ever need my help?”

  “I’m just saying that your good faith means more to me than your best hopes or wishes, that’s all.”

  She kissed me again, this time on the lips, and scooted back across the seat and out of my life. I watched her and her great legs walk into the hotel lobby, started my truck, and headed home.

  Driving slowly along the nearly deserted Piestewa Peak Parkway, I replayed the evening over and over in my mind, amazed by its uncanny coincidences. What fascinating women, I thought, envying them. They lived their dreams, and seemed to be participating in an extraordinary adventure; not haphazardly, but like Noriko said, deliberately and consciously. I wondered if a person like me could ever get to such a place.

  But mostly I thought about Noriko’s kiss. What if I had grabbed her up into my arms? Would I have been in her hotel room with her right now, a stack of quarters on the bed stand next to the magic fingers machine? My God, I thought, I really am no better than Wilkinson and Fielding!

  When I finally got home at two-thirty in the morning, I was glad to find the lights out. I just wanted to tiptoe to the back of the house, nurse my cursed and wounded heart, and loll myself to sleep with libidinous thoughts.

  When I reached the family room my four prankish sisters pounced on me from out of the dark. Down I went, them in their silk pajamas on top of me. As I struggled I cried, “Cut it out!”

  “Shh, you’ll wake mom and dad.”
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  Giggling and joking, they took only a few seconds to reduce me to my boxer shorts and pin me defenseless to the floor. I struggled against their tickling and tousling and their slurping belly-farts, but it was in vain.

  “Where have you been, Guy-Guy? We’ve been waiting up all night for you.”

  “Did you meet a girl?”

  “Don’t forget about the airport tomorrow.”

  “We missed you, Guy!”

  “Guy, say uncle.”

  “Don’t,” I pleaded, “you have no idea what I’ve been through tonight…”

  “Say uncle, Guy…”

  “Uncle,” I croaked. “Uncle…”

  Party Animals

  The following morning I awoke to find Freud sitting on my chest and my mother standing by the window. She gave the curtain cord a hard yank and sent a blast of sunlight flooding into the room. “Rise and shine,” she sang. “You have forty-five minutes to get to the airport.”

  I made six trips in all, using every car in the family but my own. The airport was a madhouse, and I received four parking tickets over the course of the day. Twice the flights were delayed and I killed time browsing the numerous gift shops for Christmas presents.

  With every trip to the airport I made a point of driving past Noriko’s hotel in the hopes that I might spot her coming or going, but no such luck. After staring a long while at an airport pay phone, I finally worked up the nerve to call Noriko at her hotel. The desk clerk said there was no such person staying there. I was aware of many possible explanations for her absence, Noriko being a famous model and all, but I was nonetheless disappointed and regretted that I’d never see her again. I hated thinking that I had been duped, that perhaps there was no Noriko O from Japan, and that everything she had told me was a lie.

  ···

  My relatives were all in festive moods, and it required an Oscar-worthy performance on my part to mirror their enthusiasm. Although I hadn’t seen most of my relatives in years, my aunts looked the same as always; maybe aunts always do. My cousins, on the other hand, looked much more mature than I remembered. My sisters had always been very fond of them and behaved as if no time had passed since they had last met.