In Plain View. Julie Shigekuni
intention clear, she reached for him, grabbed a quarter-inch piece of arm flesh between her thumb and forefinger, and twisted, watching his face for signs of pain as she increased the pressure. She held on, waiting for him to pull away, reading the energy between them in the shape of his eyes, before shifting her gaze to the gash that ran the length of his index finger and the room with all its appurtenances and odd angles. Her grip released only when the doorknob turned and the sales clerk they’d passed behind the front counter stuck her head in to ask about an order.
“Who’s the new help?” Daidai said, acknowledging a different kind of tension in the air when the door shut.
“That would be the delightful Patty Shinoda, Ralph’s daughter.”
Gizo examined the darkened mark on his arm as Daidai looked on, wondering who Ralph was. “I’m late to meet Louise for lunch,” she announced, dismissing him.
“Almost done here,” Gizo said. After standing the scissors in an old coffee tin and hanging the tape roll on a nail, he reached for the shopping bags, having transformed back into his chivalrous, adult self. “Where to?”
Daidai set the pace, walking a half step ahead to let him know she was still offended by his misguided perception of her, daring him to repeat the error in his judgment of her. Others might think of her as the light-skinned, freckled, unknowable stranger, but he knew better.
Fortunately, the hot midday air would not hold on to anger, and she could feel his attention at her back as she walked. By the time they arrived at the storefront restaurant, she didn’t know why she’d been so irritable. And as if to show regret for his behavior, he handed the rice sack and groceries over with exaggerated care, emphasizing his devotion with a slight bow.
“I love you, too,” she said, aching at the distance she felt from this boy she’d grown up with.
Tilting her chin up to just past where it felt comfortable, he looked her in the eye somberly before letting go, the heat from his fingers still palpable along her cheek when he turned to leave.
Daidai sat at a four-top with the taped-up rice sack in the chair next to her, startled out of her reverie when Louise tapped her shoulder from behind. Leaning in for a hug, she spoke in a whisper, as if to deliver a secret. “All that white rice isn’t good for you.”
“It’s for a party,” Daidai whispered back.
“You look nice.” Louise assessed her outfit the way her doctor had evaluated her health, Louise’s eyes calling Daidai’s attention back into her body.
“Thank you.” Daidai smiled, having spent more time than usual in front of the mirror that morning hoping Louise would notice. “You look nice, too.”
Louise looked sharp, cool in a restaurant that felt oppressively close with only fans to blow the air around. Her flawlessly manicured, soft hands and skin tone beamed good health and goodwill, and her eyes reflected back an image of Daidai that felt safe and familiar. Louise had that gift of lighting up whatever object caught her attention. Combined with persistence and intense curiosity, it made her a good lawyer. Still, Daidai wondered how anyone, let alone her best friend, could get to be their age with no personal life to speak of. Who knew what lay beneath her flawless exterior, because everyday questions led to defensiveness, as if threatening to expose what her routine lacked.
Like Louise, Daidai avoided conversations that focused on her, though on this afternoon she’d come to lunch with an important matter to discuss. Earlier in the year, Hiroshi had been promoted to program director, news that had come as a shock since he’d been a faculty member in the university’s Asian American Studies department for only six years. The appointment would begin that fall, and along with the title came the honor of hosting the beginning-of-the-year graduate student reception. Daidai watched Louise run down the ingredients list with concentration that marked her as an expert. “Fresh, seasonal. Smart nod to the discerning palate. Good!”
“Do you think so?” Daidai raised a nail to her lip and bit down, needing Louise’s praise.
“Of course!” Louise reached across the table and squeezed Daidai’s arm, her touch bringing on a wave of feeling.
“I’ve missed you” was all Daidai could think to say, not wanting to tip Louise off to her forlorn state.
“Do you want me to come to this party?”
“Please.”
“I’ll have to see.” Louise took out her calendar, marked as Daidai’s used to be for months in advance, making no promises except to say that she’d try to be there. “What’s wrong?” she asked, looking concerned.
“Nothing,” Daidai said, dejected, feeling the obviousness of what was wrong. A year ago, her work at the museum had consumed her. She wouldn’t even have made it home in time to greet the guests.
“I just don’t understand how one poorly reviewed installation could be enough to make you quit.”
“I’m on leave, remember? I didn’t quit, and my putting my career on hold was the fertility doctor’s idea.” Daidai stared across the table with a look meant to remind Louise that they’d been over this before. “It is what it is.”
“Bored?”
“Not at all,” Daidai lied, resenting the insinuation that Louise had been right, that she’d made the wrong choice about how to spend her time.
The peeling back of her life, though brief, frustrated them both.
After lunch, when the door leading back to the street swung open, the pleasantness of the air caught Daidai off guard. Expecting a rush of heat, she felt instead the drop in temperature, the aftereffect of a rain shower that had blown unexpectedly through downtown. The weight of the rice sack and grocery bags ceased to bother her; the carbon emissions polluting the underground garage, rather than noxious, smelled satisfyingly familiar. She’d parked in that garage, mostly in the same spot, practically every day for six years, and was grateful not to have been stripped of her privilege.
Sliding her plastic card into the metered gate, Daidai noted that the permit, paid for by the museum, had exactly one month left on it. The next time she and Louise had lunch she’d be forced to park on the street.
It seemed unfortunate though predictable that two weeks into September the heat had edged back up. Instead of temperate late-summer weather, the day of the party arrived even hotter than had been forecasted, stressing the cooling unit until its usual hum became a bleating roar. Daidai had spent the morning with WD-40 and a screwdriver, coaxing it back into quietude, and then a good part of the afternoon cursing it, along with the oven that couldn’t contain its heat, which she regretted not having considered when she let Hiroshi convince her to go with premade hors d’oeuvres á la Whole Foods. Louise had shown up with a bag of cherries fresh from the fruit stand in one arm and one of peaches in the other, which Daidai and she had pitted and skinned and spooned into the tart shells Louise had rolled out and baked the night before. Offsetting Daidai’s anxiety over the heat, the tarts beamed good cheer, set primly in a row across the high counter alongside bowls of raspberries, apples, and plums for fruit saketinis.
With the guests due to arrive, Louise took over the last-minute preparations and sent Daidai into the bedroom to change out of her sweat-stained, fruit-glaze-spattered T-shirt. That morning she’d lain out a Picasso-blue patterned sundress alongside a chiffon blouse and pale melon skirt, unable to choose between the two. Now, faced with the decision, one appeared drab, the other self-effacing. Back in the closet, her eye caught on her orange-sherbet sundress buried in the back. Simple but short. Sexy—maybe too short? She’d tried for six years to affect the right look at the museum and should have paid more attention to her legs. Daidai looked at herself in the full-length door mirror, at her freckles dancing across her heat-stained cheekbones. She placed the more conservative outfits back on hangers and, after mouthing an apology to her high-minded mother, shut the door to the walk-in closet behind her. Hiroshi had