Chapter Fourteen
Eight a.m., and Mika was awake, texting Penny. You sure you want to see the gallery today? It’s really a mess. A spear of shame struck Mika, but she quickly shoved it back into the hole it crawled from. I promise it’ll look great by the time you show up tonight! she added.
Penny texted back almost immediately. No problem at all. I could even help you get it set up! I don’t mind getting my hands dirty. Text me the address? With a defeated sigh, Mika did but asked Penny to give her a few hours’ head start. She texted Leif to confirm Stanley, the artist, was expecting her. He replied with a thumbs-up.
On her way, Mika’s phone dinged with a text from Hana. Penny is awesome, she said. Know what else is awesome?
Mika had gone to sleep before Hana had gotten home, then left before Hana had woken up. Usually, the two were on the same schedule of late nights and later mornings. But lately, Mika had been getting up earlier, mostly to maximize time with Penny while she was in Portland.
Mika tapped out a response at a red light. Let me guess. Cheesecake for breakfast? Sweatpants? Interpretive dance?
The light turned green, and her phone rang. She glanced at the screen. Her mother calling. Again. Her heart dropped. No doubt Hiromi was wondering if Mika had found a job yet. She declined the call. Soon after, her phone lit with a new voicemail alert. Another red light and Hana had texted back. Yes, all those things, plus Garrett has chronic diarrhea. He has to quit the tour to take care of his IBS. She followed with a sad face emoji, then a party hat emoji. This means I will be going on tour with Pearl Jam.
Mika replied, First, please don’t ever tell me about Garrett’s bowel movements again. Second, I am very happy for you.
Idea! Hana said. You should come with me as my emotional support animal. Free hotels, meals, backstage passes . . . What do you think? We’d leave in a couple weeks.
Mika pulled up and parked outside a run-of-the-mill warehouse. A sign advertised First Thursdays every first week of the month, a time when people came to drink wine from plastic cups and hop from booth to loft, previewing up-and-coming, but mostly starving, artists.
She let herself in through a heavy door. On the wall was a register listing different artists in residence. creations by daphne, suite one. zen products, suite two . . . stanley wolf, suite ten.
Mika headed up the stairs, knocking on the door of suite ten before stepping inside. “Hello,” she called. Metallica played on an old stereo and assaulted her ears. It smelled like the time Mika burned a pot on the oven. All around were heaps of twisted scrap metal—rebar, steel bands, iron bars. Natural light from four huge windows filled the space. A man held a blowtorch in the corner, sparks flying from it as he worked on a sculpture. The blowtorch cut off. The guy raised his mask and clicked off the music.
“Hullo, hullo! You must be Mika?” He crossed the room, stripping off gloves. “Stanley.” He stuck out a hand for Mika to shake. He was white with bright blue eyes and a shock of dyed black hair. One of his ears was pierced, a feathered dangle earring hanging from it.
Mika shook his hand and smiled. Then she stepped back to peer up at a seven-foot sculpture. It was hard to decipher what it was supposed to be. A man, maybe? But his back was hunched and twisted. “This is interesting. It’s charged with such a strong emotional quality.”
Stanley blushed. “Leif told me you’re looking to set this space up as a gallery.”
Mika moved more fully into the room. “I am, and if you’re up to it, I think this will definitely work.” The space was oozing with potential. A half dozen more sculptures were grouped in the corner, bodies bent toward each other, like lovers taking refuge under an awning during a storm. If they cleared Stanley’s equipment, the sculptures would stand out in the vast room, illuminated by the ceiling’s canned lights. She glanced at Stanley. “You sure you don’t mind? Me displaying your work, taking over your studio today?”
“Nope.” Stanley threw his gloves on top of an eclectic mix of materials, including a set of oils and an easel. Mika stared at the paints and clenched a fist to keep the tremors at bay, a combination of fear and longing. There was also a bottle of turpentine, and she became paralyzed for a moment. Became utterly still as if a beast in the woods were stalking her.
“I’m pretty much done here. So, it’s all yours. There are some cans of paint and rollers in the corner. Leif thought you might want to give it all a fresh coat. I’ll let you do your thing,” Stanley announced.
Jarred, Mika smiled vacantly, heard herself mutter a thank-you to Stanley. The door slammed. She swallowed, shook it off, and rolled up her sleeves. Time to work.
* * *
Two sweaty hours later, Penny texted that Uber had dropped her off. Mika hopped downstairs to meet her.
“Hiiiii,” Penny sang, skipping over. “What do you think?” She held her arms out. Today she wore a jean jacket and the new shirt Mika had purchased for her underneath. They’d exchanged the rockurface off shirt for an Asian Invasion tee—the logo a pair of chopsticks stuck in rice.
“I like it,” Mika said. Seeing Penny happy made her happy.
Penny scrunched her nose. “I tried to convince Dad to buy me hair dye last night. I feel like this whole look could be elevated if I had a blue streak here.” She picked up a lock of hair framing her face.
“Don’t do that on your own. I bleached my hair in high school, and it took a year to go back to normal. If you decide you really want it, be responsible and go to a professional.”
Penny nodded gravely. “Good call.”
“How’d you sleep?” Mika asked as she led Penny up the stairs to the gallery.
“Like a dream,” Penny answered. “I’m so excited to see your space.”
Mika tugged on her ear. “There’s still a lot to do . . . Don’t get your hopes up too high.” At Penny’s concerned face, she added, “I’m just feeling the pressure to get everything right. The opening is tonight.”
“I get it. I’m the same way before a track meet. Anxious and excited, you want everything to go perfectly.”
“Exactly.” Mika opened the door, and Penny entered.
“Whoa!” Penny exclaimed, bypassing Mika.
“What?” That bad? Mika tried to imagine the space through Penny’s eyes. Despite her efforts over the last few hours, the area was still messy. The welding equipment lay heaped in a pile in the middle of the floor, along with various art supplies.
“Needs some tidying up,” Penny said, circling the space.
“Yeah,” said Mika a little dejectedly.
Penny stared at Mika a moment. “Well.” Penny clapped her hands together. “Between the two of us, I think we can have it all cleaned up in an hour or two.”
“You sure you don’t mind?”
“Of course not!” Penny said. “Where do you want to start?”
Mika tapped a finger against her lips. “Let’s clear all this equipment out.” Mika crossed the room to open what she assumed—hoped was a closet. She peeked inside. Dusty, empty space. She flung the door wide.
Together, they worked tirelessly for the next sixty minutes, hauling welding equipment and scrap metal to the closet. Sweat dotted their brows. “This in the closet too?” Penny asked. At her feet were the painting supplies.
Mika flexed her hands, trying to dispel a tremor. She focused on a couple of stubby graphite pencils. Marcus did drawings in pencil. A single shard of broken pottery that, if you turned your head just right, resembled a beating heart. A rotten bunch of bananas. A dry well. Near the end of winter term, Marcus had won an award for the pottery drawing.
Congratulations, Mika grinned at Marcus, a little out of breath from racing across campus to see him after her art history class. They’d moved on from the Virgin Mary. Now they focused on the Renaissance, where women were draped over chairs, painted in half shells, or floating on clouds with the light focused on their hips, their thighs, their breasts—ready to be feasted on, devoured. Mika was in his office and thrust a gift at him, an electric pencil sharpener topped with a red bow. It had been a running joke between them that Marcus used an old sharpener that you twisted by hand.
Thanks, he replied with the slightest smile, picking at the ribbon.
What are you going to do with the award? I think you should hang it by your desk. Mika gestured at the plaque from the Southwestern Institute of Art.
I don’t know. I’ll probably end up using it as an ashtray, he said, scratching at the overgrowth around his chin.
Well, you should definitely celebrate, Mika added.
Actually. Marcus eyed Mika. We’re going to gather at Pete’s apartment tonight for drinks. I didn’t want to do anything, but he insisted. Why don’t you come?
Mika had blushed furiously and beamed, instantly thinking about what she might wear. I’d love to. Thanks.
“Mika?” Penny was in front of her.
Mika tried to twist her mouth up into a smile. “Sorry, got lost in thought. You mind putting them in the closet?”
Penny nodded mutely and scooped up the paints, disappearing into the closet. Mika broke a pencil under her heel and kicked it into the corner. She wandered to the sculptures and mentally sorted through them, where they should be placed, how they should be sequenced. She chose one, the most hunched, and pushed it closest to the entrance. She was on number four by the time Penny finished with the painting supplies.
“Wow,” Penny breathed. “That’s very effective.”
Mika stepped back and wiped the sweat from her brow. Each subsequent sculpture bent slightly less than the previous, like a film of still snapshots of the same twisted figure slowly unraveling to stand upright. “I think it looks good too.” This time Mika smiled for real. Proud and so happy.
They moved the final sculptures but left the one draped in heavy canvas. “I think Stanley is still working on that one,” Mika explained, wiping her hands on her jeans. “I’ll touch base with him later and see where we should place it. We make a good team,” Mika said, and Penny smiled. “You want something to drink? I saw a vending machine down the hall.”
“Sounds good,” said Penny.
They used the loose change from the cup in Charlie’s car to buy waters and a few bags of chips, then sat cross-legged on the gallery floor. “What’s your dad up to today?” Mika asked, arranging the food around Penny like an offering.
“I don’t know. Probably working or something. I actually asked him not to come.”
“You did?”
Penny bit her lip, fingers still on a package of Doritos. “Yeah. I thought it would be nice if it was just the two of us. I love my dad, but . . . he can be a bit of a wet blanket.”
Mika smiled. “Not going to argue.” But then she thought of Thomas at the roller derby rink, watching Penny with such devotion, such admiration, such pride. “He does seem like a pretty great dad, though.”
A wisp of a smile appeared on Penny’s face. “He is. Especially when I was younger. He used to read to me every night. It was kind of our thing. I loved ‘Goldilocks,’ and he’d always read this line about her long beautiful dark hair that shone in the sun, then he’d look at me and say: ‘Just like you.’ Then when I was older, I flipped back through the book and reread it. He’d changed the words from ‘light’ to ‘dark’ and colored in the pictures of her hair with a Sharpie.”
“That’s really sweet,” Mika choked out.
“We haven’t been as close lately,” Penny said, brushing a crumb from her knee. “I’m not sure if it’s me changing or him or both of us. Probably mostly me. Sometimes I just stare at my reflection and think: ‘Who are you? Who are you?’”
Who am I? That question again. Mika had seen a documentary once that cataloged the lives of adopted children, how their lives might have differed had they been raised by biological parents, nature vs. nurture. What made Penny, Penny? How much of her was defined at birth, and how much was determined through the years? What parts had Mika given her daughter? Thomas? Caroline? Her biological father? And did it even matter? “You know,” Mika said slowly, “if it makes you feel better, I don’t think any of us know who we are. I’ve spent my entire life trying to figure it out.”
Penny hiked up her chin. “That does make me feel better. At least a little less alone, I guess.”
“You’re not alone.” Mika reached over and squeezed Penny’s hand.
Companionable silence settled between them until Penny stood up abruptly. “I can’t believe this trip is almost over.”
“I can’t either,” said Mika, standing too. The days had flown by. Tomorrow, Penny and Thomas would leave. Mika imagined what would happen after Penny’s departure: Penny would call a few more times, make an effort at keeping in touch. But then the calls would slowly fade into oblivion. And this ghost ship of a life Mika was sailing on would come to port. She’d go back to her real life. But who was Mika in real life? And who was she now with Penny? Without Penny? “I wish we had more time,” Mika said, and at the words, a jumble of emotions knotted and lodged in her throat—relief at the charade being over and sorrow at letting Penny go again. She knew one thing for certain: Mika in real life was very, very sad.
“It’s funny you say that,” Penny remarked casually. “There’s a great summer running program here at the University of Portland.” She paused, eyes trained on the floor. “And I applied for it last night.”
“You did?” Mika kept her voice level, though she was feeling so much. Surprised. Terrified. Thrilled.
“Yeah. I like Portland.” Penny gazed at Mika, searching her face. “And I really like you. I feel like this all fits me here.”
“I hadn’t considered you wanting to come back.” Mika’s mind spun in a dizzying circle. She wanted Penny to stay forever. It was her dream come true. Keep her. Never let her go again. But what about all the lies? The gallery? The boyfriend? She might be able to sustain them. Penny would be busy with her running program. They’d get together in the evenings, the occasional weekend. If Penny wanted to meet her grandparents, Mika would pretend they were on another cruise or visiting relatives in Japan. They do that every summer, she pictured herself saying. Buy tickets early in the year, nonrefundable. And as for her relationship with Penny . . . she’d keep building it, feeding it, growing it. She’d focus on what was real: Sharing her thoughts and feelings with her daughter. Supporting her, listening to her, loving her. “What does your dad say?”
Penny sucked in a breath. “He’s actually cool with it. Well, he’s pretending to be cool with it. When I told him it was nearly the whole summer and students stayed on campus in the dorms, he kind of clenched up, but then, like, visibly forced himself to relax.” Another pause. “So, would you be okay with it? With me coming back? You’d want me to?”
Penny’s question felt loaded with an especially loaded word—want. “Of course I want you to come back,” Mika answered automatically, her soul taking over any rational thought.
“Can I just say something?” Penny asked, voice reedy. And Mika nodded and wondered when girls learned that they had to ask permission to speak. “I’m just so happy being here with you. And I haven’t been happy for a long time.”
Something in the center of Mika’s chest felt warm and gooey. “I’m so happy too.”