I glanced at Tamami to see if she might do anything to save me from the most boring inquisition in the world, but she’d already volunteered to wash the dishes. She rubbed her stomach in a circular motion and raised her eyebrows at me.
“And what do you do?” Mr. Takata asked.
I hated questions where people pegged your entire identity on a few words. Who was Baba? A country girl, a simple woman, some would say. A decent human being. Of course, her collection of travel brochures hinted at someone who was much more than that. A dreamer. But I knew what Uncle Takata meant, what he wanted to hear.
“I’m studying to be a dental assistant,” I said. There was that smile again, yellowed from smoking a pack a day, signs of severe gingivitis. Definitely not a flosser.
My mother turned on the Nippon-Ham Fighters baseball game and opened another Kirin for Mr. Takata. She clearly didn’t want me to speak or embarrass her.
“She’s having a lot of fun during her stay abroad,” my mother said. “Hollywood, the Mall of America. She doesn’t realize how lucky she is to have this time to play around.”
A few other neighbors dropped by after dinner, and while my parents were busy entertaining, I slipped outside and through the yard gate. When I turned back, I could see my mother through the living room window, shaking her head at me. When I was a teenager, she probably would have dragged me back inside by the ears and showed me my place. Now she seemed unsure of what move to make. I waved and texted: I’ll be back at a reasonable hour.
I walked through the dimly lit streets toward the shopping district, texted my old friend Matsue, who waitressed at the Immigrants Cafe and Bar, a local dive for foreigners. As usual, the bar was packed with a mixture of Americans and Canadians and Australians, maybe a dozen total, surrounded by their Japanese friends, practicing their English. A man with a Russian accent sang Cyndi Lauper on a retro karaoke machine while a few Japanese women danced, waving their arms wildly in the air. I sat at the bar and scanned the room, spotted Matsue walking toward me with a tray.
“Hello, hello, hello. So good to see you!” she yelled over the Russian’s singing. She gave me a kiss on both cheeks, French style, and hopped onto the stool beside me. “You look so American,” she said.
“Is that good?” I asked. I looked down at my jeans and bargain-bin satin blouse, the beat-up Chucks that were about as old as my time in the States. Matsue, on the other hand, wore a cute beret, a dress with a butterfly print, and high heels.
“Yes, it’s good!” She excused herself for a moment and brought a drink to another table before hopping back up beside me. “How long are you here for? Everybody misses you.”
“A little over a week,” I said. Most of the details didn’t really need rehashing, since I knew she followed my holo-journal with her YamatoVision reality wrist projector. She gave me a rundown of old friends between her table service duties—everyone at the same job, Maiko and Junpei getting married soon, most still living at home. Kosuke, the boy with the wolfed-up hair who once thought I was the most beautiful thing in the world, was still breaking hearts in the back of Lawson’s convenience store after his shifts at the post office.
“Nothing really changes,” she said. “Do you miss home?”
I thought about Matsue’s question as she went to serve a group of salarymen trying to outdrink their boss— Kanpai! Kanpai! Kanpai!—and decided to enjoy the moment, to be the person who used to go to the movies with her every week and jog along the river in the evenings. We used to complain to each other about our parents and Niigata, how it was nearly impossible to achieve your dreams in this country. But Matsue looked happy here and maybe I would have been, too.
“Yes and no,” I answered when she returned to the bar. “To missing home, that is.” I ordered another virgin margarita and told her that my life in Chicago was okay. I had Sean and his parents, friends from school, a community of Japanese who had recently moved to the city. My routines had turned into comforts—the same cafe in the morning, a smoothie after classes, Pilates every Saturday, board game night on Wednesdays with a group of Japanese college exchange students at the local Irish pub. But after leaving Matsue, I walked down the dark streets without any sense of danger. I didn’t feel the need to walk briskly, mindful of the eyes around me. I had nothing to protect me hidden in my purse. I had forgotten what it was like to say hello to strangers, to be known by half the neighborhood, to simply be. I guess I missed that.