Lost Girls and Love Hotels Read Online Free PDF Page B

sophisticated about Kazu. Something in his movements—the delicacy with which he lifts his body from the bed—that doesn’t seem fit for a gangster.
    “I must go,” he says.
    Ines pouts. “So soon?”
    I catch myself slack-jawed. Saliva collecting in the trough of my lower lip. Embarrassment crawls on me likeants. “I’ll go—give you some space,” I say. In the mirror propped up at the end of the bed, I catch my reflection. Mascara smeared under my eyes, blotchy skin, crazy medusa hair. Fuck. I scamper across the tatami mats, close the door behind me, lean on it, and suck air into my lungs. For a second, my eyes go squirrelly and the walls seem to pulse and buckle with my breathing.
    Kazu.

 
    I’m nine. Frank’s eleven. It’s a year before Dad leaves. All the signs are there. Mom and Dad are like animals in a too-small cage. Frank and I are the runts of the litter. Trampled in their battles.
    “Shake my hand,” Dad says suddenly at dinner. He stretches his hand across the table to Frank. Dad’s on a mission to make Frank a man. I’m not sure what an eleven-year-old man would be like, but apparently sports are important. And standing up straight. “Losers slouch” is the word around the house.
    “Oh for God’s sake, Ted,” Mom says. “Can we eat in peace, please?”
    “Shake it Frankie.” Dad jerks his arm.
    Frank half rises, sticks his spindly arm out. He’s grown. Taller, not bigger. His fingers are long and bony. The underside of his elbow is red with eczema.
    “Mom, why don’t we have music playing at dinner? Like at restaurants,” I ask.
    Frank slips his bluish hand into Dad’s hairy red one.
    Mom smiles. “That’s a good idea Mags.” She stands up quickly and scampers into the kitchen on her tippy-toes. It’s her “I’m-angry-and-exhausted-and-undervalued-but-I’m-going-to-be-cheerful-goddamn-it” walk.
    Frank takes a few shallow breaths and gives Dad a limp handshake. Dad looks expectant, like there’s more to come. There isn’t more.
    The Captain and Tennille play on the radio in the kitchen.
    “If you want to get anywhere in this world,” Dad says, “you have to have a firm handshake. Rule number one. It’s simple.”
    Mom sits back down, arranges her cloth napkin on her lap, straightens her back. “More ham anyone?” The beast sits in the middle of the table, adorned with pineapple slices and cloves.
    Dad’s hand goes out again. “Here, Frank, watch me.”
    “Mom, I can’t stop imagining the pig’s head and tail,” I say.
    Dad shakes Frank’s hand firmly. A grin sprouts on his red face and collapses again into his normal glower. “See?”
    “That kind of hurt,” Frank whines.
    Tennille sings “Do That to Me One More Time.”
    “Now you try Frankie.” Dad’s arm is twitchy with sinew and vein. Once is never enough.
    Frank takes a deep breath, puts his hand in Dad’s, andsqueezes, suddenly and violently. I can see Frank’s fingers strain. Dad’s hand compresses, his fingers fold into one another, his Adam’s apple bobs. I can almost hear a crunch.
    “Good job, son,” he says.
    Frank smiles.
    Dad is redder than usual. “Okay, that’s good.”
    “Can we eat by candlelight?” I suggest. “Like in Hart to Hart ?”
    Mom sighs. “Let go Frank.”
    For a second I can see the white imprint of Frank’s hand on Dad’s when he releases his grip.
    “Better,” Dad says, giving his hand a stretch. “Better.”
    “Candlelight?” I say again.
    Mom poises the knife over the beast. “Maybe next Sunday, hon.”

 
    T he dead girl has put me on edge. Suddenly she’s everywhere. And nowhere. She vanished a month ago, and her picture has started to pop up all over Tokyo. She peeks out from collages of rave flyers, posters for art exhibitions, J-pop singles, suicide hotlines. In the trains, she looks down from the gossip magazine adverts, a disembodied head eyeing the groggy human cargo. It’s always the same photo, a head-and-shoulders shot, her eyes