Nora & Kettle (17 page)

32. THANK YOU

KETTLE

Words clash in my head.
Paralysis. Brain injury. Internal bleeding.
Swelling.
Those words echoed off the tunnel walls as they took Kin from his home, his almost-lifeless body bouncing up and down with their hurried movements. These words hurt me in a strangling, tighter and tighter way, like someone’s turning a crank key at my side, winding and winding until my ribs part and I explode. I lift my hand to my throat. The lump there doesn’t want to move. It’s buttoned under my skin. It grates every time I swallow. I can’t let him go. I’m stuck in a narrow place between grief and not knowing. Neither is appealing.

I gaze up at the burned apartment in front of me. Windows are being replaced. Timber lies in promising piles in the alley. Soon, I won’t be able to come back here. It’s probably a good thing. Sitting here with my back against the cool wall, I wait to hear Kin’s steady breath. Or hear him chuckle. But there’s nothing. Just the humid air causing metal to creak and wood to crackle. The city does sleep, despite what some might say, but it sleeps like an old, arthritic man, coughing, wheezing, and creaking its way to rest.

I left Krow with the boys, needing time on my own. When they asked me when Kin was coming back, I said, “soon,” which was a lie.

I should visit him, make sure he’s alive, but I’m too much of a coward. What if he’s not there? What if he is there and he won’t forgive me? What if they catch me? The boys can’t be left with no one. There are too many obstacles that I easily let get in the way. So I’ve waited four days in hell.

I curse and bang the back of my head on the wall, feeling the pain bite into my skull, almost enjoying it because it’s a distraction from the anger I feel toward this faceless woman who took Kin’s place. Miss Deere. There is hatred brewing and then boiling inside. It’s aimless yet growing too big for me to contain.
Her
and that goddamn cat. I hate them both.

I stand up. It was a bad idea coming here, because I feel like I might scream, howl into the night, and get myself reported in the process. Lifting my head, I search for just one star, but all that hovers over me is murky green clouds heavy with moisture.

I slam my hands in my pockets and step out from the wall, out of tears but not out of curse words. I’m turning to leave when something flutters in my peripheral vision, and then I’m blind.

Sweet-smelling silk covers my face and I yank it off. Things are flying from the window. A hat sails past and hits the opposite building before landing into a dirty puddle, then other clothes and jewelry follow. It’s like some grotesque rich person’s rain, and it only fuels my anger. I see the arm. A perfect pale arm just like the one I saw hanging from the stretcher days ago, and I see red. What is it this woman wants? Does she feel sorry for us lowlife’s living in the street, or is she just lazy, throwing her garbage into the alley for others to clean up? I can’t stand the idea of pity or indifference.

Blood rushes in my ears and I breathe hard, all my anger propelling me up the dumpster and then onto the fire escape quietly, my hands crackling and pulsing with unspent energy.

I climb onto the railing of the escape and wait for her to come out again. I want to see her face. Frighten her. Tell her what a selfish, rich bitch she is.

I rock back and forth on the railing, finding my balance, and then perching like a bird of prey. A few minutes later, the curtains flutter and the arm stretches out, a framed photograph in its hand. It lingers in the air, shaking, and I cock my head to the side, wondering what this is all about. When she releases the frame, I catch it, tucking it into my waistband. The hand withdraws and I look at the picture by the light of the window, hiding in the shadows like a peeping Tom. I trace the image. A perfect couple gazing at each other with love, and I want to smash their faces in. I want to ask them, demand from them,
Why? Why did my life work out like this? Why have I lost everyone?
It feels like it’s their fault, them and everyone else who looks down on people like me. Like Kin.

Kin. I wipe the last tear I have in me from my eye with a dirty hand
. Damn it.

Pale fingers grip the windowsill, and then the shadow of a head pokes out into the night.

I’ll make her pay. I’ll teach this rich woman a lesson.

I grab her hand and pull her from the window, her small body coming at me with my own force. She lands on my chest and knocks the air from my lungs, simultaneously knocking the anger from my heart when she looks down at me with a face bruised, cut, and vulnerable. Her eyes are lit up in gold and honey from the light of the room within. They widen with surprise… and then droop with sadness.

“Thank you,” she whispers.

33. RUNNING

KETTLE

Thank you?
The words make no sense, yet the relief in her eyes is so solid, it’s as if I could reach in and take it, squeeze it out in my hands. My emotions slide around, bouncing off each other, anger to confusion and very quickly to panic as I realize I’ve made a huge mistake.

My hand is clamped around her cool wrist and
her
breath is easing into
my
chest as it goes from short, sharp bursts to a steadier yet still fast rhythm. She’s still lying on top of me and makes no effort to move, her neck pulled back so she can see my face clear as day under the light of the window. This is more than a mistake. She’s seen my face, my very distinct, blue-eyed, Japanese face.
Damn it!

I grunt and push her back from my chest by her shoulder, holding onto one of her arms. In a dark tone that scares me, I say, “Get up.”

She shuffles back onto her knees, her arm hanging limply from mine like she’s not connected to it. Her honey eyes look up at me with something of a plea in them, but she doesn’t say another word so ‘thank you’ just floats between us with no explanation.

Between us sits the framed photo, glass smashed, two faces staring past us and into nothing. We both look down at it for one small moment and then back up.

A red light streaks across her face, its source a police car that’s reversing, closing the gap between the buildings. One escape route blocked.

I run a shaky hand through my hair and swear. She makes a strange, shocked sound at my curse words, and I remember she’s a society girl unused to uncouth youths such as myself. I pull her to her feet more gently and mutter, “You’re coming with me, princess,” and tug her toward the edge. She sniffs but doesn’t argue with me.

With more precision than I would have expected, she jumps onto the dumpster, landing well. Spreading her bodyweight so evenly, she barely makes a sound.

Above, I can hear someone shuffling across floorboards and panic rising as the person, perhaps her mother, realizes she’s gone. A loud woman’s voice sails over our heads, and the girl looks up at the window, her face twisted with regret. “I’m sorry,” she whispers, looking like she might climb back up. I jump down to stop her. I’m not going to jail for this girl. And I know I’m too easily recognizable. No, I need to get her somewhere quiet and convince her not to report me. I nod to myself, thinking it’s a dumb plan but it’s the only one my sleep-deprived brain can come up with.

This silent dance we’re doing is strange. She seems too willing, and yet tied to the lid of the dumpster. Crouched facing each other, I get ready to grab her and pull her down to the other end of alley. I stare directly into her shadowed face and say, “Look lady, I don’t want to hurt you, I didn’t mean to…” I sigh, exasperated by her gaping silence. “I just want to talk to you somewhere safe, okay?”

Her head falls and she gazes at her fingers, spread wide over the dimply blue metal. “Okay,” she says

I’m hopping from foot to foot in a frog squat, the surprising permission, the
okay
, taking a second to register. But voices are louder now, and I can hear car doors opening and closing, boots sloshing through puddles. I’ve got to move.

“Okay?” I say like a question as I jump from the dumpster and pull her down, mud splattering her clean clothes and shoes. And even though she said okay, I don’t let go of her hand. I clutch it tightly and press close to the wall, moving as fast as I can to reach the other end.

She runs with me, not fighting, not lagging, and with every drop of filthy alley water that splashes up our clothes, a new question pops up in my head about why she’s willingly coming with me and what the hell have I gotten myself into?

The police sirens begin just as we round the corner.

At this time of night, a few drunks, cabbies, and people like me shuffle through the wet streets. They pay me no mind as I dart across the road, avoiding the pools of golden light under each street lamp and straight into the next alley.

Stop. Think.

My head swivels this way and that, like maybe there’s a glaring solution in front of me I’ve neglected. My chest tightens when I remember there’s a girl on my arm. A girl I just ripped from a window. A girl they’ll be looking for.

“Sh! They’re looking for us,” Kin warns, his skinny arm pressed across my chest. I gulp and wheeze like a squeezing accordion.

The bricks dig into my spine, or my spine digs into the bricks, I’m not sure, all I know is, it’s uncomfortable and I’m scared. I’m scared they’ll find me. I’m scared they won’t find me because then we’ll be alone again.

Kin’s intense, dark eyes fall on my face and his tight expression relaxes. He elbows me and smiles. “Don’t worry, little brother,” he says. “You and me, we’re gonna conquer this city.”

I nod. Redness in my cheeks and cold air freezing my nose.

“The count is out by two,” a soldier mutters, pausing in the archway, two long shadows reaching our feet.

We slide further away, the brambles of a bush growing up against the wall welcomes us into its arms. Stick fingers scratch my face sluggishly.

He says our names loudly, mispronouncing every part of them.

The train is shushing and anxious to leave the station. “What do we do, sir? Do we just forget about it?”

The other soldier’s voice is angry. “Would you forget our friends who died at Pearl Harbor? Hell, why do you think most of them can’t go back there? People haven’t forgotten and they don’t want them returning to the West Coast.”

These words are not new. These words were drilled into our heads from the day we arrived.

“Sir…?” The soldier awaits an answer, and Kin and I hold our breath.

A loud sigh. An impatient tone. “We’ll notify the local authorities. These boys were supposed to go to an orphanage up state. They’ll find ‘em. Two nip kids won’t get far in this city. They’ll stick out like mouse turds in a bowl of rice.”

I crouch down, press as close to the wall as I can.

Kin and me, we’re on our own now.

She tugs on my hand. A growing concerto of sirens, voices, footsteps shake me from the memory. The sounds bloom from the front of her house and will soon stretch to where we are. I turn to her pale face. Her mouth is open and puffs of mist come out with her breath. She doesn’t look scared. She looks… sick.

I tilt my head and try to really see her. I arch an eyebrow at her bruises and she straightens, a cold mask slipping over what I thought were excited features a minute ago… until I say, “Can you climb?” and even in this thinly spread light, I can see spots of color in her cheeks and a touch of life returning to her eyes.

Her lip twitches up at one corner, and she replies, “I can climb.”

We run between two more buildings and take a few corners, winding our way through the city maze while I try to think of the best hideout. It must be past midnight now and my thoughts turn to the boys waiting for me and to Kin. I can see him slapping his forehead right now at my stupidity. He would kill me. He will…

I come to a halt beneath an older, more crumbly building but it’s an important one filled with important people. The girl looks up and then dubiously back to me. “Here?”

“Yep,” I pant, releasing her wrist and linking my fingers together to give her a boost. I’m squatting down, waiting to bear her weight, when the metallic twang of the platform above me makes me jump. She’s standing on the platform, swaying a little, having swung herself up on her own. I shake my head in disbelief and follow.

Quietly, we creep up the fire escape, just the sounds of our breath filling the closed night. About halfway up, she pauses, one foot on a rung and the other on the platform. “What’s your name?” she whispers.

I hesitate, but realizing my name will mean nothing to the authorities, I give it to her. “Kettle.”

She lifts her foot and hangs from the ladder, leaning toward me, her thick hair dangling near my nose. “That’s odd.”

I grimace. “What’s your name then?”

“Nora.” She sighs, continuing up the ladder.

I like it, but I don’t want to say I do. “That’s just boring.”

I think she laughs. I grip the rungs beneath her.
I don’t care if she laughs.

We reach the top, and she quite easily rolls over the edge and lands on the dirty roof.

I point to the thick brick wall with several chimneys sticking out of it. “Over there.”

She nods and crawls over the apex of the roof until she reaches the small space between the two walls, a five-foot-wide, maybe only six-or-seven-feet-long rectangle of concrete between two banks of chimneys. She steps in, and I follow.

She moves to the far end to give me room, dusts off her skirt, and pulls her legs under it, wrapping her arms around her knees. Although she’s only a couple of inches shorter than me, she looks tiny in here. Defeated.

I want to ask her what happened to her. I don’t know why. Shaking my head, I lean my back against the warm chimney, my legs pushing into the opposite wall.

Up here I can see some of the stars and I tilt up, counting them and almost forgetting that she’s next to me until she speaks.

“Is this where you sleep?” she asks. I turn, noticing she’s staring at the sky too. “It’s beautiful up here.”

I laugh in a shocked kind of way. “No. Look, Nora, I’m really sorry I pulled you out the window. I shouldn’t have done it. It’s just, well, I was angry about some… stuff and you throwing your garbage on me was the last straw, you know? But I was never going to hurt you. I just wanted to give you a scare.” My words are not my friends right now. “If you could just please promise not to report me, well, I could take you home and we could forget this ever happened.”

A rustle of skirts.

A tightening of her brown pea coat across her chest.

“No,” she says, her voice carved yet soft, ribbons tied to rocks.

“No?”

Her words slide from her mouth like a cloud just begging for the sky. “I don’t want to go home.”