She couldn’t help grinning at the picture of Alex so disoriented. “I guess that’s what happens in this household when you start dating someone.”
“Yeah, it goes with the territory.” He shook his head, and crossed into the dojo. Taking a wooden sword from the wall, he stretched. “But I really should teach you swordfighting.”
“Not now,” she said, returning to Facebook.
“But soon.” He bowed, stepped onto the mat, and began his kata, sword exercises she was already familiar with. She could sit there and watch him, but then she would probably have to go to confession. Dating Alex hadn’t made that part any easier.
For once, she buried herself gratefully in electronic distractions without a shred of guilt.
Alex finished his exercises, feeling alert and fully rested. When he was home, he didn’t do his kata as often as he should. It was hard to keep to a schedule. Eh, I need either full-time school or a full-time job to keep me organized, he reflected. His natural tendency was laziness. It helped having Kateri there. He wondered again how long she was going to stay.
She was still on her computer so, whistling, he went downstairs to get a drink of water.
“Alex?” Mom called from the living room.
“Can I get you something, Mom?” He recognized her tone of voice.
“My burgundy yarn from the bedroom? It’s in the pile next to the closet in a plastic bag,” she said. “Your dad picked it up for me last week.”
“Sure thing,” Alex said. He pushed his parents’ bedroom door open (it always stuck on the carpet: bad hinges) and squinted in the half-dark. His dad’s computer was on, a screensaver of family photos bouncing and dissolving across the screen.
As he made his way through the room, suddenly the screensaver quivered and went off. Alex glanced at the desktop which had appeared with a photo of Zatoichi the Blind Samurai in the background. Maybe he had creaked the room’s loose floorboard and caused the mouse to move?
But no. Oddly enough, the cursor was slowly moving across the screen, on its own.
Intently Alex watched the cursor hover and then swoop down onto an icon and click it. A menu opened, and the cursor scrolled down through the options.
There was no hand on the mouse. But the cursor was definitely moving.
Thinking, Alex grabbed the mouse, which responded to his touch, and clicked a text program. He typed in the open box:
Dad? Is this you?
He waited. The cursor began to move again of its own accord and typed,
Yes. Alex?
Alex typed back,
What’s my favorite color?
The cursor responded promptly,
Chinese red.
Alex breathed in relief, and typed:
You sure freaked me out.
A second later the cursor wrote:
Sorry.
Just accessing my home computer from work.
I do it all the time. Kitty knows.
Alex typed,
Okay, just checking! See you tonight.
Shaking his head, he pushed the keyboard away.
Kateri guessed that Alex must have been watching her that evening during dinner, because when she tried to unobtrusively excuse herself from the table, she found her arm suddenly immobilized in a jujitsu hold. “No cleaning,” he said firmly, looking into her eyes.
“I want to help,” she said, with a mixture of amusement and annoyance.
“I want you to sit down and relax,” Alex said. He nodded to the others at the table. “Hey, Kateri, you should tell them your family history.”
She pushed back her hair. “I don’t want to bore them.”
He folded his arms behind his head. “It’s better than hearing Dad describe the history of the O’Donnell clan—and much less fictional.”
“Why don’t you explain the differences between Vietnamese and Japanese culture?” Mr. O’Donnell suggested. “Set us all straight so that we don’t mix things up and offend you.”
“What about the difference between Vietnamese and Chinese too?” David asked.
“And I’m confused about the difference between China and Japan…” Sam said. Kateri shook her head with impatience as she resumed her seat. “All very different. China is a huge sprawling mainland civilization, and Japan is a little island with a superiority complex. Vietnam is a long strip of coastland and islands on the southern tip of Asia that managed to get free of China about eleven hundred years ago and went on to develop its own culture.” She looked around. “How about I just tell you about Vietnamese culture, and you use Wikipedia to look up the rest?”
“That works,” Mr. O’Donnell said.
“Well,” Kateri ran her fingers though her hair to try to collect her thoughts.
“Vietnam used to be part of China, so I guess you could say that our culture is a lot like Chinese culture. But we’re still very different! We’ve been independent from China pretty much since the tenth century, ever since we fought for the right to govern ourselves and won.”
“Eleven hundred years ago, when America was just wilderness,” Mr.
O’Donnell put in. “Gives you some perspective, eh boys?”
Kateri went on, “And one thing I find interesting about the Vietnamese is that many of us really took to Catholicism.”
“Well, it was a French colony back in the 1800s, right?” Mr. O’Donnell said.
“Yes, but that’s not how Catholicism came to Vietnam. Try the sixteenth century. It was the Jesuit missionaries from Portugal who brought the faith over.
One of the Jesuits created the first Vietnamese written alphabet and we still use it today. And Vietnam wasn’t a French colony for very long, by the way. We kicked them out pretty fast. Catholics were persecuted before and after the time of the colonization, but many Vietnamese held onto the faith.”
“And then the communists took over,” Mr. O’Donnell said.
“And everything changed,” Kateri said quietly. “That’s when my family came over here.” She’d never been to Vietnam herself, but she had heard her mother’s stories of growing up there, and she felt she shared her mother’s connection to her homeland. “My mom’s taught us everything she can about the culture. I speak a bit of the language. She taught us girls how to cook all the major kinds of pho. And how to do the Fan Dance.”
“The Fan Dance? What’s that?” Sam asked.
“Just one of the more famous Vietnamese dances. We used to do it all the time for homeschool talent shows and other events.”
“Wow! Can you do it for us someday?”
“Maybe,” Kateri said. “But I warn you, I’m not very good at it.” That was an understatement, she thought. She had liked doing it when she was the smallest and shortest of her five sisters, when people thought she was adorably cute for mimicking them. But when she grew to be a teenager, she suddenly became all thumbs and angles, and never seemed to be able to achieve the weightless energy of her siblings. Plus there was the whole lacking-beauty thing.
“When did your mom leave Vietnam?” Mrs. O’Donnell asked.
“After the war,” Kateri said.
“Did she teach you any martial arts? The Vietnamese scissor kicks are famous,” David took another helping of stew.
“No,” she said, and thought w hy did boys only think about fighting?
“Shhh,” said Alex. “She’s just getting to the good part of her history. Don’t distract her. Kateri, tell them how your parents met.”
She glanced at Alex, who raised his eyebrows a bit pleadingly. Sighing, she gave in. “My dad was an American soldier in Vietnam during the war. They met when he was stationed near her village, and they kept in touch after he was wounded and had to go back to the States.” Kateri took another helping of salad, and wondered if her mom had started out by finding her dad physically attractive. Probably. There was a language barrier that separated them—both of them spoke only a little French—so they couldn’t have done much talking. It suddenly occurred to Kateri that her own
parents might have started out having a more conventional romance.
She shook her head to focus back on the story. “Then, when the Communists took over after the United States pulled out, Mom’s family was in danger of being killed, so they got a fishing boat together with a group of other families and tried to cross the Pacific to get to America.”
“Really?” Mr. O’Donnell said. “So your family were some of the boat people.”
“Some of the lucky boat people,” Kateri said, trying to keep her voice cool.
“My mom’s mother and brother—my grandmother and uncle—died on the way over.” Her mother had described the horrors of the journey to her, but Kateri didn’t feel the need to go into them now. “My grandfather died after they were picked up by freighter on the shipping lanes. But my mother survived. The freighter that picked them up took them to San Francisco and there she wrote to my father, who was back in Jersey with his family.”
She swallowed, “The very day he received her letter, he got on a train and came to get her. They got married within the month.”
The O’Donnells were spellbound, and she could tell that Mr. and Mrs.
O’Donnell were deeply moved.
“What a story,” Mrs. O’Donnell breathed. “To have that in your background—that’s so romantic.”
Kateri shrugged, trying to avoid getting emotional. She liked the O’Donnells, but she wasn’t ready to cry in front of them. “Yes, I come from a family of romantics. Combine Vietnamese and Poles, and that’s what you get.”
Alex squeezed her hand. “Kateri, relax and enjoy this romantic heritage of yours.”
Kateri rubbed her eyes a bit irritably. “I just hate being the center of attention. It was my parents who were the heroes. I’m just their youngest daughter.”
“So, with such a romantic history, why do you always try to be so practical?”
Alex teased her.
A bit surprised, she shrugged. “Reaction, I suppose. But you can’t call me a pragmatist. Otherwise, I’d never be an activist.”
“And never gotten involved with me,” Alex supplied.
She inclined her head. “I was just going to say that.”
“So can you do a Fan Dance for us?” David asked.
Alex pretended to biff him on the head. “Not until you learn a better sense of timing.”
Alex had assessed his campaign and decided that an intervention was called for. So on Saturday morning, he hustled Kateri out the door early. “Today we are escaping from my messy house. It’s time for me to behave like a decent boyfriend and take you to DC to enjoy yourself.”
“Out of the frying pan and into the fire,” muttered Kateri, but she let herself be pulled along to Alex’s car. “I thought you said we were going to Mass.”
“At the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception, of course,” Alex said, opening the door for her. He was pleased that she was wearing her blue, summer dress and a yellow sweater, with her ample wavy hair caught up in a flowered ponytail. “But first we’ll take the metro and hit the Smithsonian museums. Then noon Mass at the Basilica. Sound like fun?”
“Definitely.” Alex thought she sounded relieved.
They drove through the early morning light on a mostly-free Route 66, driving over the broad bridge across the Potomac, just as the sun cleared the clouds. The low profile of the capitol gleamed in the early light, and Alex reflected that even DC didn’t look so bad on a morning like this.
They parked at Catholic University and rode the metro train to the DC Mall to take advantage of the free museums. Alex relished the experience of holding hands with Kateri as they walked about the cavernous exhibits. It was like exploring a new world together, and he began to feel that this partnership with her was something he wanted to hold onto.
“Can’t believe that you made the March for Life in Washington DC every year since you were three and never once visited the Smithsonian!” he chided her.
She raised her small chin to examine a model of a praying mantis. “I was out in the cold, doing what the March is all about: praying for the unborn, attending the rally, and marching.”
“Yeah, but didn’t you ever leave the rally at the beginning to at least visit the Museum of Natural History? You mean you actually stood in the cold for two hours listening to those speeches?”
“Yes.”
“Didn’t it dawn on you that the speeches are the same every year? Come on, Kateri. You should have gone into the museums at least once, just to warm up your feet.”
She regarded him coolly. “To my family, the March is all about sacrifice. Making reparation. Not sightseeing.”
“I guess you’re right,” he conceded. He stared at the insect display. “But I always thought it was a challenge to see how much of the Natural History Museum we could manage to squeeze in before the March began.”
She made a face at him. “Disloyalist. Don’t you know how hard they work to prepare those speeches?” But she smiled. “And this way, I can see it all for the first time, with you.”
“Aww,” he teased. But inside, he couldn’t help rejoicing.
At noon, they returned to the Basilica, which towered into sight, massive and forthright atop its marble staircase. Alex challenged Kateri to race him up the countless steps to the top, while humming the “Rocky” theme.
“Hey, you’re really in shape!” he exclaimed as she finally reached the last step while he waited for her. “You’re not half as out of breath as my other friends usually are. And you hate exercising. I don’t get it.”
She folded her arms. “I don’t exercise. I live. On a farm.”
“Oh yeah. I guess that’s a real workout.”
“It’s real work, if that’s what you mean,” she said. Despite his praise, she was slightly out of breath. “That’s the problem with most Americans. They never really work hard, so they have to create artificial work—exercise—to stay in shape. So no, I don’t exercise. I work.”
“Ah,” Alex said, and glanced behind him. “Let’s go in and explore before Mass.”
“I’ve been here before,” Kateri said. “Remember? The March for Life?”
“Yeah,” said Alex, “but I bet you haven’t been in the organ loft!”
“We’re not supposed to be up here!” Kateri scolded him as they peered down over the balcony.
“Probably not,” Alex agreed. “But we’re not bothering anyone.” He looked appreciatively over the vast expanse of the church with its stone columns, barrel-vaulted ceiling, and gold mosaic of Christ in glory on the far wall. “This is my favorite view of the basilica. C’mon down this way.”
He led her along a dark, narrow passageway that ran along the upper walls of the church, pierced with arched windows that allowed them to look down on the church below. The hallway was barely big enough for one person. Alex paused when they were opposite one of the mosaics in the cross of the basilica.
“Beautiful, huh?”
“How did you figure out how to come up here?”
He shrugged. “I have a friend who plays the organ on some Sundays and he invited me up. You’re right. We’re not supposed to be here. I guess I’m showing off.” “You are,” she accused. But she gazed through the small pillared archway at the lovely mosaic of Our Lady and smiled. “Though it really is beautiful.”
He grinned. “Okay, I got my compliment. Now we can go down.”
“Is that why you men do so many off-the-wall things—just because you’re hoping you’ll get a compliment?”
“You won’t believe the things we guys’ll do for attention,” Alex said.
“Consider it a compliment—to you.” He made a slight bow.
She sighed, but she took his hand warmly, so he guessed that the sigh was mostly for effect. Holding hands, they went downstairs to join the congregation for Mass.
Just to enable Kateri to see as much of the museums as possible, Alex deferred the usual native’s practice of leaving DC before three to beat the traffic.
Li
ke any pair of ignorant tourists, they went to lunch, then stayed till the museums closed at five, then squeezed into a packed restaurant to wait a half hour for dinner, then drove home at twenty miles an hour in bumper-to-bumper traffic while they talked intensely about life, philosophy, and politics.
“So do you really have to leave tomorrow?” Alex asked as they turned into his neighborhood. He had brought this up several times throughout the course of the day, hoping to wear down her resistance.
“I need to find a job,” she said again, rubbing her eyes. “I need to be up north, pounding the pavement, knocking on doors. . .”
“Why don’t you stay Monday and look for a job down here?”
She glanced at him. “I don’t know if I could. At least up North I have some connections. Here, I wouldn’t know anyone except your family.”
“Well, it wouldn’t hurt to try down here, would it?”
He picked up a slight hesitation in her voice. “I don’t know if I’m ready to give up on being near my family yet. Don’t you need to get a job?”
He shrugged. “I’ve already applied to work at Dad’s office. They said they’ll take me on in July. I already have my security clearance from last summer.
Government contracting. It’s a family affair.”
“But I thought you hated desk jobs.”
“A man does what he’s got to do. But seriously, Kat, I just like having you around. I don’t know how you feel about it—”
“That’s just it, Alex. I don’t know how I feel.” She dropped her eyes.
He parked the car, turned off the engine, and regarded her, wondering if it were wise to let her continue. “Is it—anything in particular?”
She heaved a sigh. “Alex, I don’t belong here. I can’t stand Northern Virginia. I don’t like the suburbs, I don’t like video games, I don’t like computers. I just don’t feel like I fit in anywhere here.”
“So it’s the place that bothers you?”
“Yes, but it’s more than that. I don’t know—I just don’t know. I don’t know if I should move here.”