Chapter 4- Crushed
Kari was awoken in the morning by the sound of the garbage truck outside and the delicious aroma of bacon frying. Hungrily, she crawled out from under the very comfortable heap of blankets and made her way down the many flights of stairs to the kitchen.
Grandma Kate was fully dressed in loose jeans and a light blue T-shirt as stood in front of the stove, diligently cooking their breakfast. Kari sat down on a cushioned barstool beside the counter, wiping the sleep from her eyes.
"Would you like something to drink?" her grandmother asked her, and she sort of grunted a 'yes.'
"I didn't know what you liked so I bought milk, orange juice, apple juice, some sort of mango-pineapple combination, and of course, there's always water," her grandmother said, much too perky for this time in the morning. Except, Kari realized, it was the middle of the night in Tokyo. Then, she decided that it must just be the jetlag and jumping time zones that had messed up her internal clock.
"Orange juice is fine," Kari told her. "Though, I should warn you, mom's totally dependant on coffee in the morning."
Her grandmother looked almost regretful for a second, before she said, "Thank you for warning me. I'll try to remember that."
"Speaking of mom, is she still sleeping?" Kari wanted to know.
The older woman merely nodded, her focus back on the stove. When she decided their breakfast was complete, she laid the slices of bacon onto a plate and placed them on the counter in front of Kari along with a dish of scrambled eggs.
Kari heaped generous helpings of both bacon and eggs onto a plate her grandmother handed to her. She was chewing on a very scrumptious piece of bacon when something cold and wet touched the other hand that was by her side.
She jumped in surprise, dropping the slice of bacon she was holding, and a large English sheepdog quickly finished it for her.
"That's just Missy," her grandmother stated coolly, as if Kari hadn't just almost had a heart attack at her kitchen counter. "She was your grandfather's retirement present thirteen years ago…"
Kari did the calculations in her head. If her grandfather had retired when she was three, then… "When did he…?" Kari felt uncomfortable saying it, if not a little embarrassed to bring it up. She didn't even know when her own grandfather had passed away.
"It was two years after we got Missy. Eleven years last month. I'm almost ashamed to ask, but how old were you then?"
"Five. And Tai would have been eight." They continued eating their breakfast, stuck in a very awkward silence. Missy interrupted them by trotting over to the front door, then turning around to give them a pleading look.
Grandma Kate stood up and piled their dishes by sink. "I'm going to take Missy for a walk. While we're gone, why don't you wake your mother up, get dressed, and whatever else you need to do, and when I get back, we'll go see the sights. There's the bridge, the Twin Peaks, Lombard Street…"
She went on listing places Kari had never heard of, pulling on a pair of worn tennis shoes. Then she attached a leash to Missy's collar, and headed out the door.
Kari still felt bad for revealing how little she knew about her grandfather, so she thought she would clean up their breakfast dishes for her. First, though, she made up another plate of food, poured a fresh glass of orange juice, and made her way upstairs.
She used her foot to push open the door of her mother's bedroom. The heavy curtains were drawn over the windows, preventing any light from getting into the room. Still, Kari could detect a table to the right of the bed where her mother lay wrapped in her sheets. Kari set the breakfast down on the table and pulled back the curtains.
Light flooded into the room, causing her mother to groan and roll over, like a teenager fighting against a day of school.
"Good morning," Kari tried to say cheerily.
Her mother grunted a response similar to the one Kari had given her grandmother downstairs.
Kari pulled the blankets back so she could tell her mother that she had brought her breakfast-in-bed and that Grandma Kate had plans for today.
Slowly, Mrs. Kamiya sat up and started picking at the food in front of her. "Is there any coffee?" she asked.
"Sorry," Kari said, truly apologetic, "but there's milk, apple juice, water, and some sort of mango-pineapple combination downstairs if you'd rather have that."
"This is perfect, thank you Kari," she replied, giving her daughter a bright smile.
Kari left her mom to her breakfast, finished cleaning up the kitchen, and headed back to her new attic room. The first thing she noticed was the round window overlooking the street. She looked out, her first daylight view of San Francisco. The other houses on the street were three story row houses, like her grandmothers. Though theirs was slightly more than three stories, it was far from the tallest because the street was on such a high slope, so all of the houses to the right appeared taller. Cars passed by below, and people rushed down the sidewalks, the neighborhood very much alive at eight thirty on a Monday morning.
She turned back to look at her new room. Her suitcase and backpack were in a heap at the top of the stairs where she had left them the night before, there was a tarnished full-length mirror in the corner, an old wooden dresser, and some boxes off to the side.
She discovered that the drawers were empty, and clean, so she didn't hesitate to fill them with all of her clothes. Afterwards, she grabbed a pair of khaki capri pants, and a white tank top, and headed downstairs to take a quick shower.
A short while later, Grandma Kate and Missy returned from their walk and both Kari and her mother were ready for the day ahead of them. They loaded back into her grandmother's Ford Focus and took a scenic route through the city.
They drove down Lombard Street, the one with the tight curves, they saw the Golden Gate Bridge, the Ghirardelli chocolate factory (which isn't really a factory, but a shopping plaza), Fisherman's Wharf (another shopping plaza), Chinatown, the Twin Peaks, Alcatraz, and the famous San Francisco cable cars.
Every interesting sight that she saw from the lonely backseat made Kari miss T.K. and her friends even more. As soon as they get back to her grandmother's house, Kari decided, she was going to e-mail T.K. and tell him everything that she hadn't said.
Grandma Kate slowed down as they passed a very large, modern looking building.
"This is where you'll be going to school Kari. I've already talked to the principal, and you'll be starting tomorrow."
Kari reassessed the building, and felt like she wanted to cry. It was a nice enough looking building, yet thinking about starting at a new school, left her with a lonely, empty feeling.
When they finally pulled into Grandma Kate's driveway, Kari was thoroughly distraught over her first day of school. They entered the house and were immediately greeted by Missy, reminding them that she needed to be taken for a walk.
Kari was the first to volunteer to take her, thinking that a relaxing walk would help her clear her thoughts.
"Kari, while you're out, do you mind stopping at the Coffee Beanery around the corner to get some ground coffee for your mother. When you go inside, just tie Missy's leash to a parking meter or something, she's usually pretty good about staying put. And don't worry if you get the streets confused, Missy knows the city pretty well."
Kari walked back outside, gripping Missy's leash tightly. Sunset was almost finished, and the fog was rolling in over the city, as it apparently does every night. They walked at a steady pace down the block, passing plenty of people, yet none that she recognized.
She easily found the café her grandmother had mentioned, and a second later had Missy firmly secured to a lamppost. Almost uncomfortably she grabbed a bag of her mom's favorite coffee beans and gave them to the cashier to ring up.
Though she was trying not to eavesdrop, she couldn't help but notice the odd group of kids sitting at a table by the window. There were four of them, two blonde girls who looked to be about Kari's age, and were most definitely identical twins, a really tall boy with glasses and dark brown hair, and a little boy who couldn't have been older than ten years old.
The thing that was so odd about them was that they were completely silent. They were the most depressed looking kids Kari had ever seen. On her way out of the store, one of the twins met her eyes. Kari smiled intuitively, and surprisingly, the girl smiled back.
Kari untied Missy, thinking that, just maybe, this wouldn't be so bad.
However, things changed from bad to worse soon after she got back to her grandmother's house. She had just entered the study to e-mail T.K., when she realized something very important. There was no computer in there.
There was no computer in her grandmother's room, none in her mother's room, not in the living room, the kitchen, the attic, or even the garage. Panic settled in, and Kari felt the need to hyperventilate.
"Grandma Kate! Mom!"
"What? What is it honey?" came the concerned responses.
"I can't find Grandma Kate's computer."
"Oh, I've never had any use for a computer. You know those can get pretty expensive," her grandmother explained casually.
"Oh, Kari," her mother said sympathetically. "I wouldn't worry too much. I'm sure your new school will have a computer lab."
Kari couldn't even say anything in response. Her life had just gone from pretty bad to even worse. Inconsolably unhappy, Kari climbed the stairs to the attic, where she would begin writing out a letter to T.K. by hand.