The Lake of Dreams - Kim Edwards [123]
“When is he coming?” Keegan asked. “Your boyfriend from Japan.”
“Yoshi. He gets here on Saturday.”
“All right.” He nodded, gazed past me at the dark lake. “Don’t bring him by the glassworks, okay?”
“Okay,” I said, though my heart hurt at the thought of how many doors had just swung shut, how many possibilities had just fallen away forever. At the thought of Yoshi, who might or might not come now that I’d traveled so far away, who had not called or sent me anything but that brief e-mail in the last two days.
“Okay.” Keegan shifted his gaze back to me, then reached up and touched my cheek lightly with the palm of his hand. “Okay, Lucy in the sky. I suppose we ought to get back to shore.”
We didn’t speak on that long trip. At the dock, Keegan helped me out, and I hugged him, quickly and awkwardly, filled with regret even though I knew I’d done the right things. He turned his attention to the boat and I walked away, past the glassworks, past Dream Master, which rose up against the starry night sky, shadowing everything even in the dark, and slipped into the Impala.
When I got home, I found a note from my mother on the counter. Yoshi called, it said. Call back.
There was a message on my phone, too, but I didn’t listen. Whatever it was would keep until the morning. I was just too drained to call him back. My lungs still ached. I went upstairs instead without turning on the lights, and got into bed without taking off my still-damp clothes, and lay there suspended in the darkness as if in water, drifting until I finally fell asleep.
Chapter 15
I WOKE UP WITH THE SUN FULL IN MY FACE, AND PUSHED OFF the blankets. I’d been dreaming about Rose, and in my dream she’d been walking around wearing the same clear colors of the windows, her hands pale, translucent. The events of the evening before came flooding back as I showered and dressed, leaving me feeling strangely empty, as if I’d finally shed something I’d been carrying with me all these years, in all my travels. I went back into the bedroom and called Yoshi, who picked up on the second ring. I lay back on the narrow bed and closed my eyes, filled with a surprising sense of relief to hear his voice, to remember the sure weave of our days, the sound of his even breathing in the room at night, even when the earth was so unsteady.
“Hi,” I said. “What’s up? Where have you been?”
“I’m back in the hotel,” he said. “I’ve got an early flight out. Didn’t you get my message?”
“I was out. Also, my phone was dead.” This was true, but it was also true that I’d been avoiding the Internet and hadn’t bothered to charge my phone.
“Ah. I’ve been on the island. No Internet. Kind of nice. And it was beautiful, let me tell you. Neil and Julie send their best.”
“I wish I could have been there,” I said. The water in that sea was so clear. Vivid fish darted through the gardens of coral, and the world was silent except for the rush of air in the tanks. I’d learned to dive in college, and I’d convinced Yoshi to come with me when we first met. He didn’t think he’d like it, but after that first dive he was hooked. “I’ll pick you up tomorrow. At noon, right?”
“That’s right. I transit in Tokyo. Then New York. Then Rochester. Is it warm there? Because I didn’t bring much, and I packed for the tropics.”
“It’s not that warm,” I said. “But I think you’ll be okay. We have stores here, you know.”
He laughed, a low, familiar sound, and I laughed, too, though my eyes teared up because I was so glad to be talking to him again.
“I’m glad you’re coming,” I told him. “I thought you might not. I’m sorry I’ve been so distracted.” I’d have to tell him about Keegan, but I wanted to do it in person.
He was quiet for a minute. “I’m glad I’m coming, too,” he said. “I’m ready for a change.”
“Right—what’s your news?” I asked. “Anything happen in your meetings?”
“Yeah, it’s work stuff,” he said.
“Did you negotiate the bridge?”
“Well, yes. The bridge is going through. This is what I’ve heard, anyway.”
I waited.
“Well, I was going to tell you in person. But I guess I’ll tell you now.