Memory Lane

Part 20: Cherry

You're dead. And not in the metaphorical sense, although I wished with every fiber of my being that it was that way. The literary way, the kind that they used to shove down my throat in English class back in California.

But your death was literal. It had more in common with the biology class we took together, evoking the frogs I dissected and the awful smell of preserved bodies.

I could think of nothing more antithetical to who you were. Your name and death didn't belong in the same sentence, much less inhabit the same reality.

Yet there it was in twelve-point font print in that article identifying the corpse in our small town. Eleanor Moore. Female. Age seventeen. Dead for seven months before someone found your body.

The missing person's report I filed a month ago helped the police immensely. You were an exact match for the description of the body. Blond hair. Blue eyes. Five feet seven inches. One hundred forty-five pounds with a goldfish tattoo on your left ankle. All of my worst fears come to life.

I thought I was paranoid when I hadn't heard from you. Everyone told me to move on and forget. Get a lobotomy and pretend the best person I knew never existed.

It was one of those moments where I hated being right. I should have followed that nagging feeling when Chiyo told me about your case. But I desperately hoped it wasn't you. I had a lifetime of being wrong to back that up, a mishmash of bad first impressions and red marks next to my homework answers.

I found out about your passing on what started as my happiest day in Tokyo. After being driven into the city with Airi by the chauffeur, I decided to skip cram school. This was Chiyo's brilliant idea. With Airi's bullies taken care of and the humid weather finally releasing Tokyo from the grasp of its sweaty fingers, it was the perfect day to cut my weekend classes.

Chiyo wanted to check out a new bag that was being released from her favorite boutique and I wanted to stop staring at calculus problems. I also wanted to explore the city since I didn't get the chance to see the sights, enrolling in school immediately after the festivities of my mother's marriage were over, but the misery of my classwork outweighed any desire I had to have fun.

I completely forgot about the list of things I wanted to do before I flew to Japan. Truthfully, it was more your list, punctuated with colorful pens and highlighters. We intended to visit Japan on our own after we graduated high school, a long summer vacation before we faced the realities of college. I was supposed to reconnect with my heritage and you intended to bathe in hot springs and visit animal cafes.

But then you went missing and the world said you abandoned me. And like a fool, I believed that you had. It wouldn't have been the first time even though you promised to never do it again.

Still, I took your list and snuck out of cram school, hellbent on forgetting what we had. I had been in Japan for a month then. You flitted in and out of my dreams, sometimes ethereal and other times malevolent.

At the metro, Chiyo greeted me with a cherry-scented kiss on my cheeks. I ignored the fluttering in my chest. It was the French way of greeting people and she was obsessed with everything Parisian at the moment. Even the bag she wanted to line up for was imported from France.

I let myself get caught up in her excitement, putting on rose-colored glasses and getting swept up in her flowery perfume. There was no other person I would rather forget my past with.

"I should have been born half-French instead of half-German," she sighed, her lips pursed in a perfect pout.

She was all blush and lipstick that day, her imitation of Parisian elegance. She wore a simple floral pink dress with white shoulder covering, none of the cherry accessories I saw on the first day present save for her earrings. The French dictated minimalism, but they couldn't get Chiyo to completely give up her cherries.

I changed into a plain white dress to match, my uniform bulging in my school bag. She politely texted me the night before that the t-shirt and jeans I preferred to wear would make me stick out like a sore thumb and suggested I wear something resembling the summer fashion trends. It was meant to make me look older like I wasn't supposed to be in school.

You wouldn't have recognized me if you saw me that day. I recently got my hair cut, opting for blunt front bangs. The rest I kept long, growing my hair to a length that was well in the feminine territory. Airi persuaded me to try contact lenses to make my eyes shiny and light. She even got me into the habit of letting the maids do my makeup every day to keep up the Watanabe family image.

I acquiesced, wanting to forget what I did to Dumb, Fat, and Angry. Anything to put distance between me and the girl I saw in the mirror covered in blood on that sordid evening. Airi didn't know what I did for her sake and I wanted to keep it that way.

I wasn't sure how convincing we were as older girls, but Chiyo went through the line with no problem, hooking a cherry charm to her red leather bag after purchase. I bought a small black wallet out of politeness, purposely not looking at the price tag and swiping a card Mr. Watanabe gave me for personal use. It was a luxury goods store, a name brand that people bragged about wearing that I couldn't remember for the life of me.

We spent the rest of the day wandering the streets, walking into whatever store we felt like. Cute cafes, vintage thrift stores, stationery shops, jazz clubs, luxury boutiques, and bookstores swirled in a dazzling kaleidoscope of distraction.

For a few hours, I felt like a normal girl. I understood the kind of person my mother wanted me to be as I shopped to my heart's content. With the makeup and the dress, people were nicer to me. The world opened up like a summer flower that forgot to bloom in the spring.

I didn't think that reality was possible for me. As I walked through Tokyo in a dreamlike state doing things that only pleased my senses, I managed to achieve the impossible. For the first time in months, I forgot you existed.

Forgive me. I thought you were living happily in my absence, not rotting in a pond while the fish you loved ate your skin. The world demanded that I move on and foolishly, I listened.

I remembered you when Chiyo took me to a ramen stand and I tasted the dashi broth soaking my noodles. The fishy umami flavor took me back to the goldfish we released in the woods. Your vow to never eat fish rings in my head, a relic of girlhood.

"They've identified the body," Chiyo said, interrupting my thoughts.

I didn't assume that whatever case she was talking about had anything to do with me. There were many that she talked about, her tongue parsing through serial killers, cults, and sociopaths in a gruesome verbal meal. You would never know about her obsession by looking at her.

It was an oddity that I found comforting. The other girls at school thought she was intimidatingly pretty. Her half-German blood and frequent trips to Europe made her seem like she came from another world. Only I knew of her true nature, her morbid tastes and fickle fashion. Why she revealed her secret self to me was out of my grasp.

Maybe I was special to her. She trusted me enough to let me into her cherry and rose sphere, giving me her intense undivided attention. I had a crush on her that I didn't want to act on because I wasn't sure which way she swung.

But all of that became meaningless when I found out you were dead. When she told me that the body was yours, sound ceased to reach my ears. Color faded, turning the world black and white. Chiyo's lips traced the word "murder" but other than that, I registered little else.

I didn't feel the tears slip from my eyes or Chiyo's hand when she grabbed me to ask what was wrong. I was sucked into a numbing vacuum, anchored by the sickening sensation that came from realizing that you never meant to leave me. All of these months I spent crying over you were wasted because you never broke your promise to not abandon me.

I'm sorry that I doubted you. I'm sorry for any bitterness that I felt toward our memories together. Most of all, I'm sorry that I couldn't save you.