The Little Drummer Girl

Part 7

John didn’t show up at the school gates the next afternoon. Instead, he texted me to say that a huge order for Christmas pastries had come up and that he couldn’t leave the café. Marni teased me about the disappointment on my face, but I thought it was just as well, since I had to escort my sister to and from her voice lessons that day. For some reason, I didn’t want to explain to John about my family just yet. I told myself I didn’t want to saddle our fledgling friendship with the dead weight of the Andrada family’s reputation, but inside I knew the truth: I didn’t want John to see me the way my family saw me—as a huge disappointment and an object of pity.

But with the Christmas concert looming ever closer, it was soon going to be painfully obvious that there was one Andrada who was sitting on the fringes instead of taking a bow onstage.

John came around again the next afternoon though, this time bearing a bag of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. The three of us sat at a bench near the entrance munching on cookies, and after a while, Marni licked her fingers and got to her feet. “Mmm. Crisp on the outside yet chewy on the inside, sweet but not obnoxiously so. This is acceptable,” she pronounced.

“Thank you. I’m glad you think so.” John’s lips twitched as he inclined his head in a bow.

“But before I let you date my best friend, there are a few things I’d like to know.”

I choked on a lump of cookie and died, only to come back to life, blush beet-reds and splutter, “Marni, nobody said anything about dating!”

Marni gave me a look that told me I’d just topped her list of Stupid Things People Say. I didn’t know what John’s response was—I was too embarrassed to look at him—but I heard him say, in a voice that sounded as if he was trying not to laugh: “I understand. Go ahead, ask away.”

She asked him the usual questions: his age (nearly nineteen), the school he graduated from (Yamamura International High School and Phoebe A. Hurst Elementary School before that), where he learned to bake (he learned here, but he’d been cooking meals for his family for years), what his favorite color, animal and food were (blue, fox, and adobo), and how long he was staying here (until the 30th, since he planned to celebrate New Year with his family).

I twisted my ponytail into a coil. Of course, I knew he would leave one day but…so soon?

Marni narrowed her eyes. “Hmm, those are too easy. Let’s try something harder.”

“Hit me with your best shot,” John drawled, still looking amused.

“Married? Baby mama? Any kids that you fathered and abandoned back in Japan?”

“Marni!” I squawked then turned to John, waving my hands frantically. “You don’t have to answer that. She’s just a cynic with a terrible opinion of guys in general.”

He burst out laughing. “It’s fine. And my answers are no, none, and absolutely none at all.”

“Just making sure,” Marni sniffed. “Moving on then. Criminal record?”

I groaned into my hands. “You’re worse than my dad, you know that?”

“It’s okay, Zoey,” John said again. “No criminal record. And I don’t smoke or do drugs either.”

“So how did you get that scar on your eyebrow?”

My eyes went wide. I couldn’t believe she went there. John’s face went tight then he seemed to relax, although he did turn to me and ask dryly, “You two aren’t sisters by any chance, are you?”

“No, her sister’s a brat,” Marni answered for me. “Well?”

I held my breath, realizing that I really wanted to know the answer to that one, too. John exhaled, looking as though he was choosing his words. “I got into a fight. A bunch of guys jumped me at the back of a building, and I fell on some broken glass.” His mouth twisted when he noticed our expressions. “You’re wondering what the fight was about? In Japan, you can get bullied for being in any way different, and I was different as hell.”