Somewhere Else [Damien Haas]

11. Government

-/-/-

Nothing's more upsetting than reading whatever hullabaloo's happening in the States while being relaxed in Japan. And it's even more upsetting to realize that you're headed to a representation of the States' government in Japan. America, sometimes, I just cannot even.

I turn off my phone, sick of all the news, when I see Jade come out of the elevator in a bit of a hurry. "Hey, glad you're already here, I have something to tell you," she tells me as soon as she arrives at the lobby area.

"Me too actually," I reply before pointing at the embassy agent beside me. "He's here to pick us up, baby."

She gives me a look that says, "Oh, shit." I know that Jade look. When she competed in the Calculus trial during senior year, she shot me that look all the way from the stage to the farthest seat. Probably because she wasn't ready to see an agent from the embassy pick us up early or because she wasn't ready for the pet name time. We had agreed that the pet names were only going to start as soon as we were separated from the Kims at the embassy building, but because there's an agent here, we had to start early. I even made all sorts of excuses for Jade not being with me when I went to meet the guy.

"Mark Darcy," he introduces himself to Jade. "I know what you're thinking. I am a black man with a British accent who works for the American embassy in Japan. It's a mouthful, but doesn't that make things much easier for institutionalized racism to crumble?"

"And you're also named after Colin Firth's character in the Bridget Jones movies," she adds, shaking his hand firmly.

"Is that so? I must check it out then," he tells her, laughing. "Lovely to meet both of you. My mother is black, my father is white, I grew up in London. And then I was assigned in Japan. What a world, huh? Anyway, we should go!"

When we get into the embassy car, Jade keeps glancing at me suspiciously, but she can't seem to say whatever she had to say out loud. I raise my eyebrow at her, and she would only nod. That was the code for "We need to talk," which we've done back in high school. Something bad is up probably, and when she types something on her phone, it's a long one.

I notice the ring on her finger. She didn't have an engagement ring last night. Did she have one to carry around? When I look closely, I knew I could recognize that ring from somewhere.

"I'm just nervous that I don't pass the exam," Jade told me as we studied in the diner. "Kendra kept telling me that, when she took the exam last week, it was gonna be a piece of cake for me. But I dunno. It's... it's Yale. It's what I've been dreaming of since I was a child. It always seemed like a distant dream, but now that it's actually here..."

"Hey, calm down," I assured her as she aggressively drank from her milkshake. "You're gonna do great. You've done so many great things. Yale even invited you to go to them every Saturday for half a year. Do you know how many Saturdays those were? A lot. I didn't really count."

She sighed, rubbing her temples. "You're right," she mumbled before starting to clean the table of her study materials. "I need to do this right. This Saturday, I'm going to study for Yale at Yale!"

"What?" I asked, confused. "You're gonna go to Yale again?"

"Yeah, so I get the feel of the place. The librarians there know me already, so it won't be a problem," she answered. "And so I could check out my testing room there. It's a lot of work, but I know how to drive even though I'm not very good at it."

"We never get to spend time anymore, your Saturdays belong to Yale," I remarked, sighing. "In college, the next of your four years will belong to Yale. And Saturdays will be all I have with you."