Nine Small Sips _A Tales of Bryant Novella by V. L. Locey

Author:V. L. Locey [Locey, V. L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-06-09T18:30:00+00:00

Dinner that night was weird. Not wholly uncomfortable, but just odd. Baba had made a pot of nikujaga, a hearty beef and potato soup with some freshly baked bread sticks. My dad loved Baba’s soup, so he had driven over from Trenton to join us. Dad’s Japanese was a little better than mine but not much. It was a good thing Mom had been here as a foreign exchange student for her archeology major and had learned English before flying over. If it had been up to Dad to woo her in Japanese, I would have never been born.

I was sadly lifting a chunk of meat from my soup with my chopsticks when my grandmother called my name. I glanced up from my dripping beef cube to her. Brian was sitting beside my father, talking about investing in some stocks that had paid back nicely. He was working on trying to get my dad’s retirement portfolio in better shape. Dad invested like he spoke Japanese, which was badly. I was obviously my father’s son in many, many ways.

“Isamu, I look for cherry blossoms,” Baba said, dabbing at her orange-red lips with the cloth napkin tied around her neck. “I see no here.”

“They’re not in bloom now,” I replied, trying to recall when they did bloom and where in the city one could even find them. Were there some in Bryant Park? Maybe Central Park?

“Oh not good. So sad for bad wedding,” Baba sighed morosely. I threw a look at my mother for some clarification. Or was this just a jab at the gay boys who would never give her grandchildren to fuss over?

“Mom was saying that it would be a wonderful sign of remembrance for Jiji if you had cherry blossoms at your wedding like they did.” My mother gave me a very pointed look. “I assured her that we all respect and remember my father already, but she said that if you could find some and sprinkle them around it would suffice.”

I opened my mouth to say that we couldn’t do cherry blossoms because A, they weren’t in bloom now, and B, if we did add something new at this point of the event, Adrian would either swoon or quit. Neither were acceptable outcomes for the wedding planner who held our special day in his hands, but Brian slid in before I could speak.

“We’ll see what we can do,” he said then fell back into the investing talk with Dad. Baba seemed pleased. Mom seemed pleased. Dad seemed perplexed with all the divesting and investing talk. Brian seemed distant. And I felt like the spuds in the soup were sitting in my gut in one big starchy glob. My stomach was a flurry of uneasiness until we all went to bed. Then it was just me and Brian in our luxurious bedroom, which was probably scandalizing my grandmother to no end. I was sitting on the artsy white love seat in the corner, in a pair of cotton shorts, and Brian was seated beside me, in a silk robe that he hadn’t bothered to tie.

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