His eyes searched my face, but if he was going to ask me anything more, it was lost under the sound of laughter coming from the living room; his family was headed our way.
“We should talk later,” Daniel said quickly.
“Alone,” I added.
“That I can arrange,” he said with a soft smile.
“Romance and detective work won’t mix tonight!”
—Nancy Drew,The Bungalow Mystery(1930)
22
Dinner with the Aokis could be summed up in two words: boisterous and passionate.
During the many overlapping conversations that took place, I learned several things about their family. That Jiji and Baba were retired. That Jiji’s father was forced to live in a Japanese-American internment camp in Puyallup during WWII. And that they visited Japan for the first time on their anniversary last year. I also learned that Cherry was a background dancer in a national Coke commercial when Daniel was three, and that Baba reallyhadwatched every episode ofMurder, She Wrotewith Daniel.
But after an hour of nonstop dinner conversation, I was thankful when Daniel spoke up and said, “We’re going to eat and run, people. Birdie has to get back on a ferry soon, and I need to give her a key card for the hotel, which is why she came out here.”
“It is?” Jiji said, looking at me with surprise.
Sure. Why not? No one even gave me a chance to answer, so I dodged that bullet.
When we left the dining room, I thought Daniel might be taking me up to his bedroom so we could talk. Next thing I knew, he was urging me out the kitchen door and we were both slipping back into our shoes.
“Sorry about all that,” he murmured after we trekked through the workshop and headed outside. “I knew if we didn’t get out now, we’d be stuck there for hours.”
“Where are we going?”
“I’m house-sitting for a retired couple across the quad here. I’ve been sleeping over there and taking care of their birds while they’re in California, visiting their daughter. It’s this way. Come on.”
He led me across the grassy quad to a one-story home painted a strange, vivid shade of green. Then he unlocked the side door and off came the shoes again.
“Is this a Japanese thing or an Aoki thing?” I asked.
“Both. Shoes are filthy, Birdie. Why would you track dirt inside your own home—and dog shit and bacteria and everything else you’ve been carting around on the soles of your shoes? Plus, when you take off your shoes, you tell your mind that you’re entering a safe space. Leave all the stressful, negative shit you’ve accumulated outside.”
I hadn’t thought of it that way, but it made sense. I took off my shoes again, and then we set them inside the door and stepped into the house.
My mouth dropped open.
This house wasn’t just green on the outside; it was greeneverywhere. Green kitchen, where we stood. Appliances, counters, and avocado motif wallpaper. Green plants in every window. Green forest mural painted on the walls of the living room. Green shag carpet. Green jeweled lamps. And a bookshelf filled with spines of green books.
“What is happening?” I whispered.
Daniel closed the door behind us and laughed. “Welcome to Green Gables. It’s perpetually stuck in 1980.”
A green peninsula counter ringed with barstools separated the kitchen from a big, open living space. Daniel flipped on the lights, and it made the green glare so much worse. And that’s when the birds began chirping.
“Meet Dipper, Nipper, Chipper, and Kipper,” Daniel said, leading me to a wall of elaborate birdcages with four green parrots inside.
“Do they talk?”
“Not as much as you’d hope. This one says ‘Dottie’ sometimes—that’s her owner. Dottie and Roman. That’s them,” he said, pointing to a photograph of a couple in their fifties with armfuls of birds. “They’re super kooky and really nice.”
I glanced at the giant old TV in the corner and a stereo that looked as if it had been manufactured as a prop for a cheesy science fiction movie. “Who would want to break in?”
“Only someone who would realize the error of their ways and immediately run right back out. But Dottie and Roman knew I needed a break from my family, so they convinced my mom to let me sleep here until they get back in a couple of weeks. The first few nights, I had nightmares aboutCharlie and the Chocolate Factory, only all the candy was green.”
