Deena Goldstone - Surprise Me

That night when he returns home and encounters Daniel’s questions about how long it’s taken him to bring back dinner — questions that he’s heard on previous nights — Stefan tells him the restaurant was really crowded. Sometimes he’ll say that they messed up the order and he had to wait while they remade it or that they were training a new chef and the guy was way slow. Stefan makes sure to rotate his excuses. Does Daniel believe him? It’s hard to tell.

Daniel wants to believe him. It’s easier for everyone if Stefan is behaving himself. And shouldn’t Daniel be exhibiting some trust in his son? Shouldn’t he be treating him more like a man and less like a child? Stefan was in that interrogation room with Daniel and the cop. He heard the warning. He understands what will happen if he doesn’t leave this girl alone.

“Look,” he says to his son, “you’ve got to act like an adult here.”

You mean act like you? Stefan is desperate to say but doesn’t.

“You’ve got to stay away from that girl. Can’t you find something else to do during the days?”

As if that’s the point.

Stefan mumbles, “Okay,” his eyes on his feet. He doesn’t like lying to his dad, but there’s a bigger principle involved here.

Daniel chooses to hear that barely audible okay as a promise, and so, after several weeks, he loosens the reins a bit. Given the extra freedom, Stefan hatches a plan. He knows he can’t go to the Ice Hall anymore. Even with a disguise, he’s pretty sure the coach, that asshole, will spot him. So his days of watching practice and taking notes are probably over. But he has the notebook. He wishes he’d been able to complete it, but it still contains gold as far as Stefan is concerned. If Mitsuko could read it, it would help her. It might even make the difference between her making the Olympic team or not. So he will present it to her.

That decision necessitates a lot more watching. And several changes of disguises. He goes to the Salvation Army store and buys whatever he would never wear in his real life — an army fatigue jacket, a Yankees baseball cap, a Stetson and a fringed jacket, a ski cap and goggles, a red nylon jacket with a hood, and several pairs of large, dark sunglasses. He will mix and match.

First he stays away from her apartment for two weeks. It’s agony, but he wants to lull the coach into complacency— Okay, the kid has given up . And Stefan’s far more regular habits also serve to reassure Daniel that his son has stopped his nonsense with the skater. But all Stefan is doing is biding his time.

One day in late April, the crabapple trees begin to bud, purple and red swellings that burst forth into pristine white blossoms laced with pink, and suddenly spring is thrust upon them. It’s wondrous how, overnight it seems, change is palpable and possibilities are poised on tiptoes after the cold, harsh winter. Now, Stefan thinks, he has to make his move.

The dilemma is how to get Mitsuko away from her coach but outside her apartment. Even if Stefan could get into her building, which is locked and needs a key code, he feels he shouldn’t walk in and knock on her door. If he gets into trouble for this — and he might — he wants to be able to minimize the damage. He wants to be able to say to Daniel, I just ran into her on the street. An accident. It was a public place. There were people around. Nothing bad could have happened.

So he has to see where she goes after the coach drops her off. Does she leave the apartment, go out to eat with the other girl? Her sister, he’s sure. To a movie? Shopping?

On Friday afternoons, when Daniel has office hours, Stefan takes to waiting in his car, slumped down in the driver’s seat, watching the door to Mitsuko’s apartment house from under the brim of his cowboy hat. He discovers that the coach, the despicable one, lets her come home early from practice on Friday afternoons, and then one day Stefan gets lucky. He sees Mitsuko and her sister exit through the glass front door and walk down their street to a minimall two blocks away. He follows them in his car, creeping slowly behind them, and parks across the street.

All the tiny stores are eating establishments — Jamba Juice, a KFC franchise, a Thai restaurant, and a Yuzu Yogurt shop, which has a sign out front in both English and Japanese and a tiny patio with a few white plastic chairs and tables. He watches the two girls come out of the shop with their cones and sit there on the patio, eating and chattering.

Most Friday afternoons, he soon learns, now that the weather has turned more temperate, this walk to Yuzu Yogurt, this sitting on the patio and eating their cones, is their routine. Now he knows where he will approach Mitsuko, but first he has to make sure the notebook is as complete as he can make it and he has to write a note to go with it which explains the significance of it. All of this takes time, the note particularly, because he doesn’t know exactly what to say. He doesn’t want to brag, but he does want to let her know how important his notes are. How they might make the difference between going to the Nagano Games and not. He wishes he could ask his dad for help, because the one thing his dad knows how to do is write, but of course he can’t. So he struggles on his own and comes up with this note:

Dear Mitsuko,

I have spent many hours watching you practice and taking notes. What is in this notebook will help you make the Olympic team, which you truly deserve. It is a record of every hour of every practice I have been at. The black ink is for routines you have mastered, the red is for mistakes (not as many of those by far!), and the purple is for some personal comments of mine that might help you — all positive, don’t worry!

I did this only to help you know where you are at because I think you are amazing! Even though I am not a citizen of Japan, I will be rooting for you.

Sincerely,

Stefan Jablonski

Stefan reads the note over so many times he has it memorized. Is it exactly what he wants to say? Not even close, but he feels it’s as nonthreatening as he can make it. He knows it’s inappropriate to tell her how he feels watching her skate or how his heart beats more quickly when he sees her set foot on the ice. He’s not some weirdo, after all. He was engaged in a helpful mission, using his unique gift — his powers of observation. That’s the message he wants to get across to her.

Now that the note is done and he’s reread every entry in his notebook, there’s nothing to do but give her both. He makes his plan. On a Friday afternoon, he will wait until Mitsuko and her sister are sitting on the Yuzu Yogurt patio. He will approach and take a seat at their table — better to be sitting down than looming over them. (He’s proud that he’s thought all this through so carefully.) Next he will put the notebook on the table and explain what it is and that there’s a note inside, and then he will get up and leave. Simple. Nonthreatening. Mission accomplished.

The next Friday he makes sure to wear clean jeans and a simple white T-shirt. He combs his hair, something he rarely thinks about doing. He makes sure to shave that morning, and when he gets out of his car and crosses the street to the yogurt shop, his spirits are soaring.

The two girls look up at him as he approaches, breaking off their conversation abruptly. It’s obvious that they both recognize him, but instead of the anticipation and smiles he’d hoped for, he sees a flash of fear across Mitsuko’s face.

“No, no,” are the first words out of his mouth, not at all what he had planned to say.

When he sits down at their table, the sister stands up, grabs Mitsuko’s arm, and pulls her up to standing, as well.