Summer Haikus – Chapter 1

Ripples of energy shoot up my legs as my feet hit the pavement, one stride in front of the other. My neck is drenched and rivulets of sweat cascade down my back, the sun bouncing off the top of my head. Glancing at Halley, I see that she checks her Garmin watch and a broad smile dawns across her face.

“Time?” I ask, over the J-pop blaring in my ears. I never used to run to music, but last fall, Halley insisted we stop running and talking at the same time, so we both spent hours putting together playlists for our training sessions. She loves dub step and the dirtiest rap with the most foul lyrics she can find. I like J-pop, techno, downtempo, and indie.

“Good. We’re good. Mile eight, eight minutes, three seconds.” Halley smiles, her blonde ponytail swaying behind her. “I told you. Short ten mile run, easy pace.”

I roll my eyes at her and keep going. Only Halley would think eight minute miles is an easy pace.

There’s a lot to love about Michigan State University this time of year. After a long hard winter full of five foot snow drifts and below freezing temperatures, May brings with it green grass and trees, cows out on the South Pasture, and the MSU dairy where I can get the best butter pecan ice cream on the planet. The comm arts building looms in front of us as we come to our turn, right down Wilson Road from Red Cedar Road. The building makes me smile, fond memories floating through my mind of sitting in four-hundred-person lectures and eating in the café between classes so I wouldn’t have to go out into the cold. All of my comm arts classes are done for the semester now, and I can’t wait to return to this part of campus in the fall since I’ve finally chosen my major. Well, majors, plural.

“Uh-oh. It’s Peter,” Halley whispers at me, and sure enough, Peter Samuels, lead Epsilon Delta goofball, is running towards us in the opposite direction. His stride looks good, better than it did earlier in the school year when he was twenty pounds overweight and couldn’t keep up with 5k walkers.

“Hey, Peter!” I call out, waving and making Halley groan. “What? I’m always nice…” I whisper back.

“Lookin’ good, ladies!” Peter shouts over his headphones. He pops an earbud out, and Halley’s eyes widen. She taps her watch and speeds her legs. “See you tonight, right? Last party of the year!”

Peter pumps his fist, and we nod.

“Sure,” Halley says. “Looking forward to it.” She winks at him, and he trips over the pavement but elegantly saves himself and runs backwards behind us.

“Good luck this summer, Halley! We’re all pulling for you to win! Woo! Olympics!”

Heads turn as we pass students exiting the urban planning building. Several stop to clap as we run by while Halley waves her hand in the air and laughs.

Not everyone has a potential Olympic gold medal winning best friend, but I do, and I try not to let it go to her head.

“Stop the waving, princess. We have another two miles to go before we make it back to Brody.”

“Okay, okay. Faster.” Halley’s legs speed up, and I struggle to find the energy to match pace with her. I know I have it in me somewhere, but it’s our last run of the school year together. I wanted it to be more leisurely, but these will always be training runs for Halley. We never run just to de-stress or get fresh air or cancel out the pint of ice cream we each ate while watching movies in our room the night before.

I keep pace at her side, but I start to lag behind around mile nine. As she pulls away, she turns her head and shouts, “Comet tail, keep up!”

A chuckle from deep in my belly stops me dead in my tracks. On a run, I’m never Isano or Isa. I’m Halley’s comet tail, and I’ve been her tail for fifteen years. Still the nickname never ceases to make me laugh.

—-

When I enter our room in Bryan Hall, Halley is already icing down her feet and rehydrating. I decided to walk the rest of the way back and cool down instead of running the whole way home and then having to cool down before my shower.

“How are your feet?” I ask, shucking my arm band onto the table and accessing the messages on my iPhone. One from Masa, “Meet you at 11 at the library. Sorry. I know you said 10:30. I’m already late.” I roll my eyes at my phone and type, “Fine. Just in from my run anyway.”

“What’s with the face?” Halley asks, looking up from her Gatorade and protein bar. Her hair is in a blonde halo around her head, her face red and skin flushed.

“You should talk.” I laugh and look at my combination dry erase and cork board on the wall over my desk under my loft bed. Today: run, done. I cross it off the list. Grade papers with Masa. Lunch on the go. Afternoon, pack. Dinner with Halley and dorm crew at Brody. Frat party. Ugh. I hate frat parties. It’s no mystery why that’s written on my schedule in Halley’s handwriting. I bite the inside of my cheek and check Saturday and Sunday. Turn in papers, make my Mother’s Day YouTube video, pack, and leave on Sunday. Masa’s not on the weekend schedule at all.

“Masa’s already running late for paper grading. Typical.” I peel off my sweaty shirt, shorts, and sports bra before grabbing my robe. “I gotta shower and go. Are you okay? Need anything?”

As designated Olympian trainer, roommate, and best friend, it’s my job to make sure Halley is well taken care of every day so she can train and attend school with no hiccups. That’s the pact I made with her parents when they offered to pay for my books and meal plan every year Halley and I live together.

“I’m fine,” she says sinking into the lounge chair in our tiny room. The twinkle lights strung along the outside of our beds makes her hair glow. She lifts her iPhone to take a selfie for Instagram and her five thousand followers before laughing and swiping to her email. She’s fine.

I grab my shower caddy and head to the communal bathroom, praying no one is in there that I’ll have to talk to, but I open the door and our neighbors across the hall are chatting at the sinks.

“Isa, hey!”

“Hi,” I say, internally counting to ten. One, two, three…

“How’s Halley? Is she ready, you think? We’re sooooo excited for her. Can’t wait to watch the Games this summer.” Kaylee twirls her dark hair and throws the long locks over her shoulder, holding her toothbrush in one hand and leaning against the sink with the other. I’m surprised they even made it to the count of three to ask me about Halley. Most people just attack me in the hallway and beg for gossip which I know will be on Snapchat five minutes later.

Tiara, her roommate, nods with her toothbrush in her mouth, mumbling, “Gonna be awesome.”

“Halley’s just as ready for this marathon as she has been for the countless other marathons she’s been in,” I say, touting the party line. It’s all true, of course, which makes it even easier to spout off to anyone and everyone who asks me about her. She’s more ready for Tokyo than she was for Antarctica, her hardest race ever. Harder even than qualifying for the Olympic team. Halley thrives in summer and heat. Antarctica was brutal for her and she still came in second.

I shift my weight between my feet, aches in my legs crawling up my calves. I should have stretched more.

“So, when do you leave for Tokyo?” Tiara asks, banging her toothbrush on the side of the sink.

I think this is the closest they’ll get to asking about me. “Halley leaves on Wednesday. I’m joining her in three weeks.”

“You spending time with your mom while you’re there?”

I nod and hum. “Mom’s got a few things planned. We’re going to make a trip to see my cousins, and I’m going to stay at the ryokan a few nights. I’ll mostly be with Halley downtown, though.”

My mom lives outside of downtown Tokyo, in Kichijōji, kind of a suburb west of the city where she runs the family’s ryokan, Kurogashi, a Japanese inn that caters to foreigners. The house and ryokan are lovely, but I haven’t been there since they renovated. My parents divorced six years ago. She moved back to Japan, and I stayed with Dad and went to high school here. I’ve only visited once since then. I don’t have a lot of time or money for international trips. The only traveling I’ve done recently was with Halley, and her parents paid for those trips.

“I gotta shower and go grade papers.” I turn towards the showers but stop, remembering my manners. “Will you two be around later? Halley and I are having one last dinner in the caf before we go.”

“Nope,” Kaylee says, grabbing her caddy. “I’m done with finals. Dylan and I are heading to Grand Rapids tonight.”

“And I’m heading back to Livonia. Yay.” Tiara tosses her toothbrush in her caddy with a frown on her face. “I’m not going home next summer. I hate going home.”

I nod silently. I don’t mind going home to Grosse Ile, but this is the summer I’ve been waiting for. No babysitting, no part-time job at the local theater, and no fifteen-year-old temperamental car. Just a Tokyo Metro Card, summer reading, running, and the Olympics.

I let the shower run extra hot to get the sweat off my body and stretch inside the tiny space. The dreaded “freshman fifteen” meant nothing to me last year. I never gained an ounce, and since Halley and I were constantly on the go, I had to eat more so I wouldn’t lose weight. I wash my hair, soap up my face, and sluice the soap down my body. I glance down to see if boobs have grown in the last day. Nope. Still flat-chested.

I sigh and lean against the wall, going through my mental routine for the rest of the day, the plans I need in order to handle anything that comes at me. This is how I keep the constant anxiety away, buried in my brain under a pile of contingencies and what-if scenarios. If I get to the library and Masa’s not in our usual spot, I’ll find a table and wait for him. If he’s there before me, I’ll try and sit across from him instead of next to him. If I sit next to him, I can’t stare at him when he’s not looking. What if other people are there? I’ll try to smile and be nice. If I don’t know them, I’ll get to grading. I need to remember my headphones. If I forget my headphones, the whole thing will be ruined. I’ll have to beg off, come back home, and then grade papers somewhere else.

Right. Okay. I think I’m ready. I have a plan. What could possibly go wrong?