Ami 9
Rei 10
Jaden 11
Zach 9
Love at Fifth Sight
Part 2-1
Two years later, they were standing on the shore of the same beach, watching the waves wash up in the rose and gold light of dawn. They had arrived late last night after Ami’s mother had finished her shift at the hospital and fallen asleep without unpacking more than sheets and pillows.
This time, they were renting a small beach cottage with a raised porch and white walls, much to Rei’s relief. She had taken one look at the little beachfront houses painted candy pink and wrinkled her nose at the girly shade, but Ami thought it was preferable to the houses painted a cross between spearmint and puke green.
After Eileen had introduced the idea to Kira, they had been trying to schedule a similar vacation. They seemed to keep getting foiled – by Richard’s art show, by an emergency at the hospital, and when Ami contracted bronchitis.
Kira was looking forward to spending more time with her family. As a painter, her husband had a much more flexible schedule and usually watched the girls when they were out of school. The responsibility was chafing on Richard, though.
As his reputation grew, so did the pressure to find new scenes and paint them. He couldn’t very well drag two little girls across the country in search of the perfect landscape. The shore was a compromise location: he had done one of his best paintings to date here two years ago, and he seemed to have a peculiar affinity for beach scenes.
Even now, with one hand on Ami’s shoulder and the other at his side, his fingers were itching for his brushes as they watched the sunrise.
Kira turned her head to look at him, easily reading the restlessness in his lean frame. “All right, girls, let’s go in before you catch a cold, and have some breakfast.”
________________________________________
They were running towards the beach when a flash of red-gold caught Ami’s eye. She stopped and narrowed her eyes against the sun, trying to place the vaguely familiar profile. “Rei? Is that…?”
A year older, Rei’s memory from the time was slightly clearer, although Ami’s memory had been intensified by her negative emotions. “Zachary Coruni,” her cousin said flatly. They would have tried to forget him entirely, only his name came up periodically because their mother kept in touch with Eileen Coruni, at first to ask for more details about cottage rentals and then just to chat.
Ami turned to Kira with a truly betrayed look on her face. “Mom… You said they wouldn’t be here until next week!”
“I thought they wouldn’t be,” her mother responded, smiling and waving brightly anyway. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. I’m sure they boys have grown up since then.”
A moment later, Jaden skidded to a stop before them, throwing sand over Rei’s bare feet. Zach, who had been chasing him, couldn’t stop in time and knocked into him from behind. Tangled in a pile at Rei’s feet, they looked up and smiled innocently. “Hi,” they said together.
Rei and Ami exchanged annoyed looks, while Kira seemed to find them charming. Eileen came towards them at a more sedate pace. “We thought we would surprise you!”
“You did – and it’s so nice to see you again…”
“…Matthew was able to take off a week earlier after all, and so….”
“Come on, let’s go,” Rei said, tugging Ami away.
Distractedly, Kira reminded, “Don’t go too far out, girls. Not over your heads.” Rei was a decent swimmer and Ami swam like a fish, but the ocean was still a different matter than the pool.
Zach and Jaden followed them, even though they were clearly unwanted. “She’s taller than me,” Zach hissed at Jaden. “It’s bad enough that almost all the girls in my class are taller than me, but how can Mizuno-Anderson be taller than me??”
Jaden maintained a sympathetic silence. Two years older than his brother, he had thankfully reached the age where the boys had finally begun shooting up faster than the girls and overtaking them.
Rei called over her shoulder, “It’s rude to call people by their last names, you know!”
Zach glared back. “It’s rude to eavesdrop, you know,” he mimicked.
She flushed angrily, but Ami tugged at her arm. “Let’s go swimming, Rei.”
Suddenly, Zach noticed something that would make him feel better about Ami being slightly taller than him. She was so much easier to pick on than Rei was. “Hey, you have glasses!”
Ami cringed. She had just gotten glasses at the end of the school year and was upset about how she looked. In fact, she was absolutely dreading having to go back and face her classmates in September. Since she was a year older and in different classes, there wasn’t much Rei could do to defend her.
“You’re a four eyes!” he chortled gleefully.
Ami felt hot tears forming behind her eyes. “I am not!”
“Yes, you are!”
“Don’t call her that!” Rei insisted.
Zach raised his eyebrows. “Why not? She is, isn’t she?”
She put her hands on her hips and retorted, “You’re just jealous because it means she’s smarter than you are.”
“No it doesn’t!” Zach looked at Jaden for confirmation.
He hadn’t wanted to get involved, but sometimes siblings had to stick together, even if one was being a complete bully. He also meant what he said. “I don’t think having glasses means you’re smarter than other people either.”
Finally, the adults noticed that their children were involved in a heated argument. “What’s going on here?” Eileen asked, eyeing Jaden and Zach suspiciously.
No one said anything for a minute. Zach was scuffing his toe in the sand, glaring furiously in the direction of Ami’s feet. Rei was wondering whether it was worth it to be called “tattle-tale” later on, and Jaden just wanted to avoid getting punished. Rei glanced sideways at Ami, but the younger girl shook her head firmly.
“Nothing.”
“Mom, I want to go swimming. Can we?” Ami asked quietly, sidling up to her mother.
“All right,” Kira said, frowning as she tried to see whether there were teardrops under Ami’s lenses. “Do you boys want to go swimming, too?”
Before they could reply, Eileen said, “I think we’ll let them tire themselves out first and work off this energy. Why don’t we meet up tomorrow and we can all go to the boardwalk together?”
Much to Rei and Ami’s chagrin, Ami’s parents agreed readily, and they parted ways.
________________________________________
After an unfortunate outing to the boardwalk which involved a good quantity of tears, teasing, and spilled strawberry ice cream, Kira acquiesced to the girls’ wishes and reduced their exposure to the terrors who lived a fifteen minute walk away.
But close to the end of the first week, when it had been raining for two days already, Rei and Ami were getting tired of being cooped up inside the house. Richard’s mood was black because of his inability to work, and he finally suggested, “Take them to the Corunis’.”
After a quick phone call, Rei and Ami had to be coaxed into putting on their rain slickers. “Come on, girls, it won’t be that bad. Won’t it be exciting to get out of the house and see something new?” Kira asked encouragingly, trying to keep her tone bright.
“Do we have to play with them?” Ami asked.
“Well…it would be nice.”
Sighing, they submitted to their fate with fairly good grace.
Eileen answered the door with a smile and said, “The boys are in the back room. You girls can go right on through.”
Ami padded along the honey-colored floorboards in her socks as slowly as possible. She heard noisy shouts coming from the open door, and they entered to see Zach and Jaden engrossed in a video game. Just as she was resigning herself to the prospect of a long, boring afternoon ahead, her eyes lit up when she saw the bookshelf in the corner.
Meanwhile, at the next pause in the game, Rei asked firmly, “Can I play?”
Jaden and Zach exchanged quick looks.
“But–”
“Mom said,” Jaden reminded his brother.
“Okay, fine.” He relinquished the controller and ran out the door, shouting, “Dad!!”
As she took his place, Rei inquired, “Where is he going?”
Jaden shrugged. “No clue.”
A moment later, Zach came back, grinning triumphantly. “Dad said I could play on his computer,” he announced.
His father followed him in and set the laptop on a desk in the corner. Noticing Ami sitting quietly on the couch, he asked, “Ami, do you want to play with Zach?”
“Oh, no,” she declined politely. “I really like reading.”
“All right. If you guys need anything, yell. And Zach?”
“Yeah?”
“If you touch any of my files again, you’re dead meat. And no fiddling the settings.”
“Yes, Dad,” he said with a long-suffering sigh. As soon as Matthew left, he snuck a surreptitious glance at Ami.
At first he hadn’t wanted to share the computer, but at the same time, Jaden was playing with Rei, and he already knew all the ways to beat the computer. It might be interesting to see how fast he could beat Ami, he thought confidently.
He called, “Hey, Ami! I challenge you to…well, you pick.”
She tore her eyes away from the page reluctantly. “…gee, thanks, Zach. But I would really rather read.”
“Come on, don’t be such a bookworm.” Zach himself enjoyed reading far more than the average nine-year-old boy and had a fairly advanced vocabulary, but he would die before he admitted to it. Or at least suffer a considerable amount of torture, he amended scrupulously.
Ami glanced at Rei, but her cousin was occupied in racing Jaden, her tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth in concentration. “Almost there – yes – yes!! I beat your best time!” she crowed.
Used to playing with Zach, who wanted to win all the time, Jaden just shrugged and let the humiliation of getting beaten by a girl pass. If he needed an ego boost later, he could always challenge Zach to a wrestling match. “Best two out of three?”
“You’re on!”
No help from that corner.
Zach was now shifting from foot to foot impatiently. “Come on, Ami. Unless you don’t know how to use a computer.”
A surprising, combative gleam appeared in her ocean blue eyes. “Of course I do!”
“So what’s your problem? Are you afraid I’ll beat you?”
Refusing to dignify his taunts with an answer, she put down the book and dragged a stool over to the table. “You said I can choose the game, right?” she asked sweetly.
Zach looked at her, considering. Well, far be it for him to go back on his word. “Yeah.”
“Let’s play chess.”
He smirked and said magnanimously, “Okay. You be white.”
As they waited for the computer to set the pieces, Ami flexed her fingers in anticipation. She already had an opening move in mind.
Within a few moves, Zach lost his sense of complacency. “Who taught you how to play?” he demanded as he waited for her to make her next move.
I learned from playing games with the computer and then reading some books,” she replied serenely, her eyes flickering from left to right slightly as she considered her next move. Her fingers were steady on the mouse. “How about you?” she asked as she took his bishop.
He gritted his teeth. “My dad taught me. Then I learned to beat the computer by myself.” His green eyes narrowed as they played on in silence, ignoring Rei and Jaden’s raucous banter.
At last, he exclaimed smugly, “Checkmate!”
“I believe it’s ‘Check,’” Ami corrected, and the computer’s tinny voice chimed in. She moved her king safely away as Zach’s face fell.
“I’ll get you this time.” He pursued her king aggressively, determined not to lose. In doing so, he failed to notice the strategically-placed rook and stealthy knight moving in.
She made her last move and announced softly, “Check and checkmate.”
“What? That’s impossible!” He looked despairingly at the screen for salvation of his crushed ego, but there was none.
“White wins,” the computer corroborated.
The small smile on Ami’s lips faded as she watched him. She knew what would come next, just like with all the people she played with – he would be so angry at losing that he would say something mean and crushing to her. She decided to forestall it as long as possible. Quickly, she clicked and reset the board. “Let’s switch. You take white.”
He stared at her for a minute, then nodded, his mouth set in determined lines. “Okay. You’re on.”
As they went on challenging each other, they didn’t notice that a brilliant sun had emerged from its sheath of dark clouds and the skies were clearer than ever after the rainstorm. Rei and Jaden, who were now taking a break from watching television, noticed the change and tried to persuade them to go outside.
“Come on, guys. It’s warm out and the waves are huge!” Jaden said excitedly.
“You go,” Zach said absentmindedly, his eyes fixed on the screen. “We’ll stay and finish this game.”
“Ami? Do you want to go?” Rei asked, but to her surprise, her cousin shook her head decidedly.
Once they had gone, Zach asked less confidently, “Did you want to go with them?”
She smiled back. “No, I want to finish beating you!” She felt confident enough to joke with him after he had begun doing so after a few more wins and losses. They were about even now, with Zach having won three games and Ami having won four.
He let out a surprised laugh. “No way.”
To his chagrin, she won again just as they were called for dinner. She slid down from her chair and watched him warily.
“Good game,” he said, even though he was disappointed with his losses. His chess skills had been a special source of pride, since Jaden wasn’t particularly interested in the game (“Too slow for me,” as he put it) and Zach had taken the initiative to learn on his own. But his father had recently been instilling the belief in him and Jaden that real men didn’t whine about losing, so he tried to minimize the resentment in his voice.
Her relief and pleasure were evident. “You too. It was fun. My program at home is a little outdated, and you helped me evaluate the weaknesses in my pawn structure. I liked your skewer in the third game. But sometimes your sacrifices are too rash.” She stopped then, realizing she was rambling out of nerves.
Zach shoved his hands in his pockets as they walked out of the room. “Yeah. Thanks. Well…maybe you could teach me some cool things, too.” He wasn’t about to go as far as enumerating all the awesome moves she’d made, but he was glad she wasn’t gloating.
Ami smiled happily at him, and then went to sit between Rei and her mother. Zach claimed his own spot at the table and looked over at Jaden. “So, what’d you do outside?”
Love at Fifth Sight
Infinite Ice
