Faking Reality Page 3

  “For me too. I was probably too young to appreciate our trip to Japan, but some things are cemented in my brain. Things I want to do with … my friends from school when we go to Japan in July with Iwate-sensei.” I fast-forward the video a little bit until I can find the scene I was thinking about. I show it to Ojiichan. “What’s this?”

  “You look kawaii, Dakota-chan.” Ojiichan chuckles. “But it looks like you don’t want to eat the ikayaki.”

  “Yeah, squid-on-a-stick is not my favorite thing. No, I was talking about what the man beside me is making.”

  “Oh, that’s yakisoba. You can find it often at matsuri. I make it here sometimes for my family. Yaki means grilled or fried. Soba is buckwheat noodles.” Ojiichan tips his head from side to side. “But they are different noodles. Not the usual soba noodles. I will make you some.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “I want to.” Ojiichan pats my head. “For my bonus granddaughter.”

  “Add it to my tab.”

  “Hai. Hai.”

  I sketch faster, my muse finally talking to me again. Only, I change the little girl in the picture. She still wears the expensive, rental yukata and obi—the summer-style, cotton kimono and wide cloth belt—but nobody is insisting that she eat squid on camera. It’s not that I hate squid. It’s because the showrunner insisted on the squid. I wanted yakisoba, but they said it was too messy for me to eat on camera. I draw a plate of yakisoba in Revised Nine-Year-Old Me’s hand and sketch a genuine smile on her face. I have a good, solid draft sketched out by the time Ojiichan finishes cooking the yakisoba. Leo sits next to me after completing whatever chore Ojiichan gave him.

  “That looks good.” Leo points at my sketch.

  My mouth waters when Ojiichan slides two plates of yakisoba in front of us. “No, that looks good.”

  “Itadakimasu,” Thanks for the food, let’s eat, Leo and I say in tandem, and Ojiichan nods.

  Leo hands me a pair of Pikachu chopsticks from the container that lives on the kitchen counter. We dig into the mounds of noodles with pork pieces, cabbage, carrots, and onions, covered in a rich brown sauce.

  “And tastes good. Thank you, Ojiichan,” I say.

  “Hai, hai.” Ojiichan waves away my compliment. “Oh, my television show is on now.”

  “Ojiichan, you know we can record it for you to watch anytime,” Leo says as Ojiichan serves himself a plate of yakisoba and places it on a tray with a pair of chopsticks and a can of Japanese beer.

  “It is my Monday vacation. I can eat good food, drink beer, and not wear pants,” Ojiichan says. “In my room, of course.”

  “Thank you for that, Ojiichan.” Leo turns to me. “Because he only wears pants when you’re here. Otherwise, Monday is Boxers City at the Matsuda House. Yikes.”

  Ojiichan gives the back of Leo’s head a light baka slap as he passes him. Leo laughs and slurps another mess of saucy noodles.

  “Though your design is awesome, Koty, I think it would be too hard to do in sugar. Even with Sasha’s help.”

  “Yeah, I agree. Some people have already started building out their pictures in clay or papier-mâché or balsa wood. I don’t know. That’s kind of basic, don’t you think?”

  “Doing the whole street would be too hard, but what about focusing on only one element? Like the yakisoba booth. Buy a pancake griddle at Goodwill, build a box around it, paint it red, add some poles and a canvas sign. Boom. Done. One yakisoba stand. The only thing that might be a problem is making the food part to scale, but I’m sure we have stuff around here that you could repurpose and size down. What?”

  “Have I ever told you how amazing you are?”

  “Yeah, probably the last time I saved your bacon on a school project.” Leo bumps his shoulder against mine.

  “If Mr. Udall signs off on my design, will you come shopping with me to find all the supplies?”

  “Of course. It’s not like I have a social life.”

  The truth stings. “Yeah, but do other people have Matsuda Mondays and get to watch the newest episode of Kitsune Mask every Wednesday?”

  I realize how pathetic that sounds as soon as it comes out of my mouth. Unfortunately, that’s all I’ve got right now.

  “Maybe we can try a little harder this year? Maybe I could finally find a girlfriend,” Leo says, and my heart cracks.

  “Yeah,” I say without conviction.

  When the cameras are off of me for good, then I’ll come out of my self-imposed bubble. Until today though, I didn’t realize that what was protecting me might also be smothering my best friend.

  “What if instead of going smaller with the project, I went bigger?” I wash my plate and chopsticks and put them in the drying rack.

  The last of Leo’s noodles fall off his chopsticks as the spark from my idea ignites in his brain. “What if you build a yakisoba stand from the old griddle we have in storage? The potential-food-truck one. Could you make it functional?”

  “Of course. This is not my first rodeo. I just need to ask Dad how to do the energy source.”

  Building from scratch is Dad’s domain, but Mom and I have basic power-tool skills too. Season 16, Episode 7: “Like Father, Like Daughter.” When I was twelve, Dad walked me through renovating my bathroom. Along with cosmetic things like repainting the walls, we also built a custom-designed counter for my bathroom and switched out the old toilet for a dual-flush, water-saving one.

  “I wonder if Mr. Udall would give me extra credit if you made yakisoba for us during class?” I say.

  “You’re still thinking too small, Koty.” A smile pulls across Leo’s face as he uses the phrase that has gotten us grounded more than once for what seemed like a good idea … until it wasn’t.

  “You want to make this a functional build for the Homecoming Carnival, don’t you?”

  “You get an A on your project, and I make some much-needed dough. It’s a win-win.”

  “Not gonna lie. I think it’s a great idea. If it works. But what if my building skills aren’t good enough. I don’t want you to miss out on—you know what—because I failed you.”

  Leo puts a hand on my arm. “They’ll be good enough.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  “I’m always right.”

  Chapter

  3

  “Dad, I don’t want cameras on this,” I say after Mr. Udall signs off on my “ambitious design.”

  “Yes, we have to. Plus, I want to. My baby is all grown up and doing her first solo build-out.” Dad sniffs dramatically. “I’m so proud I could burst.”

  “Daaaaad.” Okay, part of me wants to commemorate this event on film. Not so much for me, but for my parents. I’m going to leave for college soon, and this is our over-the-top version of a family scrapbook. “Okay, but if I say something cringey or hit my thumb with the hammer or anything meme-worthy, we cut it.”

  Dad grabs me in a tight hug. “Of course, Koty. This is simply going to be an empowering episode about a girl and her toolbox. I will attempt to keep my commentary—and the beavers—to a minimum.”

  To keep our show at the network-required G-rating, Dad has come up with some ridiculous work-around swears. For example, instead of bleeping Dad every time he uses his most famous catchphrase, HGTV trots out a cartoon beaver in a hard hat with a sign that says HOT DAM! Though the trolls mock him relentlessly for it, Dad’s charity raises tens of thousands of dollars each year thanks to the cheesetastic beaver joke—whose likeness you can buy on T-shirts, coffee mugs, temporary tattoos, etc.—so he keeps on doing it.

  “Give me just a minute more,” Dad says as he finishes setting up in his workshop. Well, his studio workshop, which will eventually become the build’s kitchen. Not his small, cluttered, real workshop in our backyard.

  Stephanie fixes my unruly hair and hands me a tube of lip gloss.

  “And, when you’re ready,” Phil says when the lights are finally set.

  I walk into the shop and put my turquoise toolbox on Dad’s wor
kbench with an audible clunk. Dad looks up from the plank of wood he’s measuring.

  “What’s up, Dakota?” Dad says.

  “I want to build something,” I say, like this idea has suddenly erupted in my brain instead of having been under advisement for the last two weeks. “Can you help me?”

  Dad slides off his bifocals—which also doesn’t help the whole Santa nickname—and looks at me with his slate-blue eyes with laugh lines all around them.

  “I’m so proud.” Dad sniffs dramatically. “What are you thinking about exactly?”

  “Remember when we went to Japan when I was nine? I want to build a yakisoba stand for L—my friend for our school’s Homecoming Carnival.”

  Dad and I freeze and count to five.

  “Cut,” Phil says. “Great. We’ll pull some footage from that episode and then maybe have you do an on-the-fly interview about yaki-whatta. Let’s do a cutaway shot from above looking down at Dakota’s plans. Wait. Dakota, go get your nails fixed.”

  “I’m not getting a manicure before I cut wood, Phil.”

  Phil, our fifty-something showrunner, isn’t a bad guy. Sometimes, our “visions” for the show don’t align. Specifically, Phil wants us to be more Keeping Up With the Kardashians than Fixer Upper with a nerdy, historical twist.

  He shrugs. “Take it off then. America doesn’t want to see your chipped nail polish.”

  Stephanie appears out of nowhere with a nail polish remover packet. I don’t know how she does that. I call the black, crossbody bag she wears at shoots the “Magic Handbag” because if you need something, Stephanie’s got it. Duct tape? Steph’s got it. Aspirin? See Steph. Dental floss to get the hunk of spinach out of your teeth after lunch? Yep, Steph again.

  Phil glances at his watch. “Doug, why don’t you cut most of the wood while we’re waiting.”

  “No!” I yell over my shoulder as I scrub my nails. “It’s my school project. I’m being graded on it. No Hollywood Magic allowed.”

  Phil lets out an irritated sigh.

  Nail polish removed. Safety glasses on. We are ready to film again.

  “You know what I always say, Koty,” Dad says into the camera after we do the yakisoba stand bit again.

  “Don’t eat yellow snow?” I say, and the new guy on the camera crew snort-laughs. Phil gives him a withering look.

  Dad and I look into the camera and say in tandem, “Measure twice, cut once.”

  That one’s on the bingo card along with HOT DAM! and a few other unintentional catchphrases people like to print on T-shirts and make into memes.

  I pull the miter saw down, cutting the piece of wood in one smooth step. Though it isn’t exciting, they continue to film cutaways as I do the same task over and over until I have a nice pile of perfectly cut wood. No catchphrases uttered. No lost appendages. Just a girl and her miter saw.

  “Cut!” Phil glances at his watch. “I thought the griddle part was going to be delivered today.”

  “I got it.” Leo’s voice echoes across the room.

  Everybody looks back to see Leo and his dad coming through the door. They carry the griddle top between them. Phil snaps his fingers at the new camera guy who starts rolling.

  “Hey, Dakota.” Leo gives me one of his dimpled smiles that melts my heart. “Where do you want this?”

  “Hey, I don’t want to be on TV,” Mr. Matsuda says.

  “It’s a cameo. Sixty seconds tops.” Phil gestures for the camera to swing back to Leo. “We’ll do the appearance release afterward.”

  “I said no,” Mr. Matsuda says.

  “But don’t you want America to meet your handsome son?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Fine.” Phil makes a cut sign to the camera guy. “Let’s break for tonight, people.”

  “Put it over here, Kenichi,” Dad says as Phil and his crew turn off the lighting and pack up.

  Mr. Matsuda and Leo lean the griddle against the workbench.

  “We’re going to use all new hardware for safety’s sake,” Dad says to Mr. Matsuda. “It shouldn’t be too hard to convert from gas to propane. And I’ll have Dakota put in some framing or brackets inside the base to keep the griddle stationary.”

  “Wait. Is that going to require a blowtorch?” Leo’s brown eyes sparkle.

  “Yeeeees,” Dad says, his eyes sparkling as much as Leo’s. “Only it’s an acetylene torch, not a blowtorch.”

  “That’ll work.”

  “Hey, pyros, it’s my project.” I point at myself. “Mine.”

  Dad blows air out of his cheeks. I know he’s tired.

  “Let’s eat dinner first, and then we’ll do Welding 101. I want you to walk into filming confident in your skills.”

  “Can I learn too?” Leo gives me a small shove to move over.

  “If you switch your shoes,” Dad says. “We have a couple extra pairs of work boots in the hall closet. And grab a pair of safety glasses while you are in there too.”

  “Not tonight, son,” Mr. Matsuda says. “We have the romance writers group coming in at five thirty. You and Mom need to serve it up as fast as we can make it.”

  Leo sighs dramatically.

  “Ah, the fun of working in the family business.” Dad pounds Leo on the back. “Tell you what, bud. Next time you’re over, I’ll do a reprise of Welding 101 with you. If your dad is okay with it, of course.”

  Mr. Matsuda nods, and Leo’s smile returns.

  “You have a second, Kenichi?” Dad says. “I want to show you my latest hobby—kombucha brewing. Tamlyn and Dakota don’t like kombucha, so I need someone with distinguished taste buds to give me an objective opinion.”

  As our dads walk off toward the house talking about SCOBY and the finer points of fermentation, Leo helps me clean up the shop for the day.

  “So, you think after I have the basics down, I could weld together some armor?”

  “Armor?” I say.

  “Yeah.”

  “Like the Silver Samurai on Kitsune Mask?” I joke and then realize that is exactly where he’s going with this. “So, if you’re going to be the Silver Samurai, does that mean I get to be Jay Yoshikawa and kitsunebi you into next week?”

  “You think you could pull off Jay’s white leather jumpsuit?”

  Leo holds out my turquoise-handled hammer. I yank it out of his hand. It clunks into the bottom of my toolbox.

  “Of course you could.” Leo wisely walks back his last comment. “It’s just hard for me to see you like that.”

  “What is that?”

  “You know.” Leo pulls at the neck of his T-shirt.

  I cock my head to the side and wait for him to elaborate.

  “You’re my dude,” Leo says. “Jay is—you know—hot. You’re not.”

  “Not today.” An indignant fire lights in my stomach. “You don’t wear a Speedo while serving people dinner. I don’t wear tank tops and booty shorts when working with power tools. Don’t push your outdated gender conformity ideas on me.”

  “Wait. What?” Leo genuinely looks confused. “All I’m saying is that I don’t think of you that way. I think of you as like my least annoying sister.”

  That hurts even worse. Because the more I try to keep things platonic between us, the more I don’t want to. It’s like pushing on a bruise to see if it still hurts. It does.

  “Dakota?” A wrinkle of concern forms between Leo’s eyebrows.

  I walk toward the door with Leo two steps behind me.

  “I’m hangry and annoyed with Phil.” I flip off the overhead lights and lock up the build, which includes setting the alarm. “Ignore me.”

  Leo and I walk the twenty steps over to my house.

  “Can’t beat the commute,” Dad jokes every time an interviewer asks him about my family’s final historic build in Phoenix. At least for the show. Mom and Dad will probably continue to restore old homes until neither of them can hold a hammer anymore.

  “I wish it was Matsuda Monday,” I say as we climb the front steps to my
house, which is twice the size of Leo’s with half the number of people living in it. “Mom’s even making carne asada tonight.”

  Leo sniffs the spicy, beefy air as he follows me inside. “So. Not. Fair.”

  I remove my work boots and put them and my safety glasses in their designated spots in the hall closet. “I can bring leftovers tomorrow. We can swap lunches like we used to.”

  “Tempting.”

  Leo follows me into the kitchen. As soon as Leo’s butt hits the barstool, Dad and Mr. Matsuda come out of Dad’s man cave.

  “We should head out, Leo.” Mr. Matsuda tosses his car keys to Leo. “Wish we could stay longer, but duty calls. We’ll catch up soon, Doug.”

  Leo looks back over his shoulder as his dad herds him out the door. “Ja mata ne.”

  “Later.”

  The bruise still hurts.

  * * *

  Later, I text Leo the picture Dad took of me during our Welding 101 lesson. It’s a close-up of me with my welding helmet down and my thick leather-gloved hand wrapped around the acetylene torch. Sparks explode like fireworks out of the two pieces of metal I’m connecting together.

  ME

  Whatcha think? Too hot for my IG page?

  Soon after, I receive a picture back. Leo wears sunglasses and holds Sasha’s crème brûlée mini blowtorch in his oven-mitted hand.

  LEO

  Too hot. Might need to dial it back to your usual girl-next-door look.

  I send him back a laughing emoji, but he never expands on his assessment. Life in the Friend Zone. More like life in the Bermuda Triangle.

  Chapter

  4

  “Tell Mom and Dad that I’m coming. I needed to talk to a teacher after school for a few minutes,” Aurora says when she intersects Leo and me after the final bell.

  “I’m not lying for you.” Leo brushes past his sister. “Besides, maybe I have plans tonight and you need to work for me.”

  Aurora snorts. “Riiiiiight. You and Koty have a hot date of watching Kitsune Mask or something?”

  Leo and I wince in tandem. As usual, Aurora’s assessment is painfully accurate. Unfortunately, on multiple levels.