Read Online Mismatch by Lensey Namioka - Free Book Online Page A

rehearsal the other day, but I had to stop and go over something with Laurie. You were gone before I had a chance to say anything to you.”
    So Andy isn’t interested in Laurie after all. She’s just his
stand partner, and needed his help with some music.
The rock that had been lodged in Sue’s chest since their last rehearsal seemed to dissolve. “I haven’t been all that nice to you, either. What I said to you about the Japanese soldiers was pretty unfair to your family.”
    “I thought it was
your
turn to scrub the pots, Sue,” said Rochelle, coming to the door. “What’s taking you so long? Can’t you just tell him this house has already made its contributions?”
    Both Andy and Sue broke out laughing. Rochelle stared at them. “Hey, you’re Andy, right? You called Sue the other night, didn’t you?”
    Rochelle was studying Andy, and Sue knew that she was sizing him up.
    “Yeah, we met after one of our rehearsals,” Andy replied. “I play first violin in the orchestra.”
    “Sue told me your last name is Suzuki,” said Rochelle.
    There was a pause. Andy glanced at Sue, a question in his eyes. “No, I haven’t told my mother yet,” muttered Sue.
    Andy backed down the steps. “Well, I better go try a few more houses before packing it in for the night.” He waved at Rochelle and smiled. “Nice seeing you again.”
    “He seems okay, your Andy,” remarked Rochelle. “I think you should have asked him in to meet Mom and Dad.”
    “Maybe I’d better go ring a few more doorbells, too,” said Sue, hurriedly changing the subject.
    But before she could leave the house, she was waylaid by her mother. “Didn’t I hear somebody at the door?”
    Rochelle answered first. “It’s Sue’s boyfriend. He came over especially to talk to her.”
    Her mother smiled. “Your boyfriend, Sue? Is this the boy who called the other night? Your father and I would have enjoyed meeting him. Why didn’t you bring him in and introduce him?”
    “That’s exactly what I want to know,” said Rochelle. “Why didn’t you bring Andy in and introduce him?”
    “Andy, is that his name?” said her mother. She seemed eager to know more. Sue had gone out with a few boys in her old school, but she had never had anyone she could really call a boyfriend. This was the first time a boy had come to see Sue after they moved to the new neighborhood.
    “He was in a hurry to ring more doorbells,” explained Sue, before her mother could ask for Andy’s last name. “I’m in a hurry, too.”
    She grabbed her name tag and forms and dashed out the door.
    But she knew she couldn’t play these delaying games for long. Sooner or later, her parents were going to learn that her boyfriend was Japanese American.

5
    F or weeks Andy knocked himself out ringing doorbells and washing cars. He had hardly any time left for practicing. During one rehearsal, he missed some notes in his solo, something he had never done before.
    Raising money for the orchestra made him realize something. One day, as he was rinsing the soap from a car, the owner smiled at him and said, “So you’re going to Japan! It must be like looking for your roots, huh?”
    Until that moment, Andy had simply thought of himself as an American, and didn’t spend much time wondering about his roots. His father often tried to tell Andy about his Japanese ancestry, but Andy got the feeling he didn’t act as interested as his dad would have liked.
    Andy’s paternal grandfather had been born in Japan. He was able to get a scholarship to attend a college in the States under a program sponsored by the American occupation after the war. In Seattle, he’d met Andy’s grandmother, a Japanese American girl majoring in music and studying the piano.
    Andy’s grandmother loved to tell the story of how she and his grandfather had fallen in love. At a party, she had noticed a lonesome young Japanese boy whose English wasn’t good enough for him to mingle. She felt sorry for him, so she