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was distracted. Why did Kate and vacation keep coming out in the same breath?
    “What do you mean, Tom?” he asked.
    “Oh, Mom called Kate a few weeks ago and talked her into coming to stay for a couple of months, to get out of the snow in Salt Lake. But the minute she got here, their bilingual paralegal quit without notice—”
    “I was asked to assist Mr. Tanaka,” Kate chimed in, “only to discover I’d given up my vacation for this punk kid in a bespoke suit who speaks perfect English.” She looked slantways at Ryoki with a raised eyebrow and quirky smile that made his stomach flip. In that dress she could have called him a lap dog without offending him.
    Tom sat back, snickering. “Classic bait and switch,” he said.
    Ryoki looked at Kate sitting next to dark-haired, carelessly handsome Tom and suddenly the obvious clicked into place. This had to be the famous Kate Porter , Brian’s niece, whose visits to her uncle’s house had never happened to coincide with his own. He’d always known she existed in a blurred theoretical way, still retained scant memories of the Porter boys mentioning a cousin who appeared to hold the position of sister in the family lore. In fact, he vaguely remembered tuning out as his mother clattered on about the lovely Miss Porter, or was that her Pretty American Friend, some other anonymous girl she would have just loved for him to meet? But the memory was thin and smoky, a lifetime ago, another existence, before his marriage and the ensuing fiasco. Ryoki tried not to squirm in his chair. That little first day chat would have been exceedingly helpful right about now.
    “Did your father get tangled up at work? I think I would’ve heard if he was sick,” Kate said.
    Ryoki shook his head and opened his mouth to elaborate, but there was a burst of laughter from the other end of the table and Kate turned to hear the joke. Ryoki concentrated on his plate and unpacked the memory of their first meeting, when she had called him “Ryoki.” How had she addressed him since? He realized he had no idea; he had paid absolutely no attention to what impression he might have made.
    “Ryoki.”
    He looked up at Tom’s wife Claire, the least familiar voice at the table. Even after all the time he’d spent in America, it still jarred him when someone he hardly knew used his first name.
    “Your English is so beautiful. How did you learn?” Claire asked.
    “Except that he calls me ‘Pink’ half the time, not sure what that is,” Kate mumbled, almost to herself.
    Ryoki busied himself with his napkin, trying to remember when he might have called her Pink out loud. He vowed to be more careful, though he would catch himself three more times before finally breaking the habit.
    “Ryoki’s always had an amazing vocabulary, even when we were kids,” Tom said. “Hey, do you remember that time—”
    “Tom!” Grace said, giving both Tom and Ryoki the mom’s glare of death. Clearly she hadn’t forgotten the day she’d caught him teaching her boys to curse in three languages. He could have pointed out that Tom had taught him a couple of interesting things, but now was not the time. He smiled at Grace, all innocence and saccharine before looking at Claire to explain his English, a question he had been asked a hundred times. Unfortunately, Kate cut across him.
    “His English is actually much more sophisticated than my Japanese. He uses clichés like a native,” Kate said. Ryoki wasn’t sure if she meant that as a compliment or not. “He really doesn’t need me to translate,” she added.
    “I don’t speak Portuguese,” Ryoki said seriously. “Some of the documents are in Portuguese.” She may not feel the same obligation to him as to his father, and he couldn’t afford to let her wiggle out.
    “I remember when you were born. You know that?” Grace said. Ryoki cringed. “Your mother was here visiting us in her sixth month and there were complications, so she stayed. You spent your