The bullet got progressively more crowded as they got closer to the ginza and Shitamachi. In the crush to get off at their stop, Ohghhifoehnnahigrheeh’s kite got torn and Chris lost her shoe. Hutchins dived into the tangle of legs as the doors were closing and rescued it.
“Thank you, Mr. Hutchins,” Chris said, leaning against a pillar to put it back on.
“Now you’re mispronouncing my name,” he said, with a grin that looked like he was feeling better. “It’s Pete.”
Luigi’s Tempura Pizzeria was about the size of Chris’s hall, if you took out the piano, only with such low ceilings that Hutchins had to duck. It was nearly as crowded as the bullet had been. There was no sign of a stage that Chris could see, and the tables were too small to dance on.
The waiter led them through the mob to a tiny table, pulled it out from the wall so Chris could sit down, and then shoved it back in place, pinning her firmly between Hutchins and Ohghhifoehnnahigrheeh. The waiter handed them menus that were bigger than the table and then stood there, holding a hand terminal and a stylus and looking impatient.
“In the tempura pizza, is it just the tomato sauce that’s deep-fried in batter?” Hutchins asked. “Or do you dip in the whole pizza?”
“Have eat?” Chris asked Ohghhifoehnnahigrheeh, pointing to the pictures on the menu. “Fish? Rice?” Ohghhifoehnnahigrheeh smiled blankly at her and nodded. “Eat?” She picked up a pair of chopsticks and pantomimed eating. “Have eat?”
“What are you going to have, Okee?” Hutchins interrupted. “The sashimi lasagna looks good. I don’t know about the linguini with eel sauce.”
“Why do you talk to him like that?” Chris whispered. “You know Mr. Ohghhi…”—she consulted her hand,—“foehnnahigrheeh only speaks a few words of English.”
Hutchins took hold of her hand and looked at the palm. “Why do you have his name written on your hand?” he whispered back.
She tried to pull her hand away. “Stewart says the Eahrohhs are very sensitive about how their names are pronounced.”
“Is Stewart the guy on the phone, the one you’re engaged to?”
“Yes.”
“Did he tell you to talk to Okee like he’s deaf and feebleminded, too? ‘Have eat? Fish? Rice?’ ”
“Mr. Ohghhi…” She tried to look at her hand, but Hutchins folded it firmly shut.
“Okee speaks better English than Charmaine. He’s only talking that ridiculous pidgin to you because you’ve got him intimidated with all this correct pronunciation stuff. He’s afraid if he talks to you, he’ll mispronounce something, so he doesn’t say anything. If you’d quit worrying about how to pronounce his name, and just talk to him…”
“Your order, sigñor?” the waiter said. “Go ahead,” Hutchins said. “Ask him what he’d like to have for dinner.” His hand was still firmly closed over hers. The waiter tapped the stylus on his hand terminal. “Mr Ohghhi…,” she said.
“Okeefenokee,” Hutchins said. “Like the swamp.” “Okeefenokee,” she said timidly, “what would you like to have for dinner?”
Mr. Ohghhifoehnnahigrheeh’s smile straightened out into an expression Chris hadn’t seen before. His cheek knobs seemed to grow more orange, and two lines formed above his nose. “I’ll have the sushi and spaghetti,” he said. “And you do have any sake? Majori? Good. I’d like a bottle. And three cups.” Chris stared at him.
“And you, sigñorina?” the waiter said.
“She’ll have the sushi and spaghetti,” Hutchins said.
“ ’Scuse me,” Charmaine said, brushing past the waiter. She was wearing another hapi coat, made of a glittery fabric you could see through. “They told me you guys were here,” she said, “and I would’ve come right over only on the way down here some guy pinched me. I had to do one of my fans all over again.”
“We’ll all have the sushi and spaghetti,” Hutchins said, “and bring another sake cup.”
“Oh, gee, no, not for me,” she said, bending over the table to talk to Hutchins. “I’m on at nineteen o’clock. Right after Omiko and Her Orbiting Colonies.” She leaned over farther.
“Great,” Hutchins said.
“Would you like to sit down?” Chris said.
“I can’t. On account of my fans.” She looked around the room. “This is a great place to work. Three guys have proposed to me already.”
“Charmaine came up here to find a husband,” Chris told Hutchins.
“Yeah,” Charmaine said. She leaned over Hutchins. “I wanted to go someplace romantic, someplace where guys wouldn’t treat me like I was a piece of real estate. I guess you think that’s kind of a crazy reason, huh? But I’ve met some people whose reasons are even crazier. Did you know that sweet old guy who lives above me on the steps came up because he’d always wanted to meet an alien? And this weird guy I met tonight told me he came up because he figures these arrows guys are going to kill us all, and he wants to get it over with. No offense, Mr. Fenokee,” she said, turning to lean over Okee. His face twisted up in an unfathomable expression.
“Why did you come up to Sony, Mr. Hutchins?” Chris said hastily.
“Not to get married. So you thought Sony was a romantic place to come?” he said, watching Charmaine lean over the table.
“Gee, yeah,” she said, leaning over even farther. “I mean, the stars and the moon are right outside and everything. It’s bound to have a romantic effect on a guy. It might even have a romantic effect on my old boyfriend, but I doubt it. I mean, he acted like he was a prospective buyer and I was a two-bedroom split-level. He kept calling our wedding a closing, and instead of going on a honeymoon, he wanted to ‘establish occupancy.’ Can you believe that?” She sighed an impressive sigh. “But I don’t know if Sony’s going to be any better. Omiko says the marriage contracts up here are really real-estate deals, with property clauses and everything, and that people get married all the time just to get their hands on a place to live.”
“Does your fiancé have his own apartment?” Hutchins asked.
“He lives with his mother,” Chris said stiffly. “Stewart says the lack of space on Sony makes property very valuable, and the marriage laws are bound to reflect that, but it doesn’t mean…”
“Gee, your fiancé sounds just like my old boyfriend,” Charmaine said, leaning over about as far as she could go. “I mean, there’s gotta be a romantic guy around somewhere.”
The waiter came back with the bottle of sake and four porcelain cups the size of soup bowls.
“ ’Scuse me, I gotta go get ready for my number.” She wriggled away between the tables.
“Now there’s a woman whose property value is in the high forties,” Hutchins said, pouring out the sake.
“My wife has large cups, too,” Okee said. Hutchins poured sake on the table. Chris bit her lip. “They are not painted and made of…” Okee stopped and searched for a word. His face was screwed up into that odd expression again. He looked like a newborn baby about to cry.
“Porcelain?” Chris said calmly, picking up the empty sake cup and handing it to Okee. “These cups are made of a kind of glazed clay called porcelain.”
“Porcelain,” he said, the two lines above his nose deepening. “My wife would like these cups.”
Chris passed the empty cup to Hutchins so he could fill it. Now he was the one with the odd expression, and she didn’t seem to be any better at interpreting his than Okee’s.
“Cups,” he said thoughtfully, and poured some more sake on the table.
“I didn’t know you were married, Mr. Okeefenokee,” Chris said, mopping up sake with her napkin.
“Yes,” he said, and his face screwed up again. He drank down his bowlful of sake in one swallowless gulp and set it in front of Hutchins. “My wife and I drink…”—he said an unpronounceable word with enough s’s in it to defeat Molly’s lisp—“out of cups like these. It is better than sake.”