of true. She hadn’t exactly forgotten her dress uniform; it was the most expensive clothing she’d ever owned, and she’d shredded it beyond repair during the relief effort at Terminal 2. That wasn’t a hit her bank account could simply forget. She also hadn’t forgotten that regulations prescribed class A’s for all ceremonial proceedings. What she did forget—willfully—was to place an order for new class A’s, which was another way of putting off that commendation for one more week.
* * *
Six days later she was standing in front of Sakakibara’s desk. “Sir,” she said, “I lost a fistful of hair in that fight. I mean literally a fistful. Look.” She took off the baseball cap she was wearing and bowed her head down so he could see the huge scab in her hairline. “He practically scalped me. Give me a month to grow it out. Otherwise it’ll look like the TMPD hires chimps to do its haircuts.”
Sakakibara frowned. “Seriously, Frodo? Bad hair day? That’s a pretty girly move. Not really your style.”
Mariko managed not to blush. She was afraid he’d say something like that.
His frown took a slightly different shape—puzzled, not annoyed. “You got a problem with getting a commendation, Frodo?”
“No sir. Why would I?”
“Damned if I know. You get that uniform yet?”
“It’s supposed to arrive tomorrow, sir.”
The grumpy frown came back. “You didn’t pull any bullshit with the order, did you? Just the pants, not the jacket? Nothing like that?”
“No, sir.” She wished she’d thought of that.
“Then it comes with a cap. So put your damn cap on, cover up your damn hairdo, and show up tomorrow to receive your damn commendation. Got it?”
“Yes, sir.”
* * *
She invited her mom and her sister to come to the award ceremony, but Han was the only one she asked to come to her apartment first. She wouldn’t admit it to him, but she didn’t want to be alone when the uniform arrived.
It was only polite to come bearing a gift, and Han brought what he always brought: cold beer in a six-pack. Bottles this time, for a change of pace. He would have been a gentleman and picked up the big cardboard box waiting on her doorstep, but he couldn’t manage the beer and the box with one hand. His right arm was still in a sling.
His “little train ride,” as he called it, had sprained, strained, or dislocated pretty much everything in his right arm. On the positive side, his physical therapist was hot, and he got to see her three days a week. “But only so she can hurt me,” he said. “Does it make me a sicko if I kind of like it?”
“Yes.” She took the drinks first, opening one for him because he couldn’t manage it one-handed. She took a swig of her own before returning to the hallway for the box. It ended up on her kitchen table, which wasn’t much bigger than the box itself. That was as close as she’d get to opening it for now.
They drank the first two beers talking about nothing. The big news in Han’s life was that a former Chicago Cub named Matt Murton broke Ichiro Suzuki’s single season hit record, which Han thought was relevant to Mariko because she used to live in Illinois and in his geographically challenged mind Illinois and Chicago were more or less synonymous. Mariko didn’t really care about baseball, but she found his enthusiasm entertaining nonetheless. For the first time in two weeks, she laughed.
“It’s about time,” he said. “What’s gotten into you?”
“Can I ask you something? When you shot Joko Daishi’s tire out, do you ever think about what would have happened if you hit him instead? I mean, that was a hell of a long shot.”
“I was aiming for him.”
“Huh?”
Han shrugged, an asymmetrical gesture given the state of his right shoulder. “You think that was an amazing shot? It wasn’t. I missed. I was trying to hit him.”
“Doesn’t that mess with your head? I mean, you could have killed somebody. What if you hit a civilian?”
“I didn’t.” When he saw that answer didn’t do anything for her, he said, “I don’t know what to tell you. I spend as much time on the range as anyone. Well, okay, maybe not as much as you, but as much as any sane person. If I thought I was going to hit a civilian, I wouldn’t have taken the shot.”