The Room Tour

There was a knock at the door about an hour after I sent that message. I’d been idly chatting to my mum over a long breakfast, and at that moment had completely forgotten that Una was going to visit.

“Oh, I’ll get that,” I said, rising to my feet and yawning. I stepped towards the front door, and opened it up. I’d rarely seen her out of uniform, so it was slightly jarring to see her come at the door dressed normally.

“Hello,” Una said.

I smirked “Didn’t I teach you anything about working here? You should always go in by the back entrance,”

She rolled her eyes. “Hello Yorito. Can I come in?”

I moved out of the way and gestured for her to come in, which she did. Taking off her shoes, she peered her head into my main room, where my mum was standing awkwardly. She hopped a little in the rush to take off her shoes, and stumbled before landing on her second foot. She turned her head to the side, not wanting to look into my mum's sorrowful eyes, and scrambled to her feet, before bowing.

"Mrs, uh, Yorito? Pleasure to meet you."

"Yamasaki," she replied. "Are you the one who works with my son?"

She nodded. "Yeah, that's right "

"Tea, anyone?" I could taste the tension in the air, and thought it'd be best to diffuse things before my mum got snarky. To the untrained eye, my mother was just being formal. But I'd got used to the cautious way she protected me from people she thought were just there to take advantage of me. As a kid it was somewhat necessary, but I can't pretend it's not overbearing when I’m nearly old enough for university.

Me and Una sat down at the table, and my mum began to prepare the tea. Una seemed incredibly curious about my living space, and looked all around: from the calendar on the wall to the colour of the rugs.

“Yorito, what do you do in your free time then?” I figured she was trying to look for hints nearby, but was coming up short. “Do you go home from baking stuff and then… bake more with your mum?” I figure the silly framing of the question was a way to bait an impassioned response, but I kept my cool. She didn’t need to know about the São Gabriel.

“Well, I read. Or go on my computer,” I said carefully. “I suppose I’m a bit of a nerd like that.”

“Hm,” Una replied, looking at my mum. “Baking isn’t a nerdy hobby, is it? I guess I’m not an outdoorsy type either though. Not that I read books. Didn’t know people still did that.”

She smiled a little as she said that, and my mum began pouring tea. Her movement seemed less rigid as she eyed Una up and down. I suppose she was starting to get a bit more comfortable with her, which was relieving. I could also tell Una was toning down the snark - not that she wouldn’t hit me with it once we got back to work, of course.

“Yorito, why don’t you tell her about that modelling you do?” The blood drained from my face as my mother carelessly prepared to spill a smorgasbord of cringe upon the only person I’d invited over in years. I tried to interject, but I choked on my words before she continued and turned to Una.

“Yorito is really interested in Portuguese galleons, aren’t you, Yorito?”

“They’re CARRACKS,” I spluttered out, before deciding that correcting myself to prevent further embarrassment was a fruitless task. I tried to give my mum a desperate expression of ‘Dear god, not in front of her’. But she was looking at Una, and so my hopes fell on deaf ears.

“Yorito modelled a huge boat based on his books, and talks about the details with his internet friends. It’s actually really cool! The paints are really expensive and he puts so much time into painting tiny little pieces so that they all look proper. But then he says that something isn’t accurate when he buys a new book, so he tries it again. But it’s really well made! It’s a really lovely model, you should ask him if you can see it!”.

I just stared into my tea, my throat tight with embarrassment and my cheeks flushed red. My trembling hands picked up the tea as I paused for a few seconds. It was too hot to drink without spilling on my face, so I slowly lowered it again. Every part of my brain was trying to detach itself from my body so I wouldn’t have to hear or see Una’s reaction. The next two seconds felt like an entire minute, and as I began to hear Una’s voice, I slowly rose to my feet.

“Ah. I need to go to the bathroom,” I said, climbing to my feet. My heart was still thumping with dread after my mum massacred my chance of ever seeing Una outside work again. Why did I even care about that when I never really wanted her to come over here in the first place? Eugh, no time for that. I slid into the bathroom and sat down on the toilet seat, listening to the conversation through the thin walls, and waiting for the conversation to move on.

“He’s interested in that sort of thing? That’s, uh…” Una thought for a few seconds. “Endearing, I suppose?” I could tell she was trying hard as she could not sound rude, and sunk my head deeper into my hands. I was praying for my mum to change the subject and take me out of my misery. I tried to drown out the five minutes of humiliating discussion about the model, as well as the opening of what I can only presume was my door (followed by live commentary about the half-painted sails). As far as I was concerned, the few pieces of a social life I had grasped onto in the past two weeks were totally annihilated by the tour of my room.

“We should probably start baking, or we’ll never finish at a reasonable time,” I heard my mum remark. Finally, a new topic of conversation. I began washing my hands, still listening.

“How did he even get into it? Doesn’t seem like the sort of thing a guy like him would like.”

I heard my mum’s classic wistful giggle. “Well, when Yorito got out of hospital, he wasn’t really able to talk at all. It’s not easy to look for hobbies for two people that don’t involve physical activity and don’t require people to say anything, you know? And his dad was always working, never home ‘til after his bedtime.”

I turned off the tap and continued listening.

“So, we’d make a bunch of stuff together. Especially as it was one thing he could do once he was out of bed. He’d always tell me how he liked squishing and mixing things up in his hands, but over time he got really good at baking. It’s always been the one thing we always did together. It makes me a little sad that he’s not doing it so much with me anymore…”

I slid the door of the bathroom open, almost feeling the urge to cry a little as I dried my hands with the towel. I slowly trod into the room, sipping my tea now that it had cooled down.

“What were you talking about?” I pretended I hadn’t been listening to the whole conversation - it was much less creepy that way.

“Oh, I just showed her your ship. She was sayin-”

I coughed loudly.

“You know,” I interrupted. “We should get baking, shouldn’t we?”