When You Were Here

Jew.
    “We should name her Sandy Koufax,” my mom said as I drove us home from the shelter while she petted the little border collie–lab puppy sitting in her lap.
    I shook my head. “Sandy Koufax is a guy. This dog is a girl.”
    She narrowed her eyebrows at me and hugged the dog tightly. “Sandy Koufax is not a sexist pig. She doesn’t mind being named after a man.”
    “Dad would have liked this dog,” I said.
    She nodded. “He always loved animals.”
    “He would have been glad we got her from the shelter too.”
    “He liked shelter dogs best of all,” she said.
    Sandy Koufax was a fitting name for the dog for other reasons too. He wasn’t just the greatest pitcher ever, in my view. He also played through pain, pitching with a damaged elbow, throwing heat with injured fingers. He didn’t let the pain stop him. The name would be a fitting tribute not just to my baseball idol but to my mom. Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew the dog would outlive my mom by many, many years. But I wanted to believe that my mom—who was kickass at everything she did—would kick cancer’s ass too.
    Now Sandy Koufax is all mine. She always was mine, truth be told. The first night home she slept in my bed.
    I’m going to miss this dog like crazy.
    I drive her to Jeremy’s house. His mom and dad love dogs. Like crazy love. They have two Chihuahua–minipinscher mixes, and Sandy Koufax races to the yard and starts rounding up the diminutive dogs.
    “You’re the only one I trust to take care of my dog,” I remind Jeremy.
    “Dude. That dog is in good hands.”
    “That dog catches Frisbees on the beach. Dogs that catch Frisbees on the beach are hard to come by.”
    Jeremy points to the tiny beasts in his yard. “ Those dogs are not chick magnets. I bring those dogs to the beach, and the girls want to take me shopping and ask which shoes to buy.”
    “My dog is a total chick magnet,” I say, and pat Jeremyon the back. “You will score endlessly with her by your side.”
    “I’m totally taking her to the pier every day. This is going to be like my most epic summer ever.”
    “Take good care of her.”
    “I will. But I’m not sending you photos of her.”
    “But e-mail me, okay? Let me know how Sandy Koufax is doing?”
    He laughs and shakes his head. “You’re embarrassing. You’re like a girl when it comes to this dog.”
    I call Sandy Koufax over, rub her head, pet her ears, and tell her to be good. She tilts her head to the side, like she’s listening. Her tongue hangs out of her mouth. I tell her I love her in a voice so low that Jeremy can’t hear me say it. Then we leave, and Jeremy drives me to the plane that’ll take me 5,400 miles away.

    I’m not tired when I file off the plane, pass through customs, and purchase a ticket for the train from Narita Airport into the center of Tokyo. I’m not tired either when I sit down on a red upholstered seat for the quick train ride to the city center. All I feel is relief that I’m far away from California.
    I look around at the other passengers, mostly Japanese businessmen and-women returning from their meetings with film execs or record execs or rug-dealing execs orwhatever on my same flight from Los Angeles. There are smatterings of families too: moms with toddlers, dads telling those same toddlers to sit down. I don’t have to know much Japanese to know what the dads are saying. I see some college students a few rows up—they look European, and they have backpacks slung on their knees for the train ride. They must have rolled off a plane from Germany or maybe Sweden, I guess.
    I gaze out the window at the lush, green fields we’re passing out in the suburbs that soon turn into the squat apartment buildings at the edge of the city that then become the skyscrapers and sleek, steel structures in the middle of Tokyo. The train arrives gently in Shibuya Station, and I exit, tossing my lone backpack on my shoulder. I packed lightly, not wanting to bother with checked baggage. I stuffed everything I might need—laptop, shorts, T-shirts, some books, and a pair of flip-flops—into an oversize camping backpack. The sneakers are on my feet.
    The doors open, not with a screech but with a whoosh , and the crowds of people do not push or shove. They politely shuffle off. I’m first, though, hitting the ground of Shibuya Station, taking the stairs out of there two at a time, passing through hordes of Tokyoites who are coming and going from work, from