Sumire finished pouring béchamel sauce over her lasagne, spread mozzarella slices over the top, and put the dish in the oven so the whole thing could melt into bubbly goodness while she prepared the salad.

Her phone buzzed with a text and she wiped her hands before picking it up. It was from Nick.

You home?

She debated ignoring it, but this would serve no purpose, as she still had to meet with him three times a week. It had been two days since she'd thrown him out of her apartment, and she was supposed to go to his house tomorrow, in fact.

She sent back a simple Yes.

Busy?

No.

Then her phone went silent, so she set it down and went back to her dinner preparations. It was a pleasantly cool Friday evening, and she had her windows and door open to catch the breeze. Within ten minutes, however, she heard a car turn into the driveway, a car that was not Mrs. Nishimura's Mercedes. She went to look out the front window, and saw an unfamiliar blue car pull up behind Louie. As she watched the engine was killed, the sun roof opened up, and Nick's head and torso popped out.

He looked up at Sumire, smiled his million dollar smile and held his arms out wide.

"Do you like it?" he called.

"What?"

"Hold on, hold on--" he disappeared into the car, closed the sunroof, then stepped out on the driver's side, shut the door, and came running up the stairs, as usual taking them two at a time.

"Do you like the car?" he asked breathlessly when he gained the threshold of her apartment. He looked pleasantly windblown, as if he'd ridden there with the windows down and the sunroof open.

"Do I like the car?" Sumire repeated. "Why?" She buttoned up the long sleeved shirt she was wearing over her tank top as she spoke.

Nick looked around the room, hands on his hips.

"Look, he finally said, his eyes landing on Sumire. "I know I was way, way, out of line the other day when I was here. I was obnoxious and rude, and said things that were none of my business." He held out a finger and tapped it with the forefinger of his other hand. "That's the first thing. You are an amazeballs teacher who's gone way above and beyond what's required for why you were hired. Those tapes you made? Incredible. I'm learning so much. You explain everything so clearly. You're a fantastic teacher." Nick looked at Sumire, brows drawn together as he nodded. "Now this is me trying to be sincere, okay?" He extended another finger and tapped it. "So that's the second thing. I found out how much the agency is paying you, and it's nothing, so not what you're worth." Another finger, along with the tap. "That's the third thing." He smiled. "And, the fact that we fight like cats and dogs notwithstanding, we've kind of become friends, I think." Finger and tap. "So that's the fourth thing."

He held up his four fingers.

"For those four reasons, that is to say a combination of apologizing and offering you a well-deserved bonus/slash raise, I bought you a new car, okay?" He held up the hand when Sumire took a deep breath to speak. "I'm not finished yet, Purple. I know how stubborn and stupid you can be about being all independent and not accepting help from anyone, and I'm telling you that if you don't accept this car from me, I'm going to drive it out to Pico Boulevard and leave it there with the keys in it so someone can steal it, and that will be my hard earned money right down the drain." He lifted his eyebrow at her. "Is that what you want to see happen to my money? Is it?"

"Hey, wait a minute," Sumire protested. "That is so not fair! It's not my fault, don't put that on me, Nick!"

Nick shrugged. "I'm telling you that's what will happen to that pretty car if you don't accept it. And did you notice I got a blue one, just like the other? You can call it Louie if you want to."

"I'd never do that," Sumire said. "You don't name your new puppy after your old dog, it just isn't done."

"So you'll accept the car?" Nick asked with a happy grin.

Sumire shrugged. "I kind of don't have a choice, do I? I mean, I can't just let someone steal it." She shook her head at him. "You manipulative bastard."

"As long as you acknowledge it, that's all I ask," he returned with a smug smirk.

"So, can we go look at it?" Sumire asked.

"Sure, but I'm really hungry, and I smell lasagne, I believe? With béchamel, if I'm not mistaken?" Nick responded, turning toward the kitchen.

"Wow, good olfactory senses, Nick, I'm impressed," Sumire commented.

"Dude, I'm Italian, my nonna made lasagne every Saturday for for fifteen years, please," Nick replied.

"It will be ready in about ten minutes," Sumire answered.

"So let's eat, then we can go for a drive, okay?" Nick suggested.

He entertained himself by wandering around the room, looking at the books and photographs that decorated the walls.

There were many of Sumire as a little girl with her parents. Her father was a weathered man, prematurely wrinkled from his years outdoors, always holding a rake or spade, surrounded by flowers and shrubbery. In many of the photographs he was holding Sumire, a vibrant, vivacious child, all long limbs and huge eyes, an amazing gap-toothed smile as she smiled out from her father's arms. She exuded joy from every pore in her shorts and flip flops as her mother smiled from the other side, quietly blonde and pretty. She looked noticeably younger, more refined than her husband, who definitely had the look of the outdoors about him.

"Your mother really looked 'to the manor born,'" Nick commented after looking at the three of them in front of what he assumed was their house. It was a large, rambling structure, traditionally Japanese, with azaleas, camellias an hydrangeas blooming behind them.

"Yeah, she was definitely all about the twinsets and pearls," Sumireh called from the kitchen.

"What's a twinset?" Nick asked curiously.

"You know, a short sleeve knitted sweater with a matching cardie? Usually worn with pearls by hoity toity upper class ladies?" came the answer.

Like I told you before, she was a diplomat's daughter from Boston. I think when she married my dad, she thought she was going to marry some kind of intellectual, a writer, a researcher? Instead of which she married a gardener."

Sumire came out of the kitchen. "I mean, they seemed happy, and everything, and I was loved and I was certainly happy." She wiped her hands on a towel. "But after my Otosan, my father, died, we went back to Boston, and she married Marcus, who was the head of his department at Harvard, and she hosted teas and garden parties and stood next to him as he chaired events in Cambridge and all that? I think that's a lot more what she thought and hoped her life would be like, you know?"

She gestured to the picture of her in her father's arms. "That was me and Totto-san, though, me and my father. We loved our life, just messing around in the dirt." She smiled at the picture. "Couple more minutes, okay?"

He nodded, and kept looking around.

There were many more pictures of Sumire with her father, of the two of them squatting over a bowl of tadpoles, of the two of them in summer kimonos eating roasted corn on a stick, of them doing fireworks together in front of their house, of the family eating watermelon as Sumire smiled widely, her mouth sticky and messy.

Nick almost couldn't believe she was the same person as the serious adult who was setting the table behind him.

This beautiful child seemed to radiate light, and it was obvious that her father adored her, that she lived in the circle of his love.

How sad, how truly awful to lose that at the tender age of eight. She looked so tiny in the pictures, with her spindly legs, and skinny shoulder blades, to have to bear the weight of having this particular man, her beloved Totto-san, taken from her, and being left with the elegant blonde woman in the matching blue sweater and cardigan, who, no matter how much she loved her, probably didn't spend a lot of time studying polliwogs with her curious daughter.

They sat and enjoyed the lasagne, which turned out to be as delicious as it smelled, which Nick declared could give his Nonna's a run for her money any day, along with some wine. They wisely kept the conversation to safe topics, and nowhere near their respective social lives.

"So you don't take money from your parents, either, I take it?" Nick asked as he finished up his second slice of lasagne.

Sumire shook her head. "Not since I was eighteen." She shrugged. "I don't know. I had a little that my dad left me, and I don't mind using that, but I don't want any of Marcus' money, you know? He's not my father."

"But isn't he loaded?" Nick asked. "I mean, head of psych at Harvard? Best-selling author? Lecturer and all that?"

Sumire nodded. "But it's not mine." She shook her head. "I don't want it."

"What about your mother? Doesn't she have money? Couldn't you take money from her? I mean, she raised you."

Sumire shrugged, and pulled her shirt closer around her, though it wasn't cold. "I don't know, I feel like since she married Marcus, they're a team. I'd just rather do it on my own, I guess."

She set her fork down. "You about finished? I'm dying to look at the car, you know?"

"Well, for someone who didn't even want to accept it, you're awfully eager to try it out, Sumire-chan," he remarked with a smile. "Come on, let's get these dishes in the dishwasher and get out there."

So they did, and got to the car just as the sun was going down.

"It's a Prius, I thought you'd like an eco-friendly car," Nick told her. "Was I right?"

Sumire nodded happily. "You guessed right. And I think I'll name this car Peri, because it's Periwinkle blue, what do you think? She seems like a girl to me, you know?"

Nick nodded approvingly. "Peri sounds like a stellar name for this car," he answered. He thought it absolutely adorable that this funny, serious person named her cars.

She got in behind the driver's side, figured out how to work the shift, which was unusual because it was electric, and they drove off into the warm, spring night.

They decided to christen Peri by going to a FroYo drive through, and drove back to Nick's mansion as they ate it, laughing all the while.

"Do you know, this is the most I've seen you laugh in the months that I've known you?" Nick told her as they pulled into his driveway.

"Well, I'm very happy," she replied quietly. "And I haven't thanked you yet, Nick, but I want you to know that, apology and bonus or no, I'm very, very grateful. I've never received such an extravagant gift, ever. Thank you. Very much."

Nick thought for a moment that she was going to lean over and hug him, but the moment passed, and she just gave him another heartfelt smile.

"It was my pleasure, honestly," he assured her as he got out. "Oh, and the first year's insurance is also my treat, just because it was easier to just buy it when I bought the car, okay?"

And he loped off toward his front door before she could complain, tossing a wave over his shoulder as he laughed to himself.