Girl in a Box

by Sujata Massey

  “I have much work, too,” Michael said drily. “I need to get Rei some kind of flight fast. Supposing the recruiter wants to see you as soon as Friday?”

  “Friday here is Saturday there,” I pointed out. “So that would be impossible. And why shouldn’t I ask to have my interview next week?”

  “You’d better call her immediately to find out when she wants to see you,” Michael said. “I don’t want you losing the job because another applicant was quicker on the draw.”

  “Right. Well”—I looked up at the wall of clocks—“right now it’s midnight in Tokyo. I’d say I have a few hours to kill before Aoki-san gets to work.”

  “No time for killing. Time for practicing!” said Mrs. Taki. So we did.

  Since I wanted to make sure the call was perfectly clear, I was going to use the landline at the office, from which it was possible to dial without revealing the number of origin—a necessity, since I was supposed to be living in Tokyo, not Arlington, Virginia. I knew the time I wanted to make my call—ten in the morning in Japan. That meant eight in the evening EST. I’d stay a bit later than usual—no problem with the guard outside. Michael had offered to stay as well, but I’d turned this offer down flat—although I’d happily accepted his offer to run out and get me dinner at seven. I hadn’t asked for anything in particular, and he came back with spinach cannelloni, a mini-bottle of red wine, and tiramisu for dessert.

  “Smells good,” I said, opening the plastic container and taking a whiff. “I’m a little surprised about the wine, though.”

  “It’s nonalcoholic. I don’t know whether you normally drink wine with dinner or not, but since you’re staying late, I thought you might as well have something to perk up the evening.” Michael twisted the paper bag, then let it drop into the trash. “You’re still sure you don’t want me to stay? It could be late when you get out.”

  “No, thanks. And whatever the time, I’ll call a cab,” I said after I’d swallowed my first bite. The pasta was as good as it looked.

  “Save your receipt,” Michael said. “And will you promise me you’ll really do it?”

  “I won’t even go downstairs until they’ve honked.”

  Michael stood silently for a minute, and I imagined he was thinking about what had happened to me last spring in Washington, when I’d taken a chance at night. I hadn’t been working for him then, but he knew my personal history. He’d made it his business to know everything, before he even approached me for the tryout job in the fall.

  “What if the cab doesn’t show up?” he asked. “What will you do then?”

  “Then I’ll stay put and phone you,” I said. “But if I do all this, there’s one thing I have to ask of you. Actually, I’ve been wanting to ask it for a while.”

  “Go ahead.” His face flushed, and I realized he thought I was going to ask him out again.

  Crisply, I said, “I want to see the file on Tyler Farraday.”

  “What?” Michael responded as if my question had caught him off guard.

  “I want the daily report of what he was doing, and whom he was seeing, before he was killed. For my own information, so I don’t end up in the same bad place.”

  After a long pause, Michael nodded. “I understand your point. The problem is that it’s not an OCI file. It’s CIA. I certainly don’t have it here—I don’t have it at all.”

  “Well, can you get it for me?”

  Michael nodded again. “I’ll do my best.”

  After Michael left, there were twenty minutes till call time. I placed the call promptly at 8:01, and an assistant answered, saying in elaborately polite language that the store was in the process of opening, so Aoki-san wasn’t at her desk. Suddenly, I remembered that department stores opened at ten, and that the opening itself was an elaborate ritual with store managers lining the aisles bowing to the first incoming customers. I apologized for causing trouble, and told the assistant I was a job applicant returning Aoki-san’s call. Could she kindly take a message for me? Her voice was slightly less polite, probably because she realized that I was the lowest of the low—a future sales trainee. Still, she agreed to take my name and the number of the Japanese cell phone.

  I was worried about having to leave a callback number. Although the Au phone had international calling ability, I’d found through some experimental phone calls I’d made to my aunt in Yokohama that the quality of reception was poor.

  I adjusted the cell phone’s ringer volume to high and set it down on the coffee table. I curled up where Michael used to sit, and decided to open the bottle of mock Chianti. Of course there were no wineglasses in the office; I had to make do with a paper cup left over from the day’s Japanese lunch. I sipped the wine, deciding that it wasn’t bad, though I’d harbored no great expectations. As I drank, I leafed through the latest dossier of documents that had been sent to me; it was a flowchart of the management structure at Mitsutan. A store that had 2,000 employees in the Ginza location alone had plenty of managers—more than 100. I needed to be able to match the names and faces of the executives Michael was most interested in—and there were twenty-five of those, all men save for three. Some of the documents had been translated by Taki-san, some not. At least the office was totally quiet and I could concentrate.

  I began my work at the top of the pyramid: the Mitsuyama family who owned the store. Masahiro Mitsuyama, age eighty, was the patriarch of the family and chairman of the board of directors. He would be easy to recognize because he was completely bald, with thick glasses, and his suits looked as if they had been bought back in the 1980s. Well, he didn’t have to dress to impress. His son, Enobu, was fifty-five, still had hair, and wore better-looking glasses than his father. Enobu had studied accounting at my supposed alma mater, Waseda University. He’d started his career at the store in the accounting department, and had risen in responsibility to ultimately oversee the credit division. He’d been appointed in 2003 as the shacho, or chief operating officer, of the five stores that made up the Mitsutan chain. In that year, 2003, the profits had started to climb. Although he visited all stores at least once a week, his headquarters were at the Ginza location.

  What did that mean, exactly: Ginza location? I flipped through my folder until I found the brochure with a full store map. Mitsutan had eight floors, but nowhere was there any marking of administrative areas. I hoped the executive offices were in the store itself; if they were in a different building in the Ginza, I’d have to go through all kinds of hell to get inside and plant my bug. Of course, the personnel department might be in that building, and it could be my excuse to get in.

  The phone rang, startling me. But it wasn’t the Japanese cell phone, it was the landline on my desk. I picked it up and heard Michael’s voice.

  “You’re still in the office.” He sounded accusatory.

  “Ms. Aoki wasn’t in when I called. I’m waiting for her to call back.”

  “You could do that at home. It’s nine o’clock. And by the way, tomorrow morning I’ll have what you asked me for. Though you can’t keep it around. You’re going to have to return it to me—”

  “I understand. Thanks. And, well, the reason I’m here is that I’m working on memorizing the names and faces of Mitsutan executives. And I know you don’t want me to take those papers out of the office.”

  “That’s fine, but you have a full day tomorrow. Do you realize that?”

  “Of course I do. That’s why I’ve got to get this done.” I tried to hide my irritation. “You’re very nice to encourage me to go home, but I’m sorry, I’d rather kill two birds with one stone—handle the phone call here and get the paperwork finished.”

  After I hung up, I decided to check the messages on the Japanese cell phone, just in case there was something. I bit my lip when I saw that a call had come in from Mitsutan. My phone had let me down, not even ringing.

  I shook my head and used the cell phone to dial Mitsuan’s personnel office, where I spoke to Ms. Aoki’s assistant. She told me Aoki-san had gone
into a training meeting and wouldn’t be available until six o’clock that evening.

  I scrunched my eyes shut. Damn, but I’d screwed up. Now I would have to wait until four in the morning to call.

  The next call I made was to Michael, at home. “I can’t call for a few more hours. Aoki-san’s at a training conference. Also, it turns out that my Japanese phone won’t even ring here—I can call out on it, and it’ll take voice mail, but I can’t just answer it.”

  “Could there be a chance you just have the ringer off?”

  “Nope. I checked already.”

  “Damn it,” Michael said. “So did you leave them the exchange for the landline?”

  “Of course not! That would be an overseas call, which not only would confuse them but would simply cost too much for them to call. I think I’ll just keep calling, trying to get lucky.”

  “Hmm. Do you want to grab a quick nap and have me give you a wake-up call in a few hours?”

  The last thing I wanted Michael to know was that I planned to hang out in the office all night. “No, thank you. My watch has its own alarm. I’ll be fine. Good night, and sorry for the trouble.”

  I had learned everything about the Mitsuyama family by midnight. By one o’clock, I could spell the names and match them to the faces of two-thirds of the executive board. But I was tired. I tested the alarm on the inexpensive Timex that I’d recently bought for its stopwatch feature, to help time my cycling and running sprints—and then set it for three forty-five. I wasn’t going to let Aoki-san slip by me this time—even if it meant phoning the personnel office every five minutes. And I’d start early, because I wasn’t sure if the assistant had meant that Aoki-san would come back at six, pick up her coat, and leave—or settle in for a final hour or two of work. Women in Japan didn’t typically work as long as the men did—women’s usual time for leaving was somewhere between six and eight in the evening, whereas men often were in the office until ten, unless they had to go out for a company drinking party.

  I was having a nonalcoholic after-work drinking party of one, and it was no fun at all. I chucked the empty mini-bottle into the trash, then turned on my computer, fiddling around with the sound until I got an alternative rock radio station from Towson, Maryland, that I liked. I double-checked the door and the locks on the office’s few windows, because I still had some residual nervousness about the breakin. Everything was set. Then I settled down on the love seat, arranging my pleated wool skirt like a blanket over my calves. Tracy Chapman’s voice washed over me like a lullaby, and I closed my eyes.

  The buzzing sound in my ear made me jump. I opened my eyes, shut them again, and squinted at my watch. Yes, three forty-five. I was on schedule for my call.

  I drank a glass of water to get rid of the early-morning croak in my voice and dialed. It was five minutes to six. Of course, Aoki-san wasn’t there.

  “She says your cell phone isn’t working,” said the assistant. “She called it again during her lunch break.”

  Damn it, but I was going to lose the job. I knew it. I was not only unreachable but lax in checking my phone messages.

  “Is there another number where she can reach you?” the assistant asked.

  “Not really, I’m so terribly sorry to cause all this trouble—”

  “Just a minute. She’s walked in.”

  Miss Aoki came on the line. “Aoki here. Who is it, please?”

  “Shimura Rei,” I said, croaking a bit as I gave my name in the proper backward sequence.

  “Who is it? I cannot hear you—” Her voice was curt.

  “Shimura Rei,” I repeated, pitching my voice in the correct, high register that I’d worked on, ceaselessly, with Mrs. Taki. “Excuse me for not returning your earlier calls promptly. The circumstances were difficult.”

  “I saw your résumé,” Ms. Aoki said. “The fact is our regular positions are full.”

  Regular positions full. To think she’d called me just to turn me down—what a disappointment.

  “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. I was really, really hoping.” My voice broke off. I wanted to cry.

  “What we can offer girls with your experience, these days, is contract work. It’s on a six-month basis and doesn’t include benefits, outside the shopping discount.”

  “Oh! But I’m interested in that!” I said, stumbling over my Japanese in excitement.

  “Do you really think so?” Ms. Aoki sounded doubtful. “Well, I suppose you should come in for an interview, though I should warn you there is a group of fifty we’re looking at, and only five positions, at least for the Ginza store.”

  “I’d be honored to interview. Is there anything I should bring with me, please?”

  “We have your application, so there’s really nothing more needed. We just want to see and talk to you. Friday is our scheduled day. What hour are you available to come in?”

  “Afternoon. Late afternoon, if you don’t mind.” I prayed that this wouldn’t make me sound slothful, but flights from the United States typically arrived at noon or later. If I couldn’t get a flight on Wednesday night and had to go on Thursday, I’d still have a few hours’ cushion to reach the store, but I didn’t like to take chances.

  “Four o’clock, then.” She paused. “We’ll see you then. Please be punctual, because others will be waiting.”

  I thanked her profusely and rang off. It was too late to go home, by this point; and besides, I had plenty of things to do.

  8

  Something soft was tickling my lower back. It was a delicious, sexy feeling, like a cashmere massage. Every nerve ending on my body awoke, slowly and deliciously. I savored the feeling, wondering why I’d been so freaked out by the Korean beauty salon. Whatever Dora and her friends were doing to my back was really nice.

  Blearily, I opened my eyes and found myself staring at a nubby beige sofa armrest. I was crashed out on the sofa in the OCI office, and Michael Hendricks was laying his cashmere overcoat over me like a blanket.

  “Sorry.” He jumped back, looking guilty. “I didn’t mean to wake you. I just thought you might be cold.”

  “I meant to take a catnap.” I sat up and rubbed my eyes. “I have so much to do!”

  “You never went home?” Michael’s expression darkened. “Next time you’re going to do something crazy, clear it with me first.”

  “I got the interview,” I said.

  Michael caught his breath, then said, “When?”

  “Friday, which means I have to leave this afternoon or evening, if I’m going to have a day before the meeting. Do you think I’ll be able to fly on such short notice?”

  “Certainly. I’ll drive you to Dulles myself. You go home and get your passport and the rest. I don’t know when you’re going to have time to look at this file—” He held a manila folder labeled “Farraday,” and I grabbed it.

  “I’ll do it in the car. Oh, God, I don’t know if I can do a whirlwind pack-out like last time—”

  “Travel light! Remember, you’ll take nothing with you that seems like it was bought outside Japan, from the bag itself down to your socks and underwear.” He reddened slightly after the last sentence, as if he’d forgotten whom he was speaking to.

  “I don’t wear socks, Michael. I wear stockings.” I stretched out my legs, which happened to be covered in fashionable, flesh-tone fishnet.

  “So you’ll be able to pack yourself up while I take care of your ticket?” Michael was looking at my legs as if seeing them for the first time.

  “Yes, but I don’t know what I’m going to do about the apartment and my mail and everything like that.” Now that I was fully awake, the fact that I’d agreed to leave for Japan in a few hours stunned me.

  “Don’t worry about the apartment, I’ll keep the rent payments going. After I get things set with the travel agent, I’ll run by the post office and pick up the paperwork to get your mail forwarded to the office. You can sign on the way to the airport.”

  “Thank you,” I said to Michael, but he was
no longer looking at my legs, or any part of me. He was on his cell phone to the travel agent, asking about a plane to Tokyo.

  “I wish I could have said good-bye to Taki-san,” I fretted. I was in the passenger seat of Michael’s Audi. Blue Merle was crooning “Burning in the Sun” from the Bose speakers, and the sun in fact had come out during our last few minutes on the Dulles Toll Road. I’d finished reading the file on the man everyone called Tyler Farraday, which had struck me as more pathetic than insightful. He’d worked a few places around town as a male model; and on an accessories shoot for Mitsutan, he had attempted to get the photography director to introduce him to the big honchos in corporate. That kind of thing just wasn’t done, and as Tyler had made some outrageous attempts to make himself visible to store management, he’d wound up getting cut out of the ad campaign. He’d been doing cocaine in the men’s room at Gas Panic the last time anyone had seen him alive. The Tokyo police had ruled his death a drowning, which was the story I’d read in the papers; but a CIA medical officer who’d performed the autopsy, once the body had been returned to Virginia, confirmed that Farraday had received so many physical blows that he was very likely dead before he touched the water.

  “Mrs. Taki did give you her best regards by phone. She was very pleased that the application succeeded,” Michael said, bringing me back from the gruesome past to the present.

  “It all happened so quickly,” I said. “Everything, from the application to the packing. Thanks for helping me again.”

  “No problem,” Michael said. “You’ve got both passports, right?”

  “I double-checked. The American one is in my carry-on and the Japanese one in the suitcase.” The bright red Japanese passport was a forgery, a document giving details of the birth of Rei Shimura on the same day in September that I was born—but seven years later. I also had a new address book in the carry-on, a book that was practically bare but did contain the names of my supposed parents and our family address, an apartment in a good building in the upscale Hiroo section of southwest Tokyo. I’d already memorized the facts about my father: he was an investment banker, frequently out of the country; in fact, he’d brought my mother and me to California for many of my school years. My mother was a housewife who enjoyed making shopping expeditions wherever her husband worked. I’d grown up in a culture of international shopping—which was one of the reasons I’d always wanted to work in a department store.