Girl in a Box

by Sujata Massey

  At the back of the club, there was a bulletin board papered with signs for upcoming dance nights, sublet apartments, and so on. There was even a paper with a picture of a gorgeous blue-eyed blond guy—a dead ringer for Jude Law. But the message below the smiling face said “Have you seen Tyler Farraday?” first in English and then in Japanese.

  “What’s that about?” I asked Richard when he emerged from the men’s room.

  “That’s an old lost-person flyer,” Richard said, jabbing a fingernail painted with black polish into the paper. “Tyler Farraday was an idiot gaijin who drowned, but that was almost four months ago. That thing should be torn down.”

  “Why do you call him that?” I felt a rush of sympathy for Tyler, my poor dead colleague. I studied the phone number below the message; it was a Tokyo exchange, with no name listed. I wondered who would have answered the call; just a friend, or perhaps another spy?

  “He was a total fake, Rei. A straight pretending to be gay. As if he thought nobody in Japan has gaydar!” Richard ripped the paper off the board, and I took it from him, tucking it into my handbag.

  “Don’t litter,” I said, studying Richard. “So you met him?”

  “He was everywhere. Crashing parties, dancing on tables, winding up in the back of cabs. Big spender who picked up the tab for lots of people, but that was the only good thing about him.”

  “You sound awfully vehement. Did you have some kind of, uh, interaction?” Richard was between boyfriends, just like me.

  “No,” Richard said. “He was after middle-aged Japanese businessmen, although not really after them, of course. Why do you care?”

  “I was just wondering whether there was some kind of sweeping social change afoot, that a guy could openly go after men here.”

  “You’re right, people are pretty much still in the closet, and speaking of that—who are you doing these days?”

  “Doing?” I repeated Richard’s word in disbelief. “I’m not doing anything, let alone anyone.”

  “It’s been, what, a year since your night of skin? I mean, sin.” Richard laughed.

  “Four months. That’s not such a long dry spell.”

  Richard studied me and said, “I suppose I should tell you about Hugh.”

  “Oh?” My stomach lurched.

  “He swung through on business last month and I spotted him at a wine bar in Roppongi Hills.”

  “You’re kidding.” I knew which bar he was talking about, but Hugh was supposedly not drinking. This was really bad news.

  “I hate to be the one to tell you, honey, but Huge had a girl with him.”

  “Really.” This was even worse news than I’d imagined.

  “Because she was Asian, I assumed she was a local, but he actually flew her in with him, on his business trip. Guess where she’s from.”

  “Washington, D.C.?”

  “China. Born in Shanghai, now living in Hong Kong, where she stars in a prime-time soap opera.” As my face fell, Richard pressed his lips together. “I wouldn’t have expected it, because the thing between the two of you seemed so—sincere—but it looks like Huge turned out to have an Asian babe fetish, all along.”

  Richard was a kidder, I reminded myself. I couldn’t trust anything he said. But I looked up the girl’s name on Google, and sure enough, found pages and pages of fan sites devoted to her, though almost all in Chinese. She looked like me—well, the way I used to look, when my hair was short—only she was bosomy, with long legs. Heart thumping, I typed her name plus Hugh’s into the search engine. Bingo. Sixteen different links to pictures shot at their engagement party at the Mandarin Hotel in Hong Kong.

  The plot thickened when I had dinner at Nelja, a hip hideaway of a bar, with my cousin Tom the next evening, after he’d finished his shift at the emergency room at St. Luke’s Hospital. During our second round of Ebisu beers, he confessed that Hugh had recently telephoned to see if Tom could help him get access to his old favorite golf club, just for the afternoon. Tom hadn’t been available to golf on the day Hugh wanted to go, but he’d set up the arrangements—not just for Hugh, but for a second golfer, whom another friend had spotted: a beautiful, tall Chinese.

  “The question I have is whether he’s still in the country,” Tom said in English, the second language he loved to practice with me. “If he’s still here, well, maybe the two of you could see each other and work things out. If only I’d known you were coming back to Japan when I spoke to him!”

  “The situation couldn’t possibly work out,” I said to Tom. “Even if he hadn’t moved on to another woman, I know that the union was futile.”

  “But I like him,” Tom said, looking at me. “Frankly, I don’t know everything that happened in the end, but I have a suspicion that you put him through, how do you say, the ring?”

  “The wringer,” I said. Yes, I’d been bad. But I had begun to wonder, over the last month or so, whether I’d done something heinous because I’d wanted to force an ending. And I could never have made the first move—I needed to be thrown out.

  “Love is not enough,” I said to Tom. “I have a new lease on life, I enjoy standing alone—”

  “I disagree with your thoughts about love,” Tom said. “If I could find a woman to love, that would mean everything to me.”

  We sat in silence for a while after that, and when it was time for my cousin to catch the last train back to Yokohama, I took advantage of my per diem money and hopped a cab back to Hiroo. I deserved the comfort of a cab to cry in, despite what I’d said.

  I was up at five on Sunday morning, so I wound up fixing myself a good breakfast with the provisions I’d bought at the Meidi-ya supermarket the day before. Meidi-ya, which had a stunning array of foreign foods and equally stunning prices, was no longer no-man’s-land for me. I’d casually bought Guatemalan coffee, locally baked croissants, and juicy tangerines from Shizuoka, just as if I had as much money as everyone else. But I still had the soul of a bargain hunter. After my breakfast, I took the subway to Togo Shrine for my favorite of all the Sunday morning flea markets.

  The flea market was busier than usual, even at eight in the morning. I found myself, for the first time, fighting to take possession of a particularly stunning red and purple ikat kimono. There was a lot of competition now, which ran contrary to everything Taki-san had said about how the Japanese abhorred used clothing. How I longed to call her when, around lunchtime in the nearby trendy shopping district of Harajuku, I spotted six girls wearing vintage kimono as they strolled along, leaving enthralled male spectators in their wake. Japan had come full circle, from wafuku to yofuku and back. I couldn’t wait to tell Mrs. Taki that used kimono were no longer poor-people’s clothing but rather an ultrafeminine youth costume.

  Monday, my first day of the training segment at Mitsutan, was all about new clothes.

  At the uniform fitting, where six other incoming workers and I stood in our underwear, eyes everywhere but on each other, we were circled by Ono-san, a tiny, sharp-eyed woman of about sixty, wearing the store uniform of black jacket and slacks, and wielding a measuring tape that she occasionally flicked out for a quick, painful measurement of someone’s shoulder or hip span.

  Thank God I had thought ahead and was wearing waist-high, stomach-flattening panties that covered my navel ring. If I had been in the lacy bikini or hip-hugger panties the other girls favored, my secret would have been revealed. And the employee manual, which I’d studied over the weekend with the assistance of a few emergency e-mail clarifications from Mrs. Taki, laid things out clearly. Female Mitsutan staff members could have no piercings except at the ear—just one hole per lobe.

  “Your uniform is a privilege!” Mrs. Ono announced, her gaze sweeping over everyone as if she was looking for someone, like me, who was inwardly rebellious. “You will be issued two uniforms, and you are responsible for dry cleaning them and keeping them in immaculate condition. If you have any problems—broken buttons, dropped hems, and so on—please see me before a small problem becomes
a huge disaster. My regular office is close to the kimono section on the third floor.”

  I was spared the snap of the measuring tape, because it took only a few seconds of visual inspection for Mrs. Ono to proclaim loudly that I would wear saizu L; I was not only the oldest but the biggest girl in our freshman class. It was true, I realized after covertly inspecting the others, that I was different. Not fatter, exactly, but I had wider shoulders, and more developed upper arms and thighs. Weight lifting and spinning had done me in.

  Once we were all dressed, Mrs. Ono reminded us of the other sartorial rules. No necklaces or scarves were allowed; the only accessories were an all-black purse and all-black pumps with a heel not higher than three and three-quarters inches. One ring was permitted on each hand, and stud earrings of either gold, silver, or pearl could be worn—unless one was working at a specific jewelry counter, in which case wearing store merchandise already purchased or on layaway was encouraged.

  During our afternoon tour of the store, I learned the reason that about half the sales staff did not wear uniforms. Male employees didn’t have to wear uniforms, for reasons of sexist privilege; there was also a large minority of female salesclerks who could get away with beribboned Tocca dresses and Comme des Garçons strap-and-buckle pants. It turned out that these women worked in individual designer sections within the store that were completely owned and operated by the designers themselves. It was a true consignment system, whereby the vendor paid Mitsutan a commission ranging from ten to thirty percent for every item sold. The vendor also paid the salesclerks’ salaries and paid for the cost of constructing the in-store boutique, and took back every garment that didn’t sell.

  It seemed like a sweet deal for Mitsutan, to be able to spend so little on merchandise or staff. But I realized that the same operating agreement was in place at most Japanese department stores; consignment couldn’t be the reason Mitsutan was doing too well. There had to be something else.

  As the tour continued, I turned my attention toward the best places to plant my bugs. My first thought was to go for the highest-grossing departments and boutiques within the categories of accessories and fashion. But as we wound our way along, stopping to bow to every department manager and floor manager, I began to realize that the hottest spots were the cashier stations. Salespeople rang up sales not in their individual departments, but rather by going to designated cashiers’ desks, two or three of which were located on each floor.

  The process of selling something was much lengthier and more convoluted than I’d ever realized, even though I’d shopped at Mitsutan many times before. It was briefly explained by Mr. Fujiwara, the store’s customer service manager, a stylish man in his fifties. He wore a different dark gray suit every day of the training session, but instead of the standard boring tie, he would wear something individual: an ascot one day, a bow tie the next. There was always a tie, but it was out of the mainstream, a little bit exciting; it made him seem a little more approachable, and that made sense for his position.

  Mr. Fujiwara had a different style from Mrs. Ono. Instead of being stern, he was perky—more like one of the motivational direct-sales people who appeared on late-night American cable TV hawking juicers or exercise machines.

  “The most important reason a shopper chooses a store is what?” he shouted encouragingly toward us.

  “Good-quality merchandise?” the girl next to me ventured.

  “No! Please try harder!”

  “Price?” someone else ventured.

  “No! Guess again!” He was positively chortling.

  I raised a tentative hand, and when he called on me, I said, “A relationship with a salesclerk?”

  Somebody snickered, and I realized that I’d sounded as if I were talking about people having affairs. But Mr. Fujiwara understood and was smiling.

  “Exactly right! Customer service, the sense that customers will always be treated with grace, is exactly what has kept our department store number one. As my wife says, she and her friends would never again return to a shop where she was treated rudely. Retention of customers is entirely contingent on you! A joyful sales experience will result in great customer loyalty. One unpleasant moment, and the customer is lost. You are the most important link in the chain that makes up the Mitsutan empire. It is up to you to keep our customers happy.”

  Mr. Fujiwara went on to explain, in minute detail, the selling process. When a customer announced that she wanted to buy a particular garment, my job as a salesperson would be to bow, offer heartfelt thanks, and carry the garment, plus the customer’s payment, to the cashier’s station, where the sale would be rung up under the supervision of cashier directors. There, a designated gift-wrap clerk would carefully pack the garment into a tissue-paper-lined box, which in turn would be wrapped in the store’s distinctive green-and-white paper, and ultimately placed in a shopping bag. The original salesclerk would give the receipt and the credit card or any change back to the shopper. The last step was to hand the consumer the shopping bag, and to remain in a humble bow, attention focused on the customer, until she was gone from sight.

  During the tour I’d gotten some good ideas about places for eavesdropping. In addition to getting computer spyware into a PC at a cashier station, I hoped to plant listening devices in the highest-grossing accessories boutiques, which were Vuitton, Versace, and Coach. Among Mitsutan’s regular departments, I had already pinpointed Young Fashion—since supposedly the freest-spending people in Japan were women between ages fifteen and thirty—and Gifts, the spot where shoppers went to buy “duty presents” for their friends and colleagues during the December and July gift seasons, typically spending between $700 and $1,200 per holiday.

  Now, as we followed Mr. Fujiwara downstairs into the food basement, which was thronged with more shoppers per square foot than any other section in the store, I had a new consideration. The women who came to buy bread or chocolates or marinated squid engaged in direct cash or credit transactions with a counter clerk; there was no cashier station. I wondered whether it would be possible to bug these places, and if so, whether there was a good likelihood I’d pick up something of value. The more bugs I planted, the greater my risk of being caught.

  “We have at present eighty-eight food shops on this floor!” Mr. Fujiwara called out, interrupting my worries. Now I became aware of other sounds: the din of vendors hawking fresh fish, steamed Chinese buns, and chocolate croissants. With their kerchief-covered heads and aprons, and their wider range of ages, the employees in the food basement looked more like a cross section of traditional Japan than the fashionable, black-clad crew who worked upstairs. My nose twitched at the delicious aromas of grilled onion in one area, rich miso in another, and perfectly ripe strawberries across the aisle. Some shoppers were doing more than just smelling. A backpacker with unwashed red hair who looked as if she hadn’t eaten since she’d left Bali was devouring sample after sample of gyoza, held on a tray by a man wearing a white chef’s toque and a very anxious expression. Japanese onlookers were nudging each other, snickering a little at the out-of-control foreigner. I looked away, feeling sorry. I knew what it felt like to be really hungry, with no money.

  “Eighty-eight food shops, all staffed by Mitsutan employees who have completed our food specialty program. Remember, your ten percent discount applies here when you shop in uniform, but that is only for food to take home. No eating at any time on the sales floor!”

  “Which food counter is the most successful?” I asked, coming up close to Mr. Fujiwara so that he could hear me.

  “It’s hard to make one choice, but I believe Lady Beautiful cakes is a consistent high performer in the sweets section; and in the Japanese food section, Country Bento is extremely popular. Can you see it, with the royal blue canopy overhead? Ah, my goodness, the kaicho is right here, taking a walk around. Look smart, everyone! I will see if he is willing to inspect you.”

  Mr. Fujiwara threaded his way ahead of us and over to the Country Bento counter, where I recognized
Masahiro Mitsuyama, the chain’s kaicho, or chairman. He looked older than he had in the photos I’d studied from the board reports—here again, I thought, was another instance of the store putting its best face forward. In the pictures, Mr. Mitsuyama had looked about sixty; but in the flesh, stooped over with a cane and with a deeply creased face and bottle-thick glasses, he looked somewhere in his eighties. How impressive that he was on the floor, tending to business! I watched him point from dish to dish, asking questions of the Country Bento salesclerks, two men and one woman, lined up at attention with their hands clasped in front and heads bowed.

  Mr. Fujiwara ran up, bowing deeply himself. I could see his lips moving, and he gestured back to our group. Mr. Mitsuyama nodded; and, bowing again, Mr. Fujiwara made his way back to us. “He will greet you. Have you had your Physical Hospitality Seminar yet?”

  We all shook our heads.

  “Ah so desu ka. Well, remember that the most important part of Physical Hospitality is the bow. I will say ‘Rei’ very quietly, then all bow together. Try your best.”

  For a moment, I jumped at the sound of my name, feeling singled out. Then I recalled that rei was the word for bow.

  I bowed along with the others, hoping to give Masahiro Mitsuyama the impression that we were the most obedient, focused class of trainees to ever come through the building.

  “How do you do?” he intoned in a delicate, reedy voice. “So pleased to see you.”

  I’d wondered if Mr. Fujiwara would introduce us, because we did have our name tags on, but he didn’t. And indeed, the warmth he’d shown us seemed to have vanished as he made a few general comments to the chairman. “This group seems a bit rough, but with concentration they may prevail,” Mr. Fujiwara said. “It is a great privilege for them to meet you, the one who has led Mitsutan for the last forty years.”