by Vann Chow
“Wow. That's difficult,” She said. “Oops! I did it again. And Oops! Again. I'll shut up until I have my sentence.”
“Smith, would you let Aileen have her turn still?” Mrs. Newton asked. “She's not very attentive, is she? She likes to bend the rules, push boundaries. But I must say, this is the case for most women.” She gave a satisfactory smile to applaud her own keen observations.
“We're here to learn about each other, right? So I'll give Aileen another chance.”
“Another chance!” Aileen blurted. “It's just a game. This hardly needs to be taken so seriously.”
“What did I say?” Mrs. Newton said under her breath.
“Go on Aileen,” Smith encouraged, suppressing a laugh after Mrs. Newton's jest.
“Here it comes: I decide for myself what's fair.” Aileen winked at Smith, feeling triumphant.
“The Japanese for 'Decide' is Ketten and I know it because I studied a list of Japanese verbs all afternoon.” Smith followed quickly with his answered.
Mrs. Newton looked up from her flashcards after she had finished jotting down their responses again. Like she did previously, she gave them the other person's card and asked what they think of them.
“I can go first,” Smith volunteered. “Aileen takes her rights very seriously. She has a strong mind and a rare honesty that people here lack. I appreciate that very much in a person.” He gave Aileen a smile.
“Okay,” Mrs. Newton said, not imposing to them her opinion this time. “And how about Smith's?”
“' The Japanese for Decide is Ketten...' ” Aileen read his response aloud. “It shows that he's a nerd. And I guess it is what you've said about him, Mrs. Newton. He likes to say smart things. I like an intellectual man. Nothing wrong with that.”
Mrs. Newton nodded, then said, “He's also non-confrontational.”
“I am not non-confrontational,” Smith said. “See, I'm defending myself now. Right here right now.”
“Then stop sweating.” Mrs. Newton dabbed her napkin on his hand jokingly. “Next one. 'Separation’”
“I knew something like that was coming,” Smith said. Then he picked up his glass of red wine and took a large gulp of it.
“Oh, I will get it out,” Aileen said. “And don't give me a hard time about the rules. – Separation from a loved one can be a painful experience for a lot of people.”
“Separation of siamese twins could be life threatening,” Smith said.
“Come off it! Stop building a wall around yourself.” Aileen squinted straight at him.
“No, I am not 'building a wall around myself' ,” He rebuffed.
“We didn't learn anything about you in this sentence!” she argued. “The exercise is supposed to get us to know each other, right, Mrs. Newton?” Aileen looked at the old lady imploringly, rallying for her support.
“Oh, you're more attentive than I thought. Maybe you just have an intuitive understanding of how things work,” Mrs. Newton mused to herself.
“This is how I talk. Exercise or not. I was being honest about the first thing on my mind when I heard the word. I like to keep conversations light, and educational. I raised two National Society scholars that way.”
“Okay, let's have dinner now, kids.” Just as Mrs. Newton finished her sentence, three waiters who had lined up around the table extended their arms and delivered their meals onto the table. With trained synchronization, they lifted the gold-encrusted lids of the plates and chanted, “Buon Appetito!”
21. The Boyfriend
“ Que faites-vous, Damien ?” It meant 'what are you doing' in French. Damien stood frustrated in front of the mirror next to the shower and sighed. When he saw Tanaka peeking his head into the bathroom seeing him in his dismal state, he threw his rouge brush at him.
“ Que faire, rien ne fonctionne! ” Nothing works. “ Regardez! Ici! ” Look! Here! Damien pointed with his pinky finger at the red boil on his lower lip. “ Argghh! ” He shouted, ruffling his hair in helplessness.
“ Calmez-vous, bebe! ” Calm down, baby – Tanaka said to him. He took one look at the familiar red rash on his boyfriend's lip and immediately understood what was going on. He switched to Japanese, “Are you going out tonight?”
“Of course! Mochiron desu! ” Damien hissed back in Japanese. “Why do you think I'm fussing in front of the mirror for so long!”
“These things, they will go away in a few days.” Tanaka lied. Herpes boils could last forever, especially if they scarred the skin already. But just in case it got any worse, he advised.
“Take one of the pills I have in the cabinet.” He pointed to the medicine cabinet behind the mirror.
“I have a competition to judge tonight!” Damien dabbed another layer of concealer on the monstrosity, realizing that it had only made it more noticeable because the color of his skins had gotten darker after coming back from the tanning salon just last Sunday, and it was a few shades darker than the concealer. He made another loud groan at his own reflection. “ C'est ta faute! It's all your fault! All your filthy dirty dick's fault! Merde! Merde! Merde! ”
“What do you want me to do?” Tanaka distant himself from the crybaby. He knew the boy's temper. Any moment something could be flying in his direction. “I did not ask you to sleep with me.”
“Yes, you did!” Damien shrilled, flailing his arms in the air and trailing after him like an angry zombie going after him for revenge.
“What competition is that today?” he asked him, seating himself on the couch. Tanaka noticed Damien's red carpet worthy silk gown only now.
“ Je vous l'ai dit! I told you like a million times.” Damien tumbled on the couch next to Tanaka. His brunette wig swung around the attachment points on the side of his head. “Men, men, men. They never listen. It's the Dancing Queen contest at the Decadence Bar. Abba and everything. Remember?”
“That's where we met.” Tanaka pulled his right hand in between his own palms and stroked it gently. Damien was freshly shaven. The back of his hand was hairless and smooth.
“Yes, but that's not what I am talking about,” Damien complained weakly, leaning against his shoulder.
“Wear a mask.” Tanaka had a spark of genius. “All the fashionable teenagers do that these days.”
“Oh my god, that's brilliant!” Damien scrambled off to the bathroom once again to find himself a presentable face mask. They come in all colors and designer labels. When he came out from the bathroom, he was refreshed with his hairdo fixed, his makeup retouched, and his skin so smooth it glittered – it could also have been the good deed of the glittery powder his stylist had suggested him to mix into his body spray tanning solution. “Should I pretend to be sick or should I be fashionably sick in the head?” He holstered up the facemask around his mouth and asked. His voice muffled.
“It's equally reprimindable,” Tanaka replied.
“ Mon cher, so you're gonna take good care of yourself while I'm gone?” Damien asked, adjusting the elastic strap of the face mask around the back of his head. The tangled brunette wig had made it a quite difficult. “Order some Chinese food. Don't starve yourself again.”
“This is not Paris anymore! I swore I will never eat that ghastly Chinese takeout again when I left, and now you're putting me through it. I can cook for myself. Japanese cooks.” Tanaka asserted proudly to the French boy.
“That's right. There's no fun eating Chinese takeout by the TV when I'm not here,” Damien considered as he rounded the couch to the shoe rack, holding on to the seat back to support himself sliding his right foot into the six inches’ tall stiletto. “Oh, I love these shoes!”
“You designed them. I get it,” Tanaka jested. “Don't worry, I'll just do some work and go to sleep.”
“Work as in real work or as in your stinking boring documentary?” Damien challenged. “You're not gonna make any money from that. And you're gonna get yourself into trouble! Digging up somebody's skeletons in the closet!”
“If there are really skeletons in the
closet, would you've stopped, if you were me?” Tanaka asked.
“ Oui! Yes!” Damien said, picking up her purse to leave the apartment. “I don't want you to become another one!”
“It's not as bad as you've imagined,” Tanaka said, trying to convince both of them. “You know how long I've been trying to work on something big. I know this is it.”
“My ambitious moitie ! We're exactly the same, except I pop pills.” He pointed at his chest, where a resemblance of breasts had grown. He had been taking female hormones. “Don't watch too much straight porn while I'm away!”
“No!” Tanaka laughed at his boyfriend's good sense of humor. “The skeletons and I, we have both come out of the closet!”
“Good one!” Damien threw his head back in laughter. The heavy door slammed behind him as he slipped out. His fake laughs reverberated into the hallway.
As soon as Tanaka was left alone, he picked up his home phone and dialed a familiar number.
“Dr. Shinozaki. Hello, how do you do? This is Ryuuji Tanaka... O-kage sama de! I'm fine myself,” he said. “I have important news for you. I've gotten the tape. Yes...can we review them together so I could get your analysis on it?”
Tanaka smiled. The speaker on the other side seemed to have given an affirmative answer to his suggestion. “And, and, there's something else, too.” Weariness suddenly clouded his mind. For everything a person did has consequences, the Buddhist books had taught him. Was he tampering with fate? As he was wavering in indecision whether he should tell his chanced encounter with Misa Hayami or not, he heard the sound of forks and knives clattering in the background from Dr. Shinozaki's end. There were children in the same room with him. This would not be the time for the doctor to speak about his research.
“I will not further interrupt your evening with your family, doctor. Let us speak more in our meeting. Have a great evening,” Tanaka said and hung up. Misa Hayami's face appeared in his mind. He could picture the scene perfectly when a hint of internal tumult gleamed in the young woman's eyes for the first time.
22. The Reign of Love
“Ha-ha-ha!” Aileen leaned forward on her seat, suppressing her laughs. Wine sloshed around the glass in her hand forming miniature whirls. “You can't be serious!”
“Now what was the most terrible thing you've done to the opposite sex?” Mrs. Newton was able to carry on her agenda with a straight face even after Smith's shocking revelation that he had once taken off all the clothes of a girl in front of another girl. When he was in grade school, driven by curiosity, he had taken off all the clothes off of his crush's Kendra's Barbie doll to see what was hidden underneath, when Kendra had presumably gone out of the classroom to the potty. He was caught red handed when she had returned unexpectedly. It was the first time he had felt that there were different kinds of embarrassment in life, and this humiliating kind – being absolutely hated by all the girls in class and having turned Kendra to tears – was best to avoid at all cost. While rarely admitting that he was, in some ways, traumatized by the episode, having committed something so unfathomably unforgivable at the age of ten and lost his grade school sweetheart to the condemnable male nature, he did feel a slight tremble when he finished the story. Never had the story been told to anyone but his own wife. He was surprised that a relationship expert had the power to open up the deepest secret in one's heart. Perhaps it was just that no one had ever bothered to ask him plainly, 'What was the most terrible thing you've ever done?', with a facial expression that showed he or she expected the worst, and nothing but the worst.
“The most terrible thing I have ever done...” Aileen said thoughtfully when it was her turn. “It must have been that time I've dared my brother to swim to the bottom of the dirty river that ran outside of our home. He didn't come up for a whole minute after I had already swum back to the surface. The last time I saw him conscious was when I was at the bottom. Through the murky, greenish-bluish river water, I flipped him the finger to declare triumph, thinking that he was just staring at me, wild-eyed in exhaustion. He was just floating there, and I thought he had simply given up. Oh, that was horrible. My mother was furious...”
“Was he okay?” Hearing something so unusual and cruel for the first time in all her sessions, she could not help interrupting.
“Oh, don't worry!” Aileen shrunk her neck and shoulders in, feeling guilty. “He lives. He's a diving coach now. My parents really drove it into him that he needed to face his fears for the water. He got so much training after that time that getting the diving license and then the rescue and teaching licenses were almost easy as pie. If you ever wanted to go to that part of the world and see the amazing coral reefs, you know who to call.” She winked.
“I like your story way more than mine,” Smith said. “God forbid.”
The time for the session had come to an end, Mrs. Newton realized. “I've heard fairly good responses from the both of you tonight,” she said and turned herself slightly toward Smith. “And I have indeed enjoyed myself in your company. I think the two of you are heading in the right direction. Sometimes the connection is made not by having a lot of experience, or hobbies, or even interests in common, but by having a lot of emotions in common, and feeling sympathetic for one another. Aileen, what are the few important things that you've learnt about Smith tonight?” She didn't stop to let Aileen answer the question. “That he was a fun and intellectual person, who is also non-confrontational and does not actively share his feelings out in the open. But he is capable of opening up to the right person that knocks the door. So, keep knocking.”
Aileen nodded at the expert's analysis like a little girl sitting in mathematics class. She had discovered these qualities about the man, too. And now that she had the advantage of the information, she would keep knocking for sure until the door opened for her. She had never been known to give up anything easily.
“And what have you learnt about Aileen tonight, Carson?” Again, the question was just a lead into her speech, not a real inquiry. “That Aileen likes to indulge herself the liberation of pushing boundaries and she does not feel threatened by confrontation. She likes to share her emotions, and her experiences have a lot of impact on how she conducts her life. So what you've got to do, is to show your interests in these experiences, and be a good listener, if you choose to pursue the relationship.”
“That's amazing,” Aileen complimented the lady, “your analysis.”
“It's time for me to go, so I'll just leave the two of you alone now. Please feel free to call my daughter if something pops up. Okay?” Mrs. Newton got up on her feet and said farewells to her clients.
“That was weird,” Aileen said, gobbling down a spoonful of Crème Brulee when Mrs. Newton had left. “I have never done anything quite like this with my dates. To be counseled before there was any problem! Before the two of us have even become, 'the two of us'!” Blushing as she said that. “Maybe all couples should have a relationship expert like that on their first dates. It would have made getting to know the other person so much less awkward!”
“Ya...” Smith wiped his face with both palms, then rested them on his cheeks for a second. The feeling of recently unloaded stress on one's spring came upon him. It seemed that Mrs. Newton and even more importantly, Aileen had been deceived by his apparent composure when prodding private questions shrewdly disguised as communication exercises were being thrown at him. In any man's world, 'counseling' was as dreadful a word as Nieman Marcus. The proceeding was not exactly the way he had imagined it, that was not multiple choice questionnaire but a full fifty-page thesis on himself. Had he not been so full of shit – there was hardly any euphemism around it - he would not have lasted through it. And now, his thoughts shifted instantly onto what had been bothering him at the back of his mind – Misa and Andy. The combination of it gave him chills he had not even perceived that night he found the fainted boy in a dark alley.
As Aileen delivered the last bite of egg custard into her mouth, Smith raised his hand in the a
ir to signal the waiter for the check.
“Would you like to, umm, have a coffee at my place?” Aileen edged closer to the rim of her seat. Her fingers crawled seductively over the tablecloth and touched Smith's. Just at that moment, Smith lifted his hand and dived in his pocket for his wallet.
“No,” Smith replied curtly. It took Aileen by surprise.
“You still don't have the keys to your apartment, right? You can come over and hang out with me until you've everything sorted out.” She said, then correcting herself to solve the logistic loophole in her plan. “I have a land line. You can use it to call a locksmith. It's cheaper than calling from your cell phone.” It was a desperate plan but it was worth a try, she thought.
“I just need to go see this colleague of mine. He has a spare key in his place. He is surely home by now.” Smith checked the time from his wristwatch. And he glanced down at it again, as if not two seconds but hours had passed in between.
“Well, that's great!” Aileen said, exaggerating her enthusiasm to hide her disappointment. “A spare key in your colleague's place. That's smart...as everything you do.” She had now gotten into her head that Carson Smith was the stupidest date she ever had. Wasn't he the one who gave her the idea to invite him home for a nightcap since he had so conveniently lost his keys and postponed doing anything against it all afternoon until their dinner? Such a perfect excuse wasted. She almost felt sorry for the man.
“Where does he live?” Aileen asked, hit by a stroke of genius. “I can drive you there. It's way faster than taking the Metro. And it's almost eleven. Taxis on Saturday night at this hour is going to cost you a fortune.”