My Almost Flawless Tokyo Dream Life

by Rachel Cohn

  He didn’t sound too convinced, but I would fix that. I was here now. And I was determined to make it permanent. At least until I finished high school and could get a scholarship to college. Then I would go home and wait for Mom to get out, and we’d resume our lives together.

  “I know we will,” I said confidently. I’d do whatever it took to make this new family like me.

  True to the Japanese dining etiquette, we did not linger after the meal. Once we’d consumed the last plate of awesome sushi, Kenji glanced at his watch, resigned. “Time to meet the rest of the family.”

  “Don’t you want to have an after-drink first?” I asked, hoping to stall whatever had him looking so oddly nervous. “Isn’t sake the thing here?”

  For the first time, Kenji gently touched my hand across the table. He pulled it back just as quickly but looked me squarely in the eyes. “I don’t drink. I’m in recovery.”

  WHOA.

  I was not expecting that. Kenji looked like such a healthy and confident man. Not vulnerable like Mom was once. He was the Lord of a Skyscraper, for God’s sake. What pain could he possibly need numbed by alcohol? He had everything.

  So I had two parents who were addicts. The odds that I could become one, too, were 100 percent not good.

  He added, “It’s why I couldn’t be a father to you before. I was in bad shape until I got sober about three years ago.”

  I knew it wasn’t a decent excuse, but it helped. There was an actual reason, other than sheer abandonment, that he hadn’t been part of my life before now.

  “Do you go to meetings? I could go with you . . . for support.” I’d have done anything during the time of the Beast to get Mom to try sobriety. I’d have baked cookies and babysat for anyone in recovery who would take Mom to one of their Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics ­Anonymous support groups.

  “That’s not done here,” Kenji said. He stood up and very abruptly said, “And that’s all I have to say on the subject. I just wanted you to know.”

  I wondered if he’d confided in me because he wanted to be honest and open or because he wanted me to be aware that he could fall off the wagon at any point, or both, but I knew not to press the drinking issue further, even though there was so much more I wanted to know. He’d said what he felt he needed to say. He was obviously

  sober now. I followed him to the lobby, toward the elevator.

  “What are their names?” I asked him. “Your mom and your sister?”

  “My mother is Noriko, and my sister is Kimiko, but she’s called Kim when speaking in English. She’s the second in command at Tak-Luxxe after me.” Nori and Kim?! I resisted the urge to crack a Kardashian joke. We stepped into the elevator and got out at the Tak-Luxxe hotel lobby on thirty-six. “We need to make a stop at the concierge desk. I forgot something.”

  I followed Kenji to the front desk. He had an air of authority walking across the room, receiving deep bows from employees as he passed by them. I recognized the concierge from earlier in the afternoon. “Are you also a waiter in Ikebana Café?” I asked him. He looked just past college age, with light brown skin, dark hair, and deep green eyes.

  “Indeed,” he said. “I’m Dev Flaherty. I do a little bit of everything here. Wherever the boss needs me, there I am.” He saluted Kenji, who laughed.

  “Are you American?” I asked Dev.

  “Yep. Representing Boston’s Irish-Indian Americans’ finest.”

  Kenji told him, “This is my daughter, Elle. She’ll be living here now.”

  Dev’s face brightened. I felt mine blush. Not because Dev Flirty, I mean Flaherty, was so cute, but because Kenji had introduced me as his daughter.

  Dev said, “Awesome. Welcome. Anything you need at all, I’m your guy. Just ring the house phone and ask for me. I speak English, Japanese, Hindi, Spanish, and French, so you can even call me if you just need help with your language homework.” Then he addressed Kenji in Japanese, and after whatever they discussed, Dev opened a cabinet behind the concierge desk. From it, he retrieved a gift box wrapped in flowered wrapping paper and a gift bag and handed them to Kenji. “Gracias,” Kenji said to Dev.

  “De nada,” Dev answered.

  “Just testing your Spanish,” Kenji said with a laugh.

  Kenji placed the box in the gift bag and handed it to me. “Let’s go, we’re late. Mother hates late.”

  I noticed Dev’s face squint in surprise, and I was surprised, too. Kenji was clearly flustered. It was disconcerting to see in a man who otherwise seemed so measured and controlled.

  “What’s the gift for?” I asked Kenji as we walked to the private elevator for the residential suites.

  Kenji said, “I forgot to ask Masa to buy omiyage from the airport for you to give to Mother. In Japan, it’s tradition to bring a gift as a sign of respect when you visit someone’s home or work.”

  “Why did we have to put the gift in a bag if we’re only taking it upstairs and it was already wrapped?”

  “It should be given in a bag for discretion.” He said this seriously and as if it was obvious, like the gift bag contained valuable jewelry or something very expensive and important, and not an already-gift-wrapped box.

  “I could make them a gift instead,” I suggested. “I make great chocolate-chip cookies! The secret is a pinch of cardamom. I learned that on Pinterest.”

  “Nice idea, but too late. My mistake. We need a gift now. The concierge desk always keeps a stock for me. You will give the gift bag to Mother.”

  “What gift am I giving?”

  “Chocolates from the airport in Dallas. My mother and sister won’t eat them. They don’t like American chocolates.”

  “So why are we giving it to them?”

  “Because it’s Japanese tradition. The gift-giving is more important than the gift.”

  “That makes no sense.”

  It did to Kenji, apparently. He added, “Give the gift with two hands but don’t give it right away. Wait until you are seated and everyone is comfortable.”

  “These are a lot of rules for a chocolate gift that no one will like.”

  Kenji smiled. “You learn quickly.”

  “American chocolates are the best,” I boasted. I wouldn’t mind a Hershey bar right now, in fact.

  Kenji chuckled. We stepped into the elevator. “That’s because you’ve probably never had chocolates anywhere besides America. The best chocolate comes from Belgium or Switzerland. England, also good. Japan’s chocolates are excellent, but they import from the best countries like ­Belgium and Switzerland.”

  “You’ve insulted my country’s chocolate.”

  “Your country’s chocolate tastes like wax. We’ll go to the patisserie after this meeting and I’ll prove it to you.”

  “Really, KenjiIGuess?” He wanted to do something with me not on his Sacred Schedule?

  “Rilly,” he said, mimicking my American accent. He was funny. I was funny. Another thing we had in common!

  The elevator door let us out at forty-eight. The floor had two units on either side of the hall. Kenji walked to the one on the right. He softly sighed, as if resigned, and then rang the doorbell. A matronly Japanese woman opened the door. She wore an elegant suit, with her black hair in a bun, but with that poofy-at-the-front style that old people seem to favor. She had a stern face, with painted-on black eyebrows and plum-colored lipstick, and she looked like she’d just bit into a Sour Patch Kid and only then remembered how much she hated them. “You’re ten minutes late,” she scolded Kenji in English, then glanced in my direction like it was my fault.

  “Sorry,” I mumbled. Both my mom’s parents died when she was still a kid, so I’d never had grandparents on her side, or imagined what having a grandparent would be like. If I had, my imaginary granny probably would have been sitting in a rocker sewing me an awesome cape that had “Granny’s Super Girl” stenciled on it, and not scowling at me the first time I met her.

  Kenji and Granny spoke a few words in Japanese. Then, in English, he sai
d, “Mother, this is Elle. Elle, this is my mother. She says she would like you to call her Mrs. Takahara.”

  Okay, Grandma. Glad to get that out of the way. Thanks for the warm welcome. Glad I didn’t waste too much energy being excited about having more family in Tokyo.

  I bowed slightly because I felt like I was supposed to, while Mrs. Takahara inspected my face closely. I wondered if she had the same reaction I had to seeing Kenji for the first time: The resemblance between us could not be denied. Her sour expression certainly didn’t indicate pleasure at this sight.

  Kenji and I stepped inside the foyer, changed our shoes to slippers lined at the floor’s edge, and stepped inside the living room. It was exactly the same apartment layout as Kenji’s home, but the furniture was more formal and Japanese. As we walked into the living room, we were greeted by Kenji’s stunning sister, who looked a few years younger than Kenji. She extended her hand to me and said, “Welcome to Japan, Elle. I’m Kim.” Her words were more welcoming, and unlike Mrs. Takahara, her English was confident and without accent, but her formal demeanor in no way suggested elation to meet her niece.

  “Hi,” I said. “Nice to meet you.” Please like me!

  Kimiko Nakamura made Emiko Katsura look almost frumpy. She wore a soft pink suit and had a slender figure accentuated by her perfectly tailored clothes, and shoes that had a gold plate on them that said Ferragamo. Her long black hair was so smooth and lustrous that a genuine hair model would probably want to snatch it from her head.

  Kim gestured for me to take a seat on the sofa. Tea service had been set up for our visit. “How do you take your tea?” Kim asked me as Mrs. Takahara perched on a chair at the opposite side of the coffee table.

  “Do you have Coke?” I asked.

  “I don’t think so,” Kim said. “Mother doesn’t approve of sodas.”

  To me, Mrs. Takahara said, “You’re pretty and skinny now. Drink tea, not soda, so you stay that way.”

  “How about water?” I was frightened of the tea. Everything in Japan seemed so ritualized, and I didn’t want to do the ritual wrong and offend. I tried to stop my foot from tapping and my fingers from twitching nervously.

  “I’ll get a water for you,” said Kenji, walking toward the kitchen. He returned with a glass of water and then sat down next to me. Kim took the chair next to her ­mother’s so the two of them sat opposite us.

  It seemed as good a time as any, so I took the gift box from the bag and handed it to Mrs. Takahara using both hands. “A gift for you,” I said. Crap! I was supposed to leave the box in the bag.

  Mrs. Takahara received the box with both hands and a disapproving face. “American chocolates?”

  I nodded. Mrs. Takahara said something in Japanese that probably translated as Hmmmph, then placed the gift box on the floor behind her chair. Already forgotten. “You wore that to dinner?” Mrs. Takahara asked me. I looked down at my new jeans and blouse—an outfit that cost more than my mother’s weekly waitress earnings.

  “Yes?” I said.

  Mrs. Takahara said to Kenji, “You allow those clothes in Destiny Club? Why have a dress code if you bring your own . . .” His mother apparently couldn’t bring herself to say the word daughter. “Guest to dinner like this?”

  Kenji looked annoyed as he and Mrs. Takahara exchanged some words in Japanese. I couldn’t understand their conversation, but I did distinguish the words hafu and gaijin being used.

  Maybe I’d have better luck winning over Kenji’s sister. I said to her, “You have the smoothest hair I’ve ever seen. Do you use a special shampoo?”

  Kim said, “No special shampoo, but I’ve been getting Japanese hair treatments since I first went off to university, when I was just a few years older than you. I can arrange one for you, if you’d like.”

  I had no idea what a Japanese hair treatment was, but I said, “Sure! Thanks!” mostly to be polite.

  “Your hair is wild,” Mrs. Takahara said to me. “It needs work.”

  Geez, lady! Where’d you learn manners?

  Kenji looked around the room and then said to Kim, “Would Mother like some whiskey with her tea?” Then he shot me a knowing look. A lyric from Beyoncé’s “Daddy Lessons” song. I felt my heart rate calm as a small smile curled on my mouth.

  “No whiskey!” said Mrs. Takahara to Kenji. And then it sounded like they were bickering in Japanese again.

  Politely, Kim asked me, “How was your first day at ICS?”

  “Good. The campus is amazing.”

  Kim said, “I’ve known Chloe Lehrer since my freshman year at Harvard. I put Kenji in touch with her, and she helped with getting you admitted quickly so he could send for you.”

  I was starting to see that what had been a sudden, shocking decision for me to come here had involved a lot of planning and negotiation on the other end before Uncle Masa was sent over to retrieve me. All those months since Mom went to jail and I went to foster care, people had been trying to find a better solution for me. I’d probably never see my two parents in the same room together, but somehow, without me knowing it, they’d made this new life possible for me.

  “Thank you,” I told Kim, truly meaning it.

  “How was your ride to school this morning?” I didn’t think Kim cared about my ride; she was trying to distract me from Kenji and their mother’s Japanese conversation.

  “I totally didn’t expect a ride to school in a Bentley!”

  “Right?” Kim laughed.

  Mrs. Takahara had finished whatever scolding she was doing to her son, and she turned back to me. “Why is your skin dark?”

  My skin was not dark, but it wasn’t exactly lily white, either. On a skin-shade scale of one to ten where one was the lightest white and ten was the darkest brown, I was probably a three. “My mother’s father was part Native American and African American,” I explained.

  Mrs. Takahara did not try to hide her shock and displeasure. “Like black?”

  “Mother!” Kim and Kenji both cried at Mrs. Takahara, who ignored them.

  Mrs. Takahara said, “You know about the Nigerians in Roppongi? They’re bad, not honest.”

  To me, Kenji explained, “Roppongi is the nightlife district near here.” He turned to his mother and in ­English said, “The Nigerians who run the shady nightclubs in Roppongi have nothing to do with Elle. And just because someone is Nigerian doesn’t mean they run a club in Roppongi.”

  I appreciated him schooling his mother, but I’d gotten her message: guilt by association. I was beginning to understand why Kenji’s parents paid off Mom when she got pregnant—so Kenji could leave and not bring a granddaughter who wasn’t fully Japanese home to Japan. Joke was on Granny. Because here I was!

  I wanted to storm out. But I glanced at Kenji, who was giving me a pleading look. I took a deep breath. I certainly didn’t owe this iron lady the courtesy, but I could make the effort to attempt courtesy anyway, since Kenji was clearly trying to defend me.

  I said, “I’m hoping to learn Japanese now that I’m here.”

  Mrs. Takahara glowered. “No. It’s too hard to learn and we don’t know how long you here.”

  My heart pounded so hard I was scared it might explode out of my chest. I wanted to know my father. I wanted to live here and go to ICS. It seemed like a good life. But was it worth the cost of trying to get this mean lady to like me? Already I didn’t like her.

  Maybe he did have some basic dad instinct, because Kenji read my face. He pointedly told his mother in ­English, “We should be honored that Elle wants to learn our language.”

  Warmly, Kim told me, “I wouldn’t worry about learning Japanese for now. Mother’s right that it’s a hard language to learn, and between Tak-Luxxe and ICS, you’ll mostly be dealing here with expats who speak English. I’m sure your school load will be heavy enough without taking on Japanese.”

  Now Mrs. Takahara started scolding both Kenji and Kim in Japanese.

  And suddenly I wanted to learn their language more than ever. So they
couldn’t talk about me like I wasn’t there. So maybe one day I could tell off my racist grandmother in her own language.

  The first thing Kenji said when we finally left his ­mother’s apartment were the exact words I didn’t know I needed to hear. “We need chocolate after that.”

  The Destiny Club patisserie—Delights—had closed at seven, but arigatogozaimashita to Kenji’s privileged key card, we had access to the sweet shop even after closing. Delights was a small store decorated with pink-and-white-striped wallpaper, pink-and-white paper lanterns hanging from the ceiling, and pink-and-white shelves and cases. (Should I tell Kenji how corny so many of the Destiny Club food place names were? Nah.) The glass cases displayed fancy tea cakes and individual chocolates, surrounded by shelves filled with colorful gift-wrapped boxes of sweets decorated with bows. The shop looked like a young girl’s bedroom by way of Willie Wonka and an overdose of kawaii.

  I would probably never be able to consider my grandmother “family,” but a man who gave me private access to sweets heaven? He had righteous dad potential, despite his too-busy schedule. Kenji was obviously a regular at Delights. He knew exactly how to unlock and open the glass case, and how to take out the individual pieces using tongs, placing them in a neat row on a porcelain plate located in a drawer next to the glass cases.

  I said, “I see you’ve got a sweet tooth?” He looked perplexed and touched his front tooth. I added, “It’s an English saying. It means you like sweet foods.”

  He smiled like I had said something charming. “Yes! I have a sweet tooth!”

  “I have one, too. My mom doesn’t like sweets. I must have gotten the sweet tooth from you.”

  He looked pleased that I’d inherited this trait from him. “I’ve gained weight since Delights opened. I come here at the end of the night and I indulge too much.” Interesting. Getting to know Kenji maybe had less to do with the time allotted on his schedule and more to do with dessert. Already I liked him more.

  “You don’t look fat to me.”

  “One year ago, before Delights opened, I wore a pants size smaller.” He pointed at a piece of milk chocolate in the center of the plate he’d set out. “Try that one first. My favorite. It’s praline mousse.”