My Almost Flawless Tokyo Dream Life

by Rachel Cohn

  Nothing about the words praline or mousse sounded like a Delight, but I took a piece on Kenji’s advice, and he was absolutely right. It was nutty and creamy and delicate all at the same time. “Wow! Amazing!”

  “Not like wax,” said Kenji.

  “American chocolate does not taste like wax,” I insisted. I placed another chocolate into my mouth. It had a pistachio bit on top, and the inside was a meatier texture, with a wonderfully sinful taste. I was starting to see Kenji’s point. These chocolates were next-level delicious. Penthouse-level delicious. (But I’d still never turn away a Hershey bar. Especially if it had almonds. USA!)

  “Cappuccino?” Kenji asked.

  I assumed he meant the chocolates. “Which one?”

  He shook his head. “No. Would you like a cappuccino? I’m the secret late-night barista here.” He smiled at me. “But don’t tell the employees I know how to use the machine. They will insist on making drinks for me when they’re not scheduled to be working in here.”

  “That’s nice of them.”

  “It is. But they would do it because their real worry is I would break the machine.”

  “Would you?”

  “Only once. Now, I am expert.”

  I decided to test him. “I’ll have a decaf soy-milk capp, then. Dry.”

  “All foam, no steamed milk. We also have almond milk if you prefer other non-dairy options.”

  Not bad, Lord Skyscraper. “Soy is good, thanks. What do you have?”

  He walked to the espresso machine and got to work priming it and grinding the coffee beans. “I like whole-milk cappuccino with lots of foam on top.”

  I watched him prepare our drinks. He was a true pro. He steamed the milk with ease and no spillage, and used a thin metal wand to dip into my mug and draw a heart in coffee at the top of the foam. I took a sip. My capp was the perfect temperature, hot but not too hot, and the foam on top full but not too stiff. I told him, “I hear Starbucks is hiring.”

  “You’re funny.”

  “You’re funny,” I said, taking another sip of my coffee. So Kenji didn’t know how to be a dad yet, but his coffee and sweets game was excellent. No complaints. Other than: “You realize your mom is a racist, right?”

  He sighed. “I’m sorry. I should have warned you, but I hoped she would be more polite. She grew up in a small town in northern Japan. I don’t think she ever saw a non-Japanese person until she arrived in Tokyo over forty years ago to go to university. But I don’t believe she’s really a racist. Just uncomfortable with people who are different.”

  “You mean, not Japanese?”

  “Yes.”

  “She seems kind of Slytherin.”

  I didn’t expect him to get the reference, but he totally did. He said, “Slytherin are not always bad. They are driven, determined. My father could not have built this business without my mother supporting him. Will you do me a favor?” At this point, I honestly felt like I’d do anything for this person I’d only just met yesterday who drew heart shapes in my custom dry capp and who totally got it when I said his mother was Slytherin. I nodded. “Give her time and try not to judge her.”

  “The way she judged me, you mean?”

  “She is old and set in her ways. You are young and open-minded, I hope. She will get better as she gets more comfortable with you. I truly believe that.”

  “I think you’re wrong.”

  “Was I wrong about the chocolate?”

  He had a valid point.

  After our post-Granny dessert hangout, Kenji and I returned to his—my—apartment, only for him to announce that he had to go back to work. At 10 p.m.! Did this man never sleep? “Are you all right by yourself?” he asked, like this basic parent question had just occurred to him.

  I would have rather he stayed with me so we could watch TV before bed. I bet he was a Game of Thrones binger, but maybe I could get him hooked on Gilmore Girls.

  But I had been raising myself since I was fourteen. Why stop now? Being alone in a penthouse with room service if I needed it was way better than alone in a foster home bedroom, hiding. Or alone in my old bedroom, shutting out the pain, with Mom knocked out by the Beast on the living room sofa. “I’m fine, thanks,” I said. “What do you do at work this late?”

  “I walk the tables at the Destiny Club private games’ parlor. It’s important for me to socialize with the big players at the high-stakes mah-jongg tables. They need to feel like they’re friends with the boss. Especially when they’re losing a lot of money!”

  “Destiny Club is also a casino?” That piece of information had certainly not been included on my tour. My mother’s favorite movie was Goodfellas. I knew this scene. “Like with mobsters and—”

  “Emiko said you want a cat,” Kenji interrupted. “Why?”

  I forgot I’d asked Emiko if I could have a cat here someday and she’d immediately shut me down, saying they didn’t allow pets in the Tak Luxxe. I was surprised she bothered to tell Kenji about such a random question. Was she reporting back every single thing I said? I knew he was deliberately changing the subject, but I didn’t try to swing it back to casino talk, because what if he was about to soften the No Pets stance? I certainly could go along with that line of conversation. I said, “When I was a kid, I had a cat I really loved. He was pretty much my best friend.”

  “What was his name?”

  “Hufflepuff.”

  “You really like Harry Potter.” I nodded. Kenji clenched his hand over his heart, totally sincerely. “Me too. Have you taken Sorting Hat House Quiz?”

  What?! No way! “Yes. Have you?”

  “Every time I see it online.” Me too! “Always the same answer. Ravenclaw.”

  “I always get the same answer, too! Hufflepuff.”

  “That means you are very loyal.”

  “And you must be wise.”

  “Wise enough to know that Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff are great allies.”

  I took out my new phone and showed Kenji a photo saved to my email folder, of Huff sleeping in my lap when I was eight. “That’s Hufflepuff when he was about a year old. He was the best.”

  “Who shot the cat?” Kenji asked. His English was very good, but like Uncle Masa, there were blips.

  I tried hard not to laugh. “Mom took the picture.”

  “Good photo. You were a very pretty little girl.” He was focusing on the wrong part of the picture, and his face had taken on a sad look. “Masa used to send me ­photos of you. They made me very happy.”

  “Oh.” I didn’t know what else to say to this acknowledgment that he’d wanted to be part of my life but had chosen not to. It felt weird to know that Uncle Masa had been sending photos of me to this stranger. I wondered if Kenji had ever thought about reaching out to try to meet me earlier. Given that he never did, there seemed to be an opening to turn his guilt to my benefit for a good cause. “So, can I get a cat?”

  “No.”

  Not a big enough opening.

  Yet.

  My first night in Tokyo, I’d been so exhausted from the travel that I fell right to sleep. Now, on my second night, all alone in the apartment, my body felt tired, but my mind was hyped with so much new information. ICS! Ex-Brats! Takaharas! No way could I fall asleep. I went to the living room to look out over Tokyo, its tall buildings and billboards sparking across the nighttime sky. I could feel the city’s energy wafting up to my lonesome perch on the forty-ninth floor. I wanted some company. And some fun.

  It was 11 p.m. in Tokyo, which made it 10 a.m. Friday morning in Maryland. Yes! I knew Reg had study hall before lunch period. I sent him a G-chat message in case he was at the computer lab: You free to video chat? You’re not going to believe what I have to show you!

  While I waited for him to respond, I did the obvious thing: tested this room service option. I picked up the house phone and dialed 0. A male voice answered and spoke in Japanese and then in English. “Hello, how may I help you?”

  “Is this Dev at the concierge desk?” />
  “Sure is. Whatcha need?”

  “Do they have ice-cream sundaes in Japan?”

  “Absolutely. Shall I have Ikebana Café send one up to you?”

  “Yes, please!”

  “What flavors?”

  “Omakase!” I said. “You choose.”

  I heard him laugh, then he said, “Should be up there in ten minutes.” This Dev guy was like an expat magician.

  “Thank you!”

  I went into my bedroom. I didn’t see any curtains for privacy, so I pressed a button next to the windows. I jumped in surprise when an automatic blind descended from the ceiling. Sweet Jesus! Now I was even more awake.

  My phone alerted me to a video call from Reg. I answered. “OH MY GOD! REGGIE COLEMAN!”

  Reggie came into view on my phone. I’d G-chatted with him online but hadn’t seen his face since I went into foster care. He had a little mustache action growing over his upper lip, and his face looked filled in from young guy to near-man. His hair was cut razor short, which nicely allowed for more focus to his deep brown eyes. His normally light brown skin looked darker, like he’d gotten sun recently. I hoped that meant he was getting lots of swim time. Nothing made him happier.

  “ELLE ZOELLNER!” I could see from the background that he was in the computer lab at his school. “How the actual fuck did you end up in Japan?”

  “I know, it’s crazy. My social worker came to visit and Uncle Masa was with her—“

  “That guy that used to come to our swim meets when we were kids?”

  “Yeah! Turns out he’s the cousin of my real dad, who had offered for me to come live with him since, you know, Mom’s not so good at providing a home lately.”

  “I hear you.”

  Reg had it harder than I did back in Maryland, because he was just a few months shy of his eighteenth birthday. For most teenagers, turning eighteen meant being legally free to make your own decisions. A true adult. For foster kids, it meant the state was sending you out into the world on your own, whether you were ready and able to handle it or not.

  “You should come live here,” I offered.

  “Hah, I’m sure your new dad would love that. Turn the camera around and show me your place.”

  “Watch this,” I said. I pressed the shade button on the wall again and showed Reg the blind moving up and down over the skyline view of Tokyo.

  “Dude, that’s pretty cool. But I only have a few minutes until the teacher comes back and knocks me off this call. What else ya got?”

  I knew exactly where to go next. “Look, my own bathroom!” I announced, turning the phone toward the door and flicking on the light. “Inside my room!”

  “No way.”

  “It’s true!” I walked into the bathroom. Never in my life did I imagine such a personal luxury could exist in a bedroom. The bathroom felt like Alice falling down the rabbit hole, but a rabbit hole provided by Santa Claus. I opened the glass door to the shower stall that took up a whole little room of its own. “The water pressure is perfect and I can take a hot shower as long as I want, whenever I want here.”

  “I’m dying.”

  I moved back to the main part of the bathroom and showed Reg the marble sink with a spotless mirror that covered the wall behind it. I opened and closed the storage closets filled with towels even softer and more luxurious than those second-rate ones I’d swiped from the ­International First Lounge at Dulles International Airport. I opened the other storage closet, and it was . . .

  “IS THAT A WASHER-DRYER?” Reg asked.

  “YAAAAS!”

  I know, boys don’t usually get excited about laundry. But we’d both survived foster homes, where you didn’t know when or if you’d ever get to wash your own clothes. “Reg, here’s the best part.”

  “You’re not about to show me the toilet.”

  “Oh yes, I am! Trust me, you gotta see this.”

  I’d only been in Tokyo two days, but I was already obsessed with Japanese toilets. I walked into the private toilet vestibule inside the bathroom. The wall had its own console that said “Toto” and was covered in buttons that had Japanese lettering beneath picture symbols. I pretended I was a game show hostess demonstrating the buttons on the console. “This button sprays water on your butt! This one makes bird noises, I guess so you can feel like you’re having a soothing, private experience in here. This one warms your butt when you’re sitting on the pot! Guess what this one does?”

  “Provides a robot to pee so you can pass a drug test?”

  “Hah, good one! No, it sprays air freshener! This room smells like a scented bubble bath right now.”

  I turned the view around on my phone so I could see Reg’s face and he could see mine. He was shaking his head. “TMI,” he said.

  “Seriously, you have to experience it to appreciate it.”

  “I’ll add it to my Bucket List. One: marry Rihanna. Two: experience a Japanese toilet.”

  The doorbell rang and I squealed. “Now watch this!”

  I turned the view around again so Reg could see me answer the front door. A uniformed waiter bowed to me and rolled in a cart with a silver-domed bowl on top. “Where would you like this?” he asked me.

  “In my belly!” Reg called out.

  “On the dining table, please,” I told the waiter.

  He placed the silver-domed bowl on the dining table, bowed to me, and left.

  I lifted the silver dome for Reg. The bowl had three perfectly scooped balls of vanilla ice cream, with warm chocolate sauce running over the sides, and whipped cream, chopped nuts, and a maraschino cherry on top.

  Reg said, “Where exactly are you living now? ­Buckingham Palace?”

  “It turns out my father owns a hotel business. He lives in their Tokyo property. Forty-ninth floor!”

  “Show me!”

  I ran to the living room and offered up the Tokyo skyline view for Reg’s inspection. “If I get posted to Okinawa, Japan, I’ll for sure come visit you,” Reg said.

  I turned the phone around to my own face again. “What do you mean?”

  “Following my old man’s path. I talked to a recruiter and I’m going to join the army as soon as I get my diploma. I could start basic training right after my birthday.”

  I plopped down onto the sofa. This was big. I’d been showing him the stupid Japanese toilets when he had major life news.

  “You’re not going to finish your senior year?”

  “I got approved for early graduation in December. Foster privileges, you know.”

  I wasn’t sure if I’d still consider it a privilege if Reg got out of high school early to join the army, only to then get shipped to war in Afghanistan or Iraq or somewhere terrifying. I said a silent prayer. Please let Reggie get posted to Japan. Or somewhere safe. He’s been through enough already.

  I realized all over again how lucky I was.

  “That’s great,” I said. Reg had somewhere to go when he got kicked out of foster care. He had a future. But that future could get scary if it sent Reg to fight a war.

  “What’s your dad like?” Reg asked.

  “Ask me in a month. I hardly know him yet. He kind of told me he used to be an alcoholic and that’s why he didn’t think he could be a father before. He’s a bit stiff, but nice, and funny. He works all the time.”

  “If he’s rich, you’ll be taken care of. That’s all that matters. Teacher’s coming back in, I gotta go.”

  “There’s a pool here, Reg.”

  He grinned. “I’m definitely coming to visit you. Bye, Cinderella.”

  It was early Saturday morning, and I was in a hard, deep sleep, but a rattling noise coming from I didn’t know where tried to wake me. Asking my body to respond to this noise seemed not only cruel, but impossible. I couldn’t get my eyes to open, trapped in that in-between of sleeping and waking. I was having such a nice dream. I was on my bed back in Greenbelt, before the Beast, cozy and comfortable, with Huff purring at my side. A freight train went by nearby, gent
ly rocking my bed. The train got louder and louder and nearer and nearer until my eyes popped open and I bolted upright. Holy crap. The room was actually shaking. That was no dream!

  I jumped out of bed and saw the water glass I’d left on my nightstand shaking and the water in it swirling around. I didn’t know whether to hide in the closet or under the bed or what. Then the shaking and rattling noise eased, and stopped entirely.

  OH MY GOD, THAT WAS AN . . .

  Like I wasn’t already terrified enough, a female voice spoke out of nowhere, saying something in Japanese, like a very loud ghost. I was already about to have a heart attack from the earthquake, and I couldn’t figure out where mystery lady’s voice came from. Then I looked up and saw an intercom speaker in the corner near the ceiling. After whatever she said in Japanese, her pleasant voice announced, in heavily accented English, “We have had small earthquake. Do not be alarmed. Please stay in place while we do maintenance check. We will make new announcement when elevators are operating again.”

  There was just an earthquake and some voice from out of nowhere was commanding me not to be alarmed? Sure, invisible lady in the ceiling. Sure.

  I raced to the living room to look out the bigger windows there, and I inspected the street level. There seemed to be no rushes of panic or concern from the foot or car traffic below. Life seemed to be going by as normal, like, Oh yeah, just a little earthquake, whatevs.

  Kenji appeared in the living room, wearing blue pajamas, his hair slightly disheveled. It was weird to see him wearing something other than a suit. I wore PJ shorts and a tank top, but I wanted to cover up. People who were family hung out together in their jammies. We were still practically strangers.

  He said, “How’d you like that earthquake? Good shake, right?”

  “I guess, if ‘good shake’ also means ‘terrifying surprise’?”

  “Was that your first earthquake?”

  “How’d you know?”

  “You look very pale.”

  “It was my first. Hopefully my last.”