My Almost Flawless Tokyo Dream Life

by Rachel Cohn

  Infuriating! “That I should look more Japanese?”

  “Yes, to be honest.”

  Quietly, I asked, “Are you embarrassed by me?”

  “No. Never. But Japan is different from America. Different expectations. The more you assimilate, the better it will be for you here.”

  At last I was ready to drop the topic. Pushing it further only reinforced what I was too aware of: He was spineless. I wondered if Kenji had mustered every ounce of courage he had to bring me here.

  “I’d rather assimilate on my terms, not your mother’s or your sister’s,” I said.

  “Fair enough,” Kenji said. “I can make some time tomorrow. I like to go to the batting cage to practice when I have time off from work. Would you like to join me?”

  Part of me was disappointed that he didn’t ask what I would like to do. Part of me respected that he didn’t pander to the moody teenager. I took a bite of my hamburger. Good lord it was delicious—perfectly juicy and charred. Like on a level where McDonald’s didn’t even exist, except in hell. Was a bad meal even possible in this country?

  “Batting practice sounds awesome,” I said. Perhaps we could work on strengthening Kenji’s spine.

  On Sunday afternoon, Kenji and I took a cab to the batting cage. Like the subway, the cab was ridiculously clean, with white lace covers on the backs of the seats and a large GPS on the driver’s dashboard. Nothing like the clunker taxis I occasionally took with Mom back in DC. As the cab drove along, I was mesmerized looking out the window. We passed temples with colorful flags adorning the grounds, gardens sandwiched in between tall buildings, restaurants with red paper lanterns hanging outside, and every variety of store. And so many people walking along the streets. The orderly density of people and buildings amazed me.

  “How much farther?” I asked Kenji after we’d slowly moved through traffic for fifteen minutes.

  “Not too far.”

  “Can we get out and walk the rest of the way?” It was a picture-perfect day outside.

  “Sure. Good day for a walk. Crisp autumn air, not too hot, not too cold.”

  Kenji directed the driver and we got out and started walking. He walked at a quick pace, jostling seamlessly through the throngs of people while I struggled to keep up. “It seems like all the buildings here are either really new or really old,” I said.

  “So much of Tokyo was destroyed during World War Two. What you see now was either built recently, by ­Japanese history standards, or it’s very old indeed.”

  He stopped our walk to peer inside a splendid white, wrought-iron gate with gold spokes, through which we could glimpse a building that looked like Buckingham Palace in London. The grounds were lush and parklike, surrounded by trees. Kenji said, “Tōgū Palace is through those gates. It’s a state guesthouse now. You can’t see it from here, but the crown prince and his family live on the grounds farther back behind the palace.”

  “Can we take a tour here sometime?”

  “It’s only open for visitors on New Year’s Day and the emperor’s birthday. The Imperial Palace, closer to where we live, has more access for tourists. It’s even got a moat surrounding it. Beautiful gardens year-round but especially in spring when the cherry blossoms bloom.”

  We resumed walking. I didn’t know when I’d have Kenji’s undivided time and attention again outside of Tak-Luxxe, and I wanted to pepper him with as many questions as I could. “Have you always lived in Tokyo?”

  “Except for a year in London, and my time in ­Washington, yes.”

  “What did you do in London?”

  “I took a business course at London School of Economics.”

  “Did you like it?”

  “I loved London but not school. I would have stayed longer, but my father wanted me here to work for ­Takahara Industries.”

  “What was your dad like?”

  “Very strict. Rigid. Never satisfied. Always angry that I liked to have fun more than study.”

  “How did you do in school?”

  “Decent, but it was hard for me. How about you?”

  “I was a straight-A student until Mom started having problems.”

  “I bet you will be top of your class like Kim always was.”

  We’d reached a city park with sports fields and tons of people outside enjoying the autumn day. After so much concrete, it was refreshing to be surrounded by trees and green grass. We entered the batting cage building, where Kenji paid at the front desk. I’d never been to a batting cage, so I had no idea what to expect. Would it be a literal cage?

  The batting area was divided by small, fenced partitions large enough to hold a few people, with a mound in the middle of each cage, and all the partitions looking out onto a baseball field with a virtual stadium on giant screens behind it. “Batter up!” Kenji said. “You want to go first?”

  “No, you go.”

  He stepped up to the plate, and a virtual pitcher appeared on a screen, sending a real ball Kenji’s way. Smack! Kenji hit it hard—a home run! Virtual crowds cheered from the screen as a virtual uniformed player rounded the bases.

  “That’s a hard act to follow.” I stepped up to the plate, and Kenji handed me the bat. I leaned into hitting position, remembering the form from when Reggie had once given me batting lessons.

  “Relax your shoulders and focus on the ball,” Kenji advised. Suddenly, a ball came whizzing by me. I swung but way too late. “You’ll get the next one.” Another ball came hurtling to me. Another strike. Kenji adjusted my arms and stance. The next ball came down. I hit it! Foul ball, but I got it. “Excellent!” Kenji said. “You have a strong swing like your father.”

  He set up for his next hit. He looked like I did when I swam: determined and happy.

  “I think I’ll stick to swimming,” I said. “My coach at the YMCA used to say if I got good enough, I might get a swimming scholarship to pay for college.”

  “A scholarship is good, but I set up a trust fund for your college education when you were born. You get in, the money is there for you to go.” He hit another home run.

  WHAT?

  I was determined to go to college but always expected I’d have to work part-time and take out huge loans. It would be a major struggle.

  “Are you kidding me?” I asked.

  “Why would I joke about something that important? You’re very smart. You will get straight A’s and go to an Ivy League school like Kim.” He sounded completely confident of that prospect.

  “Yale, not Harvard,” I said, trying to share his confidence. Until one minute ago, I never imagined I could seriously consider anything more expensive than the ­University of Maryland. My head was reeling.

  “Why?”

  “Rory Gilmore went there.”

  “I don’t know her,” he said. “What would you want to study?”

  “I’m not sure.” I struggled to find words. “I’m sorry. I can’t believe you actually want to send me to college. I mean, thank you!” He bowed slightly to me, pleased. I added, “Science was always my best subject. I like helping people. Maybe I’d want to be a doctor?”

  He put his bat down. “My daughter, the doctor.” He beamed.

  I was going to kick ass at my new school, if it earned me more of Kenji’s look of pride.

  Dear Mom,

  I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to write you a proper letter. I’ve gotten your two letters and I loved them. I’m SO PROUD of you for joining the AA meetings. I know that was hard for you. I’m so happy you’ve taken up yoga and that you finally got off the waiting list to read the first Game of Thrones book from the library. But sorry you’re having nightmares about dragons and white walkers.

  Don’t worry, I don’t love Kenji more than you already. I barely see him. Uncle Masa calls me almost every night on FaceTime to check up on me. I think I see him more than Kenji, who seems more like a roommate than a dad. But Kenji’s penthouse apartment has sick views over the city and I can order room service anytime I want. (I don’t,
usually. But it’s super sweet to know it’s an option.) And there’s a maid who comes through every day when I’m at school, so no one nags me about leaving my clothes on the floor or not doing the dishes. ;)

  Life in Tokyo is good. Crazy! But crazy good. My ambition was to kick ass at my new school. Instead, I’ve started out kind of having my ass kicked. The workload is so much more than I’m used to. Even the subjects I was already taking, like Spanish, I have so much studying to catch up. Every night I have, like, four solid hours of homework. On the afternoons I have swim team practice after school, I usually don’t even get home till after 5 p.m. Then I have dinner with Kenji at 7 p.m. Doesn’t leave a lot of time for homework and getting to bed early enough to wake up at 6:30 a.m. because the car to school leaves at 7. Plus all the time I spend texting my friends from school gets in the way of homework. Yes, I made some friends! You are not going to believe this (I still don’t), but I have been hanging out with the “popular” crowd because their queen, Imogen Kato, decided she likes me. (Shar Kato is her mother! Remember how we used to love shopping for the Shar Kato collection at Target because we’d never be able to afford her fancy clothes at Saks Fifth Avenue, but we used to be so sure Shar Kato didn’t actually design the Target clothes herself? Well, Imogen said her mom really did design them even though she prefers not to use cheaper materials. Apparently, her mom would never put her name on a line of clothes no matter where they were sold unless she designed the clothes herself. How’s that for insider fashion gossip?)

  I’ve been talking to Reg on FaceTime; he says hi. He said he’s going into the army in January after his birthday. I’m excited for him but scared, too. Do you remember Carmen Rodriguez, who was on our swim team at the Y? (Really lazy backstroke and always complained about the water being too cold?) She goes to the same school as Reg, and they’ve been hanging out together a lot. He’s always talking about her now. I think he has a crush on her. I really thought he’d have better taste in girls.

  I get driven to school in the mornings with this girl named Akemi, whose father sends us in a chauffeured car. I know, insane. She’s a year younger than me and shy. Usually she sleeps in the car on the way to school—it’s a long drive in traffic. That’s why I am using this time right now to type this letter to you on my new MacBook. No, I’m not joking. I have my own computer now.

  I printed out a photo for you of me in my school uniform . . . with my new hair. I got a Japanese hair treatment. I think the Japanese part means getting the treatment without having it first properly explained to you what it actually is. The treatment part is making your hair very straight and smooth. Reg laughed so hard when I showed him on FaceTime. He said I look like I think I’m in a magazine, not like me. I think I look like me . . . just different. But my friends loved it. Kenji said it makes me look more Japanese, and Uncle Masa said it makes me look very sophisticated. What do you think?

  I haven’t started off great in classes because I’m so behind, but I swear I’m going to get my grades up because Kenji said he would pay for me to go to college. Yeah, I’ll give you a second to recover from that shock. I can go to college! But I gotta study. So, I gotta go.

  Love you, more soon.

  XOXO,

  Elle

  “Zoellner! Show me what you’ve got.”

  The swim coach, Tanya Hopkins, was a former swim champion from Illinois who’d narrowly missed qualifying for the Olympics three years earlier, and then moved to Tokyo to join her English-teacher boyfriend in Japan. She called everyone by their last name. While the rest of the morning swim class of fifteen other students did warm-ups in the other lanes of the five-lane pool, I shivered, standing at the ledge of the farthest lane, waiting for the signal. Tanya held up her stopwatch and then said, “Go!”

  I dove in and swam a front-crawl stroke to one end of the pool and back again. “Great form and outstanding flip turn,” Tanya said to me when I’d finished the lap. “And you knocked off one point two seconds from last week.”

  “Cool,” I said, out of breath and exhilarated. I loved getting to swim every day for PE credit. Everything was right about this situation, except for Reggie not being here to share it with me. We always swam best when the other was in the water. I reminded myself that I still hadn’t texted him pictures of the pool. I’d do that as soon as I finished with Coach Tanya. He wouldn’t believe it.

  “Let’s see how your butterfly is coming along.”

  “It’s my weakest stroke.” There was no need for me to be defensive, but maybe I was being critical of myself because Ryuu Kimura was at the other end of the pool, doing a really fast butterfly sprint.

  “I’ll be the judge of that. Ready? Go!”

  I swam a butterfly stroke to the end of the pool and back.

  “Yes, yes, yes!” Tanya said when I emerged from the water. “We need to work on your explosion off the block, but you knocked off one-point-five seconds on the fly. I’m so stoked you’ve joined us on the ICS-Sailfish team, Zoellner.”

  I shamelessly basked in the praise of my swim skills as I grabbed a towel. The pool was heated, but the autumn Tokyo air was getting chilly. The school also had an indoor pool, but it was being cleaned to prepare it for winter use. “What was my time?”

  “It’s right there,” said Tanya, pointing to the electronic scoreboard behind the diving board, which flashed my time and announced to everyone in sight that Elle ­Zoellner was now, officially, the fastest female swimmer in her class.

  YES! Even without Reggie goading me, my game was strong . . . and swimming was probably the only thing I’d be better at than all these overprivileged students. Considering how long it had been since I’d swum on the Y team, I was surprised my performance was so solid. The daily swimming was paying off, probably most especially on my waistline. My body was leaner than it had ever been, despite all the delicious Japanese food I was devouring.

  Tanya turned to address the other swimmers, doing drills in the far lanes. “See this girl, everybody? She’s the one to beat. Let’s go!”

  Suddenly, Ryuu Kimura emerged from beneath the water next to me. He didn’t wear a swim cap, and his streaks of wet icy-blue hair gave him the appearance of having a halo under the sun’s glare.

  “Finally,” he said, “someone at this school who’s almost as good a swimmer as me.”

  Then he slid underwater again and returned to the other side of the pool.

  “He said what?” Imogen exclaimed at lunch.

  I repeated Ryuu’s declaration, trying to infuse it with the same absurd intensity he’d given it. “ ‘Finally, someone at this school who’s almost as good as a swimmer as me.’ ”

  Jhanvi said, “He really needs to get over himself. He’s not that great a swimmer.”

  Ntombi said, “Have you ever actually seen him swim?”

  Jhanvi said, “No.”

  Imogen piped in. “I have, with Arabella. He’s great at backstroke, okay at everything else. He shouldn’t confuse being top swimmer at ICS-Tokyo with actually being talented. ICS-Taipei killed the Sailfish last year, because he choked on breaststroke.”

  Ntombi asked, “Why does he wear those boy briefs when he swims? They just show how pale he is.”

  Oscar said, “He has a great body. Lean, muscled, not too tall and not too short. Just right.”

  Nik said, “Just right for an imbecile.”

  These snarky people! I pointed out, “For someone who’s supposedly iced out, you guys seem to talk about Ryuu Kimura a lot.”

  Imogen placed her arm over my shoulder affectionately. “We promise to objectify you in a swimsuit when you’re iced out, too.”

  “You’re a true pal,” I said. My phone beeped with a text from Akemi, who was sitting a couple tables away and appeared to be studying on her laptop but was obviously listening to my table’s conversation.

  I read her text: “Nekokaburi.” It means to make your face like a kitty, pretend innocent.

  I laughed at the message. I would enjoy the Ex-Br
at lunches so much more if Akemi joined us, but they didn’t want her, and she preferred to be a loner at school. During our morning car rides, when she wasn’t napping, she peppered me with questions about the Ex-Brats. But during the actual school day, she seemed to prefer to keep to herself.

  “Who are you texting with?” Imogen asked me.

  “A friend from home,” I said. Not a lie.

  I texted back to Akemi. “Curiosity killed the cat.” It means being too inquisitive, like a cat with nine lives, can get you into trouble.

  Ntombi said, “Guys, my parents are away this weekend, so you know what that means. Let’s do something fun!” Ntombi’s mom and dad were super strict. They didn’t let Ntombi go out on school nights or on weekends until all her schoolwork was done, and even then, only to a limited range of places within the Minato district where they lived and where most of the embassies and consulates were located.

  I sent another quick text to Akemi. I was on a roll with cat phrases. “When the cat’s away, the mice will play.” It means when there is no supervision, people will be naughty!

  “Our field hockey game is the priority this Saturday,” said Jhanvi. Then her eyes twinkled mischievously. “But we should go somewhere fun after, to celebrate crushing the British International School.” She pulled out the pencil holding up her messy bun of black-red hair, which now fell down her back.

  “Shibuya!” Nik called out. Then he asked me, “Have you been to Shibuya yet?”

  “Nope.” I hung out with the Ex-Brats at lunch, but my surprise inclusion in their group hadn’t involved going to cool places outside of school.

  Nik said, “Shibuya is probably the most fun part of Tokyo. Everything happens there. I’d only take you to the best places—trust me!”

  Imogen rolled her eyes at Nik and then said, “All right, everyone, hand over your PASMO cards.”

  The group complied—everyone except for me. “I don’t understand.”