My Almost Flawless Tokyo Dream Life

by Rachel Cohn

  Imogen said, “We’re taking up a collection for ­Ntombi’s housekeeper. We give her these. She sells them at a lower cost to the other Filipina housekeepers in exchange for cash. She then lets Ntombi do whatever Ntombi wants over the weekend, and her parents never find out.”

  “Wow. Way to work it.” I reluctantly took my PASMO card from my wallet and handed it to Imogen. “But how will I get around on the subway if I don’t have a PASMO card?”

  The group laughed but stopped when they realized I was serious. Jhanvi said, like it was obvious, “Just say you lost it and your dad will give you a new one. He’s nice, right?”

  If Mom was here, she’d never give me a new one. She’d tell me I was a sucker for going along with this bribe scheme just to hang out with the popular crowd. But Kenji would be thrilled to tell his assistant to get me a new one, if my new PASMO card would also give me weekend time with the “right” friends.

  A new text from Akemi popped up on my phone. “Kysuuso neko wo kamu.” It means a mouse that has been put into a corner will bite the cat.

  I typed back: The weak ones can win if they’re brave.

  Yes! she replied.

  I wished Akemi was joining the Ex-Brat adventures. She’d hate it, but I would relax more having someone around that I could just be myself with.

  The ICS-Tokyo volleyball and fencing teams, who usually occupied most of the seats on the after-school bus, had been knocked out by the flu. This afternoon, there were only two people on board besides the driver. Me and Ryuu Kimura.

  Akemi had violin lessons after school in a neighborhood nowhere near Tak-Luxxe, and I usually stayed after school for study time or for swim team practice and then took the early-evening bus back into the city. ICS’s version of a school bus service was a private chartered luxury coach with plush, clean seats, Wi-Fi, and a selection of healthy snacks like nuts, fresh fruit, and a drink refrigerator filled with alkaline water bottles and cold-pressed juices. Like an airport shuttle service, the bus made drop-offs at hotels in different neighborhoods in the city. Students could either walk home from the closest stop or get rides. Usually I did homework on the bus ride home or tried to take a nap.

  Today, Ryuu was sitting one row behind me on the other side of the aisle. “Hey, Elle.”

  I turned around. His black-blue hair was still wet from swim team practice, and I could practically smell the chlorine wafting from it. I loved that smell. “What?”

  “Do you mind if I practice my music? Just asking because you’re not wearing headphones.”

  “I don’t care,” I snapped, like I was Imogen. But the Ex-Brats weren’t on the bus. No bitchy instinct necessary. If a girl was mildly pleasant to a boy who was iced out when there was no one else around, was it like that tree falling down in the forest? With no witnesses, did it actually make a sound? My hands were clean here. I could be as nice as I was curious about Ryuu. Genuinely. There was an instrument in a case on the empty seat next to him. I asked him, “What do you play?”

  He opened the case and pulled out . . . a ukulele! “Any requests?” he asked.

  “I don’t know any songs for a ukulele.”

  “Sure you do. Any song can work on the uke. What was your favorite song growing up?”

  “I dunno. I loved The Wizard of Oz. ‘Over the ­Rainbow’?” Grrr! What a corny song choice. I needed more time to think of a clever song. She wasn’t even here, but I could totally see Imogen rolling her eyes at me.

  “Love it,” said Ryuu. He strummed the chords and didn’t sing aloud, but I could hear Judy Garland’s voice in my head. Somewhere, over the rainbow, skies are blue. The melody being played on a ukulele made me feel so safe and happy. You are a dork, Elle Zoellner.

  “You’re pretty good,” I told Ryuu. He played with confidence and a slight smile on his face, like he was enjoying himself. “But why’d you pick up the ukulele, of all instruments?”

  He changed the chords he strummed and made up a new tune as he sang, “Went on vacation to Hawaii when I was ten. Bought a ukulele in the hotel gift shop. Liked it even better than playing guitar. Kept at it because . . . it really annoys my father. He doesn’t think the uke is a manly instrument. So I play it to confront his gender bias.” Ryuu stopped playing for a moment and then shredded the ukulele for a finale with flourish. In a heavy metal–style voice, he bellowed, “I am available for weddings and bar mitzvahs. Thank you, after-school bus, you’ve been a great audience!” He finished and raised his pinky and thumb, twisting his hand.

  I had no idea he was so funny. I didn’t give him the satisfaction of a laugh because obviously I needed to be too cool, but I did tap my hands together in applause. “Just don’t fart this way and I don’t care if you practice your ukulele on the bus.”

  Ryuu resumed his strumming. He sang out, “You will improve your butterfly time if you try to keep your body as close as possible to the surface of the water.”

  Hey, I didn’t need his criticism. “Did I ask for advice?” I should have known Ryuu couldn’t go more than a couple minutes without being arrogant and offensive. I pulled my headphones out and opened my chemistry textbook.

  Conversation over.

  I returned home to Tak-Luxxe after ignoring Ryuu for the duration of the bus ride. I pressed forty-nine on the elevator and it shot up, stopping at floor forty-six. Kim Takahara stepped into the elevator.

  “Oh, hello,” Kim said to me. She had a look of surprise whenever she saw me around Tak-Luxxe, as if she’d forgotten I existed and couldn’t believe her brother’s illegitimate daughter actually lived here now. “How’s school going?”

  “Fine,” I mumbled. I never knew what to say to her. She hadn’t made any effort to get to know me, so I didn’t see why I should try with her. I didn’t know if her indifference to me meant she was too busy, just plain uninterested, or rude like her mother.

  “I love your hair,” she commented. She said that every time I saw her in the elevator. It was pretty much all she ever had to say to me.

  The elevator door opened on forty-eight and I spied Kenji in the hallway, waiting for Kim at Mrs. Takahara’s front door. I was about to step out to ask him about our dinner plans for that night, but Kim stepped in front of me. “Family only,” she said.

  The elevator door closed in my face.

  SO RUDE!

  Shake it off, I told myself. I pressed fifty-five to go to the Sky Garden instead of going directly home. I could relax in the hot tub by the pool and decompress from Aunt Rude’s subtle slap to my face. I had an extra swimsuit in my gym bag. I went into the women’s changing room when I got off the elevator to put on the suit. Then I went out to the pool area.

  Ugh, someone was in the hot tub. But it wasn’t a stranger. It was Akemi.

  “How was your violin lesson today?” I asked her.

  “Hard. My elbows hurt from playing the instrument, so I came here to feel better.”

  “Smart!” I stepped into the hot tub, relishing the warm, bubbly feel of the water. I sat opposite Akemi and pressed my back against one of the water jets. The pressure massage felt amazing.

  “How was your swim team practice?” she asked me.

  “Intense. My elbows also hurt!” I moved my arms around until I felt a jet swirl that I could press my elbows against, as Akemi was doing on her side of the hot tub.

  Akemi said, “I think I was playing my violin too hard because I was upset. I got a C on my English grammar test.”

  “What was the test on?”

  “The parts of speech. Like noun, adjective, conjunction. English is so different from Japanese. I’ll never get it.”

  I had a flash of inspiration. “Chikusho!” I exclaimed.

  Akemi giggled. “Why you say that?”

  “I have an idea for how you can remember the different parts of speech. We’ll use the English word ‘fuck’ as our example.”

  “Fuck,” Akemi whispered.

  “A noun is a person, place, or thing, right?” Akemi nodded. “So, a per
son who is rude is a fucker.”

  “Nik Zhzhonov is rude,” said Akemi.

  “You think? He strikes me more as arrogant. He’s so rich he doesn’t know better. But we can use him as an example. That Nik, what a fucker.”

  “Noun!” said Akemi. “But what’s gerund? That confuses me so much.”

  “A gerund is a verb that acts like a noun and ends in I-N-G.” I looked around the pool area to make sure no one had come in to overhear my next example. “Fucking is what makes babies.” Akemi blushed. “As a verb, it would be, Mom fucked Dad and now I’m here.”

  Akemi splashed water at me, and I splashed some back as we fell into fits of laughter. Finally, I said, “Now use our word as an adjective. To describe a noun.”

  Akemi thought about it and then said, “My elbows hurt fucking bad.”

  “Yes! I’m so proud.”

  “So fucking proud,” Akemi corrected me.

  I dipped my head under the water and then came back up for air. “You’re my perfect student,” I told Akemi.

  “Thank you very fucking much,” she said. “But what’s interjection?”

  “It’s a transition word that’s mostly used to show emotion by the speaker.” Seriously, I had no idea I knew grammar this well until now. Someone give me a practice SAT exam, cuz I’d ace it! “Like, Hmmm, I don’t know what I want for dinner. Or, Fuck, I’m late for dinner.”

  Akemi nodded. “, sô desu ka,” she said.

  “What does that mean? I feel like I hear that phrase here all the time.”

  “It means, like, ‘oh, really?’ or ‘ah, I see.’ It’s Japanese interjection. Japanese people like to acknowledge what is being said to them, as a form of politeness. So they have like a transition phrase. They say , sô desu ka after someone tells them something.”

  “Thanks, Akemi! That’s really helpful to know.”

  “You’re fucking welcome,” she said, and splashed water at me again.

  That night, I had dinner with Kenji in the Ikebana Café. I preferred it over the fancier restaurants at Tak-Luxxe. It was more casual, and it was fun to choose from a buffet rather than commit to a specific menu choice. Also, here the waiter knew my standard drink request.

  “One Coca-Cola coming up,” Dev Flaherty said before I even asked.

  “With—” I started to say.

  “Lots of ice. Got it.” Drinks never came with ice in Japan. You had to ask. When you got the ice, it was never enough. “Sparkling water for you?” Dev asked Kenji.

  “Yes, please,” said Kenji. “No ice. I’m not American. I drink mine like a civilized person.” He winked at me, teasing. When Dev left our table, Kenji brought up the subject before I had to. “Kim asked me to apologize to you about earlier in the elevator. The elevator closed before she could explain.”

  “Explain what?” I said, still feeling sulky about the incident.

  “When Kim said ‘Family Only,’ she was referring to a long-standing tradition we have with Mother. Once a week we join her in the late afternoons for a Japanese tea ceremony. It’s a very formal tradition, not something a teenager would enjoy.”

  How could I know if I’d enjoy it if I didn’t even know what it was? “What’s so formal about it? Isn’t it just tea?”

  “It’s not just tea. It’s a particular matcha green tea that’s prepared in a ceremonial fashion. Mother and Kim wear formal kimonos. It’s a Japanese custom that’s important to Mother. Kim and I always found it boring.”

  “It sounds like it could be interesting.” I didn’t want to say I’d like to join you because I didn’t want to sound that needy and I also didn’t want to invite myself to spend time with Kenji’s mother. “I guess it’s something expats aren’t allowed to do?”

  “Certainly, tourists pay a lot of money to attend formal Japanese tea ceremonies here. But the family ceremonies are private.”

  There it was again. Subtly being told I wasn’t one of them. “Sure,” I said.

  “By private, I mean we discuss business. Kim and I have found that since our father died, presenting ideas and plans to Mother goes better when we do it under the guise of a Japanese tradition.”

  “Sneaky,” I said.

  “Thank you,” he said. “How was your day today?”

  Talking about school was our safe topic. It was so much easier than discussing all the years we never spent together. “I got a B-plus on my Spanish test.”

  “Well done. Improvement from that last B-minus, right?” I gulped down a sip of pride, with extra ice. Praise was nice, from anybody. From him, it felt a thousand times more magnified. “Did you get your Great Gatsby essay back?” He never actually checked my homework or offered to help me with it, but he knew all about it from our nightly dinner conversations.

  “Yes. I got a B.”

  “That’s good.”

  We both knew it wasn’t good. It was just okay.

  “The teacher said my thesis statement was excellent, but my paper focused too much on description and not enough on persuasion.” When I read through the essay after getting it back, I could see the teacher’s point, but I also wanted to whine, I never had to write an essay that long for English class before coming to ICS-Tokyo. Cut me some slack!

  “Should I hire a tutor for you?” A few tables away, Dev Flaherty delivered beers to a group of diners. Kenji looked at Dev then back at me. “He went to Princeton. I’m sure he knows how to write a good English essay.”

  “He’s busy enough here! I’m surprised you don’t also have him fixing the plumbing.”

  “How do you know I don’t?” Kenji joked.

  I laughed. “There’s a writing tutor available in the school library to help. I’ll go there for help with my next essay.”

  “Good idea. Don’t be stupid like your old man. When I was at Andover, I never took the tutoring help that was available. Things would have gone so differently if I had. My father was always angry when he saw my report cards. He’d say, ‘I send you halfway around the world for the finest education, and this is the best you can do?’ ”

  “Your father sounds like a bummer,” I said.

  I didn’t mean it as an insult, and he didn’t take it as one. Kenji nodded. “He was very smart and hardworking but rigid and impossible to please. At least, for me. Kim could do no wrong to him.”

  “Because she was his favorite or because she was a girl?”

  “Probably both. And she was like him: brilliant. She was the orange of his eye.”

  “I think you mean ‘apple.’ ”

  “Why apple?”

  “That’s the saying. The apple of someone’s eye. Their favorite.”

  “Yes. Kim was Father’s apple. I was his rotting apple. Grades never good enough. Disappointment in business.” Geez. With hypercritical parents like his, I started to understand why Kenji developed a drinking problem.

  I said, “I doubt he felt that way about you, or he wouldn’t have left his business for you to run.” It seemed odd that Kenji could run a company with thousands of employees worldwide, yet so openly question his own ability.

  “In Japan, the man runs the business.” Even though Kim has the degrees with honors from Harvard, he didn’t say. Maybe I would be uptight like Kim if I knew that no matter how hard I worked or how smart I was, my brother would get the top job in the family business—even if he wasn’t right for it.

  My phone lit up with a text message from Nik Z. Shibuya, Saturday! Don’t make other plans!

  Okay, I texted back.

  “Already getting texts from boys?” Kenji asked me. “Anyone I should know about?”

  “Nik Zhzhonov wants to show me Shibuya this weekend.”

  Kenji nodded, pleased. “Excellent,” he said, like I’d accomplished something just getting a text from Nik.

  Early Saturday afternoon, I stepped out of a taxi with Oscar and Nik, into the world of Shinjuku, the entertainment district of Tokyo, with high-rise buildings and neon signs dotting the upward landscape of bars, restaurants,
and shows. The girls would meet up with us later. Jhanvi and Ntombi had a field hockey game while ­Imogen had karate training. I couldn’t believe the boys had invited me to hang out with them on our own ahead of the other girls joining us. I’d had enough lunchtime hangs with them that I no longer felt nervous in their presence, but I was still a bit suspicious about their intentions.

  “They call this area ‘the pleasure labyrinth,’ ” Nik told me, chivalrously helping me step out of the cab that he’d just paid for. “Creepy bars, tryst hotels, cabarets. All the good stuff.” He looked excited to be here, his deep blue eyes twinkling.

  Oscar said, “Nighttime in Shibuya is really where all the action is. But we thought we’d show you Shinjuku first. Because we’re that awesome.”

  “Tell me straight up,” I said. “Are you guys hazing me?”

  “Like a fraternity haze?” Nik asked.

  “Yes.”

  Oscar and Nik looked at each other and laughed. Nik said, “No. But every hazing should be as fun as what you’re about to experience down those stairs.”

  Nik picked up our tickets from the “will call” window at a venue called Robot Restaurant. We stepped onto a narrow, discreet set of curved stairs with walls of glass, and walked down a few levels into a waiting lounge that looked like a Vegas casino on acid. Every inch of the space was covered in gold, silver, leopard print, and Japanese pop art spectacle furniture and fixtures that would have made Elvis Presley’s Graceland designer rage with jealousy. At the corner of the lounge, a jazz band, including a sax and keyboard player dressed as robots, and sexy ­Japanese girls wearing robot-themed lingerie outfits singing in Japanese, performed on a small stage.

  Everywhere I looked there was some sort of glitter, sparkle, or neon. There was also what I’d found to be a common sight in Tokyo—a glassed-in area for smokers. The coffee shops had glassed-in smoking rooms. Even some 7-Elevens had dedicated smoking areas. But none of the smoking rooms I’d seen in my limited travels so far resembled a bedazzled little palace as closely as the one at Robot Restaurant.