by Rachel Cohn
Kim said, “More importantly, when are you finally coming to work for Takahara Industries?” She turned to me. “Wouldn’t it be lovely if he lived and worked here?”
Now I realized why I’d been invited to tea. The family wanted me to sell Uncle Masa on moving home and working for the family business. Damn right I’d play along. I’d love it if he lived here.
“Yes, yes, yes!” I said to Uncle Masa. “Please move back to Tokyo!”
Kenji said, “We have a suite available on the forty-sixth floor we are holding for you.” So the idea of Uncle Masa living and working in Tokyo wasn’t just a pipe dream. It was something the Takahara family was actively pursuing as a serious option for him. Was it because they knew how happy I would be to have him here?
Nah.
Mrs. Takahara said, “We need someone we trust who has good connection to government.”
Then she and the rest of the group started speaking animatedly in Japanese, and I was locked out once again.
“Is it really a possibility you’ll move back here soon?” I asked Uncle Masa. He’d accompanied me back to the penthouse after our meeting with Mrs. Takahara and Kim Takahara. Kenji had returned to work, as always.
“I probably will,” said Uncle Masa. “It’s the right thing to do for the family.”
That was an interesting response. It had nothing to do with what Uncle Masa thought was the right thing to do for himself. “Why’s that?”
I sat down on the living room sofa, and he sat down in a chair at the sofa’s side. “Your father probably wouldn’t want me telling you this, but I am only telling you so you have some understanding of why he works so often. There’s a government audit going on of the construction loans used to finance this building.” He paused. “It’s fine. It will all get resolved.”
Why didn’t I feel convinced? “Should I be worried?”
“Of course not!”
“I mean, whatever is going on won’t cause me to lose my home here, will it?” After living through the Beast, Mom’s jail sentence, and then three foster homes, I knew I wasn’t wrong to catastrophize the worst-case scenario for me.
Uncle Masa smiled at me. “Stay on Mrs. Takahara’s good side and you will always have a home here.”
That answer didn’t make me feel better at all. I’d gotten a makeover, I was working my ass off at school, I’d made friends with the “right” people, and hadn’t caused any trouble since my arrival. What more could I possibly do to stay on Mrs. Takahara’s good side?
I preferred a conversation topic that didn’t give me anxiety. “Maybe you’ll meet a nice Japanese lady here,” I teased Uncle Masa.
He laughed. “That would be nice, actually! It’s been hard to settle down with all the travel I do. I’d like to be rooted to one place.”
It occurred to me that Kim and Kenji were rooted to one place, but they didn’t seem to date. I knew Kenji’s girlfriend had moved away, but what about Kim? “How come Kim’s not married?” I asked Uncle Masa. “She’s so beautiful and smart. I would think she could have her pick of any guy.”
“She was married, to a banker at one of the most prestigious Japanese firms. But she got divorced soon after my uncle died. I think the marriage had been more to please her father than herself.”
I tried to picture Kim as a traditional Japanese wife and I couldn’t see it. I knew divorce was far less common in Japan than in America, so I had an even harder time picturing Kim breaking that news to her mother. “Mrs. Takahara must have been pissed she got divorced!”
“She certainly wasn’t happy about it.”
I wanted to hear so much more of the Takahara family gossip, but my phone buzzed with a FaceTime call from Reg. It was so hard for Reg and me to connect with the time difference, and I didn’t want to lose the opportunity. I’d been unsettled since finding out what happened between Ryuu Kimura and Arabella Acosta, and I really wanted screen time with my oldest friend; the comfort of a familiar face. “Do you mind if I take this?” I asked Uncle Masa.
“Go,” he said.
I ran into my bedroom and answered the call. “Coleman!” I said.
“Zoellner!” he replied.
“What’s up?”
“All good. Just passed my GED. I’m free and clear to join the army.”
“Congrats! Did you do anything to celebrate?”
“Carmen treated me to crab cakes at our favorite restaurant.”
What? They had a favorite restaurant?
“Cool,” I said, thinking: Gross. “So you guys are officially a thing now?”
I hated to say it, but his face glowed with a new happiness. “Yup. We’re even talking about getting married.”
“WHAT?” That was insane. “You’re not even eighteen yet! You’ve only been going out for, like, a month!”
“When you know, you know,” he said. “I’m going to have a good job. Some stability for the first time in my life. We could make a life.”
So often I had to take care of myself like I was an adult, but I was nowhere near thinking about adult decisions like having a good job and getting married. It sucked that Reggie thought he should make those choices now. I wanted more for him than being tied down so young. But I totally understood how after the life he’d had, he would want the security he thought he could get by having his life so decided.
“Are you sure?” I asked, knowing he was making a big mistake and also knowing I was powerless to stop it.
“I’m sure. And I have something to tell you.” The expression on his face had turned uncomfortable.
“Oh shit, is she pregnant?”
“No, no, not like that. The thing is . . .” Even over a FaceTime call where the image blurred as the connection dipped in and out, I could see him squirm. “I don’t know how to say this, so I’m just gonna say it. Carmen doesn’t want me talking to you anymore.”
“Please tell me you’re kidding.” I knew he wasn’t. I could feel the Maryland girl in me bursting out of my posh Tokyo clothes. I wanted to fight this girl, and take her down.
“Yeah, she just wants us to, you know, have a clean slate. She gets jealous even though I told her nothing is going on between us. I mean, you live across the world.”
Even worse than this girl’s ridiculous request of Reggie was that he apparently was going along with it. What did that say about him? “After all those years of us knowing each other, you’re just going to turn me off like that?”
“We’ll stay in touch. Email and whatever. She’ll settle down. She just needs time to feel more secure.”
“That’s bullshit,” I said.
“That’s how it is,” Reggie said.
I hung up on him.
I couldn’t believe it. I was so hurt and angry.
Reg was my only real connection to my old life, and now he was gone from my new one. By choice.
I returned to the living room, where Uncle Masa was watching TV. “I need cake,” I said.
“Room service!” he said enthusiastically. He would never start dating a woman and then cut out people in his life who loved him because she was an insecure bitch.
I dropped down next to him on the couch, and in very informal, un-Japanese fashion put my head on his shoulder. “Please move here.”
Uncle Masa put his arm around me while his other arm reached for the phone to dial for cake.
I woke up on Saturday excited for the swim meet at the British International School, and even more excited that Kenji would be going. At 8 a.m., I went to the kitchen to get some lucky apple juice but found Kim sitting in the living room with Kenji’s assistant.
“Hi?” I said, not pleasantly surprised by their company.
Emiko said, “We’re waiting for Takahara-san to finish dressing. Business meetings.”
“He’s supposed to come to my swim meet this morning!” I couldn’t believe the first time he’d said he would come to a school activity of mine, he was bailing.
Kim said, “Unfortunately, he won’t be ab
le to go.”
“But it’s a Saturday!” I said.
“The meeting wasn’t expected,” said Emiko.
Kenji dashed into the hallway. “Sorry, Elle!” he said. “I really wanted to go to your swim competition, but something important came up. I look forward to hearing about your win later this evening.” He buttoned his suit jacket. The expression on his face was distracted.
“What’s so important?” I rarely asked him about his business because he didn’t seem to want to talk about it. Anytime I did, he changed the subject.
“Government auditors are here,” he said.
“Why?” I dared to ask.
“That’s not your worry,” he said. And with that, he left the apartment with Kim and Emiko.
But it was my worry.
A text from Imogen arrived on my phone.
No field hockey or karate today. J n N n moi have decided to take an expedition. Join us for a girls’ day outside the city?
I typed, Busy. Swim meet. Then I thought about it before hitting SEND. I was tired of being the good, responsible girl. The swim team could do without me. It wasn’t even a real meet today. The last thing I felt like doing now was swimming. Between Reg expelling me from his life and my new father not letting me into his, I could use a time-out from my scheduled life. I deleted my first response to Imogen and sent another instead:
I’m in.
I texted Coach Tanya.
Sorry Coach T, I can’t make the swim meet today. Girl problems, bad cramps, achy.
Liar.
Immediately upon greeting the Ex-Brat girls at the train station, I knew I’d made a mistake. The boys were at a polo tournament in Miami, so at least I didn’t have to deal with Nik. That was some consolation. But I was upset about Reg and Kenji, confused about Ryuu—and a day away with the Ex-Brats while skipping out on my swim teammates was the wrong way to deal. The whole time we stood on the train platform, I kept imagining how the competition was going. Now it’s the 100M relay. Now Ryuu is killing it on the butterfly. Now the team is talking about what a shit teammate I am for not showing up. I felt queasy with anxiety, which only felt worse when the girls told me where we were going—to their favorite amusement park outside the city, Fuji-Q Highlands. Great. What could be better for my uncomfortable stomach than roller coaster rides?
“Girls’ trip!” Jhanvi loudly squealed as we stepped onto the JR train at Shinjuku. Sometimes I was embarrassed when the Ex-Brats were so loud and obnoxious in public places. From the stoic looks being shot our way from the neighboring seats, the native people clearly did not appreciate their noise. But they were too gracious to complain aloud.
We sat down in assigned seats, two seats facing forward opposite two seats facing backward. I sat down on the aisle of the front-facing seat, but Imogen pulled me back up and said, “I get nauseated going backward. You sit in the other seat.”
I moved to the backward seat. Joushi was in one of her moods, too. This wasn’t the day to ask her what really happened between Arabella Acosta and Ryuu Kimura. Now that I knew part of the story from Akemi, I was dying to hear the rest. Had Ryuu dumped Arabella when she found out she was pregnant? Pressured her to get an abortion? What was so bad that Arabella took off for Bolivia to recover from the stress?
“Parents out of town again this weekend?” I asked Ntombi.
Ntombi nodded, and her cornrow beads click-clacked. “Seoul. They didn’t take me because they don’t want me to spend all my time with Luke. I hate them. They’re ruining my life.”
“At least your parents give a shit what you do,” said Imogen. “Not like ours, right, Elle?” She lifted her fist for me to bump. I kept my hand on my lap. The truth hurt.
What the hell could be happening that the government showed up on a weekend to audit Tak-Luxxe?
I was dying to know more about Ryuu. Didn’t his businessman dad also get in trouble with the Japanese government? “Can hafus be yakuza?” I asked Imogen.
“What does that have to do with anything?” Imogen demanded.
“Just curious in case I decide to join.” I yawned so it would seem like a silly, casual question I didn’t care about.
Imogen said, “Yaks are often hafu. But they’re not women. The group started from Koreans working in Japan who turned to crime for more opportunity when they got shut out of businesses for not being Japanese. Now yakuza are Japanese and Korean Japanese.”
“I’m not sure that’s true,” said Ntombi. “At the embassy, they say—”
“Google it, brainiac,” Imogen interrupted. “I’m right.”
Jhanvi said, “Let’s just agree that yakuza are bad guys.”
Good and bad was never that simple. Mom was in jail, a criminal, but that didn’t mean she was a bad person. More like a lost one.
I knew better than to go there, but curiosity was killing me. “Didn’t you say Ryuu Kimura’s father was yakuza?”
Imogen said, “I knew it. You like Ryuu Kimura.”
“I don’t!” I protested. “But I see him at the pool like every day. Can’t I be curious about him?”
“Curious,” said Jhanvi. “Not like-like.”
“Off-limits,” said Ntombi.
“Iced out,” said Imogen. She took a swig of beer she had hidden in a paper bag and finally smiled in satisfaction. “Ryuu’s dad was the chief financial officer for a big Japanese corporation. He was indicted for cooking the books and cheating shareholders.”
Jhanvi said, “I thought he was indicted for insider trading?”
“Same thing!” said Imogen.
“Again, pretty sure you’re wrong,” said Ntombi.
“Did he go to jail?” I asked. I shouldn’t be excited by this information, but knowing that Ryuu also had a parent who’d faced criminal charges was oddly comforting to me in this world where everyone’s parents seemed to be ridiculous overachievers.
Ntombi said, “No. He just had to pay huge fines.”
Imogen said, “Don’t worry about the Kimuras. They had plenty of money left over, according to Arabella.”
Jhanvi said, “His dad got sent to the other kind of Japanese jail. The shame jail. Where you still live your life, but it’s like you’re invisible to proper Japanese society. Unwanted.”
I said, “I thought yakuza were, like, gangsters. I hardly think someone’s dad with a big corporate job would be in organized crime.”
Jhanvi said, “Where do you think the money he was swindling was going to? Yakuza!”
Imogen burped. “Your Tak-Luxxe dad is probably in bed with the yakuza, too. Most everybody in the construction and entertainment businesses is.”
“He’s in the hotel business!” I seriously was about to kick the shit out of Imogen.
But in the back of my mind, I was thinking about Kenji’s late-night meetings, his monitoring of the mah-jongg games in the gaming parlor, the private men’s club. Could he be involved in criminal activity?
When I returned to Tak-Luxxe that evening, I found Kenji at the end of the main driveway, smoking a cigarette by the bushes.
“You smoke?” I said.
He blew smoke through his lips. “I try not to. Today, I do. How was your swim meet?”
“I didn’t go.”
“Why not?” he asked, surprised.
“Just didn’t feel like it.”
“You shouldn’t let your teammates down like that.”
Oh, like how you let me down on a daily basis? I thought. But I said, “That time of the month.”
His face reddened and I knew he wouldn’t give me more grief about bailing on the meet.
“Then where have you been all day?” What, my own father was curious about my whereabouts in this city of thirty million where anything could happen? That was a first.
“I went to Fuji-Q with Imogen and her friends.” I’d been hanging out with them since I arrived at ICS-Tokyo, but I still thought of Jhanvi and Ntombi as Imogen’s friends, not mine.
He nodded, pleased with this informatio
n. “Good.” Then he added, “I’m going to ICS-Tokyo Parents’ Night.” He sounded almost defensive, like he knew he should have attended my event today, but he wanted me to know he wasn’t a completely lost cause as a parent. “I hope to meet Shar Kato in person then.” Of course there was a business angle to his attendance. “I can’t wait to tell her our daughters are friends. How’d you like Fuji-Q?”
Though the girls had told me it was an “amusement park,” Fuji-Q would be more correctly called a “horror park,” in my opinion. It included an infamous haunted hospital, with a maze of operating tables, weird organs in jars, torture chambers with bloodied walls, dark corners and hallways, mangled “patients” in cages, and guests being chased and screamed at by ghosts and maniacal hospital “staff.”
The Ex-Brats had given me no warning what to expect. I felt pranked.
I shrugged to Kenji’s question. “It was fine.”
“I remember going there in my twenties. Terrifying!”
“Kind of.” I laughed. At least we shared that.
He stubbed his cigarette out on the pavement and then picked it back up and tossed it into a waste bin. “Shall we have dinner? I could use a good steak after today.”
“Was it bad?” I asked. I followed him toward the building entrance. Should I be worried?
“It wasn’t great.”
“Are the auditors there because it’s, like, tax stuff, or . . . I mean, the company’s not, like, doing anything wrong, is it?”
“Why would you ask that? Of course there’s no criminal activity.”
“I just want to know what’s happening with you,” I said, finally being honest with him. “If you’re my family, I want to be there for you.”
“You don’t need to be here for me,” he said.
He might as well have pushed me off a cliff to certain death, the blow felt that bad.
I said, “So maybe you should have just sent me to boarding school.”
I turned around to go inside, alone. “Wait! Elle!” he called to me. But I got into the elevator as he stood there looking confused and stunned.