“With what?” I ask.
“Photos, drawings, whatever you want. It’s a scrapbook. I know you like to get rid of things, but this way you have a place for your memories.”
“I can’t imagine my life here without you,” I say.
“I know,” she says. “Me neither.”
* * *
AVOID RISKY BEHAVIOR!
Fill in each sentence with a preposition from the following list: around, inside, next to, against, with
Then decide if you SHOULD or SHOULDN’T do this (if it’s safe, or risky)
* * *
* * *
“I want to lie down __________ you.” You should/shouldn’t do this.
“I want to wrap my arms __________ you.” You should/shouldn’t do this.
“I want to press my lips __________ your lips.” You should/shouldn’t do this.
“I want to have unprotected sex __________ you.” You should/shouldn’t do this.
“I want to come __________ you.” You should/shouldn’t do this.
* * *
The secretarial students don’t seem shocked by my “Risky Behavior” worksheet, which has no illustrations decorating its borders, nothing to give its content away. I was surprised when Miyoshi sensei suggested that we try the sex-ed lesson on them before giving it to the boys. “I want to see if they can catch the meaning,” he said. The first three girls manage to answer the questions correctly with no translation assistance. I read the fourth question and he calls on Ritsuko Ueno.
“I want to have unprotected sex…you,” she says.
“Can you fill in the blank?” I ask, but she only shrugs. “With,” I say. “I want to have unprotected sex with you.”
“Okay,” she says flatly.
“Do you understand the word ‘unprotected’?” I ask, and no one answers. I look to Miyoshi-sensei for help, but he is squinting at the worksheet again. I ask if they remember the lesson in New Horizons, when Yumi, Ken, and Paolo had “to protect” the earth from litter. They nod and I say, “So what does ‘to protect’ mean?”
“To keep safe,” replies Haruki in his raspy whisper.
“That’s right,” I say. “Good job!” My praise has the effect of a finger poking a snail. His chin folds into his neck and his shoulders hunch around his ears. “What’s the opposite of protected?”
“Basshimasu,” he mutters.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I don’t understand that word.”
“To punish,” Miyoshi-sensei translates.
“Hmm…” I stall. “That’s an interesting guess, but the word I was looking for was unsafe. Unprotected sex is unsafe.” I write this on the board and then I read the final question, “I want to come…you.”
“I am confused,” Miyoshi-sensei says. “I think correct answer is, ‘I want to come with you.’ But you wrote that correct answer is, ‘I want to come inside you.’”
“Both sentences work grammatically,” I say.
“But meaning is different?”
“Sort of.” I hope he won’t press for clarification.
“Prepositions are so difficult,” he says. “I want to come near you. I want to come next to you. I want to come beside you. I want to come close to you…. To me, it’s so many ways to say the same thing. Can you hear something I don’t?”
What I can hear, for the first time, is the way these little words—words distinguishing the relationship between one thing and another, one person and another—also keep them apart. No matter how close you get, you are still separate, still stuck in your own skin.
Carolyn and I are at Sakura Ueno’s home. She is dressing us up in kimonos to wear to the festival to welcome the mayor from California. Before we got here, she laid her entire collection on the floor of an otherwise empty room at the back of her house. The tatami was covered in a patchwork of folded silk in every hue and pattern imaginable.
Through the sliding glass doors at the back of the room, a cherry tree is in full bloom. The blossoms look like popcorn against the branches, which have no leaves yet. It’s the first blossoming cherry tree that I’ve seen in Japan.
“Totemo kiree desu,” I say to Sakura. It’s so beautiful. In Japanese, she explains that her tree blooms early because it’s in the courtyard, protected from the elements.
“It’s not time yet,” she says. “The flowers will fall fast.”
She tells me to undress and then she walks in a tight circle around me, taking the measure of my curves, no doubt figuring out how to say—in the politest way possible—that none of her kimonos will fit my Western body. But finally she picks up a white cotton kimono that hits me mid-shin. I’m disappointed by the plainness of her choice, but it turns out that this is just kimono underwear. Over it she layers a coral kimono covered in giant purple morning glories that look like old-fashioned phonograph heads. The sleeves hang like pillowcases, so long that they almost brush the tatami.
“Furisode,” she tells me these sleeves are called. “Like a butterfly wing. Only unmarried girl wears this style. It means you’re available.” She stands behind me and pulls the kimono tight around my body, folding the cloth at the waist so that the hem just grazes the tops of my feet. She loops a cord around my rib cage, so tight that I feel like I’m being squeezed by a boa constrictor. Over this cord she wraps an obi covered in psychedelic swirls of purple, green, blue, and gold, slipping a foam bustle into the back.
“Kiree desune?” Sakura says to Carolyn.
“Beautiful,” Carolyn agrees. “But the obi doesn’t match the kimono.”
“That’s right,” Sakura says in Japanese, explaining that the obi and the kimono shouldn’t match perfectly, that a too close match is boring, that some difference creates interest. I wonder if this is the same formula she uses when she matches two people. For Carolyn she chooses a pale blue kimono with a cherry blossom print, the center of each flower dusted with gold pollen. Then we stand side by side in front of the mirror, taking in our transformed selves. “You look so Japanese,” Sakura says, but this is not true. We look more Western than ever, the way a man in drag can look like more of a man through the makeup and the gown. But the kimonos have erased the nip of our waists, flattened our breasts, given us new silhouettes, and Carolyn likes the effect. I can tell. Sakura calls to her daughter, asking her to come and see, and a minute later Ritsuko appears in the hallway, dressed in pajamas and frog slippers, her face puff y.
“Daijoubu Ri-chan?” Sakura asks her.
“I’m fine,” she says in English.
“Kiree desune?” she prompts her too.
“So beautiful,” Ritsuko says, barely glancing at us.
“Shall we all have some tea?” her mother suggests.
“I have homework,” the girl answers. “Sorry.” She shuffles back to her room and Sakura frowns. “I don’t know what’s wrong with her,” she says softly. “Lately she’s so moody.” She shrugs and returns her attention to us. “At the festival,” she tells me in Japanese, “you will have to wear this kimono all day. You should practice walking and sitting in it.” I nod, turning around so that she can unwrap my obi. Instead she suggests that we take a trip to the supermarket, as a kind of dress rehearsal.
“Right now?” I ask. In the mirror, Carolyn and I lock eyes. She looks frankly horrified, silently pleading with me to get us out of this. But Sakura is already squatting at our feet, dressing us in ankle socks and wooden-soled slippers, telling us how much fun it will be, how everyone should see how beautiful we look. Not knowing what else to do, we follow her down the hall to the front door. I’m glad when she drives away without waiting to make sure that we follow. It’s hard to climb into a car window wearing a kimono.
Slung across the front doors to Jade Plaza, a sign reads, Supa Singuru Naito!—Supermarket Singles’ Night. Inside the front doors, the two farmers sit on folding chairs in front of a table covered in a pyramid display of burlap bags, each one stamped with the promise that the rice was grown locally, perhaps by these very
guys. Next to them stands Lone Wolf, dressed in a three-piece suit of contrasting plaids seamed with safety pins. As we walk in, his cameraman captures our entrance on film, the red light blinking.
“You need rice,” Sakura says, steering a cart toward their display. She applied lipstick in the car and styled her hair in a French twist. She is camera ready.
“We have rice at home,” I say. “Lots of it.”
“You can always use more,” she chirps. “It’s my present.”
“What’s going on?” Carolyn whispers.
“I don’t know,” I say, although I can guess. Sakura is the town matchmaker. Tonight is Supermarket Singles’ Night, a chance for these farmers to meet eligible girls. Maybe that’s why she dolled us up in kimonos: to try to make us seem more familiar, less intimidating to these two hayseeds. Rice seeds. If so, her plan seems to be failing miserably. At the sight of us, they trade looks that I recognize from my most reluctant English pupils. One doesn’t hand me a bag of rice so much as shove it at me.
“Arigato,” I say.
“No English,” he replies, crossing his forearms in a big X.
Sakura takes the rice from me and places it in a grocery basket, then leads us away from the two farmers. Maybe I was wrong in my suspicions, I think as we begin shopping for the ingredients to make sukiyaki. Everyone is staring at us. They seem bemused, but also oddly approving. An old woman strokes my sleeve as I pass and whispers, “kiree.” Men nod and children grin. Lone Wolf and his crew continue to trail after us, filming everything as she picks out a tray of meat sliced ribbon thin, a basket of mushrooms and another of sugar snap peas, bottles of sake and soy sauce and dashi, and a bag of sugar. At the checkout counter, Sakura insists on paying for the groceries, a birthday present to me.
“Thanks,” I say. “How did you know it was my birthday?”
“Miyoshi-sensei told me,” she says, beaming. “Let’s enjoy birthday donuts together, okay?”
“Okay,” I say with a shrug.
As soon as we enter Mister Donuts, I see Joe sitting at a booth across from a black-haired man whose back is to us. Two coffees and a plate of crullers sit on the table between them, alongside an ashtray in which a cigarette is burning unattended, sending a finger of smoke into the fluorescent light. When Sakura stops by their table and clears her throat, Joe looks up and presses a fist to his mouth. The man across from him turns and startles. Sakura places her hand on my back, gently pushing me onto the seat next to Miyoshi-sensei. Carolyn sits next to Joe.
“What’s this?” Joe says. “Is there some costume party I wasn’t invited to?”
“You are invited,” Sakura says brightly. “Tonight Miss Marina will make sukiyaki.”
“This is why you wanted us to meet you here?” Miyoshi-sensei says to Sakura in Japanese. “You said you had something you wanted to talk about in person. Something you couldn’t discuss over the phone, that it was too important.”
“I wanted to surprise you,” Sakura says.
Miyoshi-sensei’s body is stiff next to mine. His hand shakes as he reaches for his cigarette, then reconsiders and puts it back in the ashtray.
“I don’t get it,” Carolyn says.
But I do. I was right about the setup, just not about who we’d been set up with.
“So,” Sakura says, “are you free tonight, Mister Joe?”
“Sure,” Joe says. “I’d love to have dinner with the two of you.”
“Three,” Sakura corrects him.
“Nani?” Miyoshi-sensei says. What?
“Love connection!” Lone Wolf howls. I hadn’t realized that he followed us in here too, along with his cameraman. He traces a heart in the air with his fingertip, then pretends to shoot a bow and arrow first at Miyoshi-sensei and then at me. He sits down next to me, shoving me up against Miyoshi-sensei. “So, Hiro-kun,” he says, “you still like foreign girls, ne?” He wiggles an eyebrow and yowls, “mrow!”
“Yamero,” Hiro mutters. Cut it out.
“Don’t be so shy,” Lone Wolf chides him. “It’s not sexy.”
Miyoshi-sensei peels the lid off a plastic thimble of cream. “Tonight is not so convenient for me, Miss Marina.” He dumps the cream into his coffee, watching the undulating pattern unfold. “But I’m sorry to miss your birthday celebration.”
“That’s fine,” I say. “Really, don’t worry about it.”
“Kowai?” Lone Wolf goads him. Are you scared? He reaches an arm behind me to muss Miyoshi-sensei’s hair. Miyoshi-sensei slaps his hand away, then stands up abruptly. There is an awkward shuffle as both Lone Wolf and I stand up to let him out. “Faito!” Lone Wolf cries as Miyoshi-sensei strides across Mister Donuts, leaning forward, both hands deep in his pockets. “Faito! Faito!” In the ashtray, his unsmoked cigarette burns out, leaving behind a long column of ash that holds its shape for a second and then disintegrates.
While Joe and I sit on the gokiburi couch, Carolyn kneels on the floor and fills three Mickey Mouse beer steins with sake. We’re both wearing the sheer white robes that went under our kimonos. As she leans forward, she exposes the swell of her breasts, the freckles smattered between them. I see Joe pry his eyes away.
“You swear you didn’t know that was a setup?” I ask him once more.
“Give me a modicum of credit,” he says. “I wouldn’t try to come between the two of you. Not that I wouldn’t enjoy doing just that.” I roll my eyes, but I can’t bring myself to really care about the innuendo, which he made almost dutifully, as if he had to play to our expectations. I wait for Carolyn to tell him that there is no “two of us” anymore, but she stays quiet, drinking her sake as if it was water and she was parched.
“Poor Hiro,” Joe says as he pulls from his pocket a tin containing the first joint I’ve seen since leaving the States, fat and fragrant. Carolyn tells him that we can’t smoke pot in the house, that the neighbors might smell it. This is just an excuse. She never wants to smoke pot. She says that it has no effect on her, that she hates the way it turns people into philosophers of the obvious. I used to enjoy it for that very reason. My boyfriend Luke and I got stoned all the time. I think of what she said in our fight, how I never lose control. When Joe suggests that we go to the beach and smoke the joint there, I jump at the chance.
It’s foggy out, humid and pleasantly warm, a true spring night. Moonlight filters through the haze, casting its silvery glow across the sand. We all take off our shoes and walk to the edge of the water, letting the waves play over our toes. The water is no longer bone-chillingly cold. It holds the memory and promise of summer. Ahead of us a group of sandpipers runs to keep their distance, gathering in a huddle, each perching on one leg. Joe offers Carolyn the joint and she doesn’t say no. She doesn’t like to be the prude, the goody-goody. As he lights it for her, he stands closer than necessary, shielding her from a nonexistent wind. She barely inhales.
“You won’t feel anything like that,” Joe says. “Have you never smoked before?”
“Of course I have,” she says. “Lots of times.”
“You’ve got to do it like this,” he says, sucking so hard that the rolling paper crackles and the cherry comets toward his fingers. He hands the joint back to her and she takes another shallow hit before thrusting it at me. I inhale deeply, enjoying the searing sensation at the back of my throat, the immediate light-headedness as I bend over, hacking. “That’s more like it,” Joe says, thumping my back. “If you don’t cough, you won’t get off.” I try to give the joint back to Carolyn but she shakes her head. As we walk down the beach, chasing the sandpipers, Joe and I pass the joint back and forth, trailed by a pungent cloud of smoke.
“Why ‘Poor Hiro’?” I say.
“What?” he says.
“You said ‘Poor Hiro.’ Like being set up with me would be so awful.”
“That’s not what I meant,” he says. “It’s just a lot of pressure, innit? Being the mayor’s son, trying to live up to the legend. His dad was a local hero, bringing the plant to Shika, maki
ng jobs so that people had a reason to stay here. But now that there’s a petition to shut it down and he’s got cancer, no one knows how to treat him anymore. I think everyone’s embarrassed. They wish he’d just disappear, which he will do soon enough.”
“There’s a petition to shut the plant down?” I ask, wondering how Joe knows so much more than I do when he doesn’t even live here anymore. Then I remember that he stays with the Ueno family whenever he visits. He has never had to cook a meal for himself.
“Haven’t you seen those women with the clipboards outside Mister Donuts?”
“I thought they were gomi police.”
“Mothers against nuclear power. They’ve got a lot of local support and national attention. That’s why it’s so important to Hiro that this American mayor is coming to Shika, and why he asked Lone Wolf to come with his camera crew. He wants Shika to get on TV for something good, so that his father can be a hero one more time.”
“That’s sweet,” I say.
“Do you really think his dad wanted to set the two of them up?” Carolyn asks, sounding deeply skeptical.
“He’d have to be pretty desperate,” I say sarcastically.
“I only meant that you’re not Japanese.”
“But everyone knows how much Hiro likes you,” Joe says.
“He does?” Carolyn and I both say at once.
“Sure,” Joe shrugs. “But it’s irrelevant, isn’t it? He knows he doesn’t stand a chance.”
“What I want to know,” I say, feeling the heat of Carolyn’s stare even in the darkness, “is why Sakura wanted to set the two of you up.”
“I guess she wants me out of the way,” Joe says.
“Out of whose way?” Carolyn asks.
“Noriko’s,” I guess.
“The librarian?” Carolyn says. “I forgot you used to date.”
“Very casually.” Joe takes another drag of the joint, then passes it to Carolyn who only pretends to smoke before handing it to me. “Still, you’re probably right,” he says. “Sakura must be worried that I’ll try to interfere, ruin her match with the dentist. I really should try to keep her from making the biggest mistake of her life.”
If You Follow Me Page 25