The Book of the Heart

by Carrie Asai

  “She might want to escape,” I tell her.

  She lowers her eyes. “Yes,” she says. “We have to get her before she escapes. We have to come up with a plan.”

  “But we have to make what’s to come look like…a complete accident,” I say, tapping my fingers on the table. “If our stockholders find out that we’re behind this…” I trail off. My sister nods. She understands.

  “She’s looking for Konishi,” I say. “This is why she is eager to leave.”

  She clears her throat. “Yes, but we could use that to our advantage.” Her eyes meet mine. “There is a backup plan, too. I spoke to Kentaro Uyemoto today.”

  “Really,” I say.

  “Yes,” she says. She keeps my gaze. “His son is back.”

  She pauses and picks up a necklace on my desk. “Isn’t this a little valuable to have just sitting here?” she says in that scolding, older-sister tone. “Shouldn’t you have it in a safe?”

  “Costume jewelry,” I tell her. Lying has become so easy to me now. “It’s not worth anything.”

  She clucks her tongue. “All right. So where is she?”

  “I just sent my assistant to get her. She’ll be down. Wait for her in the sitting room.”

  “I’d rather not see her at all,” Mieko says, fidgeting.

  I nod. “Yes, but if you don’t, she’ll wonder what’s going on. She’ll escape before we can allow her to escape, you see?”

  This Heaven is trouble. She asks too many questions. She suspects too much. Since the botched wedding she has become a woman. Not good for us.

  My sister still looks worried. She bites her lip. “I’m not sure about this plan. Why ask your assistant to do this job? Are you sure we can trust her? And I am concerned about the Uyemoto boy, I must admit. He’s feisty, from what I remember. He’s like Ohiko.”

  “He’s not quite like Ohiko,” I say. “Ohiko had his own opinions. This one, even though he took off to L.A. for a while, has something inside him that makes him want to obey. He has made a wise decision, coming back.”

  “Duty to family is a hard moral code to break,” she says. “At least for someone like him.”

  A knock sounds at the door. The assistant smiles at me. “She’s waiting,” she says.

  “Thank you,” I answer. She turns to leave.

  “Kaori,” I say, calling her back. I thread my fingers together. She turns back, questioning.

  “I have a proposition for you,” I say to her, and pull her inside.

  Masato

  3

  The next morning my breakfast tray did not come as usual.

  I had lain awake nearly all night, trying to come up with a way to get out of sight of the video cameras and Kaori for two seconds. I’d turned it over and over in my head. I could use my shinobi-iri method of invisibility. It had worked for me before. It could work again if I found the right shadows and if I caught people off guard.

  I groggily staggered out of bed and looked out the window. Kaori was down at the pool, doing calm laps up and down, up and down. I’d never seen her in a bathing suit—it was a yellow string bikini to boot. She wasn’t a bad swimmer. I scowled at her. The shadows around the pool were enticing. Many of them were deep and very camouflaging. I rubbed my hands together. They would be my way out.

  I put on my T-shirt and a pair of low-waisted designer jeans that I found in the closet. They still had their price tag on: 24,000 yen, about $200. “Wow,” I breathed. Funny: before I’d gone to L.A., dropping $200 on a pair of jeans had been nothing. Now it was way more money than I had.

  I grabbed my bag and my wallet and sauntered down to the pool. Kaori fluidly breaststroked the length of the pool, then turned and swam in the other direction. I stood under the awning; the deck was made out of fine teak, oiled and unblemished. I looked at it and thought, Hiro said his father was in the lumber business. I wondered how many Tokyo families were in lumber. I wondered where Hiro was. Just for a second.

  When she popped her head out of the water midstroke and saw me, she stopped, standing in the shallow end.

  “Hey,” she said.

  “Hmpf,” I said back. I stood right at the edge. If I went now, it would take her a few seconds to scamper out of the pool and…

  But in a flash she was at the wall and out of the water, next to me. She dripped all over my shoes.

  “I’m sorry about yesterday,” she said. She dropped her head. “And I’m sorry about this morning, not bringing you breakfast.”

  “It’s cool,” I said. Run! I told myself. But I couldn’t. Something in Kaori’s eyes really did seem sorry.

  “It’s just that, well, I’m just doing my job,” she said.

  “What do you mean?” I asked. “Is your job to keep me away from him?”

  “Well, yeah,” she said. “Basically.”

  “Do you know what’s going on?” I asked. “Any of it? Do you know where my father is?”

  Kaori walked over to pick up a towel. She had a good body and looked pretty strong. All those yoga head-stands and handstands had made her arms exceptionally toned.

  She dried off her hair and sat down. With the towel over her head, she spoke again. “I don’t know much,” she said.

  “But you must know something….”

  She took a deep breath. “As much as I’m involved in your uncle’s work, I don’t get all the really inside info. So unfortunately I’m not sure what’s going on with you and him at all.” She sighed heavily. “And to tell you the truth, I’m kind of sick of my job. So I’ve pretty much stopped listening.”

  “Why don’t you quit, then?”

  “Your uncle took me out of a bad situation. I was in a lot of danger. So I owe him.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  She took the towel off her head. “My family didn’t have much money. I…was in a compromising situation. He…” She gestured up to one of the top windows. “He saved me. Took me away. Gave me a job.” Her lip started to tremble.

  I sat down next to her. “What is he doing to you?”

  She didn’t say anything for a minute. “Nothing,” she said. “It’s nothing. I have to keep my voice down. I shouldn’t have even brought it up.” She pasted on that fake smile I’d seen all week.

  She continued. “In any case, I’m sorry about yesterday. But you have to stay out of his way. He’s doing what’s best for you.” The whole time she said this, she kept that same smile plastered on her face. “Of course, if you want to leave, I’m not stopping you. It’s not that I really like him much, even though he helped me out. He’s not a particularly nice man.”

  “What’s going on here?” I said nonchalantly. I didn’t want Kaori to know how quickly the adrenaline was running through my body. “Is it something about my father? Are…are they going to kill me or something?”

  She continued to smile. I couldn’t tell what she was thinking.

  “Kaori,” I said. “Where is my father? Do you know?”

  She didn’t say anything.

  “Come on,” I said. “You must know something. You must hear something.”

  “It’s ridiculous,” she said. “If you go there, they’ll know that I told you.”

  “Not if you come with me,” I said. My head started spinning. “We could both escape him. You need a new job; I need to find my father. I need to at least see if he’s okay. He might be able to help you.”

  Masato’s words swam through my head: Your father is not who you think. He has been putting you in danger. There are people who are very closely tied to your father who don’t want the best for you. Was that a bluff?

  Kaori fidgeted with the edge of her towel. “I don’t know,” she said. She looked right and left. “Do you really think he could…help me? I mean, what kind of job could he help me get?”

  “Do you know who my father is?” I said in a low voice.

  She nodded.

  “He can do anything,” I said. “He has so much money. What’s your dream job?”

>   She didn’t say anything.

  “Come on,” I said. “All you have to do is follow me and I can help you. But first you must tell me where my father is, or else his associates might pay you a very special visit. Who knows what will happen.”

  It was the first time I’d used my father’s power to control someone. It was a complete bluff, and it didn’t make me feel powerful. It made me feel cheap and nervous.

  Kaori also looked nervous. She nodded. She peered up at the windows. The cameras were fixed squarely on us. Please don’t let the pool be bugged, I thought.

  “Tokyo Adventist,” she finally said. “It’s in Suginami-ku, on the Chuo line.”

  “Are you telling the truth?” I demanded.

  She nodded slightly and then swallowed very hard. “Can I really come with you?”

  “Yes,” I whispered. “But let’s go now. Just put on some clothes. Act natural.”

  Kaori walked as calmly as she could to her pile of clothes on the lawn chair. She took off her bikini, exposing her breasts to the cameras. Then she turned to me and slid the shirt over her head. She put her pants on.

  “Come on,” I whispered, moseying over to the cloaking shadows I’d observed from the window. I grabbed her hand as we reached them. “Mimic what I’m doing,” I said, and bent down. Within seconds we were both gone. And no one had seen us.

  Or had they?

  We would have to take three trains to get the hospital. Looking at the map in the Hiroo station, I started to get nostalgic for everywhere I wasn’t going in Japan. First we would take the train one stop to Roppongi, where we would transfer to the Yamanote line, which snaked up the city and passed Yoyogi and its Meiji shrine, which honors the first emperor of modern Japan. My father had taken me there once when I was little. I remembered we’d wandered into Harajuku after that, and I’d just about died. It was the epitome of cool. Cool cafés, cool restaurants, cool little shops on narrow Takeshita Street.

  Even though my father was Mr. Overprotective, there were times when we had a great time together. Usually it was when he took me shopping in Takeshita Street. Sometimes I could even get him to laugh, to let loose a little. It was always him and me shopping together, never Mieko. Ohiko would come along too sometimes and make fun of all the made-up, styled-out girls roaming the streets. He’d make cracks about the girls’ high heels and weird Bo Peep outfits and strange logoed T-shirts. My father would have ended up laughing, and we’d always climb back onto the train happy and together. Almost a normal family.

  Although Mieko never came along. Ever.

  But there was no time to go to Harajuku. There was no time to check out the girls that Ohiko would have laughed at. My father wouldn’t be there to say, “Ohiko, it’s not nice to make fun,” and then snicker despite himself. I slumped down on a bench near the platform, feeling very lonely, very disconnected. I also felt a little nervous. How sick was my father, exactly? Would I even recognize him?

  I stood up and looked at the map again. The train would then pass Shinjuku, which I’d been dreaming about going back to for the noise, the lights, and the tall buildings. Finally we’d transfer at Nakano-Sakaue to the Chuo line, which, in one direction, leads out to Ryogoku’s sumo stadium—another place my father enjoyed going. He always asked if I wanted to come with him, but I never did. Something about fat guys in little underwear made me feel a little nauseous. But we weren’t going to Ryogoku. Adventist Hospital was at the Okikubo stop. I hoped it wouldn’t take all day to get there.

  On the walk to the station Kaori had told me the story of her past. “When Masato-san found me, I was working on the streets,” she said.

  “Like…?” I raised my eyebrows. I thought of Kaori taking her clothes off in front of the cameras.

  “Yes,” she said. “I got in with the wrong crowd. Yakuza. It was bad. Very bad.”

  The question I couldn’t ask hung on my lips. I looked at her expectantly, my heart speeding up.

  “No,” she said. “It was not through your father. Or anyone he knows. It was someone lower, dirtier. Someone with vague ties to the yakuza. Drugs and prostitution, that’s all.” She looked down. “I was a dancer, too, for a while. My big dream was to dance ballet.” She laughed sarcastically. “Instead I danced around a pole.”

  “So how did Masato find you?”

  “You realize that Masato is completely against yakuza,” Kaori said, and then laughed bitterly. “He’s like Spider-Man or something, avenging the people. He found me and dragged me out of all that. Offered me a job as his assistant. Told me that if I did a good job, he could maybe help me get into some ballet academies or even go to New York. Of course, that was three years ago.”

  “So he’s kind of like a guardian angel?” I said.

  “Oh, I don’t know. I guess I should thank him for all this. But…he’s not entirely respectful of me.”

  Now, on the platform, I saw the train whooshing toward us in the distance. I’d forgotten how fast the subway was here. The trains in L.A. putted along slower than a turtle.

  “What does he have planned for me?” I asked after we got on.

  Kaori didn’t answer. “New York would be great, wouldn’t it? I’ve always wanted to go to the top of the Empire State Building.” She stared at the subway map, then grabbed my hand. “Heaven, before we go to the hospital, can we stop off in Roppongi at a travel agent’s? It’s the very next stop, look! I want to see how much a flight would be. If it’s cheap and if I can get some help from your father, I’m going to book it.” She smiled and hugged herself. “You have to start somewhere, right?”

  “Wait, but we need to go to Tokyo Adventist…,” I said.

  Kaori waved her hands. “It’s, what? Noon? Visiting hours aren’t until three. Standard hospital practice. Have you ever been in a hospital before?”

  I thought about it. I had been in the ER, I supposed, when the JAL flight had crashed. Not that I remembered it—I’d been a baby.

  “Come on, come on,” she whined. “The stop is next! We’ll be really quick. Besides, Roppongi is so fun! I’ve been meaning to pick up a new manga as well. Do you read them?”

  Of course Kaori would be into manga—she was like a manga character herself. I sighed. Kaori’s life story was overwhelming. Was it really true?

  “Well, I guess it wouldn’t be too bad to stop in Roppongi,” I said slowly. “I haven’t been there in so long, it seems.”

  “Great,” Kaori said, and smiled. She squeezed my hand. “Thank you.”

  “Aren’t you worried about Masato finding out?” I said. “Following us? You seem awfully calm….”

  “Look, I told him that it was only a matter of time before I left for New York.” She shrugged. “Life’s too short. Besides, Masato’s not a killer. I don’t know what you’re all twisted up about. I mean, he just didn’t want to see your father in such bad shape, that’s all. He was looking out for you, Heaven.”

  “I don’t know about that,” I said. Something Kaori was telling me didn’t quite add up.

  The train rolled into the Roppongi stop. Kaori pulled me off. “Two minutes,” she said. “I promise. Then we’ll take our nine million trains to the hospital.”

  Your father’s in such bad shape. I tried to imagine my father, lying on a bed, shrunken and shriveled, breathing through a machine. I shuddered. Did I have the guts to go see him?

  Kaori dragged me down the street. “Come on!” she said. The crowds were dense and crazed. Lights flashed. People spilled out of cafés. Kids played video games on the street. All around us was sound.

  “Oh my God!” Kaori shrieked. “Morning Masume!”

  We stood in front of a record store with photographs of the girl group Morning Masume splashed all over the front windows.

  “I love them!” Kaori yelled, and grabbed my arm. “Let’s go in!” She disappeared into a huge throng of people. They all looked like teenybopper club kids. Pink-haired girls sucked on baby pacifiers. A dreadlocked girl with bright blue eye shadow and a Na
ked Ape T-shirt jumped up and down. They all seemed to be in line for something.

  I looked right and left. Where the hell had Kaori gone?

  Wait. Maybe this was my chance to split. Maybe bringing Kaori along hadn’t been such a great idea after all. I could get to Adventist by myself.

  For one second I looked to my right and saw a boy who looked strikingly like Hiro. Same eyes, same hair, same height. I opened my mouth to say something, but then he turned and faced me. It was someone else.

  God, I missed him.

  I got on my tiptoes and looked for the door. Somehow I’d been swept into the middle of the room. Kaori had vanished. I started clawing my way toward the exit, pushing past teenyboppers shrieking at nothing in particular. And then a hand rested on my shoulder.

  I tensed and turned. But it was only a girl in pigtails. “Are you Heaven Kogo?” she said.

  “Why?” I asked. Big mistake.

  “Oh my God, it is you! Oh my God oh my God oh my God!” The girl clasped the arm of the girl next to her, who grabbed a guy standing beside her, who alerted about twelve other people. Someone started to grab at my hair, squawking, “Is her hair real? It’s different than the picture!”

  “It’s Heaven Kogo!” someone else screamed.

  The crowd parted. And past everyone’s heads there I was, huge as a planet, plastered in blues and yellows and greens on the wall. My hair was different in the picture—it was before Hiro and I had cut and colored it.

  Underneath my face it said, HEAVEN’S GONE.

  And then, FUNKITOUT.

  Shit.

  “Heaven Kogo Heaven Kogo Heaven Kogo!”

  “Help!” I cried. Random arms and hands were touching and pushing me.