Girl in a Box (25 page)

“So, what did you do for lunch?” Miyo asked when I returned to the department.

I paused, thinking over my answer. “Looked around at coats.”

“Good idea,” Miyo said. “That old furry thing you wear is really too shabby. I know you like vintage clothes and everything, but it's better to have something nice and new.”

I watched her face, wondering if there was a chance she'd been the one who'd cut the coat up, perhaps in an effort not to have me go out with her while I was wearing it. After all, she had slid into place near me during
cho-rei
about five minutes later than me; she could have done the job.

“Did you go to the Nicholas de Gesquierre section?” Miyo continued. “There's a great coat there.”

“I went all over, but I couldn't make up my mind.” Now I realized that I had a problem—no coat whatsoever in the locker room. How would I explain that to her when we went out?

“Mmm,” Miyo said. “Well, I haven't taken my lunch yet. I'm looking for a jacket myself, so if I see anything that would suit you I'll have it put on hold.”

“That's really very kind—”

“It's not kind. I don't want to be embarrassed by you, that's all.”

Touché. But I'd decided that Miyo's bark was worse than her bite, because she returned from lunch smiling and eager to talk. However, I was busy with a trio of Dominican baseball players who needed to be guided to the Super Men clothes department. When I was through with them, Mrs. Okuma wanted me to work with a Danish woman who was wheelchair-bound. That assignment turned into a very long expedition, since we needed not only to catch elevators but to ride in ones where there was enough room for the chair. Today was busier than usual, and I noticed that more O.L.s were around, as if they'd left the office early. Many of them were carrying boxes of chocolates. Valentine's Day fell on Sunday, so these would be last-minute gifts to the men in their office—delivered this afternoon.

I toyed with the thought of getting Michael some chocolates, but found myself fantasizing about feeding the chocolates to him with my fingers, so I discarded that idea. Anyway, the Dane didn't want to look at chocolates; she wanted to see books about Japan. I showed her some of my favorites and also managed to find the book Mrs. Taki had requested. I bought it discreetly while the customer was browsing. Now that was multitasking, I thought as the clerk wrapped my book in a specially sized brown paper cover.

 

The coat that Miyo wanted me to buy was going to be a magnet for dirt. It was the palest cream boiled wool, a wasp-waisted trench with a shearling collar that reminded me an old saying Hugh used to use: mutton dressed as lamb. Here I was, thirty years old and pretending to be twenty-three, in a coat that was utterly impractical. Not only was it white; it had no buttons or zipper. It just crossed elegantly across the front, so the effect with a tightly tied belt was quite slimming.

“Miyo, I can't go into a bar in this coat. It'll be stained within minutes.” We had stopped into Designer Coats on the sixth floor, during the last thirty minutes the store was open. We were officially off duty and in our civilian clothes, so shopping was permitted.

“Yves Saint Laurent,” Miyo said. “From the tag, I can tell it arrived in the store two months ago. I can't believe it didn't sell; guess it's because it's a large size.”

“How nice of you to remember my size,” I said drily.

“I'm not trying to be unkind,” Miyo protested. “You're lucky you wear a size that isn't so common; it means you can find marked-down clothes. It looks fantastic on you, Rei-san. And it's reduced from 90,000 to 60,000. Fifteen percent off makes that 51,000 yen plus 2,550 yen for tax.”

I'd been in the
depaato
world so long that $530 for a coat seemed reasonable.

“I'll take it.” If OCI wouldn't cover the cost, I'd sell it on eBay.

“Good decision,” Miyo said. “And it looks great with what you're wearing underneath.

“We'll take it to the cashier ourselves,” Miyo said cheerily to the smiling salesclerk. I'd learned that it was store etiquette for shopping employees not to make the working salesclerks do too much. Miyo and I were lucky to have our schedules end an hour before closing, a K Team precaution against the embarrassment of having to rush a foreigner.

I handed the cashier my charge card and rested my elbows on the counter while she went into the backstage area to run it across the scanner. She spent an unduly long time, I thought, and when she came back her face was pink.

“I'm sorry, your card was—it can't—I'm sorry!” she ended in a torrent.

I blinked. “Do you mean the charge was not accepted?”

“I'm afraid so.”

“You've been here two weeks, and you've already gone over your limit?” Miyo's voice held a mixture of admiration and disbelief. “How can that be? It's payday today, so you should have received a week's salary.”

“That's right! And it's ridiculous that there's such a low limit on a store card. I mean, we should be encouraged to shop, not have our hands slapped this way.”

“It's not Mitsutan's decision, but the decision of your bank,” the cashier said quietly. “When I went back, I checked the record, and it shows that your Citibank account was already overdrawn.”

“I'm sorry to hear that,” I said, utterly mystified. My OCI consultant fees, including a hefty retainer for daily expenses, went straight into Citibank, as did the salary from Mitsutan. With two salaries, how could I have gone so swiftly into the red?

“Do you want me to charge the coat to my card?” Miyo offered. “I can do it. I've been here so long that my limit's really high. You can pay me back next week.”

“No, no, it's okay—”

But Miyo insisted, and privately, I was relieved that I'd have something to cover me on a thirty-five-degree night.

It was seven-thirty, and we should have been hurrying out to the station to catch a train to Roppongi, but we were riding the escalators downward in the store, with Miyo still brooding. “I can't believe you shopped so much you depleted your bank account. It's my nightmare, but it's never actually happened to me. How weird that it happened to you, a banker's daughter.”

“You know that about me?” I thought suddenly about the missing personnel file. Maybe Miyo wasn't really such a great new friend after all.

“Sure. Okuma-san told me. Now, I'm wondering about something,” Miyo said. “Maybe the fifteen percent discount hadn't kicked in yet for you, and they're still only taking off ten percent. If you were cheated out of the discount, that's a serious problem, something for the union to hear about!”

“My receipts looked fine,” I said, thinking that Miyo was the last person I'd ever imagine as a union supporter. “Seriously, I admit I've been spending too much. I need to cut back.”

“I've got an idea, and it's only going to take a minute. Won't delay us much at all,” she said, motioning for me to follow her off on the fourth floor, back to the K Team's office.

“What is it?”

“Let's check something on the computer.” Miyo led me back into the empty department, sat at the desk that I usually used, and turned on my PC.

As it booted up, I said, “We could get into trouble for this.”

“For working extra time? I doubt it. What's your ID number?”

I hesitated. If she learned my ID number, she could use it for any amount of mayhem. “I'll put it in.”

Miyo grumbled and stood aside as I typed in the password, then I switched seats with her so she could do what she'd planned.

Miyo tapped the keys. “Here's the date you started, your home address and phone number…. I'll go into the next screen to see your credit card account.”

All the clothes and accessories I'd bought were spelled out clearly in the phonetic alphabet katakana, each followed by a dollar amount. At the lingerie department, six Tsumori Chisato bras had cost me 52,000 yen. I winced; that was almost as much as the cost of the coat. Matching panties for each bra rolled in at 30,000 yen, total.

The Anna Sui skirt I wore was 33,000; the top was 22,000. I'd known I was spending a lot…but not quite this much. I winced again as I tabulated the totals for Earl Jeans, the Issey Miyake jacket, trousers from Agnes B, slacks and a cowl-neck top from Comme des Garçons, and the Coach backpack. I had become, for all intents, a junior version of Melanie Kravitz, but without a husband to pay the bill.

“I shopped a lot,” I said to Miyo.

“Not really. Everyone shops a lot here.”

“My dad's going to kill me when he realizes I've spent all my salary and savings in less than two weeks.” I was thinking about Michael Hendricks. Maybe I should buy him chocolates after all to soften my request for more money, immediately, in my Citibank checking account.

“I've never gone into an account like this, so give me a moment.” Miyo tapped some more. “There is no breakdown here that shows the employee discount. Do you think it was factored in?”

“Yes. I remember seeing the discount marked on my own receipt. I'm sure it was there.”

“Check the receipts,” Miyo said as the printer started chugging out a paper. “This paper I'm printing out is for you to take home to compare.”

“I will do that. Thank you.” I'd given a lot of receipts to Michael during our meeting at the New Sanno, but I knew I had the slips from my most recent purchases in an envelope on my bedside table.

Miyo turned off the computer and stood up. “After this nightmare about the coat, I should be buying you a drink.”

“Not at all,” I answered, folding the paper into my purse. “I have plenty of cash, and I invited you. Besides, after the first drink or two, I don't think we'll have to cover many expenses at all.”

The ride from Ginza to Roppongi on the Hibiya line was supposed to take thirty-two minutes, but it went much faster with Miyo at my side. Every now and then, a subway car is noisy; and our particular car, filled with lively young people going out on the Friday evening of Valentine's weekend, was buzzing. People were even using their cell phones, a violation of subway policy.

Normally I would have used the time to text-message Michael—I was consumed with curiosity about his interview with Warren Kravitz—but with Miyo at my side, that was impossible. So I talked to her.

As I'd suspected, the British boyfriend was not exactly in the picture. From what I could gather, she'd dated an Englishman a few times, but things hadn't gone well on their shopping trip, and he hadn't called her since. She was at loose ends, because she had no interest in dating Japanese or Koreans.

“
Tsumaranai
,” she said; by now, I'd realized that “boring” was her buzzword for anything she didn't want. In Miyo's worldview, Asian men were boring because they didn't treat women well enough; they expected women to do all the housework, to defer to men's authority, and so on.

I was about to point out that there were many American men like that, too, before remembering that I had promised to help her meet an American guy—not just any guy, but one who was handsome, single, and high-earning. I lectured, “The thing about American men, which you might not understand, is that abroad, they sometimes lose a good bit of charm.”

“How?” Miyo sounded skeptical.

“They become arrogant because of the way so many Asians seem to cater to them. It doesn't matter that it's not even sincere admiration—just regular politeness.” I paused. “You don't want to live with a man who acts this way. Believe me.”

“But I don't want my family's life. Japanese like Koreans as long as they're acting in television soap operas or operating barbecue restaurants. They don't want to work under Koreans, in companies or stores. I've told you before how I'm trapped as a contract employee at Mitsutan. I'll never be a salaried, lifetime worker.”

“So marriage is an escape—”

“Exactly. And if I get a foreigner—a really good foreigner—I can just leave this. Go away, like you did, to another country, where race doesn't matter.”

Race did matter, in every country that I'd been in. But I didn't correct Miyo, because I felt that I was finally starting to understand her bitterness. And her marriage plan did make sense, in a warped kind of way.

As we strolled down Roppongi-dori, I further explained the classic problem with cross-cultural dating. I told Miyo that although she was beautiful, she wouldn't be able to take a relationship past the proverbial one-night stand if she couldn't talk to a man properly.

“And when I say talk, it's not just
hai-hai-hai
,” I said. “Flattery is important, but not the only thing. You must carefully tease them.”

“You mean—like bullying in schools?” Miyo sounded shocked.

“No, not exactly.” I was rambling, because this was not my usual arena of expertise. “It's like insulting them, but with a smile.”

“Maybe we should go somewhere less public while we're talking about this.” Miyo had lowered her voice, as if she was worried that I was about to give away state secrets.

“Sure,” I agreed. “Let's sit down and have a drink somewhere in Roppongi Hills. There are so many places.” Roppongi Hills housed at least three major foreign investment banks, perfect fishing grounds for Miyo—and not a bad spot for me to keep an eye out for the men I was interested in: Michael, Warren Kravitz, and Jimmy DeLone.

Under the soft golden light at the Iron Grill, I coached Miyo. Her English was not going to be transformed, but at least she now had some sample conversational openers to interest men, so she didn't come off as a stereotyped Japanese girl: the kind of girl western guys were delighted to sleep with a few times, until the next beautiful girl came along.

“Can you ride a bicycle? I mean, a bike?” I asked Miyo in English, keeping an eye on the door. Where were the guys, anyway?

“Yes, I can ride a bike.” Miyo sounded bored.

“Any other sports?”

“Well, I've been kick-boxing and snowboarding this winter, and I scuba-dive in the spring and summer.”

“That's fantastic,” I said. “I had no idea you're so athletic! It totally goes against the stereotype of the delicate Japanese blossom.”

“You have to take up hobbies when you have your free day in the middle of the week. Certainly, men aren't available to go out.”

I'd noticed small groups of men coming in for dinner together—colleagues, it was clear, some of them probably entertaining international visitors. I was hoping to find a twosome or threesome, possibly including women; that would make our efforts seem less like a cold, hard hit, so I asked the bartender if it would be possible for Miyo and me to move to a centrally located table and consider the menu.

Of course. We were pretty girls, and pretty girls usually got visible seats in restaurants. I glanced over the menu, which was classically western, but with mostly regional ingredients: pork from Kagoshima, beef from Tokachi, and so on. There was some seafood, too; I could survive, if we were going to have dinner later, as I hoped. In the meantime, I ordered sizzling Hokkaido scallops and Miyo took the prawn cocktail. We practiced English conversation as we nibbled, and finally, I was convinced I'd seen the right pair. They'd come in with their ties off and jackets open; one was blond, tall, and looked all of twenty-two years old, though I knew he was probably at least old enough to have earned an MBA. The shorter man with him had longish dark hair and an olive complexion: South Asian, I guessed.

In Monterey, I'd sometimes gone by myself to the historic old Regency Theater on Alvarado Street to watch the Indian movies screened there on Sunday afternoons. The young man resembled a younger version of one of the most popular male romantic heroes, Salman Khan. But this Indian sitting in a Tokyo restaurant was not a film star; he was something even better, I realized as I took in the gym bag with a Winston Brothers logo near his feet.

“They've probably got girls arriving,” Miyo said, because the table was a four-top.

“Not likely,” I said, although that was a possibility. By now, the restaurant was packed with girls dining with girls and guys with guys, all stylish young Japanese. “I'm sure our boys were given the good table because they're regulars. They're just having their usual supper, and then when it's almost eleven, they'll head back to their office to talk on the phone with their bosses back in New York,” I said, watching the two sip Cokes.

“But westerners aren't supposed to work very hard, not like Japanese.”

“They have to report in at night, when the stock markets are just opening in the morning in New York. Only after they've touched base with their colleagues will they hit the clubs, and that's where our competition will be. We can't let them get to that point.”

“I thought you were going to introduce me to someone you knew,” Miyo said.

“Unfortunately, the ones I knew are abroad at the moment,” I said. “But I think I have the skills to carry this off. Just watch.”

“Well, I want the blond one,” Miyo said.

“Sure.” I preferred exotic foreigners over Americans, anyway. But I said, “Remember, I'm trying not to get involved with a westerner; my parents would kill me. I'm only here to help make an introduction.”

The plan was simple. I called the waiter over and ordered two dirty martinis to be sent over to the boys' table. I included a note, which said in English, “Too much work makes Jack a dull boy. See ya! Miyo and Rei.”

“It's pretty forward,” Miyo said, not wanting to look up from her plate after the waiter had gone off, smirking a little. I was sure the note was an oddity; an expensive restaurant like the Iron Grill wasn't exactly a pickup joint.

The restaurant was really jumping now, so it took ten minutes for the drinks to get to the table. I instructed Miyo to join me in looking steadily at the two young men, until they'd established our identity. I waved as cheerfully as if we all were old friends.

The blond stood up and waved back. That made it official, I thought; we were welcome to join them.

“Let's carry our drinks over. I already left money for the waiter,” I told Miyo.

“I'm so nervous. I know I won't say anything, and you'll get all the attention—”

“You walk ahead of me and you say the first line, remember?” I said under my breath as we started walking. “And after that, if you get tongue-tied, I'll speak Japanese to tell you what to say.”

Miyo performed brilliantly. The fact was, that a girl as beautiful as she was needed to say only a few friendly things to make a man feel successful—and if there was a teasing quality to the talk, as I'd said, it was all the better. Miyo asked the blond if he was the snowboarder who'd fallen on his face in Hokkaido the previous week. After he was done laughing, he said that no, he hadn't been there, but skiing in Hokkaido was something he hoped to do. The season was almost over, I said, mentioning that Miyo and I were getting ready for a scuba-diving vacation in Izu.

The blond one was called Archibald Weinstock and the dark one Ravindra Shah—Ravi for short. They'd both earned MBAs at Penn. Archie had been at Winston Brothers for two years, Ravi for one year. Their lives were so busy that they hadn't had a moment to study Japanese; they couldn't believe how good our English was.

“Have you had dinner yet?” Archie asked, smiling.

“Actually, we've just had a few appetizers,” I said. “But we intend to eat. Miyo loves steak, so I'm taking her out tonight because it's her twenty-first birthday.”

A round of happy birthdays ensued. Before we knew it, Archie and Miyo were both ordering Japanese flat-iron steaks, and I was wavering between grilled asparagus and macaroni gratin.

“So little to eat?” Ravi asked, looking concerned.

“I'm a vegetarian,” I confessed.

“Really! I am, too. I just came here with Archie tonight because it's close.” Ravi Shah had a nice accent—New Jersey tinged with something else. I had to smile at his dinner order; sautéed spinach, broccoli, asparagus, pumpkin puree, and the macaroni gratin.

“Why not add the mushrooms, potatoes, and onion rings?” I raised my eyebrows. “Then you'd have it all.”

“Ah, but I cannot eat anything that grows underground,” Ravi said. “That's the problem.”

“Not to mention meat or fish,” Archie said. “Ravi has a hard time staying alive in Japan.”

“Are you a Jain?” I asked.

Ravi blinked. “Yes. I'm surprised you've heard of my faith.”

I bit my lip. It was a little unusual for a Japanese to know much about foreign religions. For someone from San Francisco, it was par for the course, but I wasn't supposed to be American tonight. “In our jobs, we help many foreigners. Some are Jains.”

“Yes, I just helped a kind lady named Jane last week,” Miyo said.

Quickly, I explained to Miyo a bit about the Indian religion that held all forms of life reverent—even small insects, which could be accidentally killed if vegetables were pulled from the earth.

“You're quite the interpreter,” Archie said, grinning. He was loosening up nicely, thanks to the martinis. But I had to watch myself, and give more talking time to Miyo.

“Just as Archie is to Ravi, Miyo, you're my
sempai
. Please explain our job; you'll make a much better effort than I can, as I have a lot to learn.”

“We help foreigners buy things,” Miyo said. “Everything from underwears to umbrellas.”

Both men laughed appreciatively, and I winked at Miyo. I'd taught her the line earlier, wanting her to sound both suggestive and innocent, at the same time. It had all come off seamlessly.

“I guess you could say we help people buy things, too,” Archie said, leaning a little closer to her. “Not underwears, but bonds.”

“How exciting! You must be very smart,” I purred.

Ravi looked at me a bit longer, and more skeptically, making me feel a bit uncomfortable. Obviously, my knowledge of Indian religions didn't jibe with my charming naïveté.

“We have a customer from your firm, what is his name, Miyo?” I said, screwing up my forehead. “Kravis-san?”

“Kravitz? Are you talking about Warren Kravitz?” Ravi rubbed his hand across his chin, which was developing a very attractive five-o'clock shadow.

“Yes, that's it. Miyo-chan, you said you met him, right?” I waited, half hoping Miyo would say something inflammatory, like he was a pain in the ass to take shopping.

“Oh, yes. He is actually our number one foreign customer!” Miyo smiled at me, almost making me forget how snippy she'd been when I'd asked about the Kravitzes before.

“Warren Kravitz does so well that he could shop all day and night, if he had the time,” Ravi said. “He's head of the Japanese investment banking division. The year-end bonus he gets is the stuff of legend.”

“How much?” Miyo asked, and I quickly kicked her under the table. We didn't want to give the impression that we were after the men for their money.

“How much time do you have to work at the firm to become a partner? That's what Miyo was asking,” I said.

“Oh, God, I don't know. Ten years?” Ravi said. “For Kravitz, it was faster.”

“And they usually recruit guys from the outside to take the really sweet spots. There's a lot of movement within the banking community,” Archie said.

“You'd think that somebody working loyally within the company would be rewarded. That's our Japanese thinking,” I said.

“You know what gets rewarded?” Archie said.

Both Miyo and I shook our heads.