Women On the Other Shore (29 page)

But Sayoko had reason to remember it. That same summer, as a junior in high school herself, she had lost every friend she had in one fell swoop. Although she'd never been a particularly popular girl, she had a group of friends she'd been going to school with since seventh grade. They went to the usual teen hangouts together after school, and they called each other on the phone every night. But now she was summarily dumped by them merely for having different college ambitions.

Everybody else had decided early on not to attempt the entrance exams for four-year schools. They were going to settle for the nearby community colleges and trade schools that would accept them on recommendations alone. Sayoko set her sights higher. She wanted to try for a major university in Tokyo, so she signed up for an intensive exam-prep course lasting all summer. Her friends called from time to time to invite her out for some fun, but she begged off in favor of studying. Then, when school started up again in the fall, they refused to speak to her anymore. They went off somewhere together at lunch, and they slipped out of the classroom without inviting her along at the end of the day. When she rang them at home, they pretended to be out; if she tried to talk to them at school, they gave her the silent treatment.

Sayoko couldn't understand it. She'd said no only a handful of times. Set against five years of friendship, it was next to nothing.

Did that mean the real reason for the sudden chill lay somewhere else? Perhaps there was something about her personality, or something she said or did, that had rubbed them the wrong way all along, and the events of the summer merely gave them a convenient excuse to finally cut her off. Once this thought got hold of her, it refused to let go. New fears crept into her mind. What could it be that they so disliked about her? What was wrong with her? Who had she inadvertently offended? Had she really done something so bad she deserved to lose all her friends?

Since her school was a combined junior high and high school, the circles that friends moved in had been in place since seventh grade.

There was simply no way for Sayoko to find a new group in elev-enth. She was now stuck doing everything on her own, and all of a sudden the school became an eerily quiet place. The clamor of her 224

classmates a n d t h e l a u g h t e r of younger students came to her like the muffled sounds f r o m a television set next door.

Even Sayoko didn't k n o w why a story about two high school girls attempting suicide struck such a chord with her when she first saw it on the m o r n i n g news. She went to the library and read all the articles she could f i n d about it in the newspapers and magazines.

According to t h e reports, t h e two girls had taken a summer job together with t h e intention of running away afterwards, then spent weeks wandering a r o u n d entertainment districts here and there before going to t h e c o n d o where one of them used to live and jumping off t h e roof. T h e weeklies claimed they were lesbian lovers, but Sayoko wasn't interested in this type of scandalmongering. She wanted to know w h a t their relationship had been like. They went to an all-girls school, just like her. How had they become friends?

What h a d they talked about? What made them decide to run away?

During all those weeks on the run, were there days when they grew tired of each other and stopped being friends?

At school, Sayoko continued to be ostracized during her senior year, b u t she found a new friend at the exam-prep academy she enrolled in. She and a girl from a coed high school discovered they were planning to take the exam at the same university, and they started meeting up on their way to the academy and going together.

On days when they didn't have classes there, they met to go to the library instead—or to the seashore. They would sit on the deserted autumn beach and talk about everything under the sun. When she was with this girl, the former friends who'd given her so much heartache the year before seemed hopelessly immature. They were nothing but a b u n c h of bores who hung out together for no good reason and got their kicks from blackballing an innocent friend. The quietness at school ceased to bother her, and the fear that she must have something terribly wrong with her began to fade. As she sat and talked with her newfound friend, she recalled her unanswered questions about the relationship of the two girls who'd jumped off the roof, and she thought maybe it was something like their own.

As it turned out, they wound up going to different universities.

Sayoko phoned her friend nearly every night, but she was always out. Even when she left a message with the girl's mother, she never called back, and although they had previously made plans to meet, she stood Sayoko up every time. It was summer before Sayoko finally reached her on the phone.

"You never call back," she said accusingly.

"I've been busy," her friend said, sounding peeved at being put on the spot. Then she lowered her voice and asked, "Don't you have any new friends?"

What Sayoko thought of then was not the countless hours that she and this person had spent together, but the girls she'd read about in the gossip columns two years before. What had they done after they survived their plunge, she wondered. Had they gone on to college, and to live in the here and now, putting their hand-in-hand leap completely behind them and resenting anything that brought it to mind again? Or did they perhaps remain hand-in-hand today, without ever knowing the sting of betrayal or mutual loathing?...

It was the kind of wound that time heals, and in fact Sayoko had forgotten all about it. But now, with Akari pulling her toward the candy aisle while she tried to examine the packages in the deli bin for something quick to put on the table, she recalled vividly the feeling of suffocation that had gripped her chest at her friend's words. From her present distance, she had difficulty understanding how something as trivial as that could have driven her into such a petrifying daze, as if the entire world had been turned upside down, but at the same time she thought she could see that every one of the choices she had made since then—the choices that made her who she was today—had in some way been determined by that moment.

"l actually know one of those girls," Sayoko murmured, still not quite sure she believed it. But there could be no mistake. Her memory of the time and the place and their ages matched the details she'd made Takeshi repeat so many times he began giving her strange looks. O n e of those two girls was this close to her now.

"What, Mommy? What did you say?"

"Nothing, dear. We need to get some milk, and then we're done."

Sayoko looked down at Akari and smiled as she maneuvered down the aisle bustling with last-minute shoppers before the store closed.

Sayoko thought of the girls she'd wondered so much about in her late teens. What did it mean to be close to someone? She'd longed to know the answer to that question. But maybe that wasn't how it had been at all. Come to think of it, hadn't she read that one of the girls was leading the other around against her will? Which would mean Aoi hadn't changed one bit since she was in high school, Sayoko suddenly realized, feeling as though she'd discovered a vital new fact about her employer. T h e girl Aoi had led around by the nose must have been someone very much like Sayoko herself—someone who got caught up in Aoi's gung-ho pace, could never bring herself to say no, and eventually found herself past the point of no return on that rooftop. She might even have phoned Aoi up later, sometime after they'd finished high school, only to hear her say curtly, "I'm busy.

What do you want?" Picturing the scene, Sayoko saw herself in a high school uniform standing in the place of Aoi's best friend.

Sayoko went through the checkout, bagged her groceries, and took her daughter's hand as they left the supermarket. Night had fallen outside. As they started up the darkened sidewalk, Akari sang a song she'd learned in school that day. Sayoko was sweating from the crowded, overheated store, and even with the night air chilling her skin it took a long time for the sweat to dry. When her song was finished, Akari began prattling on about her day. Sayoko responded absently. The smiling image of Aoi urging her to spend the night 227

with her in Atami faded in and out in front of her eyes, over and over and over.

There were no cleaning jobs scheduled that day, so Sayoko arrived at her usual time expecting to spend the day stuffing mailboxes. Normally she opened the door to the sound of phones ringing and people talking, but today the office was silent. The sliding doors to Aoi's room were shut, and the staff office was empty. The amber rays of the early winter sun warmed the houseplants on the windowsill.

Sayoko checked the schedule of upcoming jobs posted in the staff office, and quickly began loading bundles of fliers into her tote bag.

She heard the clatter of a sliding door opening, and Aoi appeared in the doorway. It was obvious that she had spent the night at the office and just woken up. Her face was puffy with sleep and she was dressed in sweats.

"Perfect. Just the person I wanted to see. Do you have a minute?"

she said groggily.

Sayoko took a seat at the dining table while her boss shuffled sluggishly into the kitchen to get the coffeemaker going. Still looking half-asleep, Aoi blankly watched the machine gurgle, not saying anything. When it stopped dripping, she poured a cup for Sayoko and a mug for herself and sat down across the table.

"Okay... here's the deal. I want to turn all of the housecleaning over to Noriko from here on out," she said, staring into her mug, looking pale without her makeup. "And I'd like your help here in the office now—on the travel side of things."

Sayoko sat gazing at her, unable to digest what she was hearing.

Aoi took a noisy sip of coffee. She offered no further explanation.

"I don't understand," said Sayoko when Aoi remained silent.

"There's been a revolt. I suppose that's what you'd call it anyway,"

she said, glancing up at Sayoko with her familiar smile. "Three people gave notice all at once. I know I need to start looking for 228

replacements right away." She paused for a moment, looking into her mug. "I need to start looking for replacements," she repeated in a low voice, "but even if 1 can find them quickly, there'll be a gap before they actually start. So for a little while, until things get back on track, I need your help here in the office. You can take a break from housecleaning."

"Three?"

"Junko and Misao and Mao. They'll all stay on the books through the end of the month, but they immediately wanted to know about claiming vacation time and how long they'd have insurance coverage and stuff. What do they think this is—some kind of blue-chip corporation? They better not expect any fancy severance package, that's for sure."

"But what about the jobs we've got scheduled?"

"That's why I'm saying, I want to turn the ones already in the pipeline over to Noriko's company, and the same for any new requests that come in. We'll stop advertising right away. The thing is, Yuki Yamaguchi will be moving to Canada with her husband in March.

That's not part of the revolt—I already knew we'd be losing her, which is why I was having her teach Misao how to handle the books.

I thought it was all under control, but now this. Ouch. If only I'd known, I'd never have put Misao on it in the first place. Anyway, I was hoping maybe you'd be willing to step into the accounting spot."

Takeshi popped into Sayoko's mind as she sat listening. The mass exodus had to have been his doing. He had lent an ear to Junko and the others and encouraged them to air their complaints, at times voicing his own agreement and pretending to be completely sympathetic, even pointing out Aoi's shortcomings himself, at other times singing her praises precisely to elicit their heated denials, and through it all he had been building solidarity among the three disgruntled employees. But why? Wasn't he one of Aoi's cronies?

"What about Takeshi?" Sayoko asked bluntly.

Aoi continued staring into her mug, her lips twisting into a faint self-mocking smile.

"Ahh, yes, dear Takeshi. He isn't actually an employee, temporary or otherwise, so there's no question of his quitting. But I somehow doubt we'll be seeing him around here anymore."

"But..."

Sayoko was about to blurt out something about Atami and the two of them being on sleeping terms, but she bit back the words.

"He's such a sleazebag. A tiny little company like this, he ought to know he's not gonna find any juicy pickings, but he has to come sniffing around, sticking his nose in where it doesn't belong and stirring things up."

"But what possible good does that do him?"

"Who knows? Maybe he's planning to start up his own company with the people he lured away. In the time he was pretending to help, he had plenty of chances to cozy up to our consultants and our tax accountant. I suppose he figured if someone as disorganized as me could run a company, he could do at least as well. But look at them. They're a bunch of idiots who don't actually care one whit about travel. What they care about is making money, but if that's all they've got driving them, I can tell you right now they'll never last.

For that matter, I figure they've all three of them slept with the jerk.

When that comes out, it could be the day of reckoning right there, even before anything else."

Aoi rattled on, scarcely pausing for breath, and Sayoko had to look away. It seemed the simultaneous desertion of her workers had hurt Aoi more than Sayoko could imagine. She had never heard her speaking of others with such venom before, and she didn't feel comfortable hearing it now.

Her spirits sagging, Sayoko found herself trying to remember why she'd ever wanted to go back to work, why she'd decided to thrust herself back into that messy world where one had to deal with all 230

sorts of different people. If only she hadn't come through this door that day, she could have remained blissfully ignorant of Aoi and all the squabbles that surrounded her here. She would have been spared her own high school memories, as well as her growing discontent with Shuji.