Women On the Other Shore (2 page)

The children who'd been playing house in the middle of the sandbox were now playing store, calling out to the shopkeeper with a bit of a nasal twang.

"I'd like just half of that cabbage."

"Could you clean this fish, please?"

Sayoko saw her daughter keeping a close watch on the action out of the corner of her eye. All of a sudden Akari was looking her way, a plea in her eyes—obviously hoping Mom might step in. Sayoko hastily averted her eyes. It tore at her heart, but she wanted Akari to learn to make friends on her own.

Several minutes later, the girl rose slowly to her feet, sand clinging to her skirt. With an expression of grim determination, she stepped toward the children playing store. The three seemed to be busy dividing things up and deciding what would be what in their game.

"Okay, so we'll use these for money," one of them said. "But not those. Those aren't money."

12

When Akari reached the spot where they were playing, she held out her shovel and sand-filled bucket as if to get their attention. But whether because they didn't notice or were deliberately ignoring her, none of t h e m even glanced up. She lingered there for a while, but when it sank in that they weren't going to ask her to join them, she abruptly threw down the shovel and bucket. As the bucket tumbled toward the ground, sand spewed onto the little boy's head. He burst into tears.

"Oh dear," Sayoko said, rushing to the boy's side and brushing the sand from his hair. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."

Akari watched from a few steps away. She was on the verge of tears herself.

A young woman in a hat approached with a smile. "That's all right.

He'll be fine," she said, t h e n turned to her boy. "Settle down, now, Shin. Stop being such a crybaby. You're frightening your friends."

His two playmates gave each other looks and turned to go.

"Come over here, Akari. You need to apologize," Sayoko said sharply. "What got into you anyway—throwing your bucket down like that?"

She regretted t h e tone of her voice even before the words were out of her m o u t h . W h y did she keep letting this happen? She knew it wasn't fair to Akari, but somehow she couldn't help herself. It so exasperated her to see her daughter having trouble making friends that an u n i n t e n d e d harshness crept into her voice.

"Don't be upset, sweetie," she said more gently. "Let's just tell your new friend we're sorry, okay?" She turned toward the boy and his mother, but they were already halfway across the sandbox heading in the other direction.

"Well, maybe it's time to stop by the supermarket and get on home. M o m m y just remembered she forgot to do the laundry."

Gathering up t h e bucket and shovel, Sayoko took Akari's hand and started back toward t h e bench.

that loud background voice ringing out in the cramped offices she had visited two days before.

"I'm sure there won't be a problem."

"In any case, could I ask you to come to the office again?

Tomorrow if possible, or the next day if that's better. Whenever's convenient for you."

"Tomorrow will be fine," Sayoko said eagerly. "I could be there a little after noon."

"Great! I'll see you then," the woman said, and hung up.

Sayoko very deliberately placed the handset back in its cradle before letting out a whoop. "I did it!"

"What?" Shuji turned to ask. "Who was that?" His eyes were already back on the TV.

"Who was that, Mommy?" Akari echoed, holding up her kiddie fork in a hand covered with rice.

"Remember what I was saying last month about going back to work? I just got offered a job! I was actually starting to worry I might never find anything. Anyway, the boss is the same age as me, and it turns out we even went to college together, though we didn t know each other. She's real down-to-earth and friendly, and it's only a tiny little company but I liked the relaxed atmosphere. I've been away from work for five years, so I'm thinking a small place like that might be the best fit. Especially since I felt like I hit it off with the boss."

Giddy with excitement, Sayoko rattled on as she carried the salad to the table and set out plates for it.

Platinum Planet's offices occupied what was once a two-bedroom apartment on the fifth floor of an old mixed-use building near Okubo Station on the Sobu Line. One bedroom was filled with desks for the staff; the other, a traditional tatami-mat room, had a plaque over the doorway that somewhat grandiosely declared "President's Office."

These connected directly to a larger room of about four meters by five, the original living-dining area. There was clutter everywhere, but curiously, in spite of t h e mess, Sayoko had felt very much at home during t h e interview. T h e boss struck her as a forthright person, and while they talked frequent bursts of laughter spilled from the staff office, w h e r e several women worked at their desks.
This is
perfect,
Sayoko r e m e m b e r e d thinking.
I wouldn't have to worry about
cliques and confrontations and childish backbiting here. Not with so
few people, and such an easygoing boss.
T h e atmosphere was by far the brightest of any place she'd been.

Shuji cast a n o t h e r glance her way. He seemed taken aback by the intensity of h e r enthusiasm. "Sounds great," he said tepidly as he turned back to t h e TV. "But what about Akari?"

Akari perked up at t h e mention of her name. "What about Akari?"

she echoed.

"She can go to nursery school."

Shuji said n o t h i n g as he p u t some salad on his plate.

"I've given it a lot of thought," Sayoko went on. "I know some people say t h e y feel sorry for kids who have to go to nursery school, including your mother. But I don't see how it can be anything but good for Akari to get to play with so many more kids her own age.

Plus we're going to have all kinds of new expenses as she gets older.

Even now, in fact—"

"What exactly will you be doing?" Shuji cut her off.

"The ad said cleaning."

"Cleaning?"

"But they're actually a travel agency of some kind."

"So what does t h a t m e a n ? "

"I guess I'll find out more tomorrow. Oh, oops, I'll need your mother to babysit again. Could you call her, dear? I'll switch once you've got her on t h e line."

Shuji had b e e n keeping his eye on the game as they talked. "All right!" he exclaimed to t h e crack of a bat.

Great,
thought Sayoko,
he cares more about the game than about
me going back to work after five years o f f .

"Well, whatever," Shuji said distractedly. His eyes remained glued to the TV. "But it's been a long time, so be sure to take it easy at first."

"Hooray for Mommy!" a smiling Akari cheered—though she could hardly have understood what her mother's excitement was about.

"Thank you, sweetie. Here's a great big kiss for you!" Sayoko wrapped her arms around Akari's neck and smacked her on the cheek.

The girl squealed with delight.

Sitting across from the president of Platinum Planet in a rather seedy-looking Chinese restaurant in Okubo, Sayoko glanced back and forth between her new boss and the name Aoi Narahashi printed on the business card at the edge of the table.

The moment she'd arrived at the office, the woman had hustled her right back out the door, saying, "Let's get some lunch." As she followed, Sayoko wondered giddily what sort of fancy restaurant someone who owned a whole company might take her to—especially since she hadn't been to a restaurant of any kind in a long time. But when they arrived, the place proved to be a run-of-the-mill neighborhood eatery with a faded, handwritten menu plastered on the wall. It was after one o'clock, so they had the upstairs seating all to themselves.

The waitress came with some beer and two glasses. Aoi lifted the bottle to fill Sayoko's glass, then her own.

"Cheers!" she said grandly, raising her glass. "Welcome aboard."

They clinked glasses and drank.

"What school were you in at the U?" Aoi asked with white foam clinging to the corner of her mouth.

"The Faculty of Letters. I majored in English literature." Instinctively, Sayoko used the courteous forms of speech expected when speaking to superiors.

18

"Oh, please. Let's not stand on ceremony. After all, we're exactly the same age," Aoi said. "I was in philosophy. It took me an extra year, but I finally did manage to finish. You know, I actually had a couple more interviews scheduled, but I made up my mind on you as soon as you left."

"Do you mind if I ask why?" Sayoko said in surprise.

"There's that formal language again," Aoi said, throwing her a disapproving look as she poured herself some more beer. "But why should you be so surprised?"

"I just wondered what made you so sure about me. I mean, everybody else kept turning me down. T h e ads would say 'Homemakers welcome,' but I'd get to the interview and they'd be afraid I was going to call in sick all the time because I have a little girl and kids are always coming down with something. Or they'd lecture me that majoring in English was no guarantee I was actually any good at it, and I'd better not try to claim so. Stuff like that. To be honest, I was really getting discouraged."

Aoi threw her head back and laughed. "When interviewers say things like that, you know there has to be some serious disgruntlement swirling around beneath the surface. They're taking their own frustrations out on the applicants. I don't have that kind of negative stuff weighing me down, so I can be a better judge of character.

That's all."

The waitress approached bearing a tray crowded with two full lunch specials, watching her every step. Today's entree was a stir-fry with eggplant and ground meat. When the waitress was gone, Aoi drew two pairs of chopsticks from the holder on the table and handed one to Sayoko.

"Now, I need to be sure you understand what you're getting into,"

she said, her face turning serious. "What you'll mostly be doing is cleaning people's houses. At the film distributor where you worked before you got married, you said they had you choosing Japanese titles for Asian films and handling spin-off merchandising, right?

Well, this job isn't going to let you exercise your creativity or offer you the sense of satisfaction a job like that gave you. It's a service job—basically just plain old manual labor. Are you sure you want to sign up for that kind of work?"

"Absolutely. I'll do anything. I just want to be working again." To herself she added,
Not "want to," actually, but "have to." For Akari's
sake. And for my own sake as her mother.

"Glad to hear it. That takes a load off my mind," Aoi said and promptly started in on her meal. Sayoko pulled apart her chopsticks and turned to her food as well.

Between bites, Aoi filled Sayoko in on the Platinum Planet story, scarcely raising her eyes from the food in front of her. The company was sort of an odd-jobber for the travel industry, she explained.

Their main business was putting together and operating travel packages to various resort destinations, mainly in Asia, both for individuals and corporations; in some cases they sold these packages to other travel agencies as well. But they also took on a variety of contract work from other agencies—acting as a purchasing agent, gathering information about overseas locations, arranging transportation and lodging, compiling customer surveys, and pretty much anything else an agency might ask them to do.

"That's why I describe us as an odd-job service," Aoi said. "Like I said, I took an extra year to finish college. Then as soon as I graduated, I started my own business. Not that that's saying much, since at first it wasn't a whole lot different from being a student for hire, you know. Basically I just did whatever people asked me to do. As it turned out, that soon became what the company was all about.

And one great benefit was that I developed a really wide network of contacts."

Aoi paused to take a sip of beer. She wore no makeup or jewelry. She certainly dressed modestly for the president of a company, 20

Sayoko t h o u g h t , realizing h o w laughably off the mark her image
of
a w o m a n w h o r a n h e r o w n business had been. T h e picture she
normally c o n j u r e d up for t h a t sort of a person was of someone dressed to t h e nines in designer clothes and weighed down with quantities of flashy jewelry, h e r face painted to elegant perfection. She was too nervous to notice at t h e time, Sayoko now recalled, but Aoi's appearance at t h e i r initial m e e t i n g h a d b e e n much the same—a far cry from t h e stereotype she'd pictured beforehand.

"Five or six years ago a b u n c h of hotels in southern Sri Lanka formed a c o n s o r t i u m called t h e G a r d e n Group. This was in towns on t h e I n d i a n O c e a n like Weligama and Tangalla that hadn't really been developed yet for t h e tourist trade. We won the contract to be the group's exclusive sales agent in Japan—all hotel reservations from this c o u n t r y would n o w go t h r o u g h us. T h a t put our business on a m u c h stabler f o o t i n g for a while, but t h e n the whole terrorism thing blew up, along w i t h t h e wars, you know. I suppose we were lucky in a way, since o u r core business was with travelers who didn't let that sort of t h i n g b o t h e r t h e m so much, unlike the big agencies, but we still took a hit. T h e n c a m e SARS. You'd think the gods were out to get us. A lot of small companies catering to the overseas traveler like us bit t h e dust."

Sayoko worked on h e r entree as she listened, nodding from time to time. If t h e y were in t h e travel business, how exactly did cleaning people's houses fit in, she kept wondering, as Aoi alternated briskly between talking a n d eating.

"Anyway, what with all that, I've been thinking we need to diver-sify," Aoi went on. "Like one obvious thing might be to break into domestic travel as well, you know. But I've been mulling over some other things, too, a n d o n e idea I had was to start up a housekeeping service."