Women On the Other Shore (3 page)

She h a d finished h e r food. Pushing her bowls aside, she leaned forward a n d p r o p p e d her elbows on t h e table.

"I know, I know. Why housekeeping, of all things? But I have a long-term vision here. Living in Japan, we pretty much have to get on a plane no matter where we want to go, plus we really don't get all that much vacation time. Even so, in spite of all the obstacles, everybody's always going on trips, all over the world. You'd be hard pressed to find a country we don't visit. It was when I ran into some seventy-two-year-old Japanese tourists in Paraguay that it hit me like a flash: our love of travel isn't going away. In fact, it's probably going to grow.

And I suppose this may partly be wishful thinking, but I'm willing to bet that workers will start getting lots more vacation days as time goes on. That's where the housekeeping service comes in. T h e idea is to look after people's homes when they go off on extended v a c a t i o n s -

water their shrubs, weed their gardens, bring in their mail, air out their rooms, make sure the house is clean. Going away on vacation could be a whole lot more relaxing if you didn't have to worry about all those niggling chores while you were gone, don't you think?"

Aoi was leaning animatedly into her words.

"I suppose so," Sayoko nodded rather tentatively. To someone who hadn't traveled anywhere at all since her daughter was born, it didn't sound like a particularly lucrative venture.

"Of course, things like this don't take root overnight. For one thing, right now, not that many people go on such long vacations that they need someone to come in and take care of their house.

But in any case, I don't have to make it pay right away and I think it's important to get started, so I decided to work with a housecleaning service a friend of mine runs and broaden the target market to include other people too, not just travelers. That's where you come i n . . . . Whew! All this talking is making me thirsty," she said, and gulped down the rest of her beer.

Sayoko finally finished her food and put down her chopsticks.

Most of Aoi's explanation had gone right over her head, but she gathered that Platinum Planet was experiencing financial difficulties, and it sounded like Aoi had decided to turn it from a travel agency into a housecleaning service. But to avoid the stigma of admitting failure, or maybe because of a legal catch of some kind, she was forcing it into a "housekeeping for travelers" mold. It was probably something like that, she concluded vaguely.

"About the hours," Sayoko spoke up, finding her chance now that Aoi had paused. "I think the job description said three or four days a week, but I was wondering if there's any chance I could work five days."

Aoi's eyes widened. "My, my, aren't you fired up!"

"Actually, it isn't that. The thing is, I'll need to enroll my daughter in nursery school, but they might not accept her if I'm only working three days a week. Admission decisions depend a lot on the mother's hours and other work conditions."

"Oh, right, of course. You said you had a daughter. Then how about we do this? I really only need you three days a week for now, but eventually it'll be five, so we'll go ahead and classify you as a regular, full-time employee instead of a part-timer. You probably need some kind of letter to that effect, right?"

"Are you sure it's all right?"

"Of course, of course. It's no problem at all. Except I won't pay you for five days."

"Heavens, no," Sayoko replied a little too forcefully.

"I'm just teasing," Aoi said with a guffaw.

"You know, this reminds me of the student cafeteria," Sayoko said, gazing out the large picture window. Sunlight flickered through the leaves of a tall tree overhead just like at the dining hall she'd frequented on campus.

"Oh, right, you mean the newer one," Aoi nodded, squinting a little as she looked through the glass. "I ate there quite a bit, too. I even went back after I graduated. It was so cheap."

"Then we might really have bumped elbows sometime."

"Remember the marinated tuna bowl? Only ¥580—except that was way more than I could spend in those days. All I could do then was drool."

"Sure, I remember. I drooled, too. Curry and rice for ¥170 was my mainstay. The cheapest item on the menu."

"Right. And good luck ever finding any meat in it!"

They looked at each other and laughed. Talking about their student days like this, it was hard to believe they'd only just met. It felt like they must have eaten lunch together in the student cafeteria dozens of times, moaning about the out-of-reach tuna bowl or meat-challenged curry.

"All right, then." Aoi reached for the check and got to her feet.

"Can you come back to the office once? I'd like to introduce you to the others." Sayoko hastily rose to follow.

As they started down the narrow stairway, Aoi looked over her shoulder to say, "I'm so glad I found someone like you for this job, Mrs. Tamura."

"That's very kind," Sayoko said, bowing.

Sayoko caught a bus when she got off the train in Ogikubo, but traffic was backed up and it was going on four by the time she reached her mother-in-law's house in Iogi.

"What took you so
long,
dear? I suppose you just
had
to see what was new at the department store? How
nice
to be so young at heart."

Grandma Tamura looked up from the TV in the living room sounding a little put out, her words dripping with sarcasm. "For your information, I kept Akari going until just a few minutes ago. You said not to let her nap, so I did everything I could to keep her awake, I really did, but when you didn't come home and didn't come home, and she kept getting fussier and fussier, I had to give up and let her lie down."

To hear Shuji tell it, this was simply the way his mother talked 24

and she didn't m e a n to be snide or sarcastic. Sayoko wanted to think he was right, b u t s o m e h o w she'd never quite learned to shrug it off with a smile.

"I'm sorry. T h e t r a f f i c was stop and go, and the bus hardly got above a crawl."

"Do you really h a v e to go back to work, Sayoko? Is it so hard to make ends m e e t on Shuji's paycheck?"

"It's not that," Sayoko said, smiling vaguely as she started for the tatami room upstairs.

Akari lay w i t h a r m s a n d legs f l u n g wide on a guest futon in the middle of t h e floor. L i f t i n g h e r daughter's limp body like a heavy wet blanket, Sayoko slid h e r off onto t h e tatami floor, then folded the futon and p u t it away in t h e bedding closet. When she was finished she gathered Akari into h e r arms and descended the stairs. She could hear her mother-in-law busy with something in the kitchen.

"I'm sorry, Mother," Sayoko called f r o m the front hall, "I need to be going right away. I'll c o m e again some other time when I don't have to rush off in s u c h a hurry. T h a n k you so much for taking Akari today."

Grandma T a m u r a a p p e a r e d carrying a paper bag. "Can you take this?" she said. "It's s o m e organic vegetables, and also some dried fish from Odawara. T h e y were gifts, and I wanted to share with you and Shuji."

Sayoko groaned inwardly at t h e extra weight, but she could hardly say no.

"That's nice of you. T h a n k you," she said with a bow. "Well, I need to be going." She b o w e d again as she closed the door behind her.

Sayoko m a d e h e r way toward t h e bus stop with the sleeping Akari clutched in o n e a r m a n d t h e heavy shopping bag dangling from the other. A h i n t of o r a n g e h a d come into the light over the city as the sun sank lower in t h e sky.

"
No
wanna,"
Akari m u m b l e d in her sleep right next to Sayoko's ear.

First I'll need to visit all the nursery schools nearby, and then there'll
be applications to fill out, and then...

On the bus, Sayoko's mind began to spin as she made
a mental
list of all the things she
would need to
do. A whole
new
life
awaited
her
tomorrow.
No, it had already begun today. How often had
she awakened to rain and
rejoiced that she could skip the
park that day, only to have her
joy
displaced
a
moment later by pangs of guilt? But that person was now fading
rapidly
into the distance, like the view outside the bus window.

"What a hick t o w n ! " Aoi N a r a h a s h i muttered as she gazed out her bedroom window. Filling h e r entire field of vision was a vast expanse of rice paddies, giving way in t h e distance to mulberry fields, and beyond t h a t to b a m b o o groves.

It was an assessment she h a d c o m e to when she first arrived in town, t h e m o m e n t she got off t h e train and noticed that every high school girl in sight was still wearing her skirt long. Why were they in uniform during spring break anyway?

"Aoi! Are you u p ? " she h e a r d her mother calling from downstairs.

"Time to get moving!"

Aoi quickly r e a c h e d for h e r school uniform on its hanger. She slid her arms t h r o u g h t h e sleeves of t h e brand new blouse, pulled on the pleated skirt, a n d h e a d e d downstairs with t h e jacket and ribbon in her hand.

Her m o t h e r stood at t h e table lifting scrambled eggs from the fry pan onto her plate.

"It won't do to be late on your first day, dear, so hurry up. You want to be sure to get o u t t h e door in plenty of time."

"I know, I know."

Aoi sat d o w n a n d stuck a fork into a breakfast wiener. With her other h a n d she r e a c h e d for t h e television remote and changed channels from t h e m o r n i n g d r a m a her mother had on to a news show.

Shots of Tokyo Disneyland c a m e on screen: it was apparently one year ago today t h a t t h e park h a d opened.

"Hey, I was watching that," her mother grumbled as she came back from the kitchen and set a plate of toast in front of Aoi. Even so, she stood watching the Disneyland coverage with apparent interest.

Aoi said nothing and bit into her toast. The breakfasts her mother made for her hadn't changed in the slightest way since their big move. It made her feel like she was still in the same old town, getting ready to go to the same old school. She turned away from the TV to look out the window. The sight of the rice paddies beyond the curtains reassured her that, no, she wasn't in that detested place anymore.

"Don't dawdle over your food, dear. Think how embarrassing it'd be to show up late on your first day of school. Oh, your ribbon.

There were some special instructions for tying it, weren't there?

I remember getting a handout. Where did I put that?"

She shuffled over to the buffet and started opening and closing drawers. Aoi didn't know why, but she felt a surge of irritation come over her as she watched her mother search.

"Relax, Mom. I'm not gonna get picked on again just for being a little late. And even if something does happen, I promise not to insist we move again."

Her tone was facetious, but when her mother turned around she was fighting back tears.

"You really needn't worry, dear. This is a proper girls' school, and the students all come from good families. They won't be going around bullying each other. I'm sure they're too mature for that."

Mrs. Narahashi's attempt at being comforting only fueled Aoi's aggravation.
Oh, sure.
A
girl whose father drives a cab and mother
has to look for work the minute they
move
into this poor excuse for
a home is gonna get along real well with all those fine princesses from
good families.
The sarcastic comment was on the tip of her tongue, but she shoved the words back with a forkful of scrambled eggs. No point in upsetting her mother. Buying a house even as old and beat up as this one had to have been a pretty big stretch for her parents.

28

Her father used to eat breakfast with them at least every other day, but he was driving longer hours since the move; now they were lucky to see him at dinner once in three days. And it wasn't for jollies that her mother spent most of her days pounding the pavement in search of work.

"Thanks for breakfast, Mom," Aoi said as she finished tying the dark red ribbon into a bow under her chin. She stood up and faced her mother. "Does this look okay?"

Her mother carefully compared Aoi's bow with the instruction sheet she'd found. "Yep, looks good," she said, gazing intensely at her daughter. She followed Aoi to t h e door.

"See ya later," said Aoi.

"Bye-bye! Have a nice day, dear! Daddy'11 be home for dinner, so I'm planning to make something really yummy."

She was trying a little too hard to sound cheerful and flapped her hand wildly in an exaggerated wave. You'd think she was a newlywed seeing her husband off to work for the first time, thought Aoi with a smile as she closed t h e door gently behind her.

A short distance up t h e street toward the bus stop, Aoi turned to make sure her m o t h e r was no longer watching, then reached under her jacket and rolled t h e waistband of her skirt over and over on top of itself until t h e h e m was above her knees. Once she had her skirt at the right length, she quickly ran the rest of the way to the bus stop.

Aoi and her family had moved here from Isogo Ward in Yokohama less than a m o n t h before, right after Aoi finished ninth grade and graduated f r o m junior high. It was a move prompted by bullying.

Somehow, Aoi h a d failed to learn the secrets of friendship. She didn't know what she had to do to get along, nor what made things go sour.

All the way back t h r o u g h grade school, she'd never had anybody she could call a close friend. Even when she thought she'd finally made a friend, that person would invariably drift away after a few weeks and start hanging out with someone else. Or worse, she and her new pals would snub Aoi and whisper mean things behind her back. Aoi never understood what she could be doing wrong. She was still try.

ing to figure it out when she moved on up to junior high.