Summer Haikus – Chapter 16

“You know, your mother wears a kimono every day when she works here.” Poor Reiko, roped into helping me get dressed in one of my mother’s kimonos, sighs as she places small cushions on my back and wraps obi fabric over them, sometimes pulling so hard, I jerk and nearly fall over.

“Really?” I take a deep breath as my body is constricted, first with the heavy silk fabric and then the obijime cords.

She nods as she faces me and evens out the line of obi across my front. “Yes, and this kimono is too old for you. You’re not married and should wear furisode kimono with longer sleeves.”

I frown down at the cream-colored kimono and forest green obi. “I don’t have my own kimonos.”

“Nonsense.” Reiko puffs air between her lips and waves. “I’m sure your mother has some for you stored away. All mothers do that.”

I don’t want to remind Reiko that I grew up in the US and my mom lived there for over twenty years. If she did buy kimonos, I doubt they were for me.

“Thank you, Reiko-san,” I say, bowing and changing the subject. “I appreciate your help.”

I press my hands against my stomach, quashing the butterflies dancing around, and take a deep breath. Well, as deep as possible since there’s only so much freedom I have in a kimono like this.

“Remember to take small steps and don’t let the bottom of the kimono flop open.”

I nod my head at her as we leave the office. The front lobby is quiet, but I’m ready to greet guests early. My duty is to stand at the door, bow and talk to each person as he or she enters the banquet room. I touch my hair to make sure it’s still in place, swept to the side with an elegant silver comb, keeping my long bangs away from my face. I stick my head in the banquet room, and both sides of the long space are lined with floor cushions and small tables where we will serve food and sake. The woman we hired to play shamisen is setting up her instrument at the far end.

My phone in my obi buzzes so I pop it out and find a text from Halley. “Off the train and in a cab. Be there soon.”

Good. Everyone is on time!

“Wow,” Masa says, approaching me from the back room. His warm smile makes me start to sweat. “This is the first time I’ve ever seen you in a kimono.”

“It’s a little strange. I haven’t worn one in years.”

“You look…” He falls to a stop only a foot from me before he jams his hands in his pockets.

“How do I look?” I whisper, wanting desperately to hear his opinion. I want to believe the pens were the opening salvo of a Masa assault to woo me, and he’s just warming up to the idea of us taking our friendship to more romantic levels.

Please, God. I want to be wooed!

“Isa!” Halley squeals, walking through the front door of the ryokan and shucking her shoes in exchange for the house slippers. “You look gorgeous! You haven’t worn a kimono since we were kids.”

She comes to hug me and I curse her timing. Masa was just about to say something to me. If he had complimented me, I would have reached for his hand. Now we’re three feet apart and my best friend is between us.

“Masa,” Halley says, leaning over to kiss him on the cheek. His whole face blushes. “Good to see you outside of the 7-11.”

I envy Halley, the sinful feeling blossoming to jealousy quickly. She can do no wrong. Here she is, kissing Masa on the cheek and immediately claiming all the attention in the room as other people turn to look at her. Yet, she doesn’t even try to do this. It’s natural to her.

“Halley,” Masa says, nodding at her. “I didn’t realize you were coming tonight.”

“Isa must have forgotten to mention it.” She smiles and checks her phone.

“It slipped my mind with everything else going on. Halley, I’m in this seat by the door. Do you want to sit next to me or closer to the shamisen player?”

Halley glances from me to Masa, and they stare at each other for a heartbeat.

“I’ll sit on the opposite side of the room across from you. Masa, you should sit next to Isa.” She squeezes my arm, winks at me, and heads inside to sit at her spot. My face bursts into flames.

“You don’t have to sit next to me if you don’t want to,” I choke out, barely able to squeeze the words from my throat. All the easiness of our usual days falls away, and I feel like a helpless lovesick puppy. I blame the kimono. The kimono changed our whole dynamic.

Masa releases his hands from his black trousers and lets the gray, striped, button-down shirt fall over his waist. He steps forward into my personal space, glancing around at the people beginning to gather in the lobby and lounge, and takes my hand in his. The contact is electric, so charged I inhale sharply and hold my breath.

“I was going to say that you look beautiful,” he whispers. He squeezes my fingers in his and gently lets go. I let out my held breath and tremble as his fingers sweep across the skin of my wrist and up my inner arm. He grasps my elbow lightly and leans in to close his eyes and rest his forehead against mine for a brief moment.

I stand absolutely still, unwilling to move and break this spell. Quiet men say things with gestures, and oh, I am listening as hard as I can.

Soft steps on the wood floor startle us, and we jump apart. Masa keeps his eyes on the room and away from me as he sits down in the spot next to mine. I glance at Halley and she raises her eyebrows at me. She saw it. I didn’t just imagine Masa being that close to me.

I falter for a moment, not remembering where I am or what I was doing. Right. I’m a hostess. I smile at the guest approaching the door and motion him inside, welcoming him and everyone behind him into the room. I bow and gesture so much, my back begins to hurt, and I haven’t even gotten to the stressful part yet.

With the guests seated, they ooh and ahh over the intricate dishes on their plates the rest of the staff serve them. The most difficult part of my job is to sit seiza, on my knees, and inch along the room, from one seated guest to the next, serve them sake, ask them about their stay, what they would like to do while they’re in Tokyo, and remember everything so I can arrange plans for them later. It’s considered impolite to stand over guests during a banquet so I must stay on my knees the entire time, setting the sake bottle down and leaning forward on my hands before bringing my knees back under me. The movement requires a lot of arm and core strength and reminds me of gymnasts using the parallel bars. I glance over at Masa several times, and his eyes are always on me, fascination clear in his expression. I must seem like a completely different person than the jeans wearing, rumpled student he saw so many days during the last two years.

The conversation continues as I inch my way around the room, pouring, talking, and laughing, trying to be the perfect hostess. Sensing someone in the doorway, I look up from my duties and my grandpa is there smiling at me. He said he would check on me before he left for the evening. It was his job this past week to teach me how to handle a banquet, and my confidence is buoyed by his smile and short nod.

When I return to my spot by the door, the shamisen player begins her show, and all the guests take out their phones or cameras to capture memories.

I try not to groan as I settle back into my seat. My legs and knees ache through the numbness of sitting on them for almost an hour. My dinner sits in front of me, but I can’t eat it because I can’t get comfortable.

“I’ve never seen a banquet dinner like this. You’re so good at this, as good as a geisha,” Masa whispers to me.

“I missed my calling in life.” I slip my phone from my obi, open my email, and enter in all the requests from the guests in a note to Reiko and myself.

“What are you doing?” Masa asks, his voice hushed so no one can hear us. He eats the mushroom and bamboo shoot rice with chopsticks while peering over my shoulder.

“So many of the guests want to go places I never thought would be interesting. Like, those German tourists and the couple from Australia want to go to a local bath house. And the couple from China wants to see how wagashi is made. The man from California is a katana dealer and he wants to take his clients out for uni.” I sigh, knowing I’ll be spending my entire evening before bed on Google or talking to my grandparents or the kitchen staff about these things. I rest my back against the wall behind me and press hard, trying to relieve the shooting pains between my shoulder blades.

“Isa!” Reiko harshly whispers to me at the doorway, so I crawl to her and stand up on the other side.

“Whoa,” I say, clutching her arm as the blood runs back into my legs. “Ow, that hurts! I have no idea how my mom does this job at twice my age.”

Reiko laughs. “I know an eighty-year-old ryokan owner who does this every day! You’ll get used to it.” She sighs. “One of our late check-ins has an issue.” She jerks her head toward the front desk and the family standing there, with a child in a wheelchair.

I swallow as my mind races through a hundred different plans. “They never told us they needed the wheelchair accessible room.”

“Our website says we have the rooms, so they didn’t feel they needed to tell us.”

“Right. Of course.” The first thing I’m suggesting to Mom is to update the website, and it needs to be in English, French, Spanish, and Chinese as well. “Give them the suite next to the couple celebrating their anniversary —”

“What about the people who were supposed to have that suite tomorrow?”

“Uhhhh…” I rub my hands together, squeeze and let go. Masa opens the sliding door to the banquet, leaves the room, slides the door closed, and stands to take a phone call, a frown on his face.

“Okay,” I say returning to Reiko, “let’s give this family the suite. When the people come tomorrow who were supposed to take the suite, we’ll explain the situation, give them a discount and a different room, then move them up to the top floor once the couple celebrating their anniversary are gone on Monday. We’ll offer to take everything up for them and make the transition as seamless as possible.”

Reiko nods her head and smiles. “This is a good compromise.”

I follow her to the front desk, introduce myself to the family, welcome them, explain the situation, and direct them to the wheelchair ramp closer to the lounge where they can access the hallway and elevator. Back down the hall to the banquet room, Masa is still talking on the phone, his hand gestures and voice agitated, so I busy myself, putting all the house slippers back in line near the front desk and tidying up the shoe cabinet before I walk to his side.

“I know, and I’m meeting Hinata soon to talk about internships and jobs for next year,” Masa says. He makes eye contact with me and rolls his eyes at the phone, mouthing, ‘My dad,’ at me as his father’s voice yammers at him from the other end of the line.

“I’m not coming home right now. I’m doing plenty of things here, and I still need to go see Grandma and Grandpa, and I want to go to the Games, too. Besides that, I’m spending time with Isa, and I know how much you love her.” He smiles at me and mouths, ‘It’s true.’ His parents are sweet and like me a lot, so that’s one thing I have going in my favor.

I hear the word “art” several times before Masa finally says he has to go and gets off the phone.

“My dad’s giving me a hard time about being here. The maid service tattled on me that I have canvases all over the apartment and they can’t clean.” He sighs. “And he’s pissed that I’m not out searching for jobs every day.”

I lean against the wall, putting pressure again between my shoulder blades. “I’m sorry. You should be out job searching instead of working here. Maybe you should take a few weeks to do that instead.” I wince at the pain in my legs and back.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” He lays his hand on my shoulders and I turn in his grip.

“My shoulders are killing me. Would you?” I jerk my head at him and he smiles, clutching both of my shoulders in his hands and massaging them. I close my eyes and steady my breathing. I’m shameless, asking for a massage, but his fingers work my muscles and relieve the pain, even as my body heats to blinding levels.

Masa’s breath blows across the back of my neck and my arms prickle with goosebumps. He laughs as he lets go of my shoulders and wraps his arms around them instead. Pulling my back to his front, he sighs as he leans against the wall. I would love to relax and enjoy this moment, to feel Masa’s body against mine, how easy it is, meant to be, but my heart is beating wildly and something that feels more like panic than excitement blankets my body.

“You’re doing a really good job with the ryokan, Isa. I’m proud of you.”

“Stop,” I say, blushing and placing one of my hands over his. “I have some good days, but overall, I’m lost at this stuff. I make decisions and at least half of them are wrong.” I pat his hand and tense my body to pull away from him. He releases my shoulders, and I step away, immediately cooler and more put together.

“I have to go back in. I need to do another round of sake, play drinking games, and entertain until the banquet is over.” My body aches just thinking about it.

Masa frowns. “Shouldn’t you eat dinner? It was delicious.”

“I’m sure it was, but I just wasted my dinner time. Well, not wasted.” I smile at him, trying to put his worried face at ease. “Thanks for the massage. It’s nice to have such skilled friends. All of that painting makes for strong fingers.”

He smirks, a little jerk of the lips. “You know I’d do anything for my friends.”

He accents the word so hard, it smacks me into me like a bucket of ice water, and my face falls before I can stop it. How could I be so stupid? I said it first. Every day I war with the two sides to our relationship equation. Keep Masa as a friend? Or try again to cross the line and hope this next time, romance will take hold? My subconscious pushed me towards friends even after he touched me and said I was beautiful… because he asked me to forget the kiss. We were supposed to pretend it never happened. Supposed to move on. But I’ve read signals from guys in the past and been wrong. So very wrong. I remember one time when Ethan flirted with me and even clutched me around the waist not long before he was tripping me in the halls and feeding printouts of Japanese porn into my locker.

“Isa…” Masa directs his eyes at the floor.

“Masa, I’m so glad you’re still my friend, after everything…” I swallow, so angry with myself, I could burst into a fiery phoenix plume right now. “I’m lucky you’re here, and I don’t deserve the attention you pay me. Thank you.”

I slide open the door and re-enter the party, not making eye contact with Halley, who is trying desperately to make eye contact with me.

The party marches on, but Masa doesn’t return.