Summer Haikus – Chapter 17

I slam my stack of papers down on the front desk next to Reiko.

“Ugh. I suck at this,” I mutter, flipping through the calendar to the next month, which has more red pen on it than black.

“Nan desu ka?” Reiko asks, and I switch back to speaking Japanese. When I’m pissed, I speak English. My brain doesn’t always change gears when I need it to.

“I’m horrible at the schedule,” I say, sweeping my hands over the July and August calendars. “For some reason, I can’t get the kitchen staff days to line up. And then the regular hotel staff? Forget about it. I’m hopeless.” I flip through the sheets of paper everyone submits asking for time off. I bet this would be easier if it were in some kind of software.

“What’s going on on July seventh that everyone either wants the day or night off?”

“Tanabata,” Reiko says, glancing at my pile and then back at the computer. Her curled hair sways with her head as she scans through the appointment system.

“What’s Tanabata?”

“One of the biggest summer holidays.” She turns to me with a hand on her hip. “The streets fill with star decorations, and at night, there are fireworks. It’s extremely fun. A lover’s holiday.” Her eyes twinkle, and she leans out past me, her eyes directed over my shoulder at Masa coming out of the back room. He waves to us both and heads into the lounge area, asking Yoshida, the bartender, for a glass of Coke. He’s been in the kitchen for the past half an hour restocking the pantry.

I glance at Reiko again, and her attention is on me.

“Oh, I didn’t realize it was a holiday. Well, I guess I can give most people some of the day off and come in to help out.”

“Don’t you want to go to the festival with Masa?” She blinks her eyes a few times, pulling back from me.

I shrug my shoulders. “He hasn’t mentioned it. No one has.”

“Aren’t you and Masa dating?”

This line of questioning makes me nervous when he’s within earshot. “No, no. We’re not dating. We’re just friends.”

“Really?” A small smile plays about her lips. I think I’ve said too much. “Interesting.” She turns back to her computer. “Anyway, don’t worry about this. No one will give you a hard time if you need to schedule them. Everyone here is just glad they’re employed.”

“Right. I forgot.” I field a million emails and phone calls from recruiters and people hoping to work at the ryokan. The job market in Japan has been awful for fifteen years or more. Even people boasting master’s degrees can’t find enough work.

I return to the schedule for another thirty minutes at the front desk until my grandpa comes in for the day.

“Grandpa!” I throw my arms around his neck. “Happy Father’s Day!”

He squeezes me and smiles. “Thank you, Isa-chan, and thank you for giving me the morning off.”

“It was the least I could do, but wait —” I walk in front of him to the office and pull the box of his favorite candy from my bag. “For you. Asai-san at the candy shop says these are all your favorites. I hope you don’t mind that I asked her for help.”

“Not at all,” he says, holding the box to his chest. “You are an amazing granddaughter. I’m a lucky father and grandfather.”

I wave my hand and blush. “Stop it,” I admonish him but giggle at the same time.

He comes around to the other side of the desk and sets the box next to his calendar. “I hope you’re enjoying your summer so far.”

“I am. I like being here with you at the ryokan. It’s been a lot of fun.” I should bring up the fact that I’d like to be paid for my work, but I’m not going to bother him on Father’s Day when I already plan to ask Dad when I call him later. I shouldn’t ruin both their special days.

“Good. Because you know, the ryokan now belongs to your mother, legally. We handed it over to her when she moved here.”

I nod in response. I know this place is going to be my mom’s legacy. She often talked about it when I was growing up, how much the ryokan meant to her and our family, and how someday she was going to return to Japan to run the business. I didn’t realize she was going to divorce Dad to get here, but the circumstances led to that anyway.

“And someday this place could be yours as well.” He smiles, his hands on the desk and soft brown eyes directed at me.

I scoff, blowing air between my lips. “Mom loves this place. If it ever comes to me, I’ll be a lot older. A lot.”

My phone in my pocket vibrates and jingles, long enough for me to know it’s a call. Oh shit. It’s the sake distributor. My eyes dart to the time. One thirty! I’m thirty minutes late to meet the distributor.

“Fuck!” I yell at my phone, then swipe it to answer.

“Isa-chan! Language.” Grandpa laughs anyway.

“I’m coming right now, Fujino-san. I’m so sorry. So, so sorry. I’m running late. Be there soon.” I hang up as he’s blurting obscenities at me, grab my bag, and throw the strap over my shoulder.

“Gotta go!” I call out, waving to Grandpa and running from the office. This is the third time this week I’ve been late for an appointment, and considering I haven’t been late for anything in two years, this is record-level high-stress-inducing, panic-attack-making, uncharacteristic behavior. I try to control my breathing as I burn a path through the ryokan to the front door.

Masa is waiting for me there, his shoes on. I flip off the house slippers and grab my sandals, glad we’re in a rush so we don’t have to talk about what happened last night.

“You realize we’re —”

“Late to visit the distributor?”

“Yeah,” he says, opening the door. “Sorry. I should have grabbed you earlier.”

“Not your fault. Let’s go.”

We throw on our sunglasses and open the door to the heat and humidity of midday in Tokyo.

—-

“Hi, Dad. Happy Father’s Day!”

My dad sits in the frame of the Skype video, smiling and holding Jackson on his lap. “Isa! Isa!” Jackson screams, leaps forward, and knocks over the laptop on their end. I wait, laughing, while my dad rights everything. It’s late evening here and early morning there, but Dad is already dressed for 10am mass.

“Hey Isa. How’s Tokyo been?”

“Okay, I guess. A lot of work. The ryokan is super busy. We had a full house this weekend, and I worked from eight in the morning to midnight last night. We have Australians, Americans, English, a couple from China, and tons of other people I can’t place. It’s like the United Nations.”

“Your mom always did love the ryokan. I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself, even if it’s not what you planned for your summer.”

I nod and stare out the window of the loft. The twinkling skyline of Tokyo in the distance draws me to daydream about what my summer would have been like had I been downtown instead of out here. The sun set a while ago, and now the city buzzes, electrified with neon.

“I do love it here, Dad. I haven’t seen much of Tokyo yet, but I don’t know…” I pick at a loose thread on my shorts. “I like how busy the city is. It’s so clean and easy to get around. And I understand everyone. I actually dreamt in Japanese the other night. I only speak English with you or Masa or Mom… or Halley, when I see her.” I frown, thinking about Halley, how simple and perfect our lives are when we’re together. We’ve always gotten along, and I miss her when I’m not hanging out with her.

Jackson climbs off my dad’s lap and toddles away. “How is she doing?”

“Great! She is so ready for this marathon. She’s staying in a gorgeous apartment in the city with her dad, eating well, taking care of herself. She’s really lucky to be here early and acclimating before other Olympians. The weather is getting muggy and hot, but she’s adapting. I have a feeling it’ll be harder on the other athletes who come later, closer to the Games.”

“That’s good! She was always a strong runner. We’ll be cheering for her.” My dad smiles at me, and I smile back. I’m glad I can still see him when I’m so far away.

“What do you have planned for Father’s Day?”

“Nothing much. Church, brunch across the river someplace Janie likes, and home to watch movies in the afternoon.”

“Sounds good…” I bite my lip and wonder if I should ask him about money. I shouldn’t. Hitting Dad up on Father’s Day for money is a bad idea.

“What’s up, Isa? You only look like that when there’s something wrong.”

I sigh and train my eyes on my lap. “I’m running low on cash. The summer got all messed up and now I’m not being paid my stipend and I had to leave you and Janie in the lurch. I’m sorry…”

“It’s fine, Isa. The next door neighbor filled in. Isn’t your mom paying you?”

I shake my head, still not looking up at the camera. He sighs.

“Isa, you need to talk with her. She makes more than enough money to pay you a wage.”

“She does?” This is news to me.

My dad shakes his head. “My alimony payments decreased significantly two years ago. She was getting a steady paycheck through the ryokan, and any money I contributed was just for your schooling.”

“Oh. I didn’t know.”

He shrugs his shoulders, the video feed freezing momentarily on his pitying face. Ugh. “You’re not supposed to know. She asked that we keep you out of the financial issues.”

“Why?”

“She’s always been secretive about money. It’s just her way.” He sighs and rubs his hands on his pants. “You’ll need to go to your mom for money, I’m afraid. You are working. You should be paid for what you’re doing.”

I drop my head into my hands. “You’re right. I’ll do it.”

“Gotta go, sweetie. Give my love to your grandparents, okay?”

“Yeah, sure. Say hi to Janie for me. Happy Father’s Day.” I smile weakly.

“Cheer up, Isa,” Dad says, winking at me and leaning forward. “It’s not the end of the world. Bye!”

I wave as he cuts off the call, and the window turns black.

“He’s right, Isa-chan.”

I jump at my grandma’s voice echoing through the room. I turn around and she’s on the spiral staircase behind me.

“Sorry I scared you,” she says, smiling. “I thought you heard me come up. How’s your dad?”

“He’s fine. He says hi.”

She nods her head, ascending the last few stairs, and sitting on my futon on the floor, she pats the spot next to her. I close my laptop and sit beside her as she points at my computer.

“There’s a reason why we bought you the computer for school and the new phone.” She puts her arm around my waist. “We had hard times growing up and your mom became obsessed with money at a young age. When others were spending money wildly in the eighties and nineties, we were tightening our belts and saving everything we could, and it’s good we did because we weathered a bleak financial crisis. We saved the ryokan when plenty of other people lost everything. It seems to have affected your mom more than we thought. She married her first husband because he was wealthy and would take care of her, and he loved the fact that she wasn’t a big spender. But she was naive and signed a pre-nuptial agreement that gave her almost no money of her own, and her husband refused to let her work.”

I stretch out my legs and roll my ankles around, absorbing every word from my grandma. She has never once talked about Mom’s first husband, so this is news to me.

“When she left him for your dad, we weren’t surprised. Your dad made the same amount of money but didn’t work long hours and was always around, and he didn’t make her sign anything before getting married.” Grandma squeezes my hand. “She loved your dad, but he just did not get her. He didn’t understand her Japanese mind and how she missed Japan, and they grew apart.” She takes a deep breath and lets it out, her shoulders sinking in her light black cardigan. “She had even more reasons to hoard the money she got from your father when he started cheating, but I didn’t realize she kept the money from you until you were in high school and begging her for new running shoes because the soles were falling off the ones you had.”

I ran all year round, burning through shoes in six months that would have lasted any sane person two years.

Grandma raises her hand and starts ticking off her fingers. “We paid for your clothes every season, your school supplies, your homecoming and prom dresses, and all the technology you’ve ever wanted.”

“Grandma!” My eyes widen as panic numbs my face and brain. “I didn’t know.” I shake my head, forcing away the tears, but she smiles and pulls me closer to hug me.

“It’s okay, Isa-chan. We were happy to help. Money is a mental block your mom can’t get past. She hides any salary she gets away in bank accounts, safe deposit boxes, and off-shore accounts, preparing for the next time the market dives. I’m not sure whom she saved the money for… her? Us?” She shakes her head. “We would all be better off if she just spent it.”

“What should I do?”

Grandma nods and stands up. “I want to put you on the payroll, of course, with back wages from when you first started, but I just handle the books. Your mom owns the ryokan now. You should tell her you deserve to be paid for the work you do. I know that job is not easy. I did it myself until I retired when your mom took over. I could tell her you’re valuable until I’m dead, but she won’t believe it until you show her.”

I flop back on the bed and groan. I love my mom, but I have never won a money fight.

“Don’t worry, Isa-chan,” Grandma says with a chuckle. “Come downstairs and have some tea with me before bed. I want to hear about your week with Masa.” She raises her eyebrows twice and giggles. Gossipy woman.