Elly sent the email Saturday evening before leaving the library. She considered waiting around to see if he replied. But he must have better things to do on a Saturday night. The fact that she didn’t spoke volumes about her social life. Try as she might, Melanie was making little headway in reforming her roommate’s cloistered ways.
The problem was, no social life could compete with her dreams, could satisfy the longings that flared up inside her. Out of nowhere, she’d find herself thinking of Japan and the long summer nights they spent together in that nocturnal neverland. How the sweat welded their skin together. A fierce blush rose from her chest to her neck to her face.
“ Stop it, stop it,” she lectured herself. She was already nurturing second thoughts—not so much about how Connor would react—but about the likelihood that her casual request for information would spread to the immediate family. Not that they would object. Their enthusiasm might spook the prey.
Elly smiled to herself. They were like two samurai in a Kurosawa picture warily encountering each other on a dusty road, asking with a raised eyebrow, friend or foe. A muscle’s twitch from fight or flight.
She went to the dresser and extracted the small box from the back of the top right drawer. She popped it open and pulled out the origami-like lump of manufacturer’s instructions. “Warning, warning, warning, threat, threat, threat,” she mumbled to herself, scanning the tiny text.
Then she pulled out the blister pack of pink and white pills. Welcome to Nebraska. The whole state stretched out in front of her, the interstate vanishing over the curve of the distant horizon. There were still so many things she did not know, so many things to be afraid of, including her own passions. So many places where guilt could worry its way in.
Yet Sunday night she dreamed a different dream.
Elly had long ago given up trying to direct her dreams one way or another. But as she fell through the warm currents of semiconsciousness, that inviting place rushed toward and then past her. She felt a wash of confusion, realizing he was not there with her.
The diversion aroused a flurry of suspicions in her mind. The puppet masters in the Bunraku theater, though dressed in black, were visible to the audience. The audience chose not to see them, chose instead to believe in the willful souls of the puppets. Yet when the puppet master placed the puppet in some improbable position, would not the puppet wonder how she got there?
Gliding along the path of her misdirected dream, Elly arrived at last at the end of the detour and lit gracefully upon the ground. The vista around her cleared. The compelling physical reality of the dream replaced her questions with curiosity. She stood on a broad, residential street. The sunlight shining through the canopy of maple and cottonwood danced in her eyes. She was wearing a snow-white kimono, dazzlingly bright in the late morning sun.
The street was empty of automobiles. Elly glanced around. She recognized the rectangular cut of an irrigation canal along the shoulder of the road. The houses were set far back from the street behind generous front lawns. An eclectic mix of Cape Cods and faded Queen Anne facades, plus a few brick-faced bungalows. This was Provo, she realized. Somewhere in the older part of town, east of Academy Square.
She tucked her hands into her sleeves as she walked along. She was not entirely used to the short strides that kimono required. Her lacquered geta sandals clicked against the asphalt.
There, at last, across a shadowed lawn, were signs of human life. Three men gathered around an automobile. She continued on several more yards until she came to the end of the driveway. The car was parked facing the street. She recognized the insignia of a galloping horse attached to the radiator grille plate, but could not remember the model. The car’s hood yawned open. The two men on the left were well into middle age. On the right was an older man, old enough to be their father. He held an automotive part in his left hand and pointed at the engine with his right. The part glistened with streaks of oil.
“Hello?” she called out.
They did not hear her. She caught a flicker of motion farther back in the shadows. She looked up at the front porch of the house. The screen at the end of the porch was open. A boy, eight or nine, leaned over the railing so far he was almost balanced on his stomach. He stared at the scene below with the intensity of a medical student observing an operation.
“Hello?” she said again.
The boy slid off the railing and turned until he was looking straight at her. His head tilted to the side, wondering at what he was seeing. A patch of sunlight flickered through the screen, etching a delicate grid of lines across his face. The old man glanced at the boy, saw where his gaze was directed, and then looked at her.
The boy raised his hand and beckoned to her.
The dream ended.
Monday afternoon Connor was immersed in Genji when Elly arrived at the second floor, west mezzanine of the Wilkinson Center. She sat beside him on the bench. He smiled at her. The warm chord that played in her heart alarmed her. She shrugged it off with a toss of her head. She asked, indicating the book, “How doth the Shining Prince?”
“He’s a man with one complicated love life.”
She played her schoolmarm role. “And what lessons do we draw from his example?”
“I shall have only one wife and no mistresses.”
“Your bride will appreciate knowing that.” Their eye contact lasted a moment too long. She abruptly turned away. “The other night,” she said, staring across the courtyard, “you didn’t dream about me.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“What did you dream about?”
“It was strange. I was late for something, late for a class. The bell’s ringing and I’m running down the hall. I’ve got a furoshiki package under my arm, like you’d get at an upscale Ginza department store. I don’t know what it is, but I’m scared to death of losing it. Finally I get to the classroom. Standing at the head of the class is this older Japanese man. He reminded me of Pat Morita. He looks at me and says, ‘Where’s Chieko?’ And I say I don’t know, because I don’t. The only Chieko I can think of is Chieko Baisho, the actress. Ever see Cry of the Distant Mountains with Ken Takakura? Great movie.”
“What did he say next?” Elly tried hard not to gasp when she asked the question.
“‘Go find her then, and make sure she gets that.’ He meant the package I was carrying. And then he says, ‘We can’t begin without her.’” Connor gave her a blank look. “Whatever that means.”
“My grandmother’s name is Chieko.”
“Really? I met her once at your uncle’s. Huh. Course, they just called her Ob -chan.”
“My name is Chieko.”
“Your name’s Elaine.”
“My middle name is Chieko, after my grandmother. It’s what my Japanese relatives call me. My mom too, when we’re in Japan.”
Really? his eyes said. “It still doesn’t make any sense.”
A thought struck her. “Studying Genji and all, you know about yobai, right?” His face went scarlet. Elly smothered a grin at his reaction. “We’ve been together more than three nights.” He nodded. But arguing that they should consider themselves engaged after spending three nights together was too direct. She tried a more subtle approach. “The package you were supposed to give to me—do you know what it was?”
He shook his head.
She pressed, “Was there a kanji on the furoshiki?”
He furrowed his brow. Then his expression brightened. “Tai,” he said.
“Obi,” she corrected him.
He wrote the character on his palm with his finger. “Right, it’d be obi.” He nodded. “That makes sense. A half-decent obi can cost a few grand— not something you’d want to be hauling around like a bag of groceries.”
Elly began to smile. “I know what you were wearing in your dream.” She didn’t wait for him to challenge her on this assertion. “Haori hakama. Formal wear for the medieval samurai.”
His obvious surprise was replaced by a look of caution. “I know what a haori hakama is.”
She waited for him to get it, but he obviously wasn’t going to. “What do you know about yui-n ?” she asked, a bit impatiently.
“It’s the traditional engagement ceremony.”
“And what gifts do the bride-to-be and bridegroom-to-be exchange at the yui-n ?” She felt like she was conducting an anthropology exam. “It’s obi and hakama. You were supposed to give the obi to me.”
Oh, said the shape of his mouth. She saw in his eyes that he was contemplating possibilities that for the first time were being articulated aloud rather than merely thought. Against her better judgment she said, “You have thought about it?”
“About what?”
“About marriage.” She refrained from adding, You idiot.
He conceded he had with a no-big-deal shrug. “I have thought about it. Emphasis on thought.”
“And what have you concluded after all this thinking?”
“I haven’t concluded anything.”
“So you plan on staying safe and single for the rest of your life?” It was a low blow. She almost winced when she said it.
He sat there silently for a while. “Exam’s over, okay?” He shoved Genji into his backpack and stood up.
Elly jumped to her feet. “Where are you going? We’re not finished.”
He didn’t appear to care. “If you really knew me,” he said, as he strode toward the stairs, “if you knew my grandfather, if you knew how much I’m like him, you wouldn’t think rushing into marriage with me was such a good idea. As it says in the Bible, ‘To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.’”
“No quoting scripture. That’s cheating.” Elly quickened her steps to keep pace. “At your age I’d think you’d have had plenty of time already.”
He turned to face her. “Well, maybe I’m just screwed up enough that it’s going take a bit longer than the statute of limitations allows around here.”
She hit him in the chest with the palm of her hand—more a shove, but hard enough to knock him off balance. She hadn’t intended to hit him or shove him—she’d simply acted before the impulse reached her brain.
“Ow,” he said, though he looked more startled than hurt.
Elly stepped in closer, ready with the words to accompany the blows. “Don’t you say that, not to me, not knowing what I know about you.”
“You don’t know anything about me.”
“I know enough. You hold the trust and respect of both my uncles, and that’s no small thing.” She switched into Japanese, a language more appropriate to the subject. “Don’t pretend that the esteem they hold you in is the result of you pulling the wool over their eyes.”
He met her gaze. “Point taken, but I was referring to myself.”
“So you’re really a jerk in private? I don’t buy it.”
His face flushed with anger, but he didn’t respond. He straightened the backpack on his shoulder and disappeared down the staircase.
Fight or flight. He’d taken the latter option. She was left without an opponent. The adrenaline drained from her muscles. Elly slumped back to the bench. She sat down and held her face in her hands. What kind of a crazy person was she turning into? Crazy enough to push him across a line she shouldn’t have. Now she knew she could punish him indefinitely and he would never respond in kind, something no man should ever have to reveal to another person.
Connor was only glad she’d aimed for the rib cage and not the stomach, else he’d be puking his guts out. Worse, he knew exactly what had prompted it. “Passive-aggressive” wasn’t supposed to make the other person aggressive. When he retreated, the other person wasn’t supposed to follow. She wasn’t playing the game right, dammit. Didn’t she understand the well-honed qualities of Being Careful and Being Practical and Not Taking Chances? He’d been desperate enough to say he was like his grandfather. In any argument between his parents, that was his mother’s coup de grâce: “You’re just like your father!” And Elly hadn’t batted an eye.
She obviously didn’t know the rules.
He composed an email to her. No quoting scripture, she’d said, and he could respect that. Bible bashing was a truly pointless exercise. But he wanted to explain himself, and the references were in his rhetorical quiver.
His arguments went back to that whole Corianton business in Alma 39, from which the Brother Bushnells of the Mormon world got their reasons for tossing sex into the abominable sin category (though it seemed obvious to Connor that Alma’s remonstrations had less to do with the going-after-the-harlot part than with the forsaking-the-ministry-and-generally-being-a-bad-example part).
He stopped typing. He was talking himself out of his original argument. Exactly what sin was he supposed to forsake? He didn’t lust after her. They were married in the dream. Didn’t that count for something?
Then why didn’t he leave before they made love, why only after? Because the dream wouldn’t let him. Because the dream wanted him to choose. Choose her. And he wouldn’t, because he resented like hell having to make the choice in the first place. He reserved the right to wait until the time was right, however long that took.
He caught his breath and let it out. No. Enough with the self-analysis. When at the bottom of a deep hole, the first rule was: stop digging.
Alicia was hanging around the front desk when Connor arrived at the Writing Center on Tuesday.
“What?” he said. He checked the time. “You’re off.”
“You got another note.” She pointed at the break room. Connor retrieved the envelope from his slot. Alicia said, “It was that cute Japanese girl again.”
Connor didn’t reply. He extracted the note, facing Alicia so she couldn’t peek over his shoulder. It was from Elly. “I still want to talk,” she wrote in her unmistakable handwriting. “I promise not to yell at you or hit you. The dragon lady will behave. Promise. Wednesday, same time and place, okay?”
“Ah, and he smiles,” said Alicia.
“Don’t you have a class to go to?”
“I believe I do. Say hello to—what was her name? You didn’t say.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Well, say hello for me.”
After Alicia left, Connor went back to the computers and logged into his mail account and confirmed that, yes, he’d be there.
It was a cloudless afternoon. The early evening sun burned through the mezzanine windows. Elly was seated away from the bright glare, the sunlight setting afire the auburn highlights in her hair. Connor stopped in his tracks. A sound, a chime, sweet and poignant, rang inside his soul. At moments like this, frightening moments, the haze lifted from his brain and he realized, as if being shown a private glimpse of heaven, that she was the most beautiful woman in the world. He couldn’t comprehend how he could exist in this life without her in it.
The smell of baking bread wafted up from the pizza concession in the food court below. It was an almost intoxicating combination. She looked up and saw him and smiled.
“Hi,” he said.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
He clapped his right hand against his chest. “Nice right hook.” He sat down opposite her and saw the mortified look on her face. “No problem,” he assured her. “Only my ego got bruised.”
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to. But—” She began again, “You know the scroll that hangs in Nobuo and Yuki’s living room?”
“Resolute in learning, reluctant in wrath.” He’d memorized the classical Japanese text. “Your great-great-grandfather did the calligraphy, as I recall. I never did get an explanation about what it meant.”
“There are actually two scrolls. The one my mother has reads: Reluctant in learning, resolute in wrath. The one describes how Oh women are born, the other what they should become. We’ve always been a volatile lot, apparently. Though reluctant in learning seems a chauvinistic dig. Mom said he penned them to admonish his daughters. There’s a time to be resolute and a time to be reluctant.”
“What, did you get into fights a lot?”
“No—well—yes, I did get kicked out of kindergarten. Mom says it was for beating up the other kids. In my own defense, they were teasing me because I was haafu. My hair was a lot lighter back then. I think they enrolled me in a Japanese public school so I would learn to behave myself.”
“I do have a hard time seeing you as a bully.”
“I’m not, I’m not. It’s just that my way was always the right way.” She grinned. “More likely because I was always the tallest kid in my class, until I started attending the International School in Yokohama. Japanese elementary school socialized the aggression right out of me, the way it’s supposed to. The thing is, now that it’s showing up again out of the clear blue, I don’t know how to deal. I’m doing things I never dreamed of, like hitting people and yelling at them. I’ve never done that before.”
“Until you met me.”
“Well—” she conceded. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
It was Connor’s turn to smile. “I know where you’re coming from. I can usually figure out why I do the things I do, but way after the fact. Even when I know the why, I have a hard time keeping myself from doing it again. Like this passive-aggressive business. It’s a guy thing, to begin with. It’s a McKenzie guy thing to the nth degree. Give me the best advice in the world and I’ll find a reason not to do it because it wasn’t my idea. If nothing else, McKenzie men have always prided themselves as masters of their emotions. Which means getting as far away from them as possible. We’re so good at running away, I often wonder how my grandfather and father ever got married.”
Elly laughed. “My roommate Melanie says the same thing about me. She says if I don’t get myself a go-between I’ll never get married.”
“My Uncle Martin once warned me that the older and smarter you get, the more good reasons you can come up with for not getting married. It’s his ‘logic defeats evolution’ theory. He’s a veterinarian. My Aunt Wanda, though, I have the feeling if I gave her the slightest opening, she’d take to matchmaking in a New York minute.”
Elly inquired softly, “But don’t you think we’ve already got one, a gobetween, I mean?”
Connor looked away and fumbled with the clasp on his backpack.