Atsuko
The Ohs’ minivan pulled into Wanda’s driveway around three. “That must be Atsuko,” said Elly. She took off her gloves and went out to greet them. The minivan’s door slid open. A Japanese girl jumped out.
“Atsuko!” Elly called out.
“Chieko!” the girl shrieked in turn. Though a half-foot shorter than Elly, she nearly bowled her over by force of enthusiasm alone. “Aunt and Uncle told me all about it on the way back from the airport. I mean, married? Your mom is going to go ballistic!”
Connor walked up and Atsuko yelped, “Connor!” She perched on her toes and gave him a hug. “Auntie says Uncle was trying to set you two up all along. You know what? I even heard my mom mention it to Elly’s mom once.”
“Really?” Elly said, with honest incredulity.
“Yeah, she kept going on about how they had this guy from BYU working for them, and she thought you two would be great together.” Connor said, “That’s the first I’ve heard of it.”
Atsuko whacked him on the arm. “But you were working too hard to pay attention to any of our schemes. Still, it turned out to be a great idea, neh? Look at you two!”
Atsuko’s American demeanor notwithstanding, she spoke in a spitfire stream of Kansai-ben, the rough Osaka dialect that even made Oh Sensei wince at times. At the beginning of Spring term, before sending Connor over to Japan, he’d explained the sociolinguistics of the situation thusly: “Imagine a family of Boston Brahmins (by lineage, not fortune) moving to Atlanta, Georgia, and discovering fifteen years later that their pride and joy sounded like Dolly Parton.”
Wanda came out to meet them halfway through the conversation. Elly
said, “Aunt Wanda, this is my cousin Atsuko.”
Atsuko sobered up a bit and offered the older woman a polite bow. “I am pleased to meet you,” she said, in her best grammar school English. “And I’m happy to meet you, Atsuko.”
June said, putting a hand on Atsuko’s shoulder, “We’re on our way to the bookstore to get her textbooks and supplies.”
Atsuko switched back to Japanese. “First, you have to show me where you live. Auntie said you had the whole basement all to yourselves.”
“Not to ourselves,” Elly corrected her.
But after the five-minute tour, Atsuko was considerably impressed.
“It’s a lot bigger than my tiny dorm room. Now that’s a rabbit hutch.” June interrupted to invite Elly and Connor over for dinner. “The refrigerator is full of leftovers. And the jet lag should be catching up with Atsuko by then too.”
“What?” said Atsuko.
June put her arm around her niece’s shoulders and steered her toward the stairs. “What I’m saying is, you’re a poster child for Ritalin. I always thought it was a mistake to send you to a private school.”
“Public schools in Japan are the worst,” Atsuko opined.
“Public school did wonders for Elly.”
“Yeah, but Eri got to go to an American high school. I would have made the perfect American high school student.”
“That’s what we all feared,” said her aunt.
June sent them home that night with two Tupperware bowls of sukiyaki, enough to feed them for the rest of the week. Atsuko had opted to stay the weekend with her aunt and uncle before moving into the dorms. Getting ready for bed, Elly asked, “My aunts’ scheming notwithstanding, did you ever harbor romantic intentions toward my cousin?”
“It honestly never occurred to me.”
“Really? You must have noticed how cute she is.”
“Guys notice how cute total strangers are. And you’re the one who pointed out that she’s only eighteen.”
“Seven years isn’t that much.”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I like her, to be sure, but the same way I like my sisters. I know, that’s a cliché. Anyway I love you, Elly. Telling the difference isn’t hard.”
“My, and aren’t you the man with the right words.” She put her arms around his neck and kissed him.
“I manage now and then.”
She tossed her head back, thought about her own question. “Atsuko is a bit too genki for the sedate McKenzie blood.”
“I got the idea that you used to be a bit like that.”
“In elementary school, maybe. But Atsuko’s missing that all-important gene for self-consciousness that’s supposed to kick in at puberty. Even Emily’s more feisty than I was at her age.”
“You don’t strike me as a self-conscious person.”
She laughed. “Compared to you. I knew Atsuko when she was in high school. She was probably a lot like your Billy Bragg or my Becky Hoggan. She really is a decent, well-mannered person underneath.”
“True about Billy as well.”
“But to hear my parents tell it, her parents figured that Atsuko was safer being Atsuko in Japan than in America. I wonder if Atsuko is what my mom was like at her age. Maybe that’s why she went on a mission, to calm herself down.”
“If so, your dad never had a chance.”
“Neither did you.”
“I figured that out soon enough.”
“And when was that?”
“The time you hit me pretty much settled it.”
“I’m sorry. I never meant to hit you. I was so afraid you were going to think I was some sort of terrible dragon lady. To be honest, I am a dragon lady, but it makes for a poor initial impression.”
“As Martin says, sometimes that’s what it takes to get a male’s attention. Though he was referring more to large farm animals.”
“I’ve got better ways now,” she said, pressing her body against his.
They made love. She fell asleep in his arms. He watched her sleep and marveled—at the warmth of another human body, the warmth of a shared bed. He wondered at the silky texture of her skin, at what it was like to be caught up so completely within the senses of another person, in her touch and taste and scent. He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. A fierce expression crossed her face, and just as quickly was replaced by one of such perfect peace and gentle calm that it made his heart ache.
His thoughts flashed back to the moment in the kitchen and that needle of fear shot through him. Wanda spoke with such deceptive nonchalance as she slipped the cold steel into his entrails: Your grandfather would have agreed with you one-hundred percent.
Sitting in the Camry, it had taken all his self-control not to slam his head against the steering wheel. Idiot! What was he thinking? Drawing a line in the sand over this?
Interesting how these things run in the family, Wanda had said. Interesting, indeed, and terribly depressing. What was the old saying? What’s bred in the bone comes out in the flesh. His grandfather was buried inside him, hiding in places he didn’t even know were there.
He knew without a doubt that he would love Elly for the rest of his existence. But he had a hard enough time believing that she liked him. He did not for a moment doubt her friendship or her loyalty or her commitment. “By mine honour I love thee,” he whispered. “By which honour I dare not swear thou lovest me; yet my blood begins to flatter me that thou dost.”
All he could do was make her happy. He wasn’t sure how, but it was a goal worth striving toward. Her hand rested on his chest, her cuticles stained a copper oxide green. He thought of emeralds.
She stirred and opened her eyes. “Hey,” she said, sleepily, “what are you still doing up?”
“I’ve been thinking. Some old Shakespeare I remembered.”
“Oh good, tell me.”
“It’s from Henry V, when he’s wooing Katherine. He dispatched most of her family at Agincourt and hardly speaks a word of French, so he’s got something of an uphill climb. He tells her: Therefore was I created with a stubborn outside, with an aspect of iron, that, when I come to woo ladies I fright them.”
She smiled. “I think that applies more to me.”
He continued, “Thou hast me, if thou hast me, at the worst. And thou shalt wear me, if thou wear me, better and better.”
She raised herself on her elbows and kissed him, touching his lips with the tip of her tongue. Thou hast ravished my heart. The kiss eviscerated all his doubts. He turned off the nightstand lamp and they snuggled beneath the covers.
School began the day after Labor Day. Enough students had returned for the campus wards to resume on Sunday. The ward boundaries would remain in flux for another week or two, though Bishop Ferguson had won an exemption for Connor and Elly to guarantee their staying in the ward.
“I enjoyed your wedding,” the bishop said, greeting them warmly. “My family doesn’t quite understand when I try to describe your kimono, Elly. I’ve never seen anything like it before.”
“We’ll include a picture in our wedding announcement,” she assured him.
While they were doing the tithing count after church, the bishop asked Connor about his wife’s schedule.
“Besides her regular coursework, she’s teaching a four-hour class and a lab.”
The bishop nodded. “Then I guess I don’t want to throw a big calling at her right off the bat. But I think she could make an important contribution. So many expectations are placed on women at BYU when it comes to education and marriage. I was hoping you could sound her out—?”
“Relief Society?” Elly said dubiously, as they walked home. “He didn’t think as president.”
“That role-model business again. I don’t think I’m the kind of example the average BYU alumnus wants paraded in front of his kids.”
“The point is, you’ve now got more experience than anybody else in the ward. I don’t think it matters how you got it.”
“It’d better not. Anyway, I don’t see you clamoring to get into the elder’s quorum presidency.”
“My calling is more like being a consultant. Like Zatoichi—you sweep into town, put things right, and then sweep out again.”
“You sound like my dad, and I can tell you my mom got tired of the sweeping to and fro business.”
“I shall only sweep to and fro at your pleasure, my dear.”
Elly held his hand tightly. “You’d better believe it.”
Monday morning they helped Atsuko move into her dorm. Her roommate was a shy freshman, who did a poor job disguising the fact that she was both intrigued and horrified at being paired with an extrovert, and an extrovert from a foreign country to boot. The average dorm room just didn’t have that much room to shrink into. By the time they left, she had the look of a mouse in the care of a rambunctious kitten.
Atsuko nonchalantly declared, “She’ll get used to me after a while.”
“I almost feel sorry for her,” Connor said. “I rather resented getting dragged off to church socials during my undergraduate days. I think it’s a greatly exaggerated facet of college life.”
“A good thing too,” Elly said to her cousin. “That’s why he was still available when I showed up.”
“It’s a fair deal,” Atsuko insisted. “She’ll teach me English and I’ll teach her how to be a real college student.”
Elly said mostly to herself, “That sounds like a familiar bargain.”
They collected Oh Sensei at the JKHB and walked over to the Cougareat. After lunch Atsuko left to do some shopping and exploring on her own.
“I think she was happy to be rid of us,” Connor said. “I told you I was too old for her.”
“It’s not you,” Elly insisted. “It’s your marital status. She knows her odds of meeting guys are exponentially diminished with her handsome inlaw tagging along.”
“Not to mention her uncle,” Oh Sensei said. He returned to his office. Elly and Connor walked home.
“How do you think Atsuko will do at the ELC?” Connor asked. “Oh Sensei had me bring her a TOEFL study guide last spring, but I don’t know if she ever opened it.”
“She’ll breeze right through,” Elly said. “Her English is a lot better than she lets on, and she really wants to get into BYU.”
Connor said, “I’m not saying this about Atsuko. But the vibe I’ve gotten from every other Japanese girl I’ve met at BYU is that they really want a good reason not to return to Japan.”
“Unlike all you returned missionaries who can’t wait to go back? And my sister Em?” Still, Elly nodded. “You baptized more women than men, I bet. Not to mention that a family the size of the average Utah family would bankrupt you in Japan. I like to complain about my upbringing, but I have to admit, I had the best of both worlds.”