The Fortune-Teller
They spent the rest of Labor Day in the garage cleaning brass. A summer thunderstorm gathered over the mountains. The sun disappeared behind the clouds. Rain spotted the driveway and then began thumping down on the roof. Steam rose off the hot asphalt.
Elly walked onto the driveway, holding out her arms and spinning around. “I’m reliving my childhood!”
Connor watched from the shelter of the garage, an amused expression on his face. She grabbed him and dragged him into the downpour. He scooped her up in his arms and carried her back under the awning. Her arms were slick with rain, her cheeks glistening. She gave him a cool, wet kiss. “Don’t you miss the akisame?” The September monsoons.
“I can’t say I miss the humidity. Sweating yourself up a storm standing around doing nothing.”
“That’s why it’s so nice when it rains. Everything is so clean and new. Didn’t you ever pretend you were Gene Kelly? My mom regretted my ever seeing that movie. Though half the fun was getting her to throw me in the o-furo.” She leaned against him. “You forget how free you were as a child.”
Lightning flashed. A half-second later thunder crashed against the mountains. Elly started. Connor hugged her tighter. “Showers in Utah can be a bit dangerous like that.” She nodded and shivered. “That’s the other problem with Utah. The evaporative cooling will freeze you to death.”
So they went inside to dry off and warm up.
Due to the scheduling of the campus devotionals, eleven o’clock until noon Thursday morning was an “open” period. Elly stopped by the TA office and checked her box. Along with an updated class roll there was a thick envelope from her aunt. Inside were proofs from the photographer. Included was a P.S. from her uncle: “Talk to your mother yet?”
Elly groaned. But she was too curious to worry about that particular problem. Feeling like a child on Christmas morning, she hurried down the hall to the Writing Center. The door was cracked open, a doorstop wedged against the jamb. She thought nothing of it—the door was often left like this after hours. She stepped inside.
And sensed a faux pas in the making. The room was crowded—everybody standing around or sitting on the desks or leaning against the counters. Their attention was directed toward the head of the room, where the director of the Center was standing. She glanced at Elly and said, “The Center is closed right now. We’ll be open at noon.”
Elly resisted her immediate instinct—to bow in apology and back out the door—and hesitated, trying to find Connor.
“Wait, wait, wait,” a voice piped up. Alicia darted forward just as Connor peeked around the bookcase. She hooked her arm through Elly’s and dragged her over to the director. Alicia whispered to the director, who smiled and nodded.
Elly managed to disentangle herself from Alicia and join Connor at the counter. “I forgot about your meeting,” she whispered.
He shrugged. “Well, now you’ve met Professor Hunsaker.”
Professor Hunsaker called the meeting back to order. “Before we resume, Alicia has requested the floor for a moment. Alicia—”
Alicia cleared her throat in a crowd-quieting manner. “At the risk that she will track me down and kill me in my sleep in good Lady Macbethian fashion, I present you with the following.” She stepped forward and declaimed in Shakespearean tones, “Now tell me, fellow tutors—” She said, “That’s such a good pun I’m going to repeat it: Now tell me, fellow Tudors, what think you of this new marriage with the Lady Elaine? Hath not our brother made a worthy choice?”
“King Henry the Sixth,” a voice called out. “Who’s the Lady Elaine?”
“I’m glad you asked.” She took Elly by the shoulders. “I present to you Elaine Packard McKenzie!” There was a moment of silence. Alicia said impatiently, “She’s not his sister, for heaven’s sake!”
“Connor got married?”
Elly started to giggle at this point.
Connor said impatiently, “Yes, we got married over the break.”
The room broke into applause. Somebody popped open the paper punch and showered them with the little round dots. After the brief celebration ended, Professor Hunsaker ran through the rest of the agenda— staff meetings, trading hours, work schedules. “Get your requests to Stacy by Friday. And no bribery, please.”
Afterward she introduced herself to Elly. “Well,” she said, “Connor certainly does play things close to the vest.”
Connor said, “Elly is Professor Oh’s niece. She’s a TA in the Japanese department. We met in Japan Spring term.”
“Really? Hence the whirlwind romance.”
Alicia said, “Have you even sent out announcements?”
Elly said, “That reminds me. I got the pictures from Aunt June.”
“Let’s see!” Alicia escorted Elly to the closest table. Elly laid out the proofs. “Wow, your wedding dress is so gorgeous!”
“It’s my Aunt June’s uchikake kimono robe.”
The show-and-tell attracted most of the women in the room. Edward sidled up to Connor. “You do know, these kinds of things go a lot easier if you just nod and say yes. And if asked for an opinion, be sure to include the choice you know she’s already decided on. It’s not your opinion they’re interested in, it’s your attention.”
“Yeah, sure,” Connor said warily.
Ed shook his head. “I’m handing you pearls of wisdom, old man.”
Elly lined up the photographs on the workbench/desk in the basement apartment. “Which one?” she asked, looking at him.
He picked the second one from the right.
“Is that the one you like or the one you think I like?”
“I like it. Really.”
“Not bad advice, Ed’s. I would prefer having your attention over having your opinion.”
“I really do like that one.”
In the photograph they were standing, hands entwined, not quite facing each other. Jake Kimball had caught them a moment after breaking the previous pose, their expressions bright and relaxed, as if almost on the verge of pleasant laughter.
Elly said, “We should get enlargements for our parents and for us.” She glanced at the bedpost. “Are we ready to put the bed together?”
“The headboard and footboard first, I think. Once we get everything lined up, it shouldn’t take that long.”
He went up to the garage and came down the stairs a minute later with the headboard, the loose rails clanking with each step. The phone rang. He put down the headboard and answered it. “Yes, she is,” he said, handing Elly the phone. “It’s for you.”
“Hello?” She wedged the phone between her ear and shoulder and started to gather up the photographs.
A familiar voice said, “Chieko.”
Elly gasped and her heart skipped a beat. “Mom.” She put her hand to her chest. Her thoughts raced. Her parents didn’t know her new phone number—they didn’t even know where she lived. Her mother must have called Uncle or Grandfather or Melanie. Shimatta. She imagined Susan or Amy or Jill cheerfully telling her mother, No, Elly doesn’t live here anymore. She got married. What a way to find out!
“H-how,” she stammered, “how did you get our number?” She kicked herself. She sounded like somebody on the run from the law.
“I got Connor’s number from Nobuo.”
“Thank heavens,” she said to herself, though probably loud enough for her mother to hear.
The heavy silence swelled with the long-distance static. Her mother said, “I’ve dreamt about you, Chieko.”
There was an unexpected tenderness in her voice. Elly realized that the storm of passions she’d been bracing herself for would not be forthcoming. “Mom?” she said again.
Her mother took a deep breath. “I had a most interesting experience the other day. Do you recall the Miyamae shopping district? I think we went there together once or twice after your mission. I usually stop there on my way back from Osaka.”
“Yes,” Elly said.
“You’ve seen the fortune-telling booths there?”
“Yes,” Elly said, more tentatively this time. An odd question, coming from her mother. She saw them all the time, the little booths beneath the stairwells in the subway stations or scattered among the shuttered storefronts along the high street after dark, each a tiny point of light glowing there in the falling twilight, two chairs and a folding table lit by a Chinese lantern decorated with the calligraphy that advertised the fortune-teller’s specialty.
And then passed by. Curious but not so curious as to explore further.
“It started about two weeks ago,” her mother explained. “One of the uranaishi, the palmists, approached me. A little old man. I’ve never seen one so forward, though he did so with great reluctance, as if being pushed from behind. I told the little man I wasn’t interested in having my fortune told, and he seemed to accept my refusal.”
Elly smiled. A refusal by her mother was not something even a man of normal size could treat lightly.
“Yet I’d see him whenever I walked by, debating with himself, casting anxious glances in my direction. Mr. Iwakami, the greengrocer, was quite offended on my behalf. I assured him the little man had done nothing untoward. This Friday, though, he grew insistent, even frantic. ‘He wracks my sleep,’ he said. And who is that? I asked. ‘The old samurai,’ he replied. ‘His daughters are stubborn that way, ignoring what he tells them.’” She laughed softly. “You see, I dreamt of you, Chieko, in June’s uchikake. But I dismissed it all as a mother’s pleasant daydreams.”
Elly felt goose bumps. She shivered, despite the warm night. Connor pushed his chair over next to her and watched with careful concern. She reached out and took his hand in a tight grip. She said, “Mom, what did he say, the fortune-teller?”
“He said my daughter had gotten married that morning.” Elly burst into tears.
“Chieko—” her mother said, her voice layered with maternal distress.
Elly caught her breath, swallowed the emotion in her throat. “We got married Thursday afternoon.” Friday morning, Japan time. “I should have told you, Mom. But I didn’t know how. It was me, Mom. It wasn’t Connor. I’m so sorry—”
“Chieko,” her mother said, speaking with gentle reproach. “We didn’t expect you to put your life on hold for another year. I can’t ask you to do as I say and not as I have done. June no doubt said, ‘I told you so.’”
Elly found herself smiling. “Well—yes.”
“And I should have seen that one coming. Was that your husband who answered the phone? He comes highly recommended.”
“I certainly recommend him.” She wiped the tears from her cheeks.
“Do you love him?”
“Mom!”
“Then I’ll pose a fairer question. Your grandfather, did you ask him to marry you?”
“Yes, we did.”
“That was good and wise of you, Chieko.”
The approval in her mother’s voice gave her the courage to proceed to the next part of her confession. “Is Dad there?”
“He’s at the mission home. I’m meeting him for lunch.”
“He won’t be mad at me, will he?”
“Don’t be silly. He’ll be a proud papa. He’ll be surprised, of course. But he has surprising children. And a surprising wife.”
Elly smiled at the thought of her father, sitting behind the big desk in the mission home office. She remembered the always-delighted look on his face when she came into the room. “Speaking of my siblings, how are Sam and Em? Are you going to let Em move into her own apartment?”
“So you heard about that little debate? If she can find an acceptable roommate, and if she convinces us she’s serious about graduating from Kobe University—and not just competing with her big sister—we may consent to it.”
“Em’s not competing with me.”
“Yes, she is. She has for some reason determined to be more Japanese than you, which means attending a Japanese university. Unfortunately, as for being Japanese, she has taken Atsuko as her role model. Except that Atsuko is dying to get into BYU. You needn’t remind me of the irony.”
“She always has been more like Atsuko than me.”
“And maybe she’ll find the one Japanese man who’ll know what to do with her. By the way, what of Connor’s parents? Have you told them?”
“They already found out from Connor’s cousins. You know what they gave us for a wedding present? A mattress set! And Wanda had this old brass bed. Wanda is Connor’s aunt. You’ll like her, Mom. Anyway the bed is like a museum piece, though it’s probably a reproduction—”
“I’m sorry,” her mother said. “Now I am going to cry.”
“Mom—?”
“You’re happy, Chieko. You were so worn out and frazzled when you left. You’d been off your mission only two weeks. I’ve felt many times since then that you should have stayed longer, taken some time off and done nothing for a while.”
“But I had to get back for Summer term. There wasn’t anything for me to do in Kobe. Uncle got me my teaching job. And I met Connor.”
“I have a feeling he would have found you no matter what. Is he still there? I’d like to speak to him for a minute.”
“As long as you’re polite.” Elly covered the mouthpiece. “Mom wants to talk to you.”
During the conversation between Elly and her mother, Connor’s thoughts had shifted from concern to helpless confusion to relief. Now he stiffened noticeably. Be nice, his wife mouthed, handing him the phone.
“Hello, Connor.” Sayaka Oh Packard spoke English with a recognizable but not marked accent, and in a tone of voice Connor knew from Elly’s description belied her physical size.
“Ma’am,” he felt compelled to answer.
“My brother Nobuo has good things to say about you. I recall even Yuki broaching the subject with me on occasion.”
He stumbled over a reply. “Thanks—I mean—I’ve enjoyed working with him—them.”
“Tell me, Connor,” she said, and her voice took on an unequivocal firmness, yet was no less tender. “My daughter, do you love her?”
“Very much so.”
“Good,” she said. “Now, what I’m going to tell you next, son-in-law, you will not repeat to Elly, nor will you ask me what I mean by it. It is simply this: Give her time. And don’t ever doubt the depth of her affection for you.”
“I won’t,” he promised.
“And you coming to visit us over Christmas?”
“We’ll be coming over with June and Oh Sensei and Naomi.”
“Welcome to the family, Connor.”
“I’m honored,” he replied. He handed the phone back to Elly. Well?
Elly’s expression asked.
“I think I’m hired.”
On the phone her mother said, “I gather June persuaded Naomi to accept Aunt and Uncle’s offer.”
“Well, persuaded by the Oh definition.”
“June will be bringing the uchikake, I hope.”
“Oh, yes. Mom, it is so gorgeous. We got the pictures back today. I’ll get Connor to email you some of them.”
“I have seen you wearing it, Chieko, but only in dreams. And I doubt dreams could begin to compare to one glimpse of you in the real world.”