Girl in a Box Read online

  I snapped down into my bow a half second after Miyo Han and Mrs. Okuma. I paused for a fraction longer before coming up, because I wanted to assure Mrs. Okuma that I had the proper humility to work in her department. When I came up, I saw that she was looking troubled.

  “There’s a lot to learn today.” She paused. “You really do speak English, neh?”

  “Hai, ossharu tori desu.” Yes, I answered her as politely as I know how.

  “Then why don’t you speak it?” Miyo interjected in stilted English.

  “What do you want me to say?” I asked her back in English, rapid-fire. “I enjoy speaking English.”

  The girl’s eyes flared, and Mrs. Okuma nodded. “Well, it sounds as if your conversational skills are adequate. I hope you also can use the computer?”

  “I learned some basic skills during the training, although I understand K Team work is somewhat different. Mr. Fujiwara said that I would do best if I learned it directly from you.”

  “I apologize that I cannot teach you much this morning, but Han-san will show you what to do this morning. I need to prepare the agenda for the expansion conference.”

  “What kind of expansion?” I asked, switching back to Japanese.

  “We’re opening a new store in Osaka. Both our chairman and our general manager have invited the top-producing departments to the retreat, where we’ll talk about how to translate the success of this store to Osaka.”

  “Oh, that’s very impressive. Which other departments are participating in the conference?” I asked.

  “Young Fashion and Ladies’ Accessories.”

  I nodded. That sounded right, on the basis of what I’d researched. And if the K Team was truly one of the most profitable—and therefore most suspicious—segments of Mitsutan’s business, it was a blessing to be right in the center of it.

  “I have a question,” I said. “Those departments you mention have a lot of consigners, don’t they? Are those vendors treated like part of the Mitsutan team?”

  “We all work together for the greater good of the company,” Miss Okuma said piously. “And about the consigners, our K Team customers aren’t particularly interested. Because these customers are international, they usually already own Vuitton or Fendi bought overseas at a lower price. When they come here, they are looking for Japanese luxuries they cannot find elsewhere. So you will do well to familiarize yourself with store brands, especially traditional goods, first.”

  “Yes, you may need to work on your Japanese a bit,” Miyo said softly as Mrs. Okuma’s attention was distracted by a male manager who had appeared in the department. I looked back at Miyo steadily, reminding myself that I was registered as a Japanese employee, not a foreigner. There was no way she could know I was American.

  Our tense tête-à-tête was broken up by the arrival of a customer—an Australian woman in her fifties who was looking for a suit for a formal luncheon. I remained silent, watching Miyo handle the transaction, because the cheery hello I’d offered right away in English had been rebuked by Mrs. Okuma, who reminded me that for the time being, I was to shadow them in their work with the customers, not take it on myself.

  So I remained quiet as Miyo tripped through a conversation with Mrs. Robinson, asking both her height and her weight. I watched Mrs. Robinson’s face flush with embarrassment as Miyo politely explained that foreign-size people often found a perfect fit in the Rose section. Of course, I thought, but why rub salt into the wound? It was tough enough for me to be identified as size large—I could imagine how a woman six sizes larger than I would feel.

  I walked behind Miyo and Mrs. Robinson as we trekked to the Rose section, and Miyo continued her awkward patter of questions about Mrs. Robinson’s taste in colors. Mrs. Robinson asked a question about the fiber content of a suit Miyo held up to her, and I could tell Miyo hadn’t understood the question, because she didn’t answer it. She just talked about the softness of the fabric and its appropriateness for the coming spring months.

  As Mrs. Robinson disappeared behind the curtain of the changing room, Miyo said to me in Japanese, “Shimura, did you notice what I’m doing?”

  “You’re helping guide her choice,” I answered, holding myself back from commenting on the fact she was neither speaking to me in keigo nor using the honorific that was supposed to come naturally to the Japanese.

  “This is a Hanae Mori suit. If you look at the label”—she picked up another suit and showed me a number code—“you’ll see that this came in a month ago. It’s part of a spring group that needs to sell out. The Rose department manager let me know.”

  “Really?” I had seen the department manager, a woman who was appropriately stout and of a certain age, wave her hand in a curious way when Miyo had entered the department. It was not a hand motion I’d learned in the Mitsutan etiquette class, where we had been told never to point with an index finger—just to hold out the hand, thumb tucked in, to gesture politely.

  “If I sell this suit, the manager will be pleased,” Miyo said.

  “But what if the customer doesn’t”—I broke off as Mrs. Robinson peeked out from the curtain.

  “Does this come in a larger size?” Mrs. Robinson asked.

  “Get one,” Miyo said, and I did.

  Fortunately, the size 2 worked, and perhaps the low number made Mrs. Robinson psychologically comfortable, because she decided that yes, the Hanae Mori suit—which cost a whopping 70,000 yen, or $700, would do. Even though, I thought darkly to myself, the flower print did nothing to flatter Mrs. Robinson, who I could have more easily envisioned in something tailored from Eileen Fisher or Liz Claiborne. It was all so new to me—who was I to suggest anything? I felt insecure as Miyo performed a series of bows and thank-yous as gracefully as the etiquette teacher had done in class earlier that week.

  Miyo proffered the suit like a papal robe for a salesclerk in the Rose department to wrap, and then she led Mrs. Robinson to a cashier’s station, where she took the customer’s Mitsutan charge card on a small lacquered tray, bowing profusely again, then handed it to the cashier, who waved the card in front of an electronic reader. This was something I’d noticed earlier about my combination ID and credit card; it had no magnetic strip like the cards I was used to in the United States. Newfangled technology, Mr. Fujiwara had told us; it was more secure for the customer, because she was the only one who received a printed receipt showing the purchase and account number. The reader captured the data and sent it directly into the computer, bypassing the clerk completely.

  Miyo sent me back to the Rose department to pick up the shopping bag with the suit, which had been placed in a gift-wrapped box, telling me to meet them back at the K Team, where she’d be issuing Mrs. Robinson’s tax refund—a perk available to nonresident foreigners that gave them five percent back on all purchases over 10,000 yen. Mrs. Robinson was a former longtime resident of Japan—that was why she had the Mitsutan charge card—but she was currently based in the United States again and was back visiting, so she was entitled to the refund. The proof she needed was the disembarkation card in her passport, which I saw had several tax rebate slips from other Japanese department stores stapled within.

  Miyo placed the rebate—three crisp 1,000-yen notes and a 500-yen coin—on the tray. She bowed as she handed the tray to Mrs. Robinson. “It has truly been a pleasure to serve you.”

  “The pleasure’s been all mine! Really, I adore shopping in Japan.” Mrs. Robinson beamed back. She stood up to go, and following Miyo’s lead, I bowed and smiled until she was out of sight.

  The whole transaction had taken an hour, I realized, looking at my watch. And there were other customers at the K Team desk—a German woman, for whom Mrs. Okuma was issuing a rebate; and an Asian husband and wife who I deduced were Korean, from the language the Mitsutan brochure they were studying was printed in.

  “I need a little bit of help,” Mrs. Okuma said to us in Japanese. “Can you assist this couple? They want to look for some gifts for colleagues. I suggest the
gift department or maybe items from the Tohoku wood products fair.”

  “Of course,” Miyo said, bobbing her head. I smiled at the waiting couple, who I could clearly see had been bored by their wait. As Miyo walked around the desk where they were waiting, the door pushed open and a tall, blue-eyed businessman walked in. “Is this the place where someone can help me?” he asked in Midwestern English.

  “Certainly,” Miyo answered. “Please make yourself comfortable. I’m delighted to help you.”

  Mrs. Okuma nodded at me and said in Japanese, “All right, Shimura, we’re extremely busy, so this is your chance. Get started with the Koreans, and once Miyo has finished with this new customer, she will join you to finish the transaction.”

  “I don’t speak Korean, I’m sorry—” I was stunned that Miyo, who was half-Korean and reputedly fluent, hadn’t taken on the couple, but was turning instead to the person who spoke my native language.

  “Do it in English or Japanese, it doesn’t matter! It will be all right,” Mrs. Okuma assured me.

  I took a deep breath and said in slow Japanese to the couple, whose expressions had changed from bored to angry, “I’m sorry for your wait. Irrashaimase!”

  No reaction. I switched to English. “Welcome to Mitsutan.”

  A glimmer of recognition. We were off.

  It was like the blind leading the blind. My trip to the gift department with Mr. and Mrs. Lee had been a trial by fire, Daniel in the lion’s den, and every other cliché you could think of for the situation. A new employee had to find the needle in the haystack that would be just the right present for the Lees to take home to their friends in Seoul. Mrs. Okuma had told me they wouldn’t spend much, but on gentle questioning from me, it turned out they were not penny-pinchers. And they didn’t want a tea set or bath salts or any of the customary smaller items that were popular with the Japanese as gifts. Eventually, they found themselves enthralled by the linens department, where soft towels were available in a myriad of colors and details. I actually found myself getting excited about the weaves and cotton content of the different towels; ultimately, the Lees selected fifteen thick towels in a rainbow of hues, then followed me to the eighth floor, to buy a suitcase to hold their purchases.

  Mrs. Okuma handled the rebate for the Lees, once we’d returned; I hung over her shoulder, trying to learn, and was astonished to see her make a mistake, listing their purchase as 69,000 rather than 60,000. I hesitated a moment before whispering in her ear that the receipt said something different. She just had butterfingers, not criminal intentions, I decided when I saw her fumble over her keyboard a minute later. All in all, my boss struck me as rather confused and disorganized; though that, in itself, was not going to hurt my own purposes.

  I couldn’t watch Mrs. Okuma any longer after the next customer came in, this time from South Africa. Then there were two separate groups of Germans, who wanted, of all things, to find the Escada collection—as if the selection would be better here than at home. Mrs. Okuma stayed in the K Team office, so it was never left unattended; and Miyo remained as busy as I did circling the store with foreign customers. I noticed she spent a longer time with the customers if they were male and western.

  I was given my lunch break after Miyo had taken hers. In the chilly, dank annex building, I took my long-awaited toilet break and then dashed into a side street for a baked sweet potato, which I ate hastily, before running back inside Mitsutan to prowl the store. I had so much to learn about merchandise, not knowing who would wind up at my desk after the break.

  I was happy when I landed two Frenchwomen looking for gifts for men; they pooh-poohed the men’s handbag collection, because their husbands already carried nice bags, but were very interested in the idea of traditional Japanese game sets. I started them off with a tour of an exhibition of antique Japanese games in Musée Mitsutan on the sixth floor. Despite the slight language gap, I was able to communicate a lot about the games, because I’d studied old Japanese games when I was in the antiques business. We looked at fabulous old wood and stone game sets of go and ban sugoroku and then examined memory and matching games similar to a modern card game called snap. In old Japan the pieces for these games were exquisite shells painted underneath with the famous sayings that needed to be finished, or verses of haiku poems. By the end of the tour, the women were thrilled to buy handmade lacquered go sets when I led them into the sales area just past all the genuine antiques. Because they had convinced me that they were interested in antiques as well, I gave them directions to a Sunday flea market where I knew that vintage dolls could be bought for a fraction of the usual price. They thanked me profusely and asked me to join them for coffee in one of the restaurants on the eighth floor; regretfully, I declined. Somehow, I had the feeling that socializing with customers during work hours would be frowned on. But back at the K Team office, I was stunned when Mrs. Okuma said that I should have taken them to whichever restaurant they liked.

  “You should have gone and put the charge on the house,” Mrs. Okuma said. “We have a special fund for cultivating customers. If you had cultivated those customers, they would have certainly returned to this store, and no other.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t hear about house charges in the training class—”

  “You wouldn’t have heard it there; I’m sorry I didn’t mention it to you myself. You and Miyo are among the very few salesclerks in the store with that privilege. It’s because you deal with foreigners, not regular people.”

  Many hours later, I had a chance to tell Michael about the customer entertainment fund. He’d gotten excited. “I want you to put it in writing,” he said. “Because you didn’t get it on tape, I bet.”

  “No, it was my first day, and I didn’t want to attempt anything that could cause notice. But surely—customer entertainment would be a way of draining store finances, not enriching them. Right?”

  “Don’t know yet. There are many parts to the picture. This employee discount thing you mention—that’s interesting, too.”

  “It gives me a good reason to lurk around the various departments, doesn’t it? A zealous interest in shopping.”

  “Your day starts at nine. When are you through, five or six?”

  “Actually, I work till seven. Then there’s only an hour or two until closing, depending on what day of the week it is. I stayed until closing tonight, trying to learn more about the different departments.”

  “If it’s not too draining for you, that’s a good idea—staying late a few nights per week.”

  “Okay. The store’s really crowded then, so there actually is more cover,” I admitted.

  “Really? I’d think people would want to go home after a long day in an exhausting Japanese office environment.”

  “Not if they’re female. Office ladies start coming in around six, and they like to meet their friends to get makeovers, eat in the food basement, and get in a bit of shopping before going out that night.”

  “And you’re the same age, which makes things perfect. You’ll blend right in.” He paused. “You are always prepared, right?”

  “Like the proverbial Boy Scout. I’m wearing the full Mata Hari eye makeup, and my tools of destruction are sewn into my two work suits.”

  “Are you taking the suits home every night?”

  “I have to keep them in the locker room,” I admitted. “I already got into trouble for taking the suits home. I can’t do it again.”

  “But you’ve got to keep the bugs with you, not leave them where they could be discovered.” Michael paused. “Here’s an idea. Bring them in and out of the store not in your jacket, but in another garment that stays on the whole time.”

  “You mean—my underwear?”

  “Yes. I was a little hesitant to spell it out, but that’s what I was thinking.”

  I would have to spend a long time in the ladies’ locker room toilet after work, doing a transfer from my suit pocket to the lining of my bra. And I hated the idea of tearing apart my relatively new ward
robe of Japanese lingerie, which really could not be replaced.

  “Brooks, will I be reimbursed for these clothing expenses, I mean, if I have to cut up my new Japanese bras, which cost about fifty dollars each?”

  Michael had a coughing fit, and I imagined I’d embarrassed him. At the end he said, “You can buy new ones at the store. Save the receipts. And remember, don’t under any circumstances leave these garments lying around in the wrong place.”

  Was there a double entendre in that comment? I wondered as I was drifting off to sleep. Did he think I was likely to jump out of my clothes, now that I was back in my beloved Tokyo?

  With my work schedule, flirting with handsome strangers at Salsa Salsa was nothing I had the energy for. And as unhappy as I was about the aridity of my sex life, I couldn’t imagine who was going to help me change the situation.

  14

  By Thursday morning, I couldn’t remember why I had ever thought it would be fun to work in a department store. My toes were blistered and my lower back ached. I walked around a lot, trying to concentrate on maintaining the correct posture: tummy sucked in and buttocks clenched. How I longed to run or cycle or lie down—activities my life as a dilettante antiques dealer had permitted throughout the day—and in clothes more comfortable than a poly-cotton pantsuit.

  My suit had been worth its weight in gold, though. Early Thursday morning, while I was waiting for a Spanish ballet dancer to try on ten different Comme des Garçons skirts and tops, the area salesclerk had wandered off with another customer to the cashier’s station, and I’d had a chance to pull out and plant a listening device right in the mouthpiece of the boutique’s central telephone. I was delighted that I’d been able to pull it off.