The Bride's Kimono Read online

  I examined the museum’s bridal kimono. It was of heavy cream silk, patterned with wild ginger, clouds, and kanji characters; I couldn’t read the characters, but I guessed they were auspicious. It was a great kimono, and it had the bonus of all the matching pieces.

  “What a lovely kimono,” I said, looking levelly at Jamie, who had made all the trouble for me. “I understand your position, but it puts me in a rather awkward situation. If I’m forced to take this uchikake back to Japan with me in ten days, we’ll have to pay for customs brokers all over again, not to mention that the Morioka people would be upset about the rejection of one of their treasures.”

  “Since John isn’t here to give us advice, you’d better take custody of it, Rei. You find a safe place for the uchikake for the duration of the exhibition, and then we’ll put it back in the box with the others in three months’ time and courier it back to the Morioka.”

  I held up a cautionary hand. “The only place that I’d feel safe about is this museum. Freeze it if you must. It really should stay here.”

  “The problem is, to put something in storage, it’s got to have a number corresponding with our own collection or that was marked on the approved loan receipt. Our lawyers would go bonkers if I did anything that violated the insurance policy,” Allison replied, with a little laugh. It was as if she expected me to laugh along with her, but I was too frustrated to do that.

  “I’m sorry we can’t show it, seeing that you went to all the trouble…” Jamie’s voice trailed off awkwardly as she handed me an empty kimono box. The message was clear; I was to fold the bride’s kimono and put it back inside.

  I did just that, carefully tying the kimono’s rice-paper wrapper and slipping the soft rectangle in the box. I taped the lid down again.

  “It’s almost noon, so I think we should go up to the museum restaurant for lunch before the crowds get there. Your kimono will be safe here,” Allison said. “I’ll lock the door.”

  I shook my head. “If it’s not going into storage here, I’ve got to keep my eyes on it at all times.”

  “Fine. But it’s rather large.”

  I made an executive decision. “Do you have a shopping bag that I could borrow? I’ll just shift the kimono into that, for the time being.”

  I would do without the box because I thought it was most important that I conceal what I was carrying. I was looking forward to getting back to the hotel, where I would put the kimono into a safe-deposit box until I could reach the Morioka people to ask them what they wanted me to do about its storage. I didn’t relish the thought of talking to Mr. Nishio, who hadn’t wanted me to take the bride’s kimono at all.

  My worries about the kimono receded a bit when we entered the museum’s restaurant. The walls were covered in rice paper painted with a faint wash of orange, and over that were stamped gilded kanji characters. The tables were made of a glossy, polished pine that was similar to what you’d see in Japan, but the chairs were cushioned in Chinese red, and there were Indonesian cabinets and Indian bronze statues here and there. The name of the restaurant was inscribed in a vaguely Japanese calligraphic style on the menu: Pan Asia. Its offerings were all Asian-European combinations, a style of cooking, I knew, that had been popular in the United States even before I’d left for Japan.

  Since the meal was on the house—and also, since I was peeved by the rejection of the bridal kimono—I decided to order three courses. Recalling my last lunch at Appetito with the inadequate cheese bagel, I ordered the eggplant and feta cheese as my appetizer. For the entrée, I decided against fish—I could eat that all I wanted in Japan—in favor of a leek, portobello mushroom, and tomato risotto. I recalled that American etiquette required me to wait with my dessert order until the main courses had been finished, but I made a silent commitment to the Valrhona chocolate bread pudding, and a cappuccino to get me home.

  Allison ordered just as much food as I did, plus a bottle of Pacific Rim Riesling for the table. Jamie stuck to hot-and-sour soup and iced tea. I felt a little vulgar digging into my cheesy eggplant as she sat with her hands folded on the table, staring. It wasn’t my fault if she had an eating disorder, I thought as my taste buds were caressed by the sensuous, salty cheese that I’d missed.

  “Cheers. To a successful exhibition.” Allison raised her glass toward me and, after we’d all toasted, began a serious discussion about the opening reception.

  “The first night is the most complicated, because we have the large VIP crowd and they’ve got to be fed,” Allison told me. “We’re having a typical Japanese buffet—sushi, sesame noodles, grilled fish. I hope our Japanese guests will find it aesthetically pleasing. I know from my own visits to Japan that there’s a difference between the way food looks there and here.”

  “Well, if this restaurant is handling the order, it will look and taste terrific.” I watched happily as a waiter whisked away my empty appetizer plate and replaced it with a large shallow bowl of pale pink risotto. On the side was an assortment of crusty rolls and a crock of blue-cheese butter. Heaven. I’d go back to Japan a few pounds heavier but with great food memories.

  “Yes, it’s a good restaurant, so it’s very popular with the embassy people, European as well as Asian. In fact, we have invited quite a few Europeans to join our advisory committee recently. Jamie, wasn’t it a European who recommended Rei to you?”

  I wasn’t particularly interested in Europeans, but I seized on Allison’s mention of aesthetics to ask about something that had been on my mind all morning: her lukewarm reaction to my idea of demonstrating kimono dressing to the audience.

  To my surprise, it was Jamie who spoke first. “I think our visitors would be fascinated to watch a kimono being put on. I mean, I know enough to drape a T-bar hanger with a kimono, but I can’t say that I’ve ever wrapped and tied a kimono. I’d like to know how it works.”

  “I’d be happy to show you beforehand—that is, if you have time,” I said to Jamie, wary of her enthusiasm. It had seemed that she wanted me to fail in front of her boss; why was she making nice with me now?

  “Rei can wrap a kimono for the lecture that is open to the public, but for the talk with the consulate people present, that wouldn’t be appropriate,” Allison said. “They already know how to wear kimono. It would be old hat, so to speak.”

  “I understand,” I said. Allison did have a point. Kimono dressing would awe Americans with its novelty but bore those who did it on a regular basis. Also, there was the chance that I’d screw up under pressure in front of the Japanese, who were experts.

  I was the only one to order dessert, so I was surprised when the waiter brought three forks. I’d forgotten about the ridiculous American custom of collectively shared desserts. Allison just took a bite, but Jamie, no doubt starving after her spartan entree, ate more than half. In the end, I was left with considerably less chocolate than I’d hoped for. Still, I’d accomplished something—wine, cheese, and chocolate all at the same meal, and I wasn’t paying.

  “Thanks for a delightful lunch.” I watched Allison sign the bill. “And you’re right—my jet lag has hit. But what a way to go.”

  “Before you go, let’s stop at the table by the entrance. I see that Dick Jemshaw is having lunch with someone. I’m sure he’d love to meet you,” Allison purred, getting to her feet. She was like my mother: a wheeler-dealer, always putting people together.

  “I don’t know if Rei really has time for that,” Jamie said.

  I shot a look at her. Did she really understand how badly my jet lag had hit me—or was she jealous that I, someone close to her age, was being put in a special light while she toiled as an assistant?

  “Dick’s also a very good person to know—he’s chair of our advisory committee,” Allison said as she placed her hand in the small of my back and propelled me across the room. I’d forgotten how physical Westerners could be.

  “Dick’s the one with no hair,” Jamie whispered.

  I looked at Jamie, realizing that the wine had gone
to her head. Perhaps that was why she was nervous about approaching the table.

  “I think the man with him is called Glen something,” Allison murmured. “I don’t have as much contact with the advisory committee as Jamie does.”

  “He’s a lawyer,” Jamie said.

  “Oh, really?” I said. This Glen might be the genius who was keeping my bridal kimono from being allowed into storage. If the moment was right, I could perhaps say something about how much the kimono needed to go into storage.

  They were seated very close to the museum’s entrance: the balding man, as Jamie had said, and his companion. From the direction from which we were coming, all I could see was the companion’s thick reddish-blond hair—a color I hadn’t seen for a while.

  “My favorite ladies!” The man who had to be Dick Jemshaw raised a hand in greeting.

  “What perfect timing, Dick,” Allison said. “I’ve got the lady you’ve been waiting to meet. Here’s our kimono lecturer, Rei Shimura.”

  Jamie stepped aside, so I came face-to-face with the smiling, round-faced Dick Jemshaw. Instinctively, I started to bow, but stopped myself before my head reached the fifteen-degree mark. I wasn’t in Japan anymore.

  “I’m very happy to meet you,” I said, trying to catch a glimpse of the companion, who hadn’t turned around to greet us. From the back, he looked pretty attractive. I liked the athletic shoulders and the fiber mix of the suit jacket. Being a textile buff, I could tell a true mix of silk and worsted wool at twenty paces.

  Dick Jemshaw was doing something weird to the fleshiest part of my palm with his finger: a stroking and tickling all at once. “You know, Rei, Japan is my favorite country.”

  “How—nice,” I said, trying to discreetly withdraw my hand. I wanted to wash it.

  “We had a real problem with that Japanese fellow canceling. I know I can speak for the whole museum when I express my gratitude for your help at the eleventh hour.”

  “It’s my pleasure, believe me,” I said, slipping my hand out of his grasp.

  “Terrific. Now, let me introduce you to a guy who has actually worked in Japan before he joined our board. Come on, Hugh, put that menu down.”

  I had an odd feeling just before Dick’s well-built dining partner turned to face me. It was more than the hair and the broad shoulders—it was the suit. I knew that suit—it was an Issey Miyake I’d helped my ex-boyfriend buy at Mitsukoshi’s flagship store on the Ginza.

  The man turned around in his seat to look at me. His cool green eyes held no emotion, and he made no move to take my hand. “It’s great to meet you. I’m Hugh Glendinning.”

  I didn’t answer. I couldn’t believe what was happening.

  “Rei, I’ve been trying to tell Hugh that he should cancel his meeting Wednesday night to make the preview. He’s done so much on the advisory committee, it would be a shame to miss the party. Maybe you can talk him into it, seeing as you came all the way from Japan—”

  “I said I’d try to make it, but my schedule at the firm has been insane.” Hugh Glendinning still had the same soft Scottish burr, but it was subtly overlaid with an American flatness that he must have acquired recently.

  “Rei? Are you all right!” I heard Jamie’s whisper in my ear, but I was still too shocked to speak. Hugh had introduced himself to me! Granted, my hair had grown out; it was blunt-cut and hung halfway to my shoulders. But it had been only a year since we’d last seen each other, and he’d heard my name. He was pretending that he didn’t know me? Or was I that forgettable?

  “So what are you going to do, Rei? Make me your test audience. What are you going to teach me about kimono that I don’t already know?” Dick Jemshaw was trying to engage me, but at a moment like this, I had no patience—just irritation.

  “I guess I’ll put the kimono on—and then I’ll take it off,” I said crisply.

  “Hey, that sounds like a winning game plan! What do you say to that, Hugh?”

  Hugh didn’t respond—he was coughing into a napkin.

  “She’s only joking,” Allison said sharply, giving me an elbow. I’d gotten out of line.

  “What I’m talking about is dressing a mannequin, and I’ll actually be doing it for the public lecture,” I said, but from the wolfish grin on Dick Jemshaw’s face, I could tell that my explanation hadn’t helped.

  “Good to meet you,” Hugh said, and turned back to his plate.

  “Dick Jemshaw’s a real ladies’ man. You shouldn’t rev him up like that!” Allison whispered in my ear as we walked toward the exit together.

  “I’m sure it was just a misunderstanding,” Jamie said, sounding anxious.

  “I’m not used to speaking English,” I apologized. “And like I said, I’m feeling jet-lagged. You were right about it hitting in the afternoon.”

  “I see. Well, get your rest because there are plenty more people to meet in the next couple of days. I’d like to see you tomorrow afternoon to go over the outlines of your lectures.”

  She’d not spoken before about my needing to have the lectures preapproved. This must mean she didn’t trust me anymore.

  “Fine,” I said without arguing. At the moment I wanted nothing more than to collapse on my futon at home in Tokyo, where the days started and ended at the proper times, and complicated feelings were buried beneath the surface of my busy life. But there was no cozy, low futon waiting in Northern Virginia—just a queen-sized bed with poly-cotton sheets.

  “You forgot something.” A man’s voice spoke, and I turned quickly, hoping that Hugh had come after me to beg my forgiveness. But instead, it was the waiter, handing Allison the museum shopping bag. Oh, God. In my confusion over seeing Hugh, I’d dropped the Morioka’s treasured bridal kimono.

  Allison handed the bag to me with a slight frown, and I thanked the waiter profusely.

  “Here,” I said, stuffing a five-dollar bill into his hand. A small tip was the least I could give him for providing the only saving grace to a truly terrible day.

  7

  At four-thirty I was on my second glass of Chardonnay in Revolutionary Idea, the Washington Suites’ cocktail lounge. I’d spent some time before that at the front desk, where it was explained to me that the safe-deposit boxes were only eighteen-by-ten-by-six, so my kimono wouldn’t fit. Now I was drowning my sorrows at a small table with the kimono in its bag at my side. How much it had cost me already was pathetic—fifty dollars for a cab ride from D.C., since I was paranoid about having the kimono stolen out of my arms on the Metro.

  Wine was so cheap here—just three-fifty a glass, instead of the ten or so it cost in Tokyo. Right now, it was just what I needed. It softened things, made me feel cozy and safe. I told myself that no matter how many things had gone wrong, it was good that I’d come to America. My brief fit of inappropriate behavior in front of Hugh, Dick Jemshaw, Allison, and Jamie was an isolated incident. It wouldn’t be repeated.

  I sipped the oaky-tasting yellow wine, recalling the last intelligence I’d had on Hugh. It had been on the party page of Tatler, an English glossy that one of my gaijin friends had brandished at a meeting of my kanji study group. In the top left photo, Hugh was looking fabulous, as was his companion, Fiona Something-Double-Barreled. The two were at a shooting party at a castle in Scotland. He was back on his turf, with a tall woman with the same color of hair and skin: his kind. Nothing like me.

  I wondered what he’d think now, seeing the bar around me filled with tired but happy Japanese women just returned from their shopping expedition. Their interest chiefly seemed to be opening their shopping bags and displaying goods to each other. Words floated back to me—“Gucci,” “Nike,” “Rough-Roaring.”

  Rough-Roaring, Rough-Roaring. I hadn’t heard that brand before. I drank another inch of my wine and decided they were talking about Ralph Lauren.

  A Japanese girl with dyed hair wavered across the room, going up to the bar with an empty glass. It wasn’t Hana, but I thought of her now, and how she’d asked me to meet her. She’d been so insis
tent about wanting to meet at four-thirty, but she hadn’t come. I considered whether she’d gone instead to my room to find me.

  I got to my feet, picked up my shopping bag, and proceeded more or less steadily out to the lobby, where I asked the front-desk manager if anyone had left a message for me. “It should all be in the voice mail on your telephone. Go upstairs and dial three.”

  So impolite—not a please or thank-you in the exchange, I thought with annoyance as I headed upstairs. I was even more cranky when my key card didn’t work in the door. So much for high-tech gadgets. I went downstairs again.

  “Do you have ID?” demanded the front-desk clerk, who wore a nametag that said I’M JULIE! ASK ME ANYTHING.

  Didn’t Julie remember that I was the one who’d just asked about phone messages? Feeling annoyed, I dug about in my wallet. I had left my passport for safekeeping in my room, so all I had was an outdated California driver’s license, which the clerk frowned at.

  “Shouldn’t you have a Japanese license?”

  “I’m an American citizen, okay?” I was just drunk enough to raise my voice in a manner that made the Japanese girls waiting behind me take a second look.

  “Okay, Ms. Shy-mure. I’ll recode your key card, and that should take care of the problem.” The unfriendly Julie picked up the key card and did something to it with a small machine behind the counter.

  The recoded key card worked in my door, but I was still ticked off. I slammed the door and zipped the bag containing the kimono into one of my empty suitcases, padlocked it, and put it in the closet. Then I checked the phone. The message light was blinking, and after I made a circuitous trip into the voice-mail system, I learned that my mother had called me once and my father twice.

  I hung up and swallowed a couple of Aleve tablets with two glasses of water—my favorite hangover preventive—and lay down. Fully dressed, I fell into the kind of sleep that comes when one is too disoriented to settle down comfortably. After what seemed like a few minutes, a ringing sound started. I struggled for the phone, but it turned out that I’d left it off the hook. The ringing sound was at the door.