My Almost Flawless Tokyo Dream Life Read online

  “Nice,” I said.

  “We’ve been doing some shopping. This is for you.”

  I returned Uncle Masa’s computer to him and took the bag Emiko handed me. It was a Louis Vuitton duffel that I was pretty sure was not a fake, based on its smooth feel and expensive-store smell. Emiko and Uncle Masa started speaking to each other in Japanese while I rifled through the bag. It was filled with new clothes—shirts, sweaters, jeans, socks, and underwear, all in my size. I lifted a James Perse T-shirt and held it against my face. I had no idea a T-shirt could feel so soft, like a kitten rubbing my cheek. I placed the T-shirt back in the duffel bag and saw that there was also a Louis Vuitton toiletry bag with a hairbrush, toothpaste, and even feminine products. This duffel bag was better than a birthday present. It was like a windfall for the past three Christmases combined. Guilty much, Kenji Takahara?

  “I hope these items will be acceptable to you for the time being,” Emiko said. “I didn’t know your style, so I tried to make safe choices.”

  “They’re okay,” I said, trying to sound unaffected. “Thanks.” My style was Old Navy clearance rack, but I didn’t want her to think I could be impressed so easily with luxurious new clothes. “Is there a bathroom where I can change?”

  Emiko said, “The front desk attendant can direct you. They have spa facilities if you want to relax while we wait. We’ve still got another hour to go before boarding.”

  “Does the spa have a shower with warm water?” I asked, joking.

  “Of course,” said Emiko.

  SHUT! UP!

  “I can take a shower in there, for real?”

  “Yes. The attendant will give you a robe and slippers and any other items you require.”

  “I might need a massage,” I said, joking again.

  Emiko said, “The attendant can book that for you.”

  “Wait, seriously?” I’d never get a massage. Strangers touching me? No way. But the fact that a massage was even a real option here and not a joke was ridiculous. We were in an airport.

  Uncle Masa said, “My credit card is on file at the front. Get whatever service you’d like. Emiko and I will be working in the bar area meanwhile. You can find us there when you are finished.”

  New plan. I was going to live at the International First Lounge.

  The shower “stall” in the spa area was a spacious, white-tiled, private room with a showerhead centered over the ceiling, so it felt like bathing under a glorious rainfall—not too hard, not too soft, but just right. The lather of the sweetest-smelling lavender body soap felt like a purification, wiping Foster Home #3 clean off my skin. Argan oil shampoo and conditioner left my hair feeling light, smooth, and born-again clean.

  After the shower, I chose from a whole rack of white towels. (Who could ever need that many towels for one shower?) The towel was unbelievably soft and plush; I wanted to sleep in it. Since I couldn’t take the shower stall with me, I stuffed the wet towel into the Louis Vuitton duffel bag in case the towels were terrible in Tokyo. Then I thought better of it and placed a second dry towel in my bag, in case someone stole the first one.

  I felt like a different person when I emerged from the spa back into the main area of the lounge. Clean, refreshed, whole. A not-sorry towel thief. I saw Emiko and Uncle Masa in the bar area at the far end of the lounge, but they were deep in work, so I checked out the rest of the lounge. There were free soda and tea machines, a virtual reality game pod, a snack buffet, massage chairs. While I didn’t want strange human hands touching me, a chair would be more than excellent. I plopped down into the recliner chair, turned it on, and whoa, the vibrations seemed to be soothing my every muscle, and then . . .

  “Time to board.” It was Emiko standing over me. I must have fallen asleep on Heaven Chair. “Would you like something to read?” She showed me a stack of fashion and business magazines.

  “I don’t think I’m really interested in Harvard ­Business School alumni magazine, but thanks. Did you go there?”

  I was being sarcastic when I asked but she answered me sincerely. “I got my MBA there.” She went to Harvard Business School and now she was just an assistant? That seemed crazy. Maybe she wasn’t that smart.

  “Do we have to go?” I asked. “I like it right here. This might actually be the best place I’ve ever been.”

  Uncle Masa said, “That’s because you’ve never been to Tokyo.” He held out his hand to help me out of the chair. I reluctantly stood up. At least I’d always have the towel(s) to remember this divine sanctuary called the International First Lounge.

  Our group was called to board first. I tried to act casual as I followed Uncle Masa and Emiko to the plane, like I knew what I was doing and did it all the time, but I was actually shaking with fear. That ginormous thing on the tarmac I could see through the window was supposed to carry people across an entire ocean? Did. Not. Seem. Possible.

  The Japanese air hostess waiting at the entrance looked like a Disney princess wearing an ANA Airways uniform suit, with a tiny figure, smooth black hair, impeccable makeup, and a glittering smile. She addressed Emiko and Uncle Masa in Japanese when they boarded, but somehow knew to speak English to me. “Your seat is across the aisle from theirs,” she said, gesturing down the path ahead. As Emiko and Uncle Masa placed their briefcases in an overhead bin across the aisle, on my side, I walked past some bedlike private pods, walked by the bathroom, and saw the rows of seats, three on the right side, three in the middle, and another three on the left. I looked down at my ticket, trying to figure out which seat was mine, but then I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around. “Back this way,” the air hostess said to me. I followed her back to the private pods at the front, where the seats seemed like mansions in comparison to the cramped dormitory rooms in the rear of the plane. “Two-A, for you.”

  “Seriously? For me?”

  She pointed at my ticket. “First class. Yes.”

  Okay, lady, whatever you say. I’d no idea that first-class tickets meant seats that were entirely different from the other cabins on the plane. As the next boarding group filed past the first-class cabin, I settled into my solo seat. It pulled out into a bed, was partitioned for privacy, had its own TV screen that seemed to show every movie I’d ever wanted to see, and—WHAT?—my own pair of noise-canceling headphones to use during the flight. For free!

  Uncle Masa sat in the middle pod across the aisle from me, and Emiko sat next to him in an identical pod. Row two was only four seats across, but in economy, as they called it, the rows had nine seats in the same amount of space.

  “I don’t mind switching back there if someone needs this seat,” I said to Uncle Masa. It seemed unfair that most passengers would be crowded together on such a long flight while we had the sweet life up front. I was excited (if terrified) just to be on a plane. I’d be fine in ecomomy. Seemed more like where I belonged. (So long as I could take those headphones with me.)

  “Don’t be silly,” said Uncle Masa. “That’s your seat.”

  Phew. I hadn’t really wanted to change seats.

  I’d only just figured out how to plug the headphones into the sound system when a male voice came through them announcing that boarding was complete and it was time to take off. He said it in English first, then Japanese. As the plane pulled back from the gate, a safety video played on my TV monitor, showing how to use the oxygen mask and how to find the inflatable raft under my seat.

  What?!?! Why did I need to know that information?

  Why would we need inflatable rafts for a jetliner that was supposed to be flying OVER the ocean, not in it?

  My heart pounded hard as the captain came over the intercom, asking the crew to take their seats for takeoff. I braced my hands against the sides of my seat and felt beads of sweat on my brow. This was it. No turning back now. The plane moved forward, going faster and faster, and then, like it was nothing, the huge behemoth lifted off from the ground and we were in the air.

  Holy freaking amazing! I’d never been so simul
taneously scared and awed in my whole life. I wanted to throw up and cheer at the same time.

  I looked out the window at the DC area below, getting farther and farther away from view. I’ll miss you, stupid only home that I’ve ever known. Take good care of Mom and Reggie for me. Pray I don’t fuck this up.

  Here.

  We were being driven to Kenji Takahara’s home from Narita International Airport, in a chauffeured car service again. I’d slept almost the entire flight, to my wanted-to-watch-all-movies regret, so I was wide awake now and full of questions. The car drove on the left side of the road, which made me feel dizzy every time I looked up to see oncoming traffic on my right. I needed the distraction of conversation, and I had about five million questions. So far Uncle Masa and Emiko hadn’t answered the most obvious one, so I finally asked it. “Why didn’t Kenji Takahara come to greet us at the airport?”

  “It’s four in the morning,” said Emiko. It was also, I’d learned, with the time difference, two days in the future from when we’d left.

  Uncle Masa said, “Narita is too long a car ride there and back. He doesn’t come to you. You go to him.”

  “Seems kind of rude,” I muttered.

  “Not rude. Practical,” said Uncle Masa.

  “I have lots of questions for him about living here.”

  Emiko said, “I’ve prepared an orientation notebook for you. Would you like to see it now?”

  “Sure,” I mumbled. I already knew Uncle Masa and Emiko could answer lots of my questions. But I wanted Kenji Takahara to do it.

  Uncle Masa turned on the light in the backseat as Emiko took a white three-ring binder from her briefcase and handed it to me. Inside the clear sleeve on the front cover was a piece of paper that said ELLE ZOELLNER: JAPAN. I opened the notebook. It was divided into sections with tabs labeled “Etiquette,” “Tak-Luxxe,” “ICS,” “Dining,” and “Transportation.” Each section was filled with brochures and printouts. Each printout page was laminated, and each brochure was tucked into a plastic sleeve attached to the ring binder. Indestructible. It would probably take me a week to read through the whole thing. “Dining? I need etiquette orientation for that?”

  Uncle Masa said, “In Japan, there are different customs for eating. Like how you hold your chopsticks, how you drink your soup.”

  “I think I know how to eat,” I said. (I didn’t actually know how to use chopsticks.)

  “There’s a lot more about Japanese customs in the binder than just dining,” said Emiko. “For instance, did you know it’s considered unlucky to use the number four in Japan?”

  “What does four have to do with anything? How random.”

  Emiko said, “Our rules may seem odd to you, but etiquette is one of the defining principles of Japanese life. Japanese pride themselves on a very ordered way of living. Observing etiquette rules makes that possible.”

  I started to read one of the printouts in the Etiquette section. “I can’t wear my own shoes in the house? In my own home or anyone else’s?”

  Emiko said, “It’s the custom to take your shoes off in the genkan of a home—which is like an American entryway or foyer. You leave your shoes in the genkan but not facing the door.”

  “What am I supposed to wear if I have to take my shoes off? What if my feet are cold?” I’d barely gotten off the plane, and I was already starting to panic that I could never acclimate to this new world.

  Emiko said, “Wear socks, or there will be slippers available in the genkan.”

  “What if there’s not?”

  Emiko said, “There always are. That’s the Japanese way.”

  “But if the home has a tatami floor, then only wear socks, not slippers,” said Uncle Masa.

  I didn’t even know what a tatami floor was. I turned the page in the notebook. There was an illustrated brochure all about bowing. It went on for three pages! How could there be that much to know about bowing? “I don’t understand bowing,” I said, hoping the implication was clear: and I don’t feel like reading a boring brochure about it.

  “As a foreigner, you won’t be expected to,” said Uncle Masa. “Just remember it is customary to bow as a greeting or to say thank you.”

  “And don’t hug Japanese people,” Emiko said. “Such an unfortunate American habit.”

  Like I’d want to hug her and all her stupid rules that were on the verge of giving me an anxiety attack.

  Maybe Uncle Masa saw the I’m-about-to-full-on-freak-out expression on my face, because he told Emiko, “We should tell her about her new school.”

  I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought about that yet. “How can I go to school here? I don’t speak Japanese.”

  Uncle Masa said, “Your classes will be in English. It’s an international school, for students from all over the world. Expats, like you.”

  “What’s an expat?”

  “It’s short for ‘expatriate.’ People from one country who live in another.”

  Emiko said, “Look at the divider labeled ‘ICS.’ ” I turned to the ICS section in the notebook, where there was a brochure that said “International Collegiate School Tokyo” and had a picture of uniform-wearing private school kids standing on a green lawn quad in front of a flagpole with the Japanese flag at the top and various other country flags like USA and the UK below it. “It’s an old ICS brochure I found at the Washington embassy. ICS has locations all over the world where expats send their children, for an American-style education.”

  “In case I’m not smart enough for a Japanese education?”

  This lady had no sense of sarcasm. “Japanese education is very rigorous. You would find it very challenging.”

  Okay, now she was just insulting me. “I don’t like school uniforms,” I shot back, looking at a photo in the brochure of private school kids wearing matching clothes. “I don’t want to wear one.”

  Emiko said, “In Japan, you are a reflection of your family. To refuse a uniform would make your respected father look bad. You must follow the rules. That’s why he wanted you to have this notebook. So you don’t offend anyone by mistake.”

  Didn’t they realize this whole conversation was offensive—to me? What did this Kenji Takahara guy want—a daughter or an obedient geisha?

  More of the city was coming into view, so I chose to focus on that rather than Emiko’s Etiquette Edicts. There were tall, narrow apartment buildings and short, wide apartment buildings. Warehouses. Bright lights toward the city center. It was hard to believe so many buildings could exist in such a condensed space. The car drove on an elevated highway that seemed to go on forever, and as the buildings got taller and taller, the sky burst with city lights. The landscape felt very alive. Sleepy Washington, DC, had no super-tall buildings, so I’d never seen a skyscraper before except on television, but here, they towered across the skyline in abundance, a vertical city shining in the dark early morning. Many of the skyscrapers had electronic advertisements displayed on their facades, with sweet young Japanese women demonstrating cosmetic products. We passed a building ad with a Japanese businessman who had a huge white cat’s face poking out from behind his head, and a slogan written in Japanese that looked very happy based on the pink-and-red coloring of the letters.

  Hold up. Excuse me?

  “What’s that ad for?” I asked.

  Uncle Masa said, “It’s a political ad. That man is running for parliament.”

  “Why the cat?” I approved, obviously, but it made no sense.

  Emiko said, “Cats are revered in Japan. You will see many shops with cat figurines on display. They’re called maneki-neko, or ‘beckoning cats.’ They’re considered good luck.”

  I didn’t like all their rules, but a country that revered cats had potential.

  The car exited off the elevated highway and down into the city streets, filled with vehicles and people on bikes, and lots of pedestrians on the sidewalks, despite it being before dawn. I saw no houses, only tall apartment buildings and skyscrapers. “Where does Kenji Takaha
ra live?”

  “See the tab labeled ‘Tak-Luxxe,’ ” said Emiko. God forbid she just tell me.

  I opened the notebook to a travel brochure printed in English, for a luxury hotel/residential suite establishment called Tak-Luxxe, which occupied the upper floors of a fifty-five-story skyscraper building named Harmony Tower, in a Tokyo neighborhood called Minato. The brochure boasted that Tak-Luxxe was an Asian boutique hotel luxury brand in high demand by the world’s most discriminating travelers, and it had pictures of posh hotel suites, a sky deck pool and garden, and restaurants like a sushi bar, patisserie, champagne bar, and Japanese steakhouse. “This is nice,” I said after glancing through the brochure. “But what’s it got to do with where I’ll live?”

  Uncle Masa said, “It is where you’ll live.”

  “In a hotel?” Had I been scammed? I knew this was too good to be true. I wasn’t a total bumpkin. I’d heard about trafficking, where young girls were taken from their homes and forced to become prostitutes or slave factory workers. “Real homes don’t come with travel brochures. Have I been kidnapped?”

  Uncle Masa laughed, but I didn’t see what was so funny.

  Emiko said, “If ‘kidnapped’ means living in one of the most exclusive buildings in Tokyo, then perhaps. I wish I could be kidnapped there.”

  Uncle Masa said, “Tak-Luxxe is the Takahara family business. They have several luxury hotels throughout Asia. Tak-Luxxe Tokyo is their flagtrain.”

  It took a second, but I figured it out. “Do you mean ‘flagship’?”

  “Yes, flagship! Your father lives in a penthouse apartment on the forty-ninth floor.”

  I processed those words: penthouse apartment on the forty-ninth floor. I’d never been in a building so tall, much less lived in one. What if I had vertigo? On the other hand, I’d just survived a fourteen-hour flight and time-traveled to two days in the future, so maybe I had superpowers I’d not been aware of previously.

  The car pulled into a discreet driveway on a side-street entrance for the looming Harmony Tower, which I recognized from the brochure. Bellhops wearing ­Tak-Luxxe uniforms immediately opened the passenger doors. We stepped out of the car, and Emiko and Uncle Masa exchanged a series of bows with the bellhops, who then unloaded the luggage and placed the items on brass rolling carts.