The Bride's Kimono Read Free Page B

season.
    “I’m glad you’re not going to America. I’d rather have you around here.” Takeo smiled lazily at me, and pulled me against his body.
    “Well, what if I do get permission to go? Would you come with me? It would be about a week to ten days.” I knew that he’d be free, because Takeo didn’t really have a job. He sat on a few environmental organizations’ boards, worked on and off on the restoration of his family’s country house, and arranged flowers and gardened.
    “I haven’t been back to the U.S. since I graduated from Santa Cruz. What was that, six years ago?”
    “Well, maybe it’s time. You could come to California with me when I’m visiting my parents at the tail end of the trip. Before that, you’d be in Washington, D.C., the nation’s capital—there’s an arboretum and a botanical garden you might like.”
    Takeo snorted. “I can’t think of worse torture than going back to the country where ketchup is a vegetable and anyone can buy a gun. I don’t like the thought of you being anywhere outside the museum, your hotel, and your parents’ place. It’s simply too dangerous.”
    “Okay,” I said, “I disinvite you, then—if ‘disinvite’ is a word. I’ve been away from my own country so long I’ve practically forgotten the language.” I rolled away from him, and waited for him to come after me. He didn’t, so I spoke again. “You know, Takeo, what you say about the world being dangerous bothers me. I miss going out. I can hardly remember the last time we went to the Kabuki theater or saw a foreign film at the Yebisu Garden Cinema or even had dinner at Aunt Norie’s house—”
    “Everything you mention relates to consumption. You want to go places and spend money.”
    “Not at my aunt’s.”
    “Well, we’ve got to take her some kind of gourmet gift.”
    “I always buy the gift,” I said pointedly.
    “I wish you wouldn’t harp on this. When we started seeing each other, I was impressed because you seemed to be the one woman who didn’t want things from me. Now you want to trot me out everywhere like a showpiece.”
    “So you think I’m causing the tabloid problems? Actually, if you hadn’t been so overly passionate with me on the street, we wouldn’t have been photographed.”
    “It bothers me that you believe the tabloid invasion came about because of me. I think you are the one they’re really interested in.”
    “Me? The daughter of a little-known interior decorator and a professor of psychiatry? I’m hardly as fascinating as the young heir to the eighth-richest man in Japan.” I could have bitten my tongue after the words came out, because I didn’t mean to rub Takeo’s father in his face.
    “Your parents don’t matter, but you do,” Takeo accused. “For the last two years the papers have been full of tiny but perfectly placed mentions of Rei Shimura. You’ve helped the police solve murders, you’ve rescued long-lost historic treasures, and you’d go dancing every night if the clubs you favored didn’t keep getting raided.”
    “If that’s supposed to be a compliment, I’m not taking it,” I said tightly. “In fact, I’m not going to stay here. There are still a couple of trains back to the city tonight.”
    Takeo shrugged. “It’s your choice.”
    “Thanks for the pizza and your extreme kindness.” I used the super-polite Japanese phrase with deep sarcasm. I’d expected to be defeated by the men at the Morioka, but not by the boyfriend who’d been intimatewith me an hour earlier. The trickling, sinking feeling I had as I left Takeo’s house that night was not a good one.
     
    T he next week, I heard nothing from Takeo, even though I’d called to leave a message, and nothing from the museum. Thursday evening I went to have dinner with my aunt Norie, and she spent half the time trying to figure out why Takeo wasn’t with me. I couldn’t possibly tell her that he’d rather just have sex with me in his house than eat shabu-shabu