between them. “I’ve never even dated you, so how can I leave you?” “You every time. You leave me every time.”
Now her meaning was obvious. He flushed and stepped back. “What
alternatives are there? Don’t you want this to stop?”
The silence that ensued betrayed a mutual uncertainty about the honest answer to that question. Elly said, “It’s not about stopping anything. It’s
about what you are trying to prevent.”
“You know—”
“I don’t know, Connor. Whatever is happening between us can’t be undone. I have to know what comes next.” She came close to shouting at him.
“You must have given that question future some consideration.” The look on his face made it clear he didn’t have a clue. “Forget it,”
she said, pushing him away from her. “Just forget it.”
He stood there, a statue rooted in the green grass.
She stopped in the lavatory before going back into the TA office. She
splashed cold water on her face and stared at herself in the mirror. She
reached deep down in her gut and found the anger. At him. It wiped away
the confusion, smothered the pain. There, that’s better.
Now back to work. Darlene and Bradley were waiting.
Brilliant job, genius, Connor told himself. Two steps forward, a thousand miles back. What did she want? And how in the world was he supposed to give it to her?
Yeah, you’re giving it to her, Billy Bragg’s alter-ego barged in. Shut up.
But wasn’t that exactly the point? How could he leave her? They had
never been together. What did she think this was, an arranged marriage? The girl he’d pretended to be in love with Winter semester—Julie— when he figured out that a bunch of warm feelings didn’t mean he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her, he’d ended up in Osaka. Maybe love could conquer all, but it could also fool him pretty good. Get far enough away and he realized that. But running away wasn’t the right solution this time around.
He headed back to the JKHB, praying that his schedule would be booked. Or at least busy enough to keep Alicia off his case.
Chapter 12
Grumpy Old Fart
C onnor’s experience was that most conflicts could be avoided given sufficient time and distance. His family put a big premium on avoiding conflict. At worst, the women fumed and the men (well, his father) retreated to the Cave.
“It wasn’t so bad,” his mother told him once, referring to his dad, “after I figured out that he never got mad at me. In my family, a silent man was the uneasy calm before the storm. A silent McKenzie is a man waiting for the storm to blow over. And McKenzie men can wait a long time.”
But according to Billy Bragg, the whole passive-aggressive thing was preferable to the yelling and the crying and the hard objects bouncing off the walls.
His parents left Utah thirty years ago, that was time and distance. As a consequence, they had to trek west once again every time a relative died. His father was the youngest in his family, and his mother second to last among her siblings. So Connor’s grand-relatives died off at a brisk clip.
His mother’s father attended Connor’s blessing. Connor was a month old in the photograph, cradled in the man’s spotted, spidery arms. At Brigham Young University, his maternal grandfather had been a professor of some small renown, the chairman of the chemistry department before he retired. In the photograph, his face was drawn with age, his shoulders bent with osteoarthritis, his eyes bulbous behind thick lenses.
Connor was seven years old. They were gathered around the kitchen table eating dinner when the phone rang and his mother learned that her father had died. He had never seen his mother cry before. Two days later, his parents and his oldest sister Diane flew to Utah to attend the funeral. He didn’t go with them. Neither did Judith, Margaret, or Sara Beth.
His sisters stayed with the Hunsakers. Connor got sent to the Durrants. He pleaded, “Why can’t I stay with Billy?”
“They already have Billy’s grandfather living with them,” his mother pointed out. She killed that idea pretty quickly, which was too bad, because Connor really liked Billy’s grandfather.
He called himself the Grumpy Old Fart. “That’s me, kid,” the old guy gleefully confessed. “The GOF. I calls ’em like I sees ’em.”
Connor and Billy giggled. The GOF chomped down on his cigar and grinned broadly, reveling in his indecorous character. “Here, have a Slim Jim,” he’d say, and launch into one of his war stories. “Boys, there was so much blood in the water wading ashore at Tarawa, it stained my skivvies pink. And I was in the third wave. Or I wouldn’t be sitting here, kid.”
That was the moral of every story: had it been any different than the way it was, he’d be a corpse under a cross in Arlington.
The time Connor told him he was a Mormon: “Yeah, I seen God too, just like that Joe Smith guy. We were off the coast of Okinawa and this Zero kamikazes into our port side. If he’d hit us amidships, I wouldn’t be here talking to the two of you. But the aft triple-A sawed off his left wing at the last second and he corkscrewed into the bow. Half my platoon had a come-to-Jesus meeting right then and there.”
He paused to take a puff. “Still, nice place, Japan. Even with all that B29 urban renewal. I was there the first year of the Occupation. You ought to go there sometime, kid. I hear it’s really changed. I think you’d like it.”
Connor promised him he would.
The GOF didn’t care that Connor’s family was Mormon. If he didn’t care, Connor didn’t see why his parents should care. It was the smoking, he figured. Even Billy’s mom sent the GOF to the back porch to light up. In the dead of winter, he’d sit out there blanketed in a white cloud. He smelled terrible all the time. Connor’d wear the smell home on his clothes, like after a week at Scout camp. But the GOF had a seemingly infinite supply of Slim Jims and stories. Connor liked his stories. He was a pretty good guy as far as GOFs went. He’d trade grandfathers with Billy any day of the week, cigar smoke and all.
The Durrants had just moved into the ward. They were nice enough people, but they were still complete strangers. Their boy, Jason, was a year older than Connor. Neither of them was inclined to get to know each other better at the time (and never really did). But there weren’t that many Mormons in upstate New York. A family of believers couldn’t afford to be choosy.
His parents and Diane flew off to Utah on a cool Saturday morning in October. Connor went home with the Durrants.
At the age of seven, he learned that there was no solitude emptier than the loneliness he felt in the company of well-meaning strangers. And because all people were at some time strangers to each other, those seeking the greatest security found it always within the shell of the self.
It was the way of all McKenzie men.
The only grand-relative left by the time Connor was old enough to care was his Grandpa McKenzie. He lasted until Connor’s freshman year at BYU, the day after Thanksgiving. The doctors said he died of a heart attack. But Connor knew when somebody’s that pissed off at the world, there’s no silent treatment like the silence of the dead.
But this business with Elly Packard—silence wouldn’t work. She didn’t mind giving him a piece of her mind. He couldn’t keep up. I don’t want you to leave me. How was he supposed to respond? What happened can’t be undone. What was that supposed to mean anyway?
You know what she means, the voice in his head responded. Ah, so his superego was cruising for a little Socratic smackdown, was it? He saved the email he was composing to Nobuo (his weekly list of terminology entries for the SDF translation database). He pushed away from the desk and spun lazily around. Why did he leave her? Because the only intimate connection they shared was purely physical. If anything was wrong, that was. Right?
Except that leaving her didn’t change anything. He left her because of the next logical step. Marriage. He caught his breath and let it out. Yes, the ol’ fear of commitm
ent. Well, why not marriage? He rolled the chair back to the desk, brought up Word on his laptop, stared for a minute at the blank, white window, and typed:
Elly McKenzie 1. Pretty (very).
2. Smart (sensei).
3. Nisei/haafu ( + pretty!).
4. Intimidating parents!
5. Less neurotic than I am.
6. RM (definite plus).
7. No shrinking violet.
8. Doesn’t like me.
He frowned. Something was wrong with the list, besides the sheer childishness of it. No, McKenzie pragmatism! Compare, contrast, analyze. Consider all the options! Look before you leap! He scanned the list again.
Elly McKenzie He pounded the up-arrow key, deleted, and typed: Elly Packard. Connor sighed. This was all so stupid. The computer dinged out a beepboop, indicating incoming mail. He switched to Outlook and clicked on the message. It was from Elly.
“I got your email address from Uncle Nobuo,” she began. “He hopes you’ll come back next summer. He promises he’ll be able to pay you this time. So, yoroshiku.” In the next paragraph she wrote, “You’re right. We should talk. How about Monday at five? Same place, above the clock. I promise not to yell at you this time.”
Connor replied, “Tell your uncle I’m looking forward to working with him next year. See you Monday.”
Chapter 13
Meetings at Five
E lly sent the email Saturday evening before leaving the library. She considered waiting around to see if he replied. But he must have better things to do on a Saturday night. The fact that she didn’t spoke volumes about her social life. Try as she might, Melanie was making little headway in reforming her roommate’s cloistered ways.
The problem was, no social life could compete with her dreams, could satisfy the longings that flared up inside her. Out of nowhere, she’d find herself thinking of Japan and the long summer nights they spent together in that nocturnal neverland. How the sweat welded their skin together. A fierce blush rose from her chest to her neck to her face.
“ Stop it, stop it,” she lectured herself. She was already nurturing second thoughts—not so much about how Connor would react—but about the likelihood that her casual request for information would spread to the immediate family. Not that they would object. Their enthusiasm might spook the prey.
Elly smiled to herself. They were like two samurai in a Kurosawa picture warily encountering each other on a dusty road, asking with a raised eyebrow, friend or foe. A muscle’s twitch from fight or flight.
She went to the dresser and extracted the small box from the back of the top right drawer. She popped it open and pulled out the origami-like lump of manufacturer’s instructions. “Warning, warning, warning, threat, threat, threat,” she mumbled to herself, scanning the tiny text.
Then she pulled out the blister pack of pink and white pills. Welcome to Nebraska. The whole state stretched out in front of her, the interstate vanishing over the curve of the distant horizon. There were still so many things she did not know, so many things to be afraid of, including her own passions. So many places where guilt could worry its way in.
Yet Sunday night she dreamed a different dream.
Elly had long ago given up trying to direct her dreams one way or another. But as she fell through the warm currents of semiconsciousness, that inviting place rushed toward and then past her. She felt a wash of confusion, realizing he was not there with her.
The diversion aroused a flurry of suspicions in her mind. The puppet masters in the Bunraku theater, though dressed in black, were visible to the audience. The audience chose not to see them, chose instead to believe in the willful souls of the puppets. Yet when the puppet master placed the puppet in some improbable position, would not the puppet wonder how she got there?
Gliding along the path of her misdirected dream, Elly arrived at last at the end of the detour and lit gracefully upon the ground. The vista around her cleared. The compelling physical reality of the dream replaced her questions with curiosity. She stood on a broad, residential street. The sunlight shining through the canopy of maple and cottonwood danced in her eyes. She was wearing a snow-white kimono, dazzlingly bright in the late morning sun.
The street was empty of automobiles. Elly glanced around. She recognized the rectangular cut of an irrigation canal along the shoulder of the road. The houses were set far back from the street behind generous front lawns. An eclectic mix of Cape Cods and faded Queen Anne facades, plus a few brick-faced bungalows. This was Provo, she realized. Somewhere in the older part of town, east of Academy Square.
She tucked her hands into her sleeves as she walked along. She was not entirely used to the short strides that kimono required. Her lacquered geta sandals clicked against the asphalt.
There, at last, across a shadowed lawn, were signs of human life. Three men gathered around an automobile. She continued on several more yards until she came to the end of the driveway. The car was parked facing the street. She recognized the insignia of a galloping horse attached to the radiator grille plate, but could not remember the model. The car’s hood yawned open. The two men on the left were well into middle age. On the right was an older man, old enough to be their father. He held an automotive part in his left hand and pointed at the engine with his right. The part glistened with streaks of oil.
“Hello?” she called out.
They did not hear her. She caught a flicker of motion farther back in the shadows. She looked up at the front porch of the house. The screen at the end of the porch was open. A boy, eight or nine, leaned over the railing so far he was almost balanced on his stomach. He stared at the scene below with the intensity of a medical student observing an operation.
“Hello?” she said again.
The boy slid off the railing and turned until he was looking straight at her. His head tilted to the side, wondering at what he was seeing. A patch of sunlight flickered through the screen, etching a delicate grid of lines across his face. The old man glanced at the boy, saw where his gaze was directed, and then looked at her.
The boy raised his hand and beckoned to her.
The dream ended.
Monday afternoon Connor was immersed in Genji when Elly arrived at the second floor, west mezzanine of the Wilkinson Center. She sat beside him on the bench. He smiled at her. The warm chord that played in her heart alarmed her. She shrugged it off with a toss of her head. She asked, indicating the book, “How doth the Shining Prince?”
“He’s a man with one complicated love life.” She played her schoolmarm role. “And what lessons do we draw from his example?”
“I shall have only one wife and no mistresses.”
“Your bride will appreciate knowing that.” Their eye contact lasted a moment too long. She abruptly turned away. “The other night,” she said, staring across the courtyard, “you didn’t dream about me.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“What did you dream about?”
“It was strange. I was late for something, late for a class. The bell’s ringing and I’m running down the hall. I’ve got a furoshiki package under my arm, like you’d get at an upscale Ginza department store. I don’t know what it is, but I’m scared to death of losing it. Finally I get to the classroom. Standing at the head of the class is this older Japanese man. He reminded me of Pat Morita. He looks at me and says, ‘Where’s Chieko?’ And I say I don’t know, because I don’t. The only Chieko I can think of is Chieko Baisho, the actress. Ever see Cry of the Distant Mountains with Ken Takakura? Great movie.”
“What did he say next?” Elly tried hard not to gasp when she asked the question.
“‘Go find her then, and make sure she gets that.’ He meant the package I was carrying. And then he says, ‘We can’t begin without her.’” Connor gave her a blank look. “Whatever that means.”
“My grandmother’s name is Chieko.”
“Really? I met her once at your uncle’s. Huh. Course, they just called her Ob -chan.”
“My
name is Chieko.”
“Your name’s Elaine.”
“My middle name is Chieko, after my grandmother. It’s what my Japanese relatives call me. My mom too, when we’re in Japan.”
Really? his eyes said. “It still doesn’t make any sense.”
A thought struck her. “Studying Genji and all, you know about yobai, right?” His face went scarlet. Elly smothered a grin at his reaction. “We’ve been together more than three nights.” He nodded. But arguing that they should consider themselves engaged after spending three nights together was too direct. She tried a more subtle approach. “The package you were supposed to give to me—do you know what it was?”
He shook his head.
She pressed, “Was there a kanji on the furoshiki?”
He furrowed his brow. Then his expression brightened. “Tai,” he said.
“Obi,” she corrected him.
He wrote the character on his palm with his finger. “Right, it’d be obi.” He nodded. “That makes sense. A half-decent obi can cost a few grand— not something you’d want to be hauling around like a bag of groceries.”
Elly began to smile. “I know what you were wearing in your dream.” She didn’t wait for him to challenge her on this assertion. “Haori hakama. Formal wear for the medieval samurai.”
His obvious surprise was replaced by a look of caution. “I know what a haori hakama is.”
She waited for him to get it, but he obviously wasn’t going to. “What do you know about yui-n ?” she asked, a bit impatiently.
“It’s the traditional engagement ceremony.”
“And what gifts do the bride-to-be and bridegroom-to-be exchange at the yui-n ?” She felt like she was conducting an anthropology exam. “It’s obi and hakama. You were supposed to give the obi to me.”
Oh, said the shape of his mouth. She saw in his eyes that he was contemplating possibilities that for the first time were being articulated aloud rather than merely thought. Against her better judgment she said, “You have thought about it?”
“About what?”
The Path Of Dreams Page 7
