by Hanna Peach
“You miss it.”
“I do,” I admitted.
“Why did you leave?”
“I had no choice.”
“Oh… Well, it sounds amazing.”
“You’ve done so well to replicate it with this garden. When I first stepped in I almost thought I was home.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Thanks. That means a lot, coming from you.” He leaned on the bridge railing and I found myself doing the same.
“Why such an interest in Japan?” I asked.
“When I was a boy I found some of my mother’s things among my dad’s. She had a bunch of postcards from Japan. I remember all of them; there was a picture of cherry blossoms in full bloom, one of a temple on the edge of a lake in autumn. But my favorite one was the shot of Mount Fuji, snow capping the top. There’s just something about Japan…it just seems so pure. So grand and clean. The beauty, the surroundings, the people; it’s so real. So full of simple beauty. Growing up near LA, going to school there, you realize there’s not a lot of beauty here that is real…or simple.”
“Does your mother still have the postcards? I’d love to see them.”
“They have long since been thrown away.”
“What a shame. Why would your mother throw them away?”
“She didn’t. My father did.”
“Why would he do that?”
“I think the reminders of her were too painful for him. She left us when I was four.”
“Oh God.” I recoiled in shock. What would make a woman abandon her child and husband? I couldn’t imagine never knowing my mother or my mother’s love.
I shouldn’t have asked about her. I should have picked up on it when he said, I found some of my mother’s things. But I was too distracted by his scent and that freckle and the way his lips moved around every word. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean−”
“It’s fine.” He waved a hand at me. “It was a long time ago. Anyway, since I found those postcards I’ve always wanted to visit.”
“You should!”
“One day. Maybe.”
“Why wouldn’t you go?”
“Oh, just…you know.” He flushed slightly. “Working here there aren’t really any opportunities for international travel. Plus, it doesn’t pay the best.”
I should have guessed this was the case. I felt terrible. My new husband seemed to have all the money in the world to buy anything he wanted and this young passionate man didn’t have enough to fulfill a lifelong dream. It seemed so unfair.
“I think,” he said, “maybe I should just give up on the idea of ever going.”
“No,” I said fiercely, “you need to hang on to that dream. Don’t let it die. Sometimes dreams are all we have to keep us going. Sometimes they’re all we have to live for.”
He stared at me for the longest moment. I felt silly for such an outburst of passion. What did I know about him and his life?
Finally he asked, “What do you dream about?”
Me? I was startled by that question. What did I dream about?
I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when I realized…I dreamt of nothing. Not anymore. “I…I don’t know.”
“I don’t believe that. What was your impassioned speech about holding on to dreams?”
“I used to dream of being an English teacher like my father. I wanted to make a difference in other people’s lives like he did.”
“What happened to that?”
I swallowed away a small knot in my throat. “Life happened.”
He made a humming noise in the back of his throat. “Someone very wise once told me never to give up on my dream.”
I laughed softly. He had called me out on myself. “Sounds very wise indeed.”
We shared a comfortable silence, a perfect silence. In this quiet I became conscious of how relaxed I felt around him. He felt familiar, like I had known him for a long time. Yet at the same time, every cell in my body buzzed at his proximity. Every pebble of flesh became more alert and alive with every glance.
“You’re new here,” he said.
“I am.”
“I didn’t realize Mr. Blackwell was hiring again. What do you do here?”
He thought I was a member of Mr. Blackwell’s staff. For some reason I didn’t want to correct him. But I couldn’t lie. He’d find out soon enough.
“I don’t work here exactly.”
He frowned. “Oh? So you’re one of Mr. Blackwell’s friends?”
“I guess you could say that.”
“Are you here on a visit?”
“Not really.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I’m Noriko.”
His stumbled back, his eyes widening so I could see the whites around his pupils. “You are Riko? You’re the new Mrs. Blackwell?”
I winced. “Please, call me Noriko. It’s nice to meet you.” I stuck my hand out as an afterthought. What would his hand feel like in mine?
He didn’t take my hand. The longer he stared at it, the more my hand, perfectly manicured by the stylist yesterday, began to look alien to me.
“It’s a hand,” I said, feeling like an idiot. “You shake it.” I was sure that people in the States shook hands when they greeted each other. Maybe I was mistaken?
His eyes, now cold, rose up to meet mine. His face was guarded. The brightness that had shone from him faded and it was now fading in me. Already I missed it.
“No,” he said, “thanks.”
“Oh.” My cheeks warmed. I lowered my hand and clasped it with my other in front of me.
“My hands are dirty.” His lifted them up. They were large, dirt-streaked, mud caught under his nails in half-moons and the backs of them were brown from the sun.
“Right.”
As we stood there staring at each other my breathing began to go funny. I noticed he was pressing his mouth together as if he wanted to keep from saying something.
“You didn’t tell me your name,” I said, just to say something.
“Why do you need to know my name?”
“Well, I thought…I thought we could be…friends.”
“Friends?” He said the word as if the idea repulsed him.
“There’s no one else my age here, not that I’ve−”
“I don’t have time for this,” he growled.
“What?”
“I have work to do.” He spun and stalked away, his boots clomping on the bridge.
I was left flustered, my cheeks burning. For a long moment I didn’t know what to do. I just stared at his wide retreating back as fragrant petals flittered down around my head.
What just happened? What did I say? I thought we started off so well…
When his footsteps tapered off, all that cut through my thoughts were the sounds of trickling water and the distant call of birds. I was still standing there. Like an idiot. Only then did a thousand clever comebacks enter my mind. Usually I didn’t have a problem talking back. But it was too late now. He was too far gone.
I garnered no satisfaction by spinning and storming off back towards the mansion. I found my way back to my room, where I slammed the door behind me and buried my face into the pillow, my breath leaving a moist patch as it came out in short angry gasps.
As soon as he realized who I was he turned into such a horrible creature. He had no reason to act that way. Like…I was unwanted. And in my own home.
He didn’t deserve any more of my thoughts. I’d not think of him anymore.
* * *
What an insufferable man. How dare he speak to me like I was a nuisance child? And to refuse my handshake as if it were my hands that were dirty. Who does he think he is?
I wanted to ask Loretta about that infuriating gardener. I wanted to know his name at least, so I had a name to curse. I would ask at dinner, discreetly of course, just some general questions about the staff here and the gardens; I wasn’t an idiot.
Blackwell Manor had several dinin
g areas. Breakfast and lunch were served in the informal dining room on the ground floor, light pouring in from the wall of windows that looked out to the back terrace and over the garden. It was adjacent to the breakfast kitchen, filled with more shiny chrome gadgets than an appliance store, and hardly used at all, most of the cooking being done out in the back kitchen.
Dinner, on the other hand, was served in the formal dining room, where I now sat in one of the high-backed gold and red-cushioned chairs waiting for Loretta to arrive. It was a huge room that took up part of the west side of the mansion on the ground floor, situated near the back kitchen and the staff quarters.
The walls were a salmon color with cream cornices and detailing. Several ornate serving tables and cabinets, holding carafes and decanters of liquor and glasses, lined the walls. A huge crystal chandelier dripped down from the center of the ceiling.
The rectangular heavy wooden dining table stretched across the entire room and could fit twenty-six people around it. I was bored so I counted the seats. A huge silver candelabra fitted with no less than nine tapered white candles was placed in the center on top of a scarlet and gold velvet runner that stretched most of the length of the table. My plate setting was always on the right-hand-side of the head. Mr. Blackwell would sit at the head of the table. If he were ever actually home for dinner.
The staff door swung open and I straightened up in my chair. But it wasn’t Loretta. It was another housemaid, a pretty girl of ebony skin and thick hair the color of ravens tied back at her neck into a prim bun. She kept her eye on the full silver tray she was holding, a slight crease between her brows indicating her concentration. I fought the urge to get out of my chair and help her.
She set her silver tray down on the serving table at the side of the room. In front of me she placed a silver platter domed with a silver lid. When she pulled the silver dome off, steam rushed up around me and the scent of vegetables and garlic filled my noise. It cleared to reveal a bowl of thick vegetable soup garnished with a sprig of parsley. My stomach rumbled.
The server-girl came back and set down a small plate of warm brown bread beside it.
“Hi,” I said to her before she could move away again.
She blinked at me. “Are you speaking to me, ma’am?”
Ma’am. The girl called me ma’am as if I was as old as her mother. But I guessed she would be a few years older than me.
“Yes,” I said, and I gave her a warm smile. “What’s your name?”
“It’s Celeste.”
“How long have you worked here, Celeste?”
Her head flinched back slightly. “Ma’am? Did I do something wrong?”
“What? No. Why would you think that?”
“All these questions…”
“I just want to ask about you. Get to know you a little bit.”
She gazed at me for a few moments, the whites showing around her inky irises, before she quickly lowered her gaze. “I’m sorry. I must get back to work.” She snatched up her tray from the side table before hurrying out of the room.
“I just want to talk,” I called out.
But Celeste was gone.
Back home, dinner would be a rowdy affair; steam and chatter would fill the warm kitchen as we all helped Mother chop and cook and set the table. The seven of us would eat elbow to elbow around our small table, laughing or sharing stories about our day.
I sat in the vast Blackwell Manor dining hall, this chair forcing me to sit upright, eating dinner with only the stiff-lipped portraits around the room for company. My spoon hit the side of my soup bowl, echoing off the high ornate ceilings.
4
If there was one thing I was sure of, it was this: that damned gardener wasn’t going to get away with having the last word. The next morning, despite my attempts not to expend any more time or thought on him, he was still there wearing at my mind.
I found him trimming bushes, his deadly-looking shears slicing the twigs and leaves, making them fly everywhere. His gorgeous mouth twisted into a scowl when he noticed me. Damn him. He even looked good scowling. I wanted to slap him. Or to kiss him so hard it hurt.
I stopped in front of him with my fists on my hips, my chin thrust into the air. “Hey,” I said with as much authority as I could.
But he didn’t stop snapping at the bushes. A few seconds of being ignored and already I felt like a twit. Pride forced me to step right up to him, risking the loss of my fingers. “I said hey,” I yelled in his ear.
He snapped his shears shut and threw them down blade first where they embedded in the grass. Almost a full head taller, he towered over me as he glared down at me. “What do you want, hime?”
For a second I was so taken aback I couldn’t speak. Hime is the Japanese word for princess. My chichi − my father − called me hime.
My surprise turned back into anger when I realized he was using the term as an insult. “I demand you show me around my gardens.”
He laughed. “I’m not your personal tour guide. Ask your husband to do it.” He turned to walk away.
Of all the rude, arrogant, insolent, rude−
I was so furious I just reacted. I grabbed his arm, whirling him around to face me. Our eyes locked. He froze, his mouth slightly parted, air sucking back into him.
His eyes were the richest, deepest brown I had ever seen, like melted chocolate with flecks of a lighter pecan brown. His lashes were so naturally thick and black that they seemed almost rimmed with kohl. They drew me in and held me like a lover’s grip. I forgot what I was about to yell at him. I forgot why I was even mad. I almost forgot how to keep myself breathing.
He glanced down and I followed his gaze. He was staring at my hand still on his arm, my fingers barely reaching halfway around his forearm. I felt the strength in his marble-sculpted muscle, the smoothness of his skin under my palm, the heat radiating from the blood that flowed through his veins.
Oh God. I was touching him.
I snatched my hand away. His eyes darted back up to my face.
“Yes?” he said, the word filled with impatience.
“You work for my husband,” I said.
“That’s right. I work for your husband. I don’t work for you.”
“If he were here−”
“He’s not here.”
“If he were here,” I said louder, “he would tell you to take me around the gardens. So do it. Now.”
He glared back at me, defiance flaring in his eyes, his cheek twitching as he tensed his jaw. The air between us filled with a thick, hot electricity. I got the distinctive feeling I had met my stubbornness match.
“And if I don’t?” he said.
He was challenging me. How far would I go to get what I wanted?
“You wouldn’t like that answer,” my voice slid out with menace.
His eyes flashed with…disappointment and the corners of his mouth flicked down for a split second. I had just proven him right; I was just a spoiled princess brat.
I felt ill. I didn’t want him to think that of me. But my pride refused to let me take it back. What did I care what a gardener thought of me?
“Fine,” he said. “The faster I take you around, the quicker I can get back to my real work. Have it your way, hime.”
Hime. My father’s affectionate nickname for me had become a curse in his mouth. It insulted my father’s love for me and my love for him.
“Don’t call me hime,” I said with a hiss.
“Whatever,” he said like he didn’t care.
“And I demand to know your name.”
“Why?”
Was he going to fight me with everything? “Would you prefer I call you boy?”
“I’m not a boy.”
“Then give me your name, boy.”
“It’s Keir.”
I had never heard that name before. Keir. I tested his name out in my head. It sounded like the call of a wild bird rising up through the wind.
“I’m Noriko,” I said, only realizing afterwar
ds I already told him my name yesterday.
“I don’t care,” he muttered.
I hated him. I really, really hated him.
Keir led me through the gardens, his hands shoved deep into his pockets, his movements slow and labored as if I was the most draining task in the world. Every so often he would sigh loudly or yawn. When he did, I had to repress the urge to punch him in the nose.
I tried to ignore his ugly behavior and focused instead on the beauty around me, the neatly trimmed bushes that wound around like a maze, making paths between this garden and the next one, the vibrant flowers − roses of all kinds, carnations, daisies and many more I didn’t know the name of − all bursting with color and sweet scent around me.
I noticed he kept looking at me out of the corner of his eye.
“What?” I snapped.
The corner of his mouth tipped up. “Nice dress.”
I looked down at my new white Philip Lim gathered waist silk dress. I chose it because I thought I looked pretty in it and because the skirt floating around me reminded me of falling cherry blossom petals. I studied his face, but it was deadpan.
“Thanks,” I said cautiously, “I think.”
“Yeah, ’cause it’s a great idea to go walking around in a dirty, muddy garden wearing white.”
Sarcastic bastard. I should have known.
I halted with a stamp of my foot, crossing my arms over my chest. “If you’re going to be such a rude ass, then I’ll leave.”
“Suits me.” He kept walking.
