by Hanna Peach
“Come.” He led me from the bedroom and we walked in silence down the corridor.
“I hope you’ll like it,” he said.
“I’m sure I will.” But I couldn’t seem to put any feeling into my words.
He brushed his fingers against my arm and found my hand, pushing his fingers into mine. I almost tripped in surprise.
He had never held my hand before as we walked. I stared down at our hands, my pale bird-like one, and his tanned, large, immaculately manicured one, dotted with two gold rings, one a thick ring on his finger with a large black stone set in it, the other a plain gold wedding band.
I had never really noticed his wedding ring until now. I didn’t put it on him. We never even had a ceremony. We were supposed to have had one in Japan before I came to California. But he had been called away on business and we just signed the necessary documents from two different continents instead.
We stopped at a door on the same floor. I had seen the inside of this room before. It was just another stuffy sitting room. He squeezed my hand before he pushed open the door for me. Was he…nervous?
I stepped inside.
The room was completely different from how I remembered it. It had floor-to-ceiling windows with thick cream curtains all tied back with satin sashes. The carpet was the color of a latte. Against two walls were rolls, rolls and more rolls of materials, all different colors and textures and types. Over against another wall were shelves stuffed with bundles of sunny wool, and clear drawers filled with buttons and beads and needles, and trays crammed with spools of thread, their tails all hanging down over the edge like rows of colored mice. In the center was a large flat table. Next to it was a large sewing machine with a stool. Dotted around the room were cloth dummies on stands.
“It’s your new sewing room,” Drake said.
A sewing room? For me? I spun towards him.
“Do you like it?” The hopeful look on his face softened my heart. He was trying. He was trying to be a good man. He was trying so hard to please me. Guilt shot through me as I thought of Keir. Maybe I should give Drake another chance?
But his possessiveness, his controlling ways, the fact that he wouldn’t let me speak to my family or to even leave this house…
He had his reasons.
And the sheer violence of his anger…
That wasn’t his fault. The monster in him was shaped by others’ hands − he was trying to keep it caged. He hadn’t actually hit me…
Yet.
This was so confusing. Who are you, Drake? Who are you really? Should I fear you or try to love you?
“I…I can’t believe you did this for me,” I said. “It’s wonderful.”
His smile grew until it crinkled his eyes and his crow’s feet deepened. “Good. Great.”
I turned and surveyed the room again − my sewing room. My sewing room that I planned on using to make something for another man. I couldn’t accept this. “It’s wonderful, but it’s too much. I can’t−”
“Nothing is too much for you.” He leaned down to capture my lips with his.
I closed my eyes and kissed him back and tried to conjure up the desire that I knew I was capable of. But my body remained placidly numb.
All my wretched heart could do was sigh because kissing Drake didn’t feel like it did with Keir.
What kind of woman was I to think of another man while her husband was kissing her? It was hard to ignore the guilt on my heart when it cracked with the weight of it.
* * *
I hadn’t been to see Keir since Drake gave me the sewing room. I wanted to surprise him with what I had planned, but I was scared that if I saw him I just might blurt it all out and ruin the secret. I had been working on it day and night until finally it was done.
I was in my room one evening folding my handiwork into a gift box when I heard a noise at my open window. I spun, my heart going to my throat. Keir tumbled into my room, his eyes fixed on me.
“What are you doing here?” I hissed, trying to close the lid on the box while keeping it hidden behind me. “Get out.”
“This is about the kiss and my despicable behavior in the corridor afterwards,” he said. “I’m sorry. Noriko, if you’re uncomfortable around me after what happened and that’s why you’re avoiding me, I−”
“Stop.” I placed an outstretched hand on his chest so he couldn’t get any closer. He felt so warm and firm under my hand. “I’m not avoiding you.”
“I can always tell when you’re lying.”
“Okay, I was avoiding you but it’s not why you think.”
“Then why?”
“I had things to do.” I pushed him back towards the window. God, his arms felt so good under my hands. I almost forgot why I was making him leave. “Keir, get out of here now. Drake should be here at any minute.”
“I just need to know−”
“Not now. Meet me in the birdhouse tomorrow morning at 10 a.m. I’ll explain everything.”
At the window, one leg over the sill, he turned back to look at me. “Ten a.m.? Definitely 10 a.m. You’ll be there? You’re not just blowing me off?”
“Yes, I promise I’ll be there. Now go.”
Only then did he disappear. I heaved a huge sigh of relief and ran back to the gift box to hide it before Drake arrived.
* * *
The next day Keir was already waiting inside the birdhouse, pacing like an expectant father, when I arrived. He looked so worried that I wanted to laugh.
“Firstly,” I said as I stood before him, “I was avoiding you because I working on a surprise for you. I was so excited about it I didn’t think I could keep it a secret around you.”
“A surprise?”
“A surprise.” I handed him the gift box. It was the kind that my dresses came in, glossy and white with a thick silver ribbon tying the lid on.
“For me?”
I nodded.
He placed it down on the bench nearby so he could untie it. Then he lifted up the lid, my buoyant heart lifting with it. He pulled out the item and held it up.
It was a costume, radiant white loose-fitting pants in a stretchy material, short blue and silver fringing down the side of the legs and a set of braces that would go over his shoulders, the only thing to cover his glorious chest. Attached to the braces were shoulder caps and a long fitted sleeve, one for each arm. Along the sleeves were long, thin silver feathers that hung like wings from the arms.
“It’s supposed to be a crane, a costume for your audition. I wasn’t sure if you had one. I was inspired to make it after I saw your audition piece. I thought you looked like a bird. When you do your routine wearing this, it’ll look like you’re flying.”
Keir still hadn’t said a word. He just stared at the costume falling from his fingertips.
“I hope you like it…” I tried.
Still no response.
“But if you don’t, you don’t have to wear it. It was just a thought. I just wanted to do something nice for you. To say thank you…” I trailed off as he turned to look at me.
“Noriko…” his voice cracked. “It’s…” He clutched the costume tenderly to his chest as if it were a lover, his thumb rubbing lightly across the material. He didn’t have to say anything. I could read his feelings from his beautiful body.
I placed a hand on his arm. “You’re welcome,” I said.
His warm hand slid over mine. The air between us grew hot and sharp. The memory of our kiss lingered on my lips and my heart banged on my ribs, everything in my body begging me to close the gap between us for another taste.
We both started to move, then we stopped. I could see the question in both our minds. Then what?
If we kissed again it would sate this urge for the moment, but after…? Where would we go from there? There was no future for us, the gardener and the boss’s wife. With every kiss, we both risked too much. I risked my father’s life. He risked his livelihood. If Drake were to ever find out he would make sure that we were separat
ed forever. It could only end badly for us both.
Keir moved first.
“Stop,” I cried.
“What’s wrong?”
“We need to talk…about the kiss.”
He let out a breath, almost like relief. And he nodded. “Noriko, I know I shouldn’t say this but−”
“You were right,” I interrupted him, because I was scared of what he might say.
“I was right?”
I had to fight myself to get these next words out. “We shouldn’t have kissed. We were stupid to do it. We were just lucky that Celeste is your friend and that she won’t tell Drake.”
He drew back, shock clear on his face. I knew it wasn’t what he expected me to say. My heart felt like it was bleeding all through my body, a throbbing bruise that filled me all the way up to the insides of my skin.
“Your father…of course,” he said. “I’m sorry. I was being selfish. I didn’t think…”
“I should go.” I paused.
“Can we still be friends?”
I bit my lip. “Is that a good idea?”
“I was happy to take the risk for my sake. But I won’t risk your father’s life for my selfish wants. I promise you, Noriko, if you tell me that we can be friends, I won’t ever kiss you again.”
I won’t ever kiss you again. My heart stabbed from this unwanted promise.
Could he really be happy just to be my friend? Could I? Would the torture of being around him, being so close to him and to hold back from touching him how I wanted to touch him, be worth it?
“You’re the only one I can really talk to,” he said. “You’re the only one who truly understands me. But if it would be easier for you to not be friends, then I’ll respect your wishes and I’ll stay away from you.”
I imagined my days here if I had to avoid Keir. They drew out in front of me, dull and gray, flat and meaningless. I realized I would rather have him in my life as friends than as nothing.
“You should try the costume on,” I said, “see if I got the sizing right. I had to guess.”
He nodded, his shoulders releasing with obvious relief. “Thank you. I will.”
I pictured my father’s gaunt face lying in a hospital bed and left everything else unspoken and cluttering the space between us.
21
In the days following, Keir and I struggled to find an equilibrium as friends. I thought the memory of the kiss would fade. But it didn’t, the ghost of it lingering on my mouth every time Keir’s eyes would drop to my lips. Sometimes when I’d caught sight of his hands the memory would swallow me, and I’d be back there in the gym, his fingers splayed across my back, crushing me to him, and I had to fight to breathe. But the thought of my dearest father pushed each of these temptations aside like solemn, insistent hands.
I made alterations to his costume until it fit him perfectly like a second skin. He performed his routine again − a dress rehearsal − in his costume for me on the day before his audition.
He soared like an eagle as he flew across the gymnasium, his silver wings flashing and glittering in the spotlights. I knew even before he finished that he would get into the Cirque and would soon leave me. Alone here. My heart crumpled in on itself. What would I do when he left the Blackwell Manor? All my days would turn to midnight and storm clouds from the day he left till eternity.
But I couldn’t be selfish. I wouldn’t beg him to stay. Who was I − who was anyone − to clip his wings?
Keir watched me closely as he knelt in front of me in his finishing pose. I couldn’t show him how much his leaving would kill me. I would not be selfish.
I forced a smile to my face so big that it hurt. Up came tears, which I quickly wiped away. But Keir being Keir, he noticed them. He lifted gentle fingers to my chin and tilted my head so he could inspect my eyes.
We were here in this very spot when we first kissed. We both seemed to remember it at the same time, our eyes mirroring each other as they widened. Our breaths hitching at the same moment. I thought he would break his promise and close the distance between us again. But he didn’t.
His face crumpled. “Hime, why are you crying?”
“Your performance…it was just…it was so beautiful, Keir. They’ll love you, without a doubt. They will absolutely love you.”
“Noriko…” His eyes filled with longing and his thumb brushed the underside of my lip. He shifted on the balls of his feet as if ready to launch forward to connect us again.
But he had promised he wouldn’t. He had promised. I watched him swallow all his longing down before he pulled away.
This was a conversation we weren’t going to have. Not right then. If he got accepted…
I couldn’t even finish that sentence. So I closed this future up into a box in my mind and left it to open another day.
* * *
On the day of his audition I snuck out of my room, covered in a dark hooded cloak, to meet him at the front gate and wish him well.
He had argued that I shouldn’t come. “It’s too risky,” he had said.
“Risky for what? I’m not doing anything wrong. I can always lie and say I was just out for an early walk.”
“But if−”
“Keir, I’m coming. You’ll just have to shut up and accept it.”
I caught him smiling when he thought I wasn’t looking.
“What?” I asked.
“I thought all you Japanese girls were supposed to be demure or something.”
I rolled my eyes, but there was a small smile on my face. “And I thought all you American boys were supposed to be charming or something.”
I was meeting him at the side gate, used mainly as the staff entrance, a barred door set in the thick wall. When I approached the side gate Keir was waiting there, leaning against the wall in the pale light of the pre-dawn, a duffel bag slung over his shoulder. His leg, bent up against the wall, was shaking. His face lit up when he saw me coming through the bushes.
He kicked off the wall. “You came,” he said.
“Of course, I did. You thought that I wouldn’t?”
He shrugged. “I thought that maybe you might change your mind. Maybe sending off a lowly gardener on one of the most important days of his life wasn’t all that important.”
“Don’t!” I grabbed his arm and glared at him.
“I was just joking.”
“I don’t care. Don’t you ever let me hear you call yourself that again, joke or otherwise.”
His face softened and his hand closed over mine, still gripping his arm. My heart started to hammer. We shouldn’t be this close.
The crack of gravel caused us both to jump away from each other. A worn black sedan pulled up outside the side gate. I let out a breath of relief when I saw through the car window that it was just Filipe.
Filipe was Drake’s driver, the same driver who brought me here from the airfield. Keir didn’t have a car so he planned to catch a bus to LA from the closest town. Filipe and Keir were friends despite their age difference, and he insisted on helping by driving Keir to the bus station. He was the only other person apart from me who knew about Keir’s audition today.
Filipe opened his door and stood up, giving me a wave. “Morning, ma’am.” He didn’t seem surprised to see me there.
“Morning, Filipe,” I said back to him.
“You ready to go?” he said to Keir.
“As ready as I’ll ever be.”
I watched Keir key in his staff code on the panel near the gate. He didn’t bother to hide the four-digit number from me. I heard the door click. Keir pushed side gate open and stepped through.
A breeze swept in from the outside and I thought I smelled the salt of the sea. I stared at the brief gap in my cage. I could leave, right now. I could run out and keep running and never look back. I could beg Keir to go with him to LA. We could go together, be together…my head spun and soared with the dream of it like a balloon twirling up toward the heavens.
Then it crashed back to Earth
, the dream shattering like china. My father. I was here to save my father. If I left, Drake would take back the money meant for my father’s medical bills and my chichi would die.
I let my freedom swing shut behind Keir. I stepped up to the bars and wrapped my fingers around them, watching as he threw his duffel into the back seat. One day soon I would watch him leave just like this, but then he would never come back.
Keir shut the back door and turned to look at me. “Hey,” he said. He walked up to the other side of the bars and curled his hands around mine. “I’ll be back soon.”
I nodded. “Of course,” I managed, even as my heart jammed up into my throat. “Good luck.”
“I don’t need luck when I have you.”
“You have me?”
“I mean, your costume and the routine that you inspired.”
I forced a smile. “Of course.”
I watched as Filipe drove Keir away, his eyes on me through the back window, until I couldn’t see them anymore.
My eyes landed on the keypad. All I had to do was to type in the four-digit code that I saw Keir type in…I could be completely selfish, forget about my father, forget about my family, do what I wanted…
I turned back to the house to wait for Keir’s return.
I paced in my room, hoping that Keir had arrived safely. I cursed the fact that I had no phone of my own and had no way of communicating with him. It was driving me crazy. Pacing pacing pacing. Wondering if… fearing that… Chewing my nails down to the bit.
When the clock struck 9 a.m. that morning, I sank into the armchair in my room, already exhausted. Auditions had started. Which meant Keir would be auditioning soon. I closed my eyes, humming his audition music under my breath, and imagining him flying and twisting underneath a giant tent, the spotlights following his every graceful move.
He wouldn’t be back tonight. He had planned to stay in LA with a friend of his and to come back to the manor tomorrow night. Tomorrow night. He would be back tomorrow night.
* * *
Tonight. Keir was supposed to be back tonight.
