Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
Yoko arrived in Osaka on the Monday after Thanksgiving.
It was a near balmy fifty-eight degrees.
She stood outside the airport, her hands loose on the handle of her suitcase, and breathed in the scents of her past, the smells of her childhood.
All the way here—riding first class—she’d watched out the window, waiting for her home to come toward her.
Now that her boots were on Japanese ground, her heart felt lighter than it had in years.
Around her, people spoke only her language.
She’d booked herself a room not far from Nipponbashi Station.
The hotel was one of the more expensive in Osaka and far beyond anything her parents could have afforded before Yoko’s fame and money came in.
Yoko lay on the mattress, which was far softer than anything an Asian person would have wanted, and wondered if too many of her tastes had changed since she’d left Japan.
Maybe, if she really decided to move back to Osaka, she’d have to import a soft mattress.
She’d have to find a place with a few American indulgences—for when and if she was in the mood.
When she turned her phone back on, she had several missed calls from both Kendall and her son, Liam.
Kendall’s calls she ignored. But she decided to call Liam back.
But it was nearly six thirty in the morning on Nantucket, and Liam wasn’t awake yet.
Yoko texted him to say she’d arrived safely and went to the bathroom to do her makeup and brush her hair.
When she returned to her phone, she had a single, sleepy text from Liam.
LIAM: Lily and I broke up.
Yoko’s heart leaped into her throat. While she was sorry to see the young woman go, she was grateful that Liam and Lily had made the right decision.
Yoko had seen it written in Lily’s mother’s eyes, as well.
Lily and Liam hadn’t been right for one another.
All the wedding plans Lily had made the previous few weeks had felt like a dance she didn’t want to perform.
Yoko wrote back that she was sorry and that she loved Liam very much. She asked if he wanted to come to Osaka this week and offered to get him a hotel room.
But Liam said he was heading back to Los Angeles to tend to professional matters. If Yoko was right about him—and how could she be wrong?—she guessed he was going out there to see a lady. Now that he was free from his engagement, he was ready to be a twentysomething guy again.
Yoko’s old coach had mentioned the tennis charity event on the phone on Thanksgiving Day.
It had put a seed in Yoko’s mind that she hadn’t been able to resist. Now, dressed up as the chic “Americanized” woman she’d become, she entered the grand hall filled with tables and spotted her old tennis coach, seated with his wife and children on the opposite end.
As Yoko walked toward him, she heard her name whispered through the hall.
People were incredulous. What was Yoko doing here?
But she managed to make it all the way to her coach’s table before she fell apart.
This was the only Japanese family she had left.
Her coach stood, his mouth open, and finally managed to say, “I didn’t think you’d come back so soon!
I thought it would take years to convince you! ”
Yoko bowed to her old coach, blinking furiously to keep from crying.
When she emerged from her very low and respectful bow, she found that the entire hall had stood to bow to her.
The air echoed with their honor for her.
She couldn’t believe it; her old coach hadn’t been lying.
Nobody had forgotten her, not in Osaka. Shortly after that, someone pulled up a chair for her to sit with her coach’s family.
For hours, they feasted on fish, rice, fermented vegetables, chicken, and noodles.
They drank sake and exchanged old stories.
Laughter and conversation ricocheted through the hall.
“How long will you stay?” her old coach asked when their bowls and plates were scraped clean. He placed his hands on his stomach and sighed.
“I don’t know,” Yoko said. “My son is living in California, and my husband…” She remembered how Kendall had wanted to stay together. The fact that he could run off to Florida, carve a new life for himself, and come back to Yoko whenever he pleased felt like the biggest insult.
“Husbands are not always kind,” her old coach’s wife said, patting her husband’s hand to let him know she didn’t mean any harm.
“Sometimes husbands shouldn’t be husbands anymore,” Yoko said.
“Only you know what you need to do,” her old coach said.
Yoko smiled. “Aren’t you supposed to give me more direction than that? As my coach, I mean. Tell me how to hit the ball. Tell me how to live my life. Tell me what to do next.”
Her coach laughed. “Your accent,” he said. “It’s so different now.”
Yoko felt her cheeks grow warm.
“But you’ve always known the right way to move through the world,” her coach said. “All I did was lend a little guidance here and there.”
“And we can still give you guidance,” his wife said kindly. “In the form of good dinners and good conversation. No advice.”
By the end of the night, Yoko had donated the most money of any former player at the tennis charity event, proving to herself and to everyone else how much this old world still meant to her.
It would have been simply a wonderful evening if it weren’t for a final conversation she had with another former tennis player, a woman a few years younger than Yoko who’d made a bid at the junior league before getting injured too soon.
“Yoko!” The woman weaved through the crowd as they prepared to leave, waving. “I wanted to say hello. It’s been years. You look incredible!”
For the life of her, Yoko couldn’t remember the woman’s name, no matter how she fought through the cloud of her mind. But she pretended to be just as happy to see the other woman as she was. “What have you been up to?” Yoko asked.
The woman told her she had children, a husband, and a carpentry business.
“I work long hours, but I love it,” she explained.
Then, she snapped her fingers and said, “In fact, one of our old tennis friends came in the other day to buy a piece! I couldn’t believe it.
I hadn’t seen him in years. What was his name?
” The woman concentrated hard. “Akira! It was Akira. Remember him?”
Yoko felt the words like a fist in her stomach. She wondered if the woman sensed how frightened she was. “I remember Akira,” she said. Her mouth was dry.
“I’m sure he’d remember you, too,” the woman said, her eyes twinkling. “If I remember correctly, he was sweet on you. Right?”
The next afternoon, after a long jet-lagged sleep, Yoko tracked down Akira’s new phone number.
It was right there on his company website, proof that his documentary career had grown and expanded and then, at some point in the 2010s, fallen off.
He now filmed commercials for various Japanese brands.
But that was all Yoko could glean from a brief online search.
Himari was nowhere to be found. She wondered if they’d divorced, or if Himari didn’t like being seen online so many years after her acting career had faded.
Yoko meditated for a few minutes before calling Akira.
She hadn’t meditated since she was a girl, back when all Japanese children were taught to control their thoughts and emotions (to the best of their ability, anyway).
Focused and tuned in to herself, she asked herself what she wanted out of calling Akira.
Just to reconnect, she offered herself. That was all.
Akira answered on the second ring. “Hello?”
Yoko couldn’t believe it. He sounded almost the same as he had all those years ago. The Akira she pictured on the phone was in his twenties, handsome and a little rugged, eager for the rest of his life to begin. But she knew that wasn’t so anymore.
“Akira, it’s Yoko,” she said softly.
It took a moment for Akira to speak. Yoko’s heart pounded.
“Yoko,” he whispered. “I can’t believe it’s you.”
Yoko explained that she was in Osaka and that she’d love to see him if he had time.
They planned to meet for dinner that very night, which was both exciting and terrifying for Yoko.
She didn’t know anything about Akira. Was he going to bring Himari, as he had after the 1995 Wimbledon championships?
Was it going to feel just as it had then, with Yoko as the outsider?
The restaurant that Akira picked for dinner was located six blocks from Yoko’s Nipponbashi hotel. Yoko walked through the dark and muggy night, frightened of what awaited her at the restaurant. She searched her mind for escape options, things she could lie about when she arrived.
But she shouldn’t have been afraid.
When she entered the restaurant, the fifty-something man with the salt-and-pepper hair in the corner stood and looked at Yoko, captivated. Yoko tried to remain cool and collected. She handed her coat to the host and walked toward Akira, her heart ballooning. He was all alone.
Akira and Yoko bowed to one another, as was their custom.
But then, Akira couldn’t stop herself from performing an American action.
She threw herself forward and hugged him.
Akira stiffened for a second and then burst into laughter.
He’d traveled all over the world and met all kinds of people and learned so many customs. He understood her hug as proof of how different her life had become—and proof of how much she cared for him.
“Yoko,” he said when they finally settled down with glasses of sake. “You are more beautiful than ever.”
Yoko felt as though she was levitating. “I don’t know what to say.”
Akira raised his glass. “I want to know everything. Everything you’ve done. I want to know about even the most boring day.”
Yoko let out a soft laugh. Why did it feel as though she’d only just seen Akira? As though they were recounting the events of their weekend rather than the events of their entire lives.
“I’m getting divorced,” she said finally. “I’m thinking of moving back to Japan. I’m homesick. I think I’ve been homesick since the beginning.”
“I spent a lot of time outside of Japan and always felt the same,” Akira said. “But you must feel that your son is your home?”
“He is,” Yoko agreed, thinking of Liam, of how arrogant he’d been lately, how brash. “He’s my home, and I’ll always love him. But he has a lot of learning to do. I don’t think I can teach him anything else.”
“He has to fall on his face like we did,” Akira said.
“Something like that.” Yoko allowed herself to fall into Akira’s eyes. “What about you?”
Akira looked unsteady for a moment. “I’m a widower,” he explained. “Himari died about twelve years ago.”
Yoko lost her breath. “Oh, Akira. No.” This was nothing that she’d wanted for him.
Akira fluttered his fingers on the tablecloth. “It was a tragedy. But it was a long time ago. We have a daughter. She’s twenty-eight and living in Tokyo. She comes back sometimes, but not as often as I’d like.” He laughed. “She’s studying film, though. That’s something.”
“At least she didn’t pursue tennis,” Yoko offered, then regretted it. Tennis had changed her life. It had given her everything—and taken so much away.
That night, Yoko and Akira talked till the restaurant closed and kicked them out.
Yoko realized she’d forgotten to eat much of anything and had let her food cool and dry out.
She’d been too focused on Akira, on his stories, on the way he still spoke with his hands.
They asked one another questions, talking over one another, so eager to dig into the other. They couldn’t stop.
Out on the street corner, lit up with the orange streetlamps and the bright advertisements, Yoko considered their teenage years, when she’d panged with desire to kiss him and to be kissed.
It was remarkable that she still felt this way now, that her teenage self was so easily accessible.
And as she rose on her tiptoes and pressed her kiss onto Akira’s lips, she felt waves of time crash in on themselves.
She couldn’t believe she’d finally made it home.