Chapter 8

It was hard even before we were together, when I only wanted to get close to her, there was no certainty or even likelihood that would happen.

I took a Japanese language course she taught as a volunteer for a semester at the college, and when it was over, on the last day, everybody leaving, I thought, “The least I can do is thank her. Not to would be inconsiderate.” And it was a way to distinguish myself in her eyes from other students who hadn’t, reinforce the positive impression she might have formed of my character already. And here was a chance to talk one-on-one. We’d had a pretty good rapport before then, and who knew? It might take off from there.

But she was already gone, hadn’t lingered after class. I looked for her in the teachers’ area, more or less following, like a dog trying to catch a scent (lol), and it turned out she was in a meeting with other teachers (though she was just a volunteer). The event had already started (which explained her swift exit from our classroom; she was late, joining the meeting in progress), and while an outsider like me (it wasn’t my department) might be able to take a seat and observe, I definitely couldn’t interrupt, pull Akemi aside for a private conversation. That would be not only inconsiderate but rude, and raise eyebrows.

I thought then that I might call her, at home later. Finding her number would be easy enough. I could phone and say I want to thank you, but she might find that strange, even think I was stalking her.

So I wandered out of the faculty office space, walked around. And happened to come upon two Japanese students looking together at a notice board, searching it together for opportunities of some kind; there were all sorts of things posted, from part-time jobs to appliances put up for sale by students moving, to used clothes and discount trips. I heard from the talk between the two- and it was pretty clear just at a glance- that they were a couple; maybe it was first love.

I hung around and listened, scanning some of the notices on the bulletin board myself at a discreet distance. The two were excited to have gotten together, started a romance in New York, far from home. And they looked good together in the sun from the window of that open passageway where we’d stopped; a wall of windows flushed the whole scene with clarifying light. She looked good in her blue jeans. You could see the influence of American style on their culture and its allure to them. Her blue and white crisp cotton shirt with its snap buttons evoked the Wild West, as did her dense deep black hair- though there the association was the other side, Native American rather than cowboy.

They were so young, fresh, having an adventure. But I also heard from the give and take that they didn’t have their heads completely in the clouds; both saw the pitfalls of an overseas romance, whatever those might be: the possibility of it not standing the test of reality when they returned to Japan and their separate lives awaiting them there; who could know whether their family and friends would approve of the new person introduced from out of the blue? And maybe the couple’s plans weren’t aligned, they meant to stay at the college for different lengths of time. And those two far-from-stupid young people must have given thought to the hidden dangers of the American city, and the not-so-hidden ones.