Secrets of the Apple (36 page)

“Kate, this is going to be a lot of work. I really don’t think you have the time,” he said in a hopeless effort to head it off.

“You saw a little family dinner at my house. I know how to give a party. Besides, I’ll be working with an event planner.”

The call ended in a shambling Maybe—I’ll think about it—We’ll see, and twenty minutes later he stood shaving before the mirror, wondering why his father approached Kate first. Not that it mattered. It was only a party. Why should he care? Nice to hear her so early in the morning, though. Maybe she would have to call him more often to discuss the details. Maybe planning it will leave her less time for Montgomery. Ryoki rinsed his razor under the tap, ashamed of his selfishness. Jealous of Montgomery—already admitted that. His father wanted the party. “Important to him,” that’s what she said. Maybe he should give in, if it was important to his father. He called her back, impatient to hear her voice.

By the next night Ryoki had figured out his mistake of the night before. Fantasy cannot rule. But he relaxed his heart, allowed himself to feel, really feel the hidden luxury inside him. By the second week he began calling Kate just before she went to bed when he knew he would get her alone. By the third week he had Kate’s photo set as his screensaver, heedless of whoever might walk into the room. It kept giving him a little thrill to see her face pop up when the keyboard had been idle, smiling at him from their garden, eyes alight from the joke he’d made right before he snapped her picture.

Part of him whispered that the little fire was burning too high, that he was acting as giddy and wide-eyed as an anime character. But he comforted himself that his secret was still contained. Everyone kept random pictures on their computers. Browning had kept a graphic of Superman as his screensaver. Didn’t mean anything.

When Izumi Nakamura arrived to begin the takeover process, he had heard gossip in Tokyo that the scion of Tanaka, Inc. had acquired an American consort just like his father. After two days in Brazil he told his wife that at least some of the rumors were certainly true.

At the beginning of the fourth week, Ryoki booked a plane ticket for Friday, convinced he could not get away an instant earlier. But as the week progressed, he began to see that the handoff to Nakamura was going more smoothly than he had anticipated, and by Thursday he found the last
i
had been dotted and the last
t
crossed. Joyfully he boarded the first flight he could get, a last-minute piece of luck on a very full plane. No time to call ahead and warn anyone.

As the plane accelerated for takeoff, he rehearsed to himself the many attractions of São Paulo, his own office, his own team, his own bed. But as speed pushed his body back into his seat and his stomach tingled with the lift, the left side of his brain whispered that if all went well he would arrive to discover he had fabricated a goddess from an ordinary woman, smearing her thick with raging hormones and lipstick. His right brain chanted
Kate Kate Kate
.

Ryoki leaned forward to pull a book from his computer bag and a lock of his hair fell forward. He touched his head, weaving his fingers through the top, gone slightly wavy in the humidity. His hair had needed cutting since before he’d left São Paulo, but he had had no Kate to make his regular appointments, he himself having no memory for such things during the throws of the day. The wave wasn’t obvious yet, almost unnoticeable if he used gel, dry pomade and a hairdryer, a few of the tricks learned from years of watching hairdressers turn one thing into another. Too bad he inherited his mother’s curly hair. As a child his hair had been much curlier, a source of teasing from his peers and a red flag among some of his more conservative school administrators. As he grew the curls had loosened, become more manageable and he’d learned to keep the minor defect to himself. Lucky he didn’t get his mother’s blue eyes. Sometimes he wondered if he’d have actually worn colored contacts despite his 20/20 vision, or if it would have been a relief to give up hiding. At the hairdresser’s he’d once seen an old woman bat the stylist’s hand away as he pulled up a section of her hair, color brush held high. “Enough,” she said. “I’ve been doing this every two weeks for thirty years. I’m not fooling anybody.” He wondered at what age he would outgrow the cowardice of youth. He touched his hair again. He should have waited, gotten a haircut and taken his original flight the next day. Maybe he could stop somewhere on the way from the airport.

But by the time he touched down, Ryoki was no longer conscious of his hair. He could be home just after eight, traffic willing. Certainly Kate would be home. She never went out until after Lucas went to bed.

She might not be home at all, but still at the office.

Of course she’d be home, unless Lucas went to stay with Cecelia’s grandsons.

Montgomery might have picked her up early.

Maybe she’s home.

He picked up the newspaper next to him on the back seat, looking for a distraction. He didn’t read it, was unaware he was shredding the edges with his right hand.

She’s not with Montgomery. Certainly she couldn’t be with Montgomery.

At 8:32 p.m. Ryoki stood in his own front hall, laying a large brightly wrapped box on the table and listening for the piano. After an agonizing pause he heard a halting childlike song, one hand at a time. Kate’s laughter, barely audible, adding in slow English, “Very good, exactly right.”

Ryoki kicked off his shoes and took the stairs two at a time, checking his speed just before he reached the door. Easy, now. No point scaring them. He entered the room at a sedate walk and there she was in the flesh, her back to him, seated next to Lucas in a chair pulled up to the piano. He’d taken three steps into the room when she turned around, her face lighting up.

“Look at you, a day early!” She rose, moved toward him, “welcome home” in the curve of her lips and the light in her eyes.

Ryoki stood still, said nothing, fearing she could hear his heart beating from across the room. He wanted to speak, began to stammer as she drew nearer, but no words came out.

Keep control Keep control
.

He bent to kiss her cheeks in a Brazilian hello, but she misinterpreted, put her arms up for a hug, bailed out halfway, her face flushing pink as she tried to step back. His arms wrapped around her back, pressing her body to his in a great bear hug. One beat, two beats, three—break away. That was the plan. But he couldn’t. He felt the pressure of her hands on his chest as she tried to escape his hold. In answer his arms tightened as he lifted her off the floor and swung her around until she giggled and squealed, “Put me down, put me down!”

He set her down on her feet, his heart knocking in his chest. She straightened her blouse and took three steps back. “Are you hungry?” she asked, pushing the hair from her face.

“They served dinner on the plane,” he said, shoving his hands awkwardly into his pockets.

“Umm, that means you stirred your food around without eating anything and in an hour you’ll be cranky and have a headache.”

Ryoki saw Lucas’s hand tugging at Kate’s sleeve, and he captured the boy for a good tickling. “I brought you a present,” he whispered, nodding conspiratorially toward the front hall.

“
Arigato
,” Lucas said, dipping a bow, going on in a combination of Portuguese and simple Japanese to tell him how much he liked the new football Ryoki had sent, but the short-handled shovel had puzzled him.

“For digging bear traps,” Ryoki said. “Every house should have one.”

Lucas’s eyes brightened as he sped from the room, thundering down the stairs in search of his surprise.

“I thought he wanted to learn English, but he sounds more like the staff.”

“I’ve been trying to teach him English the way I learned Japanese. But an hour a day isn’t the same as all day with Cecelia,” Kate said.

“
Arigato
,
Arigato
,” Lucas hollered five minutes later, his feet hammering back up the stairs. Just as he returned to the library, Cecelia hurried in insisting it was time for his bath, alternately agreeing the new remote-controlled plane could maybe fly to the moon, and scolding the deplorable state of his ears.

Kate touched Ryoki’s sleeve with one finger. “The kitchen should be deserted. Let’s see what we can find.”

Most of the time Kate was all about democracy in the kitchen, the big clues in the repetitive phrases: “I’m not your slave,” and “Get your own freaking snacks.” But tonight she warmed up barbeque chicken and rice as she peeled and cut a mango, talking and talking as she fanned the mango slices on a plate, drizzling the sauce just so. As she set his plate before him, the kitchen phone rang.

“Hello, Tanaka residence,” she said.

“You haven’t left yet?” Ryoki could plainly hear Montgomery’s voice, booming through the line. Kate’s eyes flew wide, the shock of remembrance. She walked around the corner for some privacy, but it was one of two phones in the house with a cord, so she couldn’t get far. Ryoki put a bite in his mouth and tried to pretend he couldn’t hear a thing.

“Where have you been? I tried your cell. I thought you always had it with you.”

Ryoki’s food began to taste like sand.

“Piano went late. I might have left my phone in the library.”

“That’s okay sweetheart. We can still make it if we hurry.” He sounded benevolent, indulgent. “Are you ready to go?”

There was a brief pause, then Montgomery’s voice again. “You didn’t forget, did you?”

Kate obviously had, although, now that Ryoki thought about it, she’d probably been dressed to go out when he arrived.

“I’m ready,” she said. “I forgot, but just for a minute. My boss got home and we were catching up.”

Ryoki remembered the feel of her body in his arms.

Another pause.

“He’s back, huh? You didn’t give him a hug hello, did you?” Carefully casual.

Kate laughed, forced and tinny, not made for concealing the truth. “None of your business. I’ll see you in a minute,” she said brightly, but Ryoki heard the explosion from the other end of the line.

“What does that mean, none of my business? If my girlfriend’s—”

At this point Ryoki saw the cord strain the last possible few inches as Kate desperately tried to get away. Slowly he pushed back from the table, scraping his chair across the floor so she would hear him leave the room. He went up to the library and sat at the piano to pick out the piece Lucas had played earlier, counting the lines from middle C to find each note, nauseous with jealousy. No firebreak tonight. Should have known. Maybe in a few days when irritations arose or nerves crossed swords. Maybe then he would remember they were just friends.

Ten minutes later Kate came up carrying his dinner on a tray, looking flushed and annoyed. She set the tray on a side table, the china jumping on impact.

“We’re playing Scrabble, house rules,” she said. “And eat that. I don’t want you getting grumpy on me.”

“Okay,” he said to her retreating back. Just as he finished his meal, she returned with the Scrabble game and a pile of pocket dictionaries.

“Okay, we haven’t played this in a while so let’s review the rules so we still agree,” she said. “We can use any language we have letters and a dictionary for, accents don’t matter, double- and triple-word scores can be reused. Cheaters automatically lose.”

Ryoki put his plate aside and began setting up the game. “So,” he said casually. “I thought you were going out tonight.”

“I changed my mind,” she said, sniffing.

“Going out’s a pain, especially when you’re already dressed up,” he said, his expression neutral.

“Hmm.” Kate hunched over her pieces, frowning over her letters and biting her lip, ready to play for blood.

The game progressed like speed chess, Ryoki winning by a single point,
merci
on a triple-word score. Kate handed him the last of her famous cookies, the prize for winning. He waved it under her nose.

“Give me a bite,” she said, pulling it to her mouth and biting off a chocolate chip. He shoved the rest in his mouth and began putting tiles into their bag. “You let your hair grow while you were away,” she said.

He looked up, touching his head self-consciously. “If you could make me an appointment tomorrow—”

“Nah,” she said. “Let it grow a minute, especially on top. It suits you.” She leaned forward and tousled his hair as she bent to clear up the game. He could see she hadn’t meant anything, just playing, but her touch, so unexpected, shot through him—lightening and fireworks bursting up and down his spine. His breath stopped altogether for three full seconds. He hoped she hadn’t noticed. Without thinking, he put his hand to his hair. Maybe he would let it grow, but just for a minute.

O
ver the next two weeks Ryoki found himself interred in the catch-up pile, poking his head up now and then, sniffing for a morsel of affection, but finding Kate had jumped to light speed—party details, mysterious evening disappearances, neglecting the piano. Grinding his teeth and muttering imprecations against time-leeching surfer dudes, he returned to his pile, resenting his birthday and all it entailed. For his thirtieth birthday he’d parachuted out of a plane. Big thrill, minor time commitment. He mentioned this to Kate, who hit him with her purse.

On the Wednesday before the party, Kate came into his office, plopped heavily into an armchair and announced she’d done her best and if the party flopped, it flopped. “And it won’t be my fault,” she said. “Still don’t know what to get you, though.”

“I told you, all I wanted was a cake,” he said, keeping his eyes on his screen, unable to verbalize what he really meant. Since the morning Kate had first mentioned his birthday, a childhood memory had begun a slow resurrection, teasing his awareness, springing fully to life the night he returned and watched her warm up chicken and rice. But it was too embarrassing to explain.

“A
cake
?” Kate looked suspicious, as though “cake” in manspeak roughly translated into buxom girls and pink-frosting thigh highs.

“Just a cake at home. That’s what you wanted on your birthday, remember?” he added quickly.