The Wedding Hall

The short story just below -- "The Wedding Hall" -- was published in 2019 in my online collection, The Keeper of Dragonflies, but was written long before, sometime in the early 2000s.

In those days, almost any fiction I produced would be snapped up by Wingspan Magazine, the inflight publication of All Nippon Airways. But "The Wedding Hall" was beyond their word limit and contained crudities they would not allow.

I envisioned a short story collection based on East-West romance, which is what The Keeper of Dragonflies became. "The Wedding Hall" is a fine entry there, one of a dozen.

Overall, this is a follow-up to my blog of last week, which outlines the background of Japan's wedding industry and my involvement in it.

That said, this story is FICTION. NONE of it is true. As for the character of Ross Horn... From my very first key stroke I envisioned him as a gaijin Tom Hanks.

Some quick notes:

Japanese may sometimes address people with the second-person personal-pronoun -- "you" -- and not by their name. Japanese has several words for "you," including omae, which is a pronoun applied to someone of lower status. The "you" in the story would most likely be omae -- or perhaps a "you" with harsher connotations, of which there are a couple.

The diminutive of chan is often given to young girls and then will continue to be used by friends and family, even when the person ages. The suffix is also given to pets. Typically, chan attaches to given names and san to family names.

Jan-Ken is the Japanese expression for the "rock-paper-scissors" game.

The word gaijin means "foreigner."

Public toilets in Japan are completely enclosed, like small rooms, unlike stalls in the States, with the bottom open.

If you are female, maybe you have met a guy or two like Ethan in the story. If you are male, perhaps you know a dozen Ethans or more.

And now...

---

The Wedding Hall

“You!”

She shoved the cat across the covers with the ill intent of seeing it bounce off the floor, into the other room – and out of her life.  The animal yelped with the blow – “Yeowl!” – and disappeared off the edge of the single bed, yet did not rise to her expectations.

She had overslept again.  She would be late again.  The cat got in her way again.

She jiggled in blue-striped pajamas before the bathroom mirror.  She looked a fright, a witch, a hag.  Her eyes were packed in red, her hair a ratted ball, and her face sallow and lifeless and above all old!  She stuck out her tongue.  Of course, it was caked!  She put a cold hand to her throat and said, “La, la, la…”  The sounds croaked out.  Oh she was sick!  How could she possibly, possibly sing?

If she had pulled herself up when the alarm first rang, she could have called Uesugi-san and begged for a replacement.  Because this time she was really sick!  Yes, sick! Yet, now…

The cat brushed her feet.

“You!”  She kicked it away.

*****

He ironed not just his shirt but his entire suit, both the powder gray slacks and jacket, as well as his necktie – a blue necktie, as serious as a winter sea.  Uesugi-san had coached him on his clothing.  Nothing too bright.  No reds, no yellows, no pinks.  Just white and black, with gray being the lord of compromise and union.  She noticed – he felt – his every hair that curled out of place and every crease that fell un-creased.  He ironed everything twice, even the one segment of clothing about which she had no comment – his underwear.

He brushed his hair and for the second time he shaved.  On a trip to the States, he had purchased an electric nose-hair clipper, which he now twirled into the tip of each nostril.  After which he snipped at his nose with scissors.  He stretched his lips and examined his teeth, brushed them, gargled with mouthwash and did it all again.  He clipped his nails.  With a twist to his left and a pivot to his right, he examined all that he was in the mirror.

Forty-one years old.  A high, squarish forehead, with a boxy, black-haired chest just starting to sink into his nondescript middle.  His eyes flicked over the image.  Then he reached for his electric razor and shaved once more.

He came to the mirror again when he had fully dressed.  He tried to convince himself that he looked good enough, that he was okay.

He checked and rechecked his bag and left the apartment, locking the door twice.

*****

“Sorry!  Mini-chan threw up this morning.  What a mess!  Something she ate.  I may be late for rehearsal, but not by much.  I’ll hurry!”

*****

“Jesus, Ross, I don’t wanna work for no Christian fascist.  Can’t you change your mind and stay?”

He and Ethan met in a weeping drizzle before the streaked arch of Otsuka Station.  Now they stood in the green train as it rickety-ricked south.  He pressed his back flat into the foggy-glassed nook between the doors and the stuffed row of silent, rocking passengers.  Ethan leaned on a vinyl commuter strap.  Both carried dripping umbrellas hooked on their arms.  Ethan’s hair was mussed.  His tie was not drawn tight to his throat.  When he answered, his eyes focused on Ethan’s loose knot.

“Sorry.  It’s decided.  As to who comes next, I haven’t any say.”

“I mean – you know how those Christians are.  They can be nice, but they can be assholes too.  As opposed to you.”

“I haven’t any say.”

“You should’ve given this job to one of them.  Like Chuck.”

He wormed a smile.  Chuck the evangelical would frown upon such work, in that only the ordained were called to perform weddings, one of the sacraments.  That’s why he’d kept it a secret. He could hear what the man would say.  He could hear what the man would think.

“This is my good-bye gift – my wedding present – to you and Emiko.  And Chuck goes to church on Sundays.  No way would he do this.”

Ethan leaned and the commuter strap creaked.  

“But how can you say good-bye to all this loot?  You’ll never get a job like this anywhere.  A few hours and you fill your pockets.  In one good weekend you make more than you do in a month at school.”

“It’s time.”

“You’re nuts.”

“There’s a time when you gotta change.”

“How can you throw away fourteen years?”

“It’s time.”

“You should’ve got yourself a chick, like me.  Then you’d stay.”

“Chick?”

“Every chick needs a crowing cock.  And the classes are full of starving chicks.  How come you never took your pick?”

“I dunno.”  He pressed his back deeper into the nook.  “Too busy, I guess.”

“Who’s too busy for some ass?  Especially when they’re begging for it.  It hasn’t stopped me.  It didn’t stop Chuck.”

The lecture prickled within him.  It is unethical to date your

students, Ethan.  Unethical and unacceptable.

He said, “Maybe that’s why I’m leaving.  Too busy.”  

*****

Uesugi-san’s charm gleamed with her earrings as she fawned over Ethan Shepherd.  So good in Japanese!  So handsome!  So young!

Ethan brushed it off.  He was thankful for the opportunity, that’s all.

What she meant – Ross knew – was that Ethan was too young.  She was hinting she was displeased.  She’d hoped for someone dignified, more priest-like, more weathered.  She was saying he’d let her down.

Uesugi-san shifted in her stiff-backed chair.  They sat in the dressing room behind the hotel wedding hall.  She wore a white one-piece dress with earrings like small gold berries and a complexion prepared to look smooth and creamy.  She had a cherubic face, a well-filled tummy and a sticky-sweet voice.

“But how will we get by without Horn-Sensei?  I wish he’d stay!”

“I agree.”

“See?  Sensei, what will we do?”  She fluttered her lashes.  “Won’t you change your mind?”

She had already offered him more pay.  At present, he received twenty thousand yen per ceremony, with an average of five weddings a day each Saturday and Sunday.  Ethan would get less.  But he’d let Uesugi-san break that news.

“Sorry.  It’s decided.”

Behind them hummed the engine of the hotel boilers.  Only three weddings today – three ceremonies followed by fabulous sit-down receptions with hundreds of over-dressed guests.  The waiters, the cooks, the hotel staff scurried with preparations.

The meeting broke up when Murata-san, one of the choirgirls, stumbled in with her umbrella.  After a round of bowed introductions, he heard Uesugi-san hush, “Chika-chan will be late.  Her cat’s sick.”

“Again?”

“Again.”

“C’mon,” he pulled Ethan from the women and their gossip.  “Let’s peek inside.”

He pushed open the side door to the wedding hall and flicked the switch.  The oval room showed a high ceiling of chandeliers over an army of smart-ordered pews.  The chandeliers blazed and the cross behind the altar flamed with light.  

*****

“You need a man, not a cat.”  The speaker was Hashimoto-san – whom she loathed.

She worked off her brown leather jacket and Hashimoto-san joked, “Or at least a boy cat!”

The choirgirls laughed.  Uesugi-san stood in the corner by the clothes rack, rustling a burgundy robe over her dress.  She knew Uesugi-san didn’t care for such talk.  Unless she was tipsy.

She had arrived five minutes late, but the first couple was later yet.  Rehearsal had been delayed.  She had time to pop the cap to a can of hot coffee, her breakfast.  Her hands trembled.

“A man would get you up early.  Mine does.”

Next would come some crack about her biological clock.  She spoke fast to direct their talk.

“Speaking of men, who’s the boy?”

Satomi-chan spoke.  “That’s Horn-Sensei’s replacement.  I forgot his name.”

“Shepherd,” said Uesugi-san.  “Like the dog.”

Oh that was right.  Horn-Sensei was quitting.  He had been a wedding hall fixture for years, like the polished, hardwood pews.  How nice it would be to quit.

“He looks like he’s twenty-five.”

“Don’t tell me.”  Uesugi-san was dressed now.  Her robe showed a satin cross in front and another in back.

“Young is good, I think.  The more time on the ol’ bio clock the better.”  Hashimoto-san herself was under thirty.

“He has a fiancé.  He’s getting married in the spring.”

“So?” Hashimoto-san winked.  “Who cares?”

She giggled to be polite.  But all the while she thought, “My throat, my miserable throat.  Oh how I hate these people.  How I hate this place.”      

*****

The air swam with the aroma of red-rimmed orchids freshly arranged on either side of the altar, before which the pews fanned right and left.

“This is the groom’s side, that’s the bride’s.  You give the sermon here.”  He tapped the cherrywood pulpit.  “Everything’s written in front of you.  You can’t go wrong.”

“Don’t they, like, ask to see your license or something?”

“In nine years, I’ve had maybe five people ask.  That’s all.  Either they don’t care or they just assume.”

“So what do you say?”

“I say I’m a Lutheran.”

“And they don’t ask for more?”

“Nope.  Just speak loud and look solemn.  And don’t screw up the names.  Do that and you’ll be fine.”  That is, until Uesugi-san pounced.

“So what do I say?  I’m not a Lutheran.”

“What are you?”

“I dunno.  I had one uncle who was a Mormon and another who was a Baptist.  My Dad believed in nothing but Budweiser.”

“Take your pick then.  In the wedding hall, what you believe doesn’t matter.  What matters is how you look.  That’s why they want a foreigner.  We look holy, especially in robes.”

“I gotta write a sermon?”

“Yes, but it has to be under two minutes and the whole ceremony can’t be more than twenty.  Some days they’ll be ten weddings and the couples will be lined up outside like cars on an express ramp.”

“What do I say?”

“Anything you like.  Say that God guarantees their happiness.  It sounds nice and if it doesn’t work, he can’t be sued.”

“You change every week?”

“In the beginning, I changed once a month.  Now, I change once a year.  The guy before me delivered the same sermon for five years running.”

“And no one cares?”

“No one cares.  Just dress well,” he said – and thought, “And don’t make mistakes.”      

*****

“Shepherd like the dog!”  Hashimoto-san stole the line and even the new foreigner laughed.  He taught them how to pronounce his first name.

“Your tongue has to stick out and brush against your upper teeth.  ‘Ethan.’  Not ‘eee-zan.’”  He had them each say it once and made her do it more.

“Ethan,” she said on her third try as the others clapped and she imagined the gaijin getting crushed by a bus.

“Good, good,” he winked at her.

Satomi-chan pulled her arm and they escaped together to the toilet, leaving the younger choirgirl behind.  They padded quickly over the rose-patterned carpet.

“Will we have to bear that every week?  That man’s a flirt!”

“Well, at least she’s happy.  That’s why she stayed.”

In the toilet, she bade Satomi-chan examine her tongue.

“Shee how gaked it ish?”  She pushed it out before the mirror.

“It doesn’t look so awful.”

“This morning I didn’t think I’d make it.  My head hurt terribly and even now my throat is torture.”

“I thought it was Mini-chan.”

“Mini-chan was sick as well.  Mini-chan is always sick.”

“What time did you sleep?  You have to take it easy, you know.  You’re delicate.”

Sleep?  She’d slept most of the previous day – the previous two days.  On the bed or before the television.  Whenever and wherever the cat would let her.

“I hardly slept at all.  I’m worn out and I can’t stand it anymore.  I want to quit.”

“You can’t quit!  You can’t leave me to Hashimoto-san and that dog boy!”

“It’s too much.”

“Besides Uesugi-san would never let you go.  And how would you live?”

“I don’t know.”

Satomi-chan pulled back.

“You’re not running off, are you?  With Horn-Sensei?”

“What?”  She laughed from her heart.  “Horn-Sensei?  Heavens no!”

Horn-Sensei reminded her of a tax accountant, ruling over a desk of stacked receipts.

“What made you think that?”

“He’s quitting and now you say the same.”

“The man hardly speaks.”

“I didn’t mean it.”

“And I hate ministers.  Just hate them.”

“He’s not a minister.  Not a real one, anyway.”

*****

He had hung up his gray jacket and donned his ivory cassock, the one the hotel held for him.  A wine-red stole with gold lace frill hung round his shoulders and dipped almost to the floor.  He stood before the cross with billowing sleeves and a practiced expression of eternal patience – waiting, waiting for the first couple to show.

“Man, you look like the real thing.”

“You sit in the corner and watch.  From next week it’s your show.”

“Tell me about that chick.”

“What chick?”

“The one in leather.  She’s a babe.  A big-time babe.”

He straightened his collar for the fourth time.  “That big-time babe is almost as old as me.”

“So?  The equipment’s still up and running.”

“She’s not the friendliest person in the world.  In fact, she’s unfriendly.  As cold as ice.”

He squared his shoulders and faced the front doors.

“I’m not talking about her heart, I’m talking about her body.”

“Yeah, and she’s a hypochondriac as well.  I’ve been here nine years and she’s been sick every single week.”

“She looks healthy to me – on both top and bottom.”

“And she’s a cat lover.”

“No one’s perfect.  You, like, ever pull her into one of these hotel rooms?”

“No!”  He turned to glare at Ethan.  Then lowered his voice.

“This is my job, Ethan.  And soon your job too.  I work with her, okay?  We’re co-workers.”

“And she’s a babe.”

“She’s a baby is more like it.  Spoiled and immature.”

“Give me six months and I’ll be in her pants.”

His shoulders sagged.  The cross, trimmed in lights, sparkled behind him.  His voice limped across the floor.

“And Emiko, your fiancé?”

“Variety’s the spice of life.  I can’t believe you worked here nine years and let that body go to waste.  She married?”

“No.  Would that stop you?”

“Should it?”

“Yeah.  I would think something like that might make a difference.”

“Man, don’t make me laugh?  Are you that old?”

“Yeah, Ethan, I am that old.”

“Hey, if you want her, say the word and I’ll back off.”

His eyes narrowed and flared, then darted from Ethan to the glass doors and the hallway beyond.

“Okaaaay!”

“What?”

But his call had been directed to the dressing room.  He switched to Japanese.

“They’re here!  The couple’s at the door!”

*****

The groom dressed like a rich sentry in Napoleon’s army – silver vest, lavender tails and then brass buttons everywhere.  He stood at attention while Uesugi-san coaxed the pipe organ through, Here Comes the Bride.

And here she came: a willowy woman painted into a white, contoured dress with almost no train behind and even less material in front.  She wore a broad, simpleton’s face that was hard to bear at length, making her cleavage more attractive yet.  The bride was escorted by her overweight father, who rather rolled than walked.

The choirgirls had “jan-kenned” to see who would be first.  And she – curses – had won.  The good news being that, with only three weddings, she need not lead rehearsal again.

“Okay then!  Keep coming.  Keep coming.  Slower, slower!”

Nothing but perky smiles for the guests – a Uesugi-san command.  For all couples had friends and relatives who might someday need a wedding hall.  Any single grin might be the one to sway them this way.

“Stop here please, by the second row!  That’s right!  Now will the groom please enter the virgin road!”

But could Uesugi-san smile with an aching throat?

She sent the father bowling to his seat and now had the couple before the altar.  Horn-Sensei intoned their names in a hallowed baritone:

“Ueda Kenichi?  Aoki Misako?”

The couple stiffened, which made the bride even more exposed.

He flipped to English.  “Good morning! Welcome!”

The pair exhaled and their parents chuckled.  Horn-Sensei clasped their hands – groom first as taught – and expressed his wishes for the couple’s eternal happiness.

Everyone bowed.  Same process, the same words in fact, as with every wedding, every weekend.

She took control and in rapid – but smiling – Japanese explained the procedure: where the couple would stand, what they would have to say, when they would have to say it and so on.  The words she had memorized, so her eyes mindlessly strayed to the row of chairs where the choir sat and where Hashimoto-san and Satomi-chan now waited, with the Shepherd man sitting beside them.  He winked again, seeming not to notice that Hashimoto-san had almost leaned into his lap.

She lifted her chin and in a fog of contempt turned to direct the couple to the pedestal where they would sign their marriage contract.  It lay a step behind her.

Horn-Sensei placed light-but-pressing fingertips on her shoulder.  The first time in hundreds of rehearsals that such a thing had happened.

She spun and scowled – almost expecting a wink.  His face hung block-like and dull, seemingly scrubbed with pumice.  He raised his brows and cleared his throat.  His eyes were pinched.  She coiled back and felt herself go hot.

She’d made a mistake.

“Sorry.”  She edged the couple back and the bride’s breasts heaved with the adjustment.

“Before the contract, we have the ring exchange.”

Horn-Sensei presented her the lace pillow with the ring, and her hand, the pillow and the bride’s bosom collided and bounced apart.  One ring popped loose and slipped free.  In the same instant, both she and the foreigner snatched at the woman, who withdrew in a quick defense of her bust.  The foreigner caught the falling ring.

The gasp and sigh of relief broke together.  For a ring to touch the floor was terrible luck.

The two choirgirls tittered and the parents caught on and laughed along with them.  She felt herself go dizzy.

Horn-Sensei handed her the ring.  “The hand of God never fails,” he quipped.

Everyone roared.  With that hand now on her elbow, he nudged her to guide the couple through the exchange.

That was mostly it.  The couple flowed from the hall to the chords of The Wedding March and she floated to the choir seats, biting her lip.

“Chika-chan, are you okay?”  Both her partners spoke, while the dog man mooned her with eyes like a puppy’s.  She wished to slap him.

But more than that, she wanted to cry.  Yet she couldn’t, wouldn’t dare do so till she got home.  Now she could only smile, smile, smile.

*****

He stood with his head bowed before the altar, his back to the influx of chattering, shuffling guests, who each sought the best seats for photographs.  He appeared the picture of a clergyman lost in prayer.  In his mind, he repeated: “Please don’t let me make a mistake, please don’t let me make a mistake.”

When the pews had filled, the great glass doors to the Wedding Hall swung shut and the prelude – Disney’s When you Wish Upon a Star – softened to a suspenseful halt.  He turned and the crowd silenced.  With his arms open in a pose of greeting, he spoke from his diaphragm in Japanese.

“In the name of Christ the Lord, I welcome you to the wedding of Ueda Kenichi and Aoki Misako!”

He paused and dropped his hands and voice.

“To help everyone better enjoy the ceremony, I urge that all cell phones be turned to manner-mode and ask that those taking photographs only do so from their seats.”

Next a wait of one, two, three beats, then another opening of his arms.

“Let the wedding begin!  Everyone rise!”

The groom stood and the doors flew open to reveal the bride and her father.  The music sprang to the ceiling.

The entrance concluded uneventfully, even considering that the bride stomped on the front her own gown and almost yanked it enough to expose herself, and that her father didn’t stop at the second row of seats, but waddled all the way to the altar.

Yet such mistakes were permissible – for customers.

He announced the first hymn – What a Friend We Have in Jesus – and mouthed the words while the guest mumbled along, drowned out by the power and harmony of the choirgirls.  When the music finished, he took over.

“I will now read a passage from the Holy Bible.”

He didn’t tell what passage, for the place he read did not exist.  It was a minced version of the Love Chapter – First Corinthians 13 – but here read more like the “Love Fragment.”  This portion of the ceremony alone was in English and the only word he felt certain people could follow was the operative one – love.

“Love never ends,” he intoned at the end.  “The greatest of all things is love.”

A concept he had trouble believing.  Marriages weren’t about love.  They were about families and situations, pasts and futures, money and sex, risks and rewards, pomp and circumstance.  Love, he felt, was at best a euphemism for need.  Not everyone loved.  But everyone needed.  Everyone desired.

His sermon followed, in Japanese:

“There are eight billion people in our world, half male, half female.  Making couples then would not seem such a difficult task.  Yet, we all know it is.  To find the right person is a miraculous thing, a magical thing, an inexplicable thing.”

He’d delivered the same message time and again and had confidence enough in his words to sweep the room of guests with his eyes as he spoke.  He began from the left and eased to the right, ending on Ethan and the choirgirls, with Suzuki Chika, the babe, in front.

“Some people never find that person, no matter how badly they may want.  But you two have.  Please realize this is not an accident.  You have been brought here by God and God will watch your steps as you move ahead.  We all know life isn’t easy.  It’s not all the glitter and gold of a wedding hall.  There are rough days too.  But God will not forget you – not even for a second.  So remember Him too in times of sadness and times of great joy, like now – your wedding day.  May His blessings and goodness be part of your marriage forever.”

That was it.  At once he announced the second and final hymn, O Perfect Love.  Whatever that was.

Both groom and bride mangled their vows, repeated from his painstaking lead.  The groom then lifted his bride’s veil and, with the command of, “You may now kiss the bride!” tippy-toed carefully, so as not to brush his new wife’s overhang, and planted a dry kiss – on her forehead.  Romance, Japanese style.  The cameras flashed.

The rings were exchanged with no collisions, although he had to fight hard not to stare down the bride’s dress as she grunted with her husband’s finger.  Ethan’s problem, he realized, would be the opposite; he would struggle to look anywhere else.

Now came the other big photo op.  He had the couple clasp hands and wrapped them together with his red stole, placing his hand on top.  There were words he spoke and those he did not.

“By the power invested in me (as a Lutheran from a red-bricked church in Indiana), I (Ross Alfred Horn, a teacher with a master’s degree in ESL) do hereby pronounce you man and wife.”

He looked them both in the eyes, especially the bride.

His mind then drifted to the choirgirl, as the couple signed their vows.  When she made the error, how quickly her expression had collapsed from resentment to humiliation, from punchy pride to bottomless shame.  A woman hard like china, fragile like china, beautiful like china.  A woman he imagined needed someone to pick up the broken pieces every day.  To glue them back together over and over again.  A helluva job for someone.

He preferred plastic plates himself.  Easy to clean and store.  He had used the same set now for fourteen years.  He could see them stacked in his kitchen cabinet.  Convenient and ready, yellow and lusterless.  He had already decided to leave them behind, along with fourteen years of diligent work, overly ambitious students, self-centered colleagues and simple meals eaten at home late at night with only a whiskey glass for his companion.

The ceremony wound down quickly.  The couple returned before the altar and he offered a prayer.  They tugged on the gloves that they’d tugged off before their vows and he recited the benediction.

“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all!”

The couple swung about and marched off into a storm of confetti and the racing heartbeats of their future.

*****

The merit to having lunch with Uesugi-san was that the older woman chose pricey restaurants and always collected the tab.

But her guests paid in other ways.

Now the two of them sat in the hotel’s exclusive sushi restaurant on the hotel’s 15^th floor, the tables divided by sliding doors of pale paper.  Between the day’s second and third weddings lay a two-hour break, time she would normally have spent browsing through shops or sipping milk coffee with Satomi-chan at Starbucks.  This time Uesugi-san had hushed an invitation while the others wiggled from their choir robes.

“Chika-chan…  It’s been so long since we’ve talked.  Let’s have lunch.  Just the two of us.”

The others avoided her then, the way you always dodge the eyes of a person condemned.

A hidden samisen tickled the air around them.

“Your cat must have a digestive problem.  Have you taken it to a vet?”

Uesugi-san dipped a roll of plump white rice topped with red tuna into a saucer of laquery soy sauce and shoved the whole mass into her mouth with her chopsticks, keeping her second hand posed to cover her workman lips.

“Yes, but the vet says she’s fine.  She gets into things she shouldn’t.  Like a child.”

“So it seems.”

“I’ll watch her closer.”

“Do.  You are no good to me if you’re not here.”

Her stomach tingled.  She had been through this lecture before, more than once.

“But I’ve never been absent.  Not without calling.”

“You are so often sick.”

She had hardly touched her plate.

“I’m better now.  I go to the doctor like you advised and I take my medicine.  I haven’t been sick, really sick, for I can’t say when.”

“You or your cat, it’s the same thing.  I can’t have you late.”

“But… she’s like my child.”

“And this is my business.  How can I run it, not knowing if you’re going to show?”

“I’ve never missed without calling.”

“I don’t like to worry about it.  I don’t like to wonder if you’re going to be late.”

Uesugi-san had no trouble eating as she spoke.  Already she grabbed her last selection, a slick finger of squid.

“I’m sorry.  I’ll be careful.”

“One person late stops the entire affair.  A hundred wedding guests, the hotel staff – everything comes to a halt.  And if one wedding’s delayed, then all are delayed.  If five weddings, then five hundred guests and so on.  The hotel reputation suffers.  They might well outsource the ceremony to someone else.  Everyone’s job is on the line.”

“I know.”

“And if you were to drop a ring… I can’t begin to think what would happen.”

She knew she mustn’t jeopardize this, her only bit of income, but now her anger flared.

“That wasn’t my fault!  It was Horn-Sensei.  He pushed the pillow straight at me.  There was nothing I could do.  You should be talking to him.”

Uesugi-san licked soy sauce from the tip of her chopsticks.  Her voice broke flat.

“You forgot the ring exchange.”

Her shoulders sunk.

“And if Horn-Sensei hadn’t caught the ring, what would we have done?  We would’ve had to offer the ceremony for free, that’s for certain.  Perhaps even pay for the ring.  They might have requested and – tell me – how could I have refused?  Have you ever in your life priced a wedding ring?”

She couldn’t speak.

“As for Horn-Sensei, I would talk to him as well, but what good would it do?  It’s his final day.  Yes, his pronunciation is wretched, but you could do to learn from him.  He is never late.  Never.  No matter how early I arrive, he arrives before me.  When we have a sudden ceremony, he drops everything and comes.  Once he even returned three days early from an overseas vacation.  That, Chika-chan, is responsibility.”

THAT, she smoldered, is insanity.  Good riddance to that man.  

Good riddance to his silent, screaming efficiency.

“I have a favor to ask.  I want you to thank him for what he did today.  He has to know he is needed.  Desperately so.  He is responsible enough that if he feels he is needed, he just might stay.”

She brooded.  Then looked up.  “What about his replacement?”  

She could not recall the name.  “The dog?”

“Please.  Horn-Sensei is responsible, but he has no taste.  Shepherd-Sensei will not do.  He is too young.  He has no interest in the work.  He oozes immaturity.  I have watched his eyes and I don’t like where he looks.”

“He seems friendly.”

“He is a fool.  I don’t want to be in a position where I must rely on a fool.  We have to avoid that.

“Speak to Horn-Sensei.  Impress on him how thankful you are for his being here, for his helping you today and always.  It’s his last day and your gratitude will appear natural.  Be sincere.  Very sincere.  Perhaps we can sway him.  At any rate, you can’t let him leave without thanking him and thanking him well.  Take his hands.  Grasp them.  Look into his eyes.  Tell him how much he means to you… and all of us.”

Her stomach clenched.  She thought to heave.

“Do that for me please.  And then you have to come on time.  Perhaps you should consider leaving your cat with a relative.  Sleep more too.  You look fatigued.”

She wanted to collapse in her hands and sob.  She should take another job.  But that would mean auditions.  Or working 9:00 to 5:00 as a waitress.

“Finish your sushi.  We have to be going.”

*****

They ate lunch at a Subway Sandwich shop.  Ethan had his Italian sub ladled with jalapeno peppers.  He crammed the bread into his mouth and talked as he chewed.

“I’m gonna give Emiko pepper breath.”

He had a date with his fiancé and wouldn’t attend the third wedding.

“I haven’t seen her since Wednesday.  You know how it is at a Japanese company.  New recruits have to jump through all the hoops.  Ridiculous.”

“Yeah.”

He spoke to the tabletop, not even opening his own turkey sandwich, and wondered if there was anything about Japan that Ethan didn’t consider ridiculous.  And Ethan, he noticed, had yet to adjust his tie.

“Do you know where Chika Suzuki is now?”

“Who?”

“The choirgirl you like.”

“The babe?”

“Yeah… the babe.”

 “She’s not here.  If she was, I would sense her.  She’s that hot.”

“She’s having lunch with Uesugi-san.  Didn’t you hear the invite?”  He raised his brows.

“That means something?”

“If Uesugi-san asks you to lunch, it means one thing only; you’re going to get chastised.”

“Chastised?  Why?  That thing with the ring?”

“Yeah, that thing with the ring.”

“That was nothing.”

“Right.  But that’s one part of this job you’d better realize.  Here, there is no such thing as ‘nothing.’  Everything’s big.  Everything’s got to run just as it’s supposed to run, with no flub ups.  Or else Uesugi-san won’t like it.”

Ethan stopped eating.

“And what’s that mean?”

“It means a lot of things.  For one, you’ve gotta wear a white shirt.”

“I don’t even own a white shirt!”

“Buy one.  And black shoes.  The shoes you can wear each time.  But otherwise you can never wear the exact same thing twice in a row.  Bad style.”

He tipped his head and made a motion with his hand.  “That includes your necktie and it’s gotta be up, up to the top.”

Ethan looked in at his throat.

“Pore over that copy of the service I gave you.  Each line is meant to be delivered just as written.  Adlibbing is not allowed.  Practice with Emiko.  Never be late and that means not even by a minute.  Don’t miss any weekend, especially in your first six months or so.  Unless you’re in some life-or-death bind.”

“That’s nuts.  I’m a man not a machine.”

“And some weekends for a total of eight hours work, you might make two thousand dollars or more.  But you have to earn it.  You have to do it the way they want it done.”

“And what if I don’t?  Like, what’s happening to that babe?  She getting fired?”

He laughed once, sharp and mean.  “Her?  Hell no.  Didn’t you hear her sing?”

“Yeah.”

“She’s the best in the group.  By far.  She used to be on stage… a long time ago when she still had dreams.  Now she’s just got bills.”

“And tits.  Don’t forget the tits.”

He grinned with his lips tight.  “Uesugi-san mentions her in the sales brochure so there’s no way she’s getting fired.  Just belittled.  If you want to stay here, you have to put up with that – getting belittled.  It comes with the territory.”

He wasn’t sure if he meant the wedding hall or Japan.

“Ah c’mon.”

He leaned at Ethan.

“I worked here two years and was never late once.  Then one Sunday there was a suicide on the Yamanote Line and all the trains were backed up for half an hour.  When my train finally pulled in, I sprinted to the hotel.  I arrived, two minutes late.  For the rehearsal mind you, not for the wedding.  Uesugi-san lost her temper.  I’d never seen a Japanese get so mad.  I apologized again and again.  Since then I’ve made it a point to always arrive first.  And I always have.”

“I would’ve told her off and walked out.  What’s she gonna do?  You’re the goddamn priest!”

“But, you see…” He felt as if he were in front of a blackboard and Ethan in a chair.  “I realized I wasn’t the target.  She could yell at me ‘cause I’m just a foreigner and by then she had a read on me and knew I wouldn’t quit.  There were others in the room she wanted to have hear.  Wanted them to hear her displeasure, too.  My point is she knows how to push buttons and she can make you miserable if she wants to.”

“She ever call you to a private lunch?”

“Oh yeah.  Fifteenth floor for sushi.  For my clothes, for my pronunciation, for the way I comb my hair.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No, and I can tell you now that yours is way too long.  Uesugi-san will mention it right away and all the choirgirls will join in on cue.  You’ll hear it every week till you cut it and if you don’t you’ll get a raw fish lunch complete with lecture.”

“Hell, I say fuck ‘em.  Fuck ‘em all.”

“That’s the job.  Take it or leave it.”

“Fuck ‘em.  That’s what women are for.”

“Here’s how you’ll know when you’re fired.  A week will come and you won’t get your wedding schedule.  You’ll call and she’ll say there aren’t any weddings.  Sometimes that happens, like when the date falls on a Buddhist day of dread or something, like yesterday.  The next week will be the same.  Sooner or later you’ll realize someone else is working in your place.”

Ethan shrugged.  “So… I’ll do it for a few months, make a bundle of money and quit.”

“That’s just it.”  He squirmed in his chair.  “Maybe I’m going about this in the wrong way.  I’m trying to make you see that this isn’t just a part-time job.  The weddings are serious business.  You have to make a commitment.”

Ethan put down his sandwich.  Only one full bite remained.

“Ross,” he said.  “I’ve been thinking… Maybe you should ask somebody else, like one of those asshole Christians.”

But before he left, he said, yeah, he wanted the job.

*****

She burst into the bathroom immediately after the final wedding and closed herself into farthest stall in the corner.  She intended to stay but a moment, safe within the narrow comfort of the paneled compartment.  A moment would be all she needed to clear her head, calm her tremble and snap on anew her wedding hall mask of smiles.  Then she would go back – just as the others were buttoning up their jackets and offering exaggerated praise to the foreign minister who wasn’t even a minister.  She would make her bows and give her own thanks, drawing close when she did so.  Just as Uesugi-san wished.  To give the tax account a little something more to add to his final calculation.

She sobbed.  Just once.  But then the tears wouldn’t stop.

She remembered the last time Uesugi-san scolded her – right in front of the choirgirls – for yawning in a rehearsal.  Back home in her apartment, she had combed the theatrical papers in a fury, permed her hair, and marched off to an audition.  

To find herself in a line of singers all better dressed, all far younger and – as she heard them sing – all more talented.  She listened and her heart raced and her brown eyes froze on the stage.  She walked out before they called her number.

Walked out on a part that would have paid her only half what the wedding hall paid, even if she got the job.

"Find something else," her mother said.  "How about in a boutique?  Or at a hair salon?"

“Or how about getting married?” her father offered, not bothering to look from his newspaper.

“I’m a singer,” she said back.

Now in her toilet stall, she choked into her hands.

A never-was has-been, too old for marriage and not interested anyway.  Besides, at her age she would only find some momma’s boy in his forties who had been rejected by others because of his prissy ways or stifling BO.  She would have to cook, to clean, to sleep with the man, lie with him – a soft TV slob – and let him play with her like a toy, and then have his child.  A child!  With the man’s mother living there, too.  Bossing her around.  Criticizing her homemaking, her manners and – if a child didn’t come – even her lovemaking.

Her lip bent.

How could that gaijin escape punishment and not she?  He didn’t even have a license for what he did.  And this wasn’t his country.  All he had was a face, a foreign face.  No ability and pathetic Japanese – he was just an act.  And she had to apologize to him?  To encourage him?  When he had been coddled all along?

Maybe she would run away.  Maybe she would sell everything she had and leave Japan.  To some place where she could just dry and crumble into an old maid in peace.

Or maybe she’d pitch herself in front of a train.

Soon her face was a smear of makeup and tears.  She tried to mash the water back up her nostrils first with her wrists and then with sheet after sheet of toilet paper.  She didn’t care.  She would hide in the stall till they were all long gone.

*****

Weddings finished, farewells and gratitude spent, everyone departed – except Uesugi-san who now stood from her high-backed chair.  She bowed her head and passed him an envelope with both hands.

“Sensei, this is a token of my gratitude.  For all that you’ve done for me.”

He had expected this.

“No. I can’t.”  He lifted a palm.  “I get paid each week.  That’s enough.”

“Sensei, please.  This is beyond payment.  It’s a gift.”

“I can’t take it.  I would only give it away.  To some charity.  I don’t need the money.  I never have.”

He said this to hurt her.  To make her think he had only offered his service out of a sense of ethics and duty – as fine, he would have her know, or perhaps finer, than any Japanese.  Even if the staggering numbers in his bank account filled him with a satisfaction that he did not care to admit.

“Give it away then.  It’s yours.”

“I can’t.”

His refusal was meant to hurt her as well.

“Then I consider you still employed.  And that you will be back next week.”

He looked into her endless dark eyes and felt the screws turn.  They stood a half meter apart.

“I’m thankful for everything, but the time has come.”

“Shepherd-Sensei won’t do,” she said bluntly.  “He won’t.”

“I know he’s young, but I told you that before.  He speaks Japanese better than I did when I began and he gets along well at school.  The students like him, the faculty likes him.  He’s a bright young man.  All he needs is a chance.”

“It’s not his youth.  It’s his attitude.  This work calls for someone serious.  That’s not him.  And his language skill isn’t half that of yours, not half.  You are a superb speaker.  He is barely competent.  It will be a nightmare if he takes your place.”

“Didn’t you tell him it was settled?”

“A nightmare.  We will lose the contract.  There are so many competing companies.  We will lose the contract and everyone will be out of work.  Satomi-chan has been here eleven years and Chika-chan ten.  They are not so young.  Where will they find work?  And Satomi-chan has two children.  Your leaving means doom to us all.”

“No, it doesn’t.”  And he broke into English for, “Geeesh.”

“Yes, it does.  Shepherd-Sensei won’t do.”

“Get someone else then.  But you have to tell him because you said he had the job.”

“But you said you’d find me a replacement.  You promised me.  I know no foreigners and speak no English.  You said you would do it.  I counted upon you.  We all did.  We all do.”

“I have the right to leave here whenever I please.”

“Of course.  Who said otherwise?  But find your replacement first.  Find your replacement and then you can quit.”

“I found my replacement.”

“He is unacceptable.”

“You said you accepted him.”

“You said you would find me an acceptable candidate.”

“If he wasn’t acceptable, why did you accept him?”

“Did you hear how thankful the others are for all your efforts?  At lunch, Chika-chan said again and again how grateful she was.  How will they feel in two months or less when the hotel pulls our contract due to some bungle by Shepherd-Sensei?  They will think you let them down.”

He felt clubbed.

“No, they won’t.  And that won’t happen.”

“It might.  It will.  I can see it clearly.  You don’t know how tough the hotel can be.  Our jobs hang by a spider’s thread each week.”

“Then maybe it’s not a job worth doing.”

“Can you say that to Satomi-chan who has children to feed?  Or to Chika-chan who has nothing else at all?  Or to the several thousand couples you have married?  That it’s worth nothing?  That their marriages were meaningless?”

“I never said anything like that.”

“Stay.  Until you find a worthy replacement.  I’m begging you.”

“No.”

But his voice was weak.

“Stay.  You are needed.  Desperately needed.”

He sighed.

“Until you find a worthy replacement.  Till then.  Only till then.”

*****

She hid safely within her toilet fortress for an hour and a half.  Long enough to hear Satomi-chan and Hashimoto-san chat before the mirror.

“Where did Chika-chan go?”

“I don’t know.  Maybe she’s here.  Her coat’s still in the dressing room.  Chika-chan!”

She left the call unanswered.

Hashimoto-san spoke.  “I’m glad Horn-Sensei’s going.  He’s so boring.  His sermons are dreadful.”

“But he never makes mistakes.”

“Not like someone we know.”

The two giggled.

“I’ve got to run.  My sister can only watch the kids till 3:00.”

“Me too.  I’ve got a date.  I’m already late, but men will wait forever when they think they’re gonna get it.”

Other ladies came and went.  Wedding Hall guests, mothers, sisters, and at least one bride.

“So how does it feel to be married?” asked an older woman.

“No different than yesterday.”

“That’s how it goes.  Change doesn’t come in a moment.  It builds over time.  That’s the way love and life work.  But in three weeks you won’t believe you were ever single.”

“In three weeks, I’ll be showing!  C’mon.  I’ve already had one sermon today.”

She sat and dried up, with her lip still curled.  She picked four o’clock on her watch and when the time arrived, she unlatched the door, swung it open and stepped to the basins.

She jerked her face from the mirror.  It was as if she had been beaten.  Purple blotches bloomed around her cheekbones and eyes.  With towels and her cosmetic kit, she tried to salvage something presentable, like hammering up holes on a damaged boat.  Another thirty minutes passed.  The hotel had recessed into quiet.  The final reception must have finished, the marriage show done for one week more.

She found the dressing room door locked.  Good.  It meant everyone was gone.  She had half-expected Uesugi-san to be there still, waiting like a murderess in the shadows.  Next week would be bad enough as it was.  Even worse, tonight there would be a telephone call.

As she sought a clerk to open the door, she picked through excuses to feed over the phone.  She didn’t dare say she was sick. Uesugi-san had tired of that long ago.

She had met an old friend… that was it.  An old friend from college.  A close friend.  They talked and the time flew.  Then – because everyone was gone –  they’d had a drink.

She could use a drink.  But her cat, the damned cat, was waiting.

She thanked the hotel man and rushed away with her coat.  No notes in her pocket.  She checked mail on her phone.

“Chika-chan?  Give me a call please.  It’s important.  Uesugi.”

She halted on the carpet.  She felt like dropping the phone in the trash.

She wouldn’t call.  No, she would not.

Not until some other time.

She thought of her bank balance.  Enough to live on for how long?  Including rent?  Three months?  Less?

The elevator glided down from the restaurant and lounges on the top floor.  The doors opened and she had a foot on board before she looked ahead.

Inside was Horn-Sensei.  Only Horn-Sensei.

They faced each other, his flapless eyes now startled.  The doors closed them in.

He chuckled.  So did she.

“Horn-Sensei.”

“Well, Suzuki-san.  You’re late, aren’t you?”  Alcohol rode on his breath.

“Yes.  I met an old friend and we were talking.”

“Really?”

They paused through a nervous second and then both started at once.

“I’d like to say thank…”

“Me, I was having a drink up…”

Their floor arrived.  They stepped out, side by side like dance partners.  She picked up the conversation first.

“Thank you so much for today.  I can’t believe I almost dropped that ring.”

There!  Now she could tell Uesugi-san she apologized!  She could call her tonight!

He laughed out loud.

“Wouldn’t it have been great though?  Just to see Uesugi-san’s face!”

Now that was funny.  She laughed with him.

“Sensei, don’t say that!  Don’t ever say that!”  Then, as the thought occurred to her, she added.

“Were you drinking alone?”

He laughed more.

“Yes, on the 15^th floor alone!  No sushi.  No samisen.  Just me and a martini.  Lots of fun!”

“Sensei!”

She felt giddy to see him in such a mood.  She sensed an urge to draw her own guns and attack the wedding hall with any insult she could muster.  But what would he think?  She put a hand on his arm unconsciously.

“I’ll be sad to see you go, Sensei.  Really sad.”

“You don’t know the half of it.”

She didn’t understand, but felt he was looking at her funny.

“Yet, I appreciate it.  Thank you very much.”

And just like that he seemed his old self again – steady, calm, unmovable.

“Well, good-bye then, Sensei.  Be happy.”

She glided away from him, the smile on her face like a light slipping from shore on a boat.

“You too.  Good-night.”

When she glanced back over a bent shoulder, he cried, “Wait!”

She stopped.  He approached.  She turned into him.

“Are you free for a while?”

That blocky face filled her vision, with his eyes peaked now, searching

“Yes,” she said and clutched herself.  “I am.”

You!

© Thomas Noah Wood

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