Parlor Games (23 page)

Each month, the Imperial Hotel hosted a reception for their honored guests in a high-ceilinged room of beige walls painted with towering bamboos and peacocks resplendent in fanned tails. It was at one of these events, in February of 1891, that I met Johnny Graham, a young New Yorker with a tall, trim silhouette and eyebrows so flaxen they blended with his fair complexion and lent his sky-blue eyes the appearance of perpetual wonderment.

While we stood apart from the groups of conversing notables, clutching our flutes of champagne, I asked, “What brings you to Tokyo, Mr. Graham?”

“I’m on my
Wanderjahr
. I’ve visited Paris, Calcutta, Peking, and gads of points in between.”

“How exciting. I love to travel.”

“You must. Not many American women would venture all the way to Japan.”

“It’s the most exotic place I’ve ever seen, though I must say I’m glad for the company of an American.”

Mr. Graham looked around the dimly lit room at the attendees
settled into small clutches—European, American, and Japanese men, a few with wives or lady guests—and lowered his voice. “Don’t you find the Japanese a bit stiff?”

After a glance this way and that, I said, “Not compared with the British.”

Mr. Graham tossed his head back and unleashed a burst of carefree laughter. I was beginning to like Johnny Graham—his casual frankness, immaculate teeth, and hands as delicate as a piano player’s.

Composing himself, he bent his head to me. “Are you here by yourself?”

“Completely.”

“Did you arrive on your own?”

“Yes.”

“What courage. It’s not easy to navigate these foreign countries.”

“Given enough money, one can navigate any place.” That night, I certainly looked as if I had “enough” money. I wore teardrop diamond earrings and a floor-length apricot kimono embroidered in pale-yellow and white peonies.

“Where in the States are you from?”

“Chicago.” I sipped my champagne. “My father was in the restaurant business.”

He tucked a hand in his pocket and studied me. “Forgive me, but I can’t get over my amazement. You’re traveling Japan completely on your own?”

“Yes. But why should you be amazed?” I assumed Mr. Graham was unattached. But, wary of repeating my unfortunate experience with Mr. Carlyle, I asked, “You’re doing the same, aren’t you?”

“Yes, but it’s nothing for a man,” he said, rocking on his heels. “Do you have plans to see any other places?”

“Not at the moment.”

“This is my last stop before the States.”

“And what happens after your world tour?”

“I take over my father’s business.” Mr. Graham’s eyes twinkled with the unpretentious bonhomie of one who is confident fortune will favor him. “Tokyo is my last hurrah before settling down in New York.”

“What business are you in?”

“Imports. Art, antiquities, furniture—that sort of thing.”

“How impressive. That must require specialized knowledge.”

He shrugged and said, with an utterly charming lack of pretense, “I majored in art history at Harvard.”

Mr. Graham’s obvious good breeding blessed him with an honest cordiality, sportive cheeriness, and a dash of naïveté, all of which I found pinch-me beguiling. We fell into each other’s company that evening with the ease of long-separated friends renewing their affinity. As the reception broke up, Johnny said, “I’m not the least bit tired, and it’s a crystal-clear evening. Let’s take a rickshaw to Ueno Park.”

The sun sets early in Tokyo in February, before six. But we’d had a string of sunny days with temperatures approaching sixty degrees, and as we traveled the city’s streets that evening, the cool air did not chill so much as invigorate.

“I’ve a special spot to show you,” said Johnny after paying our driver. He trotted ahead, pointing to a row of bare cherry trees. “Come, it’s beyond those trees.”

I lifted my kimono and broke into a shuffling run. “Wait for me.”

“No,
you
catch
me
,” called Johnny, not slowing at all.

We ran, laughing at our childishness, along a gravel path. We passed through a row of trees, and the landscape opened onto a rectangular pond rimmed by a grassy expanse. Johnny halted and stretched out his arms, as if embracing the world. “Look up. Look at the stars.”

I ran to his side; he scooped me into his arms and twirled us around. Both of us cast our gaze upward, and I nearly lost my balance, save for his sure grip. We stopped, winded, our giddiness turning to wonder at the sparkling sky. Johnny let me go, shucked off his jacket, and said, “Here, lie down so you can see the whole sky.”

He reclined beside me, his shoulder brushing mine.

Stars scattered across the moonless sky, as bright and twinkly as those of a deep Michigan night. Only here, half a world away, I felt I was seeing them anew. Then I remembered an evening I hadn’t thought of in years. “Once, when I was a little girl, my father took my two brothers and me to a meadow filled with fireflies.”

“I love fireflies,” Johnny said.

“I dodged and darted from one firefly to another, until I’d caught
three all at once. Papa was sitting on the edge of the meadow, watching us. I scampered up to him with my treasure. ‘Look, Papa, fireflies for you,’ I said and opened my hands. As they flitted away I squealed, ‘Come back, Papa’s fireflies.’ He gathered me in his arms so that we were both looking in the same direction, and pointed at the North Star. ‘See that bright star? I’ll catch it for you.’ Then he reached his hand out and clenched it closed. Now, whenever I look at the North Star, I think of Papa.”

Johnny reached his arms to the sky and cupped his hands together again and again. “Here’s another and another and another for you.”

Then I did something I’d never done before—or since. Because I saw no reason to wait, because I did not wish to wait,
I
kissed
him
. His lips melted into mine, his delicious warm lips, in a kiss I shall never forget as long as I live.

In the weeks that followed, Johnny and I became nearly inseparable: strolling through Tokyo’s Yanesen neighborhood, admiring its cute, compact wooden houses; bowing to women sweeping their doorsteps; and giggling at children running gleefully through narrow corridors. We marveled at the city’s temples with their stacked layers and swooping roofs; filled our evenings with sake and laughter; and bounded back and forth between his first-level room and my second-floor suite, as carefree and playful as youngsters on their first resort holiday.

One evening, I picked him up for dinner in his room and spied a small photograph on his dresser. “That’s your mother and father with you?”

“Yes, Mother insisted on a photo session before I left last year. And I liked that one well enough to bring it with me.”

Johnny sat between his parents, his father’s square face yielding to a soft grin and his mother beaming proudly.

“Your mother’s beautiful. You get your good looks from her.”

“Mother is wonderful. We’ve always understood each other. Of course, Father loves me, and I him, but more from a distance.”

I picked up the portrait. How handsome Johnny looked, with his blond hair neat and shiny, his expression radiating contentedness. As I regarded him at that moment, at a time before we’d even met,
sentimentality washed over me—sentimentality I hadn’t known I was capable of. “Can I keep it in my room? So I can always have you near?”

Johnny wrapped his arms around me and kissed my forehead. “Yes, but you’ll never find me far away.”

One early March evening, after dining in my suite, Johnny reached under the pillow beside his seat and pulled out a slender box. Handing it to me, he said, “For you, Pauline. The most fascinating and clever girl in the world.”

“Oh, Johnny, what have you done?”

“Open it.”

I slid the cover off the ebony box. Nestled against a bed of rippled black silk lay a dazzling string of pearls. I flattened a hand over my heart. “They’re beautiful. As round and shimmery as tiny moons.”

“Yes, well, they’re Japanese.” Johnny reached out and brushed his fingers lightly over my neck. “Only the finest pearls in the world would do for you.”

“Oh, Johnny, you make me feel like a princess.” I took the pearls from the box and walked to the mirror over my dresser. “Help me put them on.”

Johnny came up behind me, fastened the clasp, and turned me around toward him.

I gripped his shoulder and hand in a dancer’s pose and swung us about in a waltz step. We laughed and dipped as I hummed “The Blue Danube,” dancing in a tight circle in the space between my bed and dresser. Oh, Papa, I thought, can you see me now? I’ve found that man you told me to look for: someone with an ocean of money who makes my heart dance with delight. Except money and pearls don’t matter, Papa—for with Johnny I’ve recaptured the joy and abandon of that little girl who used to twirl pirouettes for you.

One afternoon two months later, while I tended to some correspondence in my room at the Imperial Hotel, my maid Kotone informed me that a gentleman wished to see me.

“Did he present a calling card?”

Kotone, a slight sixteen-year-old with a dainty nose and sharp chin, stood before me, clasping her hands over the broad waistband of her kimono. “No, he said he is Mr. Graham’s friend and wishes to surprise you.”

That’s odd, I thought. Johnny hadn’t mentioned any visitors. Nevertheless, I sent Kotone to show him in.

I rose from my desk. Kotone minced through the door, her floor-length kimono tight around her ankles, with my visitor trailing behind.

I could hardly believe my eyes. Was it really Detective Reed Dougherty? All the way from Chicago? He was as lanky and lean-faced as I remembered and, unlike at our first meeting, wore fashionable attire—a pebble-gray jacket with matching waistcoat and, in the newest style, a floppy bow tie. My mind whirred with questions. Who had hired him? Could it be about the larceny charge? Might Juan have sent him to track me down?

I signaled Kotone to my side and whispered, “Get Security.”

As she slipped out of the suite, I turned to the Pinkerton and knit my hands together, budging not one inch from where I stood beside my desk. I had no intention of offering the cad a seat. “Mr. Dougherty, you were not expected.”

“I’m delighted to see you as well.”

“I can’t imagine we have any business.”

He set his frame in a sturdy pose, five feet from me, his chin upturned like that of a pompous judge. “But we do. It appears you’re engaged in yet another of your adventures.”

“I’m on no adventure. This is where I live now—quite far from the place you once asked me to leave.”

“But not far from your old tricks.”

“You’ve no cause to threaten me.”

He fingered the felt derby which he held over his abdomen. “I’m hoping it won’t come to that.”

I pulled myself up straight to expand my diaphragm and inhaled. “You should know I have friends with influence in this city.”

“And I must ask you to part with one particular friend.”

This was my suite, paid for with my own money, and here was the person I most detested in the world invading it. Had I been a man,
I would have hoisted him by the scruff of his starched collar and booted him out. “Who my friends are is none of your business.”