Chapter Thirteen
Ava
"Ohayo gozaimasu!" I say, as I walk into the teachers' office the next morning.
Sato-sensei repeats my greeting with a small incline of her head from her desk. She's a petite Japanese language teacher. Though she's in her mid-thirties and has two children, you'd never know it from her smooth golden skin and the twinkle in her dark eyes. She's in a conservative black dress and a white sweater. Once every few months she'll get a wild hair and wear something dark blue.
"You're a little early," she says.
I'm twenty-five minutes early. I didn't sleep much last night, but I couldn't bring myself to linger in bed once the raucous neighborhood crows woke me up before six. "I wanted to review a few things before class."
"Ah. As it happens, Kouchou-sensei mentioned that she would like to see you … "
I smile, despite a bit of apprehension slithering up my spine. Kouchou literally means "school principal," and everyone calls the old bat by her title rather than her name, Yukiko Tanaka. Older than a T-rex's femur, she's as cold as her namesake-snow-and doesn't like foreigners that much, although she recognizes the necessity of having them in her school to teach English.
Sato-sensei would never presume to give me a direct order, but the implication is clear: I need to go and see the dragon-lady before doing anything else.
A young secretary guarding the Kouchou's inner sanctum smiles nervously when I walk in. This is not a good omen. Yamamoto-san's expression determines what's waiting for you in Kouchou-sensei's office, and that smile means, "I'm so glad it's you, not me."
"Good morning, Ava-sensei. Please go in. Kouchou-sensei wanted to see you."
"Yes, I heard. Thank you."
I wipe my damp hands on my pants surreptitiously and step past the threshold to the dragon's lair.
Kouchou-sensei is seated at her desk, her black glasses almost too overpowering on her narrow, powdered face. Her hair is steel-gray and pulled back into a tight bun, and she's wearing her usual white button-down blouse. Under the desk will be a black pleated skirt that stops at mid-shin and white pantyhose. I've never seen her wear anything else.
"Please sit down," she says in accented English, gesturing at the empty seat across from her. It's a well-upholstered chair meant for making important visitors feel at ease, but it doesn't have that effect on me.
"You wanted to see me … ?"
"Yes." She folds her brittle hands on the desk and takes her time. She isn't doing this to figure out how to say what she needs to say in English. Her command of the language is excellent. She spent years studying, not because she wanted to communicate with foreigners, but she saw it as an intellectual challenge.
After a few moments I glance at the clock on the wall. I have perhaps twenty minutes left before I need to get going.
"I have heard some … disturbing things about your conduct, Huss-sensei," Kouchou-sensei says finally.
"Excuse me?" Of all the things I imagined …
"One of our staff saw you entering a hotel … with a man."
The way she speaks … It's like I butchered a baby bunny and drank its blood.
"Did this staff member also mention it was not a love hotel?"
Japanese people have meetings in respectable non-love hotels all the time. I don't see why Kouchou-sensei is being so weird about it.
She purses her thin lips briefly. "Yes. But it was late at night. Also, you were wearing a dress that showed … quite a lot of your body."
The dress I had on showed some leg. But her tone makes it sound like I paraded nude into the lobby.
I have a feeling I know who the staff member is. "I'm not certain what you and Mishima-sensei think happened, but I was with an old friend from America." My mind rebels at the fact that I'm calling him "an old friend" but I'm not going to tell the disapproving Kouchou-sensei that he is my ex-lover.
There is a slight flicker in Kouchou-sensei's eyes that tells me I was right. "Then what were you doing at the hotel?"
It takes a lot of willpower not to laugh at her ridiculous inquisition, but bureaucratic bullshit is unavoidable in Japanese schools with their medieval attitude about sex.
"We went up to his suite and ordered room service for dinner. And that's it." But the second the words leave my lips, I know I've made a tactical error.
Kouchou-sensei is looking at me sadly. "You went to his room."
"Yes, but I left before the dinner arrived. I had an urgent call-"
"You were in his room with him?"
Argh. The woman is like a dog with a bone. "For less than an hour."
"Huss-sensei." She sits back. "Appearances must be maintained if one is a teacher."