Secrets of the Apple Page 24

  At 3:21 a.m. Ryoki jumped at the scrape of a key inserted into the door. How had he missed the footsteps? Two days, three hours sleep, almost drunk with exhaustion and worry, stupidly slow.

  A pale, tired Kate entered carrying her purse and dragging a bulky suitcase, too large for an overnight stay. Women always overpacked.

  “Ryoki,” she said, startled.

  A trip. She’d been on a trip. Anger and elation fought for release, but anger was first out the gate. “Kate,” he snarled, nearly biting her head off with joy. “Where have you been? Do you know it’s nearly dawn? We have to work tomorrow. You didn’t tell anyone where you were going. You didn’t take security, your phone—”

  Kate held up her hand. “Don’t. I feel like crap and I might punch you.”

  Ryoki took a breath, tried again, speaking more slowly. “What happened?”

  “The plane started leaking something and we had to make an emergency landing on a little podunk airstrip in the middle of nowhere. We all slid down the emergency chute and then waited hours for a replacement.”

  “Where did you go?”

  Kate yawned. “Buenos Aires, sort of last minute. It’s a nice place with a different set of gangsters. You ought to go yourself.”

  “You didn’t take Sano or even your phone?” he said. “We agreed—”

  “You didn’t take anyone.”

  Ryoki said nothing, suddenly too drained even to argue.

  She yawned as she wandered into the bedroom, not even pausing to ask what he was doing in her cottage.

  Ryoki saw his cue to leave and moved toward the door. “Don’t worry about coming early to work,” he called, feeling magnanimous.

  Receiving no response he cautiously approached her open door, knocking softly. Kate was curled up on top of her bed, eyes already closed.

  “Kate, Kate,” he whispered, lightly touching her shoulder. “You forgot to brush your teeth.”

  No response, not even the flicker of an eyelash.

  “At least take off your shoes.”

  He waved a hand in front of her face, nothing, dead out. He brushed a lock of hair out of her face, running his fingertips across her cheek, soft and sticky from the humidity. Kate hated to be sticky. Despised it.

  What had she been doing all weekend?

  He removed her shoes and pulled the blanket up from the end of the bed. “Welcome home,” he whispered, kissing her cheek, catching the moist corner of her mouth and feeling the soft, dry plumpness of her lips.

  Ryoki fell asleep thinking about Kate’s lips and hours later emerged to consciousness, conjuring their imprint on his mouth. The morning promised a sweet and beautiful calm, though he felt a strange heaviness in his body, probably just fatigue from his trip and yesterday’s little drama. But he was eager to go back to the office, to get back to the routine and put the weekend behind him. He turned to his side but surprisingly it took some effort. He felt a definite sluggishness, an unwillingness to open his eyes. Again, not particularly surprising after last night. He relaxed into his pillow and tried to think of words to describe how he’d felt as he’d waited in Kate’s cottage. Upset? No, bigger. Overwrought?

  He humphed softly to himself. Be honest. Last night fear had cut him up and burned the pieces. But here was the morning light revealing all to be peaceful and ordinary, like discovering the devourer’s shadow to be cast by a mouse.

  Again he made the effort to open his eyes, right, then left. He lifted his chin three inches to see the clock, 10:29 a.m. Ryoki’s eyes flew wide. Where was Kate, and why had no one awakened him? He leaped out of bed and abruptly sat back down, his forward motion arrested by the cramping in his stomach. He lay back on his side, letting the cramps gradually subside. Stomach ache, maybe an ulcer? Mind over matter, mind over matter. He rose again, more slowly this time, walking cautiously into the bathroom for a quick shower. Unfortunately, the feel of the water sliding down his body brought on a fresh wave of cramping, progressing into nausea. He jumped out of the shower and ran for the toilet where he stood dripping and retching, mostly dry heaving toward the end, all the misery of vomiting with none of the relief. He almost wished he’d eaten the night before, just to feel like he was getting somewhere.

  He dressed himself, resting on his bed for a few minutes before he dialed Kate’s number. No answer. He dialed Arima’s direct line.

  “I’m not going to be in today,” Ryoki said at once, no energy for opening pleasantries. “Will you attend my meeting with Browning? Kate can see to everything else when she arrives.”

  “Porter-san called earlier. She cancelled your morning appointments. She said you’d be delayed and that she wouldn’t be in at all, the stomach flu apparently. Are you all right? You don’t sound like yourself,” Arima said.

  “I haven’t seen Kate yet today,” Ryoki said, unwilling to admit he had the flu as well. Arima remained silent, perhaps drawing his own conclusions.

  The day wore on, divided between the toilet and his bed. The housekeeper came to check on him now and then and Kate sent him an empty stainless steel bowl he thankfully never had to use, and a can of Coke with a glass. By evening he laid on his bed, sipping his Coke and reviewing his trip. Had any of those women looked sick? It was hard enough to tell in the dark, let alone remember. Why would anyone go dancing if they were sick? Nobody would, unless they hadn’t yet felt the effects. Kate must have brought it home in that huge suitcase.

  Didn’t really matter who picked it up first; it was the kiss that passed it. Ryoki had once heard a group of men brag about their wild weekends, forcing themselves on women and suffering no consequences. He had listened with disgust and avoided their company afterwards. But now he wondered, how did they get away with it, when one measly, innocent peck had him worshiping the toilet like a holy alter?

  About nine-thirty that night he fell into a heavy sleep and didn’t wake until morning. At 9:11 a.m. he opened his eyes. No cramping, no nausea. He swung his legs over the bed and stood. So far so good. He showered, dressed for the office, and sat on the bed for a moment, slowly leaning over until he lay on his side, a brief power nap, that’s all. At 11:45 he awoke and called the office, but Kate had beaten him to it, prepared them for his probable absence.

  Ryoki changed out of his suit and into sweat pants and a T-shirt, as close to pajamas as he could get while still appearing to be dressed. He went to the dining room where he found Kate picking at her food and staring into space, also wearing sweats, her hair pulled into a simple ponytail. She looked sixteen and on the high school track team, except she was pale as a ghost. They could have been twins.

  Ryoki coughed quietly, announcing his presence. She turned her head and smiled. “Hey,” she said.

  Ryoki sat at the table. She didn’t ask what he wanted, just handed him a cup of fruit salad, mostly bananas, and a piece of toast, jam, no butter. “I’m sure you’re hungry, but don’t eat too heavily today. You’re still recovering. That means no butter.” Bossy mode. Sometimes she reminded him of his grandmother.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “Are you going in today?” she asked.

  “I think I’ll stay home.”

  Kate nodded and went back to picking at her toast. “I’m sorry I gave you the flu. The little kid next to me threw up a couple of times. He was traveling alone and I thought he was just airsick. Then there was the trouble with the plane and everything, so I held him for a long time. It seems to be a pretty fast-acting bug. I started feeling low on the flight home. Miserable in the taxi.”

  He gave her a consoling smile. No point getting mad. Nothing anybody could have done differently, except that kiss. You really can’t kiss Sleeping Beauty without getting ink on your lips.

  “How was Rio?”

  “Nice, beautiful,” he said. “Buenos Aires?”

  “Beautiful.” She wiped the corners of her mouth and got up from the table, pushing in her chair. “How did that painting get chipped? It looks—”

  “Meet anyone?�
� he asked.

  “The men were really beautiful, everywhere I looked,” she said distractedly, her eyes on the painting. She puckered up and blew out air approximating a wolf call, though she couldn’t whistle a note. “I hope I can get back before I leave in December.” She turned to him, clenching her jaw to suppress a yawn. “I’m going home for a nap,” she said, walking out the door. The “going home” bit puzzled Ryoki until he remembered her cottage was a separate building—although that shouldn’t count, because from where they were his bedroom was probably farther away than hers.

  He sat at the table contemplating his toast, scraping off the jam and slathering it with butter. But afterwards he couldn’t bear to look at the grease glistening in the sunlight and put it down, pushing his plate two inches away.

  So she was still intending to leave in December.

  Of course she was, had never indicated otherwise. Probably hadn’t looked sideways at a bridal magazine since the day of her divorce. He drew his knife through the globs of mango jam, making a pattern on the plate. Blackberry jam would be better; he should really ask Kate to order some.

  Running to Rio had been a waste. Pure arrogance. As he drew lines and spirals in his jam, he thought hard and couldn’t come up with a single indication she’d ever even wanted him. Not a single come-hither glance, no sexy double entendres, no stammering blushes. Possibly she felt no attraction for Asian men, just as he felt no attraction for—he tried to think of a race in which every single female repelled him, but came up empty. Well, it may be she felt no attraction. Ryoki despised his own stupidity, almost hearing his father’s voice, “Driven by fear, you’ll never end up anywhere good.” Classic rookie mistake. He scraped all the mango jam into a line, wishing again for blackberry.

  After lunch the next day, he was walking to his office when he caught sight of a colossal burst of flowers bobbing toward him on two kaki legs, one of those highly conspicuous, cleverly wired arrangements in which you could hide a young child, that generally grace lofty hotel lobbies. He noticed that every woman in the outer office slyly monitored the bouquet’s progress with ill-suppressed excitement, the hope that their prince charming had at last showed up with a glass slipper in his back pocket. The men all did double-takes, eyes wide, calculating the cost and wondering how bad it made them look. As the flowers jiggled ever closer, Ryoki’s neck began to itch. For him, surely not, what if they were? Embarrassing public displays, could be a couple of past amours, particular hallmark of She who Distributed Pink Boxers. Shouldn’t she be in London, or married, or possibly dead? Ryoki broke out in a sweat, waiting outside his office like a man facing a firing squad. But at the last second the flowers took a sharp left and toothpasted through Kate’s door with a scrapey swoosh, delicate flowers banging their heads on both sides of the doorframe, scattering petals on the floor. “Holy cow!” Kate yelled.

  Thirty minutes later Ryoki entered Kate’s office to find her humming as her fingers flew on her keyboard. The spiky pile of flora occupied fully one quarter of the air space, displacing her trademark bouquet of fresh heart-shaped anthuriums, the delicate architectural flowers she generally kept not only on her desk, but in the library at home. He picked up the open card on her desk and read it: “See you Friday, Love Matt.”

  Ryoki cleared his throat, startling her into looking up at him. “It’s come to my attention that your cell number has been compromised,” he said. “I need you to have it changed.”

  “Changed?” He saw the “why” forming on her lips.

  “Today. Right now, if possible. We can’t be too careful,” he added, shutting the door and returning to his own office, feeling as though he had just locked an empty hen house.

  * * *

  Since Kate had a date on Friday, she didn’t plan on coming home for dinner. That morning they’d had a big fight over security arrangements for her evening with this Matt character, in which Ryoki had pointed out the common use for mats, perhaps unwisely adding that the name Rug also had a nice ring. Very professional and dignified as fights go, no shouting, everything kept behind closed doors. If the office staff noted a slight chill that afternoon, it was nothing anybody could prove, no thrown ledgers or broken glass to label exhibits A and B.

  At the last minute Ryoki opted not to go home either, issuing the office a general invitation for drinks, code for boys’ night out. Too long since he’d done that, and high time. Looking forward to it. Good for the office to see him out in public having a grand old time while Kate was out with another man. Perhaps others besides Arima had noticed their friendship and had drawn the wrong conclusions, important to quash any potential rumors. All around, it was the perfect thing.

  Back at the house, Mariko was loading the refrigerator with the delicacies that would have been the Senhor’s fine dinner. She’d gone out with a basket to give it all to Nishimura, the silver-haired old gardener, whose fine steady hands she’d been admiring since the first day she came to work at the house. But she’d jumped behind a tree when she found him talking to that Cecelia, who hadn’t been able to keep her eyes to herself since they were girls, and had run off with Mariko’s sweetheart, Marcelo Ito, the coffin-maker’s son. The boy had long since turned gray and died, but in Mariko’s private heart his eyes were still the stuff of romantic legend. Cecelia’s boys all had their father’s eyes.

  Mariko looked at her hands as she closed the refrigerator, less spotted and wrinkled than Cecelia’s, better genes, slower aging. Maybe she would take a plate out to the garden in an hour or so. Better act quick, though. The Senhor and Dona Kate would soon be back to wanting their dinners at home, she was sure of this. Signs of things to come always showed up first in the kitchen.

  Ryoki returned home that night well after eleven and found Kate’s house shoes still in the cabinet, meaning she still wasn’t home. So what? Tired, ready to go to sleep. An hour later he lay in his bed staring at the novel in his hand. How on earth had it gotten such great reviews? Halfway through and he still didn’t respect a single character. He lowered the book in disgust, but he still wasn’t quite ready to close his eyes. He forced himself to concentrate on projects pending at work, the executive equivalent of counting sheep. He worked out the details of a proposal to reallocate construction funds for greater efficiency, taking a pen from the nightstand and making notes in the margins of his book. Amazing what a man can accomplish in the middle of the night with nobody to plague him. Had to remember to replace the notepad by his bed, though, always carried it off somewhere.

  He reached into the night table drawer to return his pen and caught sight of the two shirt buttons he’d carried in his pocket all the way from Las Vegas. He picked up the buttons, rubbing them on his fingertips until they stuck and clicked them together, just as he had done the night he decided to bring Kate to São Paulo. He admitted to himself he’d been waiting for the click of the front door. Kate had flatly refused to take any professional security, conceding only that she could be driven to the restaurant, adding with a giggle and a wink that her date was of Scottish descent and would therefore provide plenty of deterrent.

  He didn’t get it.

  Ryoki’s eyes drifted around his room, searching out the dark corners made gloomier by the bright lamp beside him. His name appeared on the deed to this house, Tanaka Inc. all over the place. But it was really Kate’s house; she understood it better. On the very first day she already knew there was bad blood between the cook and the housekeeper. How did she know that? In all this time he had seen no evidence of domestic discord, but he did not doubt her.

  He opened his book again to read some more, but couldn’t focus beyond the second sentence. If this is how he felt when the lady of his house was away with another man, how had his wife taken him so by surprise? Why hadn’t he heard the echo of her absence?

  What had their maid looked like? What was their cook’s name? Ryoki had no answers. His wife might still have cheated; she seemed very intent. But if he had known these details, understood how to read
the household map the way Kate did, might he have seen the empty spaces in time to head off the greater disaster? Maybe not, no way to know. So unfair, what she did.

  Apple had been such a beautiful bride, so sweet and eager at first, always smiling, nothing openly calculating. Had her lover already crawled under her skirts, or had there been a transition period, a time of dithering between husband and lover? Ryoki didn’t know, never saw her withdraw. Where had his eyes been?

  He thought of his old office in London. He could have picked the stapler out of the upper right hand drawer and pulled papers from the printer blindfolded. But what their maid’s name?

  “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” An old phrase, something his mother used to say.

  So wrong what his wife did. So unfair. He curled to his side, unwilling to think about it anymore. She might still have cheated. Probably couldn’t have stopped her.

  He leaned over and tossed the two buttons back into his nightstand, slowly pushing the drawer shut and turning out the light. In the silence of the house Ryoki heard a faint bumping as the front door opened and closed, followed a few minutes later by the louder squeak and click of the backdoor closing beneath his room. Outside his windows the exterior lights flicked on, activated by her movements. Her cottage door opened and closed, and in four minutes the garden lights turned off. Gradually he relaxed and drifted off, the house falling into a whole and peaceful silence.

  The next day Kate and Ryoki took a long time over brunch. When the maid brought the empty platters back to the kitchen, Mariko harrumphed to herself. Having finally contrived to get Nishimura alone the evening before, she’d spent a happy two hours sharing a sumptuous picnic in one of the garden’s hidden alcoves and gone to bed speculating on the number of impromptu nights off still to come. But healthy appetites meant the master and mistress had talked and laughed, probably both determined not to let recent events come between them. This would shave the margin of opportunity in the critical opening maneuvers with Nishimura. Even so, she took hope that last night he’d already begun to nibble around the hook. It might be enough.