Women On the Other Shore (16 page)

Only moments before, she'd been taking leave of their client with the warmest of smiles, but now her tongue was prickly with irritation.

She started the engine and put the van in gear.

Sitting beside Sayoko with bowed head, Misao peeked at her from the corner of her eye and stuck out the tip of her tongue as if to say
Oops.

"But I—" Sayoko started to reply, only to be cut off.

"And don't try to tell me otherwise. Our clients are sensitive to things like that—especially the women. They're letting strangers come into their homes to handle their personal stuff, which isn't something you can do without a sense of trust, but no matter how hard you've worked to earn that trust, you show a condescending attitude just one time and it's all over. We're hired help, in case you didn't know. We're in no position to be judgmental about how our employers measure up as housewives or women. Got that? What do you say?"

"Yes, ma'am," Sayoko said sullenly, her voice barely audible. Misao echoed her in a somber tone.

The van made its way out of the underground parking garage, 122

circling the spiral r a m p toward street level. T h e bright midafter-noon sky gradually c a m e into view.

"I have no complaints about your work, Mrs. Tamura. You learn quickly, and you're very conscientious. I can turn you loose on any task and know you'll do an excellent job. But you have to understand that there's a big difference between a vacant home and one with an occupant. How many times do I have to say that before it sinks in?

If you two had b e e n there alone today, my company would have lost a client for good, no question about it. And maybe not just one client either, in t h e end. W h a t do you think happens when she spreads the word to everybody she knows? Word of mouth is everything in this business. You've b e e n asking me about other add-on services, but what's t h e point of offering extras if you can't even handle basic client relations properly? Do you see what I'm saying?"

Sayoko listened to this prolonged lecture without lifting her head, trying to rub t h e wrinkles from her fingertips as she fidgeted with her hands.

Noriko dropped Sayoko and Misao off at the nearest station, and they took the train back to t h e office.

"Is that woman psychic or something?" Misao said. "I mean, we barely looked at each other. How could she have seen us? I say just shrug it off, Chief." To judge from her breezy tone, that's what she'd already done herself.

In recent weeks, Sayoko's colleagues had taken to calling her "Chief."

Aoi had apparently told everybody that Sayoko was in charge of the housekeeping venture and they were expected to follow her orders.

T h e sun beat down on the sea of roofs stretching out beneath the elevated train. Sayoko let out a long sigh as she leaned against the door and watched the houses flowing by.

Mao Hasegawa and Yuki Yamaguchi looked up from the dining table when Sayoko and Misao came in.

"Boy, am I pooped. Today rates a sweet-tooth five for sure,"

Misao declared loudly. "That kitchen—you really had to see it to believe it."

"Welcome back," Mao said. "If it was a sweet-toother, we've got just what you need. Mr. Sayama from Lucky Productions was here a little bit ago, and he brought us a box of cakes. Let me quick make some tea."

"Cakes? Oh, goody! That's exactly what I need!"

"And you're not going to believe it, Misao! They're from k tes souhaits! Mr. Sayama's such a sweetheart."

"No! For real? I've been wanting to try their cakes ever since they opened!"

Misao took the first empty chair at the table. Sayoko sat in the next and promptly got out her notebook.

"Save that for later, Chief. Let's give our aching bones a rest first.

Though I suppose for you today was more like a hot-and-spicy five than a sweet-toother." Misao looked at the others. "Mrs. Nakazato was in a really foul mood today. She practically bit her head off." She turned back to Sayoko. "Right?"

Sayoko smiled vaguely. She had learned over the past few weeks that "sweet-tooth something" and "hot-and-spicy something" were a kind of lighthearted code the girls here used to rate what kind of day they'd had. The basic idea seemed to be that when you got sad-dled with unreasonable demands or something made you mad, you wanted to bum the bad taste away by eating something good and spicy, while if you were dog tired from a particularly grueling day, you just wanted to collapse and pig out on something sweet. T h e scale went from one to five in each category.

Pushing her notebook aside, Sayoko took a bite from the cake Mao placed in front of her. Misao leaned forward in her chair and began offering Mao and Yuki a laundry list of the dirt she'd done battle with that day.

124

After a minute or two, Aoi emerged from the "President's Office"

and pulled up a chair to join them at the table.

"Why the long face, Chief?" Even Aoi had taken to addressing Sayoko that way.

"I kind of got chewed out," she said, her shoulders drooping.

"Chewed out? For what?"

"I guess I'm an open book."

"Actually," Misao broke in, her mouth full of cake, "I think Mrs.

Nakazato was just in one of her moods today. She really cut loose on Chief."

"It's not so much I was disgusted, like she said, but amazed.

I mean, here was a woman my own age with a child close to my daughter's living in a condo almost exactly like mine, and I couldn't help asking myself what it took, what she had to do, for everything to get so incredibly cruddy. Plus I figured no matter how well we cleaned the place up, things were probably gonna be right back where they were in a matter of days."

"But when it comes down to it, without people like that, we'll never get our new business off the ground," Aoi said. "I don't know what Noriko actually said, but if, for instance, you made some wise-crack about how nasty the place was the minute the door closed behind you, I'd be worried something like that might get back to the customer."

"But it would've been the absolute truth," Misao insisted.

Aoi tilted her head and looked off into space. "There's only one way to win the hearts of your audience,'" she intoned, deepening her voice for effect. "'Always face them with sincerity and humility.'"

Mao burst out laughing. "What in the world is that?"

"Haven't you ever heard it? It's a quote from Frank Sinatra. 'There's only one way to win the hearts of your audience. Always face them with sincerity and humility.' Something like that, anyway."

"I think that'll come naturally once the training's over and we're 125

doing jobs on our own," Yuki said lightly. "I mean, after all that'

what we'll be getting paid for."

"I'm more worried about whether anybody'll want to hire us at all," said Misao. "I mean, like, our training's almost over, but we don't even have a car, and we might as well be completely unknown. If it were me, I wouldn't hire us."

"That seems a bit harsh," Aoi frowned.

"What's to worry?" Mao said. "All we have to do is keep doing what we've always done and be patient, and eventually—"

"In my building," Sayoko interrupted, shifting forward in her seat,

"we often get fliers for handyman services and maid services and stuff, so I asked some of the other moms at my daughter's school if they'd save the fliers they got and bring them to me—to see what I could find out. Well, you mention a car, but actually, it turns out some people don't want their neighbors to know they've hired a housekeeping service to come in, so I'm thinking we can actually offer it as a selling point that we don't drive up in a vehicle with our logo plastered all over the side, and that our smaller crews let us come and go discreetly. We can also tout how the same person will be in charge from the initial estimate to completion of the job itself, making sure everything is done to their satisfaction."

Asking the mothers she met at Akari's school to bring her the fliers they got for housekeeping services had demanded courage, but several women quickly took an interest and returned several days later with whole sheaves of papers. T h e exercise had had the side benefit of putting her on easy speaking terms with quite a few more women than before, she reflected.

"Wow! You've really been thinking about this," Misao said, gazing at her with admiration.

"Along those same lines," Aoi nodded, "for a while now I've been playing with ideas for a web ad, and the question that keeps popping up is product differentiation—how do we distinguish ourselves 126

from everybody else? Like m a y b e at first we could have a limited-time offer to clean air conditioners or window screens for free."

"Actually, a lot of places offer those services," Sayoko said. "Of course, they're usually optional extras rather than freebies, but the prices are low a n d they're pretty c o m m o n . So another angle might be to take care of c e r t a i n o t h e r odd jobs for free. Obviously there're things we can and c a n n o t do, so we'd have to be clear about exactly what, but for example, washing t h e dishes, or taking laundry to the cleaner's, or picking it up, a n d m a y b e cleaning inside the refrigerator or b u n d l i n g n e w s p a p e r s and magazines for recycling, that sort of thing."

"I wish s o m e o n e would clean t h e refrigerator here," Mao quipped, and everybody laughed.

"I'd forgotten a b o u t this, but a friend of mine once told me about when she tried a housekeeping service," Yuki put in softly. "She said the person w h o took h e r order on t h e phone and the person who came for t h e estimate and t h e person who was actually in charge of t h e job were all different people, so it was kind of a hassle having to explain what she wanted all over again every time. Having the same person in charge f r o m start to finish like Chief said might be a big plus."

"Maybe our sales pitch should include that real housewives will handle t h e cleaning," Misao suggested.

"Except only two of us actually fit that bill—Sayoko and Yuki."

"And I may technically qualify because I'm married," the latter noted, "but I don't have any kids, and I don't take care of my house, s o . . . "

"I'm not so sure 'real housewives' makes much of a selling point."

Aoi said, wrinkling her brow. She lit up a cigarette and exhaled.

"Going back kind of to what we were saying before, wouldn't a lot of women be afraid of what a n o t h e r housewife might think about the way they take care of their homes?"

1 77

"But there are
certain
kinds
of
things only an experienced homemaker is
likely to notice
," Sayoko countered. "I was thinking about it
today.
Whether it's the mold
on
the tiles in the bath, or the air from a
dirty air conditioner filter,
or tatami and upholstery that get dank
from never seeing the
sun, there're lots of things around the house that can be harmful to small children. Pointing out the dangers and urging a thorough cleaning would carry more weight if it came from a mother who's dealt with those
same
concerns in her own home."

"Basically, we first have to figure out exactly how we want to target ourselves," Aoi said. "Noriko's idea is that we should go after singles and sole proprietorships and position ourselves as the low-cost service. And my focus all along has been young people who travel a lot, not the average family with kids. Of course, narrowing it down too much right from the start probably isn't such a good idea, either."

"Then Jet me ask you this," Sayoko said. "What would
you
look for in a housekeeping service if you decided to use one? What would be most important to you?"

Aoi looked off into space again as she pondered for a moment.

"I suppose maybe that they won't be shocked," she replied with a little snicker. "I mean, when my place gets bad, it's really pretty gross, so, ironically, no matter how much I might want to ask someone to come in, I can't bring myself to do it, because I can't stand the thought of anyone seeing just how far I've let things go. So maybe if someone promised, 'Nothing can shock usl We'll clean up any mess!'—maybe then I'd pick up the phone. But I don't suppose I'm very typical. How about you, Chief? As a mother with a small child at home, what would you look for in a housekeeping service?"

"Well, affordability would be at the top of my list. And after that, I really do think I'd prefer someone who's been in my shoes. I've never hired anyone—we could never afford it—but there were times, back when Akari was smaller, I really would have appreciated some help. Even now, I'd love it if someone could come in just to give the 128

kitchen or the bathroom a quick once-over in the time I'm picking my daughter up at school or taking her in for a checkup. Also, when Akari was really little, there wasn't a day went by that I didn't fret over whether 1 was doing the right thing with her, so, for example, if I'd had a housekeeper with experience raising kids who could lend me her ear between tasks, I think it might have taken a huge load off my mind. And not necessarily for someone to talk to, even. Just to know this helper was raising kids of her own—that in itself would have been reassuring. Because I really thought the crying in the middle of the night would never end when Akari was a baby. Just like I thought her terrible twos would never end." She paused for a moment, then added, "Though maybe this is just me. I'm not sure I can be considered typical, either."

Sayoko noticed that she had everybody's complete attention, and a gentle wave of exhilaration ran through her as she spoke. She wished she could go on forever. All these years, a vague sense of guilt had been weighing her down—for quitting her job, for turning herself into a homebody, for thinking it such a bother to take Akari to the park, for rejoicing when it rained, for putting her daughter in school in spite of all the voices saying it was cruel—and she'd been in a mild state of depression. But now she could feel that it hadn't been for nothing. It had all been leading somewhere.

Yuki looked up at the clock on the wall. "Uh-oh, Chief. It's after four."