§ § § -- September 1, 1995
In his old bedroom in the lower level of the Tokita house, Toki stood in front of the mirror, laboring at a Windsor knot, gritting his teeth in frustration and wishing he'd paid more attention to his father's lessons in his teen years. His twenty-six-year-old sister Reiko appeared in the doorway and started to say something, then got a good look at him and let her mouth hang open in disbelief. Toki shot her an annoyed look. "Well?"
Reiko came into the room, staring at his tie. "What're you getting all dressed up for?"
"None of your business," Toki said. "Whaddaya want?"
"Just to ask if you're coming up," Reiko said, still looking amazed. "Mother isn't going to hold breakfast for you all morning, you know. Do you want any?"
"No, tell her not to bother," said Toki, whose stomach was too jumpy with anticipation to leave any room for food. He yanked apart the half-completed knot and started over, then paused and turned to fully face Reiko. "You got a problem?"
She grinned. "You need some help with that?"
"Don't be a smartass," Toki warned, and she shrugged.
"Hey, I was just offering. If you want to wrestle with that all morning, then be my guest." She started to leave, but he grabbed her arm.
"Hey, I'm sorry." Toki tried to sound contrite. "As a matter of fact, I could use a little help. I never did figure out how to tie one of these stupid things."
"Obviously you don't have to wear them to work," Reiko remarked, deftly arranging the tie into the proper formation. "What exactly do you do, anyway? The thing about that is that we shouldn't even have to ask. You've really shut yourself off from the family, Toki. You don't tell us much of anything, and you're always avoiding spending time with us whenever you do come back home. I bet you haven't even seen your own kids yet."
"You think Myeko'd let me?" Toki snorted. "To her, all I am is a source of money."
Reiko rolled her eyes. "How come you never saw how crazy Myeko always was about you? You're incredibly blind, Toki Tokita, and you couldn't care less that you are. I don't know what on earth is wrong with you. You had it all and you tossed it out the window, and for who knows what." She tightened the knot and stepped back. "Well, you're ready for whatever it is you're getting all slicked up for."
"Does that mean you'll stop asking nosy questions now?" Toki demanded.
Reiko threw her hands into the air. "Far be it from me to want to get to know my own brother better." She stalked out of the room, and just before she disappeared around the doorway, she flung over her shoulder, "You're welcome."
"Thanks," Toki grunted belatedly and sighed loudly. Reiko, he could fend off; his parents were another story, which was another reason he wanted to skip breakfast.
Unfortunately, both Masako and Miyoshi saw him as he was trying to get out the front door. "Hachiro, doko ikuno? Asa gohan tabenaito," said Miyoshi. She was a petite, delicate woman whose English, even after some five decades of living on English-speaking Fantasy Island, remained very limited. She spoke in Japanese at home, and all five of her children were fluent in the language. Her question about his destination and her admonition about having breakfast made him stop short in the entry hall and sigh heavily with resignation.
"Treat your mother with respect, Hachiro," Masako warned quietly. "You do need something to eat. Have you some appointment somewhere?"
"As a matter of fact, I do," Toki said, turning reluctantly to face his father. "But Dad, I don't need any breakfast. I'm fine without it."
"Chotto, kotchi kite," Miyoshi requested, hands clasped in front of her and face lit with hope. "Nagai aida, atte naidesho. Hanashi demo shiyo."
Toki hesitated, wondering why his mother was so interested in having him stay and chat with her and his father. It was true they hadn't seen him in quite some time; but he was no more inclined to respond to her overtures now than he had ever been. "Atode," he finally said uneasily. Maybe later. That is, he amended the thought, after I talk to Leslie. Maybe then I'll have something to say that'll really impress you for once.
Masako shook his head in weary disappointment. "Suit yourself, but you should at least visit Myeko and your children."
"Later for that too," Toki said, his discomfort growing exponentially. "This is really important, Dad, and I'm gonna be late if I don't leave now."
Masako sighed. "Then go." He turned away, head bowed; Miyoshi looked so sad that Toki bolted from the house in an attempt to outrun his conscience.
He was actually more than an hour early for the brunch Roarke had set up for him with Leslie; and after taking up space in a booth for half an hour, he realized he had to order something to keep the staff from throwing him out of the pond restaurant. So he asked for a cup of coffee and sipped at it for the next forty minutes, abandoning it when it grew stone cold halfway through. Finally, his incessant monitoring of the entrance paid off and he saw Leslie, dressed for work as on every weekend, come in and have a quick word with the maitre d'. The man gestured in Toki's direction, and he watched her take a deep breath before resolutely threading her way around tables to his booth.
"Hi, Leslie," Toki said, staring at her, belatedly remembering to stand up. "You look great. It's good to see you."
"Hi, Toki," she said a bit guardedly, though she did offer a smile. "Thanks. Well, sit down." He did, and she followed suit, he nervous and hopeful, she ill at ease. "So…Father said you want to talk with me."
"Yeah…" He swallowed thickly; the words he had wanted for so long to say to her now seemed to be stuck in his throat. Desperate, he took a swallow of the cold coffee, made a face and shoved the cup aside. It was do or die, he decided. "Listen, Leslie, first of all, I really want to apologize for all the stupid things I did to you when we were kids. I mean…I guess I really messed things up. Could you maybe forgive me?"
Leslie blinked, but nodded slowly after a moment. "I guess I can do that," she said, still wary. He sighed and dropped his head in his hand, shaking it.
"I suppose I don't blame you for not really believing me," Toki murmured, feeling his hopes deflating already. He lifted his head and stared at her, desperation gleaming in his eyes. "I know I handled it all wrong, but I was a stupid kid and I just didn't know what to do about it. I lost my chance when you married Teppo, and then I was married to Myeko…but now we're both free and I knew I'd regret it if I didn't tell you what I've really felt all these years. I've been nuts over you almost from the start, Leslie. What I'm trying to say is, I think I probably love you."
Leslie sat back in her seat, eyes wide, hand drifting to her mouth. "Oh boy," she mumbled, mostly to herself.
"I don't exactly expect you to return it—" Toki began.
"What, exactly, do you expect, then?" Leslie countered, frowning.
Toki blundered on, determined to say his piece. "I'd just like for us to be friends. We could start out that way, and who knows, maybe something would develop between us later on, and eventually things might work out…you can't imagine how many years I wished I'd treated you better. This is my one chance to make you see what I feel."
Leslie looked at her lap, then deliberately brought up her left hand and flattened it on the table. "Toki, do you see this?" she asked quietly. He focused on the gold-and-diamond ring on the third finger and felt his heart sink.
"You still wear his ring?" he asked dumbly.
Leslie nodded. "Yes, I do," she said, gentling her voice at sight of his distress. "Did you ever hear precisely how I lost my husband?"
Toki hesitated, instinctively aware he was heading into deep water. "Michiko said something about him getting killed somehow."
Leslie nodded. "It's a long story, but let me put it this way—he found himself dealing with circumstances beyond his control, and as I see it, he was brutally murdered. The point is, he died too young and too violently. It almost destroyed me, and the only thing that saved me was coming back here. Father helped me to cope in the very beginning, and I even got a chance to say goodbye to Teppo, but I was devastated. Even now I still dream about Teppo sometimes. I still miss him, Toki, and I always will. And I loved him so much that I don't think there's any room in my heart for someone else."
"But lots of people are widowed and find another person," Toki protested.
"True," she agreed, "but I'm afraid I'm not willing to take the risk. There are two problems here, Toki. Number one, Father is the only family member I have left alive. I've lost my grandmother, my mother, my sisters, my husband, and Tattoo not two months ago. It seems everyone related to me in some way, even if only by virtue of adoption, dies too soon, and I'm starting to think I'm jinxed somehow. I won't put that burden on someone else. Besides, I'm very happy now—I have Father, and my friends here, and my job, which I love and wouldn't give up for anything.
"And secondly, I'm not in love with you, Toki. I don't want to be cruel, but the honest truth of the matter is that you managed to destroy whatever chance you may have had of being anything more than friends. And even that is questionable."
"People can change," Toki said, sitting up in a surge of indignation. "You think I'm a fifteen-year-old in an adult's body, don't you? Back then I never would have apologized. At least I've come that far, you've gotta give me credit for that."
"I'll give you that, sure," she said spiritedly. "But you almost never come back to the island; you live in Hawaii now, and you don't seem inclined to return here. And you have far better reasons to do so than thinking I'd be here waiting for you. Your parents are still here, and even if you don't get on with Myeko, you do have two children here. Have you even seen the kids yet?"
Toki literally squirmed in his seat. "No," he muttered, almost inaudibly.
Leslie shook her head. "Are you telling me you were so single-minded about trying to make me return these feelings you say you have, that you neglected your family? Toki, I can't have any respect for someone like that. You have obligations to Alexander and Noelle, if no one else. I'm not sure they even know you anymore."
"Leslie, look," Toki said, unable to stand any more of what he saw as her lecturing. "I married Myeko because it was expected of me. Maybe Michiko's told you—my parents are as traditional as they come. Now I admit, I had a lot of free rein because I wasn't the first-born or the oldest son. Even so, Mom and Dad expected me to get married, and I had this half-baked notion that eventually I'd win you over and you'd be my wife. But then you got married and left the island, and there were my parents with their expectations…and there was Myeko. Yeah, yeah, I knew she had this huge crush on me. She was nice and kinda cute, and she was willing…and, well, she was there. I even got to like her enough to think I could spend my life with her, since you were so far out of reach—so I asked her to marry me. Trouble is, just liking her wasn't enough. And we disagreed on all kinds of things, including how many kids to have. She wanted just a couple, I wanted a big family. Then she wanted to go to work…and as a gossip columnist, of all things. Leslie, you see, women in my family don't work. My mother never did. My sister Kayoko never had a job—she's always devoted herself to keeping a good house and raising her daughters. Michiko married that prince and she's idle rich. And even Reiko isn't working. She's seeing someone, but she's the youngest and Mom and Dad are giving her more time to decide if she wants to get married. In the meantime, they're supporting her till she does. Kalani's the only one who works, but Saburo was willing to compromise on that, since she was happy to let him have his way in everything else. So I didn't expect Myeko to go to work either."
"Times are different, Toki," Leslie said. "A lot of women want to work."
He shrugged. "Yeah, well, that's great for them, but in this family, the man is the breadwinner, period. She really bruised my ego when she announced she wanted to get a job. And damn it, she was five months pregnant when she said that, too! Why would a woman choose to work over staying home with her baby?"
"Some women don't have that choice," Leslie said quietly. "Myeko doesn't now."
Toki slashed the air with one hand in an angry, dismissive motion. "Well, she did then, and she still wanted to work. I told her she didn't have to—I had just gotten this job in Hawaii that paid three times what I was making at the casino, and I could support us in style and we could give Alexander and Noelle everything. But she went ballistic at the whole idea of leaving Fantasy Island. I had no choice, Leslie. If she hadn't marched off and asked Mr. Roarke about getting a divorce, I would have."
She sat back again and regarded him expressionlessly. "Did you ever really listen to what she wanted?" she asked.
"I couldn't get her to see my point of view. She just plain wouldn't leave here," Toki said, frustrated. "Leslie, believe me, it's better this way anyway. Her refusal to leave the island was just a convenient excuse. I wasn't in love with her anyway, and I didn't see the point in continuing the farce—so when she said she wanted a divorce, I agreed."
Leslie smiled faintly with some memory. "Well, Myeko is pretty headstrong, I'll be one of the first to admit that. She had at least as many complaints about you as you do about her, if not more. For someone who'd been head over heels about you for such a long time, she sure aired a lot of grief over you. But you sound to me as if you didn't really want to consider her side of things either, and the two of you got stuck at an impasse."
"I can't do anything about that now," Toki said. "I'm not even sure she'll let me see Alexander and Noelle. I barely know Noelle, for that matter. I'm a total stranger to her."
"There you are—another argument for being a more frequent presence in your children's lives," Leslie said, turning her palms skyward. "Besides…not to shock you even more, but she's been seriously seeing the sheriff, and Alexander and Noelle both call him Daddy." She compressed her lips sympathetically when he stared at her in disbelief. "Toki, I think you're better off expending your energies on rebuilding your relationship with your kids. I think if you try to meet Myeko halfway, she'd be willing to work with you on visitation issues. But if you present a façade of not caring, and feeling obligated…"
"I just thought you could be at my side when I…" he mumbled helplessly.
"Oh geez, Toki, how do you think that'd look? My lack of feelings for you aside, she'd think I'm some kind of traitor. I've always been friends with Myeko, and—well, maybe not outright enemies with you, but definitely antagonistic. Where do you think I'm going to put my loyalties?" Leslie leaned forward again. "Toki, I'm sorry, but it's not going to magically work out the way you wish it would, no matter whether you're on Fantasy Island or not. Some things are beyond even Father's capabilities."
"He said that," Toki remembered unhappily.
"You should have listened," Leslie said. "There's no manipulating people's feelings. It's possible to change someone's point of view, but you have to work at it, and they have to be willing to change it. Do yourself a favor, Toki, and stop trying to reach out for what you can't have. Concentrate on what you've already got, or you're going to lose it, and then you'll have nothing at all. And that'll be one incredibly lonely existence, if that's the choice you make. You really should think about it, but I recommend at the very least that you go see Alexander and Noelle before you go back to Hawaii." She tipped her wrist and noted the time. "Father gave me an hour and I've already exceeded that by a good ten minutes. I've got to go. Tell your mother and father I said hello." She got up and swiftly departed; Toki watched her leave, feeling as if his very last hope had just drained away, yet knowing deep within him that she was right. He waved a waiter over and ordered a meal, figuring that as long as he had some choices to make, he might as well do it over lunch.