Her eyes narrowed before they softened. Her chin rose a centimeter or so. She shook her head.
I didn't know how to interpret her expression or her refusal. Had she told me no, she wasn't able to move on, that perhaps she still wasn't able to trust or to love? Or was she telling me that no, she wasn't going to visit that territory with a stranger? I guessed the former, then in the next second, the latter.
Before I left Stanford to return to the airport, I asked Satoshi if she was frightened about something.
She touched her hair with her left hand, looked at me quickly, then away. She replied, "Is it that obvious?"
"While I've been here, you've seemed… I don't know… spooked. I'm not sure how obvious it is." She smiled at me and said, "Spooked? Is that a polite way of saying paranoid?"
I smiled back at her.
"I've been edgy since my father called and told me about you and what you were doing. I've been imagining all kinds of things. Phone calls with no one on the line. Strangers I think are following me around campus. Cars I don't recognize parked outside our apartment. Things like that. What I know-about Joey-it must be dangerous to someone, right?" I said, "Yes," and recalled what Sam had told me about sleeping dogs.
As we spoke we were walking in a circuitous route that would lead back to my car. For a few steps she even held my arm. I suspected that despite her reluctance, she needed to tell me the story about Joey.
She'd only met Joey Franklin twice before he raped her. Both times he had been with Tami and Mariko. Once in town at a store. Once at the Hamamoto residence.
Each contact had lasted only moments. Satoshi admitted that she found Joey to be attractive and charming.
The third time she saw Joey he had gone out of his way to find her. He'd been waiting for Satoshi after school, had offered to walk her home. When she explained that her mother would be waiting in the car, Joey had quickly said good-bye, said he'd see her around.
Joey Franklin was the first boy in Steamboat Springs who had shown any interest in the new Japanese girl in town. Satoshi thought he was handsome. She thought his attention was flattering. She not only wasn't alarmed when he joined her on her almost daily run later that afternoon, she welcomed his company.
"The first time we'd met I was just coming back from a run. He must have learned that I ran frequently. He must have known that I ran alone," she said.
"Joey was not a runner. He soon grew tired running with me. I slowed down but he couldn't keep up. He asked if we could stop to rest. We did. After a moment or two-it was awkward-he took my hand-gently-and he led me down a trail into the woods.
I thought it was a pretty place where we stopped. It reminded me of the hills in Japan where my grandparents live. Finally, we stopped to rest."
They sat on the ground, side by side, leaning back against a rounded boulder.
Above her, through the trees, the sky was beginning to lose its luster.
Satoshi was frightened-not of Joey Franklin, but in the way that a young girl is frightened the first time she is alone with a boy whom she likes. She felt that she was violating her parents' admonitions. She promised herself that she would sit with him for only a moment.
He told her she was pretty. She remembered that clearly. He told her that she was prettier than her sister. She remembered that, too. She'd never felt better than her big sister at anything.
Joey kissed her then. He was gentle with her. She remembered finding it difficult to breathe afterward, her excitement at the contact was so intense.
And she allowed him to kiss her again.
He touched her bare leg, her thigh, his fingers edging below her running shorts.
She was horrified and pulled away from him. She stood. He stood, too, towering over her. He took her by the hands and told her again how pretty she was. His voice was not so kind.
Joey Franklin leaned down and, once more, kissed her. As soon as their lips touched this time, she felt his tongue prodding into her mouth, and she turned her head away, surprised. He clamped down on her wrists with his strong hands.
She thought that she said, "No." He said, "Shhhh." The sound hissed.
"Five minutes later," Satoshi Hamamoto said, "I was no longer a little girl."
I didn't recall the drive north from Palo Alto to the San Francisco airport and didn't know how I had managed to go through the machinations of turning in my rental car without remembering a single step of the process. But I had returned the car. I had a receipt to prove it.
At least fifty people were lined up at the podium in the terminal to check in for their nights. I shuffled my feet along patiently until my turn came, hardly noticing the delay. I didn't get upset when the apologetic agent began a laborious explanation that concluded with the punch line that my electronically ticketed reservation had disappeared into some hard-drive version of hell. Not only that, but the agent also informed me that the flight I had been scheduled on was now full. The agent plucked away at the keyboard in front of him for what seemed like an eternity before he smiled at me and said, "Good." I shrugged my shoulders, thanked him, and accepted the offer he made of a front-row window seat on the next departure.
All I had in my carry-on was a book, a magazine, Lauren's laptop, and a bottle of water. Spotting an electrical outlet on the wall near my departure gate, I lowered myself to the carpet, leaned against the wall, and plugged in the laptop. I had a lot I wanted to write about my interview with Satoshi Hamamoto and needed to conserve the battery for the flight back to Denver.
Once I'd booted up the computer and rested my fingers on the keys I was almost surprised when they didn't start flying across the keyboard on their own. But they didn't. I didn't write anything at first.
Where I was initially lost was in understanding Satoshi's adaptation to her own trauma. I wanted to go back and sit with her for many more hours. I wanted to be quiet and perch beside her until she was ready to descend into whatever cavern held her fears, and I wanted to guide her fingertips as she explored the contours of the fissures in her defenses. I wanted to perceive for myself the psychological accommodations she'd had to make to deal with the back-to-back blows of being raped and having her sister murdered.
I wouldn't have that chance, though.
I was left with what I had observed that afternoon. What was it that I had seen?
Satoshi was a smart, savvy, disarmingly honest young woman who was functioning at a high level at a university that demanded exemplary performance.
Freud said mental health was the capacity to love and the ability to work.
Apparently, Satoshi could work.
In our brief afternoon together she had demonstrated empathy, compassion, humor, and assertiveness. Important pieces, but I still didn't know whether or not she could love.
I had seen something else, too. I had seen a woman who was wary. Not just of me and whatever I, and Locard, represented. She was not just fearful of the consequences of telling me her story. Satoshi was frightened of something she felt might harm her imminently.
What was it?
I made no progress in answering my own question. And without having typed a word, I recognized that I had never asked her one of the most important things I had flown to California to learn. I folded up the computer, stuffed it in my shoulder bag, and rushed to the nearest pay phone. I glanced at my watch and decided to try her apartment.
The phone was answered on the first ring. I asked for Satoshi.
"No, she' sum… not here. May I take a message?"
"Is she still at school? I have that number. Should I try her there?"
"Um. No. Do you want to leave a message?"
"Please. My name is Alan Gregory. I just met with her on campus and need to talk with her again as soon as possible."
"You're that guy from Colorado?"
"Yes."
"Where are you now? What's your number?"
"I'm at a pay phone. I don't think it will ring through. Wait, I have a cell phone with me."