Can I slap this guy? Seriously?
“Which hospital?”
Kunihiro rattles a name off in Japanese. All I get out of it is Ginza.
“Come on.” Junri motions for me to follow her out of the hotel room. “I can take you there.”
“Don’t tell Uncle. Promise!”
Junri makes no promises as we march out of the room and back toward the elevator. My mind is full of so many worst-case scenarios. My Ian? In the hospital? Food poisoning? On one hand, I’m glad he wasn’t hiding from me. On the other? I’m about to barrel my way toward a Japanese hospital where I don’t know the local customs at all, and I don’t know how many candy-stripers will go down in the process.
***
If I were in a better state of mind, I’d remark on the subtle differences between American and Japanese hospitals. But I’m nowhere in the right state of mind to be making those kinds of calls, so I’ll say this:
Where the fuck is Ian?
The information desk on the first floor is helpful enough. Junri makes the inquiry, and the woman behind the counter points us up to the second floor. Some wing named after a politician who passed some laws in Minato or wherever the fuck we are that made it easier for this hospital to take on expansion projects. I don’t care. I’m more pissed off at the nurse behind the main desk of the wing we now find ourselves in.
“Do you speak English?” I ask. “I’m looking for Ian Mathers. He’s my boyfriend. They told me had food poisoning and…”
Junri firmly steps between the desk and me. “Sumimasen,” she says with her super polite tone. “Ian Mathers wa koko ni imasu ka?”
The nurse glances between us before checking something on her computer. “Amerika-jin desu ka?”
“Hai. Amerika-jin desu.”
More careful studying of charts and tables that look straight out of 1994. Aren’t computers supposed to be super advanced here in Japan? What’s with this? Does this hospital suck? Should I immediately arrange to have him transferred to a different hospital? Shit! If we were in America, I would know what to do!
The nurse points between us and asks something. Junri responds, pointing to herself, but turning to me. “She wants to know your relation to him.”
Really? We have to do this? “He’s my boyfriend,” I say. “Do you understand that? Boy. Friend.”
Junri dresses it up in her translation. I hear partner instead of boyfriend.
The nurse studies me as if I’m some hussy off the street. Her eyes dart to my left hand, where I’ve been wearing my promise ring all day. Yes, it looks like a wedding ring. I’m very aware of this, and now, more than ever, I’m grateful to have accidentally thought ahead.
“She wants to know if you are his wife.”
The tone implies everything I need to know. This woman stands between Ian and me, and what? I’m supposed to lie? In the face of one of my least favorite questions? “No,” I answer in too much haste. “Not his wife. Not his sister. Definitely not his daughter or his mother.” God, I wish Caroline were here now! “His partner.”
The woman furrows her brows as if she’s about to stick a stake in my heart. “Sorry,” she says with a heavy accent. “No. Family. Only family.”
Are you fucking kidding me?
I’ve faced similar shit to this in America. One time my best friend Eva came down with a bad enough flu for her family to put her in the hospital. This was during a big charity project of mine, so the only time I had to go see her was late in the evening or so early in the morning it was outside of the usual visitors’ hours. They dared to tell me family only. You bet your ass after I dropped my name a hundred times and offered a considerable donation to that hospital they let me visit Eva as much as I wanted. There’s a lot that makes me cringe about how much privilege I have, but using it to see the people I love in the hospital is not one of those things. I’ll call Caroline my own mother if it gets me in to see her hip-broken ass in the hospital. What’s it to me?
This apparently does not work in Japan. They don’t know me from the prime minister’s wife. The name Kathryn Alison means nothing when I haven’t done .01% of the charity work here compared to back home. All they care about is some stupid piece of paper that’s supposed to make me more important in Ian’s life than, oh, the person he loves most in the world. At this point I probably know more about his medical history than his own parents.
Junri puts a hand on my shaking arm. “I will ask when visiting hours open tomorrow.” No, that’s not enough. I need to see him now.
It’s fruitless, anyway. I can tell from the look on her face that the nurse’s answer is most unsatisfying. “Well?” I ask.