Kept: An American Househusband in Paris

A very brief Introduction

My sweet wife, Dana, is an American diplomat. My young family has spent two years in India while she paid her junior dues slinging visas behind a bullet- and blast-proof window in the US consulate in Chennai. When we couldn’t conceive a second child, we decided to adopt an Indian girl, and I quit my job with Dell India to take care of our kids full-time. Within months of adopting, of course, Dana became pregnant, and soon she got her onward assignment: Paris!

To be honest, India’s been no tiptoe through the tulips. We’ve faced riots, cobras, thieves, and ghosts. We got bombed by Russians, tailed by spies, and cursed by witches. A man in a skirt tried to jump off our roof. It was all fun and games, however, compared to the pain and suffering we endured trying to adopt our daughter, Nina. Only ten days before Dana’s diplomatic assignment ended, a court finally made us Nina’s legal guardians, and we felt only an overwhelming desire to get the heck out of Dodge. And that’s where you find us now, on the first available flight off the subcontinent.

As India recedes below us, we breathe a long collective sigh of relief. We love the place and its people and vow to one day return, but after two wonderful, crazy years we need some space. We’re super excited about some R&R in the States followed by Dana’s plum assignment in Paris, but we must make another stop first—another place to which we’d vowed to return. You see, before our first child, Cole, before Dana the diplomat, before India and Nina—before Dana got her act together—there was Japan. But even before that, there was the dare that changed my life.

Dare to be stupid

When I was a fifth-year senior at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas—the center of the universe—I skipped class and changed my destiny. For our international audience who may not be familiar with the lingo, a fifth-year senior is someone who graduates late because he changed his major course of study six times because he never knew what he wanted to do with his life and finally just decided to get a degree in business because everyone, from the cafeteria lady to his track coach, told him, “Just major in business. Then you can do anything.” Funny thing—funny in a bad way—is that every one of those aptitude tests I took in the high school or college counselor’s office returned “writer” as my #1 job match.

“Yeah, I really like writing,” I’d say.

The counselor would then smile the same patronizing smile I use when my kids say things like, “When I grow up I’m going to be Wonder Woman”—Sam—or “I’m going to become an auto-rickshaw driver”—Cole.

“Right … just major in business,” the counselors would say, “then you can do anything.”

So, I majored in psychology. And then economics. And then Spanish—a huge mistake. (You try reading Don Quixote in the original five-hundred-year-old Spanish. No fun at all!) Anthropology lasted about a week. Then education and, finally—puke!—business. I tell you this to explain why, as a fifth-year senior near the end of my penultimate semester of university, I made the fateful decision to skip class.

I was trudging to Principles of Managerial Accounting Theory IV, or some similarly scintillating gem, on a spectacularly beautiful November day like I was on a forced march. I imagined myself a young draftee in a miles-long column humping it across France to defend the Maginot Line when I bumped into my friend Ed.

“Why the long face, bro?” he asked, as happy as a lark, which, naturally, irritated the heck out of me.

“I’m going to Principles of Managerial Accounting Theory IV. Please, shoot me now.”

“Come to theater with me. It’s fun.”

“Nah, I’d better not.”

“There’s tons of girls.”

So, when we got to Ed’s class, I happily discovered he was right; the class was both a hoot and chock-full of young beauties, including Ed’s semester-long infatuation, Alexis.

Allow me to explain something about Ed. Poor, sweet Ed had something of a (deserved) reputation for being unlucky in the love department. He was always chasing the wrong girl, getting unceremoniously dumped or, generally, in the wrong place at the wrong time when it came to romance. For example, we once, during a dry spell, took out personal ads in the local newspaper to see what might pop up. (Note to younger readers: in the distant past there were things called newspapers. These were like the internet but, as their name suggests, were printed on actual paper made from actual trees. Upon request, a human would deliver them in person to your door early in the morning. Instead of using Bumble, Crumble, Tinder, Thimble, Pimple, Mingle, or whatever the latest dating app is, people could buy personal ads in these newspapers in order to find a date. You might post something like “Food lover seeks single female for fun and romance,” or, simply, “Tarzan seeks Jane.” In my case, personal ads had some limited success; in Ed’s case, not so much.)

At the risk of really freaking out Ed, I’ll say he was objectively not un-handsome, although, as Dana points out, he had skinny, little legs and no butt. Anyway, he was decent-looking, he could speak in complete sentences, and he had his teeth. But when we simultaneously placed identical personals in the same newspaper, my phone rang off the wall while his remained silent. Poor Ed.

If you’re thinking, “Wow! Y’all thought about girls a lot,” you don’t have the complete picture. Girls were all we thought about. Perhaps I exaggerate. Maybe we sometimes thought about something else, but rarely. If you could’ve somehow peered into my twenty-year-old brain, it would’ve looked something like this: Principles of Managerial Accounting Theory IV—.000000000001%; girls—99.999999999999%. Get the picture? Anyway, we were in Ed’s theater class, girls were everywhere, the prof was cool, and Ed was drooling over Alexis.

“Just ask her out, dude,” I said. “What’s the worst that could happen?” Dude was one of our favorite words in those days.

“No way, dude. She’ll say no. I can’t do it.”

What a wimp.

“Man, you have been in lust with this girl the entire semester. She’s all you talk about. Just ask her out.”

“No.”

“There’s just three weeks left in the semester. This could be your last chance.”

“Uh-uh. I won’t do it.”

“Alright,” I said. “I’ll make you a deal. Pick any girl in this class—any girl at all—and I’ll ask her on a date. She’ll say no, it’ll be humiliating, but I’ll survive. But you have to ask out Alexis, a girl you’ve known all semester, who’ll probably say yes.”

“No.”

“I dare you.”

“No.”

Time to up the ante. “I double-dog dare you.”

Ed’s eyes narrowed. “Any girl I pick? You’ll ask her out?”

“Yeah. Just to prove rejection won’t kill me.”

Ed considered this. Finally, he stiffened his spine and said, “Okay. I’ll do it.”

“Great. Who’s my lucky lady?”

Ed pointed at a young woman some rows in front of us. “Her. The tall redhead.”

An interesting choice. I never believed I had any predilection for girls with red hair. At the same time, I’d dated several redheads, and, if you consider the tiny fraction of redheads among the Texas female dating population, my Advanced Business Statistics XII prof could be 95% confident, +/- 3%, that I had a real thing for redheads.

I shrugged. “You got a deal. Meet you back at the dorm. Good luck.”

The bell rang, and we pursued our respective targets. My palms began to sweat. My heart skipped a beat. Why had I agreed to this? My mark was on the move—and fast. With difficulty, I gained on her as she threaded the swarm of students between classes.

As she exited the building with me in hot pursuit, she turned, put her hands on her hips, and said, “Well, if you’re going to follow me, you might as well just walk alongside.”

“Oh … I … uh … okay.”

Tongue-tied, I walked with her in silence. What a dolt. I hoped Ed was having better luck. I should’ve prepared something—a slick line sure to impress. But, no—I was floundering. I racked my brain and finally lighted upon a decent idea.

“So, some friends and are I having a party on Friday night. Would you like to come?”

“Sure.”

I couldn’t hide my surprise. “Really?”

“Yeah. But what’s your last name?”

“Buford.”

She frowned. “Buford?”

“Yeah. Will you still go out with me?”

“Sure. I’m Dana, by the way.

I walked with Dana to her dorm, got her phone number, and promised to pick her up on Friday night.

“No. I’ll meet you there,” she said.

“Oh. Okay,” I mumbled lamely as she went inside.

I sprinted to our dorm and pounded on Ed’s door. “I did it,” I cried. “She said yes!” No answer.

I called Ed’s room, and his answering machine picked up. (Note to younger readers: answering machines were tape recorders that answered our phones when we weren’t home. We left our phones at home because they had to be wired to the wall. Oh, yeah, and tape recorders were machines that recorded our voices on cassette tapes. And cassette tapes were devices that used magnetic tape to … oh, just Google it.)

“She said yes,” I yelled at Ed’s answering machine. “She wants me! Who’s the stud, huh? Tell me! She—wants—me! Me, me, me, me, me! She couldn’t resist! Dude, women cannot resist me!”

I heard footsteps. I ran into the hall to find Ed plodding up the stairs with a hangdog look on his face.

“Dude,” he said. “She’s engaged.”

#

A plurality of my friends at university were South American, primarily Bolivian and Colombian. I’m not sure how that happened exactly, but that’s the way it was. The party I’d invited Dana to was what my friends called a “Latin party,” where we danced to merengue and salsa and played a drinking game with dice and a leather cup called cacho. Think Yahtzee in Spanish with booze. We called ourselves Los Cacherros—those who play cacho.

I knew almost nothing about Dana other than she was from the conservative lily-white suburbs of Austin and attending a conservative lily-white school in conservative lily-white College Station, Texas. I figured our Latin party might be a bit of a culture shock for her, and, in fact, I considered it something of a test: if she turned up her nose at my international student friends, we weren’t going to last.

When Dana arrived at the packed house party, all heads turned to check out Greg’s surprise date they’d heard so much about. Naturally—and to Ed’s great chagrin—I’d spent the week repeating the story of our date dare to anyone within earshot. Every single person at the party knew whence Dana came.

I greeted her with a hug. “You, uh, want to dance?”

The music was thumping. My friends were twirling their partners around the dance floor to frantic Latin beats.

Dana looked uncertain. “What is this music?”

“Merengue. It’s real easy.”

I took her hand, pulled her close, and we danced.

“I never met a guy who liked to dance before,” she shouted over the music.

We were having a blast, spinning around the floor, out of breath and loving it—when the music stopped. Everyone glared at the DJ. A familiar voice came over the sound system.

“She said yes! She wants me!”

I didn’t realize what was happening.

“Who’s the stud, huh? Tell me!”

I gaped at Dana; she gaped at me.

“She—wants—me! Me, me, me, me, me!”

I dove for the control board. A phalanx of my best friends tackled me.

“She couldn’t resist! Dude, women cannot resist me!”

The tape finished. My friends released me and bounced around laughing like hyenas. Ed gave me a wink. I couldn’t be mad, of course. After all, I would’ve played the exact same prank, given the chance. Sheepishly, I returned to Dana, who stood alone in the middle of the dance floor.

I shrugged. “Uh …”

The music started: Berbujas de Amor by Juan Luis Guerra and 440.

Dana smiled. “Can we dance some more?”

Fourteen months later, the Cacherros played the same tape at our wedding reception, but the joke was on them. I was right—Dana couldn’t resist me.

Family Tradition

Our flight from India is uneventful, and at midday we descend over the farms of Japan’s Chiba Peninsula and into Narita International Airport. We go through Customs, collect our luggage, and catch a limousine bus around Tokyo Bay to Haneda Airport for our domestic flight to Oita, our final destination. The experience is spotless and orderly, and we are happy to dust off our Japanese. It feels, as the Japanese say, natsukashii—like old times.

At this point, I’ll assume you either read Kept: An American Househusband in India and forgot everything, or you didn’t read Kept and will never forgive yourself. Either way, you’re in the dark about how we got to Japan the first time, so I’ll summarize.

I was born. I got a pet pig named Charlie Brown. I met a girl named Dana on a dare. And when I write girl, I mean girl. When we went on our first date, I didn’t yet know Dana was silly, immature, and about to get kicked out of Texas A&M University for the second time. I wouldn’t exactly call her ditzy, but she was certainly no nerd. At any rate, I found these traits oddly endearing. But what really attracted me to Dana was that she thought I hung the moon. What’s not to love?

“How did Dana get kicked out of university the first time?” you ask. Perhaps it was her 0.0 grade point average. For those of you not familiar with the American university system of grading, understand that a 0.0 grade point average is not good. In fact, as the multiple zeros imply, it is the lowest possible score one can achieve. I asked Dana how one even gets a 0.0 grade point average. I mean, they’d give you at least some grade points just for showing up, right? Right. Dana explained it like this: “I didn’t go to class and didn’t do any work, but I had a good time.” Mystery solved.

Interestingly, this sort of poor academic performance is a strong Williams family tradition. Dana’s father, Terry, was the first generation to attend university, matriculating at that academic powerhouse, University of Tennessee at Martin, in 1964. He quickly flunked out and joined the Navy. Somehow he spent the Vietnam War on a goodwill cruise of Europe. Next to crash and burn in university was Dana, then little sister #1, then little sister #2, then little brother. I don’t write this so none of my in-laws will ever speak to me again. That is simply an unfortunate and now unavoidable by-product. I only desire to point out that when I met Dana, she was a hot mess, and I was her knight in shining armor, a role that suited us both just fine at the time.

I was three years older and with just one semester to go. I wouldn’t say my partying days were over, but I’d learned to strike a balance. If Dana got kicked out of school again, she’d have to move home to Austin, two-and-a-half-hours away. When I suggested the long distance might doom our budding relationship, she said, “Well, I guess I could study.” Ya think?

She must’ve been head over heels, because study she did. Every night Dana followed me like a lost puppy to the library, but, alas, it was too little too late. At the end of the semester, she was one grade point shy of success.

“You have a D in theater,” I said. “How? Did you kick him in the nuts? Did you punch his face?”

Dana shook her head. “What do I do?”

The answer was obvious: “Beg.”

At my behest, Dana went to her professor and begged him to change her grade from a D to a C. It turned out the guy planned to resign anyway and couldn’t care less.

“Sure. Why not?” he said, and that’s how Dana didn’t get booted from school a second time.

How is this relevant? It’ll all make sense soon enough. But, for the moment, just know that Dana and I were stupid in love when, shortly before graduation, I got a job offer in Japan and things came to a head.

With a heavy heart I met Dana under a tree on campus. “Uh, you remember that Japan thing I told you about?”

“Yeah …”

“Well, uh, like … I sort of got, like, got the job.”

“You sort of got the job?”

“Yeah. And I, like, really want to go. In fact, I, uh, kind of promised myself that I wouldn’t back out. That even if, uh, I met the girl I was going to marry … well, I’ve kind of always wanted to do something like this, and, uh, if I don’t go, I feel like I’ll kind of regret it for the rest of my life.”

“Well,” Dana said casually, “then I guess I’m going with you.”

And, as they say, the rest is history.