“Could it really be that of all the lessons I'd learned, the hardest one lay just ahead of me? Would I really have to take each of my hopes and put them away where no one would ever see them again, where not even I would ever see them?
"Go back to the okiya, Sayuri," Mameha told me. "Prepare for the evening ahead of you. There's
nothing like work for getting over a disappointment.”