Maehama Beach was one of the famous attractions to see on Miyako-Jima, the most popular island among the Miyako Islands of Okinawa. Its landscape was tremendously beautiful and the clear waters that surrounded it was a mix of emerald green and sapphire blue.
As kids, they’d always go down to the beach in San Francisco on a Saturday. It was their thing to do, followed by a trip to the cinema, or the games arcade. They were doing something similar today. Except that instead of being on the beach in San Francisco, they were here.
They were going to be here for the whole weekend and had spent the day going around to different beaches so they could swim, snorkel, and deep dive to see what they could of the spectacular coral reef and abundant marine life.
It was supposed to be a chill-out weekend so they could spend time together. Jake had banned her from doing anything work related. But, how could she restrain herself from writing about this wonderful place?
Her eyes took in the magnificent sea that kissed the white crystal shore, waves running in smoothly and rhythmically like a relaxed breath. She noticed the bluer parts of the sea were just a shade richer than the clear sky, but when you gazed ahead to the horizon it all blended in to one. Off in the distance to her right was an unusually shaped rock formation that looked like a hill. It would make a nice painting.
“Nice.” Jake bent down to pick up a smooth, pearly white shell. “We can get this polished off, and make a necklace for mom.”
“She’d love that,” Savannah agreed.
She was certain that Jake had probably spoken to their mother just as much as she had, which was nearly every other day. Sometimes she’d get a quick hello and catch up with her father, too. All he had to say was, “Be safe, and don’t talk to any strange people.” She’d bitten her tongue the other day when he said it as she remembered her encounter with Kowalski.
At least her parents hadn’t said anything out of context about being in Japan. Jake more than likely had a hand in that.
“Can we go down to the marina again?” Savannah asked. She wanted to see the red and yellow sailboats that had gathered in earlier and get a picture for her blog. She’d started updating that the other day. As a journalist, it was good to have an engaged social media audience and fan base. The more exposure, the better. In her blog she could be less formal, and sometimes posted pictures at random of sights she had seen.
Jake leaned his head to the side and gave her a knowing look. “For an article?”
She bit the side of her lip and said, “My blog. That’s for fun and definitely not work related.” Smiling widely, she linked her arms in his. “I’m in love with the place, Jake. I have to write about everything.”
He laughed and leaned into her. “Okay, Miss Journalist. I forgot how obsessed you could be.”
She laughed. “I’m not obsessed.” Yes, she was. “Jake, I love Japan, and I’m so grateful for everything you’ve done for me. I don’t think I could ever thank you enough for making it all possible.” They stopped for a moment by a little rock pool.
He gave her that adoring stare that made him look even more like their father. “You deserve it.”
It was nice to be told that. She’d never really thought about being deserving of the opportunity. She was just more than grateful to have it.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. I did say that if I could do anything to help, I’d do it in a heartbeat. The idea came to me when you did the first pet food article.”
Savannah looked down at the sand thinking back to the depressing memory. That article was the straw that broke her back. When it was printed, it featured somewhere in the back of the newspaper near the obituaries, and it ironically felt like she was dying inside. Suffocating the person she was supposed to be, to carry on with a mediocre job that would take her nowhere. She was so upset she’d called Jake in floods of tears.
“That whole thing messed with my head.” What she always loved about Jake was that she could tell him everything. Their relationship kept her sane sometimes.
“I know. I felt a country like this would be perfect for what you’re doing at the moment, and the timing was perfect with the training center. I was going to be here for a year, so I figured, hey you could too.”
She was so lucky to have him. He’d arranged for her to come to Japan and he wasn’t joking when he said all expenses would be paid. He’d given her enough money to do whatever she wanted, and more. There were no words to express the depth of her gratitude.
“And, don’t worry about what Mom and Dad think,” he added with an encouraging look.
To be honest, she’d been too mesmerized by everything to worry about who might be against the idea of her being here.
“I won’t.”
“Good. Besides, I think they’re both warming up to the idea. Mom’s stopped sending me the hourly texts. I had to tell her quite firmly that I’m not with you every hour.” He chuckled.
At least they cared. “They need to stop treating me like a kid.” She laughed.
“It’s because you’re the baby.”
And the screw up in their eyes. You always needed to check up more on the screw ups. Savannah shook the thought from her head. She shouldn’t think about things like that now. All her inspiration needed to be saved for her articles, and she needed every ounce of happiness.
She was going to her very first festival next week in Tokyo. The week after that was going to be her writing week. Then she’d submit everything to Brian the Monday after. What she’d prepared so far was brilliant and achieved that creative edge she wanted for the first issue.
“So, what adventure should we go on next? I’d like to say we should climb Mt. Fuji but have you seen this?” Jake pulled at his belly. “The six pack just goes every time I come here with Yumi’s cooking and cakes.”
She watched him poking at his doughy stomach and had to agree that what might have once been a six pack was no more.
“And, I’m probably not the fittest for that. Rosh, on the other hand, would be perfect for the job if you do go.”
Hiroshi.
A quiver surged through her at the thought of him.
“He mentioned he’d climbed before.” She hoped she sounded casual and not in the least bit affected by the mention of his name.
A gentle breeze lifted the ends of her ponytail and whipped it up behind her. It had been a week ago now since she last saw him.
Jake told her Hiroshi had gone back to Washington. She didn’t ask when he’d be back for fear of looking too interested. In all seriousness, she should be focusing on her work. Especially since she had a tendency to lose her brain around him. That was bad for her on all levels, and she couldn’t afford to lose her focus. She wasn’t doing herself any favors by daydreaming about Hiroshi and her crazy attraction to him.
“I climbed one time with him and his grandfather. It was just before oldest man Fujita got very sick.”
She narrowed her eyes at him and giggled. “Oldest man Fujita?” Jake certainly had a way with names.
“It’s fine, everyone knows who I mean. Anyhow, Rosh would be great to take along. He knows what he’s doing.”
She’d filled Jake in on her car racing experience with Hiroshi. Of course, she left out the Kowalski part and seeing Hiroshi kissing that devil hair woman.
“If he has time.” She was sure he didn’t.
“Savannah you’re too polite.” He chuckled as they started walking again, getting their sandals wet in the rock pool. He helped her steady herself as she stepped on a boulder that looked particularly slippery.
“He bored you to death the other night, didn’t he?” Jake shook his head in dismay. “With his talk of cars. I can just imagine how he must have yakked on. Your ears must have bled.”
As Jake laughed Savannah looked away thinking it was all the complete opposite. She enjoyed the car talk way too much, and the fact that she liked his singing was probably cause for concern, even for her.
She bit th
e inside of her lip to keep from laughing as she remembered. At the time she’d thought here was this super-hot guy who was super cool trying to sing, for her. Just so she would forgive him. As if he needed forgiveness.
She wouldn’t pretend that it didn’t mean a lot that he asked. But it didn’t mean anything, did it? He was just being nice.
“No. It was cool to hear about what cars could do. He really knows his stuff.”
Jake tilted his head to the side, thought for a moment then nodded. “He does. I guess I’m surprised you didn’t find it boring.”
Oh no. He was starting to look suspicious.
“I think I was too focused on the excitement of being there to think about anything else.” That was the best answer. Anything else would have definitely made Jake suspicious of her feelings towards Hiroshi. Feelings she wanted to push to the back of the shelf in her brain.
“Yeah. I definitely get that. Ebisu is a cool place.”
Maybe not seeing Hiroshi was no bad thing. She tried to keep that in mind over the next week as she looked for him in places she’d seen him previously, wondering if he’d returned from Washington.
She tried to fully reinforce the thought again when she eventually did see him on the Friday of that same week. It must have been around six. Savannah had spent the bulk of the day writing and planning her next few trips. She took a break with a walk around the manor grounds. It was on her way back to the house that she saw him on the driveway.
But he wasn’t alone. He was talking to a pretty, dark-haired woman who wore a pair of underwear short shorts and a luminous yellow jacket. The woman sat on the bonnet of a bright blue sports car, and literally looked like a living advert. It was one of those flashy race cars, like the ones at the track. Savannah could tell from the way Hiroshi looked her up and down that he was definitely interested in her.
She was probably his girlfriend.
Gosh, why had that never crossed Savannah’s mind? No one had outrightly told her that he was single. And she didn’t know what made her think he was. She’d covered that matter before in her mind when she and her friends were looking him up online. At the time she’d thought quite well that a guy like him had a girlfriend or would only be single if he wanted lots. She wasn’t sure which it was with him, and that was another reason to keep her distance.
Before she could get within his view, she diverted across the lawn to the back entrance of the house and walked through the vine archway. She didn’t feel like being introduced to the gorgeous girlfriend. And definitely not while she was wearing her rugged pair of sweatpants and an old Backstreet Boys T-shirt that used to be brown but was now a murky gray color. It was part of her workout clothes she’d packed from San Francisco.
When she got inside she got her resource folder and starting going through some of the brochures she’d gotten. She wasn’t doing any more work for the day, but she needed to occupy her mind.
So far all the women she’d seen Hiroshi with were all so beautiful. And thin. Did they ever eat? Savannah would never have even been able to get one whole leg into the shorts that woman was wearing.
Oh this was silly. She was silly, and it was her own stupid fault for doing the one thing she said she wouldn’t do when she came here. She said she would focus on her work and not go off like some mindless girl liking Hiroshi more than she should.
What was wrong with her?
It was that stupid charm he had that weakened her. And, for some reason she couldn’t explain she was drawn to him. He only had to open his mouth, and she would get zapped into some kind of trance. That had never happened to her before with anyone.
She needed to put a stop to it now before things got worse.
* * *
Savannah spent a lot of time with Yumi and Sakiko over the next few weeks. While she still had Ishida take her on a number of tours and to a bunch of festivals, they offered to take her to many places, too.
Spending time with them definitely made the experience even more enjoyable. They took her to Nikko, where she saw the scenic mountainous landscapes, lakes, and waterfalls. Nara, with its cantilevered buildings and old temples, and Osaka for the shopping. They spent the weekend there and got back this morning. But only to drop off their bags. Yumi was going to be receiving the shipment for her summer exhibition, and Savannah decided it was something she had to see. So off she went again with the two of them.
Savannah was exhausted by the time they got back to the manor, and it was nearly midnight. Catching some sleep should have been the first thing on her mind, but she couldn’t resist the urge to check the update status on her web page. It went live last Monday and she was dying to see how it was doing, and how receptive the readers had been.
There were two ways of checking. The first was to see if any of the subscribers liked the page or any of the articles contained in it. The other was a little bit more technical and involved looking at a statistical dashboard to see how many people had viewed her page and went on to subscribe.
New web pages and stand-alone articles were always placed at the center of the magazine’s home page to attract new customers and entice them into signing up for a one month free trial subscription. Samples of the articles would be offered to give a new reader a taste, and if they wanted to read more, they’d have to sign up.
The dashboard would allow her to see the specific number of people who had clicked on her web page and went on to sign up from there.
Brian had given her login details so she could check everything for herself. Last week had some positive results on the current subscribers who had liked the page and articles, but there were no new subscribers.
She did feel a little dismayed but had to remember that it was very early days. It was Wednesday when she checked, and the page had only been released at the start of that week.
Since she didn’t want to develop an obsession and check every day she limited it to a weekly check, or close enough to a week. She sat at her desk, grabbed her laptop and typed the password in when the magazine’s page popped up. When the page loaded up, she went to the menu and selected statistics.
She sighed as anxiety filled her and held her breath.
Please let it be good, she prayed. It would be so amazing if the results were good.
Her hands stilled as the statistics page populated with the results. The new subscriber section showed that there were three thousand and four new members. She looked to the page referral section and found her Savannah’s Travels page. On it was listed one thousand and sixty and the correlation graph confirmed the results.
One thousand and sixty people had subscribed because of her web page!
Savannah gasped and jumped out of her chair almost knocking it over. She squealed with delight and ran around the room jumping up and down.
This was unbelievable. She couldn’t believe it, she just couldn’t. People were subscribing just to read what she’d written. This was more than an achievement, and she definitely didn’t expect this so soon.
She rushed back to the desk and scrolled down to more stats, and then on to her web page where people had left comments. The page itself had five thousand likes, which came from a mixture of the old and new subscribers. The Tokyo article was brimming with hundreds of comments, the car racing article has ten thousand likes and… She was so overwhelmed she couldn’t read anymore.
The readers loved her page. They actually loved her page. From what she could see, all the articles she’d chosen had done extremely well. There wasn’t a single one that had less than a thousand likes.
Her mind was buzzing, and all she wanted to do was share her news with everyone she knew.
She quickly sent Jake a message, and then she did a Skype call to her friends. She used the laptop and went out on the balcony where she would get a better signal.
“Girls,” she squealed as soon as the screen filled with both their images. It was morning in San Francisco. Breana seemed to be sitting at her dressing table straightening her hair. L
aura was munching on a bagel.
“Hey girl. This has to be good news if you called us this early, or late for you.” Breana smiled.
Laura nodded and bit into her bagel.
Savannah blurted it all out, filling them in on everything with so much excitement she had to sit down to calm herself down.
“My gosh, Savannah,” Laura beamed. “I’m so proud of you.”
“I’m not surprised. I expect there’ll be much more soon,” Breana stated. “I read the whole page and thought it was fantastic. I can always tell when you’re overly enjoying your work.” She laughed.
Both Breana and Laura had subscribed before she even got to Japan. It was great to have friends who believed in her so much.
“I haven’t read it yet.” A sheepish look crossed over Laura’s face. “But I will soon. Michael’s been driving me crazy.” Michael was Laura’s boyfriend. They were always arguing over something ridiculous.
“Michael is always driving you crazy. And we can talk about him any old time,” Breana snapped. “I want to hear about Hiroshi.”
Oh no. Not this again. They’d been asking about him every time since she’d talked about going to the racetrack. That felt like such a long time ago now. Like it never happened.
“Has he asked you out yet?” Laura said in her usual way. She didn’t know what would make them think Hiroshi had any intention of asking her out.
She probably got a little too excited with them after that night, but she hadn’t talked about it, or him, in weeks, other than to answer the same old questions they had. She was getting tired of them asking.
Savannah had a silly idea. “Yes, actually we went on our first date tonight.” She tried to stop herself from laughing.
They both screamed with delight.
“When were you going to tell us?” Breana gasped. “And there you are talking about subscribers when this is so much more important because we all know you can write.”
“Where did he take you?” Laura jumped in, her eyes wide with anticipation. They were both so gullible sometimes.
I Only Have Eyes For You Page 13
