by Vann Chow
“Did you get some sleep last night?” A text message from Masao-san flashed across the screen of her smartphone.
She only read the message in the notification page without clicking into it, for she had no intention of replying. Some of the clients liked to keep up the appearance of a relationship with her. Masao was one of them. They sent her text messages, which she ignored, up to a point until she sensed the frustrations had built up long enough that it might cost her the client, then she would finally reply. Then they would beg and whine for her attention, to see her again. She would bait them with negligence. They whined some more. Call her late at night when their work day was finally over and the thought of loneliness almost suffocated them. Then she would concede to meet them again.
Men liked being fooled by these little tricks. They rewarded her behaviors always, with gifts or other nice gestures. Her trick had never failed.
And this time, she had resolved to make Masao feel guilty about his rough handling.
At Ikebukuro, she got off and headed towards the MAS cafe at the museum. Her whole body protested.
Not another step.
Muscles from her entire lower body trunk ached like an orchestra of whiny violins tuning on stage before a performance. The incongruous signals of soreness were distracting. The muscle fatigue would go away eventually too, leaving nothing to the experience. Nothing lasts, but ever more credits to her avatar. – She drew the similarity between life and virtual presence again.
Or acting, she thought, as she walked towards her destination in smaller than usual steps, mindful not to make any sudden movement that would tear open any healing wounds inside her. – There are very few nerves in the uterus to warn her. She had to be careful. – Actors and actresses surely had days of moodiness, times when they felt disconnected to the parts. Yet when the show was on, they would have to stop being themselves and slip instantly into the alter ego. Good actors and actresses do, at least. The analogy hit a sweet spot for her. She likened herself to a professional actress in her mind, and it made her feel good about herself.
The mind was an easy thing to trick.
37. Lights, Camera, and Action
“What is this?” Misa asked Smith as soon as she arrived to find Smith next to a group of people setting up filming equipment –- big lamps on high stands, opened silver light reflective umbrellas opposite to each of them, and people taking out professional quality filming equipment. Smith had a light layer of makeup on his face.
“What is this, Smith?” she asked again. “I thought we were just coming out for a walk together.” Her hands trembled for a second until she convinced herself to relax. Taking selfies or films with friends when going out, those were no problem for her. However, whenever she saw professional cameras or other more substantial video filming equipment, something strange inside her would flutter its wings, ready to fly out of her mouth at any moment. Her stomached lurched, and she tried hard to swallow back that wretched animal of fear.
“Do you mind being the model for a TV commercial?” Smith asked, without much explanation.
“A TV commercial?” she asked unenthusiastically.
“Yes, for DaiKe. My company,” Smith explained as he stamped out the cigarette he pulled from between his lips.
“Will my face be in it?”
“Why yes, you have a beautiful face. You should be everywhere, your face.” Tanaka interrupted the pair as they were chatting. Unceremoniously he reached out to stroke Misa's face like she was a soft wool blanket. Misa cringed back.
“Who is he?” Misa questioned Smith. “Who are all these people?” she asked, looking around.
“My name is Ryuuji Tanaka,” Tanaka said with a faint smile. “I am going to be the commercial's director today.”
“Tanaka, can you explain to her in Japanese that she has nothing to worry about? Tell her the run-down. All we need to do are a few shots in front and around the temple, right?”
“Absolutely. She can just be herself,” Tanaka said.
Tanaka waved Arai over. The assistant dropped everything and scrambled over to take his manager's order.
Was it his sensitivity? Smith observed that Arai was unusually nervous when he spotted Misa. Now he was explaining something to Misa in Japanese, but he kept averting his eyes from the girl. These Otaku boys of Japan, they get butterflies in front of beautiful women, don't they? He was also young and inexperienced once.
“Misa,” Smith said, “you don't have to do this if this is not what you want. It's no big deal. I didn't tell you ahead of time, my apologies.” Mr. Tanaka insisted that he wanted to have an innocent, unprepared face for the commercial. “The part he has for you is perfect for you, and me.”
“You and him. Two person, from very very different places,” Arai tried to explain in his sub-par English. “You young, him old. You fun and him, thinking a lot.” He waved his hand around as he expressed the concept of the commercial. “DaiKe, like the old man...”
“Older man,” Smith corrected him.
“Older man,” Arai continued, “think ahead, protect you, protect the nice environment. Protect Japan.”
Protect. Smith understood what the analogy between him and Daike, and Misa, to the naïve Japanese consumers would be. But to go as far as to say that him, or Daike, a heavy metal production company could project to the whole of Japan, he felt like he might want to tweet this moment and have it be kept in history forever, like when BP decided to clean up their own oil spillage in the Mexican Golf.
“We film you two, later, standing there,” Arai pointed at a very old and wide tree on the other side of the garden, smiling at each other. “And you give her a hug. I need to see both of your faces.”
“I think you'll have to give me directions again when we get there. I am not really following.” Smith said, winking at Misa, who understood his cynicism.
“ Kono tame ni shiharawa remasu ka ? Do I get pay for this?” Misa asked matter of fact.
“You become famous. Your face all over Japan for 24 weeks at least.” Arai said. “and five hundred thousand yen.” As soon as Arai had finished speaking, Tanaka waved the make-up artist over. It was the same lady who had tried to pull his stray eyebrow hair with a pair of tweezers just half an hour ago. She hustled Misa to the mobile trailer where she had the whole make-up and wardrobe set up.
Five hundred thousand yen is not a lot, but Misa could, theoretically, skip her nightly ‘part-time job’ for a month. Not that she would let it happen. Client-relationships were too important for her. She picked up her pace and went along to do her makeup.
38. Gokokuji Temple
Sitting on the small stone chair in the outer court of the temple, Misa looked up at Smith and said, “Can we say whatever we want?”
“Yes,” nodding towards the camera man. “They didn't wire us up with mics right?” Smith explained.
“Are you both ready?” Arai shouted from 10 meters away, holding up the action board. It was scribbled with almost illegible Japanese characters.
“Yes!” Smith raised his thumb up in the air. The suit they gave him was a bit tight. He had to be careful not to stretch his arms too much later when they were filming.
“ San! Ni! Ichi! A–Ku--Shon! ”
“What do we have to do now?” Misa moved her lips gingerly.
“You just have to chat for a few seconds.” He could see the blinking signal from the corner of his eyes. An assistant was counting. And now, there's the signal for them to walk.
“And then?”
“And then you stand up,” Misa rose up slowly from her stone seat, following his cue. “and we walk along this passage to the tallest pagoda in the middle of the court like I just invited you for tea, and it's gonna be all over at the pagoda.”
Misa smiled.
There was no one else in the temple court today as half of it was sealed off for temporarily for the filming. The court was so empty and quiet that they could hear their own feet shuffling on the thin layer of sand.<
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Misa seemed to have relaxed a little as they paced down the flat path, dotted with Buddha statues etched into stone plates erected on both sides of the way and a few occasional evergreens that had been grown into elegant Bonsai.
She stole a glance at Smith, who had both of his hands inside the pockets of his suit pants. Smith noticed and smiled back.
“I am so sorry.”
“About?”
“About last time...” Misa said. “I didn't ask you if you wanted to kiss me.”
“Anyone sane would love to kiss you,” Smith said that without any inhibition because no one can hear them. There were only the two of them in this world, at this very moment, he felt. In the presence of the stone-faced Buddhas, he wanted, to be honest, even just slightly.
“Am I too young for you?”
Smith didn't expect that from her. Why of course, she was too young for him. But she said it in such a way that it broke his heart. She said it as if it was something she did wrong.
“You're perfect the way you are,” he said. He would love to tell her that he cared about her, but he could only care about her in a way that is acceptable to his faith, and his circumstances. “I cannot give you anything. I am an old man.”
“You have already given me a lot,” Misa said, pausing in her steps. “Tatsu said you left your Thunderbird credit card for us that night. There was more than a million yen in it.”
“But I don't want to buy you, or your affection. I am not like that. I meant it in a good Samaritan way.”
“Like donating to the charity. You took pity on me?”
“No...” It was a hard thing to explain. “You're a wonderful girl. You deserve better. I don't know what else I can do for you and for Tatsu. He is recovering slowly at the moment, and it's always good to have some extra money for his medicine, and household bills. For food. Don't you agree?”
Misa nodded in acknowledgment.
“But you have to find Aileen. She promised to help you.”
“I did call her,” Misa said cheerfully. “She gave me a job!”
“Really? That's wonderful. What will you be doing?”
“Because I could read and write English, she lets me do all of the documentations for her new case files and put them online.”
“This is great.”
“Thank you,” Misa whispered as they paced along.
Smith decided not to say anything this time.
“You brought peace to my chaotic life.”
“As you did to me.”
After being sick for so many days, he felt energized to take a walk outdoor with the girl he cared a lot about. He momentarily forgot he was in the middle of a filming and immersed completely into the serenity that the Shinto temple provided. He felt he was not just filming a commercial, but he was living the life depicted in the commercial. Serene, safe, protected, bright.
They were almost at the end of their route. The tall tree loomed in front of their eyes.
“Are you supposed to put your arms around me now?”
“...yes, like Arai explained.”
“Facing the camera, I remember,” Misa said cheekily.
The couple turned around, and Smith looped his arm around the girl. He squeezed his arms tighter for the effect.
The view taken from the vantage point below, against the backdrop of the pagoda on the azalea-lined stone steps near the Furomon gate as the sun was about to go down – everything colludes to create the most stunning image.
Misa's body softened under the familiar warmth of a man. The build of this man was different from what she was used to, of course. He was tall, much taller than her. And she felt the contours of this strong muscles, despite the passing of years since he had been a football player, his frame was still fairly impressive to an Asian girl. It overwhelmed Misa with physical attraction, and her cheeks started to glow. He has a good heart too, Misa thought to herself. If only, if only he were her father.
Misa smiled lightly while she stared at Smith, who was oblivious, or perhaps deliberately ignorant, of the young girl who was falling in love with him.
Tanaka had a good first-take for the commercial. Behind his professional facade, he secretly smiled to himself for reasons known only to him.
39. Something in the Air
Ever since Smith had met Misa at the temple, he found himself constantly distracted by the thought of her. It didn't help that their commercial for DaiKe was all over the company television network normally reserved for internal announcements. The wave of nostalgia would hit him in the most inappropriate timing he felt as if he was about to lose control of his mind.
And worst of all, Misa had to start working on Saturday morning as well at InterHRLA, which meant they have to temporarily suspend their short-lived Japanese lessons from now on. Secretly, he cursed at Aileen for the long working hours.
He feigned nonchalant one day and called Aileen up to ask how Misa was doing, to see if he could wiggle her out of those Saturday working hours on grounds of spending more time with her recovering sick brother. But her ‘baka’ brother had his own recovery schedule. He was rehabilitating himself in the midst of shady companies, alcohol, and God-knows-what. He was not in want of any attention from Misa. In the end, all Smith managed to achieve with the call was another yet to be fulfilled promise of taking Aileen out. He found himself at a loss of excuse to reach Misa that would not give off a whiff of the simple, ‘I am thinking about you’.
Once he was in a boardroom attending a critical meeting with the company’s board of directors, he caught himself spacing out, not only once, but multiple times, during a subordinate’s presentation of a project he was supervising. He had proofread the contents of the presentation a few weeks ago, but it had obviously been revised because the portions of customers from the automotive sector in the pie chart had seemed to grow larger than ever. The agricultural sector had dropped to an alarming 4.8%; there were more words on the slides in the conclusion page, and the background color of the slides had changed to an obnoxious greenish-blue obscuring the edges of the words on it making them almost impossible to read quickly. And hence at the end of the presentation where he, as an immediate manager would typically add a few ending remarks highlighting the high points of the project, was unable to perform his duty. In the end, he resorted to the inarguable statements about the amount of hard work everyone involved in the project had put in and recognized a few key people on his team before hastily passing the ball on to the next group.
Another time he was in a marketing strategies discussion with a co-worker when Cheryl had walked in to replenish the coffee for them. Without knowing why he lost his train of thought and started to stumble on his words, only to be rescued by the cheatsheet he had on the table which he had jotted down the discussion points on a few day ago. When he regained his composure, he realized what it was that had distracted him – the sweet perfume Cheryl had worn had reminded him of Misa. He didn’t know whether Misa had in fact worn the same perfume but the fragrance had somehow elicited the romantic feelings in him, and he was swept off his feet by the olfactory memory.
He had also started to go out for lunch which was very atypical of him. He tried to put himself into Misa’s shoes and came up with a list of places a girl at her age would go. Once he offended Cheryl by asking a younger Japanese secretary in the department who was of around Misa's age to give him some suggestions for lunch. His logic was that she would surely have a better idea where girls of eighteen would like to have lunch. Of course, he lied to her that he was planning for his granddaughter’s visit to Japan next year. He did shudder at the mention of the word ‘granddaughter’. Misa was so young she could almost be passed as his granddaughter, he would often think as he was sipping some overpriced, distasteful drinks he had ordered at the beginning of the meal in one of the lists of the popular cafes in Ikebukuro where Misa might appear. Slim chance as it was of actually running into her, he followed through with his list. It did occur to him at some point th
at Misa might be having takeout lunch at the InterHRLA office. Office lunch, meaning, literally sitting in front of your computer in the cuckoo clock of a cubicle to work while consuming lunch was not uncommon in most Japanese workplaces. In that case, his search would be futile. And she would most likely be eating her lunchbox with her female colleagues, chatting about boys and idols and things that he didn’t understand.
Once he got sick of being disappointed, and he went to the park instead to eat his microwavable yakitori lunchbox, and he laughed at himself for being so foolish, but the sight of fallen leaves and empty chairs on the park saddened him. He knew perfectly well that a middle-age man like him should not be longing for a girl like Misa, and he should keep his thoughts inside the safety of his own cerebrum. Yet, again and again, he would make up excuses when lunch hour arrived to walk out of the office into the streets of Ikebukuro and sit in the booth of a café closest to the window to watch the passer-bys pacing up and down hurriedly to their destination. Among them, he would search for Misa’s silhouette with his tireless eyes. What he had in him was an inexplicable longing to see her, a platonic feeling, a realization that his life would not mean half as much if he couldn’t see her again.
But the week progressed without a word or a sign from her, his nostalgia had turned into desperation. In between meetings scheduled at floors way above his, he would always make a detour back to his office to check for any messages from Tanaka, hoping for another reshoot where Misa's attendance would be required. And he was taking more bathroom breaks and tea breaks than usual so he could have an excuse to check his cell phones for missed call or new messages. Still nothing.
At the same time, he started to run into a self-pitying phase. Every morning when he was forced to stand in front of the mirror as he brushed his teeth, he would lament how the years had not been lenient on him. He was no longer twenty-five and hopeful; he was fifty-five and divorced. His face belonged to that of an old man. His hands were veiny, his hair was gray and his hairline receding, forming the shapes of bat's ears. Already stepped into the last five years of his laborious career he was still living alone in a single’s dormitory just as he was thirty years ago when he was in college. It was as if everything that had happened in the time between did not matter at all – receiving his graduation diploma from the Dean’s hand, signing a mortgage for his first house, marrying the woman he loved, bring his first born son Ethan to the Great American Baseball Park, taking his daughter to swimming classes, being promoted to Associate Director , designing and building his second house on the 4 acre land he bought in the suburbs of Cincinnati, holding his granddaughter for the first time and giving her a big kiss – they were escaping his failing memory like a dream that vanished as soon as consciousness had returned to the dreaming man. Why would anyone want to have anything to do with him? After all these years he had nothing to show for it. Not even his wife thought him worthy of keeping his last name with her.
