The Bento Box

by Olivia Gaines

  “Okay. Okay. Dang,” she grumbled, sitting up. Her hair was a mess, her mouth tasted like an old shoe, and she had a headache.

  “The plane needs to be in the air in an hour. We have to get to the airport,” he told her. “I’ll wait for you in the other room.”

  Struggling with the reality of being on a plane again nearly made her empty stomach roil, but she found functionality in her arms and brain to get it into gear. In less than ten minutes, she was dressed, her teeth were brushed, and her hair tamed with her overnight bag.

  “Ready to roll,” she said, heading for the door.

  Koji was quiet this morning as they exited the building to the waiting car. Eldredge wasn’t behind the wheel, but instead a young, attractive British woman who handed them both cups of hot tea. A fruit tray sat in the middle of back seat, loaded with cheeses and bits of French pastry. He didn’t bother to eat any of it, only sip on the tea as they whisked through the empty streets of Paris on a Sunday morning.

  Trista also held her tongue when the young woman carried her overnight bag onto the plane, along with the tray of goodies, ready to close and seal the doors for take-off.

  “Uhm, Koji, who is this woman and where is Eldredge?”

  “Patience,” he said, looking down at his phone.

  “Okay,” she said, waiting patiently for the rest of the answer to the question. After shooting off three or four messages, then switching over to use his tablet, Koji’s eyes came up to see Trista still looking at him.

  “No, her name is Patience,” he said. “She’s my weekend assistant. It’s Sunday. Eldredge is already at home in London. He doesn’t work weekends.”

  “A weekend assistant, that’s a new one,” Trista said, looking at the attractive woman. Insecurities rose up in her like bile in her throat, but she swallowed them all down. “Patience, my name is Dr. Trista Hathaway.”

  “Pleasure,” the woman said, going about her tasks.

  Koji read the expression on Trista’s face and felt he needed to head her thought process off at the pass.

  “Trista, darling, I don’t fuck the help,” he said. “She has a job to do, and it is to aid me on the weekends should I require assistance. Patience has been with me for ten years. She is married to a very large bloke and has four children.”

  “I didn’t say anything,” Trista replied.

  “You didn’t need to,” he said. “Patience prepares me for the week. She organizes my clothing, does laundry, changes bedsheets, double-checks my schedule, refills my vitamin packs, ensures I have tea in my home, office, and plane, and anything else that is required for a smooth work week. The woman even studies the weather report making certain that I have an umbrella should the need arise.”

  “She’s your work wife,” Trista said. “I have one of those as well, a work husband. His name is Samuel.”

  “Samuel, heh? I imagine a nerdy type of chap with square black glasses that slide down his nose, a white lab jacket, the pocket loaded with pencils, and a very large nose,” Koji said, smiling at her.

  “Oh my gosh, do you know Samuel?” she replied, chuckling a bit at the on point perfect description.

  “No, I saw his image on your website,” Koji said. “He’s the assistant coroner correct?”

  “Yes, he is but he thinks he’s my boss,” she said. “Honestly, he’s ready to take over as soon as I step out of the way. I have an offer from Emory University to come teach, but the traffic from Macon to mid-town Atlanta would be a nightmare. I would need to sell my home and move, but that’s not the right move for me.”

  “Would you enjoy a teaching position at a University, molding the next generation of cadaver scientists? Is that what it’s called?”

  “Thanatology is the study of death and dying,” she answered, “a required course in mortuary science, along with embalming, restorative arts, and disposition of remains.”

  “Restorative arts?”

  “Yes, that’s the recreating of the face of the dead to make sure they are restored to how they may have looked before death,” she said. “It’s also the makeup process on the dearly departed. Cosmetics are used with the consent of the family to improve the appearance of face and hands for a more natural look.”

  “That is morbid,” he said, scowling as he fastened his seat belt for take-off.

  “Well, If the face or hands are disfigured by accident, illness or decomposition, the funeral director may opt to utilize restorative arts to make the customer more visually appealing for the mourners for an open casket service,” Trista told him.

  “Now, I’m creeped out,” Koji said.

  “Imagine being a teenage girl who was not allowed to wear make-up, but I got to put it on customers who were immobile and cold,” she said, twisting her mouth. “It paid for college. I did it for my Dad’s funeral home and fewer smaller ones in neighboring communities, but the bulk of the work came to my Dad’s shop.”

  “It’s called a shop?”

  The plane picked up speed down the runway, gaining momentum as the nose lifted from the ground, getting the passengers inside the cabin airborne. It wasn’t a very long flight and by the end of the hour, Trista planned to make him understand the entire process that a funeral home undertook.

  “There are different parts of a funeral home. The front area is receiving, where people coming to pay their respects sign the book so the family can send thank you cards to those attending,” she told him. “Then there is the chapel where the services are sometimes held if the family doesn’t want a church service, but maybe a viewing.”

  Patience was also listening as she explained the layout of the funeral process.

  “In a larger funeral home, like the one my family owns, there are four offices,” Trista continued. “One each for the director, the assistant director, the restorative artist and the embalmer. The back of the funeral home is the shop. Our funeral home has coolers that can accommodate at least twenty customers. Unlike most shops, we have a crematorium on site, separate from the main building, but connected by a hall. I always hate those days because of the smell.”

  Patience’s eyes were wide, “How does it smell?”

  “Honestly?” Trista said. “Like a giant pork roast over an open flame. For the longest time, I refused to go to barbeques and really won’t eat pork to this day. The really weird thing is that it takes at least two days for the ashes to cool and be packaged.”

  “Jesus,” Patience said, “you do this for a living?”

  “I have done it,” Trista said, “but now I only cut bodies open to determine the cause of death and collect evidence from bodies to solve crimes, that kind of thing, or make the judgement call if the death was in fact a crime or natural causes.”

  “Why would a woman want to do that kind of work?” Patience asked.

  “I was wondering why a woman with four kids would want to wash a man’s drawers that she wasn’t fucking, but hey, we all have to make a living somehow,” Trista said, looking at Patience. She turned her attention back to Koji, still answering Patience’s question.

  “The job has to be a calling. I do it because there aren’t many in the field who look like me,” Trista said. “There are very few women, and an even lesser number of black women, and I do it to make sure the dead can be heard. I provide facts, supported by evidence of dirty cops gunning down the innocent or greedy husbands expediting the deaths of spouses to get insurance money, and provide answers to grieving mothers who have to bury 15-year-old sons. I do it because death may be the final stop for the body, but not the last stop for the family. Those who live must go on. I give them answers that allow an understanding and peaceful sleep.”

  “Wow,” Patience said.

  “Double wow,” Koji replied.

  “Yeah, like I said, dazzling company,” she gave him a wink and leaned back in the seat to catch a bit more sleep before the plane landed.

  Koji’s watched her profile, impressed, in awe and thinking. She lay back in the seat looking like a
limp pile of noodles, sleeping hard in less than a minute. She’d given him an idea, two as a matter of fact, along with a third one that was so crazy, he was going to try it out. The worst she could say was no. She’d said no to him three times already, but he had faith the last question he would ask would be a yes.

  He picked up his phone and got to work.

  NOTTING HILL WAS JUST as picturesque in real life as it had been in the movie. She leaned against the rear car window like a child on her first trip to Disneyland. She spotted a house with a blue door, opening her mouth and making noises, thinking, hoping, and wishing it was the same flat from the movie. Koji enjoyed the enthusiasm over something so simple that he barely paid attention to in his daily life. As many times as he drove down the street, his face was usually down on his computer.

  Patience, noticing her enthusiasm, took a different turn to get on a side street from the Portobello Road Street Market. She pointed it out to Trista, who listened eagerly to every word she said.

  “Dr. Hathaway, there is the street market. The weekends are the only time you’ll see it. Since the movie, is has become one of the top ten of London's tourist attractions Most of the locals buy fruit and veggies here. Second-hand goods are included on Friday but on Saturdays the road is packed for the famous antiques market,” Patience said.

  Koji looked up to take notice.

  Patience continued the tour, crossing over to another side street, slowing down the vehicle. She told Trista, “There is no ‘Travel Book Company’ on Portobello Road, the down-at-heel shop owned by William Thacker. The store was Nicholl’s Antique Arcade, it’s a gift shop cheekily called Notting Hill. Those capitalists even used the same type face in the movie on the banner header there!”

  “How cool is that, Koji?” Trista said, all full of smiles. “What about the private garden with the bench?”

  “Ah, Rosemead Gardens,” Patience said. “The private communal gardens, but don’t bother trying to get in there with that lot. Those people are really private, and the fence is higher than it looks in the movie. The bench on which Anna and William sit was simply a prop for the film and doesn't remain.”

  “Oh,” Trista said, poking out her bottom lip. “I really wanted to see inside of it and sit on that bench.”

  “There is an annual opening of the garden to the public, but I’ll have to find out when,” Patience said.

  “And the coffee shop and restaurant his friend owned? What about the Savoy where William proposed to Anna?”

  “The hotel is very real,” Patience added. “The hotel was also featured in The French Lieutenant's Woman, The Long Good Friday, Entrapment, and more, even the film National Treasure: Book of Secrets.”

  “I didn’t know that,” Koji said.

  “What about Hampstead Heath?” Trista asked.

  Patience took a turn down the road and pulled up in front of Koji’s flat. “Ah, the movie shoot is Kenwood House, Hampstead Lane, NW3, on Hampstead Heath, over in north London. The Adam Mansion, once home to Lord Mansfield, houses the Iveagh Bequest of old master paintings, and believe it or not, entry to the old house is free.”

  Trista looked at Koji with her mouth opened wide in excitement.

  “Let me get your bags and get you all settled then,” Patience said as Trista climbed out of the car. She inhaled deeply, filling her lungs with the dense London air and regretting it instantly.

  Although it was out of sorts for her to do so, she leaned towards her boss, a private man with whom she seldom conversed outside of seeing to his weekly needs for a smooth work week. “I like her, Boss,” Patience whispered.

  “Me, too,” he replied back through pressed lips.

  “She’s a lively one and a Yank,” Patience said.

  “Very lively indeed,” he said, following both women up the stairs into a home he used to love, but had come to hate. It was larger than he needed, and when he was alone, the silence inside the space was deafening. However, the instant Trista crossed the threshold, she brought in an energy unlike any he’d ever felt in the house.

  She made the flat feel like home.

  Chapter Eight – Pickled

  “THE ENERGY IN THIS place feels off,” Trista said. “It feels like something died in here,” she said, standing in the middle of the living room. Stairs led up to the second floor, but there were no photos along the stairwell. The sparse design left the room feeling cold, vacant of any emotion as if no one truly lived in the home.

  “I can fix this quick, fast, and in a hurry,” she said, pulling out her phone. She cued up a song by Post Malone, looking about for a speaker to connect it to.

  “What are your doing, Dr. Hathaway?” Patience asked.

  “Looking for a speaker,” she said as Patience pointed her to the console by the telly. “Great. Let me...press this...connect that...and voila!”

  The heavy bass filled the room with a loud energy. Trista threw up her hands and started to move her hips to the beat. She clapped several times, bouncing up and down. She pulled off the band on her hair, letting the wild unruly curls flow freely when she shook her head.

  “Come on, Kojison, move with me,” she said, reaching for him. “Patience, join in. Come get some of this funky mix.”

  Koji shrugged his shoulders and started to dance with her. She was surprised that he had some moves. “Get it. Get it. Get it,” she said, throwing fingers in the air.

  “Now freeze!” she yelled, and both Patience and Koji stopped. “Break it, get low. That’s it.”

  All three danced around the living room. “Shake those shoulders, shake’em low,” she called out. “Now rock slow with attitude. Lean back. Rock with it. That’s it. Give me some funk in a slow groove. Now freeze!”

  The song faded out, with the three of them standing in the middle of the floor, smiling.

  “Now that’s what I’m talking about! Up high, Patience,” Trista said, raising her hand for a high five. Next she went to Koji who stood still, slow to lift his arm to meet her salutatory greeting, but he did.

  “Patience,” he said, “that’s all for this morning.”

  “Sure thing, Boss,” she said, heading for the door. “Should I come back this evening to prepare you for the week?”

  “Yes, please,” he said, his eyes solely on Trista. He extended his hand, and she placed hers inside of his. Turning, he made way for the stairs, leading her up the narrow walkway to the master bedroom, a room as stark as the downstairs.

  His hands went for her top, pulling it over her head. He undressed her slowly then himself. Kisses without urgency covered her face and finally settled upon her lips. Naked, they lay in the middle of the bed while he took his time, running his hands over every inch of her body and finally settling in the juncture between her thighs. His fingers collected moisture, tasting the sweetness of her from his fingertips before moving his mouth to her breast.

  Trista moaned in delight. Koji shifted his position between her legs, connecting their bodies, slow and deliberate, in no rush for the sweet connection to end. Unlike the previous two times, he looked her square in the eyes as he moved inside of her. Their fingers interlaced as he held them over her head, his hips doing a slow, rhythmic dance.

  “Kimochīi,” he said, looking down at her.

  “It feels good to me, too,” she said, looking up at him.

  “Watashi wa anata ga hoshīdesu,” Koji whispered in her ear.

  Trista couldn’t see his facial expression to be able to understand the meaning of what he was saying. The rest of what he spoke to her, during the tempered session in love, was far more foreign to her ears. The intonation told her they were words of praise and endearment. He raised his head, initiating a fiery kiss, his mouth, tongue and lips working overtime, and then breaking away to catch his breath.

  “Watashi o anata ni shitai,” Koji spoke, as he stopped moving, the throb of his cock inside of her making her greedy.

  Trista bucked her hips several times, and the urgency building inside of her took
precedent over his question or statement. She wasn’t sure which one it was.

  “Tell me again what you want, Koji,” she encouraged as he said the words once more, this time with a guttural emotion behind them, “Watashi o anata ni shitai!”

  “Take what you want, Koji,” she replied, moving under him with fire in her eyes. “If you want it, take it. Make it yours.”

  “Anata wa watashi no monodesu, Trista!” he commanded. “I want you as my own. I want you to be mine.”

  “I’m yours, Kojison,” she replied, letting go of the hesitation which often held her back in relationships. She opened her heart in that moment and allowed everything she felt to rush into her veins, pumping out of arteries and traveling to her brain and extremities as she clung to him. The tightness in her midsection contracted and released in a gush of emotions tied to a feeling of powerlessness, yet simplified joy.

  Koji followed suit, pumping his hips with determination but again no urgency. His dark eyes bored into her as he pumped his seed inside of the love canal. Lowering his head, he kissed Trista with purpose, sealing a deal she didn’t even know she’d made.

  He didn’t roll off of her, but instead lay on top, still inside, clinging to her as if she were life itself. Trista’s stomach growled loudly, which made him chuckle a bit.

  “So much for my plans to keep you in bed all day,” he said. “I guess you have to be fed.”

  “Food would be good,” she replied, “plus you promised me breakfast.”

  “Breakfast you shall have,” he said to her, “and then would you like to go to Hampstead Heath if it’s open today?”

  “Would I ever,” she said, grinning at him, “but since it’s officially our last day together, maybe we should order in, chill out with a movie, play a game, or just talk.”

  “I cook, you talk,” he said, disengaging their bodies. It was then that Trista noticed the lack of a condom.

  “Koji, there was no condom,” she said.