by Vivian Wood
“No, no,” he said. Looking at Charles now, Smith would definitely have known that he came from money. He wouldn’t have thought that Charles once towered over him, though.
He remembered meeting Charles at a very young age, at a park in London. Smith had been with his grandfather, who he remembered as looking very similar to Charles, but taller. Charles had walked a spaniel of some sort, a beautiful golden beast.
He had the most fleeting memory of the meeting, but he held it close.
“Let’s sit then, shall we?” Charles said, turning and moving toward the couches.
Charles took a seat at one end of a couch, so Smith took the other end. It took Charles some minutes to settle in and put his cane aside, but Smith didn’t mind.
“Now then! Let’s have a look at you,” Charles said, digging a pair of glasses out of his jacket pocket. “Ah! You look well.”
“I feel it,” Smith said. “I’m in town on business, actually.”
“So you’ve finally given… what was it, the Special Air Service, the boot? Your grandfather would be so proud to know that you’re running the family business these days.”
“Well, I’m working under my father.”
“Yes, well,” Charles said, making a pointed expression. “Not to speak ill of the chap, but your grandfather intended the business to go to you.”
Smith shrugged. “Que sera, sera.”
“Of that I have no doubt,” Charles chuckled. “I simply mean to say that if your grandfather had not died so young, he would’ve held the reins until you were ready. Spencer really never had a good mind for business.”
Smith smiled and shrugged. “Maybe.”
“I assume the business is running smoothly?”
Smith hesitated. “Smoothly enough. There is some missing money at the moment, but I suppose that’s just the way of things.”
“Indeed. Nothing goes perfectly forever. You just keep an eye on it, a razor-sharp eye.”
Smith nodded. He glanced out the window onto the morning traffic.
“Quite a view you’ve got here.”
“Ah! Yes, isn’t it? I thought the real estate firm was mad when they suggested it, back in the nineties. But they were right, the address has become quite elite. Close to Akasaka, the business district. That’s all I care about.”
“I’m sure it’s several times more valuable than when you bought it, too.”
“You know, I have a lot of time to think. That’s what getting old means, these days: time to think.”
“You must be very wise, then,” Smith said jokingly.
“Quite the opposite,” Charles said gravely. “I have so much, and yet no one to give it to. You see, I never fell in love. I lived all these years, telling myself I was too busy, love was not important.”
“Oh, come on. You got to travel the globe! You sold your business for upward of a billion dollars. You retired here,” Smith said, waving his hand toward the window.
“And yet, I am alone.”
“You could have whoever you wanted here.”
“I could pay to have them here, yes. But there are very few people that would stay, not expecting remuneration once I pass. No, I have lived my life for ninety-six years, doing what I wanted. I wish now that I had made time for love.”
Smith was surprised. “Love?”
“Yes. The older I get, and I’m about as old as they come, the more I realize that the sun rises and sets for those that are in love. It’s the only thing that makes the earth keep turning.”
“That’s poetic, at least.”
Charles looked at Smith sternly.
“Tell me that you love someone. Or care about them, at the very least?”
Smith smiled, and Charles grabbed on to it before he could respond.
“Ah! I knew there would be someone for you. You’re much wiser than I was at your age,” Charles said, patting the couch. “Well done.”
Smith felt himself growing red.
“It’s… it’s not a big thing,” he said.
“Well, of course it is! Listen. When I was young, younger than you, there was a girl that caught my eye. And I caught hers, I think. But I thought, what if something better comes along? What if someone I fancy more is around the corner? So I didn’t take my shot, and the girl married someone else. I think if I had realized then that I would still be alive and kicking at ninety-six, I would have proposed, rather than live with regret.”
Charles wheezed after such a long speech, fanning himself. He coughed a few times, his elderly frame shaking.
“Can I get you something? Should I call for someone?” Smith asked.
“No, no. There’s nothing you or anyone else can fix,” Charles said. “I just got a little worked up.”
Charles sat back with a sigh.
“Well, anything I can do…” Smith said.
“Just think on what I said,” Charles said. “Now, how about a cup of tea?”
Smith acquiesced, glad he hadn’t caused Charles to have a lapse in health. What the older man said stuck in Smith’s head, though.
I would have proposed, rather than live with regret.
It was certainly worth thinking about.
23
Cam was pleasantly full as she and Smith stepped out of the restaurant. The sky above was darkening, the clouds heavy with rain, but Cam couldn’t complain.
After all, she was walking the streets of Tokyo with Smith. He seemed to be in a good mood, insisting on stopping at any shop that caught her eye, buying anything and everything that she fancied, and sending it back to the hotel.
Mostly she was just wide-eyed, staring at the colorful array of signs covering everything, declaring what they sold in Japanese. Cam didn’t speak a single word of Japanese, but thus far she’d met only locals that spoke English, too.
They’d just had dinner at some fancy place, stuffing themselves with sushi until Cam complained that she was going to burst.
“Where should we go?” Smith asked.
She looked at him, with his trademark dark shirt, dark pants, and black leather jacket. She liked how they looked together. She wore a short green dress, but her new leather jacket was dark like his.
“Hmmm. How about we go somewhere special?” he asked.
“Special?”
“Yeah. There’s a reason we came all the way to this side of Tokyo to eat. Come on.”
He took her by the hand, walking down the street. A few blocks of high-rise buildings and neon signs later, she turned the corner. She saw a high wall of gray stonework, covered in ivy.
“That’s interesting,” she said, pointing at the wall. The wall was huge, probably most of the block.
“That’s where we’re going,” he said.
“What?” she said with a laugh. “To the wall?”
“No, we’re going around the corner to the entrance, and then we’re going inside.”
She shut her mouth and let him lead the way. She soon discovered that there were in fact four walls, though what they protected remained mysterious.
They rounded the corner, spotting the entrance, almost hidden by ivy. The entrance was a huge set of double doors, set back a bit. Smith pushed the ivy aside and opened the door, ushering her in.
When Cam stepped inside, the whole world before her seemed to transform. The skyscrapers were still all around them, but within the walls was a lush, green garden done in traditional Japanese style.
A beautiful tea house sat on a hill on the far left, with ponds, sculptures, and a wide array of flowers at its feet. An Asian man in an all-black suit stood, waiting.
“Mr. Calloway?” he said to Smith.
“That’s me,” Smith said.
“Enjoy,” he said, bowing slightly.
Smith looked to Cam. She was having trouble closing her jaw.
“Well?” Smith said.
“I— Smith, it’s amazing! You rented this out?” she asked, marveling.
“Actually, you can’t rent it. You have to know
someone,” he said. “Luckily, I do.”
“Oh my god,” she said, shaking her head.
“Shall we?”
He offered his arm, and she took it. They strolled the gardens, making note of the different kinds of flowers, of the swans and ducks, of the carefully manicured greenery. They moved along paths made of tiny white pebbles, on raised daises of dark Japanese wood.
“Oh, look!” Cam said, drawing him over to an overhang made from lilac and cherry blossom petals. “They must make this every couple of days, to keep it fresh.”
He smiled, taking everything in without saying much.
“What?” she asked.
“Just… I’m enjoying your enjoyment,” he said.
She stepped closer, her hand on the back of his neck, pulling him down for a kiss. It was perhaps the thousandth or the two thousandth kiss they had shared since they’d arrived in Tokyo, Cam thought, but it was like a breath of fresh air.
Now that she thought about it, pulling back from the kiss, all of their kisses were refreshing. She had yet to feel that one was boring, anyhow.
She opened her mouth to say as much, but a couple of cherry blossoms drifted down. She looked up, and realized it was about to pour.
“Rain,” she said, wrinkling her nose.
“We could make a run for it,” he said, pointing. “To the tea house.”
“Okay! Hurry, hurry!” she said.
As they sprinted across the garden, the sky opened up. Cam shrieked a bit as they ran. They were both soaked by the time they reached the tea house. Cam’s dress was plastered against her skin.
“Oh my god,” she said as they stopped beneath the porch, gasping for breath. “I didn’t know—”
Her words were lost, though, because Smith kissed her. The familiar wave of longing crept up, of wanting someone she had — for now. Once he found out about her, though…
She pushed that thought away. She kissed him back desperately, her hands clutching at his jacket. He gentled the kiss, cupping her cheek, before pulling back and resting his forehead against hers.
They just stood there, quiet, for a long time. She had no idea what was going on inside his head. All she could think was that he was going to break things off; otherwise why was he rejecting her kisses?
Whenever she found something that felt as good as kissing him did, life found a way to take it back. She and Smith had been going at it every chance they had for weeks now. She had the feeling that life wanted to take him away, ruin her happiness soon.
She didn’t want to be the one that was disappointed. She wanted to be on the same page as he was. So she would have to take a shot in the dark, try to think like Smith might be.
The rain stopped as suddenly as it had started.
“We should get back to the hotel,” she said, shoulders sagging.
“Really?” he asked, looking at her. “I was thinking that we have one more stop to make.”
Her brows rose. “What? Where?”
“It’s a surprise,” he said, flashing that smile that made her knees weak. “Let’s go.”
They walked out of the garden, back to the city streets of Tokyo. Cam was quiet as Smith hailed a cab, riding along, lost in thought. When they arrived, Cam and Smith got out in a grungy, industrial area. It was all cement warehouses and piles of broken pallets.
An extreme-looking punk rocker walked by, his hair in a purple leopard print Mohawk, his face covered in piercings. He wore pink leather pants that were skintight, and a t-shirt that said The Kinks.
“Reminds me of home,” she said with a small smile. “You know, if I spoke Japanese.”
“Yeah?” he said, smiling. “Well, I think we’re going to the same place he’s going.”
Looking around at the unmarked warehouses, she followed the punk kid to a seemingly random door. The kid didn’t seem surprised or alarmed that they were going to the same place, and when he pounded on the door, Cam found out why.
The door opened to admit them. Cam heard loud punk rock music playing. She got a step closer and saw blue lights flashing over a crowd of a couple hundred people, all dressed in mind-boggling displays of punk rock chic.
She looked up at Smith, who flashed his dimples.
“Go in,” he urged.
She went inside, in awe of not just the people, but the space. It was an abandoned, cleaned out factory floor, with a stage built at one end. Everywhere she looked there was something to see.
A girl with long mauve hair wearing what looked like caution tape over her breasts. A guy on stage dressed like an extra from The Matrix, twirling chains with fire on the ends. A tall, androgynous person wearing a lab coat and underwear, dancing on top of the pile of pallets that appeared to be a bar.
The two bartenders paid the dancer no mind, serving drinks atop the crumbling pile of pallets, nodding their heads to the beat of the music.
“Drink?” Smith said in her ear.
She shivered at his closeness and nodded. He took her by the hand and led her to the bar. While she looked around, he ordered drinks.
“Whiskey, on the rocks,” he said, sliding her drink over.
She saw that he had the same drink as her, and smiled. She opened her mouth to say something, maybe to tell him how much she liked him, but the lights dimmed.
She turned toward the stage. The crowd started going crazy, cheering and screaming. The band came out, and Cameron couldn’t help but notice that the lead singer had green hair, pulled out into spikes all over his head.
The band launched into a song in English, and something clicked. Cam looked at Smith.
“Is this the band from the first night we were together?” she yelled into his ear.
“Yep!” he yelled back.
Cam was overcome with emotion. She didn’t know if they just happened to be on tour here, or if he’d brought the band here on purpose… he certainly had the money to do that.
Right now, though, she stared up at him with awe. He wasn’t looking at her, he was looking at the stage and sipping his whiskey. But her heart felt suddenly full.
She was falling in love. Oh god, but it was true… She was stupidly in love with the man before her.
He looked back at her with a grin. She pulled him down for a kiss, and he complied, tasting of whiskey.
She knew there were problems. She knew she couldn’t be in love with Smith Calloway.
But those were problems for another time. Right now, all that existed was this moment, this man.
Everything else faded away.
24
While Cameron was still sleeping, Smith slipped out of the hotel room. After the day they’d had together yesterday, he and Cameron had come back to the hotel and had a night of passionate sex.
She'd let him blindfold her, trusting him to take control of her pleasure. He couldn’t wipe the grin off his face when he thought about how she’d moaned and begged him to let her cum.
He took her in every conceivable position, taking his time. Before all was said and done, she was hoarse from screaming his name. He left her in the early hours of the morning, the sun just coming in through the windows and falling on her as she slept.
Smith wouldn’t have left her, but he had it in his mind to get something to mark the occasion. A physical reminder that they had spent the week in Tokyo, something to mark the time by once—
Once we’re through, said a small voice in the back of his head.
He shook his head, unwilling to think about it. He frowned as he walked down the street, the address of his destination in mind. He almost passed it, but for the street number.
It was a plain-looking building, no shiny display window like most places would have showcased. He approached the front door, and saw a single white button attached to the intercom to the right of the doorway. He pressed it.
“Konnichiwa,” a pleasant female voice said.
“I’m here to see Mr. Liu,” he said, leaning down close to the intercom.
“Please step back
so that our camera may take you in.”
He stepped back and looked up. Sure enough, a small camera recorded his every move. He must have passed muster, because a few seconds later the locks buzzed.
Smith headed inside, through another security door, and then entered the real jewelry store. The place was odd, the walls lined with boring metal drawers and only one place for displaying jewelry, a plain counter right in the middle of the store.
There were two large security guards on each side of the store, just standing there. A man entered through the only other entrance, looking harried.
“I am Mr. Liu,” he said, executing a perfunctory bow.
“Hi Mr. Liu. I’m Smith Calloway,” Smith said, returning the bow. “Thank you for seeing me.”
“Of course. Can you tell me what you would like to see?” he said in halting English.
“Something for a young woman. Perhaps a necklace?”
“What type of stone?”
“Sapphire,” he said, thinking of the color of Cameron’s eyes.
“Please wait,” Mr. Liu said, indicating the counter.
Mr. Liu opened several drawers, and brought a few trays over to the counter. Each tray was loaded with sapphire jewelry, arranged by style. When Smith was given the go-ahead to look, his gaze tripped over a sapphire ring. Elegant and simple, it made him think of Cameron.
You’re not shopping for rings, he reminded himself. No matter what Charles says, marriage is far in the future. This is just… a gift for right now.
He wasn’t so sure that was true, but it was easier to ignore the thought at the moment.
He moved on, his eyes landing on a beautiful pendant necklace. The metal was rose gold, and the pendant a delicate orb of sapphire.
“This one,” Smith said, lifting it. “The coloring reminds me of her.”
“Very good, sir,” Mr. Liu said, lifting it from the tray. “Would you like it wrapped?”
“Yes, please.” He opened his wallet and gave Mr. Liu his credit card. “Put it on the card, please.”
“Very good, sir.”
