“Yeah, ya did, but when we broke up, I gave ’em back like you asked. You seriously don’t remember? Unbelievable.”
“Doesn’t ring any bells. I probably threw them out.”
That was a lie. Aguri hadn’t looked at them in years, but they were still stowed away in a cardboard box in a storage unit. She kept the best of their correspondences bundled together.
“I never expected you’d get so famous. It’s all about talent these days, y’know. Can’t get rich without talent.”
Yoshioka went to take a sip of the tea Aguri had made, but it must have been too hot, because he placed his cup back on the table.
The sound of children’s footsteps and voices suddenly got louder before fading into the distance, since the apartment building’s exterior passageway was right outside the window.
Yoshioka lowered his voice. “You, uh, got anyone here with ya? Or you live alone?”
“Just me.”
“Still single?”
“Still single.”
Yoshioka’s eyes anxiously wandered behind his glasses. “…Seriously?”
“I’m married to my job… Ha-ha-ha.”
Aguri giggled after remembering a conversation she’d had with the building’s super on the first floor. Yoshioka was going to come over at two o’clock, so she went to go buy some flowers before he arrived. She figured she could at least decorate the place and show Yoshioka the living room, since she wasn’t going to be entertaining him with food and drink. Her living room had a balcony facing the mountains, and Aguri had some of her favorite furniture there: a fluffy, white rug, a cabriole-legged couch with sky-blue satin upholstery, and a dark-green onyx table.
On the table was a white coffee cup, and tossed over the couch was a dark-navy negligee made of silk. One side of the room, where Aguri did her work, was cluttered with stacks of scripts and rough drafts, although she could hide all that by closing the accordion door.
Yoshioka’s voice over the phone brought back so many fond memories that Aguri decided to catch up with him in the living room. She never brought anyone from work there.
When she returned to her apartment complex after buying flowers, she found the building’s super waiting for her.
“Some strange man stopped by to see you,” the woman explained. “He said he was a little early and you weren’t home, so he asked if I could let him inside so he could wait there.”
“What happened after that?”
“I told him I don’t keep a master key anymore, so I can’t let him in.”
“Did he go home?”
“No, he said he was going to take a walk around the block and come back, but he kept asking these weird questions before he left. ‘Is she married?’ ‘Does she live alone?’ ‘Does she have any kids?’ ‘Her last name is Takao, right?’ It freaked me out. I thought he was a thief scoping places to rob, so I just kept telling him, ‘I don’t know.’ ”
Aguri immediately knew it was Yoshioka. He had a bad habit of asking innocent yet prying questions whenever he wanted to know something. He could be really persistent.
Aguri quickly changed her mind about bringing Yoshioka into her living room. All of this had reminded her that she hadn’t seen him in seven years and that he was an enigma to her now. Why go through all that trouble? she figured.
She ended up putting just a few lilies and carnations in the gloomy drawing room, then she closed the divider between it and the living room.
Yoshioka must not have been satisfied with the super’s answers, because he peppered Aguri with further questions.
“You’re still single? Seriously?”
“I don’t have time for a man. I’ve got work to do.”
That response seemed to finally convince him.
“Makes sense… Been seein’ your name everywhere these last two, three years, after all. You wrote a novel a little while ago, yeah? Haven’t read it yet, though… What made ya start writing this much anyway? You got a good hand on ya.”
“Got a good hand on ya” was Yoshioka’s cute way of saying she was a talented writer.
Aguri had always wanted to write, ever since she was in high school. She’d gone to junior college—more like finishing school—but then attended screenwriting lectures after she started working. She even went to a comedy writing workshop and was eventually approached by the lecturer:
“You write the funniest dialogue. How about learning how to write for TV?”
For some reason, Aguri had good intuition, not so much talent. It probably had to do with how she was raised. Both of her parents had strong personalities—a little too strong, which was why they were always at each other’s throats. Growing up with two angry adults in constant conflict made Aguri learn to keep her distance from others. Perhaps that was what led to her desire to write. The downfall of her relationship with Yoshioka had also pushed her to take a crack at screenwriting. Her run of good luck was tenuous at first, but eventually, her scripts turned a profit. One series in particular got popular enough for a publishing company to approach Aguri about a book deal. When she gave it a try, the result was even better than she’d imagined. After that, she found that she could take material too difficult to adapt for television and turn it into essays and novels. Some people told Aguri that she’d finally hit her stride, although she didn’t feel that way herself. She secretly chalked it all up to her good intuition. Eager to strike while the iron was still hot, Aguri wanted to further hone her skills. She never once let her guard down, because she knew that doing so could be a death sentence in her line of work. It was feast or famine.
She felt like she was walking across a tightrope. Not that she would ever reveal as much to Yoshioka, however.
“I just got lucky. That’s all,” she insisted.
“I dunno about that.”
“How’d you get my number anyway?”
“I called a newspaper company.”
“Oh…”
“C’mon, you’ve gotta be making bank, living in a huge apartment like this. You got a vacation house, too?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Oh, it’s just that when I saw you in that one magazine, you were in this beautiful room with a view of the mountains, drinking coffee or somethin’. Real luxurious. I was like, ‘Man, she’s living the high life.’ ”
“That’s the room in the back. It’s far from luxurious, though…”
Sure, there was a silk gown, a cabriole sofa, and a white coffee cup, and the view from the living room was just as beautiful as it looked in that women’s fashion magazine. But Aguri never had the time to actually sit there in that gown and enjoy herself. The view was a pleasing visual no different from looking at pictures in a magazine.
Aguri worked day and night at her desk, and once she got tired, she’d collapse onto the perpetually unmade bed next to it. She fell asleep wearing the same clothes she worked in more often than not, which was why she wore a baggy cotton dress almost year-round. For food, she’d stop by the café on the first floor of her apartment complex, where she had a tab. She hardly even had the time to be disappointed about that anymore.
Aguri sat on her cabriole sofa drinking coffee in a nice, long dress only when magazine companies sent photographers to her place for pictures. Of course anyone who saw those photos would think she lived a luxurious life.
She didn’t have a man she could complain to about her struggles. Nor would she ever talk to any of the male actors she occasionally met about something so personal. She’d once opened up to her TV network ex, figuring he’d empathize since he was also in the industry, but his reaction was unexpectedly cold.