Chapter 4
Hiroki
I can’t believe how beautiful this woman is.
I can’t believe my luck.
Here’s how my evening would be going if I hadn’t stayed for dinner tonight:
After visiting the pool house and preparing the surfaces for installation tomorrow, I’d make the long drive home.
I’d have a quiet meal with my mom. We’d have a discussion about her day. I’d prepare her medications, check in with her caregiver and say good night.
I’d head to my studio in the back house to work on some smaller commissions, listening to music as I worked. After a quick nighttime run, I’d take a hot shower and probably be out cold in bed by ten.
My nephew says I act like an old man. I don’t feel like one, but I suppose I’ve lived the quiet life for so long that I wouldn’t know the difference.
After years of hustle, I finally run a steady business and manage a staff of long-term employees.
I’m able to take care of my family. The bills are paid, and I can even afford to cover a vacation for all of us once a year.
Last year we went to Jamaica. After convincing my brother to let me do so, I’m helping pay for my nephew’s college tuition.
My mother’s getting older, but between her pension from the city and the money my father set aside before he passed away, she is covered.
I’m turning fifty in two weeks. My life is going well, so the birthday shouldn’t bother me, but it does.
Half a century. Jeez.
My dad was a late bloomer, but he had already been married for fifteen years by my age.
He had two school-aged sons and taught fine art at the local university.
He was such a beloved faculty member that even today, strangers approach me on the street to tell me how much of an impact he made on their lives.
I must look just like him at that age—I can’t imagine how else they’d recognize me.
Even my hair is turning gray in the same patterns that his did.
I lean forward to watch Jo. Her hair is black with a streak of white running along one side, like that character from the X-Men. Which one? The one who could steal everyone’s powers—Rogue. Yes. Jo looks like a Filipino Rogue.
She’s careful on the roller skates, taking small marching steps that send her forward a few inches at a time.
It’s a penguin-like move, but she is definitely not a penguin.
She is graceful, with long, wild hair and smooth copper tan skin.
She looks so sexy in her vintage bikini.
Somehow, when she talks, I can feel her deep, raspy voice in my own throat.
“Still standing!” she shouts to me from the court and gives me a thumbs-up.
“Looking good!” I call back. An understatement.
I always got the sense that Rowena came from money and didn’t just marry into it. Confident, relaxed, friendly but private, Rowena is in control of herself. But Jo? Jo is a wild card.
With a squeal, she loses her balance a little bit, windmilling her arms before crouching down into an emergency squat.
Wow. That is a great ass.
I jog over to her. She stands up and grabs my hand. Her cheeks are red.
“It’s a workout just to stay upright,” she says.
“I’ll help you,” I say. She grips my arm tightly and we make our way in a slow circle around the court.
I am trying to stay cool, but she smells intoxicating, like tropical flowers and coconut oil with a little bit of chlorine from the pool.
When she leans against me, I can feel the soft skin of her stomach against my forearm.
She feels so good, I’m only half listening when she asks me a question.
“What did you say?” I ask, dazed.
She smiles as if she knows the effect she’s having on me.
“How long have you been single?”
I clear my throat. I don’t have anything to hide, but sometimes even being honest feels like navigating a minefield in the dating world—it’s one of the reasons I don’t really date. “Since my last long-term relationship? About two years.”
“How long were you together?”
“On and off? About ten.”
Jo is quiet for a moment. “That’s a long time. Can I ask what happened?”
“Sure. She was in academia,” I say. “She got an opportunity to teach at a small college on the East Coast. We’d been growing apart over time, and so we decided a long-distance relationship just wouldn’t work.”
“Has there been anyone since then?”
I think about the two hookups I’ve had in the last year or so. A specialty tile supplier who was in town for a couple weeks. One of the bridesmaids during a friend’s wedding. Neither experience was objectively bad, but I felt disposable, in the end.
“Nothing serious,” I say.
“Have you ever been married?”
I shake my head.
“Do you ever think about getting married?” she asks.
“I used to,” I say. “It’s not that I don’t think about it now. It just doesn’t occupy a big part of my thinking anymore, like it did in my twenties and thirties.” I rest my hand on hers. “How about you? Would you ever get married?”
“Yes, but the person would have to be…” She trails off.
“Remarkable.”
“Remarkable,” she agrees, and her smile is brighter than the spotlights on the tennis court.
We chat and make slow laps around the court. Jo tells me about her shop. She tells me about the goods she buys on eBay straight from Japan and how most of her business is designer purses and costume jewelry.
“Hmm. What else can I talk about?” she asks.
I love my work, but often my day is about solving problems I’ve never seen before. Problems are fascinating to me. “Can you tell me about a problem you have right now?”
“Let me think.” She tells me about a group of older women who are regulars at her shop.
They are joyful and kind. They spend a lot of money, and they help keep the shop afloat.
But Jo is worried about their shopping habits and whether or not they’re being responsible with their finances.
She’s not sure how to make them feel welcome while helping them look out for their money at the same time.
“These customers aren’t wealthy,” she explains.
“They’re retired, on fixed incomes. So I try to sell them inexpensive things.
Little luxuries. And I make them tea and let them look through my new inventory.
I tell them I need their help sorting pieces.
So far this seems to keep them from spending too much. ”
“I’ve never heard of a shopkeeper who tries to keep their customers from buying stuff.”
“Just one of the personalized services I provide, I guess. And one of the many reasons my business is on shaky ground.”
As a longtime business owner, I’ve learned a lot of entrepreneurs don’t really care about anybody but themselves. Jo is very different. And as the son of a woman on a fixed income, I’m proud that she’s thinking of her customers this way.
“So I have a question for you,” I say.
“Shoot.”
I pause, because even though this sounds like a silly question, I’m totally serious. “Would you date me? Be honest.”
She smiles again. My face feels warm, like I’ve stepped out from a shadow into the sunlight. Finally, she says, “I would date you if I felt I could trust you.”
“You can trust me.”
“Can I really?”
“That’s for you and your demons to decide. And maybe Google.”
“Ah, yes. A Google search. How do you say your name again? Hitoshi? Hideki?” She laughs. “Why didn’t you correct my brother-in-law when he mispronounced your name?”
“Your sister is the one who pays me. So I don’t really care what your brother-in-law calls me.”
With another laugh, she lets go of my hand.
“Let’s see if I can do this on my own,” she says.
I stand in place and watch her as she rolls away, taking bigger and bigger strides forward.
She gains a little speed. Her long hair trails behind her.
In her bikini and roller skates, she looks like my first wet dreams come to life.
When she presses her thighs together, hard, to make herself stop, I realize I am staring at her with my mouth open. I close it and stand up straight.
With a little victory cheer for herself, she skates back to me.
“Not bad, right?” she says, breathlessly.
In that moment, her skate catches a seam in the pavement. Out of surprise, she stiffens and falls backward. Her skull hits the clay court with a loud crack.