“Now I get proposed to by men like these who are looking for money for different reasons. Like I would ever.”
Here we are, a room full of heiresses of different ages. Well, I don’t know how old Junri is. I have a feeling she is solidly in her thirties, which would make her a little older than me, but she doesn’t look old enough to sprout gray hairs yet. Hm. Maybe she’s the same age as me. I’ll have to snoop later if I remember.
“I would love to get married to my partner,” she says. “Except it’s difficult.”
Fujiko levels her gaze on her niece’s face. Is that a look of caution? Damn. Maybe Junri is involved with someone below the family’s standing. Even someone like Fujiko isn’t going to approve of a marriage to someone not of the proper breeding. Fooling around? Perfectly acceptable! I know her type of older woman all too well. My mother would have been that type if she didn’t have a mental breakdown when I was younger.
I’m having one of those moments where I’m grateful that my boyfriend happens to be acceptable. He’s so acceptable that I’m sure our fathers would have arranged a marriage between us hundreds of years ago.
Not every heiress is so lucky. Already I’m cooking up stories on Junri’s behalf. Dumped a fiancé who was considered acceptable? Now in a relationship with someone who was tolerated but not expected to join the family? I could see it. I don’t want to make assumptions, but I have a feeling even the most liberal of Japan’s elite business families are still more conservative than American families I know.
“In a perfect world,” Fujiko begins once we all have our final rounds of drinks, “would you marry your boyfriend?”
“In a perfect world that doesn’t exist?” I hold up my glass for another toast. “I would have married him the moment I realized I was in love with him.” That’s the truth.
I said that this would be my final drink of the night, but I’m soon proven wrong. My sentimentality toward Ian has me downing one after the other, loosening up enough until I stop thinking about marriage and what it means for someone like me. It already haunts me every night as I drift off to sleep as it is.
Everyone is drinking. Fujiko, Junri, the hosts who now set their sights on Fujiko’s drunk ass in the hopes she’ll buy more of their services that night. Not me. The only time I touch those guys tonight is when they practically carry me down to the cab that takes me back to the hotel with the other ladies. Fujiko’s stumbling about the lobby of her hotel, yelling at her staff to help our drunken asses up to our rooms. Once I’m in my dark room, I check my phone for a message from Ian. Where the hell is he? I wanna cuddle. I hope he’s not as drunk as I am.
So many messages. Are they even in English?
“Baaabyyy.” He never calls me that! He must be drunk. “I don’t feel goooxmkjmwekltz.”
Someone’s learning German. Or Greek. Either way, I’m passed out on the bed for the next twelve hours.
Chapter 4
KATHRYN
I wake up with a splitting headache. God, I am getting too old for this shit. Ten years ago I would drink twice as much and only have half the hangover. When will I learn that I can’t act like I’m twenty-one anymore? Turning thirty has been the biggest wake-up call in that regard.
Ian isn’t with me. At first I’m confused, until I remember I didn’t see him last night. Then I remember he changed rooms to mine so we could be together, so where the hell is he? I don’t want to suffer from a hangover alone. Doesn’t he have one too?
Every ray of sunlight streaming through the hotel room windows are like another pick to my forehead. What’s a hangover cure in Japan? How do I call the front desk to have one delivered to me? Then again, the most effective hangover cure I could have right now is my boyfriend (suffering alongside me or not) and he’s not anywhere to be seen around here.
My phone is in my purse, which rests in the middle of the floor. I pick it up, expecting to find a text from Ian. All I see is the one from last night that says he doesn’t feel good.
“Are you okay? I have a fuckin’ hangover from hell.” I leave my phone on the table as I stumble into the bathroom to take a shower.
We have plans to run around Tokyo today. I want to go shopping here in the Shibuya neighborhood, and Ian said something about taking a walk in the Imperial Gardens before they close. Not sure how I feel about that walk right now. Maybe I can talk him out of it when he gets back to me. I want to keep things indoors today.
Whenever he gets back to me. If he’s also hungover, it may be another hour or so before I hear from him.