Jade and I met up in Ginza early last Sunday. I'd just received my first hardcover copy of my book from my publisher, and I wanted to show Jade before we were scheduled to meet Mari and Isabelle. And if I could muster enough courage, I'd show the book to my other former co-workers at some point during the course of the day.
The mere thought of showing them my book scared me to death. Yet the other option- hoping that they'd never find out about it- was becoming less and less plausible.
"The Japanese subtitle is really cool," Jade said, pointing to the cover of the book which read: 夜に咲く花.
"You should know," I assumed she was joking with me "you wrote it."
"I wrote it?" she is not kidding after all, "me?"
"When I first ran the cover art by you last year," I said, "don't you remember?"
Jade had agreed with me that literal translation of "bar flower" (酒場華) looked a bit awkward and suggested I ask them to change it to something that was less literal but might actually make sense to a Japanese person, that is, 夜に咲く花 (yoru ni saku hana): flower that blooms at night.
"Wow," she said, hardly fazed by what she'd forgotten, "I'm so awesome!"
Jade is the first to admit that her memory is highly selective and basically sucks. I often envy such a memory, as I envision that my life would be far less painful without the recurring and vivid recollections of a past that I'd rather forget. But at the same time, people need to remember how much the past hurts in order not to repeat it. Case in point: Jade is still hostessing.
After I put the book away, she and I started to chat about how weird it was going to be to see Mari again after all this time. I wondered aloud whether we shouldn't be a little frightened. Jade and I have discussed this woman extensively throughout the course of our bestfriendship, and we both admit that we were scared to death of Mari for at least the first few weeks we were working below her. Mari seemed to have an off switch, which she used to shut herself off emotionally on most nights of the week. It was her seemingly frozen countenance that scared us the most during those first weeks.
In that way as well, Mari was the complete antithesis of Destiny. When Destiny hires you to work for her, she gives you a speech about how she is your 'big sister' now and you can turn to her whenever you have a problem. And then, slowly but surely, Destiny reveals herself to be the devil incarnate. On the other hand, it takes some time to realize that Mama Mari's seeming lack of emotion is a survival mechanism in the world of bar hostessing, since she's actually quite warm-hearted at her core.
First Isabelle arrived, then Mari. Mari was ravishing as ever, if surprisingly short in her moderately flat shoes. The Mama Mari in my memory (and in my memoir, consequently) towers over me in her stilettos. Yet without her heels, Mari is five foot four.
Mari and I embraced. She gripped my shoulders with her hands and studied my face.
Lea ga kawaranai ne, she said. Lea, you haven't changed at all.
Among bar girls who are growing older by the minute, this is one of the highest complements you can give someone: you haven't changed at all. It means that you have not yet begun to wither.
Luckily for me, Mari was wrong.
(to be continued)
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