CHAPTER 58 – Hotaru no Hikari (2)

December 28

Kuromon-san had returned to work, and Eppie was his first customer in the Sony Building. After that, Curon showed her the operations while introducing her as the writer of Umbrella. Regardless of whether she lucked out or had true talent, she had made the company money, and everyone she met was very accommodating as a result.

Then, Eppie was in heaven because she finally got to meet the faces behind the music on Eric’s iPod.

The first to greet her at the Sony Club’s end-of-year Artist Reception, AKA “The Annual”, was the lady at the heart of her Gala disruption, the forever charming Lucia Lancet. Wearing a skin-tight cocktail dress, the untouchable young lady of Sony crossed the floor with a confidence few carried, not even the actual No.1.

They shook hands, exchanged cheek kisses, and Lancet handed over a few signed photos from her aide when Eppie asked, with personalised messages for Renee and Cora.

“Next time, call me first when you have a song,” Lucia said, holding onto the photos a little tighter until Eppie promised.

Immediately after, Kellie Noah, once more in her bodacious diva persona, came to defend her territory by pushing into Eppie’s personal space with her pushups. Taking photos, giving her autographs, even offering to call this “Cora” Eppie mentioned. The whole time, her boyfriend kept a hand on Kellie’s waist while sizing her up.

I should arm wrestle the guy… the thought came to Eppie. There was a pretty good chance, she felt, that she would trash his ass in front of everyone that mattered in the boy’s life.

The next celeb she met was a tired-looking blonde called Candice Leah. She was one of Davis’ survivors, famous for dominating the early 2000s with biannual No.1s, only to crash and burn, ending up in rehab. Nonetheless, her fame and household nostalgia were such that Davis kept her around, throwing her hits now and then, though she would never again see the success she had in her teenage years.

It took Eppie five minutes of listening to her rambles to realise that this was the girl. It was Britney. She was the quintessential schoolgirl dream, selling a forbidden desire that enthralled Americans for half a generation.

Now, she was here, wearing a velour hoodie in pink, talking to a kid from LAPA.

The young lady’s eyes looked like they hadn’t slept in weeks.

“You’re so little,” Candice giggled in an entirely age-inappropriate manner. “You look like a little light. Can I pet you?”

Eppie didn’t know how to respond, because what else was there to say? It wasn’t as though she could ask how high are you right now? in the middle of an artists’ gathering. Or could she?

Candice gave her a kiss that was a little too wet on the cheeks, then wandered off, followed by a handler, leaving her to wonder if there was anything to be done.

A little while later, Eppie finally met one of her idols, the Bronx Queen, Katrisha, a lady with the aura and presence of stormy weather. Katrisha was Sony’s multi-platinum evergreen, the lady who managed to be in the Top 10 whenever the vibe was right to make a song. She was, at one stage, married to PayZEE, though the two had since amicably separated. For a lady in her early thirties, Katrisha carried the room better than anyone with her statuesque figure and a body line that put Lucia and Kellie to shame.

“My favourite,” the lady confided to her over a glass of something pink. “Is Starry Night.”

Once Sony’s monarch and mistress lost interest in Eppie, she was met by a young man who introduced himself as Nathaniel Ellake. He was Candice’s contemporary, having both served their time in the House of Mouse. Unlike Candice’s fading star power, the boyish singer and actor was enjoying a bit of a renaissance, with two back-to-back hits in the top 5.

“Love your work,” he said, shaking her hand. “Man, theatre. You know, if it weren’t for this biz, I would be in theatre too.”

“Never too late…” Eppie rather liked the affable young man, at least what she’d seen of him so far. “What’s your plan for the future?”

“Gonna see if it’s possible to jump to Sony Pictures,” he said with a smile. “That was actually my main gig, back at Disney, did you know?”

She did not. But she gave him her best anyway.

“EPPIE!” The man who interrupted them was none other than the coolest cat in all of Sony, the ineffable Mr Antonio in his snakeskin boots and his evil goatee. The two hugged, embracing tightly for old times’ sake.

“Mi fantasma,” he said. He put both hands on her shoulders the way Latin Americans did when words were too formal. “Still playing the guitar?”

“I killed it,” she said. “During the Gala.”

“Good, good,” He winked at her. “I’ll see you again soon, eh? We have a song to make in January.”

“I can’t wait,” Eppie confessed readily. There really was nothing like having Antonio play the bass guitar lines with Chad Lain’s guitar. When they record In the Pines with Zara, it would bring the house down with tears.

Perhaps drawn to the karma of her thoughts, the last Sony aristocrat she met for the night introduced himself not by his own band, but by Chad Lain’s Human Animals. She had not recognised the drummer-turned lead singer at first because he wore a turtleneck that had nothing to do with his grunge-soul persona.

Eric Gowler, in his natural habitat, was a front man who lived in the perpetual shadow of a legend whose suicide meant he could never be surpassed. Eppie adored his songs, the soulfulness of it, the energy, the pain—but she could see in the way he spoke that there was a fear—the fear that Eppie saw him as Lain’s drummer, and not himself.

They spoke for almost twenty minutes on the songs and artists they loved. The whole time, Eppie avoided any and all questions about Lain, even though that was her sole and singular interest. They agreed on Glam, but disagreed on Metal, particularly Nu Metal.

“I heard a live recording of In the Pines,” Gowler said before he left. “I think Lain would have loved it.”

Eppie agreed.

Curon came to pick her up at 6 PM. There was an after-party, her father told her, but… that was no place for little girls.

December 29

Kiritani-sensei was on his usual bench when she arrived.

He handed her a katsudon, just the regular size.
Then he pulled out a stack of cut cardboard, and began to draw.

The manager-san, he said, had the kitchen cut up their ingredient boxes for him.

He told her that each day, he returned to the park to feed the cats. He had disposable cash now, for the first time since he was incarcerated. Her serious sensei had purchased his collection on the Met’s behalf, using the Vaughan Arts Foundation Trust. For the first time in Henry’s life, he had a bank card and a balance, though his only purchases thus far had been cat food, pens, and katsudon.

His Four Season room had also been rebooked under her sensei. Director Curon had his credit card charge reversed because Vaughan did not owe favours she could readily repay.

Eppie sat beside her artist and ate the lukewarm cutlet while he sketched the cats with cheap biros, speaking softly to himself, to the park, to the girl eating katsudon.

He told her about a boy from the camp.
His name was Tanaka.
He was six years old when he arrived at Tule Lake. The kid had a way of appearing next to Kiritani during Henry’s afternoon drawing sessions. Kiritani taught him how to draw cats, so he drew cats. The boy was god damn terrible, but he was confident, and confidence had a quality all on its own. By the third month, he was drawing both cats and dinosaurs, then the dinosaurs waged a war against the cats. At four months, he was drawing his mother’s face from memory because the commander had moved her to a different block, and he could only see his mother on Sundays.

Kiritani’s hands stopped.
He passed her a new cat sketch.
TANAKA. EATING KATSUDON WITH EPPIE. 2007.

Kiritani took out another piece of cardboard. He caressed the bleached surface, as if trying to picture a face.

“Tanaka no okāsan.” He smoothed the edge of it with his thumb. “She died in the other camp. Tuberculosis outbreak.”

He stroked a cat that leapt onto his lap. As always, it was Kimi.

“Chichi-oya wa… ichinen go ni.” The father. One year later. “Suicide.”

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

“He was a NO-NO-BOY. Like me,” Kiritani stroked the vengeful Kimi, who made direct and challenging eye contact with Eppie.

“He was a pacifist, a farmer…” Kiritani massaged Kimi’s ears. “What saying no meant. For his wife. For his child. He didn’t know.”

“The families who said hai—” Kiritani’s fingers made Kimi purr like thunder. “Better conditions. They stayed together.”

He said nothing for a moment.

“His father could not bear the guilt.”

“What happened to Tanaka?” Eppie held her new cat piece. It was worth something now, and it would be worth much more when Vaughan could arrange an exhibition, but none of that held any meaning in this moment.

“He was adopted by another family,” Kiritani allowed Kimi to leave. The cat flashed Eppie her butthole, then slinked back into the bushes. “I don’t know after that.”

“Thanks for the katsudon,” Eppie sealed the soiled chopsticks in the empty bowl. There was nothing more to be said, but maybe there was something to be done.

It was a long shot, but Eppie suddenly had an idea.

December 30

Sony Club.
Kuromon-san’s secret sushi bar.

Sony’s presiding CEO was less flashy than in Eppie’s memory.

He was still the silver fox, and she still liked him—or at least her [Business Acumen] and [Prophet of Profits] did, but after hearing all the stories from Curon and seeing Candice first-hand, the man’s mythology was starting to lose its shine.

Almost four months after their first meeting, they were once more eating at the bar where he had told her that she was lucky to even taste one of Kuromon-san’s egg rolls.

“I must admit that I was wrong,” David bowed his head half an inch, speaking in the way of folk who loathed admitting that they had miscalculated. “You have changed a lot, Eppie-san.”