CHAPTER 58 – Hotaru no Hikari

December 26.

Despite the lack of Boxing Day, the day after Christmas brought window shoppers and customers alike onto Fifth Avenue to work off overlarge dinners.

Eppie dressed and ate breakfast in her room because her adopted father had said he would show her around the city and set a few things straight before she returned to LA for six months.

Curon arrived at her door at 9 AM with the sweetest Caramel Latte she had ever tasted.

She drank it anyway, because she could only imagine the looks the man received, having to squeeze his Lincoln Continental through the drive-through. Kiritani-san had gone somewhere with Juliana, likely relating to his citizenship issues. As an institutional figure, Eppie figured Vaughan would tap the JACL, her contacts at the State Department, or perhaps the administration itself. Ironically, a man who would absolutely Stan for Kiritani was still doing a local tour called “Stand for Change.” Without the galvanising power of Bush’s war and the incoming financial bloodbath that is the GFC, the junior Senator from Illinois was still an unknown to the rest of America.

In deep thought, she followed her adopted father, once more wearing head-to-toe brands, mismatched with an effort that bordered on fashion irony, then snapped back to reality when they entered the iconic lobby of Saks on Fifth. Her old haunt.

At 10 AM on the 26th, Saks was best described as a shit show. The returns queue stretched past the ground-floor cosmetics counters. The length of the line was a metaphor for the duality of the American shopper, both overly generous and overly reliant on credit debt. The impeccably dressed sales staff moved with the efficiency of automatons, stuck in the singular setting of holiday cheer. It was only through their unmoving eyes, lit by the shards of winter light from the Fifth, that a manic shopper may perceive the desolated soul inhabiting their over-caffeinated brains.

They arrived on the sixth floor. The ladies’ off-the-shelf boutiques.

“Are you serious?” she questioned Curon’s judgment. After all, she wore the same thing as yesterday, only steamed clean and ironed by the hotel on Sony’s dime. “I thought we were going to tour the museums.”

“Well,” Curon lowered his Ray-Bans. “It irks me that you’re representing Sony in LAPA and most of your clothes are trash.”

“Seriously, though,” Eppie said. “I don’t need anything.”

What if a Maxmara costs Causality? She protested. “I swear on my life.”

“No, no,” Curon was already moving. “You need everything.”

Evidently, the sales staff either knew Curon or recognised the sheer amount of “cash” he was wearing. Thus aided by… Sak’s elves, Sony’s Creative Director roved through the section like a madman on a mission until—

“Frederick Curon!” Eppie’s tone grew stern.

Curon visibly shuddered. The last time someone had used his full name…

The sales clerk also stopped.
She saw their eyes move, with withheld judgement, from Curon to herself, then back to Curon, realisation dawning with each item of clothing they held.

Sugar daddy? Their eyes said.
With a capital S. The other clerk nodded with solemnity.

Your secret is safe with us, milord. They nodded together at Curon.

“Dad,” Eppie’s internal shame-meter said fuck it, we ball. “That’s a Loro Piana.”

“So?” Curon smirked. “Clerk, how much?”

“$599, Sir.”

“See? It’s not even the tailored version,” Curon said smugly. “How much are those?”

“The atelier collectables start around $8999, Sir.”

Curon swallowed his next words. He stared at the clerk suspiciously. Their faces were completely impassive, signalling that it was not a joke.

“See?” Curon’s voice lost some of its arrogance. “Not… not so bad? We’ll take two… of the shelf ones. Cream and navy.”

“I’ve got jackets,” Eppie made a final, futile attempt.

“You’re going back to LAPA in a week. You have rehearsals. You need to look like someone who has written a No.1.”

The clerks shared this new information among themselves.

“You almost froze to death on Christmas Eve,” Her father finally revealed the reason for his investment. “Gerald told me you looked like an icicle when you came in. He said you were channelling Hans Christian Andersen.”

Eppie gave up.

“You’re impossible,” she said. “What will my friends say?”

“What will your mum say?” Curon lied with a nonchalance that made her wince. “If you went back to LA wearing K-Mart clothes? You want to make me look bad?”

The clerks gave one another a brief expression of enlightened wonder. The plot thickens!
Damn, this is better than daytime television!

They shopped.

They ate lunch somewhere inexpensive.

They shopped some more.

Then finally, with one eye on her [Causality] gauge, they arrived at The Cube.

Job’s personally designed Apple Store sat in a sunken plaza at 59th and Fifth, in front of the GM Building. Thirty-two feet on each side, entirely transparent—ninety panes of patented glass, each held by minimal steel joints. No frame visible. No branding visible. Just a glass box sitting in the plaza, lit from within at night so it glows against the limestone and the dark.

“Don’t fight me here,” the Director did, in fact, know the store manager, who personally came to greet them.

“Mr Curon, I have your order ready.”

“Order?” Eppie felt her [System] tremble.

“Just a few things. This one’s on corporate.”

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