2. Time to Pretend
996 Words
2
Time to Pretend
HAYATO
Eloa is even better than the agency promised. I hadn’t been expecting much when I contracted with a discreet San Francisco escort agency to satisfy certain needs while I attended the inaugural investors meeting for GoX Aeronautics, the aerospace start-up of one of my business partners, Rodrigo Gutierrez. After all, San Francisco is no Tokyo when it comes to making tasteful arrangements for hot dates. It’s not even London, where I attended university.
But Eloa is as charming and witty as she is beautiful, and she has extensive knowledge of art. She’d been an exact fit for the San Francisco MOMA’s fundraising gala. And now, sitting at Sukiyabashi Daniel, I notice quite a few men sneaking glances at her while their own dates aren’t looking. Admiring and probably wishing that they, like me, got to take this vision of beauty and poise home with them tonight.
Yet, I couldn’t be more bored.
Yes, Eloa is beautiful and charming and sophisticated…just like every woman I’d ever contracted as a date. But I find myself shifting in my seat, wishing I’d just taken her straight back to the hotel after the gala instead of inviting her out for a several-course meal. The first sakizuke course had just arrived, and this hot date already feels…. I struggle for the words to explain it to myself.
It’s like when I discovered “Time to Pretend” by MGMT shortly after finishing business school. I’d liked the song so much, I’d put it on repeat and played it everywhere. On the way to my then-marketing job at Nakamura Worldwide, my family’s multinational automotive company, at the gym—I even set the song as the ringtone on my very first iPhone. Then one day, I could no longer stand it. I’d listened to it over and over again until I’d broken it. To this day, that song does nothing for me. It’s a memory that no longer moves me.
I feel the same about Eloa. All her notes are perfect, her synthesized melody smooth and fluid, but she’s a broken song. One I barely feel like f*****g tonight.
However, it’s been weeks since my last hot date, and I do have needs. I weigh whether to push through just for the release of pent-up s****l energy or send her home and take care of myself with my hand back in my hotel room after returning a few business emails.
“Excuse me. I’m so sorry to interrupt…”
I look up from my pondering to see the black woman who’d been sitting on the opposite side of the restaurant now standing over the table Daniel had brought out to accommodate my last-minute reservation.
She’s dressed…if I were spending the night anywhere else but San Francisco, I might have called it odd. Even though Christmas was eleven days ago, she’s wearing an elf hat and a strapless holly green cocktail dress. The dress might have come off as somewhat appropriate if not for the Christmas print biker shorts she wore underneath its short bubble skirt. Her hair hung in long loose waves, but as if afraid such regular hair might get her mistaken for normal, she’d dyed it a brassy yellow.
An elf… She looks like San Francisco’s version of an elf, with a body as big and curvy as the city itself.
And for some reason, she has a portrait of someone who looks like an unsophisticated version of Eloa in her hand.
My brow lowers, wondering if, despite my significant investment, Daniel had for some stupid reason contracted one of those cheesy third-party caricature portrait artists to start selling drawings at his exclusive venue.
But then, instead of aiming a hard sell at me, she says to Eloa, “Hi, I’m sorry for interrupting your date, but I have to tell you something…”
“Is that Luiza?” Eloa asks. “My sister?”
“Yeah, I think so,” the San Francisco elf answers. “Can we talk? Maybe over there?”
Without so much as an “Excuse me” or a thought to the substantial amount I’m paying her for tonight, Eloa goes off with the San Francisco elf.
And instead of being entertained by Eloa’s witty remarks, I watch the two of them talk near the restaurant’s front door as I wait for the second course.
The curvy woman hands Eloa the sketch and seems to be explaining something to her. Eloa shakes her head and crosses herself as the woman speaks. I can’t begin to guess what the San Francisco elf might be saying to her. But when she’s done, my sophisticated date reaches out and hugs her tight…before rushing out the shoji-style door.
Eloa leaves. Just leaves. As if I’m not paying her to have dinner and then more with me later on. As if I’m not even here.
What in the… Is she coming back?
The San Francisco elf doesn’t seem to think so. Ducking her head, she makes her way back to her table on the other side of the restaurant. And though I stare at her, she keeps her head lowered as she picks up her chopsticks and awkwardly begins to eat her first course.
I wait for her to look up. But just like my date never returned to our table, the adorable elf studiously avoids my questioning gaze.
I am a man used to being acknowledged. Women have looked at me all my life. Many have stared, though that’s considered quite rude in Japan. Yet, this woman refuses to spare me even so much as an apologetic glance.
Something stirs in me as I once again recall listening to “Time to Pretend” for the first time. Suddenly I remember how it felt to hear a song that felt utterly new…how I wanted to download it before it was even halfway through.
It’s the same way I’m feeling now, staring across the restaurant at the San Francisco elf.
I have two choices. I could follow Eloa out and try to figure out why she left without any explanation, or….
I stand up, my heart beating faster than it has in a very long time as I decide on the “or” option.
- Writer
