"Ichiro likes Shaundra," Takumijo teased in the car on the way back to the hotel.
Ichiro blushed and Satoshi pulled his hair. "I believe he does. Who would have thought that Ichiro would make such a suave move on her? Feeding a woman is a very sensual act."
"I just showed her how to use chopsticks. It's called common courtesy."
"Yes, but you also fed her some fish first. I'm jealous. You never show me such attention." Satoshi teased.
Ichiro buried deeper into the seat.
"You better be on your best behavior tomorrow, Ichiro, and none of your silent routine. You're going to have to talk to both those women since its apparent the're coming to see you rehearse."
"Leave him alone," Yori said once he got tired or them teasing Ichiro.
He could see his friend's blush deepen even in the dark limousine.
"You should be jealous," Takumijo told Yori. "He just moved in on your girl."
"Ms. Morrison is not my girl." Then why did he feel so betrayed? Yori berated himself for his jealousy. He'd never seen Ichiro so happy. His cell phone vibrated in his pocket. Yori lifted it out and answered it. "Hello."
"Hello, Yori."
It was Amaya. Why wasn't he surprised? She always had a sixth sense about things. "Amaya." The other three men chuckled loudly in the background.
"What's wrong with those idiots?" Amaya asked.
Yori smiled. Amaya considered his friends below her and a bad influence on him. "Just being idiots."
"What are you doing?"
"We're on our way back to the hotel. Masaaki took us out to dinner."
"When are you coming home?"
Here it goes. Amaya didn't like him on the road so much. She kept asking him to leave the group, which he always refused. This was his job.
Sure, he had a business degree, but what good was it without any marketable skills? He'd been a part of a singing group since he was a child and these idiots, as she called them, were his family. They'd been there for him when she hadn't. "Not for another couple of months. After the tour is over."
"Can't you sneak away before then? I miss you and my friends think you're fooling around with your female fans."
Yori rubbed his temple as a headache attacked him. "Have they actually seen me messing around with anyone?"
His three friends laughed loudly again as they eavesdropped on his conversation.
"No, but Kikio is sure that you are. She says a lot of pretty girls throw themselves at your feet at concerts."
"Kikio is crazy. The guards don't let fans get near the stage. You've been to our concerts. You know what happens there." The fact that she hadn't come to one of his concerts in a long time still hurt his feelings. She was too busy now that she attended the university. Learning fashion designing and joining her family's fashion business was now as important to her as Aomori was to him.
The conversation continued with her telling him about what her folks thought about his career and their future together. Yori sighed. He'd heard it all a thousand times before. Their plan to marry hadn't changed. It had just been pushed back for a while. No one, including him, knew that Aomori would be this big and have such a large following. "Look, I'll call you once I get up to my room," Yori told Amaya. He disconnected the call.
The chauffer entered the driveway in front of the hotel and stopped in front of the door. Another limousine with the Americans drove in behind them and everyone exited both cars. The driver left to park the cars in the garage.
Satoshi, Takumijo and Ichiro headed directly for the elevators, along with the others. Yori noticed that Shaundra remained in the lobby and then headed for the registration desk. He lagged behind to see what she was up to.
"Do you have an Ethernet wire?" she asked the lady behind the desk.
The other woman nodded, bent behind the desk and came back up with a wire for Shaundra.
"Thanks. I'll return it when I check out." Shaundra moved from the desk and nearly ran into him. "Oh, you startled me."
"Are you ready to go up to your room?"
"Is that why you waited? You didn't have to do that. I know my way up."
"It's late and it's not safe." He followed her toward the elevator. "Are you planning to work tonight?" He pointed to the Ethernet wire.
"Yes, I need to work on my new novel."
"Can't it wait until tomorrow?"
"It's already tomorrow."
The elevator arrived and opened. Shaundra entered first and he followed her inside. Yori pressed the button for their floor and then they rode up in silence. When the elevator stopped, he exited first to make sure no one lurked in the halls.
"I had a really nice time," Shaundra said, striking up conversation as they walked. "I haven't danced so much in years."
"Why not?" Yori asked as they turned a curve.
"Because I'm getting too old to go out clubbing."
"You're not that old."
"I have three children older than you are."
"Three? You don't look old enough to have three kids."
"I have four. My youngest daughter is your age. " Four kids. She must be very fertile. "Do you plan to have a fifth?"
Shaundra laughed. "Not in this lifetime."
"Don't you like children?"
"I love children, but I'm too old to have any more, and now it's my time to have a life."
"Do kids stop you from having a life?"
"In a way. You'll find out once you get married and start raising a family. When my children were small, I had to spend a lot of time with them, making sure they ate and did their homework. I spent almost all of my waking hours with them. Now I'm free to do anything or go anywhere I want to."
He supposed what she said was true. He had a lot of responsibilities now that stopped him from having a normal life. It would probably get more time consuming once he married Amaya.
"We're here," Shaundra announced outside her door. "Thanks for a lovely evening and for making sure I made it safely back to my room."
Yori bowed respectfully. On his way up, he took her hand, brought it up to his lips and kissed it. "I look forward to seeing you at the photo shoot later on," he replied. He let go of her hand and continued his walk to his room.
Harper pushed the red button on the telephone to retrieve his messages. He unloosened his tie, removed it and then tossed it on the dresser. There were three calls, one from his kids asking him about Japan, one from his ex-wife asking him to increase her spousal support and a third one from a very frantic Charlotte. He returned the call to his boys, but not his ex-wife. She wasn't getting another penny out of him. Their sons were grown and if she needed more money, she would just have to get off her ass and get a job. Harper looked down at his watch. It was close to one o'clock in the morning in Japan, which meant it was three in the afternoon back home. He dialed Charlotte's office phone number.
"Hello?"
"Hello, gorgeous."
"Harper, is that you?"
"How many men call you gorgeous?" he teased his senior editor. They had been together for years and had a very relaxed relationship.
"Quite a few," she replied back sarcastically. "What are you and Shaundra Morrison doing in Japan?"
"Working, or have you forgotten that we are on a promotion tour?"
"What kind of promoting are you doing at a nightclub?"
"How do you know that we were at a nightclub?"
"It's all over the Internet. You, Shaundra, Dorothy and Aomori are dancing it up in a Japanese nightclub. What is Shaundra wearing?"
"A very beautiful dress," Harper replied. "Black and very short."
"That's exactly what I'm talking about. Have you guys lost your minds? Shaundra does not wear mini dresses and spiked heels. She's business suits and conservative shoes."
"That's the old Shaundra. The new Shaundra wears mini dresses and dances."
"Why do I smell your handiwork in this scenario?"
"The dress was a present from me. Mr. Niigata arranged an outing with all of us and I knew she wouldn't bring party clothes with her because she is all about the work."
"Couldn't you pick her out something more appropriate for her age? The dress is so short I can see the dimples in her ass."
Harper chuckled into the receiver.
"Shaundra is bouncing around the dance floor with you and one of those singers in one video and slow dancing with the lead singer in another."
"Stop panicking, and since when do you watch YouTube?"
"Since I don't have a life. I was uploading book trailers for our authors' upcoming releases."
"And you just happen to find the ones with us on it?"
"It's on the front page of the website. The one with you on it has had several visits...close to a thousand."
He could hear her fingers on her keyboard as she surfed through YouTube. "You mean I'm a YouTube success?"
"This isn't funny, Harper. Think about Kehoe Publishing. Do you want to be the laughing stock of New York?"
"Calm down, Charlotte. Of course I don't. I'll have YouTube pull the videos." He paused. "Thousands of hits. It's only been a couple of hours since we left the club."
"The one with Shaundra and Yori Morioka has more than that. The fan girls are going crazy. You should read some of their comments. They don't like the fact that their favorite idol is having a fling with an older American writer."
"They are not having a fling," Harper replied. "They are just dancing.
We didn't even share a table with them."
"You better fix this," Charlotte told him. "Now go to bed."
"Yes, Charlotte. I'll fix it and then I'll go off to sleep." Harper disconnected the call. He got off the bed, walked over to his closet and took out his laptop. He hooked it to the Ethernet wire on the desk and waited for it to turn on, and then he went directly to YouTube. Sure enough, their videos were on the front of the page. He clicked on the one with him and Shaundra and viewed it.
"Mother, that dress is simply scandalous," Juanda, her eldest daughter, said to her once she returned her call.
It's a wonder she was able to pick up the phone after that heart- stopping kiss Yori bestowed on her a couple of minutes ago. "What dress?"
"The one you had on in that nightclub while you were dancing with Harper."
"I still don't know what you're talking about?"
"You are on YouTube dancing in a black mini dress. I can make out everything you own very clearly, if you know what I mean?"
Shaundra gasped. "I'm on YouTube?" She'd known something like this was going to happen when that camera took their picture.
"Yes, you, Harper, and some long-haired Asian guys. Have you completely lost your mind?"
"Hold on, let me get my laptop." Shaundra made a beeline to the desk, hooked the Ethernet wire to her laptop and turned it on. Moments later, she was on the Internet and typing in YouTube. "Damn." She didn't have to search far. She had made the front page. Her fingers touched the link.
"Oh my God." She clicked on another link...the one with her and Yori.
"I'm dead." Shaundra went back to the phone. "Are you still there?" she asked Juanda.
"Where do you think I'm going?"
Sometimes she wondered how she'd given birth to such a smart-alecky child.
"Did you see the videos?"
"Yes," Shaundra replied. "What do you want me to say? We all went out clubbing tonight. I had no idea someone was taping us."
"Mother, this is scandalous. You are fifty years old. You should not be out dancing and having a good time."
Shaundra sat down on the edge of the bed. "What am I supposed to be doing?"
"You're supposed be home being a grandmother."
"You mean being a baby-sitter so you can go out dancing."
"Yes. You had your fun when you were young so now it's our time."
Such an ungrateful child. "You should have thought about having that kind of life before you gave birth to those twins. And as for me having fun when I was young, that never happened because I was busy being a mother and holding down a full-time job. Yes, those videos are quite shocking, but I'm a grown woman and if I want to have my ass nearly out in a mini dress, or dance with some handsome men, I can do it."
"I didn't mean it that way."
"Yes, you did. You never say what you don't mean."
"Who is that Asian guy you're slow dancing with?"
"His name is Yori Morioka. He's the lead singer of Asia's most famous pop band, Aomori."
"How do you know him? Is that the real reason you went off to Japan?"
Shaundra shook her head. It was going to be one of those conversations. Maybe she shouldn't have let Juanda visit her father's people when she was younger. Most of her ways she'd obtained from them. "Harper and a man named Goro Niigata has formed a publishing partnership over in Japan. Mr. Niigata also runs this big entertainment organization in Osaka. Aomori is one of the groups that he has under contract. So, to make a long story short, the two publishing giants have decided to use four American authors, four Asian authors and Aomori to help promote their new company. We met each other earlier today and Harper suggested we all go out to get to know each other."
"You look very comfortable in his arms."
"He is a very good dancer and you know I like to dance. Your father had two left feet."
"How old is he?"
"I don't know...twenty-four or twenty-five."
Juanda gasped. "He's younger than I am. My mother is a cougar."
"Don't think I don't know what that means. You need to stop the dramatics. There is no relationship."
"What do you know about him?"
It was like talking to a box of rocks. "Not much, but I'm sure you're going to look him up on the Internet after we get off the phone."
"No, I'm looking up the group now. Oh my, they look like a bunch of girls."
"This is one of those instances when looks can be deceiving."
"Are they gay?"
"What difference does that make?"
"Then I could understand why he's dancing with a middle-aged woman instead of some hot young groupie."
"No, they are not gay. There are a lot of young men out there who like older women."
"Oh my gawd. My mother is a damn cougar. Donald is just going to flip out when he sees these videos."
"Donald does not know a thing about computers unless you count a slot machine. You better not tell him."
"What difference does it make if I tell him or not if nothing is going on between you and the pretty boy?"
"So you're going to sell out your own mother?"
"No, but I won't lie for you either if he does find out."
"Are you sure you are my child?"
"Yes."
Shaundra yawned. "Listen, it's late here and I'm getting sleepy. I'll call you when I wake up and we can finish this conversation."
"Are you trying to get me off the phone because you have a twenty- five year old guy in your bed?"
Shaundra laughed. "If I had a twenty-five year old in my bed I never would have returned your call. Bye." She hung up, pissed at her daughter's accusations and narrow-mindedness. What damn difference did it make if Yori was twenty-five and she was fifty? Shaundra groaned. "It's a big difference." In twenty years, he'd be forty-five and in his prime and she'd be seventy with either one foot in the grave or dead.
Amaya's shrill voice nearly burst Yori's eardrum as he answered the phone in his room. "Who is that woman you're dancing with on YouTube, Yori? I knew you were cheating on me."
"What woman?" Yori asked as he quickly typed YouTube into his laptop and accessed the website. He groaned. "Shaundra Morrison. She's one of the new authors working for Mr. Niigata. We were at this club to promote our upcoming concert tour and the opening of Mr. Niigata's new publishing company."
"You told me that Masaaki took you guys out to dinner."
"He did. All thirteen of us...four American writers, Mr. Niigata's new business partner, four Asian writers and Aomori."
"That dress she's wearing is positively shocking."
"There was nothing wrong with her dress. In fact, she looked quite pretty. Anyway, that's what women wear clubbing nowadays. The female Japanese authors wore similar dresses." He knew he was digging himself deeper into a hole.
"That does not make it right," Amaya said in a less shrill tone.
He still had the headache she'd caused earlier.
"So why did you have to dance with her and not let one of the others dance with her like Takumijo?"
"Because I am the leader of Aomori. Takumijo was dancing nearby and so was Satoshi. Nothing inappropriate happened."
"Then why did only you make YouTube?"
"Maybe because it was one of my fans and not theirs. I don't know, and I don't know why you're making such a big deal about it. I've been on YouTube before hundreds of times."
"But not like this. You're slow dancing with an older African American woman. Think about your reputation and your career."
"What about it do you have a problem with? Is it because she's older or is it because she's an African American?"
"Both," Amaya answered honestly. "She is not Japanese. What can you two possibly have in common?"
That was true on so many levels and he had just learned that his future bride harbored some deep prejudices. "We both work for Mr. Niigata."
"Are you going to see her again?"
"Yes, later on. We're all doing a photo shoot for a magazine."
Amaya cursed in Japanese.
"It is part of my job. She is a real nice lady and please don't make a scene."
"Nice ladies don't dance with other people's fiances."
"To be fair, she does not know that I am engaged. I do not know her well enough to discuss my personal life with her. It was just a dance.
Satoshi danced with her too. We were just being courteous."
"Well, if you say that's all it is, I guess I'll have to take your word for it."
"Believe me. That's all it is. I will be seeing her and the rest of the authors until this promotion tour is over. Hopefully, this YouTube thing will blow over quickly." He yawned. "I'll call you later after I get some sleep. Mr. Niigata has planned a full day for all of us later."
"Okay," Amaya said. "Call me later after the photo shoot."
Yori disconnected the call, feeling like a cad for deceiving Amaya and knowing full well she wasn't going to let this drop any time soon. He walked toward the bathroom. If he got his hands on whoever took that video, he'd break their neck. Another disadvantage of being on the top of the charts - someone was always trying to make you tumble down.
Yori relieved his aching bladder, and then turned on the shower. After he washed, he put on his pajamas and crawled into bed, wondering if any of the others knew about the videos. Takumijo and Satoshi were going to tease him unmercifully for this, if Mr. Niigata and Masaaki didn't kill him first.
His mind drifted to that little scenario in the hall with Shaundra earlier.
What had made him do something so forward, and why did he enjoy it after he'd done it? Was he attracted to her or simply jealous of her attentiveness to Ichiro? Both probably.
He'd lost women to both Takumijo and Satoshi before, but never Ichiro. Hell, what was he thinking? He was not in competition with his fellow band member. So what if she brought out the best in Ichiro? They were friends, and he wanted Ichiro to be happy. Anyway, it would all be over in a month. He could last that long and things would go back to normal.
But there was the American tour. Would he see Shaundra again when Aomori arrived in New York? No, they'd probably be too busy and she'd be back to her life with her four children.
Yori closed his eyes and sleep overtook him quickly.