Her heels clicked on the pavement as she ran across the platform. She had to make it, she had to catch this train or she would have a big problem. She had been running for quite some time. Evening traffic was murder, so she opted to walk to the station, instead of taking a taxi. But there always were always those uncalculated moments before leaving and as punctual as she normally was, as distraught she felt now for running late.
Carrying her bag with recipes and notebook over her shoulder, holding on to the cloth covered bento in her hand. Stairs were awful climbing them at high speed as she ran. Out of breath, aching muscles and the train in sight. She had heard the whistle for it's departure only seconds ago.
"Mata, mata, mata!" she yelled with a voice that was barely audible. "Don't you leave without me!"
The conductor saw her coming and motioned her to hurry up, because trains in Japan ride on schedule and hardly ever are late as so many people depended on their transport. This would also be the last train heading to where she had to go. She grabbed the handle bar and jumped in, expecting the doors to close behind her immediately. As she turned in the small hallway to catch her breath she saw the doors close at a leisurely pace and off they were.
This was not the 7 pm train as she had originally wanted to take. With all that had been going on she was extremely lucky to even make this 11 pm train.
Job interviews were murder in today's society, Japan being no different from the rest of the world.
When they first arrived here, she arranged a teaching job at a local school, so accordingly she got a small apartment for the two of them. The two meaning her and her daughter who wanted to join her on this crazy adventure. Since her daughter was little she had expressed a desire to become a landscaping architect. With her mother's fascination for Japan she became interested in Japanese gardens and where was a better place to study such a thing as in Japan it self. So after careful consideration and planning off they were.
They were here for a month now and had set back after set back. Her job as a teacher fell through just before they were destined to go. Taking a huge gamble they decided to go anyway. Tuition was paid for her daughter, so the only thing that was left was finding a job and how hard could that be?
Pretty hard as it turned out, since her Japanese wasn't all that good, even though she tried studying it as best as she could, she often relied on her English. So she worked a few day here, a few days there. Never seemed to work out quite as she pictured it. But now she landed a job interview at a small restaurant just by serving iced tea to a costumer last week, who was impressed with her English and asked if she was interested in coming by. Serving drinks wasn't that hard and the owner wanted to see her in his main restaurant, she could work closer to home after that - if she got the job.
The train would take her on a three hour trip and that was just from station to station.
At 11 pm the train compartment looked eerily abandoned. Still trying to catch her breath she walked in and took a seat where 4 people could be seated. It reminded her of Holland where she was born and raised before moving to Japan. It felt comfortable and put her a bit at ease. Sighing she put the bento on a small table by the window and took off her coat. She wasn't dressed in a conventional Japanese job hunting outfit. She owned one. The knee high tight skirt, stockings, low heeled shoes, the black blazer and white shirt. Japanese people love conformity. n this particularly care she decided against wearing it. Instead she wore a knee high, white skirt with bare legs with white heels with a pastel yellow shirt. Instead of a blazer she wore a gray vintage vest, which was a size too big but it was her lucky charm and so she wore it. Her red hair was hanging loosely around her shoulder. Ava ran her hand through it as she thought about braiding it for a second. She slummed a bit in her seat staring in front of her at nothing in particular thinking about how lucky she was for making it on time in to the train.
"Ma, ma, ma" she said to herself, "Enough already. I'm going to do well and impress the heck out of them." She nodded firmly to herself and felt her resolve echoed in her mind. She straightened up and took her bag the get her Ipod and notebook. Three hours were easily filled with writing and fantasizing. Plus her daughter had been so sweet as to prepare a bento for her to eat during the trip.
Ava was pretty proud of her daughter, who had enrolled into college to study archiculture. She took on a project for extra credit at a shrine in the neighborhood where they lived. And she told about the upcoming projects for her classes, including a project of a class mate who asked her to supervise with him. She was running around to make it all on time and Ava was running around to make sure her daughter ate and slept well as she seemed to work at all hours. But she seemed happy and Ava was happy for her. She might have given up by now if it was just her alone in Japan, but against odds, Japan seemed to really work for her daughter so who was she to give up and make her daughter give up her dream. At the very least she could try and try again with all her might, then there would be little regret if she couldn't make ends meet here and had to move back to Holland.
The thought chilled her mood as she tapped her pen on the cover of her notebook.
"Dame desu ne," she breathed bothered by the turn of her mood. "It's no good thinking that way. I won't let that happen, any way." Renewed resolve let to a smile. She opened her note book and reread the first few lines she wrote yesterday. The fluent hand writing was adorned with crossed out words and scribbles in the sidelines. Parts of text were underscored and some arrows pointed bits of text to other places. To the majority of people the notebook looked like a true mess, but to Ava it felt relaxing. This was after all a world she created and in which her characters ruled supremely.
Putting the earphone in and pressing play on her Ipod made her feel even more happy. Familiar tunes surrounded her and she couldn't help hum a long with some of them. After a short while movement in the both next to her drew her attention. And she looked up from her writing to meet a pair of big sunglasses staring at her. She felt her cheeks which had returned to their original ivory color turn bright red again. She pulled one of her earphones out and lowered the sound. The sunglasses were worn by a guy wearing a cap, hooded thick vest and jeans. They were so every day looking that the cap and sunglasses in this almost empty train compartment looked definite overkill.
She respectfully nodded in his direction, noticing his sketch pad and apologized: "Gomenasai." It looked like her humming had irritated him but even after she apologized he kept looking at her. Defiantly she stared back, feeling like he had an advantage as he wore sunglasses and a cap covering most of his face.
After an awkward moment Ava decided to go back to her writing. It took her a few lines to realize what she was doing as she read back what she scribbled down. It was a describtion of the guy across from her. Carefully she gazed in his direction and saw him drawing lines on his pad. Easy movements which reminded her of the efficiency with which her daughter drew the layout of gardens. She focused on his hands and wrote accordingly.
"He must be an artist, whose talents go unnoticed to the big public. The lines marked a beginning and got lost in whole that was his creation, a never ending piece of art which would dazzle anyone who would see it's true meaning. Experienced hands, belonging to a man whose appearance would forever be a mystery to others."
"Nande anata wa boku wo mite iru?"
The sound of his voice made her look up.
