#59: Cuba Libre / ep. 2
“Is that really true, Mikoto?”
“…It happened suddenly this morning. They said it’s all over by the end of April.”
At the Kyōdō 2LDK, Mikoto finally told Shandy the truth about why she had brought Rinko home with her, something Mikoto herself had been unable to bring herself to say.
Even Shandy seemed rattled. Her eyes widened as she fired one question after another.
“But wasn’t the project going well? You said you’d even thought of a third proposal, Mikoto.”
“The company doesn’t have the strength to keep the project going anymore, apparently. So it’s been cancelled. And, while they’re at it, I’m being thrown out too.”
“Rinko-san as well?”
“Yeah. And about three others. All administrative staff…”
Mikoto said this and collapsed limply onto the sofa.
Rinko kept sniffling. Mikoto could not tell whether she was crying or suffering from her cat allergy. But Mikoto understood the urge to cry all too well, and that only made the tears come more readily.
It was not simply the pain of having been betrayed by the company.
Even if they had achieved results, there was still the helplessness of having fallen short.
That feeling spread through Mikoto’s chest.
“Do you have enough money to get by for the time being, Rinko-san?”
The first thing Shandy worried about was Rinko’s finances.
The fact that she did not ask after Mikoto was perhaps an indication that she intended to take care of Mikoto herself.
Gratitude and humiliation enveloped Mikoto in equal measure.
“I’ll get severance pay and unemployment insurance, and I have some savings, but I’ll have to move, so I don’t know. My current place is fairly expensive…”
“If necessary, I can arrange a certain amount of money for you. Provided you’re willing to bow your head to me.”
“Your money is…”
Rinko had presumably meant to say that she would not borrow it, but instead she lowered her head.
“…Sorry. I might have to ask you for help, at worst.”
“Of course. We’re there for each other when times are difficult. We’re friends, after all.”
“If it were me, I’d never lend you the money.”
“I would. I’m a good woman.”
Shandy did not seem to be joking.
Mikoto had a vague sense of foreboding, given that she was reading a manga about an illegal moneylender, but surely she was not rotten enough to saddle an acquaintance with extortionate interest rates.
“Well then, shall we drink as you requested? Alcohol is addictive, but it is an excellent remedy for occasions like this.”
Shandy tied her hair back with a hair elastic.
She had become the bartender again.
Just as Mikoto unconsciously straightened herself whenever she stepped through the doors of antiqua, perhaps Shandy changed her own face through her hairstyle.
But instead of heading for the kitchen, she took out her smartphone and began tapping away at it.
“At this rate, you haven’t had lunch yet, have you? I’m in the mood for hamburgers. Would you two like the same?”
Come to think of it, they had eaten nothing.
Mikoto had not even had an appetite.
She had bought some light food at a convenience store on the way home, but perhaps because she had been in a daze, she had bought mostly tinned food and snacks.
“That’s fine, but what about Rinko-san?”
“…A Big Mac, large fries. And nuggets.”
“You’ll put on weight.”
“I don’t care! Just for today!”
She was clearly planning to eat her feelings.
Still looking down, Rinko placed her order and leaned her body against the edge of the sofa.
The television had been left on, and a daytime news programme was broadcasting a feature on the owner of a small or medium-sized company on the verge of bankruptcy.
Perhaps she had been listening even without looking at the screen. Rinko murmured:
“Is our company like this too…?”
“I think it was already on its last legs regardless of the times.”
“Is it my fault? If I’d helped Mikoto-san sooner and we’d made a good enough proposal…”
“It’s not your fault, Rinko-san. I’m the one who failed to produce results.”
“That’s not true! You worked so hard, Mikoto-san! The second one didn’t work out, but the first one was almost finished, wasn’t it?”
“If it doesn’t make it in time, it doesn’t matter.”
If Mikoto had worked harder on new product development, perhaps she could have saved the employees who had been laid off.
She could have saved Rinko.
Perhaps she could even have saved Meiji Stationery.
Regret and self-recrimination took over Mikoto’s thoughts.
Then the doorbell rang.
The food had arrived.
Shandy called out for the delivery driver to leave it hanging from the doorknob, then went to collect it a moment later.
She took three hamburgers from the familiar paper bag and arranged them on the table.
“…Right. For today’s cocktail, let’s go with a junk-food style of drinking to match the junk food.”
“A junk-food style?”
Without paying the slightest heed to Mikoto and Rinko’s utterly exhausted states of mind, Shandy brought out her usual jigger and bottles of liquor, along with white rum and cut limes, and smiled.
“…Don’t you think playing bartender at home is kind of lame?”
“You came here expecting this, didn’t you?”
Shandy opened the lids on the set drinks that came with their orders.
Three colas, one for each of them.
Mikoto and Rinko had been too distracted to specify what they wanted to drink.
Into the black, fizzing surface of the cola, Shandy poured white rum.
“Shandy-san, you’re making cocktails in paper cups…?”
“A cocktail is a cocktail, whether it’s served in an expensive glass or a cheap paper cup.”
The cocktail she began making was the sort of crude concoction that would never be served in an authentic bar.
She simply measured the rum into the paper cup, already filled to the brim with cola, squeezed in a cut lime and dropped it inside.
Then she stirred it with a straw in place of a bar spoon.
That was it.
“There we are. Today’s cocktail is the Cuba Libre. Shall we raise a toast to your freedom?”
“Don’t call cutting corners ‘freedom’. It’s annoying.”
“Now, now. Have a taste. It’s delicious.”
The Cuba Libre.
Its origins were as haphazard as the drink itself. Long ago, people celebrating Cuban independence and America’s victory in support of it combined the signature drinks of the two countries, rum and cola, and discovered that the result tasted rather good.
If no cut lime was added, it went by the far less romantic name of Rum and Coke.
They clinked their glasses――or rather, their lidded paper cups today――and Mikoto took a sip of the Cuba Libre through the straw.
“How is it?”
“Ah… It feels incredibly unhealthy, but it’s delicious…”
“Exactly. Unhealthy things taste good. Guilt is another kind of seasoning.”
The Cuba Libre was junky and wild through and through.
It was not strong enough to make Rinko forget what she had ordered, but the carbonation and flavour of the cola, the acidity of the lime, and the sweetness and richness of the rum made it frighteningly easy to drink.
Just as Mikoto glanced towards Rinko to see what she thought, she heard the sound of a paper cup being emptied.
“Was it good, Rinko-san?”
“…I want another.”
“You’ll put on weight.”
“I said I don’t care today! I’m in the mood for getting drunk and eating hamburgers out of spite!”
Rinko bit into her Big Mac.
Her mouth opened slightly wider than it normally did when eating lunch, making her emotional binge-eating all too obvious.
Perhaps she had behaved cutely in front of Mikoto under ordinary circumstances, but she no longer had the energy for that.
“Then shall we begin a game? Today’s Cuba Libre: libre means ‘freedom’ in Japanese. Since we’ve finally been freed from the chains of work, why don’t we talk about what we want to do from now on? A little girls’ talk.”
Mikoto understood what Shandy was trying to do.
She was as roundabout as ever, but in her own way, she was trying to encourage Mikoto and Rinko to look towards the future.
That said, knowing what she was doing did not mean Mikoto could suddenly change her mood.
“I don’t exactly feel like celebrating my freedom…”
“It’s a good opportunity to think about what you want to do next. We’re invincible right now, you know? At least until the money runs out.”
“That’s the biggest problem of all…”
Apparently refusing to listen to Rinko’s lament, Shandy bit into her bacon-lettuce burger, with the lettuce removed.
With her distinctly Western appearance, Shandy looked almost absurdly well suited to burgers and chips.
“Come on, let’s talk. Let’s pretend we’re high-school girls again, sitting around chatting over McDonald’s.”
Mikoto clutched her head.
Her high-school days had been ten years ago.
She did remember chatting about their dreams for the future with her friends back then.
High-school girls were invincible.
At that age, you were allowed to dream of any future overflowing with hopes and possibilities.
After all, you were able to enjoy the happiness of not yet knowing the bleak realities of adulthood.
She remembered laughing carefree, never imagining that she would fail her job hunt, end up working for a pencil company, or even be fired from that company.
“Do you have anything you want to do, Shandy-san? A dream for the future?”
“Well…”
Shandy raised her eyes as though gazing into the distance, then smiled knowingly and looked at Mikoto.
“I’d like the two of us to walk side by side, dressed in wedding gowns.”
“Yes, yes. I wish you both every happiness. Now drop dead, amen.”
Rinko suddenly came out with an extremely old-fashioned pop song lyric, but Mikoto knew what she meant.
Shandy was talking about walking down the aisle.
Mikoto was just beginning to imagine herself and Shandy dressed in wedding gowns when a chain of associations connected in her mind.
A wedding aisle.
A wedding ceremony.
It would cost money.
But they had no jobs.
The resulting sadness was overwhelming.
“That might be a little difficult right now…”
“Well, perhaps not immediately. But I have other dreams too. I’d like to start a girls’ band.”
The direction of Shandy’s dreams had suddenly veered somewhere completely different.
Mikoto could not help asking:
“A band? You mean, a musical band?”
“Yes. I’ve actually wanted to do it for a long time.”
“You don’t seem to have many friends, though.”
“Boo.”
Shandy pursed her lips at Rinko’s painfully accurate observation.
Shandy’s dreams were apparently a wedding ceremony and a girls’ band.
The former seemed like something she might reasonably dream about.
The latter made absolutely no sense.
“Why a band, of all things…?”
“Because it’s cool. Do I need another reason? I can play a little bass, you know.”
“The fact that you play bass is very Shandy-san.”
“Incidentally, Mikoto-san can be the vocalist, and Rinko-san can play guitar. I’ll play bass.”
“There’s no drummer.”
“Kotone-san would do. She looks like she’d enjoy hitting things.”
Mikoto imagined Kotone pounding away at a snare, floor tom and bass drum.
It fit surprisingly well, and she found herself laughing.
“And Toko-san apparently took piano lessons, so she can play keyboards. As for Sanae-san, just give her some castanets.”
Toko was beautiful when she kept her mouth shut, and Mikoto imagined that she would probably look lovely playing the piano.
Sanae playing castanets was an oddly vivid image too.
“I’m not confident about singing, though…”
“Don’t worry. Even if you’re bad, you can still have your own charm. And we’re all going to have plenty of free time anyway. Why don’t we give it a try? We can buy instruments, decide what songs to play――”
“No!”
Rinko answered immediately.
Mikoto was about to pile on with a “Yeah, right?” when she could scarcely believe her ears.
“I want to be the vocalist! I can’t play an instrument!”
“Oh. That’s what you meant…”
Mikoto smiled at Rinko’s unexpected contribution to the conversation.
Then Shandy asked:
“What about you, Rinko-san? Do you have any dreams?”
“I…”
Rinko put the half-eaten Big Mac back in its box and continued while picking at her chips.
“I think I’d like to open a shop. An aromatherapy one.”
“That sounds wonderful. What sort of shop?”
“Do you want to hear?”
“Then no.”
“If you’re going to bring it up, at least listen!”
Feeling sorry for Rinko, who was being toyed with, Mikoto took over the prompting.
“I’d like to hear about your shop, Rinko-san.”
“Well… It’d be a shop offering aesthetic aromatherapy and selling aroma oils. I’d listen to customers’ concerns, choose aromas suited to their problems, give them massages…”
“Oh, the sexy kind?”
“No! Though I could do that too!”
Rinko was the sort of person who tended to say things plainly.
Perhaps that meant she could be the one to push someone else forward when they were struggling.
For someone unable to take that first step, someone lost and uncertain, having a person who encouraged them could be more precious than anything.
“Actually, I’ve been saving money because I thought it would be nice to have my own shop someday. That was what the sex work was for too, but…”
Rinko’s pointed, meaningful gaze struck Mikoto.
Mikoto knew that the reason Rinko had left that job had ultimately been to pursue the person she loved.
“…Well, apparently that’s how it is. Looks like that blonde is more your type than I am.”
“Hehe.”
Shandy drained her Cuba Libre and wore a triumphant smile.
Rinko frowned in response.
There was probably no chance of these two ever thawing their relationship.
“But if I ever do open the shop, come and see me, Mikoto-san. You could work for me too.”
“I’d be happy to, but I don’t know much about aromatherapy.”
“You can study. It’s easy, and I’ll teach you. Oh, I’ll give you my aromatherapy certification study materials sometime.”
“Hey, hey, can I come too?”
“You’re banned from entering.”
“Knew it.”
Rinko shot Shandy a look that seemed to say, If you knew, why did you ask?
Shandy glanced at her before asking Mikoto:
“What about you, Mikoto-san? Do you have any dreams? Other than marrying me.”
“Hmm…”
Even after thinking about it, Mikoto did not have any particularly grand dreams.
At most, she wanted to go somewhere and have fun because she had been unable to go out during the stay-at-home period.
Or have a drink at antiqua.
Or go to a hot spring and relax.
They were all modest little wishes.
Unlike Shandy’s outlandish dream of starting a girls’ band, or Rinko’s realistic future dream of opening an aromatherapy shop, Mikoto had nothing particularly fanciful or concrete in mind.
So even when Shandy threw the question back at her, Mikoto had little to offer.
“You know how schoolchildren have those collections where they write down their dreams for the future? What did you write?”
“Probably ‘to be a bride’ or something…”
“Oh? It looks as though that dream is about to come true.”
“You could make it come true with me, you know?”
“I was planning to make it come true with Shandy-san…”
“Are you saying you’re not keen on marrying another woman?”
The answer to Shandy’s question was, of course, no.
If Mikoto had been reluctant, she would never have proposed.
Perhaps such couples were still unusual, but Mikoto already knew a real-life married couple who were both women.
“That’s not what I mean…”
There was only one thing stuck in Mikoto’s mind.
She wanted to be Shandy’s equal.
“I want to work… Or rather, I know how hard working is, so at the very least I want to earn enough to support myself. I feel guilty living by leaning on someone else. I’m not saying anything against Toko-san.”
“I don’t mind, you know? I’d be perfectly happy if Mikoto stayed home all the time.”
“Even if you’re fine with it, I’m not.”
“This isn’t simply you putting on a brave front, is it?”
There was a faint sadness in Shandy’s expression.
It was kind of her to be willing to support Mikoto, but Mikoto’s mind remained unchanged.
“So my dream right now is simply to find a new job. But what kind of job, though…”
“You’re not going to continue in planning? Why not ask Sanae-san?”
“Working at Hibiya sounds tough. And apparently they’re strict about educational backgrounds.”
According to Sanae, Hibiya had a deeply rooted obsession with academic credentials.
With a degree from the sort of low-ranked private university Mikoto had attended, she probably would not even get a foot in the door.
“And planning feels somehow… not quite right either. I’ve spent five years doing it, sure, but I haven’t achieved much, and I don’t think I’m particularly suited to it. But changing industries now would be…”
“I can only do administrative work. And lately there are too many people doing administrative work anyway…”
“Such a cruel world. So much for feeling like high-school girls.”
The more Mikoto remembered, the more depressed she became.
Mikoto and Rinko were both around twenty-seven, an age when many people began considering a career change.
Apparently, once you became accustomed to your job and could see where your career might lead, many people began wondering, Is this really all right?
In their case, they had not even had time to wonder.
They had simply been fired.
“…We’re running low on alcohol. I’ll go and buy some. Please continue your conversation while I’m gone.”
Even Shandy’s concern, and even alcohol’s supposed medicinal powers, could not dispel everything.
The two women were left behind, eating chips and staring blankly at the television.
＊
On her way to the convenience store, Shandy was contacting someone on her smartphone.
It was Toko.
She had not exchanged contact details with Sanae, but while Sanae was working from home, that did not matter.
“Shandy-san!? Did you hear? About Kurosu-san!”
“Yes, I did. Could you put your wife on, please?”
Toko’s unusually anxious voice was followed by the sound of a distinctly displeased sigh.
The clattering of keys could also be heard. Sanae was presumably typing.
“…I’m here. This is about Kurosu-san’s re-employment, correct?”
“You certainly get straight to the point.”
Shandy was genuinely impressed.
From what Mikoto had told her, Sanae had apparently been present when the two women were informed that they were being let go.
And since Sanae already had a professional connection with Mikoto, it was only a matter of time before she heard about it.
“There is one opening in the Planning Department.”
“Yes.”
“For mid-career recruitment, academic background is irrelevant. It will come down to the portfolio. She has the Digital Memo and Shavings Potpourri projects.”
“Yes.”
“So you needn’t worry. I am already moving to recruit her without you having to tell me.”
“About that. Could you put the offer on hold?”
“What?”
Sanae sounded as though she had been caught completely off guard.
She immediately asked:
“Is that Kurosu-san’s decision?”
“No. It’s my personal request.”
“…Are you planning to support her financially?”
“I would love to, but she turned me down.”
“Then I see no problem with her returning to Hibiya.”
With the convenience-store entrance chime playing in the background, Shandy continued talking as she browsed the drinks section for the cola she needed for the Cuba Libre.
“I’m glad you’re taking action, Sanae-san. I really am. But I’d like a little time.”
“…You want me to wait before recruiting her?”
“Yes. She hasn’t found it yet.”
“What sort of work she wants to make her livelihood from. What sort of life she wants to lead from here on out.”
“Until she has looked that far ahead, I think she’ll regret it sooner or later even if she joins Hibiya.”
“Is that based on your own past experience?”
Shandy was caught off guard.
If she let her guard down, Sanae would start digging into her past.
This woman really is sharp, Shandy thought.
“That’s part of it. But more than anything, I’m doing it for her. She said she wants to work.”
“Kurosu-san doesn’t strike me as a work-oriented person.”
“She wants to be my equal.”
“Equal…”
Shandy sighed quietly.
She had told Mikoto many times that she was prepared to support her.
Mikoto could stay at home and be kept as a pet alongside Mimosa, if that was what she wanted.
And if she still wanted to work, she could become a junior bartender at antiqua.
As long as they could be together, Shandy did not care what Mikoto chose.
But Mikoto had said she wanted to work.
Once she had gone so far as to say she felt guilty about living by leaning on someone else, Shandy could say no more.
“…When she puts it that way, all I can do is nurture her. I want to help her find a job she can feel is worth staking her life on.”
“You like raising people, don’t you? Why not become a teacher?”
“Unfortunately, I don’t have enough education to boast about to other people.”
“I have no intention of judging people by their academic background. Though coming from me, given my own educational background, that may not be very persuasive.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll believe you that much.”
Shandy smiled softly and listened to the voice on the other end.
Sanae muttered to herself, as though savouring the word equal.
When she spoke again, there was a slightly brighter tone to her voice.
“…I understand Kurosu-san’s feelings. I’ll put the recruitment on hold, but you have two months. If she hasn’t decided within those two months, assume the position at Hibiya will no longer be available.”
“That’s more than enough time.”
Having finished her shopping, Shandy hurried home.
This was a great game, one in which she would measure whether Mikoto could decide what she wanted to do with her future.
Even if Mikoto lost the game and chose to become a housewife, Shandy had no intention of abandoning her.
But neither could she bring herself to keep Mikoto at home by taking away the desire to work that had come from her wish to be Shandy’s equal.
Then, at the very least…
Shandy wanted Mikoto to find the career, workplace, and future that Mikoto herself desired.
She wanted to support her until Mikoto could find them and make her own decision.
“Even so, you really are spectacularly overprotective.”
“Oh? What makes you say that?”
There was a faintly amused undertone in Sanae’s voice.
“…Nothing. I was just thinking how much you’ve changed. The ballroom-dancing incident must have really affected you.”
“No, no. I haven’t changed at all. For proof, I intend to spoil Mikoto rotten for quite some time. I thought I might make her feel the comfort of being kept by me down to the very marrow of her bones, so she won’t be tempted to cheat on me with work.”
“In other words, if Kurosu-san can win by throwing away the sweet dream and choosing to live in reality, then she wins. And even though you yourself want her to win, you deliberately do the opposite in order to test her. You really are contrary.”
“If she wants us to be equals, then she needs to become someone capable of doing that much.”
Sanae gave a small laugh.
Shandy laughed along with her.
“Then this time, we’ll take your side. Let’s make this process Kurosu-san’s re-employment interview. It can be anything: finding fulfilment in work, being prepared to earn her own money, whatever. If Kurosu-san can find a firm reason to work, I’ll promise her the position at Hibiya.”
“Oh my. So we’re a team now, Sanae-san? This sounds like it could be a very enjoyable game.”
“Yes. It does from our side as well.”
In an exceptionally good mood, humming to herself, Shandy made her way home to Kyōdō.
Would Mikoto be able to win this game――?