Mother Luck is a moody bitch, you know. And most likely bipolar. At least that would describe just perfectly how I got into this entirely horrendous situation.
First off, I should introduce myself shortly. Born in southern Germany, raised well and educated despite my entire lack of young ambition when it comes to studying, I stumbled out into life, a life full of odd jobs, professions and, of course, terrible men. After I got married and run off as fast as I possibly could after only ten days, I managed to get myself a job as a PA, assigned to the department head for international sales and distribution of a rather huge company programming personalized ERP software for major enterprises. More specifically the company's dealings on the Asian market. How I was able to do so is far beyond my imagination, believe me. Somehow I seem to have impressed on fist sight at the interview. Odd, to say the least.
And here I am, little old me, sitting in a quite nice apartment somewhere in goddamn Tokyo. The fact that the place was no tiny rat hole is due to my company. It's a nice place, really. Surprisingly spacious for Japan, pretty furnished. Sad, really, that I would get fired in only a couple of hours and would soon be dragged out of this cozy place. All that trouble just because in exactly one hour and forty-two minutes I had to attend a business dinner as an attendance of my boss. Nothing of highest importance, I have to admit, but it would be my very first step on business-ground here in Japan. And I was utterly terrified. The last three hours I had spent re-reading every book I had about decent Japanese behavior. Hell, I read this tomes of wisdom approximately a hundred times even before my move to Japan, but I still was unsure of when to do what, whom to greet first, when to speak up and when to smile and politely nod. One must know, that to be woman in Japan is still a bit tricky, even in the 21st century. There are still boundaries a western woman would never expect.
Tonight, I would epically fail. Of that, at least, I was pretty sure. Dragging myself out of my depression and up from the cozy, dark anthracite sofa I knocked over the knee-high stack of books on my way to the bedroom, where I halted in front of my closet, quietly cursing. The dinner was located in the fancy restaurant on the top level of one of Tokyo's classiest hotels, one of the kind I would never be able to afford a night in. Beside my boss and me there would be two potential Business partners from Tokyo and Kyoto joining us. Both of them were supposed to bring attendance. God knows how much I hoped, that it would be all easy going ladies talk for me. Because I really have a bad habit with not keeping my mouth shut and starting an argument about some marketing issue. And as I was told, that would be deemed very, very rude. Best chance was to just hold my mouth shut tight and look pretty. I could do that, surely. That left me with the choice of what to wear. After several minutes of raiding through the hangers I opted for a moderate length dress, dark emerald green under black lace, high collar. One of my "Mad Man" dresses as I liked to call them, because I looked totally sixtyish in them. The color would work perfectly with my creamy white complexion and copper-honey colored hair. A pair of classic black patent leather mary-jane heels and a similar classic black trench coat completed the outfit and I headed to the bath, heavily sighing.
This was going to be a long, long evening and I couldn't even just get drunk to endure it. In retrospective, had I known what would await me on this particular dinner table, I couldn't predict for the life of me what I would have done. Fight or flight, that's the question.
Doing my make-up in best-time, I was ready just on the spot to get into the nice black Lexus that awaited me at the main entrance of the apartment-building. Being official for the company wasn't so bad after all. The drive took more than 30 minutes and once again I was overwhelmed by the sheer size of this city. It felt like one could simply vanish in a matter of seconds if too careless. I´d never call me anxious or shy, I was more the adventurous kind of person, but all this, outside the tinted windows, took more courage than I thought I could muster. The first few weeks were hard on me, isolated due to my lack of language and friends in the first place. Only recently I slowly adapted to the situation. Sighing I lent my head against the cool glass, closing my eyes for a moment and taking in a deep breath to sooth my spinning mind.
Once the car reached its destination I took a last deep, shaky breath, sent a short prayer to whatever god was in charge around here, to not let me stumble out of the car in front of my boss and waited for the driver to open my door. I stepped out onto the vestibule and took a look around. Wonderfull. My boss was nowhere to be seen and already there were several serious looking men watching me walking up to the grand entrance. What could possibly go wrong?