Rick remembered. He remembered why he remembered. Her. Yukiko. That was her name. The lady in the ad. He remembered that he had met her when he had been seventeen and had gone to Japan on a cultural exchange trip. Rick was not one of the cool kids at school. In fact, apart from his bank balance and his apartment, there was hardly anything cool about his adult life. And that cool apartment had now been sold, elegant decorations and all and all Rick currently had in his name in the form of material possessions were three pairs of jeans and ten solid colored plain T-shirts and a laptop. When he was seventeen, he had been similarly attired - plain T-shirts and jeans or shorts as the weather demanded. And glasses. But somehow, she had liked him enough to spend time with him during that one week he had been put up at an inn with a view of Mt. Fuji. He remembered her with the background of Mt Fuji because he had talked to her in real life with that background.
Yukiko loved visiting her aunt in the village. Not for its idyllic life away from the city but because there lived close to her aunt's house, an old man with an enormous English movie videotape collection, and let Yukiko borrow them whenever she visited. So by the time she was seventeen, Yukiko had watched close to a hundred English movies. By the time she was seventeen, she also had a plan for her life- Step 1: Learn to speak English fluently, she was halfway there already. Step 2: Get a job as an flight attendant. Step 3: Meet a rich person from the USA. Step 4: Marry him and go live in the States. So when she happened to meet this American boy during her summer holidays, she pounced on the opportunity it afforded to practice her speaking skills in a real situation.
Nakajima starts walking briskly away as soon as Director Hyuga has turned. Something had bothered her when all the black-haired Ricks had been turned away. She knows now why. She had created an image in her mind on reading the script and the Rick in her image was not blonde-haired. Starting out on the wrong foot with Director Hyuga irks her especially for this reason. So she doesn't waste her time.
"Nakajima-san? Where are you going?" calls one of the other ADs
She doesn't reply but glances back and sees the two ADs following hard. She starts walking faster. They start walking faster as well. Before long they have made a mad dash to the door. Nakajima reaches the door, quickly steps to the side, and stops. The two other ADs rush blindly out the door. Suddenly coming into the sunlight, they are momentarily blinded. Nakajima, who had been in front had noticed the glare had already put on her sunglasses. She had also noticed the brown-haired man standing to the right and recognized him. She grabs him and pulls him inside. By the time the two ADs put on their sunglasses and look around, there is no one. Nonplussed, they shrug. Then one starts walking to his car and the other starts pulling out a phone to make calls.
"You came to the audition right?" Nakajima asks the man.
"Hai" he says in a wide drawl drawing out the syllable so it comes out as Haaee.
Nakajima raises her eyebrow but doesn't comment on it.
"What is your name?"
"Rick Hernandez." replies the man confidently as if it were his own name and he had been giving this name since he was five years old. Nakajima doesn't bat an eyelid. She was done second-guessing herself. 'This fellow here is gold. He has a clear shot at getting the role. He has the right hair, the right accent. In fact, when I read the script, this is exactly who I pictured.', she thinks. 'Those two ADs were idiots. Let them go waste their time chasing after all those other Rick wannabes. This here is the real thing.'
"Come with me Rick.," she says.
A/N: Short chapter this time. But will pick up with a biggish chapter next time.