“Well, you can make up for the time tomorrow.” Mom ushered me into the house and closed the door, trying to keep the feeble air conditioning inside where it belonged.
“Tomorrow’s Sunday, Mom. I never work on Sunday. It’s my day to spend with Yasa-kun.”
Her lips pinched into a tiny pucker. “Mei-chan, you’re married now and pregnant. Family comes first.”
I wanted to say, “Well, duh,” but that would only enrage her. Patience, Mei.
“He’s my family, too. If I don’t spend time with my husband, whom I love, then what’s the point of being married?” My blood pressure rose, my blood vessels threatening to burst. How had Mom crawled all over my nerves in the one point two minutes I’d been in the house?
“Marriage is for family and business,” she said, her hands on her hips. “Not for love or any of those other things you young people talk about nowadays.”
My mouth dropped open. I had married Yasahiro because I loved him and he loved me. We were a modern couple. This was not the Edo Period, 1700s Japan.
I caught sight of Yuna, standing in the kitchen and eavesdropping. She must’ve sneaked in through the back door from the barn when we were chatting. She averted her eyes and went to the refrigerator to pretend like she hadn’t been listening. I could’ve been mistaken, but Yuna looked miserable. Her face was set in a frown, her hair was pulled into a haphazard ponytail, and her clothes were covered in dirt. This look was a million kilometers away from her usual well-pressed shirts, perfect makeup, and professionally straightened hair.
When I wasn’t looking, Mom tripped over a toy truck on the floor and cursed in a very unlike-Mom fashion. “Ugh. Yuna-ko, please tell those boys to clean up after themselves or one of these movers is going to trip and fall and sue me.”
Yuna dipped her head. “Yes, Mom.” She breezed past us both, picked up the toys, and escaped out the front door.
I inhaled, trying to calm down my reaction, but it was no use. “Mom, I married Yasa-kun because I love him, he’s a good man, and he loves me. We make a good team. And I’m not going to jeopardize that.” I thought of all the marriages in Japan that had turned cold and cruel because the husband or wife became distant after their kids were born. Many marriages had ended or endured through cheating because someone didn’t want to have sex or be intimate anymore.
That would not be me. I refused to let it happen.
I figured Mom was going to fight me, but she sighed and lifted her chin. “Fine. I guess that’s what all of your generation wants nowadays, anyway. You’re a strong woman, Mei-chan. If that’s what you want, I’m sure you’ll make it happen.”
I nodded and followed her into the kitchen, pleased she got the picture quicker than I thought she would. Maybe this was what she needed, me to stand my ground and fight for the things I wanted. It seemed possible that she could change. I had changed this past year, so why couldn’t she?
In the kitchen, Mom grabbed her apron and tried to make her way around the kitchen island, but she knocked her hip against the hard stainless steel top.
“Ow!” She rubbed her hip and blew a frustrated breath through her lips. “This moving is getting to me. I feel turned around and flustered all the time.”
I stepped forward, took her hand, and squeezed it. “How can I help right now? I promised Yasa-kun I’d return to the tea shop this afternoon, but I have an hour to spend here.”
“Thank you, Mei-chan,” she said, squeezing my hand back. “Can you check the seed inventory that arrived yesterday?” She grabbed a sheet of paper from her desk and handed it to me. “I need to stay inside and supervise.”
“Sure.” It was an easy task, something I could finish in an hour. “I’ll do this and get going. Then I’ll be back on Monday morning.”
“Whatever you decide, Mei-chan.” Her voice was resigned, and I wondered if I was on her bad side again. But she left the room before I could question her.
Out in the barn, I ran into Minato.
“Hello, Minato-san. How are you?” I tried not to blush as he smiled at me. I really did. But no matter how many times I saw him, he was still handsome as ever.
“I’m good, Mei-san. How are you? It’s cooler out today, thankfully.” He set down his socket wrench and leaned away from the tractor to test the connection between it and the cultivator.
“I’m doing well, thanks. And yes, I’m glad it’s a bit cooler out today. Not as humid either.” I crossed the barn to the plastic tubs we kept the seed stores in and attempted to lift one tub from on top of the other so I could access both, but Minato jumped up and ran to me.
“Let me get that for you. You shouldn’t be lifting heavy things now.”
I stood back as he arranged the two tubs next to each other. “I keep forgetting about that. My doctor told me not to lift heavy boxes, but then I saw a video of some woman on YouTube who was eight months pregnant and doing deadlifts at the gym.” I slipped into my daydreams of being fit and fabulous after having the baby and nearly laughed at myself. When had I ever cared about exercising except for running?
Never.
“I’m sure that woman was a trained professional,” he said, winking at me. “How’s the painting going?”
I was surprised he remembered since it had been a while since we last talked about my painting. He loved to draw, which is why he had previously owned the manga store, so this was a hobby we had in common.
“It’s going well enough.”
“Well enough? Is something not right with it?”
“Actually, for once, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with the painting. I love it to pieces. You’ll have to come see it.” I huffed a short breath as I looked at the numbers on the sheet Mom had given me. “But I haven’t had much time to paint between working here, the tea shop, and helping Akai-san with the Fukuda house.”
“Oh yes! How’s that going? Have you found anything?”
I looked twice at the seed stores and realized it would take a while to go through them all. While it was an easy job, it was also time consuming. So I set it aside for the time being, grabbed a bottle of water with Minato, and told him about everything we’d found out so far.
“Now, I’m stuck because I don’t know what to do next. I hoped the manga would be the key, but I guess it was too much to ask for Ria-chan to just declare right inside either why she left or if someone had threatened her.”
“You only have the two suspects? Itsuki Kato and Ria-chan’s father?”
“That’s it so far.” I shrugged my shoulders and took a sip of water. “And no body, of course. So who knows? She could be alive in America or Europe for all we know, and this is a giant waste of time.”
He leaned back in his chair, letting the front legs hover off the concrete slab of the barn. “I don’t know, Mei-chan. I don’t think looking into her disappearance is a waste of time. She left many people brokenhearted and sick with worry.”
He brought his chair back to the ground and leaned over his legs, folding his hands together.
“I didn’t know she dated Itsuki-san which I find funny.” He laughed, sadly.
“What’s so funny about that?”
“She normally came into the manga shop on her own. She said she liked the quiet time, just her and the stories. But a few times I saw her with a few boys from her school. They all wore the same uniform. They would drop her off outside, or be there when she was done.”
This sounded promising. If they had gone to the same school, I could retrieve the class photos to show Minato and ask him if he could identify any of them. Maybe he would recognize someone from the group that hung out with her.
If only Tama, Akiko’s older brother, wasn’t in jail for killing his father and attempting to kill us, I would ask him more about this. As it was, I didn’t want to even think of him, much less talk to him. And besides, I knew him at the time. He hadn’t been dating anyone.
“She never mentioned Itsuki-san, nor any boyfriend. I figured she was a loner, like eve
ryone else in that crew was. I’m sure Akai-san could tell you more about that than I could.”
I looked out over the fields and across the road toward Akiko’s house, remembering Tama and his friends kicking a soccer ball around the field in the back. Ria and Haruka, Tama’s eventual fiancée, would show up, and they’d all walk into town together. Akiko and I would watch on, jealous of their freedom.
“Do you remember the names of any of the boys who came by with her?”
“No. It was a long time ago, but I’m pretty sure we never spoke about them. Just things like ‘My friends are here. I’ve gotta go.’ Or whatever. She was never specific about it.”
“She was a quiet girl,” I said, agreeing with him. “It wouldn’t be like her to gossip or shout out that she was dating someone.”
“If she was,” Minato corrected me. “I got the feeling that boys were like aliens to her. That’s why she spent so much time reading romance manga in the shop and drawing her own.”
Yes, it was possible her manga story I was reading wasn’t based on her life at all. It could’ve been the wishful thinking of an awkward girl who had a hard time relating to boys.
“Have you spoken to the private investigator Ria-chan’s father hired to find her?” Minato asked, and I straightened up in my seat.
“How did you know he hired a PI?”
He laughed. “Because the woman came and asked me questions the week after Ria-chan went missing. It was the smart thing to do, to hire someone outside of the police force to look for her. Missing persons cases only get so much quality time with detectives before they move onto cases they can actually solve.”
“I didn’t know he hired someone. Goro-chan suggested Ria-chan’s father may have hired someone, but he didn’t know for sure.”
He stood up, dusting off his gloves and jeans. “I have your email address. I’ll dig up her name and send it to you. Shouldn’t take me long to figure out who she was.”
“Thanks. I’d appreciate that.”
We bowed to each other as he left, and I returned to dealing with the seed stores, but after several minutes, I was ready to give up. Nothing matched up with Mom’s invoice. Her invoice stated we had twenty packets of cucumber seeds, but we only had sixteen. Several other counts were off too, not always in the negative. Why was everything out of sorts?
I’d have asked Minato for help, but he took off as soon as his shift was over. Sweat poured down my forehead as I searched the barn for missing or misplaced seed packs. Moving aside a pile of empty potato sacks, I found a bag of seeds that had been buried underneath. But something told me this wasn’t the full extent of the problem, so I continued to search the barn. Eventually, I made my way to the waste and recycling bins where, amongst the discarded plastic, I discovered several more seed packs.
“What is going on here?” I asked aloud as I lifted them up to the light and read the packaging. They were fresh seeds, date stamped to only a month ago.
Hmmm. I rested my hands on my hips as I scanned the barn. Several tools were out of their usual spots and Mom’s workbench was not as tidy as it usually was. Was Minato a slob? I didn’t think so. His manga store had been well-cared for, and I’d witnessed him cleaning up after himself here on several occasions. Besides, it wasn’t like him to touch or use Mom’s things if he didn’t need them. He had access to the farming equipment and tools, and he made the farm his home when he was here, but he was careful and kind.
I shrugged my shoulders as I returned to my work. Perhaps Mom didn’t care as much about these things anymore. I couldn’t really blame her. I was haphazard myself, only keeping my space neat and clean because that’s what other people wanted. If she was cutting herself some slack, good for her.
Still, the seed stores were a mess, and I spent an extra thirty minutes more than I bargained for working on righting the discrepancies. Even when I was done, several counts were off.
Back inside the house, I called out for Mom, but no one answered until Yuna came around the corner from the living room.
“Shhh. Mom’s taking a nap. She was stressed from the move and needed time alone.”
Hmmm. That wasn’t like her either. She weathered most situations with abundant energy and only a few hours of sleep. I pulled my forehead into a scrunch of doubt, but Yuna patted my shoulder.
“Thanks for all your help, Mei-chan. I really appreciate you showing me around. I’m terrible at this.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I reassured her. “I’m sure you’ll learn in no time.”
“We’ll see about that,” she replied, doubt coating every syllable.
It looked like I wasn’t the only one having trouble adjusting to the new situation.
Chapter Eighteen
We raised our beer mugs and toasted, letting them clink against each other as we chanted “Kampai!” My beer mug was filled with grapefruit soda (I craved citrus fruit like no other) and everyone else was drinking alcohol but me. Oh well. It wasn’t forever.
The brand new beer garden had opened only three months ago, right in time for summer drinks outside under the stars. The backyard of this restaurant used to be an overgrown traditional garden, but the new owner had been smart enough to tear out the weeds, install plenty of tables, twinkling electric tea lights and a sound system playing the latest in ambient music. Yasahiro swore up and down that his next venture would do just the same because the place was packed almost every single night.
But being the smart women we were, we got in and claimed our table at the early hour of 16:00.
“I’m not used to drinking so early,” Kayo said, after taking a deep gulp of her beer. “But then again, I’m not used to not working.”
“You all work too much,” Kumi said, laughing. “But you know Goro-chan wouldn’t have it any other way. He’s working right now. Thank goodness for my mother-in-law.”
Jealousy burned inside of me for a short, brilliant second. Chiyo was watching Taiga tonight so Kumi could go out. Her own parents helped out too at least once per week. Yasahiro’s parents lived almost an hour away, and I was no longer sure what to expect from my mom. Would she be willing to babysit? Would she help me out when the time came? I wasn’t convinced she would. She didn’t seem to care about what I had going on.
Really, I had so little choice of what to do. I could wallow in the rejection and not move forward with my life, which was painful when I thought about it too much. Or Yasahiro and I could move on, get our own place and farm, and try to work with what we had. That option afforded us some happiness, at least, but it also felt like we were abandoning Mom.
I didn’t like either of these choices.
“Don’t look so down, Mei-chan. We’re out to have a good time tonight.” Akiko patted my hand, and I snapped my face into a smile. I was being stupid again. Whatever was to come, I had brought it on myself somehow, and I would have to learn to live with the consequences when the time came.
“Of course.” I lifted my glass again. “I’m looking forward to dinner. I could really use a hamburger and fries right about now.”
“Me too,” everyone else said. And that was why we were friends. Always on the same page. Akiko and I had had our hard times after the fire last year, but those days were behind us. She helped me in the spring when I was going through hell, and I owed her so much for that.
I let my mind wander through most of the catch-up small talk at the table. The sky was clear, and the shade from the umbrellas kept the space cool. I took the time to go over most of what I was dealing with in my head starting with Ria Fukuda. I was beginning to doubt my original suspicion that she was dead. At this point, I figured she’d had some secret boyfriend, maybe someone she’d met online, and knowing her mother and father would object, she’d run off to be with him. Or her. I mean, who was I to say for sure she was straight? Even after all the digging I had done on her, I barely knew anything.
My list of suspects was deteriorating by the moment, along with my life situation. The only thin
g that was going my way was my relationship with Yasahiro. At least he believed in me.
I tried to smile as everyone laughed at a joke Kayo told, but my face slipped into a frown as I remembered my conversation with Itsuki earlier in the morning. He thought I’d come to the taiyaki place to cause mischief or give him a bad reputation. He probably didn’t mean it, but I was hurt by that, more than I was willing to admit. I prided myself on helping others, not causing them more harm. If everyone in town was going to believe these stupid rumors, I had a lot of work ahead of me.
Sitting at the beer garden as the outdoor space was filling up with patrons, I could’ve sworn people were eyeing us. Were they looking at me? Or was I paranoid?
The food came, and it gave me the opportunity to be quiet for even longer. My thoughts spiraled out of control, and I daydreamed my “girl time” away. Inside, I was miserable, and I couldn’t stop the self-destructive loop of feelings of inadequacy.
Finally, Akiko caught on. “You’re awfully quiet, Mei-chan.”
Kumi and Kayo looked up from their burgers, their eyes narrowing.
“I’ve been hearing that a lot lately.” I opened my mouth to confess to them, and then I thought better of it. Maybe if I ignored it, the whole situation would go away.
“Spill it,” Kayo demanded. “Whenever you have something to say and don’t, you get that fish face.” She mimed a fish, opening and closing its mouth underwater. Kumi huffed a laugh through her nose.
“Fish face. I’ll just add that to the list of names people are calling me.”
“This again?” Akiko asked. “I thought we laughed that off the other day.”
“That was before I went to visit Kato-san’s taiyaki place this morning.”
Kumi’s attention bounced back and forth between us. “I’m lost. What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” I replied, but Akiko jumped in unbidden.
“People around town are calling Mei-chan a witch.” Her voice was amplified by the alcohol she’d consumed, and I shushed her.
The Daydreamer Detective Returns a Favor Page 11