Gasa-Gasa Girl (3 page)

“That’s why Mari called—to ask your help. Kazzy doesn’t want to pay for extra workers; somehow we’ve already gone over budget by thousands of dollars. I have friends who might have come out, but we figured that they would get tired of it. We were talking to Mr. Yamada about our problems, and then he mentioned you. Said that he thought you’d be open to helping out.”

Mas bit down on his dentures. So that explained it. Mari had cried out to him—not to be a father or even a grandfather, but to serve as a common laborer. Only worse, because they wanted him to work for free. And to top it off further, it had all come from Tug—just like he had thought.

“
So
—
ka,
” Mas finally said.

“It’s not that we wouldn’t pay you eventually,” Lloyd added. “I know that you’re neglecting your own customers to come here.”

Mas grunted. He had asked his best friend, Haruo Mukai, to look after his nine customers back in L.A. But since Haruo had gotten a part-time job selling chrysanthemums at the Southern California Flower Market, Mas had to also depend on a no-good gardener, Stinky Yoshimoto, who cut down bushes and trees so severely that their forms looked like the bodies of amputees.

“We’d just pay you later, when Kazzy sees that all is going well. And quite frankly, the fact that you’re Japanese may calm his nerves.”

“Nerves?” This Kazzy-
san
was sounding more and more like a man gone
kuru-kuru-pa
.

“He’s just a little on edge. The opening is supposed to be in May, but the vandalism really set us back. Now Mari wants us to walk away from the project.”

Not a bad idea, thought Mas.

“But she seems to forget that my work at the garden paid for her insurance when she was pregnant, the rent, and other bills. We’ve used up our savings. She thinks that we can live on nothing, on air. Maybe we once could, but not now, with Takeo.”

Mas hadn’t known Mari was hanging by a financial thread, in spite of the fact that she had some kind of fancy degree from Columbia University. To live from paycheck to paycheck—like father, like daughter.

Lloyd pulled back his hair behind his ears and cradled his head, as if he had been physically battered. He finally looked up, and Mas noticed that his son-in-law had black flecks, like splintered glass, in his muddy-colored eyes. “Here you are, on your first night in New York, and I should be taking you out to dinner. But I have to go look for Mari and Takeo.”

Mas wanted to join Lloyd in his search, but he knew that he would only slow down his long-legged son-in-law. And besides, Mari had probably disappeared because of him. Mas figured he would be the last person she would want to see.

“There’s salami in the fridge and a baguette by the toaster oven. And there’s plenty of restaurants in the neighborhood within walking distance.”

“No worry about me,” said Mas. “Youzu just find wife and kid.”

A
fter the son-in-law left, Mas opened the refrigerator for the salami, but opted for a six-pack of strange beer instead. Made somewhere in Europe, the beer was as thick as syrup and dark as Coca-Cola, but it still did what it was supposed to do: help ease Mas’s troubles. Lloyd had placed a couple of blankets and a futon covering on the couch, as well as two limp pillows. Mas turned on their rickety television and watched the news. The anchors and reporters looked more subdued than the ones in Los Angeles. They didn’t seem to force fake smiles and banter, and instead of bright-blue skies and palm tree backgrounds, the sets were simple, painted in basic blue, red, and black. The stories, however, told of the same kinds of shootings and gang violence, only in neighborhoods he had never heard of. Mas switched from one channel to the next. Unlike L.A., there were no Japanese American reporters, reminding Mas that he was in territory where he didn’t belong. He drank another beer and then a third, feeling the alcohol loosen the tightness in his neck and shoulders. Soon the couch in the Park Slope apartment became his friend, cradling him to sleep amid the muffled noise from outside, where his daughter, grandchild, and son-in-law were wandering somewhere, loose and separate.

A
crab was pinching Mas’s big toe. It appeared out of nowhere, and then dozens of minicrabs descended on Mas’s body from cracks in the floor, the walls, the ceilings. As they traveled, their spindly legs made clicking sounds. Soon the sounds became louder and louder, merging together into a shrill pitch.

Mas woke up and shook his head to clear his mind from the dream of crabs. He paused a moment to get his bearings. The phone by the nowhere stairs was ringing. Mas didn’t know whether to answer or not, but it could be important. News about Mari.

“Hallo.”

“Mas—?”

“Hallo,” Mas repeated. The voice on the other line sounded familiar.

“Itsu Haruo.”

Haruo. Mas’s skinny friend with the fake eye. At first Mas was going to ask how he got Mari’s number, but then remembered that he had given Haruo the number in case of emergencies. “Whatsu the time?”

“Youzu just get up? Itsu four o’clock ova here. Izu at the Flower Market. Itsu a slow day today—just wanna make sure you got to New York
orai
.”

“Izu here,” Mas said. But nothing was all right. “Mari’s missin’. Son-in-law gone to find her.”

There was a pause on the other end. Haruo finally murmured, “Missin’. That makes no sense. You say sumptin’ to her,
deshō
?”

Mas didn’t like what Haruo was trying to say. “Haven’t even seen her. Or the grandson.” Mas didn’t want to get into Takeo’s health problems right now.

“You call the police?”

Mas couldn’t imagine getting them involved. “She left a message, Haruo. No funny business, Izu sure. Just a lot of stress right now, money and work.”

“I see,” said Haruo. Mas could imagine Haruo nodding his head, his shock of black and white overgrown hair barely covering the keloid scar on his face. Since going to a counselor in Little Tokyo for his gambling addiction, Haruo considered himself an expert on anything troubling somebody’s mind.

“I gotta go, Haruo.”

“You callsu me when they find her. You promise, Mas? You gotsu both my numbas, here at the Market and home.”

“Yah, yah. Got work to do, Haruo.”

Before Haruo could ask what kind of work, Mas hung up the phone. There was no sign that the son-in-law had returned to the underground apartment during the night. The heater had been left on, so the front room was now uncomfortably warm. The futon and the two blankets, apparently kicked off by Mas during the middle of the night, were crumpled on the brown rug beside the scratchy wool sweater he had been wearing—a hand-me-down from a customer’s teenage son.

Mas tore pieces of the French bread and balled up the soft insides for his breakfast meal. He noticed an old jar of Nescafé and warmed water in the teakettle over the stove. After sipping a strong cup of coffee (two heaping teaspoons of Nescafé) sweetened with another two teaspoons of sugar, Mas made a decision. He couldn’t just sit there and do nothing. Pulling on the wool sweater, he stumbled to the desk and waded through the papers. Beside the stack of photographs were some brochures of the Waxley Garden sponsored by the Ouchi Foundation. Taking a brochure and a map of Brooklyn, Mas headed out from the underground apartment in search of Lloyd’s garden.

T
ug had told him that most New Yorkers survived without cars, and Mas believed him. It was barely eight o’clock and the sidewalks were filled with well-wrapped men and women holding briefcases, duffel bags, tabloid newspapers, and disposable cups of steaming coffee. Mas stopped by a sycamore tree growing in a dirt square and studied the map. There was a diamond of green labeled Prospect Park, where Takeo Shiota’s Japanese garden lived. A few blocks north was the Waxley House.

Before Mas could tackle any real work, he needed reinforcements. He walked across Flatbush Avenue toward a grocery store, its facade covered in thick plastic strips like those of a car wash. Bright orange and red gerber daisies were bunched up, their stems soaking in water next to a large open refrigerator holding plastic containers of cut-up cantaloupe and honeydew melon. Inside, the small market reminded him of his neighborhood liquor store back in Altadena. Boxes of cereal and cans of soup were stacked high up to the ceiling—no space was wasted. Behind the front counter were a young Asian girl and a man about Mas’s age, perhaps her grandfather. The man studied Mas for a moment, and Mas stared back. The man wore a light-blue button-down shirt and a puffy vest. His graying hair was parted to the side. He looked respectable. Mas figured that he was meant for better work than he was doing. “Marlboro,” Mas said to the man.

“Marlboro?” the man repeated as if he didn’t quite understand.

Mas nodded, and the man drew out a pack from a line of cigarette cartons organized against the wall.

“You Japanese?” the man finally asked, after Mas pushed a ten-dollar bill across the counter.

Mas didn’t know if it was a trick question. He knew that the Japanese weren’t much loved among other Asians, especially those straight from the Pacific. “Yah, but Izu born here.” Mas waited for his change. “California.”

“Oh, California.” The man slid the change from the curved slots of the cash register. “My sister in California. Los Angeles.”

Mas nodded. “Me, too.”

“Los Angeles a very good place.”

Mas agreed. It didn’t matter that L.A. had been hit by its share of riots, earthquakes, fires, and even tornadoes. Most city folks knew little of the tornadoes, but Mas knew enough nurserymen to have heard about the plastic roofs of their greenhouses flying off in the wind, leaving behind only a twisted metal frame. L.A. was for the toughest of the tough, and apparently this store owner’s sister qualified.

Mas shook the package of cigarettes over his head in appreciation and made his way through the plastic strips to the sidewalk. With a fresh cigarette finally in his fingers, Mas couldn’t help feeling a little optimistic. Mari, the baby, and the son-in-law had to be together by now.

T
he Waxley House was a strange blend of styles, looking a lot like a child who didn’t know how to dress. On the bottom, the house was all dark wood, simple and clean lines. But on the top, it was brightly painted with swirls of red, green, and yellow, reminding Mas of those Chinese-influenced temples in Japan. He thought he even spotted a wooden dragon where the peaks of the roof met.