The Flower Master (Rei Shimura #3) (25 page)

"Don't call me young. We're the same age—"

"You are the only one who doesn't bow to me. And who looks beautiful in old clothes, instead of swaddling herself in Chanel and Escada."

"I didn't bow because I thought you were a florist," I said, unable to stop smiling at the memory. "And then, well, it didn't seem as if you liked me very much, so there was no point in courtesy."

"I do like you," Takeo said. "But it's hard for me to know what my chance is. I talked with Mr. Ishida for a while before I started the car. He said that you lived with a foreign lawyer, but that he left you last fall. Has it really ended?"

It was painful hearing Hugh described that way, but it was true that I had been more or less abandoned. I released my arms from Takeo's touch and turned around to face him. Despite my suspicions of him, I could not deny that I was attracted. But the prospect of being deceived again was overpowering. "It has. But being alone doesn't mean that I'm easy."

"On the contrary, I think you're rather hard." Takeo's eyes were on me, and I wondered if he was speaking metaphorically or had noticed the situation underneath my thin angora sweater. I blundered forward, as much to move my breasts out of his line of vision as to get away from him, but he matched my move with one of his own. Kendo training. The next thing I knew, his arms were around me.

It was too late to pretend disinterest. I parted my lips, receiving his kiss with some curiosity. I'd had Japanese boyfriends before, but none of them had ever tried to get close to me without insisting that we take a shower first. I had nothing against cleanliness, but it felt much sexier to be messed up from the rain, kissing someone who tasted faintly like tea.

Soon my curiosity was replaced by urgency. He really was a delicious kisser, and I wanted to devour him. Our bodies moved into each other, a near-perfect fit with him only half a foot taller. As his fingers grazed my breasts, my own hands streamed up his body to explore his chest. He recoiled slightly, and I remembered that he was probably sore from the car accident.

"This isn't a good idea," I murmured and broke away. We were visible in the silver tower. Anyone could see into the room, perhaps even the person who had killed Sakura and wanted Takeo and Mr. Ishida dead.Takeo's face was as flushed as I imagined mine was. In a low voice he said, "I disagree. And from the way you kissed me, I think you feel the same. We have this—thing—blossoming between us, and starting tomorrow we've got a lot to do. We'll find my mother and clear your aunt's reputation."

I couldn't bear to look at Takeo, so I stared at the cover of a
National Geographic
lying on the floor. I concentrated on a tiger mother and cub. "It's pretty hard to clear someone else's reputation when your own is so bad."

"What? If it's about being half American, or the fact that you don't earn so much, money, don't worry. I don't care about that." He came within inches of my face, and when I didn't lift my face to him, he stepped around me and simply put his arms around me again. I rested lightly against his wounded chest for a brief moment. I couldn't help it. It just felt perfect, despite the harsh words I had to say.

"The one with a reputation is you," I said. "Some people remember that you were kicked out of Keio University for almost causing another student's death."

Takeo's chest stiffened, but he didn't let go. "I voted against bringing kendo equipment into the lavatories, but I couldn't stop them. I spent two months making daily visits to the hospital to see the student. We all did. Did you hear that part of the story?" I didn't answer. "I admitted it was my fault, so I was expelled. Then I enrolled at UC Santa Cruz, where I learned about organic horticulture and other things."

Here was something I could seize on. I needed an argument to keep me away from him, an excuse not to care. Rapidly, I said, "Is that where you learned your moves, Takeo? When you were in the UC dormitory, with other California girls?"

That did it. Takeo released me so quickly that I almost lost my balance. I didn't turn around but heard him ease back into his chair. "Sorry. My timing's bad. If there was one thing that my father's tried to hammer into me, it is the virtue of patience."

"I think I'd better go. The subway . . . "

"Of course, " he said. "Thank you for seeing me home. Will you find your way downstairs by yourself?"

Going through the Kayama Kaikan alone in the dark was not a prospect I relished, but being with him was potentially just as bad, given my treacherous hormones.

I found the way down.

I felt completely bereft when I woke up the next morning: alienated from Takeo and also from Aunt Norie. There was no savory smell of miso soup, no slap of my aunt's slippers against the floor as she walked to the door to pick up the newspaper. My aunt had been such a presence in the few days that she had lived with me, and now she was lost to me, along with all the other people I'd angered.

Perhaps it was just as well Norie wasn't around to see me in such a state. After returning home, I'd felt so shaken by the night's events that I wound up downing a seven-hundred-milliliter bottle of Kirin. Instead of helping me sleep, the alcohol perversely caused me to awaken throughout the night. I spent long minutes staring at the digital display on my alarm clock while I ran through possible links between Sakura's death and Takeo's story about a mother who might still be alive.

My morning-after felt lousy, but I knew I had to get up. While I waited for the electric teakettle to make my cup of tea, I called Mari Kumamori, who agreed to see me at noon. Next I called Tom at the hospital. I was put on hold for a while, during which time I drank the tea and did some leg-stretching exercises. I'd decided that even though I felt weak, I might as well go for a run. It could only make me feel better.

"Hello, Rei," Tom said when he finally came on. "You don't have to make up a phony doctor's name to get them to page me. Everyone in my department knows you."

"It's my accent, I bet." I was crestfallen.

"No, it's just that you're very polite. Nobody would think you're a physician."

There was a compliment somewhere in his self- deprecating joke, but I didn't want to kid around. "What's happening with your parents?"

"They told me about my father's job loss. Its hard, but we will get through it."

"And your mother?"

"She is actually more upset than he is."

"It's because of me. I tried to force her to tell me about something that happened long ago. She wasn't ready."

"Well, I'm ready. To tell you about Nolvadex, at least."

I stopped stretching my hamstrings and got out my notebook to write down the details.

"It's a drug used in treating breast cancer," Tom said. "Usually after a woman has the cancerous tissue removed, she will undergo a course of chemotherapy. And after that she might be prescribed Nolvadex to help keep the cancer in remission."

"Wow, isn't breast cancer here quite rare? I thought Asian women were practically immune," I said, reaching into my Jogbra to make a quick self exam. Remembering Takeo's hands gave me a slight twinge.

"There are plenty of women with breast cancer in Japan, but they don't run around with pink ribbons pinned to their blouses and talk about it to everyone."

"Maybe they should. Anyway, do you think the drug could be prescribed to an older woman? Say around seventy years old?"

"Are you talking about Mrs. Koda?"

"Yes," I admitted. "But please don't say anything to your mother. I have a feeling that if she was hiding the drug in a Motrin container, she doesn't want people to know."

"You're probably right," Tom said. "Over the last few years I've noticed how frail Mrs. Koda has become. I'd always thought of it as old age. In hindsight, she might need the cane to help her walk, because dizziness and nausea are side effects of Nolvadex."

"It's a strong drug, then," I said. "Could someone overdose on Nolvadex and die?"

"If you're thinking that Nolvadex was what made you sick at the ikebana exhibition, no, you don't need to worry. It's an estrogen receptor antagonist, and there are no known problems with overdose. You were definitely poisoned by arsenic."

After we'd said goodbye, I called Nippon University Hospital to speak to Mr. Ishida. I was relieved to hear that he'd been released, although when I telephoned his shop, he didn't answer. Maybe he was resting upstairs in his apartment. But I didn't know the number, and that made me concerned.

It was time to run. I tried to pound away my worries, my feet hitting the potholed streets of my neighborhood with loud, angry thuds. Now I was sorry that I'd spent time with Takeo instead of trailing Mr. Ishida to the hospital.

I ran into the alley where Takeo's Range Rover had crashed. It was gone, and a city employee was sweeping up tacks while a few more worked on removing the toppled streetlight. Speeding around the corner, I continued thinking about the Nolvadex. Either Mrs. Koda had cancer or she was hiding someone else's anticancer drug in her desk drawer. The latter did not seem likely.

As I moved faster, my mind raced to the Stop Killing Flowers flyer about pesticide use in Colombia. Che's information about the workers who had gotten sick was the first part of the equation. Surely the pesticides tainting the flowers would remain present on the blooms after they were shipped overseas. Maybe the person at the Kayama School taking Nolvadex had developed cancer because of long-term exposure to pesticide-treated flowers. If Stop Killing Flowers knew about that detail, they would have an extremely convincing argument to give the Japanese public. Rumors about pesticides, dyes, and additives had stopped imports of food from North America many times.

I ran through the twisting streets crowded with parked scooters and vans, visualizing myself moving through a field of native grasses and wildflowers, nothing treated, everything real. After each step I took, the grass would spring up again, healthy and undamaged. Probably the Kayamas' country house was surrounded by fields like that—land they owned and had the luxury not to develop. It was all very nice for Takeo. I was suddenly angry about this, as well as for the casual way he'd unloaded Sakura's cruel stories about Norie. It was adding insult to injury that he had kissed me a few minutes later.

After the run, I showered and slipped into my favorite black jeans, which fit better than they had in years. My poisoning had taken off about an inch. I tucked a ribbed T-shirt into the jeans and tied a scarf around my neck. My sneakers were still damp from the run, so I wore my penny loafers instead. Aunt Norie would have almost approved of the outfit I chose to wear to Mari Kumamori's.

I had a seat on the midday train to Zushi, so I was able to study the Kayama School teachers' certificate list, referring to my kanji dictionary to help me translate the spelling of some names. The trip took about an hour, and by the time I disembarked at Zushi Station, I had skimmed through a few hundred Yumikos, Marikos, and Sachikos. The suffix -ko, which means "child", was common in women's names. I felt lucky to have been named Rei and not Reiko, a very popular Japanese name that meant 'beautiful girl-child.' Takeo's mothers name was Reiko. Beautiful girl. The ominous haiku message came back to me, and I pushed it away. I wasn't classically attractive by Japanese standards, no matter what Takeo had said.

According to this list, Sakura's real first name was Shizuko, which meant 'quiet child.' A ridiculous misnomer, considering the way she had raised her voice to Aunt Norie. I chided myself for being so uncharitable about a person who'd been killed. Everyone had something good inside them—even Sakura. Takeo had spoken of her with respect, recalling how she'd cared for him after his mother's death.

Mari had given me directions to her house via a bus, saying the trip would take seven minutes from the train station. I'd wanted to walk, but she had insisted that the streets were difficult for pedestrians. Once I was aboard the bus, zooming down an expressway, I could see why. Getting around in suburban Japan required wheels. During the short bus ride, I noticed several supermarkets with parking lots crowded with sport utility vehicles and mini-vans. There were few mom-and-pop stores, and no teashops or tofu-makers.

Mari's house was in a hilly district of houses that seemed like the same architect had built them all in the late 1980s, before the bubble economy burst. The houses were built out of a yellow material that looked like brick but wasn't, with leaded-glass windows and shingled roofs—a hodgepodge of European house details that looked awkward and expensive.

I rang the doorbell and waited. I rang again, and after five minutes I decided Mari wasn't going to answer. I knew that I had the right address, because I'd recognized her surname on the mailbox on her gate. I was gathering up my backpack when I caught a flash of movement along the side of the house. I peered over the faux brick wall to see Mari slowly carrying a cardboard box into a tin-roofed shack with windows. Her pottery studio, I guessed. There was a real brick kiln next to the shack that was also covered by a tin roof, and, to my surprise, there was also a small wooden shrine standing on a pole next to it. Under the shrine's tiny roof sat a family of bears, all fashioned out of clay and glazed a deep brown. Maris last name, Kumamori, meant 'bear in the forest.'

Mari came out of the shack without the boxes and smiled tentatively. "I didn't expect to see you so soon."

"Sorry. This is a lovely place," I said. "I never would have expected a shrine, though."

"Those bears are the gods protecting the kiln. I made them myself, so they're not very good."

"They're very cute," I said. "You could sell them."

Mari sighed. "Always you talk about selling. That isn't my interest."

"It's not that you need the extra income. It just might be fun for you to be a businesswoman."

"I have fun already," Mari said, waving me into the pottery studio ahead of her. Sun flooded through the windows, lighting a large worktable. A potter's wheel and chair filled one corner of the small studio, and the walls were covered with shelves holding finished ikebana containers. I noticed a row of vases in the classic gray, cream, and brown hues the Kayama School favored, as well as a second row of brilliantly colored containers. They were all in shades of celadon ranging from pale aqua to a deep yellow green. I'd never seen celadon used at the Kayama School. Its strong color probably went against the 'Truth in Nature' coda, although celadon ikebana vases were featured in old wood-block illustrations. Mari's work was a rephrasing of tradition.