Preparations, yes. Rehearsals, not so much.
Even Miho wasn’t around. Like Miss Aritomo, she collected Noh masks, and so the teacher had put Miho in charge of the select group of her students who were making and painting the masks for the play. Miho seemed almost giddy with excitement. She talked about her work with the masks nonstop.
Worse yet, after volunteering mainly so he could hang around with the girls, Ren had been put on Miho’s “mask squad,” so they hadn’t seen much of him at all.
The one bit of good news was that the weekend was coming up, and with it the Toro Nagashi Firework Festival. Kara had missed being in the United States for the Fourth of July, so she was really looking forward to the fireworks, and even more so to see the lanterns that would float in the bay. Hachiro had asked her to go with him, formally, the most official date they’d had, though they had been out together many times. All of her friends would be there, but still, it would be romantic.
“Are you daydreaming about Hachiro again?” Sakura asked.
Kara grinned.
“Well,” Sakura said. “At least that earns a smile from you. And this will earn a second one.”
She pointed to the wall. Kara glanced up and saw that 6:30 had arrived, and they were finally free. Happily, she poured the remains of her green paint back into the can and sealed it, then cleaned her brush. She had done her work for the day, and she thought the background for the play was coming out very well.
Kara went to a sink to wash her hands, pulling off her smock as Sakura did the same. “Come on,” Kara said, wiping her hands on a rag. “Let’s get Miho and Ren and get out of here.”
The two girls said their good-byes to the other students who were part of their background crew and hurried into the corridor.
“Do you have a lot of homework tonight?” Sakura asked.
Kara shrugged. “What’s ‘a lot’? At least two hours’ worth, but probably not more than that. Why?”
“I think we deserve a treat. Would you like to go into the city for dinner? We’ll take Ren and Miho, and I’ll show you my favorite restaurant.”
“I’d love to,” Kara said, shooting her a curious look. “But I doubt I can afford it, and wouldn’t you and Miho get into trouble?”
Sakura scoffed. “This is me, remember?” she said in English, a line she must have stolen from a movie. Then she switched back to Japanese. “I’m inviting you to dinner, Kara. My parents only remember that I’m alive when I spend money on their credit card. Which is ironic, considering that they gave it to me so that they wouldn’t have to think about me at all.”
“I couldn’t let you pay-”
“You’re not listening. I’m not paying. My parents are. And they can afford it. As for getting into trouble, we can take the train and be back before nine. There might be a few raised eyebrows in the dormitory, perhaps even a small punishment, but we won’t be suspended or expelled. Let’s go. If you think your father will let you.”
The taunt was obvious and explicit, but all in good fun. Sakura threw up her hands as though to ask, what could go wrong? Kara hesitated, then grinned. Sakura wouldn’t be happy if she couldn’t make a few waves now and then.
“Well, when you put it that way, how can I say no?”
They reached the room where Miho’s mask squad was at work. Kara glanced inside and saw Miho painting close-up detail work on a mask representing a long-haired woman, with wide eyes meant to indicate either sorrow or fury; it was difficult to tell which. Ren stood near a rack where a couple other masks were drying, but they were the only two left in the room.
“No, no,” came a voice from a room across the hall. “Like this. It must be precisely like this.”
Kara frowned. She had never heard such intensity in Miss Aritomo’s voice before, not even when the art teacher had been insisting that she and Sakura be faithful to the original Noh when they were adapting a play into manga.
Miho and Ren weren’t quite ready, so Kara slipped across the hall and peeked into the room. A quick glance showed her Miss Aritomo working through a series of precise steps and hand motions with Otomo, one of the girls who would perform in the play.
When Sakura slipped up next to her, Kara pushed her back, and both of them went back to stand outside, waiting for Miho and Ren. Kara did not want to be caught spying.
“That’s strange, don’t you think?” she asked.
Sakura raised her eyebrows. “What is?”
Kara lowered her voice. “I thought all of the Noh performers were supposed to rehearse in isolation. No one’s supposed to see them until the play, like the way a groom’s not supposed to see his bride before the wedding. It doesn’t seem like Aritomo-sensei’s style to break the rules.”
Sakura shrugged. “You know how seriously she takes all of this. I’m sure she just wants to make certain they do it correctly.”
Kara frowned. “Yeah. I guess.”
But it didn’t sit right with her.
Hungry and tired, and with plenty of homework still ahead of him, Daisuke Sasaki rode his bicycle toward home, wondering what his mother had made for dinner. His parents could not afford to pay for him to live in the dormitory at Monju-no-Chie school, and anyway, they lived too close to the school even to consider it, but Daisuke didn’t mind. Even on a day like today, when he had finished school only to have Noh club-and then an additional rehearsal period for the club’s upcoming production-he loved the ride home.
Actually, he considered himself lucky. Many of his friends had to go to juku, or cram school, after finishing their regular classes for the day. But Daisuke had always been an excellent student.
He pedaled past the train station and down long streets in the warm, golden glow of the summer evening. After the rehearsal, he had lingered for a while to speak with some of his friends about the play, and then stopped at the dorm to talk baseball with several boys from the baseball club. Daisuke had an interest in Noh theater, but really only belonged to the club because it pleased his grandmother. His true love was baseball.
Still, as he rode he could not help but chant softly under his breath. He had only a small role-an old priest who warned his younger counterpart about the Hannya-but he would also be chanting several parts of the play, like many others in the club. As he had worked to memorize the chants, they stuck in his head, and now he found them as difficult to remove as the catchiest pop songs.
Daisuke rode down a short hill into a narrow street. He let the bike coast as he swung around a tight corner, and had to swerve to avoid an old man who stood in the road cradling some kind of lizard in his arms as if it were an infant.
“Be careful, young fool!” the old man shouted, and Daisuke looked back to see him brandishing a gnarled fist.
Now, that was strange. He knew from having his grandmother living in the house with him and his parents that old people could be peculiar. But the wide-eyed old man with his lizard-baby made his grandmother seem boring by comparison. He ought to have a long, white beard. Crazy old men should all have long, white beards.
He raced past a library and an old church, then pedaled up a winding street among apartment buildings. A shortcut brought him buzzing down a lovely road lined with small shops, a wonderful view of Miyazu Bay ahead, and then Daisuke turned left, passed a park, and headed for a dingy, more industrial area of the city, where office buildings and noodle stands gave way to warehouses nearer the waterfront.
Blinking to clear his vision, he realized that twilight had snuck up on him. An indigo haze had replaced the golden light of early evening. Night came on late this time of year, but when it arrived, it did so swiftly.