Before her current job, Yasuko had worked in a nightclub in Kinshicho. Yonazawa had been a regular there and Sayoko had been the club’s mama—though Yasuko hadn’t known they were married until just before Sayoko quit.
“She wants to go from being the mama at a bar to the good wife at a lunch shop,” Yonazawa had told her. “Can you believe it? Some people never fail to surprise me.” Rumors had begun to fly at the club, but according to Sayoko, it had been the couple’s long-held dream to run a place of their own. She had only been working at the club to save up for that.
After Benten-tei opened, Yasuko had made a habit of dropping in now and then to see how the two were doing. Business was apparently good—good enough that, a year later, they asked her if she’d be interested in helping out. It had become too much for the two of them to handle on their own.
“You can’t go on in that shady business forever, Yasuko,” Sayoko had told her. “Besides, Misato’s getting bigger. You wouldn’t want her developing a complex because her mom’s a nightclub hostess. Of course,” she’d added, “it’s none of my business.”
Misato was Yasuko’s only daughter. There was no father in her life after Yasuko’s last divorce, five years ago. Yasuko hadn’t needed Sayoko to tell her she couldn’t go on as she was. Besides her daughter’s welfare, there was her own age to consider. It was far from clear how long she could have kept her job even if she wanted it.
It only took her a day to come to a decision, and the club didn’t even try to hold on to her. They had just wished her well, and that was all. Apparently she hadn’t been the only one concerned about her future there.
She had moved into her current apartment in the spring a year ago, which coincided with Misato entering junior high school. Her old place was too far from her new job. And, unlike the club, getting to her new work on time meant getting up by six and being on her bicycle by six thirty. Her green bicycle.
“That high school teacher come again today?” Sayoko asked her during a break.
“Doesn’t he come every day?” Yasuko replied, catching Sayoko sharing a grin with her husband. “What? What’s that for?”
“Oh nothing, nothing. We were just saying the other day how we thought he might fancy you.”
“Whaaat?” Yasuko leaned back from the table, a cup of tea in her hand.
“You were off yesterday, weren’t you? Well, guess what? He didn’t come in yesterday. Don’t you think it’s strange that he should come every day, except for the days when you’re not here?”
“I think it’s a coincidence.”
“Well, we think maybe it’s not.” Sayoko glanced again at her husband.
Yonazawa nodded, still grinning. “It’s been going on for a while now,” he said with a nod at his wife. “ ‘Every day that Yasuko’s out, he doesn’t come here for his lunch,’ she says. I’d wondered about it myself, to tell the truth, and when he didn’t show yesterday, that kind of confirmed it for me.”
“But I don’t have any set vacations, other than the days the whole shop is closed. It’s not like I’m out every Monday or something obvious like that.”
“Which makes it even more suspicious!” Sayoko concluded, a twinkle in her eye. “He lives next door to you, doesn’t he? He must see you leave for work. That’s how he knows.”
Yasuko shook her head. “But I’ve never met him on my way out, not even once.”
“Maybe he’s watching you from someplace. A window, maybe?”
“I don’t think he can see my door from his window.”
“In any case, if he is interested, he’ll say something sooner or later,” Yonazawa said. “As far as we’re concerned, we have a regular customer thanks to you, so it’s good news for us. Looks like your training in Kinshicho paid off.”
Yasuko gave a wry smile and drank down the rest of her tea, thinking about the high school teacher.
His name was Ishigami. She had gone to his apartment the night she moved in to introduce herself. That’s when she’d learned he was a teacher. He was a heavyset man, with a big, round face that made his small eyes look thin as threads. His hair was thinning and cut short, making him look nearly fifty, though he might easily have been much younger. He wasn’t particularly fashion conscious, always wearing the same sort of clothes. This winter, when he came in to buy his lunch, he was wearing the same coat over a brown sweater. Still, he did do his laundry, as was evidenced by the occasional presence of a drying rack on the small balcony of his apartment. He was single and, Yasuko guessed, not a divorcé or widower.
She thought back, trying to remember something that might have clued her in to his interest, but came up with nothing. He was like the thin crack in her apartment wall. She knew it was there, but she had never paid it that much attention. It just wasn’t worth paying attention to.
They exchanged greetings whenever they met and had even discussed the management at their apartment building once. Yet Yasuko found she knew very little about the man himself. She had only recently learned that he taught math, when she happened to notice outside his apartment door a bundle of old math textbooks, wrapped in string and awaiting disposal.
Yasuko hoped he wouldn’t ask her out on a date. Then she smiled to herself, trying and failing to imagine the dour-looking man’s face as he asked the question.
As on every other day, the midday rush at Benten-tei began right before lunchtime, peaking just after noon. Things didn’t really quiet down again until after one o’clock.
Yasuko was sorting the bills in the register when the sliding glass door opened and someone walked in. “Hello,” she chimed automatically, looking up. Then she froze. Her eyes opened wide and her voice caught in her throat.
“You look well,” said the man who was standing there. He was smiling, but his eyes were darkly clouded.
“You … how did you find me here?”
“Is it so surprising? I can find out where my ex-wife works if I have a mind to.” The man looked around the shop, both hands thrust into the pockets of his dark navy windbreaker, like a prospective customer trying to figure out what he should buy.
“But why? Why now?” Yasuko asked, her voice sharp but low. She glowered at him, inwardly praying that the Yonazawas in the back wouldn’t hear them talking.
“Don’t look so frightening. How long has it been since I saw you last? And you can’t even manage a polite smile?” He grinned.
Yasuko shivered. “If you’re here to chitchat, you can save yourself the trouble and turn around right now.”
“Actually, I came for a reason. I have a favor to ask. Think you can get out for a bit?”
“Don’t be an idiot. Can’t you see I’m working?” Yasuko said, then immediately regretted it. That made it sound like I would have talked with him if I wasn’t at work.
The man licked his lips. “What time do you get off?”
“It doesn’t matter. I don’t want to talk to you. Please, just leave and don’t come back.”
“Ouch. Cold.”
“What did you expect?”
Yasuko glanced outside, hoping that a customer would walk in, but the street was empty.
“Well, if this is how you’re going to act, guess I’ll try someone else,” the man said, scratching his head.
Warning bells went off in Yasuko’s head. “What do you mean by that?”
“I mean if my wife won’t listen to me, maybe her daughter will. Her school’s near here, right?”
“Don’t you dare.”
“Okay, then maybe you can help. Either way’s fine by me.”
Yasuko sighed. She just wanted him to leave. “I’m on till six.”
“Early morning to six o’clock? That’s some long hours they got you working.”