Temple Alley Summer

by Sachiko Kashiwaba

“I’ll have to get my mom to buy me a swimsuit,” Akari said. “I’ll need a floaty, because I can’t swim. I’ll pack a lunch …” She counted her to-dos on her fingers.

  “Don’t worry about bringing a lunch,” Yūsuke said. “It’s hot, so it’ll spoil. We’ll buy yakisoba at the beach!” As usual, Yūsuke was all about the fried noodles. His excitement was contagious.

  “I can’t wait! I’ll see you two tomorrow!” Akari was so thrilled she could barely contain herself. She ran past us toward home.

  “Come to our store’s parking lot tomorrow at seven!” Yūsuke called to her.

  “You’ll need flip-flops! And sunscreen!” I yelled.

  She had never been to the seashore. I worried for her.

  “OK!” she called, her red baubles bobbing.

  Her excitement almost made me cry. She would be seeing the ocean for the first time, ever. Yet the second she put her toes in the surf might be when she would fade away. I had to beg Ms. Minakami again. I made up my mind then and there.

  “Did you, um, want to go to the beach with Akari?” Yūsuke asked me. He stopped in front of his store.

  “Sorry, I invited her without asking you. It’s just that she was with us,” I apologized.

  “It’s OK. It’s weird, though, ’cause I thought for sure you and Ami would pair up.”

  “What do you mean? I don’t like Akari that way!”

  “Then what’s up with you two?” he asked.

  “We were talking. I mean, we read the same story.”

  “Oh, right. The one with no ending.”

  “Yeah, and I want to get the ending for her to rea—I mean for me, to read,” I corrected myself.

  “Why isn’t there an ending? Did the magazine go out of print?” Yūsuke asked.

  “I don’t know,” I answered. “It was a long time ago.”

  “Did you ask the publisher?” he asked casually.

  “You’re right! The publisher!” I shouted. “That’s who I should ask.” Yūsuke was a genius.

  “If the publisher’s still around,” he added.

  “I’ll find out,” I said.

  “But more importantly, when do we hit the pool?” Yūsuke was ready to move on to a new topic.

  “What’s a good time?”

  “I’ve got cram school this morning.”

  “OK. I’ll meet you this afternoon,” I said. “Let’s go to the city pool. I have an errand that way.”

  I had to return the issues of Daisy to Mrs. Andō.

  “Sounds good,” Yūsuke agreed.

  That morning I stayed busy.

  At the stroke of eight, I was in the lobby of Minami Heights leaning on the buzzer. It was early, but I couldn’t wait. Ms. Minakami didn’t answer. Had she overslept? Knowing full well that I would get scolded, I pressed the buzzer again. Finally, the superintendent came over from the entryway, where he had been cleaning.

  “If it’s Ms. Minakami you’re after, she’s been away since yesterday.”

  “Yesterday?”

  “She takes overnight trips sometimes. She’s doing free trials of assisted-living facilities. She’s still so fit that I tell her it’s too early, but she insists that she has to investigate her options before she’s too old. Anyway, that lady does what she pleases.”

  “You can say that again,” I said. “She’s stubborn, and she’s mean too!”

  “Ah, ha-ha. That’s true. But she’s sharp. I’d like to grow old that way myself.” The super, who looked to be in his seventies, flashed a smile.

  “She’s so bullheaded, though,” I replied.

  The super threw me a sly glance. “I’ll be sure to pass that on, from the little boy who came to see her.”

  “My name is Kazuhiro Sada!” I told him.

  I was sick of the cute-kid treatment.

  At nine on the dot, I was phoning K Company, the publisher listed in Daisy. As expected, I got a recording: The number you have dialed …

  I was disappointed, but I knew that forty years had passed. Then I called the operator, who gave me the new number for K Company right away.

  I called and said I wanted to know about Daisy, a discontinued monthly magazine. After several transfers, I was connected to a woman named Ms. Date (pronounced “Dah-tay”).

  “What can I help you with regarding Daisy?”

  Ms. Date knew I was a fifth grader, but she spoke as if I were an adult. I appreciated that.

  “I’m interested in the story ‘The Moon Is on the Left,’ which was serialized in Daisy,” I told her.

  “I understand that Daisy was the forerunner to our current manga magazine Chocolat,” Ms. Date said. “During the Daisy period, I guess stories were published along with manga. I didn’t know that!”

  “The six issues I have contain parts one and two of the story, ending with the installment of part two published in December 1972. I can’t seem to get the issues after that,” I said.

  “Daisy was published through 1975,” Ms. Date told me. “I believe you can still read the rest of that story, but the copies of the magazine that we still have are for record-keeping purposes. We can’t sell them to you.”

  “Really?” I began to groan.

  “If you could come to our headquarters, you could have a look,” she said.

  “But that’s in Tokyo, right?” I said.

  “Do you live outside of Tokyo, Mr. Sada?”

  “Yes, I live in Masuda city,” I replied. I forgot to add the prefecture name. I figured she might not understand me, but then she responded:

  “Masuda, the ‘Little Kyoto,’ where cherry blossoms are beautiful every year!” Ms. Date knew that my town attracts tourists from throughout Japan every spring. Our population sometimes swells to three times its normal size during cherry blossom season.

  “Since you can’t come here, why don’t I simply have a copy of the story sent to you?” she offered.

  Ms. Date was my hero. I gave her my postal address and even our email.

  Then I ran to Akari’s house. I wanted to cheer her up with the good news, but nobody was home. She might have gone to buy her swimsuit, I thought. What a day—I kept missing people. I went home and stared at my math drills for school, but then Mom called me.

  She had the phone in her hand and an annoyed look on her face.

  “It’s a Ms. Date, calling from a publisher in Tokyo!” She held out the phone. “What are you up to?” she whispered.

  “I told you—summer homework!”

  I turned my back to Mom and spoke into the phone.

  “I’m glad I caught you!” Ms. Date said. “I took a look at Daisy. It’s very unfortunate, but the story you were reading seems to stop with the last issue you have. The next one has a message to readers, stating that the story is on hold, due to the author’s circumstances.”

  I felt so disappointed I wanted to collapse on the floor. “Why would the story stop?” I asked.

  “I’m afraid I don’t know. In the next year’s February issue, there are letters from readers saying they look forward to the next installment. Mia Lee seems to have had fans. Mr. Sada, how did you learn about ‘The Moon Is on the Left’?”

  She seemed mystified, which was reasonable. I was asking about a magazine for girls, after all, from forty years ago.

  “Somebody recommended it to me. They said the story was really good—”

  “Was it your mother?”

  I calculated quickly. If Akari had lived, she would have been older than my mom. “I heard about it from a lady I know,” I said.

  “You must like to read, Mr. Sada. Is that why she showed it to you?”

  Ms. Date had the mistaken impression that I was a bookworm. She told me that she would inform me as soon as she learned anything further about Mia Lee. But I knew that no matter what we learned about the author, the story was still incomplete.

  Unable to give up, I headed back to Minami Heights. Ms. Minakami was still away. On the way home, I spotted Akari walking along next to a shopping bag th
at swung around suspended in the air. I shivered at the creepy sight, even though I knew Invisible Mama was holding the bag. At least Akari hadn’t vanished yet.

  I headed back to Mrs. Andō’s house with Yūsuke and returned the issues of Daisy. Then Yūsuke and I went to the pool. It was beginning to feel like summer vacation, finally, but with Akari on my mind, I couldn’t enjoy myself.

  “Kazu, you seem off,” Yūsuke said, looking at me as we sat on the side of the pool.

  I’d planned to consult him about Akari, but too much had happened. Now I couldn’t say a word. “There’s nothing going on,” I told him.

  I smiled as if to show I meant it, but Yūsuke glared back at me. He could tell I was lying. He’s my friend, so even though he never shows up on time, he knows me well.

  “Yūsuke! I love you!” I gave him a hug.

  “Stop it, you creep!” Yūsuke pushed me. I grabbed him again. We pushed and shoved until we toppled into the water.

  That night, I packed for the beach and then sat at the computer.

  I had a message from Uncle Junichi. I felt awful telling him I’d lost the statuette.

  I see. Well, if you looked for it and it’s not there, there’s not much we can do. Kimyō Temple is mainly stories that I don’t entirely believe myself. Grandpa did say, though, that we should take care of it. It’s too bad.

  I replied to him:

  I’m sorry.

  That was all I could write. It was the truth. I’d done something unforgivable. I had ruined Akari’s life. I wished I could tell my uncle everything.

  There was also a message from Ms. Date of K Company.

  I learned a bit about Mia Lee. My former supervisor has retired, but when she first worked here she helped with Daisy. She remembers “The Moon Is on the Left.”

  She wasn’t directly in charge of the project, so she doesn’t know Mia Lee’s real name. However, she’s certain Mia Lee was an aspiring manga artist who never quite launched her career. She worked hard, but her illustrations seemed not to appeal to Daisy readers. The drawings in “The Moon Is on the Left” are Mia Lee’s. People advised her to try illustrating literature instead of manga, so she did.

  When I told my former supervisor that someone from Masuda had asked about Mia Lee, she said she was pretty sure Mia Lee was from Masuda herself. She remembers her talking about Little Kyoto.

  Daisy was an experimental magazine, and it mainly circulated in large cities. I can only guess, but I wonder if the person who showed you “The Moon Is on the Left” knows Mia Lee.

  Ms. Date seemed to mean that I should ask my acquaintance, if I wanted to know more.

  I called up Mrs. Andō.

  “Did Saori start reading Daisy because someone gave her the magazine?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Mrs. Andō replied. “Your grandfather, Mr. Sada, gave us our first issue. After that, Saori would always ask me to buy the next one, so I ordered it from the bookstore. Since you’ve been studying your grandpa, I assumed you had found something about it in his old schedule book or diary. Because you came over specifically to read Daisy.”

  YES! I wanted to yell. At last I had a clue. But … Grandpa? Would he really have bought a girls’ magazine for Saori?

  “My grandpa gave it to her?” I asked, sounding startled.

  “I was going to mention it yesterday, if we’d had more time,” Mrs. Andō said.

  That was why she’d invited me to supper.

  “Kazuhiro, your grandfather got the magazine from a friend. Actually, the parents of the person who wrote the story gave it to him. He told me he was grateful to receive it, but he only had boys at home, and they were still small and into picture books. He thought Saori might like it. When I saw you reading it yesterday, though, I realized boys could enjoy that story too!”

  She laughed a little and we said goodbye.

  I went and bugged my dad. “Did Grandpa have a friend whose daughter wanted to be a manga artist?” I asked him.

  “Ummm, not that I know of. He knew somebody who wrote haiku, I think.”

  “How about Grandma’s friends?”

  “Don’t think so. She didn’t mingle with artist types.”

  With that, the conversation ended. I started to head upstairs, but then I remembered Mrs. Andō mentioning Grandpa’s diary. Grandpa had not kept a journal, but he had carried little black notebooks where he wrote down stuff he wanted to remember.

  I turned and headed to his room, which was now more like a storage area. My mom kept saying we’d clean it out, but Grandma and Grandpa’s clothes and belongings were all still there. By the time I found a cardboard box in the closet, bulging with Grandpa’s notebooks, it was after eleven.

  Mom came in with a scary face. “Aren’t you going to the beach tomorrow?” she said. “You’d better get to sleep, or you’ll be crabby tomorrow. I don’t want you annoying Yūsuke’s dad. Go!”

  I pulled out the notebook from 1972 and headed to my room. The issue Akari received had been from July of that year, but it would have been available before the actual month. I scanned Grandpa’s sloppy writing. I desperately wanted to figure out who he had seen and where he had gone. But I feared there might be no mention of receiving a girls’ magazine. I kept looking. Had he scrawled any names with a connection to Mia Lee? I searched and searched, but at some point, I fell asleep.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Who Is Mia Lee?

  The next morning, I went and did radio exercises. Then I downed my breakfast and headed to Yūsuke’s parking lot. Akari and Invisible Mama arrived soon after me.

  Akari’s mother thanked Yūsuke’s family, and me as well. “I hope you have a fun time. Akari was so excited she barely slept last night!”

  I was glad not to be the only one low on sleep.

  Yūsuke’s family vehicle is like a minibus. You can load tons of stuff in it and still seat five or six people. Besides Yūsuke, Akari, and me, our group today included Yūsuke’s dad (driving as always), plus a worker I knew from the shop named Ms. Shiraki. Plus—oh no—Yūsuke’s grandma, an intimidating lady. I guess that’s no surprise since she’s the ruler of a kimono empire. She has nerves of steel and gives off a scary aura. She and my mom might as well be different species.

  Yūsuke’s grandma sat down by Akari and tried one of the hard candies Akari had brought. “This is delicious,” she said daintily. But she chewed it ferociously, cracking it between her teeth. She’s over eighty, but no one messes with her. She still does a lot at the store and will no doubt live to a ripe old age.

  Akari pulled out her copy of “The Moon Is on the Left.”

  “Yūsuke, you should read this too,” she said, handing him the story.

  “Oh, is it the story you and Kazu are so into?” Yūsuke flipped through the pages.

  I figured he wouldn’t read it. Yūsuke reads less than I do. But since I was absorbed in Grandpa’s notebook, Yūsuke began to glance at the story. My own reading consisted of names like Yamamoto and Suzuki, but I found no mention of Mia Lee. At some point I dozed off.

  “Kazu, we’re here.”

  Yūsuke shook me awake. Yūsuke’s grandma was waking Akari.

  At the cannery, we pushed tables together in the corner of the employees’ cafeteria and arranged merchandise on them. We also set out racks of clothing. (The racks looked like the floating laundry hanger at Akari’s house.) I was used to helping with these chores. Akari helped too, commenting in amazement, “Wow, Yūsuke, I didn’t know you also sell Western clothes!”

  Afterward Yūsuke, his dad, Akari, and I headed to the Mitohama Beach Swimming Area. We had fun. I enjoyed myself because, well, Akari was still there. We all ate fried noodles from the shack on the beach, got shaved ice, sunbathed, and took pictures. I wondered when Akari might vanish from the pictures, but for now, her smile lit up all of them.

  “With a special guest among us, we’d better go all out!” Yūsuke’s dad announced. He rented beach umbrellas and a small boat that he gave us a ride in. I was as happy
for Akari as I was for myself.

  A little after three, we packed up at the cannery and headed home. Before he drifted to sleep in the minibus, Yūsuke returned “The Moon Is on the Left” to Akari.

  “Did you read it, Yūsuke? Good job!” I messed up his hair.

  “I wonder what happens at the end,” he said.

  “I wish we knew!” Akari replied.

  “Um, I bet the lady in the dungeon and Adi are—” Yūsuke started to say.

  “Sisters!”

  “Exactly!” Yūsuke and Akari were getting all excited.

  “I called the publisher, you know,” I told them.

  “Whoa, way to go, Kazu!” Yūsuke clapped me on the shoulder.

  “Ow!” I jumped from my seat. “That hurts!”

  “You’re sunburned,” Akari said. Her nose and shoulders were red like mine.

  “Hey, you should cool off after this,” I told her. “The pharmacy sells a special lotion for sunburns. You should go buy some. Or stop by my house, and I’ll give you my sister’s.”

  Everything was new for Akari, even a sunburn. I didn’t want her to be uncomfortable. Yūsuke noticed this and eyed me with a sly grin. I wanted to scream that he had it wrong.

  “Apparently Mia Lee is from our town,” I said—not to change the subject, of course. Just to share what I’d learned.

  “What?” Akari and Yūsuke yelped in surprise.

  “My grandpa knew her.”

  “What?” Akari and Yūsuke sang in unison again.

  “I bet if we went to the city museum, somebody there would know her,” Yūsuke said.

  “Well … if she had published a book, maybe. But she stopped writing before the end of this story,” I said. “I heard she wanted to be a manga artist but her career never took off.”

  “Manga, are you serious?” Yūsuke asked.

  “She illustrated “The Moon Is on the Left,” I told him.

  Yūsuke stared at the minibus ceiling, while Akari flipped through the pages again.

  “These drawings might have been off-putting,” she acknowledged. “They’re a little scary.”

  “They’re in silhouette, aren’t they?”

  As we three flipped through the pages, Yūsuke’s grandma coughed loudly. “A-hem.”