by Diana Renn
* * *
YESTERDAY, REIKA AND I figured out pretty quickly that Yoshi’s “Engrish” was just fine. He had been listening to us all along and almost certainly tipped off Fujikawa about the sting operation, just in time for Fujikawa to get his men out of the way. When we figured this out, we ran to the nearest ladies’ room in the hotel lobby and called Kenji on Reika’s phone. Within a half hour, both Kenji and Hideki appeared in the hotel lobby and quietly sent Yoshi packing. How creepy, to think a trusted security official had really been a yakuza informant, that he’d been listening to my every word. Even creepier: now we were walking around with no bodyguards, since Kenji didn’t trust any of his security staff anymore and let everyone go.
But mostly I felt sad. As Yoshi left the hotel lobby, our eyes met briefly. His face hardened. He hadn’t been a friend. All those gallant gestures? They were just part of his act.
When Reika and I showed Kenji and Hideki the embedded drawings, Kenji’s mouth dropped open. “I have spent hours poring over these drawings. They are the most subtle clues that Tomonori ever planted. And the kanji for akatsuki—I don’t even know how you picked those fine lines out of these crosshatch marks. Oh, to have young eyes again!”
Hideki, too, said we’d done well. He just couldn’t stop smiling, looking handsomer than ever. I thought he might even cry as he ran his hand over the journal pages. I just felt glowing, bursting with pride as he showered me with compliments. And I remembered the magical feeling of seeing my dad’s murals back at his house in Fremont. It felt like I was glimpsing who he really was in private: a sensitive dreamer with inspired visions, despite his poorly primed walls. I wondered if Hideki felt something like that, if he could sense Tomonori in his personal art.
Then Hideki asked us if there was any chance that Yoshi had heard us discussing the clues or seen the pages.
“Oh, I’m sure he didn’t,” Reika said, sidling up to Hideki and edging me out of the way. “I remember when we were talking about cormorant fishing, I looked up and noticed him talking to that couple. He wasn’t listening to us then.”
Hideki seemed satisfied with her answer and then arranged a meeting. We all went back to the Yamada Building and into a private conference room, with my dad and Mitsue, too.
Hideki sat at the head and explained the plan. “My uncle, my aunt, and I will travel to Arashiyama for a few days. We know of a historic ryokan there, called the Akatsuki Ryokan. Mitsue has traveled there before, with her family.”
“A ryokan is a traditional Japanese inn,” Mitsue quickly explained to my dad and me.
“The Akatsuki Ryokan is completely inaccessible by roads or public transportation,” Hideki continued. “It makes sense that my father would have hidden the van Gogh there, perhaps behind another painting as his pictures suggest.”
“Hang on. You can’t just leave us here,” my dad protested. “Waiting around for gangsters to demand why you guys skipped town? No way. Violet and I are coming with you.”
“Me too!” Reika piped up, shifting closer to Hideki and beaming at him.
Hideki leaned away from Reika. “I hardly think it’s necessary to interrupt Glenn from his work on the mural,” he said, twirling a pen in his fingers.
“The mural!” Kenji exclaimed. He turned to his nephew, eyes flashing. “The mural can wait a few days. Glenn is right. Everyone would be safer at this lodge. We will remain together. We will all look for the painting.” He gave his nephew a long look. “I think you forget I am your uncle. I am still your senior. And I am still head of this company for two more months. I have let you make many decisions, but this decision is mine.”
“Violet’s friend must come with us, too,” Mitsue added quickly. “Since she was involved in reporting Yoshi as an informant. We are safer in a group, in a secluded location.”
Kenji outlined a plan while Hideki, his face clouded over from his uncle’s rebuke, continued to twirl his pen. We’d have to leave first thing in the morning by train, traveling like regular tourists, to blend in and avoid being followed. We’d have to look for the painting discreetly; if we attracted attention from other guests, we might spark a scavenger hunt for the van Gogh, maybe even a media frenzy, and the painting could slip from our hands. Our cover? The Yamadas would be showing their foreign guests a relaxing time at a traditional Japanese inn. We’d inspect the property during times when the ryokan was quiet, and otherwise try to pass as regular tourists. My dad could paint. Reika and I could relax at the onsen, the spa and hot springs.
It all sounded like a pretty good time, if it weren’t for the fact that a gang boss was breathing down our necks, threatening my dad’s life for this painting.
But now there’s still no sign of Reika at Shinagawa Station. A series of soft bells in the train car sounds huge alarms in me. This train is going to take off any second. Without her! Yoshi’s on the loose. Reika has no bodyguards or security at her aunt and uncle’s house. What if he figured out where Reika lived, and kidnapped her as revenge for turning him in?
Suddenly, I see her running to the train, a Hello Kitty suitcase in tow. I bang on the window. Passengers stare. The old ladies sitting behind me frown. “Reika! Hurry!” I shout.
Seeing me, Reika picks up speed toward my car, her long, dark brown hair streaming behind her. As a conductor on the platform barks at her in Japanese, she sprints the final few yards and leaps into the train, two seconds before a melodic chime sounds and the automatic doors swiftly close.
The train glides out of the station.
Panting, Reika makes her way to my seat and shoves her suitcase in the overhead.
“I’m in shock,” I say when she sits. “I thought your aunt and uncle changed their mind.” I’m embarrassed to admit how worried I was that something far worse happened to her, and how scared I was that she was going to get stuck in the train doors.
“They’re why I’m late.” From her backpack, she takes out three paper bags filled with froths of tissue paper. “The Yamada name carries a lot of weight, and they weighed me down with all these gifts for them. They’re probably on the phone at this very moment, calling up all the relatives, telling them what a lucky niece they have to travel with these executives. Look at all the omiyage they packed. Stationary. Sake cups. A chopstick set—like the Yamadas don’t have a million of these things already. I could just die. Oh wait, what’s this?” From a gift basket, she extracts a box of colorfully wrapped pastries. “Cool. Wagashi!”
“Looks like breakfast to me! The sandwich I had was so tiny. Can we eat this?”
“Of course! This is an insane amount of food.” Reika’s aunt and uncle have packed up the most generous basket of dazzling, sugary confections, shaped like flowers and animals. There are tiny cakes galore—pink, green, and white, covered with a delicate film of powdered sugar. My favorite are the small sponge cakes shaped like ayu, filled with a red bean paste.
As we eat, I gaze out at the industrial outskirts of Tokyo, which soon gives way to countryside. We pass lush, green rice paddies and little houses with shiny blue shingles. Fields of tea. Farmers and field workers wearing pointed hats. It’s like traveling through a ukiyo-e print.
It’s almost perfect. Except Reika’s not the only one I was worried about.
“Hey, can I see your phone for a sec?”
Reika hands over her red, rhinestone-studded phone case. “Let me guess. Email? Edge?”
“I’m really worried. I still haven’t heard back from him. What if something happened?”
I pull up my email. And there it is. One new message. From Edge.
VIOLET! I’VE BEEN WANTING TO WRITE. THANKS FOR THE WARNING ABOUT THE YAKUZA. I HAVEN’T SEEN ANYONE SUSPICIOUS, BUT MOST DAYS I’M LOCKED UP IN THE STUDIO, EDITING. IT’S NOSE TO THE GRINDSTONE HERE, WORKSHOPS MORNING TILL NIGHT. ANYWAY, I’LL BE CAREFUL. THANKS FOR YOUR CONCERN.
ACTUALLY, I�
�M WORRIED ABOUT YOU. PLEASE BE EXTRA CAREFUL OVER THERE. STAY IN TOUCH, OKAY? YOUR PAL, EDGE.
Your pal. Was that simply to say we made up, we’re friends again? Or did he mean “Your pal, and not your anything else, not ever, don’t even think about it”? And why didn’t he say a thing about the fight we had? He’s acting like it never happened. Like we didn’t hurt each other’s feelings. That’s not right. That’s a sloppy coat of primer. We can’t repair our friendship or do anything else unless we acknowledge this fight. But I’m not brave enough to do it, either.
“Everything okay?” Reika asks.
I shrug and pass back the phone. “He’s alive.”
Reika unwraps a package of squid chips. “I wish you two would just get together. The two of you are like in episode seventy-eight of a manga series with no climax.”
“What are you talking about?”
“It’s so obvious you’re into him. And vice versa.”
“How do you know?”
“You guys just have this crazy vibe,” she says through a mouthful of squid chips. “You’re always laughing together and talking about creative stuff. Coming up with little stories.”
I shake my head. “You’re wrong. He’s into Mardi Cooper.”
“And? Did something happen between them?” Reika looks at me expectantly. When I don’t answer—it’s still too painful—she puts a hand on my arm. “Hey. You’re supposed to be able to tell your friends about boy troubles, right? I know a few things about guys. Maybe I can help. And if I can’t help, at least I can listen.”
I take a deep breath. And I tell her what happened between us before I left Seattle. It feels good to tell someone about our fight and how I feel about Mardi and him. It’s like I’ve been carrying around that ugly rock for so long. Finally, I can set it down. I can rest.
Reika licks salt off her fingers. “This is a textbook case. Here’s the deal. Edge answered the siren’s song because he got frustrated trying to figure you out. Mardi made herself available, and he went for it. Typical guy stuff. But his heart’s not in it. It’s you he likes.”
“What do you mean, he got frustrated trying to figure me out?”
“Trying to read your signals. Or lack thereof. Maybe he couldn’t find a door to your heart. You’re been playing it too cool. He thought you weren’t interested.”
“But I was interested. I just didn’t want to scare him off or wreck the friendship.”
“Violet.” Reika smiles. “If you don’t even try to tell Edge how you feel, you’ll never know if he feels the same way. You’ll just spend the rest of your lives circling each other. Missing each other. You’ll die alone.”
“It’s too late to tell him anything. Mardi’s already got her claws in him.”
“She doesn’t have superpowers. He’s not going to change for her. Believe me, as soon as this business with the painting is over, this is your next mission. Operation ‘Get Edge Back.’”
“Yeah. Sure. Can we change the subject now? It’s starting to depress me.”
“Oh, guys can depress the hell out of you. Believe me, I know. Squid chip?” She reads from the package. “‘It’s plentiful tasty will deright and surprise.’” She shakes the bag at me.
“Thanks.” I take a few chips. “Mm. Plentiful tastiness.”
“So tell me about this supersecret graphic novel you’ve been working on.”
“Uh, it’s kind of a fantasy plus mystery.” I stammer through the basic premise, but she doesn’t shoot it down. She smiles encouragingly. The next thing I know, she’s convinced me to let her see my sketchbook. I cringe as she turns page after page and doesn’t say anything.
“It’s so good!” she exclaims, beaming when she reaches the end of my story so far. “I’d totally buy this in a store! Here’s my favorite scene.” She flips to the page where KG hides in the woodblock print.
“Really? You think that works? I wasn’t sure. . . .”
We lose ourselves in my fictional dangers for the next hundred miles or so, brainstorming ideas for how KG can bring the Cormorant down and recover the Sunrise Bridge painting. New characters and scenarios take shape. I start to see how Kimono Girl could be good. Like, contest-entry good. I think of that flyer Jerry sent me. Maybe after this whole van Gogh business is over, my next mission can be entering that teen manga contest.
* * *
WHEN REIKA EVENTUALLY nods off, I open my sketchbook. Before I know it, my pen is flying across the paper, sketching the next scene in Kimono Girl.
Kimono Girl emerges from the woodblock print she’s hiding in and lands in the Cormorant’s office. She inspects the painting on the drying rack. It’s a still life, a fruit bowl and flower vase painted in acrylics. “I’ve got to go in,” she mutters, crossing her kimono right over left. She flies into the canvas.
“Something’s wrong!” she cries out. The fruit doesn’t hold together well. It’s sticky. It smells. Whenever she enters a work of art she feels a falling sensation until she gains some footing in the composition, gets her bearings again. But with this one, she keeps falling, in a sticky swirl of colors. She’s drowning. She can’t grab on to anything to anchor herself. Grapes pop. A banana squishes. She grabs a flower stem but it snaps apart. She falls farther.
And then lands. Hard. She blinks and opens her eyes. She’s on a bridge, and a river runs beneath it. The colors are so bright they almost hurt. Sunrise pinks and oranges streak the sky, so thick it seems like she could reach up and climb the clouds.
She brushes her hand over the railing of the bridge and looks down into the water. The water is teal, choppy, moving fast. And she suddenly knows where she is. Only van Gogh uses such thick paint, such swirls in the sky and water. And the light. It’s incredible. An eternal sunset that almost hurts her eyes. She’s standing in the stolen painting Sunrise Bridge. In the ultimate cover-up: a painting over a painting.
* * *
I STARE AT what I’ve just drawn in the final panel. I think about Tomonori’s sketches. A man—probably Tomonori himself—put a painting behind a painting, on an easel. I’d assumed that meant he slipped the painting behind another frame.
In the back of my sketchbook are the photo-booth strips from Asakusa, the pictures of Reika and me studying the journal pages. I didn’t notice when we took the photo strips out of the machine, but now I see one picture has a nice clear shot of the page with the woman in a kimono. I zoom in on that and look hard at the last embedded kimono drawing. It’s the one of a man, probably Tomonori, approaching the door of a building, carrying a flat package and a long stick. I notice a detail on top of the stick that I hadn’t seen before. The stick is really a giant paintbrush. I shiver. Maybe Tomonori painted directly over the canvas to hide it!
I wonder how it would it feel to paint over a van Gogh. I’m not sure I could even put my fingers on a van Gogh canvas, let alone a paintbrush. Could Tomonori? Was he that desperate to get the canvas out of sight?
I think about this possibility until chimes ring and Kyoto Station is announced. I see we’re on the outskirts of Kyoto, gray buildings looming ahead. I chug some Pocari Sweat from my backpack and notice my Senso-ji fortune in my backpack pocket as I’m replacing the bottle.
I unfold the fortune, thinking I’ll read it again for good luck.
I drop it like it’s on fire. This is not the fortune I saved.
It’s a paper cut to the same size and folded the same way. But on this one, there’s just one sentence, handwritten in block letters.
IN JAPAN, WE HAVE SAYING. “NAIL THAT STANDS UP GETS POUNDED DOWN.” I STRONGLY URGE YOU FOLLOW ANY RULES GIVEN. DO NOT BE NAIL STANDING UP.
2
6
Arashiyama is only forty-five minutes from Kyoto by local train. But it feels remote and sleepy, steeped in humidity. It’s a different humidity than in Tokyo. There’s a fre
shness in the air, and a scent of grass and water, that makes me think of the dark green matcha we once drank at Kenji and Mitsue’s house. The town itself is surrounded by lush, tree-covered hills—the same hills Hiroshige and van Gogh put in their art. Shop owners take their time unlocking doors, washing down walkways. Couples go out for morning strolls. Men in pointed hats pull rickshaws. I can smell breakfasts cooking: salty, pungent smells of rice and miso, seaweed and salty plums and pickles, staples of the savory Japanese breakfast. Nobody’s in a hurry. Nobody but us.
Hideki leads us at a brisk pace down to the Katsura-gawa, a wide, green river that seems as unhurried as the town. At a boat launch, an old man hobbles over to us, and Kenji speaks to him in Japanese.
“That’s going to hold all of us and our stuff?” I ask, eyeing a long, wooden boat with a canopy. It looks just like one of Tomonori’s embedded pictures. I’m sure it’s a part of his story.
“The ryokan sends this private boat for guests,” Mitsue assures us. “They are accustomed to carrying luggage.”
The floor is lined with tatami mats. We all remove our shoes, just like we would inside a Japanese home, and sit along the sides. Then our unlikely captain propels the boat with a long pole and surprising strength.
On the boat, while the adults talk or gaze at the scenery, I finally have a chance to show Reika that creepy note. I pass it to her. “Did you write this as a joke? On the train?”
“No!”
“Someone took out my Senso-ji Temple fortune and replaced it with this.”
“I bet it was Yoshi. Probably just after he got fired. Ugh. Throw it out.”
I wad it up to the size of a pea and drop it into the water. Noticing this, the captain glares. Whoops, I forgot how much littering is frowned on here.
As we glide down the Katsura-gawa, I notice a long, wooden bridge before us. Its gentle arc looks familiar. “Is that the real Moon Crossing Bridge?” I ask Kenji.
