Read Online The Flower Master (Rei Shimura #3) by Sujata Massey - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Sujata Massey
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When living with Hugh, I used to cook elaborate dinners of grilled fish, stir-fried vegetables, and perfect sticky rice. These were the dishes that Aunt Norie had begun teaching me to make as soon as I was old enough to use a kitchen knife. She'd been very strict on how to cut swiftly but safely.
I flashed quickly to the vision of Sakura with the shears in her throat. My aunt had nothing to do with her death.
Then why, when I fell asleep, did I dream of my aunt slipping like a wraith into the room? In the dream she stood at my window, begging me not to look outside. I looked out and saw a carpet of lilies and chrysanthemums tossed haphazardly over the tarred street. The flowers were dying, their petals and leaves turning brown and ugly. I could smell the stench.
"It's a funeral!" my aunt cried. "My funeral."
In the weird, jerky way that one travels in dreams, I was suddenly standing in front of a coffin covered by white brocade. Tom was weeping. My father and mother were dressed in their travel clothes with luggage at their sides.
"No!" I gasped, and woke up with a horrible start.
My small apartment was peaceful and dark, lit only by the small red pinpoint of light on a water heater in the kitchen. I stared at the red dot, willing my heart to stop thumping, trying to get beyond the dreadful feeling that Aunt Norie needed me to save more than our family name.
Chapter 6
It's hard to pick a favorite department store in Japan, but Mitsutan has always been mine.
From the giant doorway on Shinjuku-dori, I entered a dazzling space lit by chandeliers, and the bright smiles of young women dressed in pink suits and pink-and-white hats. I passed the Prada, Gucci, and Coach leather boutiques to take the slow route up the escalator. The store was made up of two eighteen-story buildings joined by walkways on four different floors, creating a gigantic maze of consumption. Six floors alone were devoted to women's fashion. Cruising past the foreign designer level, I ignored Chanel, not my taste, but sneaked a glance at the sleek little spring dresses on mannequins surrounding the Nicole Miller section. My eyes stopped on a familiar pair of lissome legs, and I recognized Natsumi Kayama in a short blue dress. She bent over to sort some roses, revealing the lacy edge of her white girdle—I'd noticed that regardless of size and age, Japanese women adored girdles. Natsumi was making an elaborate bouquet, perhaps to go in the mannequin's hands. I wasn't surprised that Mitsutan would go to the trouble of using real flowers, but I hadn't expected that Natsumi would be working two days after her big shock at Sakura's death.
My escalator ride took me past menswear, then the children's department, then and an entire floor of restaurants. Finally I was on level twelve at Musee Mitsutan, the department store's in-house museum. A ticket to a show of Matisse paintings in the north gallery was a whopping four thousand yen, making the thousand-yen admission for the upcoming Kayama School show a relative bargain at about $7 U.S. dollars.
The cream and gold gallery was crammed with long florist boxes full of flowers and buckets overflowing with long branches. The women were so busy arranging that they didn't notice my arrival. When I found the area marked with the Shimura name, Mrs. Koda greeted me.
"Miss Shimura, how nice to see you. You've arrived before your aunt and Eriko-san," she chirped, as if I'd truly accomplished something. "The bamboo and lilies are here. I removed them from the florist boxes, cutting the stems under water and allowing them to rest in this bucket, where they can enjoy a nice long drink."
Did she think the flowers were human? I nodded as if I agreed and pushed on with my agenda. "My aunt and I came to see you the day Sakura died, " I began.
"I heard," Mrs. Koda said in a soft voice. She didn't look over her shoulder to see if anyone was listening, but her thin shoulders jerked, as if she wanted to do that.
"Where were
I flashed quickly to the vision of Sakura with the shears in her throat. My aunt had nothing to do with her death.
Then why, when I fell asleep, did I dream of my aunt slipping like a wraith into the room? In the dream she stood at my window, begging me not to look outside. I looked out and saw a carpet of lilies and chrysanthemums tossed haphazardly over the tarred street. The flowers were dying, their petals and leaves turning brown and ugly. I could smell the stench.
"It's a funeral!" my aunt cried. "My funeral."
In the weird, jerky way that one travels in dreams, I was suddenly standing in front of a coffin covered by white brocade. Tom was weeping. My father and mother were dressed in their travel clothes with luggage at their sides.
"No!" I gasped, and woke up with a horrible start.
My small apartment was peaceful and dark, lit only by the small red pinpoint of light on a water heater in the kitchen. I stared at the red dot, willing my heart to stop thumping, trying to get beyond the dreadful feeling that Aunt Norie needed me to save more than our family name.
Chapter 6
It's hard to pick a favorite department store in Japan, but Mitsutan has always been mine.
From the giant doorway on Shinjuku-dori, I entered a dazzling space lit by chandeliers, and the bright smiles of young women dressed in pink suits and pink-and-white hats. I passed the Prada, Gucci, and Coach leather boutiques to take the slow route up the escalator. The store was made up of two eighteen-story buildings joined by walkways on four different floors, creating a gigantic maze of consumption. Six floors alone were devoted to women's fashion. Cruising past the foreign designer level, I ignored Chanel, not my taste, but sneaked a glance at the sleek little spring dresses on mannequins surrounding the Nicole Miller section. My eyes stopped on a familiar pair of lissome legs, and I recognized Natsumi Kayama in a short blue dress. She bent over to sort some roses, revealing the lacy edge of her white girdle—I'd noticed that regardless of size and age, Japanese women adored girdles. Natsumi was making an elaborate bouquet, perhaps to go in the mannequin's hands. I wasn't surprised that Mitsutan would go to the trouble of using real flowers, but I hadn't expected that Natsumi would be working two days after her big shock at Sakura's death.
My escalator ride took me past menswear, then the children's department, then and an entire floor of restaurants. Finally I was on level twelve at Musee Mitsutan, the department store's in-house museum. A ticket to a show of Matisse paintings in the north gallery was a whopping four thousand yen, making the thousand-yen admission for the upcoming Kayama School show a relative bargain at about $7 U.S. dollars.
The cream and gold gallery was crammed with long florist boxes full of flowers and buckets overflowing with long branches. The women were so busy arranging that they didn't notice my arrival. When I found the area marked with the Shimura name, Mrs. Koda greeted me.
"Miss Shimura, how nice to see you. You've arrived before your aunt and Eriko-san," she chirped, as if I'd truly accomplished something. "The bamboo and lilies are here. I removed them from the florist boxes, cutting the stems under water and allowing them to rest in this bucket, where they can enjoy a nice long drink."
Did she think the flowers were human? I nodded as if I agreed and pushed on with my agenda. "My aunt and I came to see you the day Sakura died, " I began.
"I heard," Mrs. Koda said in a soft voice. She didn't look over her shoulder to see if anyone was listening, but her thin shoulders jerked, as if she wanted to do that.
"Where were
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