Chapter 3 So What if I’m High-Maintenance Potato Salad
So What If I’m High-Maintenance Potato Salad
With all the memory-evoking stuff your ex-boyfriend has left behind (birthday letters, matching mugs, old tickets from that trip to Disneyland), do you:
Throw everything out as soon as the relationship ends, or…
Keep everything that’s functional because stuff is just stuff, or…
“What are you mumbling about? It’d be nice if you got some work done.” The undisguised irritation in Hozumi’s voice interrupted my sojourn in denial land.
“I would say I’m the ‘I live on other people’s hand-me-downs so throwing stuff away isn’t an option for me’ type,” said Iori, answering the question I didn’t realize he’d heard.
“No one’s asking you,” Hozumi retorted.
“Guys, please. I’m trying to have an emotional moment here.”
“This was your idea, Momoko. You’re the one who couldn’t get rid of this stuff on your own.”
True. Hozumi had made a very good point, and I couldn’t say anything in reply. Suppressing my emotional anguish, I put my hand back into the cardboard box and resumed sorting through the items.
No matter how hard I had tried the last few months, I couldn’t part with the things that reminded me of Kyohei.
Bagging everything up and taking it out to the garbage felt as if Kyohei and I were officially over, so I held on to every little thing: his toothbrush, his hair gel, presents he’d given me.
Some part of me was trying to keep alive the hope that Kyohei and I were going to get back together.
But Amayadori was starting to draw in more customers, and the more time I spent listening to people’s stories at our Friday-night Funeral Committee meetings, the more I started to feel that maybe it was time for me to move on.
Not that I could just put everything behind me and march on—my personality is way too obsessive for that. But I needed to do something and decided to start by getting rid of this box of stuff. Thus commenced my spring cleaning idea.
But when I started at home, I couldn’t bear to throw anything away.
I made absolutely no progress. Even my own bottle of perfume made me think things like Kyohei said I smelled nice when I spritzed this on my dress.
I knew I was doomed when a pack of pocket-sized tissues—one of those marketing freebies distributed on the streets—made me well up because I thought it might have been given to me while Kyohei and I were out together in Shinjuku.
Too overwhelmed to continue, I tossed all the stuff around me that had memories into a cardboard box and lugged it to Amayadori, where I was met with the usual reactions: Iori found the whole thing hilarious and Hozumi found it ridiculous.
“When you hold on to things, you hold on to the past. Right now, you’re being dragged back to the past, Momoko.”
Hozumi made a very good point.
Biting my lip, I threw an old movie ticket (Kyohei had slept through the whole thing) into the trash.
“Yes, sir, you are right.”
“Come on, let’s get to work.”
I felt grateful. Sorting through the items swiftly and decisively, Hozumi seemed more dependable than ever.
In the meantime, Iori kept prattling on about this and that, barely lifting a finger to clear things out.
“You’re trying to hold us back on purpose, aren’t you, Iori?” Hozumi finally snapped.
“I was just thinking I might as well keep this stuff, since it’s free and everything. How does this look?”
Iori held an I Love NY T-shirt to his chest. It was the shirt Kyohei used as loungewear when he was at my place, a souvenir from a trip to the U.S. It was the cheesiest, most typically tourist thing ever, yet once it had Iori’s face attached to it, it somehow looked incredibly stylish.
“I can take anything that I want, right?”
“Sure. I can’t think why you’d want to keep stuff that belonged to someone’s ex, though.”
“Well, I’m broke, so I’m not really in the position to be picky.”
Iori looked pleased as he folded up the T-shirt and slid it inside a paper bag.
Of course. Two months had passed since I started working at Amayadori.
If I’d learned anything about Iori, it was that the man was stingy with a capital S.
I couldn’t even get him to approve my requests to order new cooking utensils.
He loved collecting coupons and loyalty cards—his wallet was constantly stuffed with them, which had led me to the conclusion that the real reason he insisted on giving away coupons to his customers so generously (when he obviously couldn’t afford it financially) was because couponing was his true passion.
So here the three of us were, on a Friday night in March, waiting for our Funeral Committee client to arrive, working away at organizing my emotional (and physical) baggage.
Our guest tonight was to be Makiko Nishino, a regular customer of Amayadori.
Makiko, who ran Kisaragi, a small bar about a three-minute walk from our café, was something of a local celebrity in the shopping district.
Apparently, her regular visits to the café started when Iori first opened its doors, so the two of them went back a long way.
She had called Iori earlier in the week and without elaborating told him that she “absolutely needed to vent.” All we knew was that she was going to come over to the café as soon as she closed up the bar for the night.
I wondered what her heartbreak story was going to be like.
The hands on the clock showed that it was thirty minutes to Kisaragi’s closing time. I had been thinking about talking to Makiko about my “to dispose or not to dispose” dilemma concerning Kyohei’s stuff, when:
“Iori, come quick!”
Adachi, one of the Three Couponeers—the loving nickname I had gifted the ragtag group of businessmen who were our regulars—and the local butcher, burst in to the café.
He was followed by Kimura the bookseller and Takamura the fruit parlor owner.
Adachi and Takamura didn’t seem too worn out—they were sturdy men and still in their sixties—but if I remembered correctly, Kimura was seventy-four.
He sounded like a dying goat as he leaned against the door, struggling to catch his breath.
“Wh-what’s going on?” I stammered out. “Are you all okay?”
Jumping to his feet, Iori tried to help them into chairs. I rushed to fetch some water for them, but Kimura stopped me before I could do so.
“M-Momo-chan, don’t worry about us. It’s Makiko…” He tugged at my arm.
“Momo-chan, you’re good friends with her as well, aren’t you?” Adachi joined in, wiping the sweat off his face with his shirt.
We all looked at one another.
“Has something happened to Makiko?” Hozumi asked.
Holding his round belly, Adachi took a deep breath.
“We were having a drink at Kisaragi, but Makiko wasn’t her usual self. She said something like ‘I can’t get through this without getting drunk.’ She kept on drinking, and we couldn’t get her to stop.”
I was shocked. “You mean she drank even more than usual?”
“At least twice as much as her normal amount.”
Twice as much!
Makiko liked to laugh heartily and drink generously, and she talked like a machine gun.
In all my life, I had never met anyone who could hold a drink as well as she could.
She always made me drink an unbelievable amount (Iori likes to drink at his own pace, and Hozumi is intolerant to alcohol, so that role constantly landed on me), and I often found myself waking up at Kisaragi the next morning after passing out.
Just the thought of her drinking double her usual amount sent shivers down my spine.
“Then out of nowhere, she yelled, ‘I’m going to take revenge on that jerk!’ and stormed off,” Kimura said with hunched shoulders, making his small frame look even smaller.
Something was going on, likely related to a heartbreak. Perhaps she was going to wait until the Funeral Committee to pour it all out but had gotten herself drunk prematurely and couldn’t wait. Whatever it was, we needed to go and find her.
“I’ve heard the stories about…” Iori said, his expression turning solemn as he brought his hand to his chin, “…Makiko the Destroyer.”
“Makiko the Destroyer?” the rest of us repeated in unison.
“What is that?” I said. “It sounds like a pro wrestling name.”
I thought he was joking, but the serious look on his face told me otherwise.
“Makiko has high professional standards,” Iori said.
“She’s not the type of person who shows others her weaknesses, right?
No matter what is going on, she wants to keep laughing and wants others to enjoy a drink with her.
Even if she is upset, or she’s physically exhausted, she never takes time off.
But because of that she doesn’t allow herself an outlet for stress.
And once in a blue moon, she hits her limit.
When she drinks excessively after her stress level reaches a breaking point, she turns into… ”
I finished his sentence for him: “…Makiko the Destroyer?”
Iori gave a silent nod.
Looking back, I couldn’t think of a single moment when Makiko seemed to be having a difficult time.
The only image of her that appeared in my mind was the one of her flirtatiously raking her hair back with her fingers, breaking into raucous laughter, which showed off her perfect white teeth.
It was hard to picture Makiko without a smile.
“So what happens when she turns into Makiko the Destroyer?”
“I heard that she goes around destroying everything in her path. According to rumors, Makiko the Destroyer once annihilated an entire shopping district.”
The Three Couponeers bunched together, vibrating in fear.
“Oh, dear…” Kimura said, his skinny arms shaking helplessly like small branches rattling in a storm.
“That sounds too extreme for it to be true,” Hozumi said calmly.
I guessed that it was one of those exaggerated rumors that had grown into something of an urban legend. In any case, we knew for certain that she had gotten terribly intoxicated after drinking over her limit.