The wagashi was now stuck to the table. A sticky mess of red bean paste and sugar fusing itself to the black lacquered surface.
It was Tokyo’s July combination of humidity and direct sunlight through a glass window that dissolved the sweaty cube, it’s perspiration spreading out like tendrils.
The question now was whether to try and dislodge it and risk splitting the pristine gelatin that gave it the stillness of a frozen pond, or simply inviting her guests to join her at the aforementioned black and gold lacquered table. A poor knock off of a Meiji gem.
A knock off gem that she had lugged to three different apartments. The low table measuring exactly to the center of her shins, with the bruises to prove it. The low table that Lucy had insisted she buy as a souvenir from the junk shop, in the alley, near the she can’t remember where. But she did remember the way the owner smoked a cigarette and did not look at her as she gesticulated widely to inquire about the price.
A price she couldn’t calculate into dollars fast enough to determine if it was a good deal or not, as Lucy handed her some bills. And still hadn’t. Perhaps that’s why she kept it. Perhaps she secretly harbored a fantasy that if she too were to melt in the July humidity and direct sunlight, following the same fate as her wasgashi, that someone snapping on latex gloves would pick through her possessions.
He would assume that there was nothing of value. He would step over the pools of expired matter, when suddenly out of the corner of his eye, a sticky puddle on the low table would glint. He’d walk towards it, rubbing his forehead in recognition. His father having been an antique collector in Kanagawa, he knew the subtle winding of the brushwork as original. And he’d sell the piece for her, in memory of a woman he never knew. Confused as to what to do with the money and who to give it to.
And Lucy would be the right person, technically they had both paid for it. But she didn’t know where she was now. And as she sat down at the table attempting to peel the delicate treat from it’s surface, she realized they hadn’t spoken in three years. They hadn’t spoken since they had the argument in the little alley in she didn’t know where about who should carry the unreasonably heavy black and gold lacquered table.
