Strawberry Yellow Read Online Free Page B

Mas tried to keep his eyes right in front of him, but they wandered to the front row where the family sat.
    He saw the widow, Minnie, first. Instead of her once trademark cat glasses, she was wearing rimless ones. She was one of these women who strangely looked more youthful as she aged. Sitting next to her was Billy, who made a point of looking away when Mas passed by. His two weeping sisters, each of them with a child, managed polite smiles. In the second row, Mas recognized Billy’s wife—what was her name again?—from some old photo Christmas cards. Next to the wife were Billy’s children, a girl and boy, all grown up.
    After pinching incense and bowing a number of times, Mas was finally face-to-face with his old friend again. Shug, of course, was in the same position, but now there were other things surrounding him—teddy bears, children’s drawings, Buddhist rosaries, and a baseball bat that Mas recognized as the one Shug’s father, Wataru, had carved in Poston camp.
    As soon as Mas returned to his seat, his legs still shaking, he heard, “Mas. Mas Arai, is that you?” A woman with shoe-polish black hair was stuffing an apron into her purse. She slid in an empty seat on his right side.
    “Evelyn,” Mas said weakly.
    Her face was powdered white and her lipstick was too bright of a red—for both her age and the circumstances.After unnecessarily explaining that she had been working in the kitchen—like Mas even needed an explanation—she began whispering the latest gossip about the Arai clan.
    “I heard that Billy’s drunk.” Evelyn’s breath was warm and stank of cheap coffee. “He stumbled in here, in just a t-shirt and jeans, around ten o’clock in the morning. The minister didn’t know what to do. The minister’s wife gave him three cups of coffee. That’s not even his suit—it’s one that the church was going to donate to Goodwill.”
    Mas bent down and patted down his hair.
    “Hope that he doesn’t get back in trouble again. It was an accident, it’s all behind him, but some folks always bring up the past.”
    Like you doing now , Mas thought, although he wasn’t sure what Evelyn was talking about.
    “I mean, I told everyone, what did they expect? First his father dies and now his girlfriend?”
    Mas sat up. “Girlu friend?” Billy was married. And his wife was right there in the Buddhist temple.
    “You mean you didn’t hear? He left his wife for this hakujin girl, Laila Smith. They’ve been living together for a couple of months now. She was found dead in the Stem greenhouse this morning.”

    The rest of the funeral was a complete blur. Evelyn tried to coax Mas into the gym for the potluck, but Mas had to insist—no, in fact almost fight his way back to the motel. He left Evelyn and headed out to the parking lot.
    “Mas, Mas.”
    Now what? He turned.
    “You’re not leaving, are you, Mas?”
    Mas was surprised that the newly minted widow, Minnie, even had time to bother with him, not with the crowd who wanted her attention.
    “I needsu to go back home. Mari and my grandson livin’ with me now. Gotsu to help them out,” he flat-out lied.
    Minnie laughed. “You haven’t changed. You never cared for crowds. But, please, come to my house after the luncheon. Please. I have something to discuss with you.”
    Minnie was the one who helped Mas learn some English, as limited as it was back then. And also a few Spanish words—she said that sometimes Spanish, more than English, was more useful in what would become Mas’s working world.
    “Shug told me that if I could trust anyone, it would be you.”
    Mas grunted and looked down at the graveled ground. Minnie knew how to effectively throw punches, and now she had aimed one right at his heart. So in this round, she was the winner. He promised to stop by in the evening after dinner, releasing the widow back to the mourners, who were busy eating marinated chicken wings in the gym.

    Minnie didn’t mince words when Mas came by her