The Last Tea Bowl Thief by Jonelle Patrick

Author:Jonelle Patrick
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: The Last Tea Bowl Thief
ISBN: 9781645060291
Publisher: Seventh Street Books
Published: 2020-04-14T16:00:00+00:00

28.

Present-Day Japan

FRIDAY, APRIL 4

Tokyo

Nori hastily scrubs her rice bowl and props it on the drainer, then has second thoughts and dries it. She puts it away, along with the other wet dishes she’d upended on the dish towel. Not that the expert from the auction house will be setting foot in the kitchen, but it’s good to know that if she does catch a glimpse, it won’t give the impression of a single woman living alone, eating off sad, solitary dishes. She wipes down the counter, eyeing the condiments arrayed along the backsplash, tidies them into a more pleasing arrangement.

She’s decided to receive her guests upstairs in the apartment, rather than down in the shop. The second floor’s front room is far from impressive, but at least it doesn’t reveal that the family business is mass-produced restaurant dishes, not rare art pieces. It wouldn’t do to make Eriko Hashimoto wonder how the proprietor of a modest restaurant supply shop came to own a potentially priceless tea bowl. It’s a question she’s been worrying over herself, but the stubborn-as-a-stone grandmother who knows the answer is refusing to share it.

Nori opens the cupboard to take down their best teapot—a lovely old piece of blue and white Kutani-ware, brushed with a spray of bush clover and berries—and is instantly dismayed. Early April is the wrong season to serve tea from an autumn-themed pot. Is there time to run down to the shop and dig out the wisteria-motif one that her father had bought, but never sold? April is a little early for wisteria, but it would be a whole lot better than—

Her phone alarm chimes, reminding her that the art expert will arrive in twenty minutes. The blue and white teapot will have to do. She rinses and dries it, setting it on a black lacquer tray blessedly free from seasonal references. Two unchipped Nabeshima teacups join it, thankfully decorated with a nice, safe, Four Seasons design. Nori adds another cup, even though it has a hairline crack. She can use that one herself. Finally, she opens the canister of expensive—if slightly stale—tea reserved for guests. Spooning some into the teapot, she adds a dash more, for luck. She’ll need it, because once again it’s butsumetsu —bad luck all day. Naturally, she’d forgotten to check the astrological calendar before agreeing to the meeting.

Nori carries the tea tray to the main room. Stopping in the doorway, she frowns. There’s nothing quite like seeing a familiar place through the eyes of approaching guests to highlight its faults. The stained ceiling, the cracks left unpatched after the last earthquake, the low, black lacquer table, dulled by years of service in the shop’s office before being retired for home use.

But there’s nothing she can do about any of that now. And once Eriko Hashimoto sees what’s inside Hikitoru’s wooden box, she won’t be paying attention to the décor. Returning to the kitchen, Nori fetches the electric hot water pot, setting it on the floor and plugging it into the single boxy outlet.

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