Sputnik Sweetheart Read Online Free PDF Page B

lovely. It was quite becoming, to tell the truth. Though I preferred the old, outrageous Sumire. To each his own.
    “Not bad,” I said, giving her the once-over. “But I wonder what good old Jack Kerouac would say.”
    Sumire smiled, an ever-so-slightly more sophisticated smile than usual. “Why don’t we go for a walk?”
    W e strolled side by side down University Boulevard toward the station and stopped at our favorite coffee shop. Sumire ordered her usual slice of cake along with her coffee. It was a clear Sunday evening near the end of April. The flower shops were full of crocuses and tulips. A gentle breeze blew, softly rustling the hems of girls’ skirts and carrying with it the leisurely fragrance of young trees.
    I folded my hands behind my head and watched Sumire as she slowly yet eagerly devoured her cake. From the small speakers on the ceiling of the coffee shop, Astrud Gilberto sang an old bossa nova song. “Take me to Aruanda,” she sang. I closed my eyes, and the clatter of the cups and saucers sounded like the roar of a far-off sea. Aruanda—what’s it like there? I wondered.
    “Still sleepy?”
    “Not anymore,” I answered, opening my eyes.
    “You feel OK?”
    “I’m fine. As fine as the Moldau River in spring.”
    Sumire gazed for a while at the empty plate that had held her slice of cake. She looked at me.
    “Don’t you think it’s strange that I’m wearing these clothes?”
    “I guess.”
    “I didn’t buy them. I don’t have that kind of money. There’s a story behind them.”
    “Mind if I try to guess the story?”
    “Go ahead,” she said.
    “There you were in your usual crummy Jack Kerouac outfit, cigarette dangling from your lips, washing your hands in some public restroom, when this five-foot-one-inch woman rushed in, all out of breath, dressed to the nines, and said, ‘Please, you’ve got to help me! No time to explain, but I’m being chased by some awful people. Can I exchange clothes with you? If we swap clothes I can give them the slip. Thank God we’re the same size.’ Just like some Hong Kong action flick.”
    Sumire laughed. “And the other woman happened to wear a size six-and-a-half shoe and a size seven dress. Just by coincidence.”
    “And right then and there you changed clothes, down to your Mickey Mouse underpants.”
    “It’s my socks that are Mickey Mouse, not my panties.”
    “Whatever,” I said.
    “Hmm,” Sumire mused. “Actually, you’re not too far off.”
    “How far?”
    She leaned forward across the table. “It’s a long story. Would you like to hear it?”
    “Since you’ve come all the way over here to tell me, I have a distinct feeling it doesn’t matter if I do or not. Anyway, go right ahead. Add a prelude, if you’d like. And a ‘Dance of the Blessed Spirits.’ I don’t mind.”
    She began to talk. About her cousin’s wedding reception, and about the lunch she had with Miu in Aoyama. And it
was
a long tale.

CHAPTER 3
    T he day after the wedding, a Monday, was rainy. The rain began to fall just after midnight and continued without a stop till dawn. A soft, gentle rain that darkly dampened the spring earth and quietly stirred up the nameless creatures living in it.
    T he thought of meeting Miu again thrilled Sumire, and she found it hard to concentrate. She felt as if she were standing alone on the summit of a hill, the wind swirling around her. She settled down at her desk as usual, lit a cigarette, and switched on her word processor, but stare as she might at the screen, not a single sentence came to her. For Sumire that was next to impossible. She gave up, turned off the word processor, lay down in her tiny room, and, an unlit cigarette dangling from her lips, gave herself up to aimless musings.
    If just the thought of seeing Miu has me this worked up, she thought, imagine how painful it would be if we’d said goodbye at the party and never saw each other again. Am I just yearning to be like her—a beautiful, refined