A Midsummer's Equation

THIRTY-THREE

A pretty girl with a deep brown tan carrying a bowl filled with tropical fruit smiled out of the poster. She was framed by palm trees, and behind her, a pure blue sea stretched out to the horizon. Below her, a printed note read, “We will be closing for the season on August 31. Thanks, The Management.”

It said “closing for the season,” but everyone knew Hari Cove Pizza would never be opening its doors again.

Narumi and the rest of the group had come here after their tour of the DESMEC survey boat. Someone had suggested they get tea, but there really wasn’t any place in town like that, so they ended up here. Narumi remembered when the pizza shop first opened—a garishly painted new arrival in a sleepy town that hadn’t quite woken up to the tourist industry and the money it could bring. There were tables inside with views through plate-glass windows and more tables outside on a large deck where you could sit and enjoy your pizza and your beer while feeling the sea breeze on your face. When they first opened, the season ran from the day the beach opened in the early summer all the way through September. The operating season had gotten shorter every year since.

“They didn’t do it the right way,” Sawamura said, sitting down across from Narumi. He was looking up at the poster, too. “You can’t just build some fancy place in the middle of nowhere and expect people to come. If you want to get customers—regulars, I mean—you have to get the town involved.” He shook his head. “All this town has, the only thing that’ll last, is the ocean. The people at town hall don’t get that. If they’ve got time to court DESMEC’s business, you’d hope they’d spend a little more energy trying to develop our tourism industry.”

“With what?” asked one of the men, a social studies teacher at the local middle school. “I totally agree that the ocean here is a fantastic resource, but we can talk about it all we want and people still won’t come. There are too many other places just like this.”

“I don’t think other places are like Hari Cove,” Narumi said.

“Oh, I agree, but people who aren’t from here don’t understand that. And to someone from the city, one beautiful ocean view is the same as any other. What’s important is name value. Everyone goes to Okinawa because everyone wants to say they’ve been to Okinawa. No one gets jealous when you tell them you went to Hari Cove. It just doesn’t feel like a fabulous vacation without the name.”

Narumi frowned. “You’re awfully hard on your own hometown,” she said.

“I’m just trying to be analytical. When I came back to Hari Cove after spending a couple years away, I was surprised, and not in a good way. Let’s be honest, it doesn’t look like a tourist destination. Everything’s falling apart. The hotels look run down. Go to Okinawa, you’re treated to luxury. Here, you blame yourself for wasting your precious vacation time.”

“Hey—” Sawamura stood from his chair and grabbed the high school teacher by the collar of his shirt. “That’s enough of that.”

The teacher blanched but said, “I’m just telling the truth. What’s wrong with that?” His voice was a little high-pitched.

“Stop it,” Narumi said, standing up and putting a hand on Sawamura’s arm. “Calm down, Sawamura. You’ll get us kicked out.”

Sawamura shook his head and looked around the room. They were the only customers. The waitress was standing behind the counter, a worried look on her face.

Sawamura let go of the teacher’s collar and sat back down. The teacher gingerly drank his water. His face was pale.

“It’s good to talk about these things, but let’s keep our tempers down,” Narumi said.

The two men nodded.

“Sorry,” the teacher apologized first. “I could’ve chosen my words a little better.”

“No, I’m sorry.” Sawamura lowered his head. “I shouldn’t have grabbed you like that.”

An audible sigh of relief passed over the table, and the waitress, who had been standing frozen the whole time, went back to her cleaning.

“I understand what you’re saying,” Sawamura continued. “It’s true, the shops and the hotels are worse for wear. But nobody here thinks that’s okay. We want to rebuild, to renovate. We just don’t have the money. It’s hard enough making it day-to-day. Even up at Narumi’s place—”

The social studies teacher blinked and looked toward Narumi. “Oh, that’s right, your parents run a hotel. Sorry, I forgot. I didn’t mean any offense.”

“It’s okay. In fact, we’ve been talking about closing shop ourselves,” Narumi admitted.

The tension had gone out of the air, replaced now by a kind of sullen silence.

“Time to head out,” Sawamura said after a while, and everyone nodded.

Outside, Narumi got into Sawamura’s car—he was driving a hatchback today instead of his usual pickup.

“Sorry about that,” Sawamura said, pulling out of the parking lot. “I was out of line.”

“I’ve never seen you lose your temper like that,” Narumi said with a smile.

“I just didn’t like the way he was talking, to be honest. You know deep down he wants this undersea resource development deal to go through. His family owns a lot of land in town. But you saw the equipment on that survey boat. Let them loose on the ocean with that stuff, and you can kiss your pristine environment good-bye. And if they go on and build a refinery too, well, there’s your freshwater pollution. Makes me sick just thinking about it.”

“Yeah,” Narumi agreed, but inside, she was having a kind of awakening. Ever since talking with Yukawa, she’d been starting to see the value in a more neutral stance. If they could redirect the energy they’d spent on trying to find fault with the other side and put it toward finding a new direction that worked for everyone, they could all benefit.

Narumi shook her head, surprised at her own thoughts. It was Yukawa’s fault she’d even started down this path. Then she remembered what he’d said when they met on the boat, about her not looking like the type to choose the ocean over the city. What did he mean by that?

“So, have you given any thought to what I said the other day?” Sawamura said, after they had driven a while in silence.

“Sorry?” Narumi said. She knew what he was talking about but played dumb.

“About you being my assistant at the home office. Did you think about it?”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she apologized. “It’s just been so busy, I haven’t really had time to sit down and mull it over. Could you wait just a little longer?”

“That’s fine by me. It’s not like I’m going to be asking anyone else. I don’t see the point if it’s not you.”

There he goes again, saying things that can be taken two ways, Narumi thought. Sometimes she wished he could be a little more straightforward, like Yukawa.

They crested the hill, and the Green Rock Inn came into sight.

“What are they up to?” Sawamura muttered.

Out in front of the inn, Yukawa and Kyohei were using sticks to draw something in the dirt. Kyohei looked up when he heard the car approach. “Hey, Narumi!” he called out.

Yukawa looked up, his eyes even colder than usual.

Sawamura pulled the car up and stopped right beside them, opening his window. “How’s it going?” he called out.

“Did you see what you wanted to see on the boat?” Yukawa asked.

“And more. Now I’m even more convinced we need to keep a close eye on them.”

“Probably a good idea,” Yukawa agreed. Then he lifted an eyebrow. “New car?” he asked.

“Old one, why?”

“Oh, nothing much, I just thought you drove a truck.”

“Yeah, that belongs to the shop. My folks run an electronics store.”

“I see. That pickup was the truck you used when you went to look for Mr. Tsukahara, wasn’t it?”

“Uh huh,” Sawamura said, his voice low. “What about it?”

“Nothing, I was just wondering what you had planned to do if you found him that night.”

“What do you mean? I planned to take him back to the inn.”

“How?” Yukawa asked. “Only two people can sit in the truck, and Mr. Kawahata was sitting in your passenger seat, wasn’t he?”

“Well, yeah, but what else was I supposed to do?” Sawamura protested. “I had to take him with me or I wouldn’t have known what the guy looked like, and the truck was the only vehicle I had.”

“They have a van at the inn. I just got a ride in it. You could’ve used that,” Yukawa suggested.

“Well, thanks for the advice, buddy. I guess I just didn’t think of it at the time. Okay? I’m sure I could’ve figured out something if we’d found him, which we didn’t. Mr. Kawahata could’ve gotten out and waited while I took them back one at a time, if it came to it.”

Yukawa nodded, though by his expression he wasn’t convinced. “That’s true, I suppose there were options. You could always have put someone in the flatbed, too.”

Sawamura looked up at him through the window. “If you have a point, I suggest you get to it. I haven’t had the best day.”

“No, no, sorry to trouble you,” the physicist said. “Nice chatting. Now I need to get back to teaching my young assistant.” He walked back over to Kyohei. Sawamura glared after him.

“Sawamura?” Narumi said. “What’s wrong?”

“Huh?” He turned back to her. “Oh, nothing. Is he always like that?”

“He’s a little eccentric. I wouldn’t pay him too much mind.”

“Yeah, probably good advice. Anyway, good work today. Let’s get together soon and write up that report.”

“Absolutely. Thanks for the lift,” she said, getting out of the car.

Yukawa and Kyohei were standing around a design Yukawa had drawn in the dirt, deep in discussion. Narumi waited until Sawamura had driven off, then walked over to them. “Mr. Yukawa,” she said, “if there’s something you want to say to Mr. Sawamura, you should just come out and say it.”

“Don’t step on that,” he said.

“What?”

“The diagram. Don’t step on it. I’m showing Kyohei why the area of a circle is the radius times the circumference.” Yukawa pointed at Narumi’s feet. A large circle had been drawn in the dirt, with thin lines that radiated out from the center, dividing it into sections.

“I totally didn’t ask him to teach me this,” Kyohei said, looking put out.

“Simply plugging numbers into a formula is just mindless calculation. What we’re doing here? This? This is geometry.”

“Why were you asking him about his car?” Narumi asked. “You don’t think he’s involved with what happened to Mr. Tsukahara?”

“I said nothing of the sort. I was just asking a few simple questions.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Don’t worry. He—Mr. Sawamura, was that his name? He had nothing to do with Mr. Tsukahara’s death. He has an alibi, doesn’t he? He was with you when Mr. Tsukahara went missing from the inn.”

“Well, he was, but—”

Yukawa looked down at his watch, then turned to Kyohei. “I just remembered something I have to do. We’ll resume after dinner.”

“What do you have to do?”

“There’s someplace I have to go while there’s still light. If I can get a taxi—” Yukawa plucked his jacket off the handles of a nearby bicycle and got on. “I’ll eat dinner at six thirty,” he said to Narumi, before wheeling off down the road.