Free 1001 Cranes by Naomi Hirahara Page A

right.
    “So Ms. Kawaguchi is a tough customer?”
    “She’s kind of mean,” I whisper. I’m surprised that I’ve said such a thing to a stranger but it just came out.
    “Just go through that door.” He gestures to a narrow hallway.
    I speed up the stairs into a giant hall. No one is in there, only empty rows of wooden pews and a huge altar in front of the room, which smells of incense. The altar looks like a giant black wardrobe open to reveal shiny gold ornaments and Japanese writing. I’ve seen this kind of altar before. I know that it’s called a butsudan.
    When Jii-chan’s brother, Uncle Tai, died, the family had the funeral in a Buddhist church on the other side of San Francisco Bay. I hadn’t known Uncle Tai that well. I’d seen him only once a year, at Thanksgiving. There was no coffin at his funeral. Only an old picture of him in a fancy frame. We had to go up in front of the butsudan, where there were containers of incense that looked like ash, and sprinkle that incense into a larger pot of burning incense. My mother told me that I should bow before and after I did the incense thing, but I forgot. I hoped that no one was watching me.
    It turned out that Uncle Tai’s wife, Auntie Momo, was staring at me from the front pew. She looked so sad, and when I passed by, she clutched at my elbow as if she was trying to cheer me up. I felt bad, because I couldn’t remember much about Uncle Tai. He’d sat on a couch with the other old people and eaten his Thanksgiving turkey on a TV tray in the back room of the house my dad had grown up in. I don’t think I ever really had a conversation with him, other than nodding when he asked me if I was doing okay at school.
    I start to feel like I have to pee, or go shi-shi, as Gramps calls it. But I hold it in. I’m glad that I’ve stayed, because a few minutes later Kawaguchi enters, wearing a new suit and the same pearls. Holding on to her Day-Timer, she’s frowning. I bet she’s the crabbiest bride around.
    “Where’s the wedding coordinator?” she asks me.
    I shrug. I don’t know if she’s talking about the man who brought me to the sanctuary.
    “What’s that?” She points to my aluminum-foil cranes.
    I reluctantly hand over Tony’s drawing and the taped cranes.
    “What is this made of? Tinfoil?”
    More sweat drips from my nose to the tile floor. I feel like my body is getting swirled up into a dark tornado.
    Before anything more happens, an older woman with a pad of paper appears from the back door. “Hello, Ms. Kawaguchi,” she says, and I instantly know that I’m safe. At least for a few more minutes.
    You wait, Kawaguchi mouths, and I sink into one of the front pews.
    “I’m so sorry to keep you waiting. Your fiancé couldn’t make it?”
    “He’s in Europe right now. On a business trip.”
    “Well, how wonderful. Unfortunately, I have a piece of bad news to report. Our minister is having health problems.”
    The color seems to be draining from Kawaguchi’s face. “Health problems?”
    “Yes, a stroke.”
    “This is awful. This is just awful.” Kawaguchi hugs her Day-Timer to her chest as if she’s trying to console it.
    The wedding coordinator nods. “I know it’s just such a shock, but I’m sure Sensei will recover.”
    “By my wedding date?”
    The coordinator’s mouth falls into a straight line. Even I know that it is pretty low-class to say something like that when somebody’s sick.
    “It’s just that my parents got married by Reverend Nako,” Kawaguchi says, trying to explain herself. “It would have been so perfect. We were even going to tell the photographer to pose us with the minister in the same exact way.”
    “We’ve already been assigned an interim minister. I think he knows you, in fact. He mentioned something about you two going to the same college.”
    Kawaguchi looks confused. “Same college…What’s his name?”
    The back door opens, and it’s the man who served as my tour guide. “Hello, Lisa.