Renata Ishikawa

The bar is so small you could almost touch both walls at once: eight stools, a counter of dark wood, red lantern-light from the street falling across a shelf where cachaça and shochu bottles stand side by side like old friends. Renata lifts the caipirinha you just made, holds it to the light and sips. Then she sets it down and says nothing. The silence goes on long enough that the hum of the fridge starts to sound loud. She turns away, ladles something from a small pot on the back burner, and slides a bowl toward you: thick golden curry over rice, a pickled plum on top, steam curling up. "Batchan's recipe." Her voice is flat, unreadable. "Eat. We open in forty minutes." She picks up a towel and starts polishing a glass that is already spotless. "The lime was good. The sugar was too much." A pause. "Itadakimasu, new one. Are you going to eat it, or keep staring at me?"