A Girl Like You (31 page)

Apart from her fare to New York, she has twice broken into the money she got for the farm. Once to buy a child’s charm bracelet for Cora, which she couldn’t resist. It has a little bell hanging on it and a tiny bucket, and space for plenty more. She keeps it in a chocolate box that was left in the trash at the library. The box is well made, a three-layer deep one, shiny brown edged with gold, she can only imagine the kind of chocolates it housed. It’s surprising to her the things that New Yorkers throw away. She has put a dollar in the box along with a little peg doll Mrs. Copeland saved for her from the refuge. It helps her to collect things for Cora, to keep the child in mind.

And for herself she needed clothes for work, two dark skirts, two shirts, one white, one striped, and a jacket for colder days. She is reinventing herself, creating a new style. Haru would not approve of the short hemlines, the high-wedged heels of her shoes. Oxfords don’t cut it in New York. She tells herself that she must stop judging things by what Haru would think. She can please herself now.

There’s plenty more she’d like to buy, a dress or two, ankle-strap shoes in the softest leather like nothing she ever saw in the Sears and Roebuck catalogue. She’s tempted but can’t bring herself to be so extravagant. The money put aside is her safety net, the last bit of Aaron and Tamura to make her feel cared for. It’s hard to be without kin.

She sees families together and feels intensely lonely, aches to be among the Japanese again. But when she speaks to them in Japanese they don’t hang around.

“They think I’m a strange white girl,” she tells Mrs. Copeland. “Guess I look like trouble to them.”

Her neighborhood teems with every sort, Germans, Polish, Chinese, Romanians, Italians, and Jews like Mrs. Copeland. She wonders if there’s such thing as a pure New Yorker. It should make her feel included, but she has never felt so alone.

“Don’t let New York gobble you up,” Mrs. Copeland says. “Take the first bite yourself.”

On a Sunday afternoon when her building is hushed with the slumbering old, she takes the advice and walks the streets to the park to sit on the grass and watch the passersby. A Japanese family is doing the same nearby, father, mother, three well-behaved children. Just the sight of them lifts her heart, the familiar dark hair, the lyrical sound of Japanese catching her by her heels.

“It’s a lovely day, isn’t it?” she says in Japanese. “Such a lovely day.”

And there it is, that confused, suspicious look. How is it that a white girl speaks Japanese so well?

“My mother was Japanese,” she tries to explain as they gather their things and hurry off. “We were in Manzanar,” she calls after them. They half turn, bowing their heads, smiling to be polite.

Since Pearl Harbor, since Hiroshima and Nagasaki, since the camps, they are afraid. They’ve done nothing wrong, but it’s best to stick to your own. They fear being singled out, being noticed.

She remembers Dr. Harper’s parting words to her. “Find a way to be that allows you to remember the past without spoiling the present.” Well, she’s trying.

She’s still grieving for Tamura, still longing for Cora, and there’s a low fever, a desire in her that it’s hard to admit to. She has a longing to make love again, to be lost again in the intimacy she had that one time with Haru. It bothers her that she may be the
loose kind, just as Lily had suspected. Are women meant to have such thoughts?

Men approach her and she isn’t sure how to judge their natures. They are not of the kind she knew in Angelina or in the camp.

“Everyone’s on the make, darling,” Mrs. Copeland warns. “Watch yourself.”

And she does, although she hadn’t been prepared in those early days working in the library for her first date in the city to end so badly.

“Randal Daly, pure Irish,” he had introduced himself to her as she was stacking books on the crime section shelves.

A nice enough guy, she thought, a library regular who devoured detective novels. He ran an oyster stall at the Fulton Fish Market and smelled of the lemons he cleaned himself off with at night. He was big and comfortable-looking, not handsome, but a good face, she thought. She hadn’t minded his brashness; she was getting used to brashness, it was a New York thing.

She had dressed with care, folding her hair into a soft chignon, smudging her lips with a rose-colored lipstick. She bought fifteen-denier nylons, not caring that they were impractical. She wet her hands and ran them from ankle to thigh, setting the seams straight. It was good to feel pretty.

“My God, is it you?” Mrs. Copeland said appreciatively. “Be careful, now. You’re still on the wrong side of green for New York, you know.”

He had taken her to Sloppy Louie’s restaurant near his work, a favorite with the fishmongers.

“I eat breakfast here every day,” he said. “I like to be near the river.”

The restaurant was spacious; they were early, but it was already more than half full. Randal thought it a bad idea to eat late.

“Better to give things time to go down,” he said.

On their way to the table he greeted people at theirs, exchanging pleasantries, slapping the men on the back, complimenting the women.

“It’ll be jam-packed in an hour,” he said proudly, as though it were his own place doing so well.

The barnlike eatery was decorated with things of the sea, model sailing ships marooned in rye bottles, giant lobster claws hooking the air, hulking oyster shells glued randomly on the walls. It was hard to hear over the din of people chatting, calling to the waiters, clattering the cutlery—it reminded her of the mess halls in Manzanar. A brothy scent of fish, rich and steamy, made the room feel warm and living. It was good to be out, to be part of the world.

Randal’s cheeks had turned red in the heat of the room; she wondered if her own had done the same. He ordered for her.

“I know what’s good,” he said.

“That’s fine.” She was glad, nervous at the thought of having to make a choice.

“You’ll like the chowder,” he said, proffering the pepper. “It’s good with pepper.”

He had advised against the eels. “Dirty things,” he said. “Bottom of the harbor trash, night scavengers. Only fish I never touch.”

He did most of the talking, telling her that he liked his job, it gave him a good living, and there was more to oysters than people thought.

“Got to know the good from the bad, the sweet from the sour,” he said. “Trade secret how it’s done.”

He had never dated anyone who worked in a library, he said with a laugh. “Guess you’re pretty smart, but nothing wrong with that.”

“Oh, not so smart. I’m only the shelf-stacker.”

He had an odd way of not responding, as though he hardly
heard her, as though he were working out what he was going to say next himself. Perhaps, though, it was only that he was lonely too, eager to talk.

By the time dessert came she knew his age, the kind of movies he liked, “westerns and detectives.” She knew that his mother was dead and that he lived with his father, who worked with him in the fish market.

“This place is the best, isn’t it? Louie’s Italian like you,” he said over coffee, waving to the proprietor. “Married to an Irish-American. It’s a good combination, like you and me.”

She laughed, used to the mistake. “Oh, I’m not Italian, Randal. I’m half Japanese.”

The moment she said it she saw the effect it had on him. He couldn’t have been more surprised if she had reached across the table and punched him in the face for no good reason. He stared at her, confused, his eyes screwing up as though he were trying to work out some difficult math problem.

“What?” His face darkened. His voice was suddenly harder, mean.

“You’re a Jap? A Jap?”

“Yes, I’m Japanese. I’m Japanese and you’re Irish. So?”

He stood up without looking at her, kicked the chair aside, and threw a few dollars on the table.

“Warn a guy next time,” he flung at her, heading to the door.

The room went quiet, people began to stare. She watched him clumsily navigating the tables, heard his “Jesus” addressed to no one in particular. She put a napkin to her lips, swallowed hard, fighting nausea.

“You okay, honey?” the woman at the next table asked. “You don’t look so good.”

Outside the restaurant, she felt disoriented, out of place on the sidewalk in the dark. It was raining, the drops falling like snow,
thick and slow. The insistent whisper of the river came to her. She thought of the eels Randal had spoken of curling in the deep dirty depths of the harbor, comfortable down there in the dark, knowing their place.

She wasn’t sure where the subway was, hadn’t wanted to ask a stranger, so for the first time in her life she took a cab.

Angry at herself for being such a bad judge of character, she couldn’t wait to get to her room, to bolt the door and be alone. It was hard to admit to being hurt—that would be giving Randal and his kind the upper hand—but she couldn’t sleep that night, something horrible scratched in her.

Next morning as Satomi picked her mail up, Mrs. Copeland called to her over the banister.

“How did it go, honey? Is it love?”

“Let’s put it this way, Mrs. Copeland: the man was hardly a prince.”

“I told you, darling, it’s a hard-hearted city.”

The letter in her mail was from Eriko. The news was sad. Naomi had died. Her heart had given out in her sleep.

I’m grateful that she didn’t suffer, but I miss her so much, Satomi. My only comfort is that she is with Tamura. Now we are both orphans.

Another link gone. She didn’t have to cry about Randal now, she could cry for Naomi, beloved Naomi, contrary but kind Naomi, Naomi who with her arthritic hands had knitted mittens for orphans.

After the incident with Randal, New York didn’t seem so scary to her; she had survived her baptism and hadn’t drowned. If anything, it had become more like Angelina. Not everyone was on your side.

It went against her nature to take advice from someone like Randal Daly, but she determined in the future to make it clear from the start to anyone who was interested, who she is.

There had been other dates that had gone better, but none of them had stirred her much. She had no idea what she was looking for, someone like Haru, perhaps. None of them, though, fit that bill. Not the guy who was all over her in the first hour, or the one who thought himself funny but wasn’t, or the nice one who got on her nerves. Sometimes she thought it would be better just to stay at home, where nothing was required of her.

Now she takes refuge in books, in the conversations that she has with Mrs. Copeland about relatives finding each other, about the joy of being found. Nothing interests her more than those stories of reunion.

“It happens,” Mrs. Copeland says. “Not that often, but when it does, it’s wonderful. You should see their faces when they discover a brother, a cousin, when a loved one is found alive and longing to hear from them.”

Satomi can’t help picturing a scene where she and Cora are reunited. She imagines them walking together holding hands, eating in the diner three blocks down that serves ten different flavors of ice cream, sitting in the movies thrilling to Flash Gordon.

“You’re haunted by that child,” Mrs. Copeland observes. “But you must make a life for yourself before you can make one for her.”

It’s good advice, not that Mrs Copeland seems interested much in her own life. She is looking toward death with the sort of practicality that Satomi thinks must come with age.

“I thought my time was up the other night, could see myself lying in that shower clear as day. But it was just a dream.”

“How horrible for you.”

“No, honey, I don’t mind those dreams so much. No one lives forever, and they sort of prepare you for what’s coming.”

At Clare House

“You’re new.” Joseph Rodman takes his time handing Satomi his coat. The party at the museum is almost over, but he is not sorry to be late, he is more often late than not for most things. His expectations of the show, of his fellow guests, are low.

Satomi nods her head slightly, doesn’t answer. Her hand is out, ready to take his coat, but he is fiddling in the pocket searching in a disinterested way.

“You’ve lost something?”

“No, not really, just playing for time.”

“Playing for time?” she turns from him, takes a hanger from the rail, wonders why she feels embarrassed.

He can’t quite place the accent. She’s definitely not a New Yorker, more West Coast than East, he thinks. The low pitch of her voice, and her unhurried way of speaking is measured in comparison to the city’s gabble. He likes the cool look of her. It’s strange that he should be so instantly charmed, especially as she has nothing of the boy about her, except maybe a linear sort of elegance.

“I’d rather look at you than what’s on show here tonight,” he says. He isn’t flirting, it’s the truth.

She’s used now to New York flattery, but his compliment doesn’t feel like flattery—not the standard kind, at least. She senses that the usual banter doesn’t apply here. She sees sympathy in his
stare and is irritated. Has he worked out that she’s hiding in the cloakroom? Does he feel sorry for her? He is making her uncomfortable, and she wishes he would hand over his coat and go away.

“My name’s Joseph. Yours?”

“It’s Satomi. Satomi Baker.”

“Satomi?”

“It’s Japanese.”

“But you aren’t …”

“I’m half Japanese.”

“Perfect. Quite perfect.”

Time is running out for Joseph, and if a woman must be courted, if he must keep his promise, then perhaps she is different enough to be the one.

On her way home that evening Satomi wonders whether she was right to refuse his dinner invitation. She’s bad at jumping in these days, less willing than she used to be at taking chances. New York makes you cautious. And Joseph Rodman is like no one she has ever known, although there is something of the museum’s director about him. She wouldn’t know how to be with a man like him.

Two weeks later and on his third request she agrees to dinner, providing that it’s somewhere not too smart.