Ship of Dolls (19 page)

Mama hugged Grandma next and looked like she might hug Mr. James, but he looked startled and took a step back.

“Thea,” Grandma said, “Mr. James and his parents were kind enough to drive us from the dock. We have luggage.”

Lexie heard scolding in Grandma’s voice, but Mama didn’t seem to notice. “The super will take care of it.” She darted to a door next to the restaurant and called inside, “They’re here!” then rushed back to Lexie. “Your stuff will be taken up to my place. It’s all arranged.”

With a grin, she shook hands with Mr. James, then leaned into the car to thank his parents. Lexie waved to Millie in the backseat. She had known the little girl for only a short time, but it was sad to think she wouldn’t see her again.

Softly Millie said, “Good-​bye.”

Hearing Millie speak, even if it was just one word, made it easier for Lexie to give up her doll. “Annie’s going to be good company, Millie. You tell her when you need a hug.”

Millie’s father pressed Lexie’s shoulder, then climbed into the car with his parents. As Lexie watched them drive away, Mama turned, almost dancing with happiness. “It’s nifty to see you again, kiddo. Mother Lewis, it’s really swell of you to bring her to me. Come on inside, both of you.”

“How big is your apartment?” Lexie asked. “Is it on the second floor? Do you have a good view?”

Mama laughed. “You’ll see it soon enough, kiddo. First I want you and your grandma to meet my new friends!”

Lexie didn’t want to meet anyone new. She had a hundred — a hundred hundred — things to tell Mama and questions to ask. But when Mama opened the restaurant door, the rich smells of clam chowder and the tangy scent of the bread Lexie knew was called sourdough reached out and pulled her right on in.

She looked around but didn’t see Toby. He must be playing in a band somewhere. Maybe he would be away for a long time. She hoped so.

A man rose to his feet at the nearest table while a woman beside him smiled at them. The man looked solid, with wavy red hair parted in the middle and a neat red mustache. Beneath the mustache, he offered a wide grin. “So this is your little girl. I see the resemblance. Welcome. Welcome!”

Mama gave Lexie a little push forward. “This is Lexie. And Mrs. Lewis. Mother Lewis, meet Mr. Clayton and —”

The man broke in. “Harold Clayton, photographer. Call me Hal. Everybody does. And here’s my better half, Sylvia.”

Mrs. Clayton seemed nice, with kind eyes and a friendly smile. She wore a brown dress and a neat brown cloche with trim brown hair curling from beneath.
She’s brown all over
, Lexie thought, amused.
Like a mouse, a friendly one.

Mrs. Clayton looked at her husband in the fond way most folks looked at a puppy or a kitten. “The mister doesn’t put much stock in formality.”

Mama laughed. “You two! Aren’t you the bee’s knees!” She urged Lexie and Grandma into chairs at the table as a waitress came over with menus. Grandma murmured hello to the couple, but Lexie didn’t hear much enthusiasm in her voice.

It didn’t matter. They were here, together with Mama again.

Mama reached under her chair. “I have a surprise for you, kiddo.” She put a wrapped package in front of Lexie. “One of the gals at the club makes these. The moment I saw them, I knew I had to get one for you!”

“What is it?” Lexie felt her smile getting even wider as she pulled off the string and opened the paper. A doll lay inside, a soft-​bodied lady doll, tall and thin, with a painted face, a column of a flapper dress, and a long pearl necklace. A glittery headband held her bobbed brown hair.

“Isn’t she a kick?” Mama asked.

“I love her!” Lexie held the doll up for everyone to see, then hugged her close. “She’s a grown-​up Annie! I’m going to call her Ann.”

Grandma explained, “Lexie gave her cloth doll, Annie, to a lonely little girl on the ship.”

Everyone had something nice to say about giving away Annie and how pretty the new doll was. Then Mama said, “Guess what! Hal and Sylvia are going to Japan with the dolls!”

Lexie looked at the couple in surprise. “On the ship?”

“That’s right, Miss Lexie.” Mr. Clayton dropped his menu to the table. “I work for magazines. You may have seen a travel poster at the dock, one with a geisha in her kimono with a temple in the background? The Japanese are reaching out for tourists. So one of my magazines is sending us to make a photo spread of the country.”

“You’ll be a long way from home,” Grandma said, sounding as if she wasn’t sure travel was a good thing.

“A lot of people are making the trip,” Hal said, beaming. “Those with money to spare. Charlie Chaplin went over. And that writer fellow . . . Hemingway.”

Mama’s eyes sparkled. “Hal’s going to take pictures of the ceremony tomorrow. Guess what, kiddo? You and I might turn up in his magazine!”

Hal chuckled. “My better half came up with that idea. I’ll shoot pictures of the big send-​off here and then of the welcome the dolls get in Yokohama.”

“I expect you will focus on the dolls, not on people,” Grandma said. Lexie knew Grandma hoped it would be that way. She wouldn’t approve of Mama and Lexie turning up in pictures in a magazine. To Sylvia, Grandma added politely, “It is an interesting idea.”

Sylvia’s fair skin turned pink. “I see picture possibilities sometimes. The mister is the artist.”

The waitress set bowls brimming with chowder in front of each of them, then returned with a big basket of bread. Lexie was glad she had food and the new doll Ann to think about, because Mr. Clayton took over the conversation, talking about things called apertures and lenses and light and other stuff the grown-​ups might have found interesting but was boring as anything to her.

When Mama finally led her with Grandma to the apartment house next door, Lexie felt her curiosity come back to life. The first thing she noticed was Mama’s spicy scent, as if the small corner apartment reached out to hug her the same way Mama had. She looked through both windows at the lighted streets, marveling all over again that she was actually here in San Francisco.

The luggage waited just inside the door. “Isn’t this the cat’s meow!” Mama said, twirling in the center of the room. “This little place brings us all close together.”

“Like a family,” Lexie said meaning,
like a family should be.
Grandma didn’t say anything.

Mama helped Lexie tug Grandma’s trunk into the bedroom. “We’ll share the sofa, kiddo,” she said. “The back drops down, so we’ll have oodles of room.”

After two warnings from Grandma, Lexie stopped asking questions long enough to unpack her nightgown. Grandma raised her eyebrows. “Goodness, you have enough in your suitcase for a long stay.”

That was because she meant to be here for a long stay, but it brought another question to mind. Lexie asked, “Where’s Toby? Is he playing his horn somewhere?”

She hoped he didn’t come in late and trip over the open sofa or, worse, accidentally climb into bed with Grandma! She just managed to swallow a giggle. Grandma wouldn’t think that was funny.

Mama answered lightly. “He’s down in Hollywood — can you beat that? Friends of his hooked up with an outfit playing background music for the flicks and invited him along.”

“Flicks?” Grandma asked.

“Moving pictures,” Lexie explained, trying to keep a leap of happiness out of her voice. Mama didn’t seem disappointed that Toby was gone.

“I’m surprised you stayed behind,” Grandma told her.

Sudden understanding left Lexie feeling bruised inside. Toby was gone. He hadn’t kept Mama away from the ship. She and Grandma could still be sitting there alone on the dock and it wouldn’t be Toby’s fault after all.

It had to be his fault. There was no one else to blame . . . no one she was willing to blame. Maybe there was. Maybe it was Mr. Clayton’s fault. Hadn’t she thought that earlier?

Rhinestones flashed in Mama’s ears as she answered Grandma. “They don’t have need for a songbird. Guess they don’t want to distract people from the story going on in the flicks.”

She came over to Lexie, looking as if Toby were in the past and didn’t matter anymore. “I have something swell to tell you, kiddo, but it’s got to be a secret until after the dolls’ send-​off. I don’t want your thoughts pulled two ways, and we need to practice our song.”

A secret from Mama would be something exciting. Mama didn’t care much about boring things. All that talk about photography had come close to boring, but Mama’s mind was probably far off on something else, something secret, all the time Mr. Clayton was chattering on. Maybe the photographer and his wife were part of the secret and that’s why they kept Mama from meeting the ship!

Lexie didn’t mind waiting to hear Mama’s news. A secret from her was like a Christmas present all wrapped up under a sparkly tree like the ones they made when they spent Christmas together. A lot of the fun with a present was in wondering what could be inside.

With Mama, it could be anything. A kitten. Or a jack-​in-​the-​box that jumped up the minute she opened the package. Or maybe . . . just maybe . . . it was a promise that from now on, Lexie would live with her all the time. It would be worth waiting for. She was sure of that.

L
ight rain blew on the wind the next day when they walked to the pier where the dolls’ farewell would be held. As Grandma pulled her scarf tighter, Mama said with a grin, “Nifty weather for January.”

Lexie twirled in a circle, laughing. “It’s great weather! We’re together!” They’d had fun practicing “The Blue-​Eyed Doll” over and over last night. She became so sleepy, she hardly knew what she was singing, but every minute had been like a party.

Now, with the wind blowing and waves slapping the piers, she felt wide awake. She skipped between Mama and Grandma as they walked down the dock to join the photographer and his wife. Grandma talked to Mrs. Clayton while Mr. Clayton steadied his big black camera on a tall tripod. The ship waited nearby, an enormous oceangoing freighter far longer than the ship they had taken from Portland.

Men rushed along the wharf, shouting orders, setting lines, and moving crates from the dock up to the ship to be stored in the hold. Emily Grace would travel to Japan on that ship. Suddenly, the dolls’ trip was real, not just a school project.

“What do you think of her, kiddo?” Mama asked, swinging Lexie’s hand.

“It’s big.” Maybe she should say,
she’s big
, but it seemed silly to think of a black freighter almost as long as the pier as a she.

“They say five of these ships have offered space to carry the dolls.”

“Why do they need five?” Lexie exclaimed. That big ship could hold her entire schoolhouse!

“Twelve thousand and more dolls take up a lot of space,” Mama said. “Remember, each one travels in a box big enough to hold her suitcase and all her trappings.”

Grandma added, “I’m sure each ship carries a lot of paying cargo besides.”

Lexie walked backward, watching sailors work. “Is this one going to carry Emily Grace?”

“Could be, kiddo.” Mama sounded distant, and Lexie saw that she was watching a handsome man in a uniform walking from the gangplank. “There’s Captain Richards. I need to talk to him. Back in a sec.”

As Mama walked toward the captain, the photographer said, “Your mother is like a beam of sunlight. She lights up everything around her. I hope I can get that quality into my photos.”

Lexie had forgotten that he was going to take photos of them singing together. She felt a little jealous that he was watching Mama and that the captain looked happy to see her. It was like little parts of Mama were being taken away by other people, when Lexie wanted her all to herself.

Mama brought the captain over for introductions. The Claytons already knew him, since they were sailing to Japan on his ship. His smile was friendly and he seemed nice, but Lexie didn’t want to stand around talking. “They’re about to start the dolls’ party,” she reminded Mama.

“We’d better nip on inside,” Mama agreed. “Captain Richards is coming with us, so we can count on a friendly audience.”

“I look forward to it,” he said.

Lexie reminded herself that no matter how he smiled at Mama, he was leaving very soon to sail away to Japan.

Mr. Clayton collected his camera gear, and they all went into a nearby hall where people were gathering. Mama spotted four seats together near the front and rushed ahead to save them while the photographer and his wife carried their equipment to a spot near the stage.

Lexie looked around. Huge paper flowers along the walls brightened the hall. An enormous painting of Mount Fuji made a background for the stage, with a tall model of a Japanese temple at one side and papier-​mâché trees bristling with blossoms at the other.

Three young women in flowered kimonos moved through the crowd, offering programs and helping people find seats. Their hair was styled like that of the woman in the travel poster and decorated with sprays of flowers and ribbons.

“Those women aren’t Japanese,” Lexie said.

“I don’t suppose the program committee could hire Japanese women,” Grandma answered. “You’ve heard Grandpa talk about the law passed two years ago. People from their country aren’t allowed to immigrate here anymore.”