“Mr. Collins,” announced Miss Borg, “there’s no time to lose.” She paused, dunking her tea bag in and out of the cup, and eyed the librarian conspiratorially. “I could use some assistance.”
“Catherine,” Mr. Collins put down his bologna sandwich and addressed Miss Borg with haughty affection, “I am always at your service.”
“It may involve some, shall we say, research. I want this to be authentic, you see. The challenge is the setting. Don’t you see? Recasting the story in Japan.”
“Catherine, with great deference for your art, but you’ve been using these kids as fodder for your books for years. Whatever do you mean?”
“Oh, I’m tired of writing about American children.”
“So now you will write about Japanese American children?”
“Of course not.” Miss Borg blew the surface of her tea. “Who would read such books?”
From that moment, Miss Borg and Mr. Collins moved into high-gear research, diving into the library resources to sniff out Japan as backdrop. “Oh Mr. Collins, look at this charming garden.” Miss Borg pointed to the wisteria hanging in ponderously plump, luscious clusters over a path of rocks pressed into dappled green moss. “It’s settled, this is where they meet!” And meanwhile Mr. Collins completed the scene with living characters in what he called, with a titillating flutter of intrigue and danger, human espionage. Mostly this meant Mr. Collins snuck around the school with a notepad surreptitiously recording teenage conversations.
“Catherine,” he exclaimed, handing over his notes carefully concealed in an envelope marked CONFIDENTIAL: GARDEN SCENE, as if it were a Mission Impossible dossier, “I never knew what fun this could be!”
“Now,” said Miss Borg, “that sister of Benji Lee. What was her name?”
“Caroline, I believe.”
“That’s right. She’s the prettiest of that in-crowd clique of bubble-headed girls. She and that Kabuto boy,” continued Miss Borg, “would make a lovely couple, don’t you think? It must be already evident to them. After all, the brother and he are best friends.”
“Catherine, how perceptive you are. But you do know the Lees are Chinese, the parents in the restaurant business. An anomaly in the community; that is to say, they are not Japanese.”
“Oh, Chinese, Japanese, who can tell the difference?” Miss Borg waved her hand and turned the pages of Heian prints of the Genji Monogatari. “Now what we need is a dance. The prom would be perfect, and Caroline would be chosen queen, of course.”
“And Darcy Kabuto her escort,” Mr. Collins surmised. He was getting the hang of this stuff.
“Well,” she looked at Mr. Collins, “what are you waiting for?”
“For you to write the scene?”
Miss Borg sighed. “Mr. Collins, we are building conflict. The scene will write itself.”
Mr. Collins went off, presumably to stuff the prom queen ballot box, and Miss Borg met with Mrs. Benihana about the matter of the PTA funding a live band for the prom. Miss Borg put it to Mrs. Benihana directly: “How many cake sales would it take?”
Mrs. Benihana’s thoughts stumbled back to big-band jazz in camp, Glenn Miller and Tommy Dorsey re-creations, and how she could cut a rug in the day.
Miss Borg stared at Mrs. Benihana, who listened to some memory and sat with a faraway internment look, an odd expression of confined freedom and pathos. “Mrs. Benihana?” Miss Borg prompted her from reverie. “The students have chosen a band from Los Angeles, and we are way over here in the boonies.” She waved her arms indicating freeway distance, then continued as if Mrs. Benihana had protested. “Yes, I know, but they say this band is very popular. I know nothing of these things, but I’m always for the students. It would be a shame to disappoint them. Otherwise, it will be LP records on the PA system as usual.”
Mrs. Benihana jostled herself from the past and said, “Yes, a shame to disappoint. However, PTA funds are usually for activities of academic substance.” She used Miss Borg’s own key words.
“Or,” Miss Borg inserted, “activities that enhance access to opportunities outside of the students’ reach.”
Mrs. Benihana went home, immediately made a dozen calls, and went into PTA baking action. She was in a high state of happy anxiety thinking of her daughters. Miss Borg’s suggestion that her girls had been denied access to opportunities beyond their reach resonated within her psyche. The bake sale might be a deciding factor in their young teenage lives. Though she would never ever say so publicly, of all the sansei born in those years, certainly her girls were the most deserving. There was the oldest, a senior named Janey, the sweetest and kindest; next Lizzy, also a senior, having skipped a grade, therefore studious and the smartest; and then there were the three cheerleaders: Mary, Kitty, and Liddy. She called the last three her “chirpies,” and they came in and out of the kitchen to lick the chocolate frosting from the spoons, whips, and bowls and to do cheer routines while Mrs. Benihana tossed sprinkles on cupcakes and wrapped giant chocolate chip cookies in saran wrap.
Mr. Benihana came up from his basement workshop smelling the air. His protective goggles were pushed up on his forehead.
“Mr. Benihana,” Mrs. Benihana exclaimed, pointing to his dusty goggles. “That porcelain dust must remain outside my kitchen. We can’t poison our buyers.”
“Why not?” Mr. Benihana grabbed a cookie and began to return downstairs.
His wife relented. “Oh, now that you’re here, why don’t you enjoy a cup of coffee with me and a piece of cake.” She pointed to a lopsided lump on a plate. “The chirpies were jumping around. That one plopped, but the ingredients are the same.”
“Later.” He continued away. “I want to finish.”
Mrs. Benihana thought he meant finish a bridge or a set of false teeth, which was after all how he paid their bills. But while he polished, he’d been listening to audiotape number three of a Harvard lecture series on American philosophy, and he was puzzling over transcendentalism. Mr. Benihana worked and mostly lived in his basement, with false teeth in various stages of repair and creation, contemplating the ethics of knowing. Drafted out of camp, the army utilized his artistic skills in the fine crafting of prosthetic replicas of teeth; soldiers needed teeth to fight. Given other opportunities, he’d have been a sculptor or a philosopher. Given five daughters to raise, he was resigned to being both, sort of.
About the same time Mr. Benihana pressed the Play key on his tape recorder, Mr. Collins had checked out a similar Sony model from the projection equipment room. He slipped a blank tape into the receiving caddy. “Testing, testing?” After this, the Sony was left strategically under desks, in bathroom and shower stalls, in empty lockers, under lunch tables and athletic benches, and in cozy spots under stairwells and known kissing cubbies. Much of it was useless drivel and noise—banging of metal lockers, thumping of books, munching and peeing, and some bits of moaning and smooching, but he faithfully transcribed everything and handed it regularly to Miss Borg in the manila envelope marked CONFIDENTIAL. However, as his investigations intensified, he discovered the shocking truth: these children were doing everything he thought had been fictionalized in the C. Borg YA books. He felt it his duty to warn Principal Borg.
“Catherine, I should bring it to your attention that after lunch, Caroline Lee and her cohort secretly smoke in Bathroom B.”
Miss Borg was nonplussed. “Mr. Collins, is that the best you can do?”
Mr. Collins’s shoulders sagged, as these were well-behaved Japanese Americans as featured in Time magazine, still corralled in a cultural bubble that C. Borg meant to appropriate before the onslaught of pot, reds, LSD, SEX, and rock ’n’ roll.
Mrs. Benihana smiled to see the handsome Darcy Kabuto and his Chinese friend Benji Lee approaching the PTA cake sales table outside of Meiji Market. It was the extroverted Benji who sauntered over in his flip-flops and greeted her. “Hi, Mrs. Benihana. How are sales going? Let me make a contribution.” He pulled out a dollar and bought some peanut butter cookies,
handing one to Darcy, who only nodded. Benji munched on the cookie as if it were some kind of ambrosia. “Mrs. Benihana, can we be of assistance?”
Darcy looked puzzled.
Mrs. Benihana was quick to pounce on this opportunity. “Oh yes, yes. I have to pack all this up and bring it back to the house. Can you?” She pouted with a needy look. “I could use your muscle.”
“I bet you could use Darcy’s pickup,” said Benji.
Darcy shrugged his marvelous shoulders and strutted over to his parked Toyota, a polished black deal with big tires. And that was how Darcy and Benji got into the Benihana household, straight through the front door.
Mrs. Benihana sat them down for more cookies and Cokes, and the chirpies greeted them in their cheerleading outfits, bouncing around and running away to giggle. Benji looked delighted and elbowed Darcy, who only drank his Coke and stared at a wall covered by large framed photographs of the five Benihana daughters, all lined up in matching dresses in yearly portraits.
Moments later, Janey and Lizzy ran through the door, Janey with the car keys and Lizzy complaining, “Mom, where were you? We went to pick you up, and the table was completely gone!”
Mrs. Benihana smiled. “Oh, I had some help,” she said, and she nodded at the boys, seated with their cookies and Cokes. “Do sit down, will you? We have guests.”
Benji waved. “Hi.”
Lizzy pouted at the two guys and went to the fridge, pretending to look for something, but Janey smiled and said, “That’s a relief.”
By then, Mr. Benihana had made his reappearance and decided to find out why there were young men in his house, which might be an interesting change (that is, the company of men).
Benji reached over and shook Mr. Benihana’s hand firmly. Darcy followed his example. Benji, who worked at his father’s restaurants, was all about customer satisfaction. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Benihana,” he said warmly.
“Catherine,” Mr. Collins cleared his throat to make his report, “it seems the Benihana girl and Benji Lee are a thing, shall we say.”
“That reminds me, I should call Mrs. Benihana and see how much money she’s raised.” She turned from her typewriter and asked with exasperation, “Which girl? There are five of them.”
“The oldest. The angel, Janey.”
“And how is the Darcy–Caroline alliance proceeding?”
“Well, not at all. It seems he just follows Benji around and hangs out at the Benihana house every afternoon.” Mr. Collins scratched the back of his neck. “When do they do homework?”
“Oh, this will never do.” She ripped the page from her typewriter and tore it angrily into little pieces.
Mr. Collins crept away from this unseemly display of author hysteria, and taking advantage of fourth period, snuck over to the lunch benches in the senior court and duct-taped his Sony to the bottom of a bench.
After a while, it had become routine for Benji and Darcy to sit at that bench and wait for the Benihana sisters to walk by with their paper lunch bags and thermoses. “BLT today,” smiled Janey, sitting between the guys and offering half to Benji. Lizzy stood in front of Darcy, who didn’t move or say anything. He wasn’t getting half a BLT anyway. Lizzy tugged a crisp piece of bacon from her sandwich, stood and munched, and said to no one in particular, “Oedipus Rex. Did you finish?”
Janey turned to Darcy, who actually nodded. Janey’s lips turned up in subtle pathos, and she handed him a cookie.
“Thanks,” he said.
Benji’s sister, Caroline, rambled by with her chatty companions, all claiming no doubt the tallest ratted hair in the entire school, eyeing Janey and ignoring Lizzy while making eye-rolling movements, most of which were impossible because their lids were actually taped open. Caroline walked over, said hi to Benji, and conspicuously handed Darcy a folded note.
Darcy took the note, shoved it into his pocket, and said nothing as Caroline and her crew gaggled on.
Benji finished the BLT in five bites, then got up and grabbed Janey’s hand. “Let’s get in the ice cream line while it’s short.”
Lizzy sat in the now-empty part of the bench, but, trying to keep her distance from Darcy, her hand toppled Janey’s thermos. Darcy jumped to avoid the spilling juice and followed the tumbling thing as it rolled under the bench. “Hey,” he said in a monotone. “What’s this?”
Lizzy crouched to look at what seemed to be a package taped beneath the bench. “Maybe it’s a bomb,” she said with a smirk.
Darcy pulled the tape away. “It’s recording,” he observed. He replayed their conversation, which amounted to “What’s this?” and “Maybe it’s a bomb.”
Lizzy commanded, “Erase that and put it back.”
Darcy and Lizzy hung around after the bell, hiding around a blind corner, and watched Mr. Collins pretend to walk nonchalantly to the bench and rip away the Sony.
About a week later, Mr. Collins handed his usual confidential dossier to Miss Borg, suggesting she should listen first to the tape itself. “Mr. Collins, what on earth? What language are they speaking?”
“Japanese.”
“Oh, they don’t speak Japanese. Not even their parents. Preposterous.”
“Haven’t they all gone to Japanese school? I’ve been going myself in the evenings at the cultural center.” Mr. Collins pulled out a dictionary and announced with great pleasure, “It took some study, but I’ve managed to translate everything.”
Miss Borg read the translated transcript:
Darcy: I swear by the moon.
Lizzy: Don’t swear by the moon. It’s always changing.
Darcy: What should I swear by?
Lizzy: Don’t swear. Everything is happening too fast. We need to slow this down to see if it’s real. Good-night.
Darcy: Are you going to leave me so unsatisfied?
Lizzy: Just what sort of satisfaction do you need?
Darcy: Your promise that you’ll be my girlfriend.
Lizzy: But that’s a given. I already promised you, but now that I think about it, I’m going to take my promise away.
Darcy: What? Why take it away?
Lizzy: To promise you again and again. My love is deep and boundless as the sea. Oh I’d better go now. Bye.
Mr. Collins smiled and exclaimed, “Sweet isn’t it? The part about the moon, can’t you use it?” Mr. Collins paused to reflect. “Odd how that Darcy kid even speaks Japanese in a monotone.”
Miss Borg shook her head. “Mr. Collins, I think you’ve been had.”
The prom came and went, but these were the highlights: Janey Benihana was voted prom queen. Mrs. Benihana, who volunteered to be a chaperone for the event, was absolutely thrilled and wept through the entire crowning, the sash thing, the bouquet of a dozen red roses thing, and the first dance. Miss Borg looked quizzically at Mr. Collins, who shrugged. Maybe he had been the only one to vote numerous times for Caroline Lee. Caroline didn’t seem to care; she had the biggest hair in the ballroom, and the lead singer of the L.A. band the PersuAsians jumped from the stage and danced with her most of the night. Miss Borg was pleased anyway with the live band, her slyly orchestrated invasion of urban sophistication into this world of suburban provincialism. These band boys were obviously a bad lot, with their slicked-back hair, black leather, and shiny pointed shoes. Between sets they were guzzling something from unlabeled bottles and smoking pot in the parking lot. The three backup crooners charmed the crowd with their timed routines—turns, hip swivels, and jumps—and Miss Borg noted that Mrs. Benihana’s chirpies were right there in perfect coordination. Eventually, one of the chirpies, Liddy, would venture to L.A. and hook up with one of the backup singers, a kid named George Wakama. From there, Liddy went rogue, so to speak, disappeared into an underground collective and did all the usual stuff like sex, drugs, and radical politics. Mrs. Benihana would weep to her husband, “My youngest chirpie has gone off to be a hippy.” Well, it was Miss Borg’s payback. She pressed a thick envelope into Mr. Collins’s arms and said, “It
’s done. Intrigue. Tribal conflict. Cliques. Adolescent rage. Hormonal experimentation. But,” she shook a pointed finger, “stylistically oriental.”
Mr. Collins bowed. “Catherine, I’m sure it’s a masterpiece.”
On the night of the prom, Mr. Benihana came up from his basement to find his wife and daughters in a titter of pastel chiffon and satin, nylons, pointed heels, hair spray. He greeted each of the young men, all awkward in stiff suits and ties, who came to take his daughters away, but only Benji Lee offered to shake his hand with that firm grip of his. When everyone seemed to have disappeared and left the house in peaceful calm, Mr. Benihana saw Lizzy on the sofa with a book. “What are you doing here? What about that Darcy kid whose dad is always talking about serving in the 442nd?”
“He took his sister to the prom.”
“Oh yeah?” Mr. Benihana seemed to think about this but said nothing. “Let’s go to a movie,” he offered. “I heard about it on the radio. The Graduate. Sounds real,” he added, looking at the tossed book on the sofa. “Forget Salinger.”
Monterey Park
Mukashi, mukashi, Mario Wada, with a diploma from Cal State L.A. in business and culinary skills learned on a summer cruise ship, met, on that same ship, the vivacious and very prosperous Tammy Wuya and fell impossibly in love. The impossibility of their love had to do with Tammy’s requirements for partnership, which were defined by what she called her triple whammy, something she tested on Mario with, well, success. Did he have a superiority complex? Check. And yet, did he feel insecure about his assumed superiority? Check. And three, could he control his emotional and physical impulses (that is, to have sex with her)? Check. He was the very model for ethnic American success. And he was also very handsome, tall, muscular with his shirt on or off, and an excellent chef and sommelier. By the end of the cruise, the two were married and very soon after had nested into an expansive, fully furnished in feng shui hillside house in Monterey Park. Although the nomenclature didn’t exist at the time, Mario Wada settled quite comfortably into his role as a trophy husband for the rest of his life. In time, Mario sired with Tammy four children: Tommy, Eddy, Mariko, and Julia. When Mario’s sister Francie, abandoned by her Caucasian husband, found herself suddenly a single parent with two children, Mario offered to house the younger child, a shy little girl of ten years, until Francie could find a job and stable living. To add a fifth child to the existing four, in addition to a half-dozen Chinese pugs, seemed of no consequence to anyone except the shy ten-year-old newcomer, Fanny Rice.
Sansei and Sensibility Page 13