“It wasn’t bad.”
Mrs. O takes me to a women’s bathroom on the far end of the building and tells me to wait outside. There’s one closer to the Sunday school classes, but I figure that Mrs. O wants her privacy.
I wait there awhile and then that boy Nathan sees me. I look away, but he heads straight for me. “The youth group is going to go out for pizza and bowling at the beginning of next month,” he says. “Maybe you want to come.” Nathan is a typical-looking Asian boy. Thin, pale face with a few pimples at his temples. His hair is pine-needle straight and shoots out at a weird angle from his hairline.
“I don’t know. I have a job, so I might be kind of busy,” I say.
“Well, if you’re not doing anything—”
“Yeah, well, I’ll think about it.”
Nathan walks away and I notice that he’s tall. Real tall. At least five feet five inches. He looks slightly uncoordinated, like his legs and arms grew too fast recently. I doubt that he could do any kind of skateboarding.
I wait about ten minutes more, and the crowd is thinning out fast. I wonder what’s going on with Mrs. O.
I finally go into the bathroom. It’s tiny, with only one stall. I don’t even have to look under the door, because I see Mrs. O lying on the linoleum floor. I get down on my knees. The floor is sticky and I try not to think about why it’s so sticky.
“Mrs. Oyama,” I say.
Her eyes are open and she tries to get up. “Help me,” she says.
I slide underneath the stall door—more stickiness—and edge beside her. There’s a little barf floating in the toilet water and a little around her lips. I wipe it away with a piece of toilet paper. The whole time, I breathe through my mouth.
Mrs. O tries to push herself up again, and I wrap my arms around her and lift her. She steadies herself against the bathroom stall and takes some deep breaths.
“Are you okay?” I ask. I know it’s a stupid question. She’s not okay. Not even close. “Maybe we better call your husband.”
“I’m all right. Maybe we should rest a little before we leave. There’s a coffeehouse here,” she says.
The coffeehouse turns out to be the church’s kitchen and a large rectangular folding table. Mrs. O orders a strawberry smoothie for me and a plain water for herself. We sit outside on a couple of folding chairs.
Most everyone seems to have left by now. It’s only the two of us on this side of the building.
“You’re probably wondering what’s going on.” Mrs. O presses her dry lips against the edge of a flimsy plastic cup. “I had breast cancer about five years ago. And it’s come back.”
I suck on my straw and look down. For some reason, my eyes start to blink so fast that I can’t see straight.
“I’ve had to go in for treatments recently. That’s why you see me getting ill.”
“You still have your hair,” I say. My third-grade teacher went through chemotherapy and lost her hair. Instead of wigs, she wore cool long scarves. She is still teaching at my elementary school, as far as I know. She taught us that when you survive cancer, it’s called remission.
“Chemo affects people in different ways. My hair just gets curlier, like I had a perm.”
“Oh,” I say. I don’t know if that’s good or bad.
“Nobody knows, Angela. Well, except for Mr. Oyama. But nobody else does. Not my sons. Not my daughters-in-law.”
I just stare at her.
“I want to wait until after our anniversary party. I want people to be happy and celebrate, not afraid that I’m going to die. Maybe you’re too young to understand.”
In a way I do understand. Why have a bunch of people worried about you when you have enough to worry about yourself? I don’t know about Pastor Barry’s theory about asking for help. Mrs. Oyama is a Christian but she’s super-private as well.
I don’t say much more to Mrs. O. But I do promise that I won’t tell. Mrs. O is lucky: I’m the best secret keeper of any girl I know.
Loopy Loop
When we get back to 160th Street, there’re a note and a phone message waiting for us at Mrs. O’s house.
“Your grandparents had to tend to a wedding. I guess it’s just you and me for lunch.” She smiles. “I hope tuna fish is okay.” She goes into the kitchen and leaves me in the living room.
I quickly speed-dial Tony’s number. He answers on the third ring.
“Hey, it’s Angela.”
“Where are you? I’ve been waiting all morning.”
“I had to go to church with the neighbor.” I expect Tony to laugh, but he doesn’t. “Just do me a favor: call me up right away, okay?”
Tony doesn’t ask me why. I hang up and increase the volume on my phone. A couple of minutes later, it rings.
“Oh, hi, Grandma,” I say loudly. “Yes, yes. I’ll be right there.”
Mrs. O pokes her head out from the kitchen. “Is everything all right?”
“My grandmother wants me to go over to the house to finish a project for her.” I lie so easily I almost scare myself.
“But you haven’t eaten lunch—”
“It’s okay. I can just make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.”
Mrs. O looks hesitant.
“I have my own key. She would have talked to you but she’s in the middle of a wedding and all.”
“Oh yes.”
“I’ll just wait for Grandma at home.”
Even though I told Mrs. O that I could make my own lunch, she makes me wait for her to put a tuna fish sandwich in a small plastic bag. “I’m glad that we were able to do this, Angela,” she says, handing me the sandwich.
I nod.
Mrs. O stands on her porch and watches me open our front door. I wave to her and she waves back before going into her house. I feel a little bad, but not that bad, obviously, because I quickly slip into the bedroom to get my skateboard. I leave through the back door and cross our other neighbor’s front yard to reach the street.
By the time I’m at the schoolyard, the rest of Tony’s friends have left. Tony skates back and forth between the lunch tables, his wheels making long loops of rolling sounds. I skate over to him, and he holds out his hand and I grab for it. It’s warm and moist, as though he’s been hanging on to a small animal. He speeds up, and I do, too. Even though he’s a little taller than me, I can keep up.
We skate like this to the other side of the playground. About three-quarters of the way there, we get out of sync and we have to slow down, but Tony keeps holding my hand. We eventually make it to the end by the handball courts. Tony kicks up his skateboard. “Cigarette break,” he says. He takes a crumpled package of cigarettes from his back pocket. He slides a bent cigarette out and, while holding it in his mouth, lights it with a yellow plastic lighter.
I expect him to offer me one, but he doesn’t.
“It’s a bad habit,” Tony says. “It’ll make your mouth taste nasty, like an ashtray or even worse. I’m going to quit sometime soon.”
We lean against the handball court, its paint and wood peeling and curled up like eyelashes. I watch him finish his cigarette.
“So what are you doing this week?” he asks.
“Just folding, I guess.”
“Maybe we can do something. Like go to the mall. Or a movie.”
I let the words sink in. A guy is asking me out on a date. For the very first time. I feel that someone has opened a new door in my life. I’m dancing inside. Then Grandma Michi’s face enters my head. I see her pointing at Kawaguchi’s and Mrs. O’s cranes.
“I don’t think I can,” I say. “My grandparents have me doing all this stuff.”
“Well, I have your phone number. We can stay in touch during the week, at least.”
He then holds on to my right hand. Tight. My hand gets sweaty, but it doesn’t seem to bother him. His clothes do smell a bit smoky. But not exactly how he described smokers’ breath. The smell reminds me of the end of a campfire: warm yet kind of sad at the same time. He then leans into my
face. I wonder, Is this it? Is this my first real kiss from a boy? But instead, his lips brush against my cheek. It’s quick. He smiles. “I’ll call you.”
Dear Diary
No one’s in the house when I get home, and I feel relieved. I go into my bedroom, dig out Mom’s diary, and turn to the one written page: I went to the store today and saw him.
Again I wonder who “him” is. He isn’t my dad; that’s for sure. This was long before my dad. I wonder whether he was Japanese or Asian. Or maybe hakujin. Or maybe black, or Latino, like Tony.
Did she kiss him? I can’t imagine my mother with anyone besides my dad. But then, there was Danny Abraham’s divorced father. Danny was in my class last year. He had long hair that he parted on one side; his right eye was practically covered, so I wondered if he could see clearly. One time, when we went to the beach for an end-of-the-school-year party, he fell asleep on his towel and the left side of his face was burnt red, while the right side was still soap white. Mom was one of the drivers on the field trip, and so was Mr. Abraham. He made sure that he sat right next to Mom on the beach, and offered to put sunscreen on her back. (If he’s so into sunscreen, why didn’t he give Danny some? I wondered.) Mom told him that she wasn’t worried about getting burned. It wasn’t in her genetics.
All afternoon, he kept looking at my mom. But she ignored him. She is good at ignoring people, and for once, I was happy about it.
Guys don’t stare at me like that. Even Emilie gets long looks. Guys instead tell me about their latest skateboard moves or pull my hair and run away. They treat me like their little sister. Until now.
I try to call Emilie, but her voice mail comes on. I think about leaving a message or text-messaging, but announcing my kind-of boyfriend that way is too weird for me. Emilie has kissed a guy before—her boyfriend of three weeks—and now they hate each other. She’s kind of bitter, so maybe it’s better to keep this news to myself. I imagine myself kissing Tony—this time for real, lips to lips. I roll up my fingers and make a fake mouth with my thumb and my knuckle. I press my lips into my rolled-up hand. I can smell Tony, his sad smokiness. I miss him, I miss him. I reopen Mom’s old diary and write underneath her one-sentence entry: And I can’t wait to see him again.
MICHI’S 1001-CRANES FOLDING TIP NO. 5: The tail should not be folded straight up. It needs to lean at a forty-five-degree angle.
Sorry Dojo
After dinner I am lying on my bed, playing a game on my cell phone, when Grandma Michi opens the door without knocking.
“Are you ready?” she says.
Ready for what? I think.
“Ready to go see Rachel?”
I forgot that I had told Grandma Michi I would go with her to the dojo to apologize to Rachel Joseph in person. I don’t want to go. I picture a bunch of kids running and jumping and breaking boards. I don’t need to witness all that energy before going to bed.
But I don’t monku. I don’t dare. Besides, I’ve been thinking about Tony. About what it will feel like to kiss him. I think about him holding my face close to his. About feeling the coldness on the tip of his nose. My insides shiver and I feel happy. I haven’t felt happy in a long time.
So I don’t put up a fight when Grandma tells me to go with her to one of the dojos Rachel’s dad works at. He comes to the Gardena one only on the weekend; he helps at another one in a city called Carson.
We drive for about ten minutes and we’re right next to the freeway. Giant wooden planters hold baby palm trees. Grandma Michi tells me that the dojo is beside a nursery. It’s funny that so much of my grandparents’ life is surrounded by plants.
A father and his son, dressed in a gi, arrive before we do, and we follow them into a big stuffy room. They both bow when they enter, and I wonder if we need to do the same. So much of being Japanese doesn’t involve words or written rules. You have to be quiet and just watch.
Grandma Michi bows deeply in her jeans and San Francisco T-shirt. She looks ridiculous, but no one laughs, so I do the same, only not so deep.
The floor is mostly covered in blue pads, like the ones they use in gymnastics. A slim rectangle on one side holds a wooden bench, where some old men and parents sit. A black woman in shorts sits in the middle. I figure that’s Rachel’s mother. She probably hates me, I think.
A plastic ice chest is by the door. The walls are all white and free of adornments except for a black-and-white photograph of an ancient Japanese man with a skinny beard and fierce eyes.
“That’s our main sensei,” an old man tells me before slurping down an A&W root beer. I look into his face; is he the man on the wall? “Have something to drink.” He nods toward the ice chest, but I shake my head.
“Hi,” says someone sitting on the mat in the corner. It’s the girl from church, Keila. Only now her long hair is tied back in a ponytail. And she’s wearing a gi, with an orange belt around her waist.
“Oh, hi. I didn’t know that you do judo.” It was a stupid thing to say—I mean, why would that come up in a conversation on Sunday morning?—but Keila doesn’t seem to mind.
“I’ve been studying a couple years. It’s a lot of fun.”
On the far side of the mat, I see a familiar skinny figure stretching his long limbs. His black hair sticks out from the top of his head like weeds.
“What’s he doing here?” I ask.
“Who, Nathan? He’s been taking judo as long as me. We went to the same elementary school, too. Now same church, same junior high. We both play for F.O.R.”
“What’s F.O.R.?”
“It’s a Japanese basketball league.”
Japanese kids playing basketball? I think they have the wrong sport. Judo makes way more sense.
“Keila…” A short, squat Japanese American man calls her. He is wearing a black belt, so I know that he’s one of the top guys. His shaved head is white on the top and the sides, like a forgotten tangerine that has gone beyond the rotting stage. His legs are short; his center of gravity is low. He reminds me of one of those round toys you can never knock down.
“That’s Rachel Joseph’s father,” Grandma whispers in my ear as Keila runs to join one of the lines formed on the opposite side of the dojo.
“He’s Japanese,” I say.
The barefoot kids and men in their white robes take turns twirling like tops toward us on the bench.
“Rachel’s adopted. Just recently, in fact. Her new name’s Rachel Joseph Akita. That’s her adoptive mom right there.” Grandma Michi nods toward the black woman.
The line of martial artists now do a strange sequence of somersaults that look like broken wheelbarrows rolling forward.
Adoptive. The word sounds funny to me. So un-Grandma-like. It sounds like something a lawyer would say, not someone who makes floral arrangements and folds origami cranes.
It’s kind of weird that Rachel has a Japanese father, like I do.
The martial artists now break up into pairs. I’m surprised to see Keila facing a guy at least a foot taller than her. They bow to each other and then start grappling, pulling the front collar of each other’s gi. I am worried that Keila’s gi will fly open, revealing her bra and whatever else, but I am relieved to see that she’s wearing a purple T-shirt underneath. All the girls, in fact, seem to be wearing something underneath their gi.
Rachel is with an older man who must be at least triple her weight. How can she fight him? He could just step on her and squash her like a bug. But somehow she uses what little weight she has and certain twists of her body to pull the man forward. He falls, tucks his head under, and rolls. When he rolls, he slaps the mat hard with the inside of his arm. It sounds like a huge belly flop in a sea of blue padding.
I can’t help noticing Nathan grappling with Rachel’s father. The men don’t wear anything under their gi, and Nathan’s top opens up, held together only by his green belt. I’m surprised to see that he has some rows of muscle on his skinny stomach. I mean, he’s still skinny—I can see his ribs—but maybe he’s not as uncoordi
nated as I thought he was back at the church.
“We are more into randori at this dojo,” says the root beer man. He has a wispy beard.
“What’s randori?”
“Randori is free style. You just go at it. We don’t go over each kata, form, again and again. You gotta just experience it, you know.” The root beer man is missing some of his teeth, and I wonder who he is.
After fifteen minutes, they trade partners, just like in square dancing. It doesn’t matter how old you are, if you’re a girl, if you’re small; you just randomly get matched up with an opponent. It’s obvious that Rachel is one of the stars. Her bows are crisp, and her face determined as she flips and knocks down men, teenagers, and other girls with her foot and arm movements. I know that many of them are just going with the flow; if they were fighting in a dark alley, these big guys would be able to beat Rachel, no doubt. But that doesn’t matter here. She knows about imbalance and balance, and I know that I couldn’t do what she is doing even if I’d started judo when I started walking.
I look back at Grandma Michi, who’s been quiet the whole time. She’s watching Rachel with as much pride as if Rachel was her granddaughter. Her eyes are even shining.
The whole session lasts about an hour, and the younger kids stop first. Rachel comes to the side to get a bottle of water from the cooler and finally notices me.
“Why are you here?” She doesn’t waste any time getting to the point.
“Sorry,” I say. My voice cracks a little. “For getting mad and saying things I shouldn’t have said the other day.”
Rachel Joseph looks away from me quickly and I’m glad she does. My eyes get wet for some reason.
Grandma Michi nods with approval. I guess I’ve passed her test.
“You did real good out there,” Grandma says, and cups Rachel’s head with her hand. Rachel looks like a baby bird with her head and bread-loaf-looking braids nestled in my grandmother’s arm.
I can’t help feeling a tinge of jealousy. What does Rachel have that I don’t? Is it that she’s adopted? That Grandma feels sorry for her? Well, what about me? My parents are alive, but they’re splitting up. My own family’s dying, but Grandma doesn’t seem to notice or care.
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