1001 Cranes

by Naomi Hirahara

  “Did you know about this?” Sarah asks Helen.

  “Did you?”

  “Nobody knew,” I say. “Except for Mr. O.” I don’t say that I knew, too, although they can figure that out.

  “This doesn’t make any sense.” Sarah wanders back into the living room and slumps down on the couch. Helen walks out from the hallway and then turns to me. “Why do you know?”

  Sarah waits for my response.

  I’m not sure. “It just sorta came out. She’s gotten sick in front of me before.”

  “You should have told somebody,” Sarah says.

  “Don’t blame her; she’s just a kid.” Helen comes to my defense.

  I don’t like how this argument is going. First of all, Sarah is accusing me of having done something wrong when Mrs. O explicitly told me to keep a secret. And Helen is saying that I’m just a kid, which is also wrong.

  Before I can stop myself, I’m speaking. “She wanted you to be happy, at least until the anniversary party. She didn’t want anyone to worry. And I think she wanted you guys to try to be friends, at least for a short time.” My voice isn’t squeaky like it normally is when I speak to grown-ups. It’s low and steady. It sounds like me.

  Sarah and Helen stare at each other.

  Helen then plops herself down at the dining room table. “Hit me with them, then,” she says.

  “Huh?” I ask.

  “The origami papers. If three of us work together all night, maybe we can finish.”

  So as Mrs. O rests, we fold. By the time Mr. Optimist returns from his meeting, we are close to having six hundred cranes, separated into three distinct piles on the table.

  Mr. O seems to sense that something has changed, and I know I should leave as soon as I can.

  When I’m home and I get into bed, I text-message Tony and he answers me. Grandma Michi and Gramps don’t know about these things. They kind of understand how you can send messages and read messages on the computer, but they don’t know that you can talk on the phone without really talking.

  Tony asks me if it’s okay to call, and I tell him no. But I text-message him that I’ll call him. And I do, when everyone’s gone to sleep. Just in case, I cover myself with a sheet and a blanket, and I stuff the pillow close to my face.

  I whisper into the phone that I can’t talk long. I think about telling him about my dad and Mrs. Papadakis but then decide against it. Saying it aloud will make it more real. And I want to pretend that it’s not true, at least for a little bit longer.

  “When can I see you next?” he asks.

  “Well, I’m kind of grounded.” It’s actually not “kind of.” It’s for sure. But I want to see Tony. “I’ll be at a wedding tomorrow. At the Buddhist church.”

  “Are your grandparents going to be there?”

  “No, I’ll be with my aunt. Besides the 1001-cranes display, we’re also doing the boutonnieres and the bridal bouquet.”

  “Maybe I’ll pretend that I’m in the wedding party.”

  I almost start laughing. There’s probably no one in Kawaguchi’s life who looks like Tony.

  MICHI’S 1001-CRANES FOLDING TIP NO. 7: If you make a mistake, you don’t have to throw the crane away. Save it, because you may be able to use it in the back layers.

  A Change in Plans

  I’ve never been to a wedding before. My dad’s an only child, like me, and Aunt Janet has never been married (and has never had a boyfriend, for all I know). So we don’t have a lot of relatives who have gotten married since I’ve been alive.

  Aunt Janet has told me that we don’t have to dress up for the wedding, because we’re the workers, but that I still shouldn’t wear jeans or shorts. She tries to get me to wear one of her denim skirts, but it’s so loose around my waist and my butt, it looks more like a sleeping bag than a piece of clothing. I go into my mother’s closet, and I find a simple pink and yellow plaid shift in the back. It’s sleeveless and definitely old, but in a cool, retro way. And it fits perfectly. Even Grandma Michi is impressed. “You look like a young lady,” she says before picking up her purse to meet Gramps at another event. I bring along my blue Hawaiian-flower-pattern mini backpack. I know that it clashes with my dress, but I don’t care.

  I help carry the 1001-cranes display to the trunk of the car. It’s all framed and wrapped in black felt. It’s my first one, and even Aunt Janet says that I’ve done a good job. We have to stop by the shop on our way to the wedding, to pick up Kawaguchi’s bridal bouquet and the men’s boutonnieres. She told Gramps that she was going to make her bridesmaids’ bouquets, which Gramps secretly thought was a bad idea. “Customer’s always right,” he muttered to me after he’d tried to talk her out of it.

  The boutonnieres are simple. They each have one white flower against a green leaf. The flower is called stephanotis. They have petals that are long and delicate, and they look like wax trumpets. Kawaguchi’s bouquet is full of stephanotis and white roses. It looks so perfect that it doesn’t seem real.

  On the ride to the Buddhist temple, Aunt Janet tells me a lot of things I know and don’t know about weddings. Like that it’s bad luck for the groom to see the bride in her dress before the ceremony. Even though I’ve never gone to a wedding before, I know that much. I know that brides should wear something borrowed, something blue. But then she tells me that if it rains on someone’s wedding day, it’s good luck for the marriage. That doesn’t make sense to me. I look out the car window, and the sun is already bright. Doesn’t look that lucky for Kawaguchi.

  The parking lot is already full, so I wonder if we are late. After Aunt Janet parks, she thrusts the box with the bridal bouquet into my arms. “You find the bride and I’ll pin the men,” she says.

  “How about the one thousand and one cranes?” I ask. I want to make sure that everyone sees it.

  “That’s later, for the reception,” Aunt Janet explains.

  As we rush up the stairs, I see a familiar figure in a plaid button-down shirt and khakis. Tony waves, and my eyes dart back and forth between him and Aunt Janet, who’s just concentrating on finding the groomsmen. I point to the front of the steps, meaning that I’ll be back as soon as I can. Tony nods.

  We find the wedding coordinator, who directs me into one room and Janet into another. The room I enter looks kind of like a library, only there’s a huge mirror in front of some old books in Japanese. Kawaguchi is sitting in a padded chair, her head down. I’m surprised, because she really looks beautiful. Her dress is strapless and shows off how thin she is. Her hair is piled on top of her head, and her makeup isn’t overdone.

  Before I can say anything, I notice that someone else is in the room. The groom. Kevin. I’ve seen him only one time, and that was in a car with Kawaguchi. He looks like a younger version of Mrs. O’s sons, clean-cut and tall. There’s a whiteboard on wheels right in front of the door, so they don’t seem to notice me. I think about tiptoeing back outside, but I don’t want to move.

  “What are you saying?” he asks.

  “I can’t marry you.”

  My mouth falls open. I can’t believe what I’m hearing. Neither can Kevin. “What?”

  “I can’t do it.”

  “Lisa, our whole families, our friends, coworkers—they are all out there. And you want to call this off?”

  “Reverend Marc—he was my boyfriend in college. We were even talking about getting married.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me? We could have gone to a different church. Gotten a different minister.”

  Kawaguchi just sits in her chair. Frozen. I begin to feel sorry for her.

  “Are you saying that you still have feelings for this guy?”

  “It’s not that. I just can’t figure out why I couldn’t tell you the truth. From the beginning.”

  I can’t believe what’s happening. How do people know when they’ve found the one—the one who lasts forever? Did my own mom have any doubts when she got married holding fresh wildflowers? What made Dad like Mrs. Papadakis? What makes one be
tter than the other?

  Someone knocks on the door, and both Kawaguchi and her fiancé look back, finally noticing me standing there with the box of roses and stephanotis in my hands. The door opens, and it’s the minister. He’s wearing a long robe the color of mustard. “Everyone ready?” he asks.

  Big Haji

  Aunt Janet says that the Kawaguchi wedding was the biggest disaster she’s ever witnessed. She’s on the phone with Grandma Michi, and I can hear only Aunt Janet’s side of the conversation.

  “She goes in front of the sanctuary, in front of everyone, all the guests, the parents, and says that they’ve called the wedding off. Haji. Yeah, big haji.”

  My ears perk up and I wonder what haji means. Nothing good, most likely.

  “Yes, canceled. So what are we going to do about the flowers? I know, I know. They still owe us half of it. Yeah, I’ll make sure. And the one-thousand-and-one-cranes display. Same thing, huh?”

  I forgot about the display; does this mean that it’s all going to waste?

  “I have to make sure. I mean, it’s not our fault that they didn’t know what they were doing.” Aunt Janet sounds huffy, almost betrayed. I’ve never heard her angry before.

  “Aunt Janet, what’s haji mean?” I ask after she ends her conversation with my grandparents.

  “A shameful thing. A very shameful thing.” She then turns and walks toward the sanctuary with a strong sense of purpose. I’m alone, and I’m grateful. I find Tony where I left him, in front of the temple. He’s making figure eights on his skateboard. He stops when he sees me, and I notice that he has rolled his long-sleeved cuffs up to his elbows.

  “So what happened?” he asks.

  “The bride called off the wedding.”

  “No way.”

  “Yeah.” I still can’t believe it myself. To see Kawaguchi, once all perfect in her white dress, standing in front of their guests, her face red and swollen…The fiancé had already left. He told her it was all her doing and she would have to clean up after herself.

  Kawaguchi hasn’t been very nice to me, but at that moment, I saw a different side to her. It was as if someone had peeled off that hard plastic layer and revealed a soft bloody heart, like in those medical television shows. Her sad face made me think of my mom. Maybe that’s how Mom feels inside, too.

  “You look nice,” Tony says, stroking the edge of my neckline.

  I pull on the straps of my backpack and am aware that I have to be careful. Who knows who might be driving down the street? We move to the edge of the temple by some mint green trees. We hold hands for a little while, and then Tony lets me go.

  “I have to get back to my uncle’s store. He’s getting a shipment in, and I promised that I’d help unload.”

  “A pallet, huh?”

  “Yeah, a pallet.” He smiles. I’m happy we have some inside jokes—lame ones, but still.

  He squeezes my hand and then he leaves. I wave to him from the top of the temple stairs and watch him skate down the street, his long hair flying back.

  I then hear a voice. “Angela Michiko Kato. Is that who I think that was?”

  Urusai Mama

  I knew that Mom was coming down to Los Angeles. But I didn’t realize that she would get out of her jeans and change into a sundress and heels to go to Kawaguchi’s wedding and check up on me. Needless to say, I’m in trouble—big trouble.

  My grandparents in the Bay Area, Jii-chan and Baa-chan, have another word besides “monku” that they use all the time. It’s “urusai.” Like when Baa-chan bothers Jii-chan for the tenth time about fixing a leaky bathroom faucet. “Urusai,” he’ll snarl back. And if he’s in a really bad mood, he’ll mutter, “Urusai mama.” “Urusai,” which sounds like “OO-ru-sai,” means “annoying,” “nagging,” or, generally, “Get off my case.”

  So standing there at the top of the stairs of the Buddhist temple, I take a big breath and get ready for a huge blast of my own urusai mama.

  First she aims her anger at Aunt Janet. She tells Aunt Janet that I’m a kid (yeah, the kid thing again) and that I need supervision. She pratically blames her for my sneaking around with Tony behind everyone’s back.

  Then—this is what surprises me—Aunt Janet fights back. “I’m not her mother. I’m her auntie. She’s not my responsibility. You should be the one who watches her.”

  I’m shocked that Aunt Janet has spoken up like that. And so is my mother.

  Mom whips her head back to me. “I’m really, really disappointed in you. And where’s your cell phone? I’m here now; you don’t need your cell phone.”

  I open my mini backpack, pull out the phone, and lay it into her open palm. I don’t know how Tony’s going to reach me now, but at least I know his number and the number for his uncle’s store.

  While the three of us are arguing, a groomsman wearing a wilted stephanotis boutonniere comes up to us and timidly asks about the 1001-cranes display. I guess the fighting of three Japanese females from the same family could scare off a pro wrestler. “They told me that I’m supposed to take it,” he explains.

  Aunt Janet takes a breath and frowns at Mom. “You come and help, Angela,” she says, and my mother nods, giving me permission to move. We go to my aunt’s car and she pops open the trunk. When we hand the display over to the groomsman, I feel sad. My beautiful display probably won’t be seen by many people—if any. And for Kawaguchi, it’ll be a reminder of all that went wrong rather than right.

  Cinnamon Yellow

  I am a prisoner the next week.

  Mom doesn’t want me even to go to the shop, so I stay in the back room, gluing cranes onto Mr. and Mrs. O’s anniversary display. Their design is much more difficult; there’re bamboo and cherry blossoms, and I’m not sure if it’s looking very good.

  I’m sleeping on the couch again, because Mom took back her own room. She says she’s going to stay in Los Angeles for a little bit because she has some business to take care of. It makes me suspicious, because what kind of business would Mom have? It’s not like she has a serious full-time job. Back in Mill Valley, she goes into the city only three times a week, and she’s always home by the time school ends.

  Mom keeps trying to talk to me—like really talk—but I’m not used to it. So whenever she tries to sit me down, I run away. She finally gets me early in the morning, before breakfast. I’m not a morning person and she uses that to her advantage.

  “Dad talked to you, I heard.”

  I nod and fold my arms around the top of the sleeping bag. The zipper scratches the inside of my right arm, but I don’t bother to move.

  Mom’s eyes fill up with tears, and it scares me. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her cry. If Mom falls apart, what will happen to me? “Do you have any questions?” she asks.

  I shake my head. I do want to tell her that I need to see Tony. He’s the only one I can really talk to. But she wouldn’t understand.

  Mom says that I can share her room with her and sleep on the floor on a blow-up mattress, but I tell her I’m better off sleeping in the living room.

  “You talk in your sleep,” I lie. “You did last time here.”

  “I do not,” she says, but then she stops herself, because we both know that she doesn’t have anybody in her life to tell me I’m wrong.

  I start writing Tony little notes on small yellow Post-its. They are actually one-and two-word poems: “Miss You,” “Cinnamon” (the way he smells—smoky and sweaty and sweet, all at the same time), “Smile,” and “Yellow” (the way the world looks after I see him). I keep all the Post-its in my mom’s old diary, which I’ve hid between the couch cushions. My mother is watching me like a hawk and even going through my backpack, so I figure this is my private secret code. Once I’m let loose, I will make those words into real poems or, better yet, tell him in person.

  I’m writing one of my secret notes when the doorbell rings. I wait for my mother to answer, and after a few minutes, she calls my name.

  Mrs. O is standing on the other side
of the open doorway. She’s looking much better than she did the other night, and I’m relieved. “The youth group at our church is having a bowling party,” she says. “I know that it would be so nice if Angela could go. One of our girls—Keila Harmon—has been asking about her.”

  “Is this a coed activity?” My mother has her arms crossed and I’m surprised that Mrs. O hasn’t softened her one bit. Mrs. O is a little like Keila; she seems to bring out the best in even the crabbiest people. Or at least people try to put on a nice fake front for her. But not my mom.

  “Why, yes. Is that a problem?” Mrs. O wrinkles her face. “The parents are invited, too, you know.”

  I’m not that interested in bowling, but it would be nice to get out of the house, even if it was with my mother. So when Mom finally agrees to allow it as long as she chaperones, I’m actually looking forward to it.

  Turkeys

  The bowling alley turns out to be a cool retro one, with a neon sign. When we open the heavy glass door, I hear the crash of bowling pins punctuating the whizzing and beeping of video game machines. And I smell cigarette smoke mixed with the scent of french fries from the snack bar.

  It’s not hard to find the youth group. There are only about twenty lanes in the whole place, and maybe four of them are taken up by Asian teenagers. For some reason, I notice Nathan first. He has just finished rolling his ball, throwing it forward like he was doing a softball slow pitch. It bounces on the wood lane and then gathers speed, punching the pins down like loose teeth. All fall except for one, in the back corner, hanging around like an actor stubbornly refusing to leave the stage. Nathan’s immature friends yelp and groan, and he shakes his head and gets ready for his ball to return.

  “You came!” Keila’s in front of me on the checkerboard linoleum floor. She’s really happy to see me.

  “Angela, what size shoe do you want?” my mother calls, waving me over to the rental place. A man stands behind a glass case with new bowling balls and bags on display.