by Misa Sugiura
“Mom,” I begin, “do you ever wish that Dad didn’t work so much? Or go away so much?”
Mom is sorting through her Tupperware, eyeing what’s left in the serving dishes and figuring out which containers to use. “No point,” she says, selecting four containers. “He has to work hard and go on business trip no matter what.”
“Yeah, but do you ever wish it was different?”
She starts scooping the pumpkin into a round container. “What difference does it make? Wishing does not change the life.”
“But is that what you want?”
She stops scooping and looks at me, exasperated. “What I want does not matter. It is the life.” She resumes scooping and shakes her head. “An’ta ni wa wakarahen.”
No, I don’t. I don’t understand at all. And anyway, we’re getting off track. I fill another container with carrots, daikon, and taro root.
“But what if . . .” What if what? What if he’s sleeping around? What if he cheats on you? How can I say this to my own mother?
“What if does not change the life, either.”
Arggh. Am I going to be reduced to the “I have a ‘friend’ with a problem” ploy? Then I have an idea. “But like, in this book we read for class, The Scarlet Letter. The wife cheats on the husband. When he’s like, traveling or whatever.”
“Cheat? Dou iu imi?”
“Cheating. It means . . .” Keep it clean. “It’s like falling in love with someone else. Or like, kissing someone else who’s not your husband or wife.” Even with this G-rated version, I have to hide behind the refrigerator door with my head in the fridge, pretending to rearrange things so I can fit the Tupperware in.
Silence. The sound of water running as Mom prepares to rinse the dinner dishes. I don’t dare come out from behind the door.
Then, “Ah!” She laughs and I can hear incredulous delight in her voice as she says, “You think I am cheating Dad? Aho-rashii.”
Well, of course, that’s ridiculous.
“How can I do such a thing?” She laughs again.
I guess it wasn’t the best example. Beautiful young wife has affair while ugly old husband travels? No wonder she misinterpreted. I try again. “Okay, well, what about Dad? What if he . . . What if, while he’s on his business trips he . . . you know.”
I watch Mom’s back stiffen as she leans over the sink, swirling hot water around in a serving bowl. Without straightening up, without turning around, she says, “If Dad does cheating, what can I do? I am his wife.” She stops rinsing and motions me over to open the dishwasher. Then with an air of finality, she says, “Aho-rashii hanashi yame-nasai.”
“But—”
“Yame-nasai.” And that’s the end of that. No more foolish talk.
She hands me dish after dish and I load them into the dishwasher without a word, like she wants, the same way we stow away our secrets in this family, shutting the door on them and locking them away from sight until we come up with a version clean and respectable enough for all to see.
In the same way that being with Jamie is like carrying a star in my pocket wherever I go, knowing about Dad’s affair is like walking around with a backpack full of rocks. Talking to Mom last night only made it heavier.
“Why don’t you tell your dad you saw him?” asks Caleb at lunch. It’s Tuesday and I’ve pulled him away from his friends, and I thought I saw his cheeks go a little pink, but I had other things to think about. I have to talk to someone, and I’m still too embarrassed to pull Jamie away from her friends. And since our spying misadventure the other week and my little breakdown on Sunday, Caleb is the only person besides Jamie who I feel comfortable talking to about Dad.
“Are you out of your mind? What am I going to say, ‘Hi, Dad, I was out at PopStar—where, by the way, I wasn’t supposed to be—and I saw you and your mistress . . . canoodling’?”
“I wouldn’t say canoodling, but yeah. Something like that. Anyway, it’s not like he could get you in trouble. He was doing something way worse.”
“No. I’m not doing it.”
“Why not?”
“Oh, come on. How awkward would that be? Would you tell your dad you saw him cheating?”
“I don’t have a dad.”
“Fine. Your mom’s boyfriend. Would you tell him?”
“Hell, yeah. I’d kick his ass.”
“Well, your mom’s boyfriend is not my dad, and I’m not you, and anyway, I can’t kick my dad’s ass.”
“Fine. Suit yourself. But I think you should say something. I think people should always be honest with each other.”
He gives me a look so serious that suddenly I’m sure he’s talking about Jamie. He takes a breath like he’s going to spill some really big news. Does he know? Did Elaine go blabbing it to someone? I try to look innocent. Then, thank God, he lets his breath out, and I can see him change his mind. “If your dad can’t be honest with you, then you have to step up and be honest with him. It sucks, but I really think it’s what you have to do.”
My own sigh is one part aggravation with all this harping about honesty and three parts relief that he isn’t talking about me and Jamie. “Fine. Okay. I’ll think about it.”
But I know I won’t do it.
POETRY JOURNAL, HONORS AMERICAN LITERATURE
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 7
“Wellfleet, Midsummer”
by Kimiko Hahn
It’s kind of a long poem, but it’s easy to read. It’s almost not even poetry—each stanza is just a sentence or two about the speaker’s life at a rented cottage on a beach somewhere—Wellfleet, I guess. Her mother is dead, her boyfriend is there, and it’s hot and humid and sad. She has a daughter and an ex-husband, too, but they aren’t at the cottage. Maybe the daughter is at her dad’s house for the weekend.
Here is one of my favorite stanzas:
Loneliness is the habit of this house: even with two box turtles in a box
on the porch I wonder what home may be.
It’s sad to think of loneliness being the habit of a house, like you can’t escape it. Probably the speaker misses her mom, but maybe she misses her daughter, or even her ex-husband, even though she says she doesn’t. I don’t even know what box turtles are, but it seems like having two of them in a box on the front porch is like making a home for husband and wife turtles. Maybe the box is like a symbol of the cozy home that she wants. But it isn’t enough. Maybe the box turtles still look lonely. Maybe they look trapped.
24
I’M STAYING OVER AT JAMIE’S TONIGHT; I’VE taken the bus half an hour across town to where she lives. She greets me with a shy hug at the bus stop, and we walk together toward the apartment she shares with her mom and brother.
The houses are smaller and older here than where I live, but the paint is bright, and all the lawns are neat and tidy. A couple of garage doors are open, revealing people lounging on chairs, eating chips, and watching the world go by. Some of them are wearing Giants T-shirts; I guess there’s a game tonight. I try not to look around too much, try not to let on how different this is from my neighborhood, where the garage doors are closed and the lounging happens in the backyard. Why do I care, though? There’s nothing wrong with me being curious about a new place . . . is there?
Two little girls and a boy are kicking a soccer ball around the concrete driveway of a blocky, beige stucco apartment house. Another girl is riding a pink bicycle up and down the sidewalk in front. They wave at Jamie and me as we walk past them to the back of the building and climb the stairs to the second floor.
“Ta-daa!” she sings as she ushers me in. “You can put your stuff here in the corner for now. We’ll pull out the couch later, or we can sleep on the floor.” Jamie and her mom share a bedroom, and her brother Tommy has the other one—a less than satisfactory situation, to say the least, when you’re spending the night with your girlfriend. But Jamie has promised that her mom will be asleep by eleven o’clock, and Tommy’s working the night shift in his new job as a security guard.
The apartment is immaculate, though it’s crammed with stuff. There are framed photos on every surface—Jamie as a baby; Jamie in a kindergarten graduation cap and gown; Jamie in a lacy white dress and gloves (“my First Communion,” she says); Jamie wearing various soccer uniforms; Jamie in her eighth grade graduation cap and gown; Jamie in her Anderson cross-country uniform. There are photos of her sister, Sarah, wearing all the same outfits, plus high school graduation, college graduation, wedding, and family photos with her husband and baby. There are even more photos of Tommy. There are photos of everyone together. There are photos of what must be cousins, uncles, aunts, grandparents. The only photo my family displays is a small black-and-white one of Jiji, Dad’s dad, who died when I was a baby—and that one’s shut up inside a little black altar in the corner of our living room.
Mrs. Ramirez is tiny—shorter than Mom, even. She has curly hair like Jamie’s, but it’s shoulder-length. She’s in the kitchen, stirring a pot of something that smells sweet. Her face lights up when she sees me, and I notice that she has the same dimple on her chin that Jamie does. “Chocolate pudding,” she says, nodding at the pot. “For your dessert.”
Jamie puts her arm around her mother’s shoulders and kisses her on the cheek. “She makes the best chocolate pudding in the world,” she says, smiling at Mrs. Ramirez.
“Ay, mijita, basta. Enough.” But she looks pleased. She dips a spoon in, blows on it to cool it, and holds it out for me to taste. “I haven’t put the chocolate in yet,” Mrs. Ramirez says, “but it’s already delicious—sweet and creamy. You like it?” I nod.
A guy with spiky black hair and eyes just like Jamie’s appears from the hallway—Tommy, I guess. The guy who broke the computer and made it so that Jamie could hang out at my house after school. I should thank him. He glances at me as he pushes past Jamie into the kitchen. “You Jamie’s Asian friend?”
That throws me off balance, because a) duh, and b) why does he have to go pointing it out like that? Is he making fun of me, somehow? Or Jamie? Or is he just that bad at conversation? I’m too confused to put together a real response, so I just nod.
“Who’s paying you to hang out with her?”
Jamie punches him on the arm. “Shut up, Tommy.” To me she says, “Just try to pretend he’s not here.” Tommy pulls a spoon out of a drawer and starts to dip it into the pudding, but Mrs. Ramirez slaps his hand away.
“¡Ay! No toques!” Then she reaches her arm out. “Ven aca. Dame un beso, mijo.” Tommy rolls his eyes and bends down to kiss Mrs. Ramirez. “¡Ya vete! Go!” She shoves him away and waves her spoon at him. “¡Ándale! ¡Vas a llegar tarde a trabajo!”
Tommy heads out, shouting, “Bye!” and slams the door behind him.
“Terminalo,” Mrs. Ramirez says, handing Jamie the spoon and gesturing at the pot. Sarah’s having date night with her husband, so Mrs. Ramirez has to get ready to go and babysit Ariella.
As I watch Jamie stir the pudding, I hear the rattle-rumble of an old engine, the squeak of breaks, and then three doors slamming—bam! bam! bam!—emphatic as exclamation marks. A minute later, Arturo, Christina, and JJ troop inside without even knocking. “Buenas noches, Señora,” all three of them say to Mrs. Ramirez, who’s back in the kitchen, checking on the pudding one last time. Christina is carrying two Tupperware containers, which she plunks on the kitchen counter. “These are from Mami and me, to say thank you for driving her to work last week.”
“Ay, no tenias que hacer eso, mijita. Ya estas bastantes ocupada,” says Mrs. Ramirez, frowning at Christina as she accepts the containers.
“No fue molestia. You’re busier than anyone, anyway.”
Mrs. Ramirez peeks inside the top container. “¡Mira, estas galletas! ¡Que deliciosas!” She pulls out a cookie, takes a bite, and winks at Christina. “Pero tu mami no las hizo.”
“No, I made them,” Christina admits, turning pink.
Mrs. Ramirez takes another bite of the cookie and lifts the lid of the bottom container. “Y tu pollo especial. Gracias, mijita. Que buena niña eres.” She gives Christina a warm hug and a kiss.
Christina smiles, and her expression softens into something warm and shy and almost sweet.
Mrs. Ramirez lets her go and asks, “¿Cómo está tu papi?”
Christina shrugs, her face still soft and now tired, too, and I can’t tear my eyes away—it’s so strange to see her like this. But then she looks up and catches me staring, and her face hardens back to its usual iciness. Guiltily, I look away. I get the feeling that I’ve just witnessed something she didn’t want me to see.
The boys have made themselves comfortable on the couch, and Jamie’s mom leans over and kisses them, too, before calling, “Buen provecho, mijitos. ¡Adiós!” and rushing out the door.
We settle in and eat Christina’s special chicken, and I don’t even have to lie when I tell Christina how delicious it is. She looks genuinely pleased, and says with a hint of pride in her voice, “My dad taught me how to make it, but I changed a few ingredients. And added a couple steps.” I relax a little. Maybe we’re making progress.
“Christina’s going to be a famous chef someday,” says Jamie. “She’s going to own her own restaurant.”
“Oh! You could go to, like, that cooking school up in Napa Valley. The CIA. It stands for Culinary Institute of America.” Mom showed me an article about it when we were back in Wisconsin trying to learn about what was out here.
There’s an awkward pause before Jamie says, “Yeah, maybe you could!” a little too cheerfully.
Christina eyes me and says drily, “I know what CIA stands for.” And the conversation sinks like a brick in a well, taking my heart along with it. It doesn’t seem fair. I was only trying to be encouraging.
Maybe it’s the sauce, or maybe it’s just how things work, but as the mound of chicken dwindles, the atmosphere lightens again and talk resumes. Having learned my lesson, I keep quiet and watch, impressed, as the others gnaw every last sliver of meat off the chicken bones: fat, gristle—JJ even crunches on the cartilage at the ends.
I don’t like the chewy, slimy bits, so I’m nowhere near as thorough, and when I push away my plateful of bones, Christina says, “What—you done?”
“Uh, yeah. It was really, really good.” It can’t hurt to say it again.
“You gotta pick the bones clean,” explains JJ, licking his fingers.
“Don’t trip, though, not everyone does it,” says Arturo. “It’s like old-fashioned manners or something. Like from when everyone was poor and they hardly ever got to eat meat.”
“No shit, really?” says JJ.
“You dumbass, what’d you think it was from?” Arturo snorts.
“I just thought . . . I don’t know. I never thought about it.”
“Ughhh,” Christina groans through her teeth. “You drive me crazy. You never think about anything. How do you go through life like that?” And I’m so relieved not to be the target for once that I laugh. Big mistake. Christina looks at me and asks, “What’s so funny?”
I turn my laughter into an awkward cough. “Nothing.”
“Enough of this,” says Arturo, giving Christina a shove. “Get me some of them cookies.”
“Fuck you. I’m your girlfriend, not your slave. Get them yourself.”
“Yeah, you know where the plates are,” adds Jamie. “And while you’re up, get us some of that chocolate pudding.”
Arturo refuses, and after some bickering back and forth, it’s agreed that everyone should serve themselves. As we dig into the chocolate pudding (“Not too much, though,” says Jamie. “My mom’ll kill us if we finish it.”), and some of Christina’s (delicious, ugh) cookies, we channel surf and make jokes about everything that comes on. Actually that’s not entirely accurate. They make jokes, I sit in awkward silence.
Like when a commercial comes on featuring a young Black man in a hoodie. This sparks a debate that could be entitled, “Hoodies: Freedom of Expression, Tempting Fate, or It Doesn’t Matter Wha
t You Wear, You’re Still Screwed?” All four of them have strong opinions, but I have nothing to add. And I feel nervous about participating, anyway. I’m afraid that if I say, “Yes, wear whatever you want,” someone will tell me I don’t get it; if I say, “No, people might think you’re up to no good,” someone will wonder if that’s what I think. I guess I can’t blame them. I mean, what do I know? I feel . . . like an impostor. It’s like being back in Wisconsin when I couldn’t find my way into the Midwest Farmers’ Daughters’ Club.
You’d think that as a Person of Color, I would feel some kinship here, some bond. But I don’t, not exactly. Why is that? Is it really race or ethnicity or whatever, that’s making me feel like I’m not in the club, or am I making it all up and it’s just a personal thing? Or something else entirely? If I don’t think it’s about race does that make me a racist? If I do think it’s about race does that make me a racist?
“I’m bored,” JJ complains, eventually. “Let’s do something else. Let’s get some chips or something. Let’s go to the 7-Eleven on South Bascom. I just got a new ID and I wanna break it in. I heard they don’t have one of those scanner things to check IDs yet.”
“Nuh-uh,” says Christina. “I’m not gonna get in trouble just because you want to try out your new little fake ID—which no one is gonna fall for, by the way, ’cause you look like a twelve-year-old. And if Jamie gets in trouble, I’ll tell her mom it was your fault.”
“Chill, Christina. It’s fine,” Jamie says.
“No, it’s not. I’m not gonna let fuckin’ JJ fuck everything up for you—for all of us—just ’cause he wants to be a big man and buy some beer.”
“Oh, look who’s talking.” JJ jeers. “Who got drunk just last weekend?”
“Yeah, at someone’s house. Where it’s safe and no one’s gonna call the cops.”