The bus passed Nori Muramoto on his shiny bike. He got a new one every year. His father owned a carnation empire. Once Nori had called her “Weedflower” like an insult. She’d called him “Uglybrain” and gotten grounded for a week. She never went anywhere anyway so getting grounded didn’t affect her much.
On Friday after school the bathwater was “ripe” to use Auntie’s word. But Sumiko didn’t drain it because on Saturday, Bull was going to break up horse manure for fertilizer, and she would drain the water after he washed up from that. Bull had manure duty because he was the youngest working male. When Tak-Tak was a few years older, he would have to spread the manure. Sumiko and Auntie never bathed on the days the manure was spread because no matter how well Bull sponged off beforehand, the water still stank after his bath. Tak-Tak bathed anyway. He loved the smell. Sometimes when Sumiko lay in bed making up lists before she went to sleep, she thought of TakTak’s four favorite things or animals:
Baba
Crickets
Goo
Bad smells
That evening they waited fifteen minutes at the dinner table for Uncle to appear. He finally hurried in—his face shining—from his special room in the shed. Nobody was allowed in his special room. Uncle was trying to develop new strains of carnations and stock in there. Jiichan liked to joke that Uncle was a mad scientist.
“I think I’ve almost got it,” Uncle said. “We’re going to have the best carnations in Southern California.”
Auntie frowned. “You’re late for dinner.” She began spooning rice into his bowl and mumbling, “Best, second best, what’s the difference? How can a flower be best?” She gasped as her eyes fell on Uncle’s hands. “Look at those nails! At my dinner table!”
Sumiko noticed Bull and Ichiro immediately slip their hands underneath the table. Uncle looked like Tak-Tak getting caught doing something he shouldn’t. Auntie shooed Uncle away to clean his nails. Jiichan laid his hands on the table, as if daring Auntie to say something to him. She didn’t.
Uncle returned from the kitchen and immediately began eating. At dinner each Friday Uncle liked them all to tell of anything special on their minds. When it was Sumiko’s turn, she planned to talk about the party. “Why don’t you start this week?” Uncle said to Tak-Tak. “What’s on your mind?”
“Are they going to kill us?” Tak-Tak asked.
Uncle set down his chopsticks and leaned forward. “Nobody’s going to kill us.”
Jiichan tapped Tak-Tak’s arm as if knocking on a door. “I beat up anyone who try! I beat up three man once!”
Auntie frowned at Sumiko. “Aren’t you taking care of your brother?”
“I am!” Sumiko said. “I told him nobody is going to kill us!” But Auntie had already looked away.
Uncle said, “Bull, anything on your mind this week?”
Sumiko waited. She knew Bull would say something about the flowers.
Bull said, “We ran out of nicotine.” Most of the flower farmers used nicotine as a pesticide. Bull knew everything about the farm. He knew big facts, like how many acres of which flower they’d planted in what year; and he knew little facts, like where Sumiko had left her knife the only time she’d ever mislaid it.
Ichiro yawned, and as he so often did, he glanced ostentatiously at his watch.
Tak-Tak persisted. “But what if they kill us? My friend Isamu’s father said they might.”
Sumiko gently shushed him. She picked rice off his shirt. “You have gohan all over you.” She snapped his glasses band, but he didn’t think that was funny.
Uncle said again, “Nobody’s going to kill anybody.”
Still, Sumiko noticed that Uncle and Auntie met eyes over the table, and Auntie pressed her lips together.
She saw that Tak-Tak noticed as well. So she said, “Tak-Tak, do you want to play cards before you go to sleep?”
“Yes?”
“We’ll play hanafuda.” Hanafuda was played with a special deck of cards, each card with a picture of a flower on it. Sumiko and her brother played a game they made up. Sometimes she invented new rules as they went along so that Tak-Tak could win.
Ichiro laughed. “That old-man game!”
“Old man!” said Jiichan. “Someday you be old man! I beat up three man at same time when I was young!”
Conversations with Jiichan often traveled in a circle and sometimes in a figure eight. You started out one place, and you ended up in the same place.
The rest of the dinnertime conversation was small talk. Tak-Tak’s question had distracted everybody, and Uncle had never gotten around to asking the rest of them what was on their minds. Uncle was chattering about baseball. Sumiko was never going to get her turn to speak! Finally she exploded: “Uncle, did you get the present?”
“Get what present?”
She cried out, “Did you forget? I—” She stopped in midsentence. She noticed his lips quivering and his eyes starting to shine. How could he joke about something this important?
“Let’s see, where did I put it?” He pushed out from his chair and rummaged through the bureau. “I hope I can find it. Ah, here it is.” He opened up a box and pulled out an exquisite silk flowered scarf. “Those flowers are birds of paradise,” he said.
She jumped up. “Uncle, it’s beautiful.” She reached out but then decided not to touch it.
“How much was it?” said Auntie.
Uncle didn’t meet Auntie’s eyes as he mumbled, “Four dollars.”
“Four dollars!” Auntie clutched at her chest.
Four dollars! That was more than a day’s wages for some men. Sumiko felt guilty, and ecstatic, and guilty, and ecstatic.
After dinner Auntie helped her wrap the scarf. Three times she muttered, “Four dollars,” and Sumiko felt guilty again.
After a game of cards with Tak-Tak, Sumiko checked her dresses once more and decided to wear the rustly blue one. Then she checked the wrapped present, which was beautiful and elegant in pink. Someday she would make the price up to Uncle.
4
“CAN I WALK BY MYSELF?” SUMIKO, UNCLE, AND JIICHAN sat in the truck, down the street from Marsha’s house where she’d made Uncle stop. She was ashamed of herself, but she didn’t want anyone to see the old truck.
Jiichan said, “You ashamed of family? Shame on you!”
“No, Jiichan, I just …”
Uncle chimed in: “She just wants to show she’s a big girl.”
“Not big enough to drive to party by self,” Jiichan muttered. But he seemed resigned, and Sumiko got ready to jump from the truck.
“Okay, I’ll be back right here for you in two hours,” Uncle said.
She reached across Jiichan and hugged Uncle wildly. “I love you, Uncle!”
He beamed at her. She ran off even though she heard Jiichan complaining, “No hug for old man!”
Her blue dress rustled as she stepped onto the street. She waited until the old truck had gone before walking to Marsha’s house and up the porch steps. She could hear music already: Glenn Miller, one of Auntie’s radio favorites. And so many voices! It was a boy-girl party, the first anyone in her class had ever thrown. She breathed deeply of the scent from her beautiful bunch of peach stock. She made herself stop smiling so she would seem gracious instead of silly when the door opened. Then she knocked firmly on the door.
A maid opened up. The maid looked surprised to see Sumiko but took her present and flowers. The first thing that caught Sumiko’s eyes was a large painting of whom she assumed was Marsha’s mother in a tutu. The painting was so beautiful, Sumiko felt breathless. Then something kind of rolled across the room, but she wasn’t sure what it was. Then she realized it was silence. She’d once seen a short film clip of time-lapse photography, of shadow moving across a field. That was the way the silence rolled across the room, starting at the far side and ending right here, with her.
Across the room Marsha’s mother, Mrs. Melrose, was staring right at Sumiko. She looked just like the painting. Her lips were coral
, and her dress was royal blue. Sumiko checked to make sure nobody else was nearby whom Mrs. Melrose might be looking at. No, it was just her. Mrs. Melrose smiled and moved gracefully across the room. She put out her hand. “I’m Marsha’s mother,” she said. The room grew loud again.
Sumiko smiled with relief and shook the lovely hand that was offered. She gushed, “Your house is beautiful!” She’d scarcely had a chance to see the house, but she’d noticed the couch was velvet and the ceilings were high and the doorways were arched. The boys wore neckties, the girls colorful dresses. Marsha’s mother put an arm around Sumiko and moved her onto the front porch.
In the sunlight Mrs. Melrose looked older than she had inside. But her eyes were kind. She smiled so warmly that Sumiko couldn’t help smiling even harder than she already was. Mrs. Melrose shut the door gently behind them. Sumiko thought Mrs. Melrose wasn’t so much graceful as she was elegant. She wore a diamond clip in her hair! It was shaped like a slice of melon and must have had thirty diamonds in it.
“Marsha didn’t tell me you were in her class.”
“Oh, I’ve been in her class since she moved into the district.”
“It’s just … she had mentioned there was a Japanese girl at her school, but I didn’t know she meant in her class. So when she asked whether she could invite the whole class, naturally I said yes.”
Sumiko didn’t understand. “Yes, I think every single person said they were coming. Marsha did a poll on Friday.”
Marsha’s mother touched her face and said in a soothing voice, “What lovely skin you have.”
“Thank you?”
Mrs. Melrose smiled again. “It’s not me, dear, but my husband has a few friends in back, some of the other parents who helped him raise some money for a charity we work with.” She looked hopeful, as if she wanted something from Sumiko. “I just want you to understand that if it were up to me …”
And Sumiko realized that she was being uninvited. Marsha’s mother saw that she understood and said, “Wait here.” She went inside, again gently closing the door, and in a moment she reappeared with a big slice of chocolate cake on a cloth napkin. “You can keep the napkin!” she said cheerfully. On top of the cake was a tiny ballerina doll for decoration.
Mrs. Melrose went inside again, and Sumiko stood on the porch with the cake. She looked at the ballerina, listened to the music, looked at the door. She played the last few minutes over in her head. Uncle had left her not five minutes ago. She noticed a boy from her class peering at her from the window. Her face felt as hot as when she was lighting the fire under the tub. Then she felt furious! Without thinking, she knocked on the door. The maid opened up and waited, but at first Sumiko wasn’t sure what she wanted to say. Then she blurted, “I need my present back.” She wasn’t going to let Uncle’s money be wasted. That would be like they were stealing from him.
The maid retrieved the present and handed it coolly to Sumiko before shutting the door. Sumiko saw several of the other kids now watching her from a window. She took her cake and present down the steps and started to walk away. As Sumiko walked, her only thought was to get away. The problem was that she couldn’t walk too far because Uncle and Jiichan were going to pick her up later.
She walked to Lane Street, where there were some small businesses. There was a bench near one store, so she sat on that and watched the clock on top of the bank across the street. She stared at the clock and felt disbelief that she wasn’t at the party listening to Glenn Miller, but instead was sitting on a bench by herself. Like anyone, Sumiko had known momentary embarrassing moments, but right now she felt so overwhelmingly humiliated that it was as if nothing in her life would ever be the same again, as if everything she ever did—disbudding flowers, heating the water, cooking rice—would be different from now on. In the future she wouldn’t be Sumiko who was disbudding flowers, she would be Humiliated Sumiko disbudding flowers. She wouldn’t be Sumiko heating water and cooking rice, she would be Humiliated Sumiko heating water and cooking rice. And right at this moment she wasn’t just Sumiko sitting alone on this bench, she was Humiliated Sumiko.
This is what it felt like to be lonely:
Like everyone was looking at you. Sumiko noticed that a few passersby were in fact looking at her sitting in her party dress, with her pretty pink gift on her lap and a piece of cake by her side.
Like nobody was looking at you. Sometimes the passersby didn’t even glance at her.
Like you didn’t care about anything at all. This happened for about thirty minutes. She felt a big blank inside of her.
Like you were just about to cry. This happened for the whole rest of the time she sat on the bench.
After a while she opened the present and took out the scarf. She left the wrapping on the bench and headed back toward the corner where Uncle was supposed to pick her up. Before she reached the corner, she balanced the cake in one hand and, with the other hand, stuffed the scarf into her underpants. She didn’t even care if anyone saw her. Then she waited at the corner with her cake.
Uncle arrived early—she made it back just ahead of him. Jiichan sat in the passenger seat but scooted over for her. She climbed in and sat next to Jiichan. He and Uncle both beamed at her. Jiichan looked at the cake.
“Ohhhhh,” he said. “Expensive. That cake expensive.”
Uncle said, “Well make a dessert out of that tonight! I’ll put the ballerina in a glass case for you!”
They both looked so excited for her and so expectant that Sumiko felt obligated to say something cheerful. She exclaimed, “That was a fun party!” She couldn’t bear to tell them the truth. They’d be too disappointed. Jiichan might even do something crazy like knock on the Melroses’ door and scold them. Or try to beat up Mr. Melrose and two of his friends!
Uncle said, “Did they ask you to sing?”
“Yes, I sang for three minutes, and everybody applauded.”
Jiichan’s face grew so proud and he smiled so hard, Sumiko thought his teeth were about to pop out.
Uncle said, “Your aunt told me to ask you if they have a nice house.”
She hesitated before saying harshly, “It wasn’t as nice as I was expecting.” Uncle looked disappointed, so Sumiko said, “But it was very nice. The couch was velvet. The doorways were arched.” He shook his head in admiration of the velvet couch and arched doorways.
“Did the kitchen have nice tiles?” her uncle asked.
Tiles?
“You know how your aunt has always wanted a kitchen with pretty tiles,” Uncle added.
“Yes, they were pretty.”
“With a hand-painted design?” Uncle asked.
She pretended to think. “I guess so.”
“That’s what I would have thought.”
After a couple of minutes of driving, Jiichan and Uncle both commented on how quiet she was and Jiichan worried that she might have caught something at the party.
She forced herself to chatter as much as she could, but it was tiring. Dinner was even more tiring. Everybody asked her questions and then oohed and aahed when she answered. At some point, for no reason, Jiichan exclaimed, “Maybe someday you be prom queen!”
A couple of times Auntie said she looked pale and felt her forehead. Everybody ate a thin slice of the cake for dessert. The cake was proclaimed delicious. Finally, thankfully, dinner ended. After she cleared the table, Sumiko stood for a few minutes in front of the photograph that sat on the bureau behind the diningroom table. In the photograph Jiichan and her mother, father, aunt, and uncle stood solemnly in front of a curtain. The ladies wore kimonos, the men suits. Some of Jiichan’s hair was black, and he held a small Japanese flag. Whenever she examined the picture, she could feel everybody in the house staring at her back. She imagined they were feeling sorry for her because she didn’t have parents.
She went into the kitchen and began filling the sink with water, but Auntie called out, “You don’t have to wash dishes tonight!” The little ballerina lay on the counter next to the sink
. Sumiko dropped it to the floor and mashed it under her slipper. Then she threw it out the window.
Sumiko went to bed early and listened to the crickets sing while the rest of the family played cards in the living room. Once, to make herself feel better, she reached under her mattress to look at the receipt book she’d found on the street a year ago. She sometimes filled out the receipts and pretended she was selling flowers at her own shop. She loved her receipt book.
When Tak-Tak came in for bed later, she didn’t say a word. Eventually, the house grew still.
And so Sumiko could finally allow herself to think about that minute alone on the porch, with the other children staring at her from the window. And she could finally allow herself to cry. She had wanted so badly to go to that party. She had wanted so badly to look pretty in her dress. She had wanted so, so badly to make friends with some of those girls.
She didn’t even notice the door open, but suddenly Bull was by the bed, one of his big mittlike hands wiping her wet face. She sat up and sobbed in his arms. He was so big and wide, she couldn’t reach her arms around him. In the dim light she saw Tak-Tak step around the curtain of blankets. She cried out to him, “Leave me alone!”
“What did I do?” he said.
Bull turned and said quietly, “Go to bed, Takao. I’ll be right there to say good night.” He spoke kind of in grunts, the way a bull would speak if bulls could speak. She sobbed so hard, she couldn’t get her breath. Bull handed her a handkerchief. When she blew her nose, it felt like her brain was coming out of her nostrils.
“I can fix it, you know,” he said.
“What?”
“The ballerina. My mother found it on the porch.”
She cried even harder but remembered to lower her voice so Tak-Tak wouldn’t hear. “Bull, they wouldn’t let me come in the house! I didn’t go to the party! They made me leave!” She tried to cry silently, but it just made her snort when she inhaled. She lowered her voice even more. “But, Bull, is it just because we’re Japanese?”
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