A Girl Like You: A Novel Part 23

Satomi s.h.i.+vers, her skin p.r.i.c.kles as she scans the line for Cora, but she is nowhere to be seen. Their leave-taking had been hard on both of them, unsatisfactory. Satomi had expected Cora to sob, but she hadn't been prepared for her own rising panic. She had attempted calm, hadn't wanted to frighten Cora with her own fears, but it hadn't worked.

"I kissed her, hugged her," she told the Okihiros. "But she isn't rea.s.sured. She thinks that I will forget her."

She reaches across to the old duffel bag on the backseat of the Plymouth, fumbling around for something.

"I have it," she says, opening the door and leaping out. "I won't be long, Dr. Harper."

The first bus is pa.s.sing through the gate before she reaches the second already on the move. Cora could be gone, on the road, lost to her. Without hope she bangs on the bus door, holding on to the handle doggedly so that the driver has to stop his vehicle and open up. To her relief, Cora is seated up front behind the driver.

The child's face is expressionless. She is on the edge of her seat, sitting upright as though ready to take flight. The metal b.u.t.tons on her felt coat are done up to the neck, she is wearing the yellow mittens that Naomi knitted for her, her arms straining tight around her little bundle of possessions.

"Oh, Cora, you're here. I thought I'd missed you."

Cora doesn't smile, doesn't say anything as Satomi bends down in front of her.

"Be quick," the driver says crabbily. "You're holding everyone up."

"Look, Cora, see this little bird?" Satomi opens her hand to show Tamura's carved t.i.tmouse sitting in her palm.

Cora nods and touches the little beak.

"He is called a t.i.tmouse, Cora. He is sweet, isn't he?"

"Is it for me?"

"Well, I'm giving him to you for a little while. He was my mother's gift to me and it hurts me to part with him, so I will want him back when we next meet. Keep him safe, Cora, and I will come for him. It won't be soon, but I will come."

She imagines for a moment hauling Cora off the bus, the two of them making a run for it. But she knows that they wouldn't get far, and what then?

"You getting off or staying for the ride?" the driver says, putting the bus into gear. "Either way, I'm leaving now."

"Okay. Okay. What difference will a few seconds make?"

She kisses Cora's cheeks, her tiny lips, touches the collar of her coat. Everything about the child is diminutive, fragile. She is filled with shame. She has failed to keep Cora with her.

"Where are you heading to?" she demands of the driver.

"Back to the relocation camp, we hand them over there."

"And then? Where are they taken then?"

"How the h.e.l.l should I know?"

Waving the bus away, she attempts a smile, but her lips tremble, her eyes spike with the tears that come instead. Cora presses her nose to the window, gives a hesitant half wave as her face crumples in distress.

In a futile effort to comfort herself, Satomi sobs, "She'll be fine. Who could not choose Cora?" Then Dr. Harper is at her side, his arm around her shoulders, guiding her back to the car.

"It's not fair, Satomi," he says. "But you will make it right one day. I truly believe that you will. For the time being, though, you must find a way that allows you to remember what is past without spoiling the present."

He hands her his handkerchief, starts up the engine, and swallows hard. They are all counting what is lost, he thinks.

"It's so odd to just be driving out, no one to stop us," she says, drying her eyes with his handkerchief, which smells, like his s.h.i.+rt, of laundry powder.

"Well, then, we'll play a fanfare to mark the day." Easing the old sedan into a leisurely roll, he hits the horn in three short playful toots. A guard looks up and tips his hat to him. He feels almost festive.

Near the gate, Mrs. Hamada steps out of a bus line and waves them down.

"I am sorry that you had to leave your home for us, Satomi. Good luck with your life."

"You needed the s.p.a.ce more than me, Mrs. Hamada. Did the children enjoy it?"

"They did. My little Ava said that she could smell roses there. 'It smells of roses, Mama,' she would say."

Returning.

Things look pretty much the same in Angelina, the same stores, the same church, the same crumbling plaster walls on the post office building. Even Mr. Stedall's dog, gray in the muzzle now, is lying in its usual place by the post office door, waiting for him to finish work.

But it's not her Angelina anymore. It's a weird and disorientating place, at one and the same time both strange and familiar. Like a still from some old movie, where she remembers the scene but has forgotten the plot.

Dr. Harper has parked up by the general store and they are sitting in the car gathering themselves after the long drive.

"So, first thoughts?" he asks.

"It's so much smaller than I remember," she says.

"Well, that's the way it is when you visit old haunts."

"Yes, I've read that. Didn't believe it until now, though."

It isn't only about things being smaller, although the schoolyard, immeasurable to her childhood eye, she sees now is merely a yard or two of asphalt, the main street no longer than Sewer Alley. It's more that she feels herself to be a stranger in the town, a town that she knows fears strangers. Yet the sight of Angelina quiet in the afternoon sun fills her with longing, a longing that she knows it can never satisfy.

"We all experience it at some time," Dr. Harper says sympathetically. "A yearning to go back to how things were. It's not so much the place we miss, I think, but our childhoods."

Out of the car she stands in front of the school, unable for a moment to move. She hasn't thought of Lily for a while, but now, closing her eyes, her old friend appears in absolute clarity, the scattering of freckles on Lily's low cheekbones, the wary look in her eyes. A tingle runs the length of her body, makes the hairs on her arms stand to attention. For a second she wishes those old skipping days back. Oh, Lily, Lily.

The wind, the wind, the wind blows high.

Blowing Lily through the sky.

She is handsome, she is pretty,

She is the girl from the golden city.

She has a boyfriend, one, two, three.

Won't you tell me who is he?

"Don't go so fast, Sati, I can't jump in," Lily's voice echoes through her mind.

Mr. Beck is in her head too, staring, ogling her as she skips. He's a thin, insubstantial figure, hovering with bell in hand. Playtime over.

"I feel sick," she says, opening her eyes, swaying a little.

Dr. Harper puts his hand to her forehead. "No fever," he says. "I diagnose time-travel sickness."

"You're so smart." She smiles at him.

He sighs. "Just old."

As though he hasn't moved since she last saw him, Mr. Taylor is in his usual place behind the counter of his drugstore, mixing sodas, bagging up candies. He licks his fingers to open the paper bags one by one, lick-flick-open-fill, never missing a beat. How Tamura had loved those candies, how they had satisfied the sweet tooth that she had been ashamed to indulge in front of Aaron.

She wonders if while they have been incarcerated Mr. Taylor has given a thought to his old customers. Has anyone in Angelina thought about the Baker women?

Dr. Harper orders them coffee at the counter; it comes in thick white mugs that her lips have trouble getting around. She's used to thin tin, hasn't drunk from china since that last breakfast with Tamura in the farm's kitchen.

Why had she and Tamura never ordered coffee? It was too ordinary, she supposes something that could be had at home. Bubble-gum soda had been the thing. She had loved the sweet marshmallow taste of it, but had Tamura really liked the childish drink too? Perhaps she had only ordered it to please her daughter, to share in the fun.

"You're the Baker kid, aren't you?" Mr. Taylor says. "You've grown a bit."

Across the street the bank sits s.h.i.+ny in its glossy slick of brown paint. Housed between the general store and the haberdasher's, it makes its neighboring storefronts look drab. The sidewalk in front of it has been scrubbed, bleached to white, its cleaned-daily windows gleam. If a bank can't show a good front, then things must be on the slide.

Back in the street, she gets an acrid whiff of smoke from Cromer's Cannery, it takes her a while to place it. When she does, she thinks of Lily's cousin Dorothy, of Davey Cromer not wanting to marry beneath him, denying responsibility for the baby. She thinks of Angelina's unforgiving hierarchy.

Dr. Harper pats her back, gives her a smile, and pushes open the bank's door confidently. She can tell that he is nervous too. The clerk is smoking behind the polished grille. He's just like any store clerk, she tells herself, taking a deep breath. Selling a different kind of stock, is all.

"We'd like to see the manager," Dr. Harper says.

"Sure, I'll ask. Want me to tell him what it's about?"

"It's private business," Satomi says.

He looks at her quizzically, puckering up his brow. "You're Sati Baker, aren't you? I'm Greg, Artie's big brother."

"Oh, sure, I recognize you. How have you been?"

"Got shot up in the war, right leg not much use, but I manage."

"How's Artie?"

"Haven't heard from him in six months. Working at a fifty-cent dance hall in San Fran, last time he wrote. Always fancied the big city, didn't he?"

"Couldn't wait to get away." She doesn't ask about Lily.

"Guess you know your farm's been sold? Guess that's why you're here. What name shall I say?"

"Satomi Baker, of course. And this is Dr. Harper."

In his airless office at the rear of the bank the manager stands to greet them. He's a fleshy-looking man with a tobacco-stained mustache, a sham smile, a stranger to her. A sour man, she decides on the spot.

The room is small, stuffy, its faded green blinds drawn against the sun, giving a false impression of coolness. Used to mountain weather, she had forgotten how humid it can get in Angelina in November. A fan rattles the air around and she stands in front of it, closing her eyes for a moment.

"Bill Port. Pleased to meet you, Doctor." He offers his hand from across the desk, ignoring Satomi.

"John Harper. Likewise."

It comes as a surprise to her, his name, John; she hadn't known it before. Why had she never thought to ask? "Dr. Harper" has defined him well enough, she supposes.

"And this"-Dr. Harper turns to Satomi-"is your client, Miss Satomi Baker."

"So, all the way from Manzanar, Doc! I've heard tell of the place." He allows his eyes to settle on Satomi for a moment. "Good of you, very good of you to help the girl." His voice has a gloopy mucus gurgle to it, like the sound stirred-up river mud makes.

"Emphysema," Dr. Harper tells her later. "Strange disease for a bank manager."

"Sit, sit. How can I help?"

"Your clerk told us that you have sold my farm," Satomi says quietly. "I don't recall giving you permission to do that."

He is taken aback by the way she has launched straight into things.

"We didn't need your permission, Miss Baker. a.s.sociated Farmers bought up a lot of the land around here with the government's permission. They plan to grow on a big scale. Best thing for Angelina."

"Why didn't you need my permission? I own the farm."

"Well, that's debatable. No papers to show that you or your mother had a legal stake in anything."

He didn't like her tone, she was pretty uppity for a girl, too sure of herself. He guessed that was a fault with lookers, they expected you to dance to their tune. Her father was the same, he hears, chip on the shoulder, looking for trouble, thinking himself better than the whole town put together.

"So you sold my farm from under me. What did I get for it, Mr. Port?"