A Girl Like You: A Novel Part 31

"And what about Cora? You're not going to ditch her too, are you?" It's a cheap shot, he knows.

"Oh, Joseph."

"Sorry, Sati. It's the wound speaking."

She feels guilty, found out. She has hardly given Cora a thought since meeting Abe. Of course she will never give up on finding Cora, but she has finally found something that holds its own against Manzanar. There is a sweet sort of mathematics in the balance now between good and bad luck.

"All's well that ends well, eh?" Joseph says when she tells him as much.

She packs a small suitcase, skirts and tops, a warm jacket, and the chocolate box wrapped against damage in a nightdress. She takes a last look at the jewelry, the evening gowns, the furs that have always made her think of the fox in Angelina's woods. She's sure now that she won't miss any of the fancy dress that never truly belonged to her.

"For G.o.d's sake, Sati, it's your jewelry, what would I do with it?"

"Sell it, I suppose."

"You should sell it. It will give you more than enough to see those babies through college."

"Abe doesn't want me to take anything. He says that he wants to be the one to buy me things."

"Very caveman, very masterful, but pretty stupid. Can you really see yourself managing on a doctor's pay?"

"I've managed on less, much less. In any case, why do you imagine that everyone who doesn't have a fortune is poor? Abe isn't poor."

"Let me open an account for you. I want you to have your own money."

"Look, Joseph, I can't take your money. Abe won't stand for it. I can't go against him. Put me in your will, and then live to be a hundred, please."

"Okay, sweet girl, if I must."

They kiss awkwardly, and she feels a stab of guilt for leaving him hurt. Joseph has joined those she thinks of as her family, him and Dr. Harper and Eriko, a small band but true, she believes.

"How will I manage without you, Sati?"

"Just as you did before you met me."

"Oh, yes, that way, I remember now."

The room has darkened as they speak. She puts the suitcase down, and from habit begins switching on the table lamps. Joseph draws the curtains against the dismal evening.

"See what a happy domestic scene we make?" he says.

Outside the window, gray clouds fold in on themselves, a southerly wind pelts rain at the pedestrians. It's the kind of rain Joseph hates, the kind that uses up the cabs, and soaks you through as though your clothes were made of blotting paper.

In the lobby Abe is waiting for her impatiently. Waiting for his girl. He is feeling out of place in the company of the deferential doorman, among the Jackson Pollocks and the huge showy arrangements of silk flowers. He is too outdoorsy to appreciate such man-made displays of wealth. He likes walking, and eating in homely restaurants; he likes the humanity of his patients, his mother's warm house in Freeport, and the little sailing boat that was his father's, his now. He loves his dog, Wilson, loves the friends he would go the whole mile for, and now he loves Satomi, the girl who makes him feel as though luck loves him.

"I have to go, Joseph." She is eager to be with Abe, to have the goodbyes behind her.

"Yes, you must."

"See you soon, then." She settles for the prosaic.

"Yes, on Sat.u.r.day at your wedding. Ridiculous, isn't it?"

"Not to me."

"It's not too late to change your mind. It's a woman's prerogative, after all."

"Joseph!"

"Sorry, Sati. Go claim your life."

The elevator doors open to Abe's back as he paces the lobby. She pauses, watching his long stride, feeling the heat rising in her. Little beads of rain are quivering on Abe's dark coat like tiny b.a.l.l.s of mercury. As he turns toward her, she smiles, imagining a hundred little stars s.h.i.+ning in his hair too.

It's not to be a big-deal wedding. No St. James' Church, no big fat reception at the Plaza, as it would have been with Joseph. She's relieved.

"A New York justice of the peace will do us, honey?" Abe had said. "Simple. Our way."

Dr. Harper has sent his best wishes: I'm relieved to see that I haven't put you off marrying a doctor.

Eriko has splurged on a wire: her words are formal, the usual congratulations. Satomi had hoped for more, but wires are expensive, and formalities on such occasions are the j.a.panese way, she knows.

Abe's mother, Frances, stands at his side in front of the big mahogany table in City Hall. She's almost as tall as Abe, conscious of it, so that she stoops a little. She is puffy under the same brown eyes as her son's, hoping that no one thinks that she has been crying. The little bags are annoyingly hereditary, what can she do?

She would have preferred a church wedding for Abe in Freeport, the minister she knows, the sea as the backdrop. Her son and this girl have only known each other a few months. Why couldn't they wait a decent amount of time? He had been going out with Corrine for longer, after all. She doesn't know yet whether she likes Satomi or not. The girl is challenging and not at all the sort of daughter-in-law she has pictured for her son. She would have liked the known, not Corrine, if the choice was hers, but still a local girl, someone like herself, she supposes, a more familiar kind of girl. She wants to be happy for him, and Abe, by her side, is grinning at her, br.i.m.m.i.n.g over with happiness, so what has she got to complain about? She tells herself it's not so much to do with Satomi, it's just that she's suffering the jealousy of a mother losing her son to another woman.

As Satomi walks the length of the room to stand by Abe's side, she is a little unsteady on her feet. It's the aspirins she took earlier, she supposes. She shouldn't have washed them down with champagne, but the headache had been bad and Joseph had said they would work quicker that way. And they did, accounting now, she suspects, for her dreamlike state.

"It's your wedding day," Joseph said. "You must drink champagne, it's the law."

"Whose law?"

"Mine, of course."

He had booked the suite at the Carlyle for her. Somewhere for her to stay in the few days before the marriage.

"A time of grace, dear girl. A good place to think things over."

"It's lovely, Joseph, but a whole suite ..."

"My wedding present," he had insisted. "The bone doctor can't object to that, can he?"

Surprisingly, Abe hadn't.

"Enjoy it while you can," he had warned lightheartedly. "Our finances aren't quite up to the Carlyle."

Our finances, us, we-the words fit, not strange at all, she is finally home.

But bathing in the s.p.a.cious bathroom with the hotel's scented soap, she had experienced a wobble. Would this feeling of euphoria burn out somewhere soon along the line? Does true love really exist? Is Joseph right, has it all happened too quickly? It won't work if, like her father, like Haru, Abe wants to change her. She has looked for signs of that but has found none. All she has seen is his approval.

Wrapping herself in a huge white towel, she returned to the glamorous bedroom to dress. If only Tamura could have been with her, if she could have known Abe, rea.s.sured her.

He's the one, isn't he, Mama?

She is struggling to leave the life of Tamura and Cora and Manzanar behind her, to make this new one with Abe.

Hunter had joined them in the suite for the wedding breakfast, eggs and hash browns, and sharp out-of-season strawberries with b.u.t.ter cake. He sat upright in his wheelchair, looking anxiously at Joseph as though his friend might crumble to nothing at any moment.

But Joseph, in full actor's mode, was playing the good loser. Besides, he was considering Satomi's advice about not honoring the promise. If he reneged on it, his life would be restored to the one that suited him best. But to break a promise to a dying father is a sickening thing.

Living with a woman other than Satomi held only terror for him. It was a dilemma. He'd go to Europe after the wedding. Think about it as he walked the streets of Paris, consider the way to go in the beauty of Rome. He needed a break, needed to put the promise on hold for a while.

"You look wonderful," he told her, admiring the simple blue s.h.i.+ft, the fresh camellias fixed in the loop of her hair. "It's down to my influence, of course."

After the ceremony she and Abe run through the stinging storm of rice thrown enthusiastically by the small wedding party, Abe's laugh bursting from him, big and genuine. The ache in her has gone, and it's nothing to do with the aspirin, she knows.

Abe's best man Don, his old school friend from Freeport, poses them on the steps of City Hall and clicks away with his camera until his film is used up. The day is cold, bright, and dry, a good day for walking, but they pile into cabs and make their way to Lutece for lunch, Frances's treat. More champagne, and toasts to their happiness, and Hunter loud in his drunkenness, weeping a little, n.o.body is sure for what. Joseph leaves before dessert to take him home.

Heat Wave.

Abe's life, the normality of it, she supposes, takes a bit of getting used to, but she isn't the only one acclimatizing. His hometown friends are hesitant with her, suspicious of her past. What is she doing with Abe, a girl like her, the uptown queen of the society pages? Has she really given up a fortune to be with their friend? Is she playing games?

"They'll come around," Abe comforts. "In any case, who cares what they think? You're my girl, not theirs."

They had expected him to marry Corrine, the one Satomi has eclipsed. She is a local girl, after all, known since childhood, highly strung and needy, it's true, but familiar, one of them. Still, Satomi isn't putting on any airs. They'll make the effort for Abe's sake.

Frances, who hadn't cared much for Corrine, is settling to the idea of Satomi, so when Satomi asks her about Corrine she doesn't hold back.

" 'Pretty' and 'prissy' are the words I'd choose." She laughs. "I guess she knew she would have a hard job hanging on to him."

"How come?"

"Oh, well, it's just my opinion, of course, but it never seemed right to me. Abe always wanted his friends around when he was with her, never seemed at ease when it was just the two of them. And Corrine couldn't bear being on the water, couldn't swim, was scared of drowning, I think. You couldn't blame her for that, but Abe loves the water, you can't keep him off it. It caused problems. It wasn't like it is with you. He can't wait to get you alone. Even I feel in the way sometimes."

"Oh, Frances, you shouldn't. Abe adores you." She is embarra.s.sed, not yet comfortable enough with Frances to be talking about Abe and the love thing.

"I guess," Frances says. "I understand, though. His father and I were a love match too. No matter how long it lasts, you can't beat that, can you?"

"You can't. Its good luck, isn't it?"

"Mmm, better than winning the lottery. And you deserve some luck, Satomi, after what you've been through, losing your father and mother so young."

Satomi feels protective of Tamura, at a loss as to how to describe to Frances the loveliness that was her mother. Abe understands, though, he speaks of Tamura softly, with a tactfulness that leans toward affection, as though he might have known and loved her too.

"Does Abe ever talk about his father to you?" Frances hurries to fill the silence between them. She thinks that she will never feel entirely at ease with Satomi, silences must be filled, eye contact kept to the minimum. Abe chose not to pattern by his mother when choosing his wife, so they have little other than him in common.

"He says that he has fragments of memory of him, pictures that come to him sometimes. He remembers being picked up and thrown in the air, having his hair stroked as he fell asleep."

"I'm glad he remembers anything at all," Frances says. "He was only three when Ben had his heart attack."

"Oh, my poor Abe," Satomi says. "And you too, Frances."

"I can't tell you what it did to me. Ben had never shown any signs of being ill at all, you see. Well, nothing that I noticed, anyway. He'd been sailing all that day, and I should have been with him, only I wanted to stay home and cozy up. I'll never forgive myself for that."

"You couldn't have known."

"No, but I just wish that I'd been with him. I guess it wouldn't have changed anything, though. But he was so close to home, to me, when it happened, you see. I saw his boat come into port from the kitchen window, saw him on deck, and I waved, but he didn't wave back. Didn't see me, I guess." She is surprised to find herself confiding in Satomi, but can't seem to stop. "I was in the middle of making an egg cream, his favorite. I laid the table and waited, but he didn't come. I remember being angry that he was puttering around without a thought for me-that is, until it got dark and he didn't come, and didn't come. I found him in the cabin lying on the bunk, peaceful as could be. I knew straight off that he wasn't sleeping."

"And then it was just you and Abe."

"Yes, but I was hardly a mother to him that year. I did my best, all the practical things, you know. My heart wasn't with Abe, though, it was with Ben."

Tears spring to Satomi's eyes at the thought of it. She remembers the time after Aaron had died, the way Tamura in her misery had forgotten that she was a mother too.

"Did you never consider marrying again, Frances?"

"Only once, much later, but it wouldn't have worked. I was always measuring the guy against Ben. It sounds crazy, but just the fact that the socks were different, the choice of newspaper, it switched me off somehow. You know how it is when you love someone. You can't stop comparing. And it wasn't just that Ben was a catch, the handsome local doctor that everyone liked, although I guess all that helped. It was more how he made me feel about myself, about us as a couple. I wanted to have that feeling again. It just never came with anyone else."

Frances is surprised at how easy it is to confide in Satomi, but she's still anxious. It's her own kind of sn.o.bbery, she thinks, but the high-living thing feels dangerous to her. Maybe Satomi will miss it when married life settles down. She can't imagine what it does to you to have such a fortune at your disposal. And the beauty thing is startling, exotic, and she isn't used to startling or exotic. But she can see why Satomi has given up a fortune to be with Abe. It is Abe, after all, and the girl has steel.

"I guess you are finding it quite cramped in Abe's little apartment, huh?"

"It's pretty small, but I have lived in smaller and it's very comfortable, and besides, we are here almost every weekend. And oh, my goodness, Abe's shower is wonderful, so much water, like Niagara Falls."

"Oh, don't tell me you're that easy to please." Frances is genuinely surprised. The girl had lived in a fourteen-room duplex in Manhattan, but she raves about a shower that works in a two-room apartment in Jackson Heights.

"There's nothing as precious as water, Frances. Nothing in the world."

"Well, while we're on the subject of water, you might want to please Abe and learn to sail. Sailing's a big thing around here and Abe has loved it since he was a little boy."

"Oh, I've sailed with Joseph. He always says that it's the best thing ..." It occurs to her that she is always bringing Joseph into the conversation.

"Do you mind me talking about him?"

"It takes time to let people go. And I guess that you loved him once."

"I still do. Not in a way that is anything like the way I love Abe. I'll tell you all about it if you want. You won't like it, though."

"Whenever you're ready, honey, I don't need to know."

"I don't want you to think badly of Joseph. Abe doesn't like him, and that's natural, I guess, but he's my best friend in New York. He's a good person."

Frances, with memories of Ben stirred, has trouble imagining what sort of affair Satomi and Joseph had. It was a one-in-a-million chance that Satomi should even have met a man like Joseph, let alone move in with him without being married. But then, who is she to criticize? She couldn't claim to have been the virgin bride when she married Ben. They may not have lived together, but they had the boat with its cozy cabin, and times have changed, after all.