by Traci Chee
On Thursday, the dining halls serve roast turkey and walnut dressing with jiggling slices of cranberry sauce that still bear impressions from the inside of the can. It smells of the holidays back home in San Francisco, when my whole family would spend days in the kitchen, baking and brining and boiling, before digging in to fresh Dungeness crab and somen salad along with our turkey and mashed potatoes.
The cafeteria-style dining hall with its raw wood beams, picnic tables, serving counter, and dishwashing station may be a far cry from home, but we’re still together, and in true American tradition, I know I have a lot to be grateful for.
While our block manager makes a particularly long-winded speech at the front of the dining hall, Yuki and I pick the candied topping from our sweet potatoes, sneaking bites when Mother and Father aren’t looking. Bachan sees us, but she simply winks and pops a scoop of pumpkin-pie filling into her mouth.
I wolf down my meal in the most unladylike manner, especially the bread and real butter—none of that oleomargarine tonight!—and get a second heaping helping of turkey and gravy.
At the dishwashing station, I encounter Frankie, who still hasn’t apologized for his nasty remarks last month.
I regard him coolly as I rinse my plate. “Francis.”
“Nakano.” He nods. “You look like you’re having fun over there.”
“I am.”
“Wish they’d had real gravy instead of that walnut stuff,” he says. “I couldn’t eat it.”
“I thought it was nice.” I wait for him to apologize, but he simply dips his fork and knife in the soapy water, looking as if he’d rather swallow a toad than say he was sorry for anything, so I place my dishes in the drying rack with a clatter. “Well, I hope you and your uncle have a happy Thanksgiving.”
* * *
That night, in preparation for the dance, I hang up my dress, a beautiful white rayon splashed with flowers, and polish the dust from my pumps.
Because we’re a family of five or more, we have two connected apartments instead of one, which means that Bachan, Yuki, and I share one room while Mother and Father have the other. The ceiling, walls, and floors are all covered in Masonite, with exposed nail heads shining around the perimeter of each square board. It’s not the coziest of accommodations, I’ll give you that, but, with a few improvements, we’ve managed to make it homey enough.
There are the curtains Mother sewed from empty rice sacks, and the tables, chairs, and dressers Father shipped from Tanforan. He’s also built a wardrobe for our clothes and shelves to display photographs or hold necessities like toiletries and cups.
By the cast-iron stove are pegs for our towels to dry, along with coal and kindling buckets that, as the eldest, it’s my duty to keep filled. Bachan’s cot is closest to the stove, where it’s warmest, then Yuki’s, then mine, where I’ve hung a curtain for a little privacy.
Now Yuki and her friend Mary, Stan Katsumoto’s sister, who’s also on the softball team, sit on my cot, reviewing my dance card.
It’s nearly full, with Shig, Twitchy, Tommy, and Stan having signed up, but there’s only one name that matters to me.
1. JOE TANAKA
9. JOE TANAKA
16. JOE TANAKA
True to his word, Joe has called not once but three times to ask me for a dance. I think I’m in heaven!
“Do you think he’s going to kiss you?” Yuki asks.
Mary scowls. She’d be much prettier if she weren’t scowling so much of the time, but it’s not my place to say.
With a laugh, I swipe the last of the dust from my heels. “The question is, ‘Will I let him?’”
“Well?”
“Well, I haven’t decided!” I plop down on the cot between them. Mary leans away uncomfortably. “If he’s a gentleman, then—”
My stomach lets out an embarrassingly loud gurgle, momentarily silencing me. In the back of my throat, I taste bile. Quickly, I clap my hands over my mouth.
Mary is already reaching for the waste bin. “You okay?”
I shake my head. “I think it must have been something I ate—”
“You didn’t eat the walnuts, did you? Mom refused to serve them in our mess hall.”
Yuki’s stomach growls, even louder than mine, and she jumps up, grimacing. “I knew that gravy was off!”
As one, she and I scramble for our zoris and fly toward the door, doubled over in pain. Outside, it seems like the whole block is fleeing for the latrines, filling the air with groans and the stench of sickness.
I’m so ill with food poisoning that I spend all night in bed with a bucket on the floor beside me.
I miss the dance.
Worst of all, I miss my dances with Joe.
* * *
By the next morning, however, I’m feeling almost as good as new, if a little tired, when who should knock at my door but Joe Tanaka himself! “Hi-ro-miii!” Yuki screams, though I’m only behind my curtain. “It’s for you-uuu!”
Flustered, I tighten my wig band over my hair and pull on my blond curls, peeking frantically at my hand mirror to ensure that none of my black hair shows.
“Hiromi!”
“For the last time, it’s Bette now!” Pinching my cheeks to put a little color in them, I check my expression once more and throw back my curtain, appearing in what I hope is a dramatic fashion.
Huffing, Yuki goes to sulk at the table. “Your hair is crooked.”
Mortified, I tug my wig straight as I sashay to the door, where Joe Tanaka is standing on the doorstep, his breath clouding in the morning air. “We missed you at the dance,” he says, offering me a crepe-paper flower. “Everyone was there, even that Caucasian girl, Gail. I didn’t think she’d want to party with a bunch of nihonjin kids, but you should’ve seen—”
“Oh, Joe, you shouldn’t have!” I interrupt. The flower is a red camellia with rippled petals and a riot of yellow stamens in the center—in Japan, red camellias are a symbol of love. “It’s wonderful!”
Bashfully, he stuffs his hands into his coat pockets. “Well, I thought it was the least I could do, since you couldn’t make it out last night.”
“I can make it out today,” I say brightly. “Are you going to the volleyball game this afternoon?”
“Haven’t thought about it yet. Maybe I’ll see you there?”
“Maybe!” Shrugging, I do my best Scarlett O’Hara impression, pretending indifference, even though I’d love nothing more than to sit by him on the high school field, shoulder to shoulder and thigh to thigh. “If something more interesting doesn’t come up.”
He smiles, and I nearly collapse against the doorframe, swooning. “You make everything more interesting, Bette.”
I wink. “Then I suppose you’d better be wherever I am, Joe.”
DECEMBER
Unfortunately, after what seemed like such a promising start the day after Thanksgiving, my romance with Joe has stalled. Although he’s no less kind, I feel as if when we talk, he’s more distracted than usual. I suppose he’s busy with school, where we’ve finally resumed our morning classes, and basketball, because the Topaz Rams are already trouncing neighboring schools. He still has a place on my dance card for the “Holiday Jitter-Hop,” but only one: the fourteenth, as unremarkable a dance as you can get.
My worries, however, are eclipsed by the Christmas festivities. On the morning of the twenty-fifth, we wake to a fresh inch of snow that ices all of Topaz City like a delicious buttercream cake. Icicles drip from the eaves like crystals, smoke drifts from the chimneys, and we stand in our doorways as carolers march through the streets, singing “O Come, All Ye Faithful.” In the brittle winter air, their voices are clear and bright as bells.
Inside, next to Bachan’s cot, our stove burns merrily, our concerns about coal rationing forgotten for the moment. On the table are presents wrapped in brown paper and twine. A few of Yuki’s—donations from the Quakers at the American Friends Service—even glisten with tinsel.
As we open our gifts, we fin
d fruitcakes from hakujin friends in San Francisco and manju from our older brother and his wife in New York, where they were living when we got the exclusion order. He offered to come back to be with the family, but Mother and Father wouldn’t hear of it. Of course he and his wife had to stay back East. Why would you come here if you could be in New York City?
Among my presents is a brand-new Tangee Satin-Finish Lipstick in Theatrical Red that I’ve been coveting for months. “Oh, Yuki, thank you!” I cry, flinging myself at her. “You’re my favorite sister; did you know that?”
She flops in my arms, although I can hear her smiling when she says, “I’m your only sister!”
I try on the lipstick the next night while I’m getting ready for the dance with Keiko and Yum-yum, who is positively glowing, she’s so happy. Her father was released from Missoula—he should arrive any day now.
Puckering and pouting, I examine my reflection in my hand mirror. “Does this shade suit me?” I ask.
“You look good in everything, Bette,” Yum-yum says.
“I don’t know.” I flip to the Tangee advertisement in Vogue magazine, where Constance Luft Huhn, head of the House of Tangee, is reclining on a pea-green divan, bedecked in pearls and sapphires that gleam against her creamy skin. I squint at her lips and rouged cheeks, her sky-blue eyes and perfectly arched brows. “It looks different in the ad.”
“Yeah.” Keiko rolls her eyes. “Because she’s Caucasian.”
I frown at my reflection—my round cheeks, my flat nose—feeling like a dumpling compared to the likes of Constance Luft Huhn, Gail Johnson, and the pretty white women in my favorite films and magazines.
“She’s not even real,” Keiko says, tapping the ad. “That’s a drawing, not a photograph. In real life, she’s probably got acne and a double chin like the rest of us.”
“Oh.” For a moment, I feel silly. Naturally, I can’t look like this illustrated woman, nor should I want to. What a bore, to be two-dimensional.
Yum-yum tucks the red-paper camellia behind my ear. “You’re real, though, and beautiful.”
“Aren’t we all?” Keiko laughs, fluffing her hair in what’s clearly an imitation of me.
With a smile, I throw my arms around Yum-yum and Keiko, squeezing them so tightly, our cheeks squish. “Absolutely.”
* * *
The “Holiday Jitter-Hop” dance is in Dining Hall 32, and I can hear the music even before I enter, the strains of a Mills Brothers song filtering through the walls. Standing before the steps, I brush out my skirt and look up at the door—the unvarnished wood is plain, even unsightly, spattered with mud from the slushy December days, but I want to memorize every nail, every splinter, every moment of anticipation.
Joe’s inside.
My dance is inside.
The rest of my life is inside.
“Are we going in, or are we going to stand out here all night like dunces?” Keiko asks, cocking an eyebrow at me.
“Of course we’re going in!” I flash her a smile. As I check my dress and wig one last time, the red camellia crackles in my hair.
I’m ready, I think. Twining my arm in Keiko’s, I take the steps up to the dining hall.
Inside, the building has been transformed into a true Christmas wonderland for the decorating contest. Fragrant juniper and pine boughs from Mount Topaz adorn the walls, and the beams are festooned with streamers and poinsettias made from back issues of the Topaz Times. Atop a table, a tree strung with garlands stands in one corner. Cardboard snowflakes dangle from the ceiling, turning beautifully around a small bunch of mistletoe suspended over the center of the dance floor.
“Looks like a kids’ craft project in here,” Keiko says, crossing her arms and leaning against the doorframe.
I blink back tears. “I think it’s perfect,” I breathe.
And it is.
Beneath the hot dining-hall lights, the evening passes like a flurry of snow. I dance with Tommy, Shig, Stan, Mas. Twitchy takes me out to swing, spinning me around the dance floor, our heels kicking up, our faces sweaty and glorious. He’s a marvelous dancer, all that buoyant energy going into every twirl, every lift, every dip.
All too soon, and not soon enough, it’s the fourteenth song of the night. I glance down at my dance card, even though I already know who my partner will be.
14. JOE TANAKA
Couples are quickly dissolving and pairing off again like shapes in a kaleidoscope, whirling away in spirals of multicolored skirts as the music starts.
It’s “Harbor Lights” by Frances Langford—Joe’s favorite song—the same song he sang to me as we rode the train from Tanforan three months ago. It couldn’t be more perfect.
I search the crowded mess hall for a glimpse of Joe’s slicked-back hair, his sparkling, wide-set eyes, but he’s nowhere to be found.
“Have you seen Joe?” I ask Yum-yum, who’s dancing with Stan Katsumoto.
“No. Do you want me to help you look?”
I shake my head, twining my hands in my dress. The seconds keep slipping away!
“He ducked outside.” Stan nods at the door. “The guy was red as a keto sunburn.”
“It is hot in here,” Yum-yum says.
Biting my lip, I hurry from the dining hall as Frances Langford begins to sing. Without my coat, the outdoor air is chilly on my skin, and I hug my arms as I search the empty street.
“Joe?” I call, descending the stairs.
There’s no answer.
Shivering, I turn the corner.
And there he is, on the dark side of the building. Breaking out in a smile, I take a step forward.
But my joy freezes in my chest as I near him.
He’s not alone. There’s a girl in his arms, almost as tall as he is, with golden hair like summer sunshine in the dining-hall shadows.
It’s Gail Johnson, and they’re kissing, lips locked, pressed against the wall, like they’re the only two people in the entire universe.
No, no, no, this can’t be right.
This was my dance.
That was my kiss.
Tears fill my eyes. A sob catches in my throat.
And I flee. I run into the darkness, crying, until one of my heels catches in the slush, and I go tumbling forward onto my hands and knees. Dirty water spatters my arms, my legs, my white flowered dress.
The red camellia tumbles from behind my ear, landing petals-down in the mud.
“Whoa, whoa, Nakano,” someone says, hoisting me up. In an instant, I recognize the “All-American” patch on the sleeve—Frankie. “Are you okay?”
Covered in mud, with tears running down my face, I know I’ve never looked worse, but at this moment, I couldn’t care less. I fling myself into Frankie’s arms as he sets me on my feet. “No, I’m not.”
He pats my shoulder. “That Tanaka boy break your heart?”
With a wail, I bury my face in Frankie’s shoulder.
He sighs, and through the haze of my anguish, I feel his arms go around me. “Want me to hit him for you?” he asks.
I let out a sound that’s supposed to be a laugh, but it comes out more like a hiccup. “Oh, Frankie.” Leaning back, I smack him lightly in the chest. “That wouldn’t do any good.”
He smirks.
“But thanks for offering.”
As we stand in the ice and mud, the last notes of “Harbor Lights” drift over the empty street. My eyes well up again.
“C’mon, Nakano, don’t cry.” Gently, Frankie takes my hand, swaying with me as the next song begins. “What happened?”
“He was kissing Gail Johnson.” I hiccup again. “During our song!”
“That keto girl?” He has the audacity to laugh—a big, bellowing laugh that would sound harsh if it didn’t have such warmth to it. “Shit, Nakano, you’re twice the girl she is. Dumb boy doesn’t know what he’s missing.”
I sniff. In his arms, I feel the chill beginning to ease from my bones. “You really think so?”
“Yeah.”
“But she’s—” I stop myself from adding so pretty. I’m pretty too, after all. Instead, I frown at Frankie. “Why are you being so nice to me?”
“You’re a nice gal. You deserve nice things.” His gaze flicks to the icy road and mud-splattered barracks, and his eyes harden for a moment. “Nicer than this, at least.”
Blinking away the last of my tears, I lay my head on his shoulder. “You too, Frankie,” I murmur.
We dance outside under the orange lamps. We dance while Joe Tanaka kisses Gail Johnson in the shadows. We dance while the song changes to Count Basie, and the mess-hall floorboards thunder with footsteps.
At last, Frankie kisses me on the forehead and takes a step back. He smiles. “Your wig’s crooked.”
“Oh no!” I blush, but Frankie just shakes his head.
“Cut it out, Nakano. You make a big deal of seeing the good in everything, but you’re a dunce if you can’t see how good you look tonight.”
He extends his hand then, but I don’t take it right away.
I suppose it’s true. I choose to see the bright side of any situation, no matter how dim. I saw the good in that God-awful train ride from California. I see the good in Topaz, despite the dust, the plumbing, and the cold. I even see the good in Frankie. This should be no different. I should be no different, and it should be easy, because as of tonight, I’ve decided to think of myself as gorgeous, and not once in my life have I been dim.
But if Frankie Fujita is right about something, he’s not going to hear it from me.
“I’m no dunce,” I say primly, taking his hand.
“I know.” Grinning, he walks me back to the dining hall, where the dance has gotten hotter and louder and more joyous. In the crowd, Twitchy and Stan are teaching Tommy some kind of complicated step pattern, and Keiko and Yum-yum are swinging together, skirts swirling out around them like flower petals. Seeing Frankie and me by the entrance, Shig beams and beckons us over. “There you are!”
I feel Frankie starting to slide out of my grasp, so I tighten my grip.
