1001 Cranes

by Naomi Hirahara

  I like the first, fancy name and ask Gramps to repeat it. Alstroe-meria. Alstroe-meria. I chant it in my head as Gramps clips the greens and sticks them into the oasis. Next come the carnations, the roses, the daisies, and the alstroemeria. After Gramps is done, the arrangement looks beautiful.

  “Do you think that you can do this?” he asks.

  I nod, not really sure I can. But I am going to try. I promise to keep the doors locked and not to let anyone in.

  Gramps picks up his keys from the table and smiles. “An-jay, you’re a good girl,” he says, and leaves.

  Doing the arrangements is a lot easier than folding the cranes. The first one doesn’t turn out very well, but if you mess up, you can pull out a few flowers and stick them back into the oasis in a different spot.

  I’m on my fifth arrangement when my phone rings.

  “What are you doing?” It’s Tony. “Working on your origami?”

  “No, I’m helping to make some flower arrangements at my grandparents’ store.”

  “Hey, I’m only a couple blocks away. Can I help?”

  “I don’t think so. I’m here by myself. My grandpa won’t like it if I let strangers in.”

  “I’m not a stranger.” Tony sounds a little hurt.

  “You know what I mean. A stranger to him.”

  My excuse doesn’t work on Tony, and about ten minutes later, someone is rapping on our front door.

  I unlock it. “Listen, you can’t be here. I’ll get in trouble.”

  Tony ignores me and walks into the shop. “This place is pretty old. As old as my uncle’s store.”

  “Doesn’t need to be all fancy. We sell flowers, live things, not shoes or T-shirts.” I don’t know why I’m being so defensive. I wasn’t that impressed with the store when I first walked in. I go into the back room and he follows me.

  “No, no, I’m not saying it’s bad,” says Tony. He comes closer to me. He then pulls up my hands and puts them on his shoulders. “I like it. And I like you.”

  He leans in and my heart leaps. His lips touch mine and I feel like I’m falling into a deep hole. The kiss ends before I know it, and I’m looking straight into his face. We’re so close that he looks like he’s become a Cyclops.

  I lean back, and he smiles and holds my hand. I’m glad that I brushed my teeth two times this morning. His lips didn’t taste that ashy and I wonder if he’s already started to quit smoking.

  I don’t know how long we stand there, holding hands. I’ve left the world of green foam oases and entered a place that’s wilder and more alive. I don’t hear the jangle of the front lock, the bell on the top of the door, the footsteps.

  “What is going on here?” a voice snaps, finally bringing me back to Gardena. Grandma Michi, standing next to Gramps at the door.

  Tony and I immediately let go of each other’s hands and back away from each other as if a magnetic field has repelled us.

  The worst is Gramps’s face. His eyes look empty, and his mouth is slightly open, like his dentures got stuck in an uncomfortable place. I lower my head.

  Grandma Michi drops her packages onto the curdled-coffee-colored linoleum. They are obviously heavy, because they make a clunk when they hit the floor. “Thank God your mother is coming down this weekend,” is all she says.

  MICHI’S 1001-CRANES FOLDING TIP NO. 6: When you make the head, first fold it down on one side. Then open it back up and press down in the center, and you should have a perfect head.

  Grounded

  I’ve never been grounded before. Emilie’s been grounded a couple of times. I’ve read about it in books and seen angry parents in movies yelling “You’re grounded!” But that’s not my parents. I get punished by their being disappointed in me. I usually get the full-name treatment from Mom: “Angela Michiko Kato…I want you to think about what you’ve done.” “This is not like you,” is what Dad says. They don’t scream or yell. It’s like they are each throwing a rock down a long, dry well: the rocks then just bounce back and forth against the sides, making lonely sounds.

  When they started not getting along, I thought maybe my bad grades or back talk would somehow fuse them back together, but instead I felt their lonely disappointment two times over.

  But now Grandma Michi says it: “You’re grounded. You can’t go anywhere by yourself, and when you leave the house, it can only be work-related. And no seeing, no talking, no anything with that boy again.”

  Gramps says nothing. He can’t even look me straight in the face. Disappointment. Gramps’s disappointment is ten times worse than being grounded.

  Like my grandmother said, my mother will be back in town. It really has nothing to do with me and Tony, because she was planning to come down anyway. But now I have to be prepared to feel her disappointment in me, too.

  The next day, when Gramps drives me to the shop, the expression on his face is the same. His eyes don’t turn up in a smile like they normally do. I wish that I could tell him how Tony has helped me. How he saved me from Kawaguchi’s wrath. How he made me feel special when my parents seemed to be abandoning me.

  But it’s too late for any of that. I’ve lost something with Gramps, my only lifeline in Gardena besides Tony. I just remember his smile when he left me in charge with the Carrillo flower arrangements. “An-jay, you’re a good girl,” he said.

  Gramps leaves me in the back room of the shop, where I’m supposed to be gluing cranes for Kawaguchi’s wedding. They don’t trust me in the house alone anymore.

  I look at the stack of dry oasis bricks and feel like crying. Only yesterday Gramps felt that I was responsible enough to make real floral arrangements on my own.

  I hear the bell on the door ring and then hard, definitive footsteps against the linoleum. A female voice and then Gramps’s reply. More hard footsteps, and then a figure is standing in the doorway. Kawaguchi, in a pantsuit this time, but with the same pearls. “I was in the neighborhood, so I wanted to check on the display.”

  I move my hands away from the black velvet so Kawaguchi can get a good look. My fingers are sticky from the glue, and I rub my thumbs against my second and third fingers.

  “This row doesn’t look even,” Kawaguchi says after a few minutes of studying the display.

  It’s fine, I’m thinking, but I tell her that I can make some adjustments, because the glue is still wet.

  I hear the bell on the door jingle again, and figure it’s another customer. But it turns out to be someone completely different: the Buddhist minister, who Gramps directs to the back room.

  “What are you doing here?” Kawaguchi asks.

  “You said that you’d be stopping by here before the rehearsal. I need to talk to you alone.”

  I try to shrink into the corner. The minister doesn’t even care that I’m in the room. Kawaguchi’s eyes follow me for a second but focus back on the minister. She doesn’t seem to care, either.

  “Are you sure about this? I mean absolutely sure. I’m not talking about us and what happened. But you and Kevin. Are you sure about him?”

  “Of course I’m sure about him. We’re getting married in two days. All the arrangements have been made.”

  “Forget about the arrangements. The hall. The reception. The flowers and this one-thousand-and-one-cranes display. I’m talking about your life, Lisa. Is this where you want to be?”

  “This is so not right. What are you trying to do to me?”

  “You tell me that this is it, Kevin’s the guy for you, and I won’t say anything more. I’ll support you through everything. I’ll make it the best ceremony I’ve ever officiated.”

  Kawaguchi’s chin trembles a little. I notice it but I’m not sure the minister does. Then Kawaguchi’s face becomes as still as stone.

  “Yes, I’m sure about this. A hundred percent sure.” Her voice is steely.

  “Okay,” says the minister. “Then I’ll see you at the rehearsal.” He walks out, and a few seconds later, we hear the bell ring.

  Kawaguchi’s chin is tre
mbling again, and her eyes seem shiny, but not a good shiny.

  “Okay,” she echoes, but to me. “The cranes look fine.”

  Small Talk

  I am looking forward to doing nothing when I get home, but when Gramps pulls into the driveway, we both notice one of those new versions of old-fashioned cars parked along the curb. It’s the color of gourmet mustard, kind of light, not like the regular mustard you put on hot dogs.

  Gramps and Grandma have hardly any visitors come over, I’ve noticed. Maybe it’s because they’re so busy at the shop and at the weddings of strangers.

  When we go through the back door, it’s no stranger sitting at the worktable of the 1001-cranes room. It’s Dad—only his hair is cut all choppy and he has some gel in it. Dad never puts stuff in his hair. He doesn’t even use conditioner.

  I’m happy to see him, but something stops me from running up and hugging him. “Hi, Dad,” I say instead. I feel shy around him, like I’m meeting someone I used to be close to but I’m not anymore.

  “Angie.” Dad gets up and presses my head into his shirt, a new one that’s deep blue. “I’ve missed you.”

  I’ve missed him, too, but I think I’ve missed what we used to be more. He has his cell phone hanging from his belt, and I wonder why he hasn’t called me if his phone is right there.

  Dad then greets Gramps. “Nick,” he says, extending his hand.

  Gramps doesn’t take a hold of it, spreading out his palms. “Dirty from flowers,” he says, but that doesn’t seem like a good excuse. That never kept Gramps from shaking another person’s hand. He takes off his work boots and leaves them on a towel where our other shoes are stacked.

  “Janet let me in. She went to buy some groceries.”

  Gramps just grunts and then says he has to get cleaned up. He leaves me alone with Dad.

  “So I’ve heard that you’ve been busy,” he says. I know he means Tony.

  “Is that why you came?”

  “I’m just here for the day on business. But I knew that we had to talk.”

  We sit at the 1001-cranes table. The stacks of photo albums have been moved to one side. In their place are three piles of golden cranes. The B pile is the biggest, but the A pile is slowly catching up.

  “You did all these?”

  I nod.

  “You have been busy.”

  I know that Dad is just making small talk. “He’s not my boyfriend or anything like that,” I then announce, although in my heart I hope Tony is. “Just a new friend I met skateboarding.”

  “I know we’ve never talked about dating and boys. But twelve is way too young to be alone with a boy, Angie.”

  One part of me wants to argue, but another part is relieved. The relieved part wins out, I guess, because I nod, knowing that I’ll still find a way to see Tony.

  Dad clears his throat. “There’s actually something else I wanted to talk about with you….”

  I wait. My heart is pounding. I know what he’s going to say. We’re getting a divorce.

  “I know it’ll be hard for you to understand, but I want you to know that this isn’t about you. It’s not your fault.”

  Just say it, I think. I want to blurt it out myself so this talk won’t be so long, but I’m not going to give my dad an easy out.

  “You might hear that I’ve made a new friend myself.”

  Friend? That’s my word for Tony, although he is anything but just a friend.

  “She’s actually the mother of one of your classmates. Joanne Papadakis.”

  I feel like my stomach has been punched in. Mrs. Papadakis? She was my room mother when I was in third grade. She has hair the color of sand and a long nose with lima bean nostrils. I can see Nicole Papadakis, her curly long hair and invisible plastic braces. “Is Mrs. Papadakis your new girlfriend?” My voice is so soft I can barely hear it myself.

  Dad doesn’t say anything. I think back, and it slowly starts to come to me: how Mrs. Papadakis seemed always to be sitting next to Dad at school plays. How he seemed always to have a last-minute meeting on Fridays, when he was supposed to be off. How Nicole Papadakis never seemed to like to talk to me.

  “How long has Mom known?”

  “Let’s not talk about your mother and me,” he says. “What I really care about is you and me.”

  But I start thinking about Mom. Why didn’t she give me at least a clue to what was going on? Why didn’t she warn me? I feel like this is all coming out of nowhere, and I’m not prepared.

  “I don’t know what’s going to happen, Angie. I just need some time to think. But since Nicole’s one of your classmates…”

  I wince. I don’t want to think about it, but the images creep in: the girls at school talking about me and my dad behind my back. Dad and Mrs. Papadakis, in a white dress, underneath a white gazebo, getting married. Nicole, smiling up at my father with her braces, saying “Dad.”

  The 1001-cranes room begins to spin. All the shimmering gold and silver seems harsh to me. I can feel the points of the tips of the origami cranes. I need to get out of here.

  “Is there anything else?” I ask.

  “What?” My father looks confused.

  “Do you need to tell me anything else?”

  “Just that I love you, Angie. And I always will.”

  I get up from the folding chair and escape to the bedroom.

  I lie on the bed for a while and then check outside. The new old mustard-colored car is still there. I can’t help creeping through the living room to see what Dad’s doing now.

  I hear Gramps’s voice from the 1001-cranes room. “I don’t know what’s happening, and I don’t know if I even want to. But An-jay has to be your number one priority,” he says. He sounds serious, possibly even angry. Maybe Gramps can be the one to get my parents back together.

  Dad then says that he needs to make his flight. The bottom of his folding chair scrapes the linoleum floor.

  I run back into my bedroom and watch through the window as he drives away.

  Pessimist Club

  Friday evening I go next door for dinner. I try to get out of it, because I’m in no mood to talk to anyone, especially the O family. Even though they are much nicer and more polished—at least on the outside—than our family, it’s just more of the same. Nobody in either family says anything real. Gramps doesn’t even mention anything much about my dad’s visit.

  Grandma Michi tells me that I still have to go to dinner. “You made a commitment; now you have to follow through,” she says. How come other people can break theirs, but I have to keep mine? I think. But it’s not worth arguing. I’m so tired I just go along.

  She tells Aunt Janet to walk me to the O family’s door, just in case I try to take a detour to see Tony. Aunt Janet actually just waits in the middle of the walkway, looking at me like a stray dog.

  Mr. O answers the door. He’s in a suit and he explains that he has to go to an Optimist Club meeting. I know what an optimist is: it’s someone who always sees the good side of things. I can definitely picture Mr. O as a member of an Optimist Club. It must be nice to be in the company of all those optimists. I’m the opposite; I’m a pessimist. But I wouldn’t mind being surrounded by optimists from time to time.

  “I better get going, Ruth,” he says to Mrs. O, straightening his jacket collar. “Don’t want to be late.” If he is late to a meeting, he explains, he is fined seventy-five cents. Seventy-five cents is nothing, but it’s the principle of the thing, he says.

  The other men are also not at dinner. The two brothers have gone to a bachelor party for their cousin.

  “So that leaves us girls,” Mrs. O says. Her voice sounds too high and too loud, as if she’s adjusting her volume to convince herself that we’re going to have fun. I don’t think we’re going to have fun, but then, that’s the pessimistic side of me coming out.

  The dinner is quiet. We’re eating lasagna, homemade, not the frozen kind from a box or one from the warehouse store.

  Sarah clicks her teeth with
the ends of her fork as she eats. Apparently, it bothers Helen, because when Mrs. O excuses herself from the table, Helen snarls at her, “Can you stop that?”

  “What?”

  “That noise. The fork hitting your teeth.”

  “I’m not making a noise.”

  “You are. Isn’t she, Angela?”

  They both look at me and I shrug. I don’t like getting in the middle of girl fights. That Sarah and Helen are practically old enough to be my mother doesn’t make any difference. Girl fights don’t seem to change much over time.

  It finally dawns on Sarah that Mrs. O has been away from the table for a long time.

  “What’s happened to Mom?” she asks no one in particular. She gets up and we watch her walk through the living room, to the hallway where the bathroom is.

  I hear her knock on a door. “Mom, are you okay?” she asks.

  Helen rises from the table, too, and I follow. I think I know what’s going on, and I’m worried about Mrs. O.

  We all stand in front of the locked bathroom door, and I can hear Mrs. O throwing up. It doesn’t sound like the little barfs she’s done before.

  Sarah taps again. “Mom, can you unlock the door? Let us help you.”

  “Is it the flu?” Helen asks.

  I don’t know whether to say anything. The toilet flushes and then we hear water running from the faucet.

  “Maybe we should take her to the hospital,” Helen says to Sarah.

  The doorknob turns, and there’s Mrs. O, drying her wet face with a hand towel. Her eye makeup is smeared and she looks awful.

  “No, no, I don’t have the flu. And I don’t need to go to the hospital again.” She walks down the hallway to the bedroom where I saw Mr. O massaging her back.

  “Mom, what’s going on?” Sarah calls out.

  Mrs. O turns. “My cancer’s come back, damn it. And I’m going to rest,” she says, and then closes the door behind her.

  Now, if anyone else had said “damn it,” it would have been no big deal. But this is Mrs. O. Even though I haven’t known her that long, I know she’s not the type to curse, or even sort of curse.