The Eclipse of Moonbeam Dawson

by Jean Davies Okimoto

  “Jim pointed it out when I was here the other day, but we didn’t go in.”

  “Come on. I want to show you something.”

  * * *

  In the gift shop, Moonbeam followed Gloria to a rack of postcards next to the far wall. They looked like the usual tourist stuff to him. Orca whales, sandy beaches, a colony of sea lions on some rocks, snow-capped mountains framing the deep green of the old growth forest, a bear and her cubs, someone holding a 30-pound Chinook salmon, and WELCOME TO CANADA with a big red maple leaf. Moonbeam spun the rack. “You want me to look at one of these?”

  “No, here.” Gloria pointed to a shelf of books behind the postcard rack and pulled out a large book with a beautiful cover, the kind people put on a coffee table in their living room. “This is what I wanted you to see.”

  “Indians of the Northwest Coast.” Moonbeam stood next to her and read the title. “Cool mask.” He pointed to the cover photo of a vivid mask and its bold red, gold, black, and white colors. “What about it?”

  “Just wait.” Gloria looked in the index, then flipped through the pages to one with a photograph of a sculpture. “This.” She pointed to the photo.

  “I’ve seen that before somewhere.”

  “It’s in the museum in Vancouver. At U.B.C.”

  “Mum took me there when we lived in Victoria.”

  Moonbeam stared at the photograph. A large raven stood on top of a giant shell that opened to show a tiny human form emerging from the shell. Next to the photograph it told about the myth on which the sculpture was based:

  Raven Yel was walking along the beach one day. He was bored, and in his irritation he called to heaven, which to his surprise, answered him, although it was only a muffled croak. Curious, he looked around and saw a giant shell at his feet. It opened a crack and he saw that it was full of tiny beings who were peering out fearfully. Yel was happy for the diversion and began to coax with the gentle tongue of the schemer, enticing and urging the inhabitants of the shell to come out and play with him. It was not long before first one being and then the others, shyly and fearfully, ventured out of the shell. They were strange creatures: two-legged like Raven Yel, but without his shining feathers. Covered only with pale skin, they were naked except for the long black hair on their round, beakless heads. Instead of wings they had sticklike appendages. But Yel was satisfied and very happy with his new playmates—the first people.

  “I know about this. We studied a lot of the Native myths and legends when I lived on Heather Mountain.” Moonbeam handed the book back to Gloria. “I don’t exactly get what it has to do with me.”

  “Here’s the caption.” She pointed to a small paragraph, then read it to him. “The Haida myth retold on the opposite page finds its most beautiful visual expression in this sculpture created by artist Bill Reid.”

  “Okay, so it’s Haida, but…”

  “Bill Reid is half-white and half-Haida.”

  “Like me.”

  “So I thought maybe that would be a good name.”

  “Bill Dawson?”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s one I’ve been considering. That and Tom.” Moonbeam looked at the caption again. “Hey! I’ve got it. Reid. Spelled the same as his.”

  “Hmmm, I like it.” Gloria smiled approvingly. “It’s better than Bill Dawson.”

  “It’s better than Just Dawson,” he laughed. Then he looked at the book again, studying the sculpture intently, staring at the smooth, expertly carved lines.

  “Reid Dawson, that’s it,” he announced, decisively snapping the book shut. “That’s my new name!”

  Chapter Six

  The first time Moonbeam introduced himself as Reid, he couldn’t believe how normal it seemed. It really surprised him since he’d been imagining there might be this big reaction. Someone would say, “Ha! You’re a fake and we all know it. Reid Dawson? No way! We all know your real name is weird, and it’s Moonbeam.” But instead Claude, the head chef, said, “Nice to meet you, Reid.” The hostess, Joan Dublanko, shook his hand. “Hi, Reid. How are you?” And Dorothy Baert, one of the servers, welcomed him warmly, “Hello Reid.” Even Jim Goltz was very casual about it when he stopped in his office to make it official.

  “Hi, Dawson, how’s it going?”

  “Fine. Oh, by the way. I’m going to be called Reid now.”

  “Your first name?”

  “Yeah, Reid Dawson. I’d like to change it on my application if I could.”

  “No problem.” Jim went to the file, pulled out the application, and handed it to him. Moonbeam crossed out Moonbeam and wrote Reid. That was all there was to it.

  After he left Jim’s office, he headed straight to his apartment, right to the bathroom, and right to the mirror. “Hi, I’m Reid,” he said to the mirror, staring at his own face. Was it just his imagination, or did he actually look different? Pretty strange, eh? he thought, studying his face. My name changes and then my face? But he was sure of it. Something was different. He looked stronger somehow and not so much of a kid. Not like a kid with a weird name.

  Reid wondered about his friends from Heather Mountain. Meadow MacLaine, Rainbow Callanti, and that pest, Starlight Lewis. Where had they ended up? Who would have thought that he would be here at this fancy resort, a new place, with a new name. Reid Dawson. After introducing himself, “Hi, I’m Reid Dawson,” about sixty-three times to the mirror, he left the bathroom to practice writing it.

  Reid got his paper and school stuff from the bedroom closet and took them to the kitchen table. R-e-i-d D-a-w-s-o-n, he wrote carefully. Then he wrote it again, copying his new name on every line, until he had filled the page. Even his handwriting seemed a little different, as if it were stronger, too, and less like a kid’s.

  The next step is to make it official with the correspondence school, he decided, taking a clean sheet from his notebook. He thought about asking Jim if he could use the computer in the office so it could be typed all nice, but that seemed like too much of a hassle. He just went ahead and wrote it.

  Reid Dawson

  Stere Island Lodge

  P. O. Box 933

  Tofino, BC VOR 2Z0

  District Administrator

  North Island Regional Correspondence School

  Port Alberni, BC

  Dear Administrator:

  Please change my name on all your records. It used to be Moonbeam Dawson. I am in the Grade 10 correspondence program. My name is now Reid Dawson. Thank you very much.

  Sincerely,

  Reid Dawson

  He read over the letter and decided to send it from Tofino when he went to get the slacks and shirt at the Co-op. Maybe he’d stop in and see his mother, too, since he didn’t have to be back at the lodge until the dinner shift. Probably her loom and everything she owned was still on the truck just waiting for him to unload it, and it would be good to help her right away instead of waiting for his first day off. As he imagined her stuck out there alone in the wilderness, the scene became so vivid in his mind, Reid got a knot in his stomach. He tried to think of something else, like surfing with his new friends, but it didn’t help.

  He bent over and held his hand on his stomach, hoping that might fix it. When he had stomachache when he was a little kid, she gave him peppermint tea and told him this story she made up. “Lois the Rabbit and the Magic Ingredients.” Lois the Rabbit was afraid of this wolf named—Reid thought for a moment. What was the name of that wolf anyway? He couldn’t remember, but the wolf was afraid of everything—even rabbits—and this wolf only ate veggies, never meat. Lois the Rabbit lived nearby and was afraid of the wolf. Then the two of them bumped into each other near a pretty plant with golden leaves. The leaves had magic ingredients. And then Lois the Rabbit and this wolf, whatever-his-name-was, ate the leaves. The magic ingredients were acceptance, courage, and love, and then the rabbit and the wolf got to be friends and went through life eating veggies. Reid rubbed his stomach. He’d have to remember to ask her that wolf’s name.

&
nbsp; After a while his stomach began to feel better, so he got his basketball and went to the court behind the building to shoot some hoops. He had about twenty minutes before he had to be at work, and he wanted to run around a bit.

  And now! Ladies and gentlemen, the starting lineup for the Vancouver Grizzlies!

  Reid trotted out to the center of the court and waved at the trees. At forward, Reid Dawson! A roar goes up from the crowd. The Grizzlies begin warming up.

  Reid ran toward the basket and shot. Reid Dawson dazzles the crowd. Every shot goes in. His famous hook, the jam, the world-renowned Dawson Dunk!

  Then he went back to the center of the court and proudly held the ball at his side, facing the trees, his back to the lodge.

  And now, ladies and gentlemen, please stand for the national anthem. “Oh, Canada, our home and native land … true patriots love, in all our sons command…”

  “Throw it here, eh?” Gloria smiled.

  Reid jumped, surprised by the sound of her voice. “I didn’t see you.” He grinned, feeling a little foolish, then tossed her the ball.

  She dribbled a few times, then let go of her shot. “You were pretty involved.”

  “Hey, you’re good.” He grinned again, watching it sail through the hoop.

  “Don’t act so surprised.”

  He got the ball and passed to her, secretly wondering if she’d just gotten lucky. He hadn’t thought of her as a jock. But her second shot went in just as easily.

  “You play on a team or something?”

  “I did, before I got this job. I only work here on the weekends, but most of the games are on Friday and Saturday so I had to quit the team.”

  “What team?”

  “Girls Varsity at U.S.S.” Gloria passed to him.

  “What’s that?” Reid’s jump shot missed by a mile. “I’m pretty rusty.” He laughed as he chased the ball out of the bushes behind the hoop and threw it to her.

  “Ucluelet Secondary School. I’m in grade ten.”

  “Is it big?”

  “There’s grades eight through twelve. About two hundred fifty in the school. We’ve got about fifty in my class.”

  “I’ve been home schooled for the past five years, although we had something like a school on Heather Mountain.”

  “I wish I could do that. I don’t feel like I’m much a part of things at school since I board out here on the weekends.”

  “That’s funny.” Moonbeam dribbled the ball in place and looked at her.

  “What is?”

  “That people always want something different. I’ve been thinking about regular school. Does everyone come from Ukee?” Moonbeam dribbled the ball over to the edge of the court and sat down next to her.

  “Ukee and from Opitsat on Meares Island, the Native reserve at Long Beach, and some from the Port Albion area. It’s called Ucluelet East across the harbour from Ukee. And Tofino, too.”

  “Kids who live in Tofino take a bus to U.S.S.?”

  “That’s right.” Gloria looked at her watch. “Guess we’d better be getting to work.”

  “Yeah, that’s all I’d need, be late on the first day.” He stood up and looked over toward the main building.

  “Hey, Reid, pull me up.” Gloria smiled up at him, holding out both her hands. He wasn’t sure what surprised him more, answering so easily when she called him Reid or holding her hands.

  “Have you heard what they’re saying about us?” Gloria’s dark eyes sparkled as he pulled her up.

  “About us?” Reid picked up a stick as they walked along the path, trying to seem casual.

  “Joan and Dorothy. They said we look so much alike we could be brother and sister, or at least cousins.”

  “They think I look like a girl, eh?”

  “No, that’s not what they meant. They said you were a good-looking guy.”

  Reid felt embarrassed. He stopped and broke the stick over his knee as Gloria walked ahead of him. After a minute he trotted up to her, and announced, “Well, you’re not so bad.”

  “What a great compliment.” Gloria burst out laughing. “And I suppose it means I look like a guy!”

  “No way. You’re really, uh,” he mumbled, “you’re really pretty.” They had arrived at the employee entrance of the kitchen.

  “I’m certainly glad I forced that out of you,” she said in a mock, snippy voice as she opened the door.

  All Reid could see was the back of her head as he followed behind her. Maybe he’d really insulted her. The first girl he’d met his own age since Victoria, and he’d already said the wrong thing!

  He wrote his name on the sign-in sheet underneath hers. When he looked up, she was standing next to him.

  “I’m, uh, sorry,” he mumbled.

  “For what?” She seemed surprised.

  “About what I said.”

  “Huh?”

  “That you weren’t so bad.”

  “Oh, please,” she laughed. “I was kidding.”

  Oh, man. How’re you supposed to know what’s going on?

  “Here,” she smiled as she handed him a menu. “We have a tradition here that Claude had when he was at the Normandy. When it’s your first day at work, you get to pick anything on the menu for your own dinner.”

  Gloria stood close to him, looking at the menu with him. She put her hand on his arm. “This is great. The cappellini with sautéed prawns, tomato, garlic, and tarragon. I had it my first day.”

  He felt the warmth of her hand on his arm. He’d gotten all bent out of shape for nothing! “What’s cappellini?”

  “It’s pasta.”

  There were a bunch of weird names of stuff he had never heard of, caponata, bruschetta, portabello, confit, he couldn’t believe the stuff they had on that menu.

  “You pick for me.” He handed the menu to Gloria.

  “No, it’s your dinner.”

  “You helped me pick my name, you can pick my food.”

  “Okay, Reid. But I get a bite.”

  “Of course, I always share with my sister.” He laughed, trying to make a joke. But as soon as he said it, he started to worry. Why had she told him somebody said they looked like brother and sister? Was that a clue that she only wanted to be friends? Like a sister or something?

  “Start with the mushroom and wild rice soup, then have the baby spinach salad with roquefort, walnuts, and the honey-sherry vinaigrette, and have the herb-roasted chicken and the garlic mashed potatoes for your entree.”

  “Do we get dessert?”

  “Have the chocolate hazelnut torte, but I get at least three bites.”

  “Two, max.”

  “Okay, two.”

  * * *

  In the beginning the work didn’t seem that hard. Washing, peeling, and slicing the vegetables, trying to anticipate Claude and how he wanted everything done; it all seemed pretty manageable. But compared to Gloria, he was slow with the knife and after about a half-hour Claude switched him to washing and tearing the lettuce, wild greens, and spinach. He said to make small, bite-size pieces, and Claude periodically checked it over to make sure Reid wasn’t tearing them too big and that they were completely clean.

  Reid worked steadily next to Gloria over a huge, long stainless steel sink. Claude told them he didn’t mind if they talked as long as the work was done properly. It wasn’t that boring. He got to be close to her and while he was cleaning the spinach, she told him a lot about her background.

  “My great-grandfather’s name was Saburo Yamada. His family came to Canada in the late eighteen hundreds, although I’m not sure of the exact year, but they were among the first Japanese in North America and he was born in Vancouver around nineteen hundred. He even fought in the Canadian Army in World War I and was sent to France.”

  “Really?” He liked listening to her, it was interesting. Also, it meant he didn’t have to talk, so there was less chance he’d mess up.

  “After the war, he settled in Clayoquot Sound and worked as a fisherman. He and his wife had three
kids, and my grandmother was the oldest.” Gloria pointed to the counter. “Hand me that knife, will you?”

  “This one?”

  “Yes, thanks.” She began slicing tomatoes into even, beautiful slices. Reid watched her hand making smooth, rhythmic strokes with the knife. She made it seem effortless.

  “My grandmother tells a story about her father during World War II when the government took the boats that belonged to all the fishermen of Japanese descent. He had fought with the Seaforth Highlanders and on the day they took all the boats, he put on his regiment’s uniform and went down to the dock and was standing there in the Scottish tam and jacket with its brass buttons buttoned up when they came.” She stopped slicing and looked over at Reid. “After that their family was sent to the interior with all the other Japanese-Canadian families from the coast. She doesn’t talk much about that part. She just says shikataganai.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Shikataganai means something like ‘what can you do?’ Like there’s nothing that can be done so you just accept it. It’s one of the few Japanese words I know.”

  “Were they put in one of those camps?”

  “Yes, but no one in my family says much about it. They ended up in Toronto after the war, and then in 1952 BC Packers recruited the Japanese-Canadian fishermen to come back to the coast. That’s when the family settled in Ukee.” Gloria went to the large walk-in refrigerator and filled the colander with more tomatoes. “What’s really sort of odd is that my dad worked for Tohei, the Japanese packing company, until they closed. Now he’s at the Clayoquot Fish Company, but he had been at that Japanese company a long time.”

  “And your dad’s Canadian.”

  “Mum’s Canadian, too,” she snapped. “Color and citizenship aren’t the same. That’s the whole point.”

  “I know,” he said, feeling stupid. “I just meant your dad’s white.”

  She nodded. “He’s from Port. He and my mum met at university.”

  * * *

  The first seating in the dining room was at 5:00, and within twenty minutes the orderly efficiency of the prep work gave way to what seemed to Reid near chaos. The air became tropically thick with vaporized food particles sprayed off dirty plates with 140-degree water, the floor tiles became slippery, and everyone was sweating. Their damp shirts stuck to their backs. Orders spewed out of the high-speed printer and were slapped on the counter as line cooks grabbed the tickets and shouted to the preppers to pull the food from the walk-in. “Reid! One caprese!” “Gloria! Two escarole!” “Reid! Zuppli! Five for the five top!” “Gloria! Four spinach!” He heard his name what seemed like a thousand times from the line cooks while he staggered under huge trays of lemon wedges, plucked pomegranate seeds, and ground coriander, and he was still trying to learn what all the stuff was.