All Good Women (4 page)

It was so ironic — she had started wearing red because it
did
make her stand out, because it countered her preternatural shyness. At the mirror this morning, she worried about how unJapanese she looked. Was it her? Well, she wasn't going to dress for the sake of cliché. Yet every time she wandered from the norm, she fretted the balance between stereotype and authenticity.

Miss Fargo criticized the next girl for several spacing errors. See, Wanda, she's critical of everyone. But she hadn't commented on anyone else's clothes. Wanda wanted to scream and cry at the same time. It made her angry to be angry like this. She really hated to believe that people disliked her for race reasons. Her first instinct was to give the benefit of the doubt. Then she was surrounded by an immobilizing depression, a cloud of similar memories. Now her fingers grew stiff; she was furious at this silly exercise. Angry at all the white girls in the room obediently typing, ‘As we hop. As we hop. As we hop.' How could she go on? The diary. She would write about it in the diary. Yes. She would write about distraction. ‘Blend in. Blend in.' Wanda regarded her sheet now. ‘As we blend in, blend in,
bland
in.'

Wanda leaned against the streetlamp
at the bus stop. Closing her eyes, she pretended to store all her worries in a high cupboard. If she still hated Tracey Business School by the end of the week, she could quit. She imagined shutting the door to the cupboard. She let a long breath run through her body.

‘Hi.'

Wanda didn't want to be sociable. The voice was from a tall woman. Wanda tried to guess who it was.

‘Say, aren't you from the business school?' the voice added quickly.

A slight drawl, were there any Southerners in the class? Wanda opened her eyes and registered a thin, blond woman wearing a faded flowered blouse and a blue skirt. She didn't remember her at all. Embarrassed by her reverie, she stood straighter and extended her hand. ‘Yes, I'm Wanda Nakatani.'

‘Pleased to meet you. I'm Teddy Fielding.'

Teddy's large hand was roughly textured. Wanda considered the woman's kind, open face. Any other time she would have been pleased to meet her. Could they postpone this until tomorrow?

Teddy, too, seemed embarrassed after the enthusiasm of her own initial greeting. ‘I don't know, I don't have much to say, except I thought it would be good to talk to someone from class. I was too shy at lunchtime.'

Wanda smiled, here was someone more scared than she. ‘Where are you from, Teddy?'

‘Oh, Renfrew Street.'

‘I meant, where are you from originally? I noticed your accent.'

‘Oh, yeah, some time ago, seven years or so, my family came out from Oklahoma.' She held herself tighter.

‘The Dustbowl?' Wanda asked, trying to temper her amazement. She had never met an Okie before.

‘That's what they call it. That's what it was like — all the dust you could eat.'

Wanda laughed with her. She felt her resistance lift. ‘I've read a lot of articles about people from the Dustbowl. I wonder how genuine they are?'

‘I don't tend to read much. Once you've been through it, you don't want to read about it. I have some nice memories of the country between here and there, but the leaving was hard and the travelling was tough and I'd as soon read a good mystery story.'

‘I guess you don't know Dorothea Lange either?'

‘No, there were a lot of people who came out from Oklahoma. Thousands.'

‘Five hundred thousand.' Wanda hated herself for correcting Teddy. ‘And Dorothea Lange, she's a photographer, oh, well, forget it …'

‘Now hold on, I have seen some of her pictures, in magazines. Very dramatic.'

Wanda smiled gratefully. ‘What did you think of Miss Fargo?' So much for the cupboard.

‘She's an unpredictable one. Seemed nice enough at the beginning, calling us all girls and saying she would help us find jobs. But then she seemed unnecessarily strict and said hurtful things. Like,' Teddy blushed, ‘well, I guess the reason I spoke up in the first place was that I wanted to say you looked snazzy in your red suit. I admired it when I walked in and I was surprised when Miss Fargo was mean about it. I think she did it out of ignorance.' Teddy swallowed hard.

‘Ignorance?'

‘Because you're Oriental. I think she's prejudiced. Hope this doesn't make you feel bad. Probably shoulda kept my mouth shut.'

‘Not at all.' Wanda watched her closely. ‘It makes me feel good. I thought the same thing. And I'm glad you liked the suit. I stayed up until 2 a.m. finishing it.'

‘I figured you sewed it. Looks nicer than what you see in the stores. My Mom sews all our clothes too.'

‘
All
your clothes? How many are there?'

‘Ten kids including me. Of course she's not the only one who sews. Jolene learned and Amanda is taking lessons from Jolene.'

‘What about you?'

‘Me, no, I'm all thumbs around tiny things like stitches. That's why I'm surprised I could type. But then I'm OK at the piano too.' She shrugged.

Wanda laughed and noticed Teddy watching her closely. ‘Are you the oldest?'

‘No, two older brothers. But I'm the top girl. So it amounts to the same thing. And you? Your family?'

‘I have an older brother and a younger sister.'

A bus approached and they both squinted after the number. Sixteen. Wanda and Teddy stepped back slightly and the bus rattled past them.

‘Why are you at Tracey?' Wanda asked. ‘What's your secret ambition?'

Teddy looked puzzled. ‘Guess I just want to be a secretary. Always been keen on an office job. And you?'

‘Some day I hope to be a writer,' Wanda answered, and tried again. ‘What I meant was what do you imagine yourself doing in ten years — if there are no obstacles?'

‘No obstacles.' Teddy smiled. ‘Can't hardly imagine. Let me see, yes, I'd be working in a company, with lots of people around.'

Wanda tried not to look disappointed. She cringed at her own snobbishness.

‘Say, do you guess the other girls in class will be as friendly as you?'

Wanda laughed. ‘I hope they'll be friendlier.'

‘I guess when we break through the ice everyone will be pretty easy. But, I wonder about Miss Fargo. It could be a cool spring in that room.'

Wanda smiled. ‘I think we're going to be friends, Teddy. At least we worry about the same things.'

Teddy looked embarrassed and agreed. ‘How about coffee before school tomorrow? That is if you like to get up early.'

‘Yes,' nodded Wanda. ‘I got here at 7.15 today.'

‘I got here at 7.0,' grinned Teddy.

Wanda waved to the approaching bus. She boarded, got a window seat and waved to Teddy.

Teddy waved back, smiling and wondering how long she would have to wait for another number sixteen.

Chapter Three

Spring 1939, San Francisco

SPANISH CIVIL WAR ENDS

The Grapes of Wrath PUBLISHED

NYLON STOCKINGS APPEAR

‘NOW IS THE TIME
FOR
all
…' The words clapped steadily from Teddy's typewriter. She enjoyed this instrument as much as the piano, even with this familiar exercise Miss Fargo assigned to show how much progress had been made in one year. ‘Now is the time for all …' She sat tall in her chair and brushed the light brown curls from her high forehead. A vague discomfort settled as she recalled the player piano plonking on Market Street last night. Would typewriters ever do this? Just press a button and the words would tap honky-tonk or ragtime or swing? She hoped not because she liked the sensation in her long fingers and the rapid configuration of words against the page. Miss Fargo always praised her typing accuracy and neatness. The teacher encouraged her to speed up if she wanted a ‘decent job'. ‘You could get a plum,' the woman advised almost warmly. Teddy appreciated the encouragement although she didn't want to work for one of those fancy lawyers. She had more in mind a lively business or maybe a department store.

Still, Teddy worried whether she had made the right decision about typing school, when she could be earning a wage for the family now. She would have passed up the church scholarship if Mom hadn't insisted she take it. Pop said Teddy was crazy spending even more time behind a desk. When Pop got work on the docks, he was fine. But when he was laid off, he missed Oklahoma powerfully. He would curse his decision to come to Northern California where his old army buddy promised him shore work. He should have tried to farm in the Valley like so many of their friends. When Pop was laid off, it was always the same pattern; he'd say he was going to put extra time into fixing up the house and then he'd get sloshed. He would shout at the top of his lungs or grow sullen as an angry boulder. He would eat into Mom's nerves and into her savings in the broken green coffee pot. How would they have made it without the unsteady wages from her brothers' construction work? Several times this year, she had offered to quit Tracey and go back to housekeeping full-time, but Mom insisted one of her children was going to make it.

Teddy surveyed the fourteen straight-backed women playing different tunes to those identical lyrics. She held an easy fondness for each of them, from Gloria, who was as sweet and formless as a melting Hershey bar, to stern Miss Fargo. She checked on Moira, Wanda and Ann — feeling content about life in their North Beach house. Had they known each other a whole year? Yes, it was last spring when they met here. Such a year: making friends closer than she ever expected. Imagining a truly free life for herself. Watching her own family grow larger with Hank's wife and baby moving into the Fielding house. Sun washed through the side window now, drenching the front desks in a pool of yellow light. The rain had ended. Teddy sat straighter, forward from the damp sweater hanging on the back of her chair. At least it would be a dry walk home tonight. Maybe they could stop at Clooney's to toast spring.

‘Now is the
tame'
Damn.
Where is that eraser? Easy, Moira, don't press too hard. Remember the hole in the last page. That's it, light, brisk strokes. What did old Fargod say, oh, yes, ‘As if you were whipping a soufflé.' What would she know about soufflés? She looks like she subsists on raw hamburger. OK, you've got it. Paper just a mite thinner than before, but if you don't make another mistake on this line, ‘for all good' that's it, sweetie, keep going. Ten more minutes until break. Unbelievable. Ten more minutes of nonsense. They knew far more complicated exercises, but Miss Fargo made them practice this sentence once a week the way Sister Gregory used to make them repeat the commandments. Moira blew a strand of hair off her nose. She needed to keep things in perspective, to remember why she was here. Women were rising fast now. And if she didn't want to be Amelia Earhart, she wasn't going to be grounded by outdated expectations. Attitude, Moira remembered how Mother always said her attitude was wrong. Why Teddy was probably listening for minor chords and Ann would be figuring acrostics just to keep up her spirits. It was fun to share the misery of school with them at home each night.

Yes, the Stockton Street house did feel like home and it was much more convenient than commuting from Aunt Evie's place in Oakland. She would miss Aunt Evie, the most loquacious of Mother's fifteen sisters and brothers. Indeed, she had learned a lot about Mother staying with Aunt Evie, a lot of secrets. For instance, Grandma hadn't died in childbirth as Mother always told her, but rather of an abortion on the kitchen table of their Glasgow flat. While Mother had no idea just what Evie had revealed, but she sounded uncommonly relieved when Moira said she was moving in with a group of girls. ‘Better to be with people your own age,' Mother had said.

Now, what could she do with this boring exercise? ‘Country their of aid the to com …' No, show a little imagination. Look at Wanda, fascinated by the clock — probably figuring out the internal mechanism while typing four sheets to my one. At this rate, I'll never get hired by MGM. I'll be an ancient crone before they discover me falling off the soda fountain stool. ‘One more dose of Geritol, please, with hot fudge and almonds.' Uh, oh, there's Miss Fargo's buzzard eye. Back to work, Moira.

Wanda tried to extricate
the
ticking clock from her brain. She tried to ignore the way it syncopated against, ‘All good men come to the aid of …' The rote exercise was lined with potholes of tedium. Well, it was a little better than, ‘qwertyuiop qwertyuiop qwertyuiop.' She smiled, remembering the first day of class last year. ‘Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of …' Clip. Clip. Clip. Like shears against a hedge. Fastest in the class, Wanda grew weary of surpassing her own speed. Besides, Miss Fargo still found something wrong; she had inserted the paper a fraction of a second too early or the margin was one space off. When she became a journalist, she would report on racial prejudice, not only against Orientals, but against Negroes in the South. Meanwhile, she would write in her diary every night and find an office job to take her through college. Mama and Papa would be proud, once they stopped being mad.

She knew they would be upset about the house with the three
Hakujin
.
They were mad enough last fall when she moved in with the Murakamis to make a little more money helping with the new twins. But Mrs Murakami didn't need her any more and living at Stockton Street was a logical choice. The rent was cheap and the house was close to school. She could study there with the others. It was safe. It was fun. And she deserved a little of that before she got married. ‘
Hakujin
,'
Mama warned, but her voice was tinged with curiosity. Wanda understood she had been raised to be independent only within the limitations of her mother's imagination. Wanda treated Mama with a deference Teddy, Moira and Ann didn't have for their mothers. Still, in her generation, people mixed more. She had to admit feeling conspicuous as the ‘Oriental girl' on the block.

Wanda sought out the impassive clock. She stared at the black minute hand and the red second hand revolving over the creamy face. She knew the typing exercise backwards, so she looked for the brand name, to see if she could read from this distance as well as from the front row. ‘General Electric' was clear enough, but she could not make out the bottom word, the city of origin. 3.40 — five more minutes until coffee break.

‘Now is the time'
Ann
tapped easily. It wasn't bad once you found a rhythm. You could think about anything you liked. She recalled the Latin from her library book. How did they conjugate
dono
?
Perhaps she could work as a secretary at a university and sneak into courses on lunch hour. Papa would see his ‘dark beauty' had a mind and a grave determination.

Meanwhile, she typed, ‘for all good women'. Well, why not? Just see if Miss Fargo noticed, if Papa noticed. What was the point of coming to America if half your children didn't get a chance? Of course nothing was too good for her brother. When Daniel was granted partial scholarships at Stanford and San Francisco State, Papa decided, ‘Stanford. We can afford it, if you work and I give something each month. We can make it.'

Family! Ann clenched her teeth. But of course there were plenty of happy memories, in New York and here. She remembered making a snowman in Washington Square with Mama and Daniel. She remembered Papa showing them the giant dinosaur bones at the Museum of Natural History. She remembered those early, good Sabbaths at Synagogue, enveloped by the rich, sticky Hebrew words, cozy among her parents and their friends. Also the first sunny days in California were quite splendid.

Across the room, Ann caught a glimpse of Miss Fargo. Now there was a self-sufficient woman. Ann had warmed to her during the last twelve months, imagining what it must be like for a woman of that generation to have a career, to be a ‘miss' at her age. Ann had no intention of letting her work obstruct her family. But she knew enough to get educated first. She had talked about it with the other girls.

Living with the others had been good for her. In the endless conversations with Teddy, Wanda and Moira, they all agreed you had to take from life when you were young. But the paradox was lurking. Despite their high expectations, they had each been raised by war women, whose memories and premonitions were shaped by rations of sugar and coffee and hope.

The buzzer sounded.
Miss Fargo
called on the same pitch, ‘Break ladies.' Chairs screeched across the floor. ‘Twenty minute break.'

Moira followed her three friends into the lounge. ‘Old witch.' She tugged a curl, wishing her hair would grow faster. ‘I'm sure she's going to flunk me.' She looked around the small table. Teddy was deep into an apple. Wanda sipped black tea with her eyes closed. Ann concentrated on her coffee. All of them represented Tracey Business School far better than she. How long could she stick it out? Would Miss Fargo pay her to quit so she wouldn't tarnish the school's reputation?

‘They can't flunk you.' Ann was mildly exasperated. ‘As Miss Fargo says, “It's just a question of finding the right spot for each girl.”' She lit a cigarette and chuckled.

Wanda laughed with her.

Teddy added earnestly, ‘True, Moi. I'm the typist; Wanda's the bookkeeper; Ann's the office manager. Don't you remember those aptitude tests?'

‘But I've got no aptitude.' She pulled out a stick of gum and inched away from Ann's smoke.

‘Sure you do, hon,' Teddy answered. ‘What was it Miss Fargo said about you being a receptionist or something?'

‘Receptionist! That's like being kicked out of choir for singing offkey and invited to collate the song sheets. Don't laugh; it happened to me in the seventh grade and it was humiliating. Being a receptionist isn't a real job; it's like being a mascot.'

Wanda raised her eyebrows at Ann. Ann stirred another sugar into her coffee. Wanda marvelled at Moira's capacity for self drama. Still, she enjoyed her quick wit.

‘You're just too negative,' persisted Teddy. ‘They need lively people like you in an office. Sharp, outgoing …' Frankly, Teddy still thought business college was a peculiar way for Moira to break into movies.

The tea lady interrupted with a tray of gooey cakes. ‘Sweets to make you that way.' Her sturdy hands claimed her hips as she shook her head in mock irritation at Teddy's apple and Ann's pack of Camels. Clearly Moira and Wanda were the only prospective customers at this table. All sophistication disintegrated as they selected their jelly donuts.

They were each attractive women, thought Moira, alike and different, with their hair held off their faces in various permanent waves. Wanda always looked the brightest and neatest. Today in her purple sweater and cultured pearls, she could have passed for a university coed. She knew all the styles from her cousin Keiko who attended Berkeley. Moira envied her friend's small, compact figure in comparison to her own loose, blowsy look. Perhaps the voluptuousness had a certain cinematic potential, but she admired Wanda's containment and felt that in comparison she was coming apart at the seams. Ann, on the other hand, usually dressed as if she had a secret, in dark greens and browns and the occasional tweed. At first Moira thought Ann ignored clothes but she was expressing herself, too, in a way Moira hadn't quite deciphered. Teddy, almost unconscious of fashion, wore the same navy sweater every day over a series of faded blouses handed down from her mother. She was used to being inconspicuous in a group. The shared house had been her brainchild.

Ann slowly exhaled smoke. Watching the ring reach her forehead, she said, ‘So it's settled, the housewarming party? Friday the 11th? We get to invite five people each.'

Teddy wondered if Moira had ever noticed how Ann's deep, throaty voice was like Greta Garbo's.

‘No, six people don't you think?' asked Wanda. ‘Three guys and three girls. We don't want spare people mooning against the wall.'

‘God knows, they might leave stains.' Ann massaged the back of her neck.

‘But,' Moira burst in, ‘if we invite an even number, then
we'll
be spare.' She studied her fingernails, then licked powdered sugar from her donut.

‘Good point.' Wanda tapped Moira's hand with her teaspoon.

Ann wondered whether Herb Cohen would come. She thought how Herb and her other friends from Synagogue who had formed the Forum discussion group were important to her. Herb brought dreadful tales each week about what they were doing to Jews in Germany. Papa, of course, would not believe it. He insisted that the problems in Germany were economic, not racial. He had got out. Anyone could come to America. Ann hadn't wanted to press him because she was getting one of her headaches; because she didn't want to give too many details about Herb Cohen and because the discussion had started to bother Mama. She took a puff and returned to the women's conversation. ‘Moira's got her partner for the party all picked out, don'tcha?'