All Good Women (51 page)

‘Now sit yourself down and have some of this delicious food,' Dawn said, patting the couch next to her. ‘This is a party, not a wake. You're right, it's a crazy night to get people together. Unpredictable. But you're not stupid, just good hearted.'

‘Yeah,' said Sandra, filling a cup for Teddy. ‘They're all probably sad, too, but people have responsibilities.'

‘Responsibilities. Do you think it was juvenile of me to try to get my friends together? They seem to forget this part of their lives. Why do I care so much about the time we lived together? Is something wrong with me?'

‘No honey,' said Dawn. ‘It's only a different way of living. Maybe braver in some ways, setting your own turf.'

‘Like I said earlier,' Sandra shook her head, ‘they're probably all a little shy with each other. It's hard to have a party like this — who knows how disappointed they might be if it wasn't the same as before? It's more to do with them, honey, than anything to do with you.'

Teddy nibbled the sugar beads off a snowman cookie she had made for Leah. Maybe they were right, maybe they were just being kind. Who knew? The cookie was too dry.

Moira had sounded tense. Was that because they hadn't talked for two months, or was something wrong? Was Randy treating her right? She hoped nothing was wrong with Tess, but surely Moira would have said. Maybe it was just the Christmas pressures. Glancing at the tree, she couldn't help seeing the decorations — angels and soldiers — she and Moira had collected over the years. She should have returned Moira's share of the decorations. She just wanted one last Christmas with them all together. Maybe she had wanted too much. She saw Dawn and Sandra consulting their watches. Teddy realized they would be late for the Quiet Cat. ‘Listen, you two go on. I've got plenty to do here. And I'll be with my family tomorrow afternoon. I'll be fine, you don't have to babysit me.'

‘Babysitting isn't the question,' Dawn said. ‘We've been enjoying your company. That's what friends do with each other — enjoy company.'

‘We were wondering, do you want to join us?' asked Sandra. ‘Come on down to the Quiet Cat. It's not gonna be as crowded as usual. A private party — with a dozen girls — you know, Hannah, Mary Ellen, Lucille, some others. In fact Gretta has been dying to see you.'

Teddy shook her head, to hide the sadness, to give herself a moment to consider. Maybe it was crazy to sit alone like this. And they didn't look like they were going to budge until she agreed. ‘I wasn't directly invited.'

Dawn laughed. ‘Just like Teddy, to accept an invitation wholehearted. Look, if it makes you feel better, I'll call.' She walked to the phone before Teddy could protest.

Sandra turned to Teddy. ‘So things worked out OK with your brothers, I mean they'll be coming back soon?'

‘Oh, yeah, you know Virgil's back already. Got himself a job on the docks. And a girlfriend; they're getting married in the spring. Just leaves me and Jack unattached.'

‘I wouldn't count on it,' smiled Sandra. ‘Pretty lady like you ain't gonna be unattached for long.'

‘You are good for my spirit, both you and Dawn. Don't know what I would have done without you these last few months since Moira left. You've saved my life.'

‘Doubt that.' Sandra stared at her lap. ‘You're a strong one, you know that, a tough woman.'

‘The one I worry about most,' Teddy was distracted again, ‘is Anna. I mean, you talk about me taking care of folks, but there she is looking after Papa and Leah and cooking for Daniel. Leaving her man Reuben behind. I just worry she's wandered too far from her heart.'

Sandra turned to the doorbell. Startled, Teddy checked her watch. 10.15. Who could that be? Had Moira changed her mind? Or had Wanda's mother gone to bed? Her heart beat fast as she walked to the door.

She didn't look much different
really,
maybe a little broader in the shoulders and her dark curls were cut into a neat pageboy. But her eyes were the same deep brown color and her smile was radiant.

‘Merry Christmas.' Angela offered her gloved hand.

Teddy stared, smiled and returned the strong grip. ‘Merry Christmas.'

‘Mind if I come in? To share a little cheer with you?'

‘No, why, of course not. Welcome home, I don't know what's the matter with me. Come on in. We have,' she paused — ‘we', always the ‘we' — ‘eggnog and cookies and some of my friends have dropped over. Sandra,' she nodded and shut the door, ‘this is my friend Angela.' Was this really happening?

‘Who else could it be?' said Dawn, walking in from the phone. ‘Why Angela, old girl, nice to meet you after all this time.'

Angela regarded Dawn carefully.

Dawn took Sandra's arm. ‘This is Teddy's old friend who's been in the WAFs.'

‘Didn't think it was Santa Claus.' Sandra shook her head.

Teddy watched them figuring each other out. She wanted to laugh, to stop the scene and explain everyone's position, but she simply stood back, grinning.

‘New room-mates?' Angela helped herself to eggnog, a little studied in her casualness. ‘Mama told me there've been big changes with Wanda, Moira and Ann.'

‘Doesn't sound like you two have been in touch.' Sandra laughed.

‘No.' Teddy waved Angela to the couch. ‘I always meant to write, after you told me about Mabel, but things got hectic and, well, a lot has happened.'

‘Mabel, that was a long time ago.' Angela sighed. ‘Yeah, I suppose I should have written more too. I don't know, well, here we are.'

Teddy didn't know where to begin, with Moira's baby or with Wanda's family or with Anna in Europe. Had she ever written Angela about Dawn? Yes, of course she had.

‘Your family pull through OK?' Angela asked Teddy.

The next hour was a rapid exchange of sad news and memories and mild surprises. Angela described Texas in detail. Dawn had some friends in the WAFs and Angela knew two of them. Everybody seemed to be getting along fine. Teddy rested her head back on the chair, looking from the tree to Sandra, playing with the folds of her brilliant red dress, to Dawn clapping her hands on her knee in exclamation to Angela's widening grin. She closed her eyes and listened to Bing Crosby singing carols on the radio. She didn't care if this weren't really happening; she would simply enjoy the fantasy.

Dawn listened to Sandra and turned to Teddy. ‘Looks like we should be getting down to the Quiet Cat. You and Angela are welcome too. When I phoned Gretta, she was ecstatic, and she can handle the newest development. Will you come?'

‘The Quiet Cat? That place still going? And is Tommy still standing in a parking lot dishing out gossip?' Angela stretched out on the couch. ‘I don't want to interrupt your evening plans.'

‘No.' Teddy couldn't help smiling. ‘This evening has no plan.'

She stood and hugged Dawn and Sandra. ‘Thanks, but I think I'll — we'll — just stay home after all.'

Teddy got her friends' coats, walked them to the door and stood waving as they drove off.

She paused on the stoop,
staring out at Stockton Street and reminded herself to take it easy. She could hear Angela nervously swishing the radio dial. Teddy look a long breath of cold night air and savored the warmth of the living room at her back.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Spring 1946, San Francisco

400,000 AMERICAN MINERS GO ON STRIKE

WAR CRIMES TRIAL OPENS IN TOKYO

SIAM APPLIES FOR UN MEMBERSHIP

AS WANDA WALKED
up
Stockton Street,
she thought how much the neighborhood and the city had changed. Now it was crowded and noisy. A lot of servicemen and their families had decided to stay in San Francisco. More and more, she toyed with Roy's idea of moving across the Bay to Berkeley. But that was predicated on so many ifs. If she got a scholarship. If Mama would live with Uncle Fumio. If Betty wouldn't feel deserted. Moira said that she took too many people into consideration, but Moira had a different sense of family.

Wanda had almost reached the front door before she saw Teddy waving from the front window. She was in an abstract mood today and her mind turned to the metaphor of the window — despite the illusion of intimacy, both people were separated by the pane. Despite the semblance of reality, glass could distort the image. And if you pressed too hard, the window would shatter, cancelling the picture.

Teddy was running down the steps to welcome her.

‘Thought we might have lunch inside and then maybe it'll be warm enough to sit in the garden with a cup of coffee?' Teddy tried to restrain her enthusiasm. After all, it was just lunch. But this
was
the first time Wanda had been back to the house since she and Stanley moved out the family furniture last year.

Wanda shook her head fondly. ‘Sounds good to me.' Sometimes she felt pressured by Moira and Anna to restore their old familiarity, but Teddy had always been so tentative about intruding that she felt safe here.

Teddy observed her friend carefully, noting that she seemed more rested. Well, having Roy home must make a big difference.

‘Oh, Teddy, these salads look delicious.'

‘Mrs Bertoli. She's opened a deli counter at the store. The potato salad is my favorite. That and the coleslaw.' She wanted to tell Wanda about Angela moving into the house, but she didn't know how her friend would take it.

They caught up on news about Anna and Leah and Moira and Tess and the new baby, Clara. They each grew more comfortable as they finished lunch.

Wanda said something that had been on her mind. ‘I hope you understand about the wedding, Teddy, about why we kept it small, kept it to family.'

‘Oh, sure,' Teddy shrugged. ‘Made sense to me. Besides those weddings are expensive. Mom just about went under catering for Jolene's. She over-calculated on the soda pop and she still has a case of Coke in the pantry.'

Wanda laughed.

Uncomfortable with the silence that followed, Teddy blurted, ‘I'm gonna have a new room-mate next month.'

‘Angela?'

‘How did you guess?'

‘Well, I knew space was tight at the Bertolis' now that the youngest girl has brought her husband home. Besides, Angela has been itching to work in this back yard since your Victory Garden days.'

‘Speaking of gardens,' Teddy said, ‘it's warmer now. Let's go out back.'

Discreetly, Wanda checked her watch. She knew Teddy would be disappointed yet she had so little time, lately — being married, working at the cannery, helping Mama and Betty, taking night classes. She felt she had stolen this couple of hours for lunch. She knew it was important to Teddy that she see the garden.

‘Now, you can't go yet,' Teddy smiled. ‘Come have some coffee.'

‘Yes, of course,' said Wanda, hoping that she could finish her shopping and make it home by five to fix dinner.

Teddy had built two wooden chairs and a small table and placed them next to the rose bush. Was this the same city where her family lived cramped in a two-bedroom apartment splintered by traffic noise? Stockton Street. She looked around at the weathered wooden fence and the neat rows of recently planted vegetables and wished that she had never lived here, had never felt such possibility.

When Teddy returned with the coffee, she could tell Wanda she didn't feel like talking. She relaxed, glancing out across the fence. She could hardly believe that
this
house would be Angela's home in just twenty-five days.

‘So tell me about the night classes.' Teddy put down her empty cup.

‘Nothing much to say.' Wanda frowned, unsure about whether she wanted to get into this subject. ‘Both my English professors say I can write. They're flattering.'

‘And Roy got accepted at optometry school, so what's the problem about moving to Berkeley?'

‘Mama, of course, and Betty. Mama wouldn't want to leave the family. And Betty shouldn't be torn away from yet another school.'

‘So that's a problem? Sounds like everyone is getting along just fine. Your Mama and Betty can stay in the City.'

‘But it's selfish. I mean Roy and I would barely be making it with his GI bill and my uncertain scholarship. We couldn't contribute much to Mama and …'

‘Wanda! You've been living your life for other people for years now. If you don't do this, if you don't find a way to express your talent, it will be, I don't know, a waste.'

‘Just what I needed, another moral mandate.'

‘Wanda, I didn't mean it that way.'

She reached for Teddy's hand. ‘No, I understand. And I think you're probably right about school. It's what everyone says — Roy, Mama, Carolyn in her letters. Yet, here I am — twenty-seven already — and I should be getting on with a family. I have a husband, other people who love me. Who do I need to change, to get a degree? Look at you, you've been in the same house for seven years and the same job for six years. You're not champing at the bit?'

‘But I'm happy with my life,' Teddy said softly. ‘And,' she poured Wanda more coffee, ‘I chose this life. I wasn't locked up for three years.'

Wanda was surprised by the shame welling up inside her. She hated it when any of the girls mentioned Lion's Head.

‘Something I need to say,' Teddy pressed on awkwardly.

Wanda glared back, silently warning her to be quiet.

Teddy persisted. ‘I am sorry, real sorry that I never made it out to visit you in Arizona. I was tied up with Moira and then the baby, but still, I could have arranged something. And I'm sorry.'

Wanda's stomach was tighter now, embarrassment wound into rage. But she knew that when she got home she would be glad Teddy had spoken. She had been waiting almost two years to hear Teddy say this.

Wanda sat on the streetcar,
balancing two bags of groceries and calculating the amount of time it would take to prepare dinner. Of course it wouldn't matter that she were fifteen minutes late. It wasn't just tonight's meal that bothered her. It was all the juggling and accommodating and shifting of schedules and priorities and … she felt she were living two lives, maybe three and none of them for herself. Teddy was right. She should go to Berkeley. She could always have children later. And well, the writing wasn't simply for herself. She could do a lot with her articles. Help people communicate with each other. Interview men of influence and print both sides of the story so readers could think clearly and decide for themselves. The streetcar was inching along. She was going to be terribly late.

Wanda considered that Teddy could never understand why it was important for her to contribute to progress, maybe because Teddy didn't see the need for social change. Maybe because she approached it on a more personal level, for everyone knew Teddy was a generous woman. But why was she going back and forth, back and forth? She had everyone's permission to return to school. Perhaps she was afraid of having this freedom and losing it again. The streetcar windows rattled. She held the grocery bags tighter.

In comparison to herself, Wanda reflected, Roy seemed directed. He would become an optometrist in two years. He would set up a practice, save money for a house, help support their parents, raise beautiful children. He was terrifyingly organized as he compensated for the lost time. He refused to look back — refused to talk about the war. Everything was possible — if you concentrated on the future.

Wanda stared out at Market Street now, bustling with Saturday shoppers and traffic. She could hardly believe the increase in automobiles. She thought about that ride to Golden Gate Park on 7 December, 1941. 7 December. Their immunity to history that morning seemed incredible to her now. She remembered the man who squinted at them and moved his seat. She spent months hating that man until he melted into a hundred other scowling Caucasian faces. Both she and Roy had been so nervous that day — and so innocent.

Wanda worried that Roy never talked about the war. After he described Howard's death to Mama, Betty and herself, that was it; he shut the door on those years. He refused to go to reunions with his army buddies. Refused to read about the war. Even refused to talk to Betty and Stanley for their class assignments on the war. Wanda understood his need to forget. However she didn't think forgetting was possible while the wounds still suppurated.

Roy had amputated his memory of the war and his interest in photography. He gave Stanley the camera. And when he moved from the Watanabes' house, he left all his photography books behind. ‘Too busy' he had explained to her. Too desperate, she thought to herself. No shutter speed would be fast enough to protect him against an aperture opened on imagination. Optometry made perfect sense for he was passionate about vision. He would concentrate on clarity, on technical precision, and leave the imaginative business to her.

Wanda shifted the grocery bags
to a more manageable position as she climbed up the hill. Turning the corner toward their apartment house, she saw Betty sweeping the sidewalk. Wanda had told Mama a hundred times that this was the superintendent's job, but Mama was never satisfied with his once-a-month sweep. Upstairs she could see Roy standing on a ladder — please make him be careful — tacking in the wall molding. And there was Mama in the kitchen, washing the windows. She thought of her family like a school of fish, swimming together for safety, yet endangered by their visibility. She wondered how the years of hardship would finally affect them. Would Roy grow cold and distant from his feelings? Would Mama despair again? Would Betty become a gung-ho American to prove her acceptability? Mama was scraping away at a particularly tough spot on the window and Wanda was afraid she might break the glass.

But she never had. In decades of scouring windows, Mama had never broken the glass. Wanda snapped out of it. So why did she have to worry; why did she insist on watching through her past uncertainties? Why couldn't she concentrate on how they had survived? On Mama's endurance; Betty's resilience; Roy's optimism. Wanda leaned against a telephone pole, readjusting the grocery bags. She was filled with a great admiration for these people who were her family and with a new determination.