Tooner Schooner (7 page)

“It’s poured and fizzin’!” Miss Tinkham bounded up

the steps dropping bundles left and right as she reached for her glass of beer.

“Something smells heavenly!”

“I reckon it does!” Mrs. Rasmussen said. “Can’t beat a big anty-pasty for a crowd like this. Velma gettin’ me them two spring lambs wholesale put me in the notion o’ doin’ ’em up kinda Armenian style, with the rice stuffin’ and pickled grape leaves.”

“All this talk,” Miss Tinkham mused, “about United Nations and united peoples! The international politicians overlook the one principal way in which all humanity is united. The great Melting Pot has come to the table.”

“Amen to that!” Jasper appeared in the door. “How’d the artichokes come out, Mrs. R?”

“I was wantin’ to wait for Tooner…” Mrs. Rasmussen looked out the door nervously. “He’d oughta doused the sails an’ secured by this time. I’m nervis…”

“Maybe he stopped by the Pango Pango,” Jasper teased her. Mrs. Feeley kicked him in the shins.

“Go over to Darleen’s an’ phone Velma,” she said.

Jasper came back in a few minutes with Miss Tinkham.

“Not hide nor hair of him in sight,” Jasper said. “Velma said it was blowing up out there along the bay.”

“Coulda been rough, an’ he had to slow down some. Sure hope he ain’t in no trouble.” Mrs. Rasmussen went to the corner sofa and turned on the radio on the shelf behind it, trying to get a weather report. Jasper and Miss Tinkham dipped out the stew into the pottery bowls. Mrs. Feeley opened beer and handed one to Mrs. Rasmussen silently. The door opened and Red came in.

“Why so quiet?”

Mrs. Rasmussen was up on her feet and at the screen door before the others heard anything. She held the door open silently as Captain Dowdy strode in, pulling a small, dampish, brown girl behind him. Mrs. Rasmussen stared at him silently. Mrs. Feeley and Red came away from the icebox to see what was happening. Jasper and Miss Tinkham left the dropleaf wall table to watch the excitement. The captain hurled the young girl into the middle of the room and threw his cap on the floor.

“’Y God, if this ent the last run a shad! What am I gonna do with this baggage? Right on my own boat! A stowaway female gal!”

“You don’t have to scare her to death,” Mrs. Rasmussen said. “I thought somethin’ had happened to you.” The girl stood shivering in her thin cotton print dress. Her brown legs were bare and somehow pitiful rising out of cheap white wedgies. She clung desperately to a cardboard suitcase which had to be very light weight from the way she held it. She flung back her long, dark hair from her face and her eyes were red and swollen.

“’Y God, gettin’ to the point where a man can’t go ashore for a beer ’thout somebuddy movin’ in on him!”

“Her?” Mrs. Feeley pointed.

“The patty had a real good time, plenty fish, everythin’ goin’ fust rate an’ they decided nothin’ would do ’em but to go over to the tavern, that joint on San Clemente, ’fore we statted for home. I didn’t think nothin’ of it an’ we come back in on sail an’ engine. Rougher than a bastard, it was. I went up forrard for somethin’ an’ damn if I don’t hear the sound o’ barffin’ in the chain locker! There she was, crouched down on the anchor chain, heavin’ her guts out! I made her clean it up. Give the boat a bad name, a thing like that could!”

“Did they see her?” Mrs. Rasmussen said.

“Nah. I told her to stay there an’ not budge. I’ll turn her over to the immigration people.”

“Can’t she talk?” Mrs. Feeley said. “She Mexican? Coamer see yammy?”

Miss Tinkham shook her head and went to the frightened girl. She put her hand on her shoulder gently.

“Who are you, dear?”

“I am Sunshine.” The girl’s voice was barely audible. Her English was clear and very slightly accented.

“You are chilled to the bone. Wouldn’t you like something to eat?” The girl shook her head and turned her face away. “At any rate, come and sit down.” Miss Tinkham led her to the couch and tried to take the suitcase from her but the girl clung fiercely to it. “No one is going to hurt you here, and you are not going to be turned over to the immigration officers. Try to control yourself and tell us what happened. Can you?”

“He said he was going back to Pago Pago,” Sunshine said.

Miss Tinkham gestured towards Elisha Dowdy. “The captain?”

Sunshine nodded. “They were sitting under the pass-through window where I washing dishes in the peea-saloon and he said ‘Let’s get out of here and go back to Pago Pago.’ I saw them come off the big schooner. While they pay the money, I ran very fast and jumped through a big open hole and stayed quiet until the sea became very motion and I frow up all my pea-soupo.”

“Why did you want to go to the Pago Pago, of all places?” Miss Tinkham said.

“It is my village. I want to go home,” Sunshine sobbed.

“Ah,” Miss Tinkham said. “The dark woman in your hand from across the seas.”

“She ent no Sam-moan,” the captain growled. “She turned down grub, didn’t she? Sam-moans can eat any hour of the day or night, even if they just finished a whole roast pig.”

“I am
taupó
of my village.” Sunshine pulled herself up straight. “My father is high chief of my village and I am
taupó.”

“In that case,” Miss Tinkham was running through the card index of her mind, digging out Polynesian lore and stalling for time until the pieces fell into place, “what were you doing in San Clemente?”

“I came to Ameleeka with a Navy family from Honolulu to look after their children. When they had to send me back because his orders is Europe, they bought my ticket on the Matson. I tear it up and hide in the back of buildings for many days.”

“And then?”

“I got money for washing dishes in a Greasy Spoon. Two weeks ago the woman who own it bought the bar in San Clemente and took me also to wash dishes.”

“You wish you hadn’t torn up the ticket.” Miss Tinkham smiled. “Does your father know where you are?”

Sunshine shook her head.

“I will have a hard time to make him believe I am still
taupó.”

“She is the virgin for her village,” Miss Tinkham said.

Mrs. Feeley and Jasper let out a guffaw that could be heard in Sacramento. Even Captain Dowdy laughed a little. Sunshine sat as if turned to stone.

“They are not laughing at you, Sunshine,” Miss Tinkham said. “In our part of the world we do not have the institution of the
taupó,
a virgin-princess who has the purity of her village in her safekeeping. We are not that civilized. We have Beauty Queens.”

“Dear God, I’ve heard everything now,” Mrs. Feeley said piously.

Sunshine moved away from Miss Tinkham and put her suitcase on the couch to open it.

“Here are my fine-mats.” She spread out a folded mat of straw so fine that it resembled linen. The fringed edges were beautifully worked with colored grasses and down from the breasts of seabirds. It was folded to make a short skirt. There was a smaller piece that Sunshine held against her breast.
“Faa Samoa…
the old custom, the
taupó
did not wear this, only the skirt.” She showed them the shark’s-tooth necklace like rays of a giant daisy and the bracelets to match. “See the headdress.” She took out a long wig of human hair bleached bright red with lye. On top of the wig was fastened a towering diadem curiously ornamented with bits of mirror and rare shells.

“Sunshine is an aristocratic Samoan,” Miss Tinkham said.

“Ayah,” the captain said, “break out a good big fish an’ watch your aristocratic Sam-moan revert to type. They et my dog, they did!”

“I thought you loved Samoa?” Miss Tinkham said. “Not long ago you were telling us how fond they were of you and described their touching farewell.”

“Ayah.” He scowled. “I’ve took a skunner to ’em right at the moment. Sneakin’ up on a feller like that!”

“How about a beer?” Mrs. Feeley handed him a glass and he took a long pull at it. “Be kind to her, Tooner. She’s a long way from home.”

The captain shuffled his feet.

“You’d no call to chew her out like that,” Mrs. Rasmussen said. “It ain’t like you. She’d be real nice, was she clean.”

“Have a beer, girl,” Mrs. Feeley thrust a glass at Sunshine. “Drink up, now. Then we’ll let you wash an’ see what you look like under them tearstains.”

“They’re used enough to it in the native beer joints up in the bush,” the captain said. “The sailors take their
kingys
up there an’ treat ’em to canned salmon an’ beer.”

“What’s
kingys?”
Mrs. Feeley said.

“It means girls, but the Navy uses it to mean girls the sailors is shacked up with.”

Sunshine seemed to turn several shades lighter as she rose.

“I have tasted beer only in my father’s house. Please,
lau king-áh,
my mother,” she turned to Miss Tinkham, “may I wash now?”

Miss Tinkham put her arm around Sunshine and led her to the unit where the shower bath and bedrooms were located.

“Do you know how to operate the shower?” Miss Tinkham said.

“I understand the significance of this, thank you,” Sunshine said.

Miss Tinkham smiled and went to get dry clothes for her. The white T-shirt that was just a shade too tight for Miss Tinkham would do nicely for the girl, and if the waistband of the gaudy, flowered circle-skirt was too large they could pin it in for tonight. When she heard the water in the shower stop, Miss Tinkham knocked at the door. Sunshine stepped out with a turkish towel wrapped around her like a sarong. Miss Tinkham stared at the girl’s shapely golden shoulders and breast.

“What a pity you ever wear anything but your native garb,” she said.

Sunshine smiled for the first time. Her teeth were very white and even, round on the edges like a child’s teeth.

“The missionaries don’t like it.”

“Shades of dear Mr. Maugham,” Miss Tinkham laughed. “You’ll be very pretty no matter what you put on, I am sure. Here is where you will sleep.” She pushed back the curtain that served as a door to the tiny cubbyhole bedroom next to her own. “You won’t mind the cot for a few days until we can dig you up a better bed?”

“I like to sleep on the floor,” Sunshine said.

“When you are dressed, call me. I’ll be right here,” Miss Tinkham said. Sunshine stood in the door and smiled shyly. “We’ll get your supper now.” Miss Tinkham led the way.

Mrs. Rasmussen and Mrs. Feeley stared in unabashed admiration at the change in Sunshine. She had not waited for her long black hair to dry but parted it in the middle and twisted it into a large round knot at the nape of her neck. The white T-shirt brought out her color and the gay skirt was becoming to her slender body. Her feet and legs were bare.

“Ain’t you got pretty hands,” Mrs. Feeley said, taking one in her own.

“No amount of dishwashing could spoil the shape of those tapering fingers,” Miss Tinkham said. She brought Sunshine a bowl of stew and a piece of French bread.

“Thank you,” Sunshine said, and sat down on the floor, crossing her legs in such a way that each foot rested on the opposite knee. Miss Tinkham gasped in admiration.

“I have seen it in Yogi books, but I’ve never known anyone who could really do it!”

Jasper and Red sat looking at her silently. Captain Dowdy kept on drinking his beer with his back turned to her.

“Excuse me, miss,” Jasper said at last, “I’d like to ask you just one thing: why didn’t you cash in your steamer ticket?”

“I had already disobeyed the Commander and his wife who had been kind to me. To take the money for the ticket? No.”

“How come you talk so good?” Mrs. Feeley said.

“I am graduated from Poyer School. After that I worked in the Samoan Library. We have seven hundred volumes of Western stories.” Sunshine smiled. “But no horses.” She got up and opened the suitcase again. She walked over to Captain Dowdy and the ladies saw that she had the shark’s-tooth necklace in her hand. “I would like, please, to give you this,” she said. “I am sorry for all the inconveniences I have causing you.”

“I don’t want your baubles,” he said a little less gruffly.

“Please take it,” Sunshine said. “It is
mea alofa,
a gift-thing.”

“Leai lava,
not on your tintype,” the captain said. “Keep your pretties and don’t never do no such thing again.”

“I never expected to hear from you to speak Samoan words,” Sunshine said.

“Just a coupla words I picked up around the sailors’ barracks.” The captain was embarrassed. “Well, what say? What we gonna do with her?”

“Could I make a suggestion?” Red smiled.

“You may not!” Miss Tinkham squelched him promptly.

“She’s gonna stay right here with us,” Mrs. Feeley said. “I could do with a young thing round the place to keep me company daytimes…Miss Tinkham an’ Mrs. Rasmussen off on that garbage scow so much o’ the time!”

“Garbage scow is it!” the captain roared.

“That’s scow it is,” Mrs. Feeley yelled, and pulled his cap down over his face and ears.