All Good Women Page 4

  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 su
gar 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?’

  Moira’s freckles receded in a bright blush. She continued licking the donut.

  ‘You mean that mechanic down on Washington who whistles when we walk by?’ Wanda asked disingenuously.

  ‘When Moira walks by.’ Teddy joined the banter reluctantly. She didn’t know why, but this party made her jittery. Wasn’t it enough that the four of them had each other? Why did they have to invite strangers to the house?

  ‘Randy Girard,’ nodded Wanda.

  ‘Och,’ exclaimed Moira, who carried some of her parents’ Scottish brogue when she got flustered. She took a large bite of the donut and noticed too late that the purple jelly had shot out the end, staining the bow of her white blouse. ‘Oh, damn.’

  ‘What does it matter?’ put in Teddy. She wanted to deflect attention from Moira’s embarrassment, but her tense voice revealed more. ‘Let’s say five or six and make it a surprise party.’

  Ann threw up her hands. Wanda wondered if Howard would bring his friend Roy Watanabe. The buzzer sounded. Moira yawned, and, remembering now that the bow was removable, she unbuttoned it from the back of her neck. ‘Sure pal. Whatever you say.’

  Miss Fargo stood at the classroom door, her arms across her chest.

  Ann seated herself, swallowed and stared ahead. She tried to concentrate: Dono. Donas. The thought of university filled her with a still well-being. She would get through the afternoon fine. Breathing deeply, she savored the scent of smoke left in her nostrils.

  As Teddy sat down, she noticed with disappointment that the sweater on the back of her chair was still damp from the morning rain.

  Chapter Four

  Spring 1939, San Francisco

  ITALIANS INVADE ALBANIA

  GERMANS CLAIM DANZIG

  PAN AM BEGINS ‘THE DIXIE CLIPPER’ TO EUROPE

  RANDY GIRARD WAS LATE, Wanda noticed with relief and concern. She found Moira’s friend a little loud, yet she knew if he didn’t appear Moira would feel miserable. The party wasn’t going the way she had expected. No one had arrived until an hour ago. Wanda stood at the door between the kitchen and the dining room watching young women and men mill around the food and inspect pictures on the wall, with the kind of nervous intensity people exhibit on Saturday night when they’re wondering if they came to the wrong party. Wanda was dismayed that most of her sushi remained untouched on the serving dish. Perhaps she should have prepared something less exotic. However, Ann’s potato salad and Moira’s shortbread and Teddy’s spare ribs and the rest of the menu were all waiting too.

  Wanda caught sight of Moira opening the front door to her own brother Howard and his new friend Roy Watanabe. Roy was as handsome as Howard promised, tall and solid, with a wide, open face. Howard had told her so much about Roy that she was sure he would be a disappointment, but she was wrong. Had Howard given Roy as many details about her? Well, Howard’s matchmaking had never worked before. Most of his friends were, like him, content with their jobs at the cannery and they found her a little ambitious.

  Greeting the young men with firm handshakes, Moira tried to hide her disappointment at yet more guests who were not Randy Girard. She twirled around, displaying the full drama of Wanda’s red jacket which she had borrowed to accent her svelte black dress. She had the two men joking and laughing as she eased them over to the drinks table.

 
Wanda joined them, offering glasses. Teddy was right, Moira had a talent for people. Wanda observed Roy more closely. Cute, a little tall, but very sweet. Moira stationed herself at the left of the table to keep watch on the front door.

  Ann showed her friend Rachel their bedrooms on the second floor. ‘This is mine.’ She stood back self-consciously as Rachel looked around. ‘I particularly like the morning sun. Sometimes I just sit up here with a cup of coffee before anyone else is awake. It’s a good time to read or study.’

  ‘Leave it to Ann, the purposeful employment of each moment.’ Rachel smiled, backing out of the room. ‘Some people just daydream in the mornings and in the afternoons for that matter.’

  ‘You have to admit I’ve improved since high school. I used to read while I was walking to class.’

  Rachel nodded tolerantly.

  Ann smiled, thinking how she enjoyed her friendship with Rachel which had deepened over the years as they grew active in the Forum. They shared so many experiences and attitudes and the same ironic sense of humor. They were family in a way she could never be with her housemates. Was it the common values she appreciated the most? No, it was the humor.

  ‘Are you sure you don’t remember Wanda from Lowell?’ Ann asked, opening a door.

  ‘No.’ Rachel shook her head. ‘Is this her room?’