How to Be an American Housewife - Margaret Dilloway [32]
“Yes.” My heart fluttered a tiny bit, thinking of Charlie’s blue eyes and his easy laugh.
“Perhaps the eyes of your children will be blue. With a Japanese slant. How beautiful.” Father slapped the photo down beside me. “He’s the one. Has he asked you?”
“No.” I lay back down. Did Charlie even notice I was gone? Had he gone to the hotel asking for me?
“Then it’s time for you to go back to work. You ask him.” Father pushed a bowl of rice toward me. “You like him, don’t you?”
I felt like I could sleep for another century or so, but I roused myself. For the first time in a week, my stomach growled. “Yes, Father.”
CHARLIE WAS A GOOD CHOICE. At least Father hadn’t picked the pig farmer; I don’t know what I would have done if I had had to breathe in pig shit for the rest of my life.
Charlie was a corpsman, or medic; he worked hard and made great money, or so I thought at the time, compared to anyone else I knew. He was even a good blood type—O. I looked at his dog tags and reported what I saw to my father. “The best!” Father exclaimed with a chuckle. Charlie was also more ambitious than usual for his blood type, which was good. When he got out of the Navy, he said, he was going to go back to school and become a doctor. He was as bright as the doctors he worked for, so why shouldn’t he? He never complained about anything. He was honest. He bought me things like small jewelry boxes and handkerchiefs. Pretty things. But he had never tried to kiss me, like the others had. I worried that he didn’t like me that much. “He is simply old-fashioned, a gentleman,” Father assured me, though he had never met Charlie.
I missed Ronin more than I could bear, but I put him aside. They never caught Tetsuo, and if they had, they wouldn’t have done anything to him. We lived in a warrior culture. People would say that Ronin got what was coming to him. I’m sure that’s what Taro told himself, if he thought about it at all.
I had to do what I needed to do now. Charlie’s time here was halfway over. My options were running out.
If I stayed in Japan, what would I have? I couldn’t go to college. I couldn’t work at the hotel forever. Young women got replaced constantly with the newer, better models. Nor was finding a Japanese man that easy. My mother had exhausted her matchmaking abilities with Tetsuo; all the young men who had any ambition at all had left to seek their fortunes elsewhere. My hometown was a ghost town. I needed to get out or become one of those wrinkled spinsters, waiting at home for suitors who would never come.
Charlie took me on a date. We had ice cream cones and went for a walk along the harbor. Like two Americans in a movie. We stopped on a metal bridge over the water and looked at the Navy boats while leaning against the railing and eating our cones. I felt a little out of breath and sick to my stomach, as I often did since Ronin was killed. This time, I figured it was due to the ice cream—vanilla—because I was unused to cow’s milk.
We looked down at the grayish-green water at the same time. Charlie and I tried to talk sometimes, but often we were comfortable in quiet. I wiped the sweat discreetly from my brow and hoped I didn’t smell too bad. Charlie glanced at me with a shy smile. I smiled back expectantly.
“Humid today,” he said, in his slow English.
I didn’t understand. He made a fanning motion with his hand and pulled his shirt away from his skin.
“Oh, yes.” I laughed. Charlie was really good at pantomime.
I waited again. He popped the rest of the cone back in his mouth. “Time for me to report back to the ship.”
He was never going to ask me. “You leave soon?”
“Pretty soon.”
I took his hand. It was cold despite the heat. Cold hands, warm heart, they say. I squeezed it. “You like date me?”
“Of course.” He squeezed back, then put his arm around me. “I’m going to miss you,” he added, his voice husky.
I rested my head on his shoulder. “You want to marry?”
He put his chin on my head. “Someday. Why?”
I stepped back, put one hand on a hip, and cocked my head to the side, pretending