How to Be an American Housewife - Margaret Dilloway [64]
Helena dumped a Halloween booty’s worth of candy on the counter.
“I don’t think so. If you’re hungry, get some onigiri.” I pointed to the rice balls, cold sticky rice wrapped in black seaweed paper, encased in a cellophane packet.
“Fine.” She started putting the candy back.
“Ah.” The storekeeper patted her on the head. He switched to English. “You like sweet?” He hand her a wrapped peppermint. “Your Japanese very good,” he added to me.
“Arigatō,” Helena said with a big smile, unwrapping her candy. “People in this country are so nice.”
WE WALKED THE HALF-MILE or so to the Shodo Inn, near the Tsuetate hot springs. It was a traditional Japanese inn, in a fortlike compound of log buildings. It was set another half-acre off the main road, up a dirt path.
I chose this inn so Helena and I could get a true Japanese experience. Though we were here to see Taro, this trip was very possibly a once-in-a-lifetime event, at least for me, and I wanted us to get all we could out of it.
Instead of the Western bed and bad art that has been in every hotel or motel I’ve ever encountered, there were shoji screens, tatami-covered floors, and a futon with a hard head roll that looked like a cylindrical pillow.
“This is supposed to be a pillow?” Helena flopped onto the futon and tossed the head roll aside, wadding up her jacket under her head.
“Obāchan had one lying around—don’t you remember? You used to play with it. It’s traditional.”
“I hope this isn’t going to be one long history trip.” She turned over. I stifled my annoyance and desire to lecture, which would only lead to an exhausted fight. Instead I joined her, tucking the head roll under my neck.
Helena moved her head roll under her neck, too. “This hurts.”
“If your grandmother could sleep like this, so can we.”
“We’re soft, spoiled Americans, Mom.” She giggled. “This is like a sleepover.”
“Mm-hmm.” My body ached.
She shifted toward me and whispered. “I want to have a sleepover party for my next birthday.”
“Sure. But check with me again tomorrow. I might be talking in my sleep right now.” I kept my eyes closed.
“And I want to have it be coed.”
I laughed shortly, fully awakening in an instant. “Think again.”
“Why not? It’s totally platonic. Everyone does it.” I could hear she was going to try to wear me down with research. “I don’t see what the big deal is.”
“You know very well what the big deal is, young lady, and if you ask me again, you won’t have any party whatsoever. Is that clear?” I made my voice final. “Now, please, can we sleep?”
She was quiet for a second. “Can we get a pizza and have the closet makeovers like we did last time?”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself. Your birthday’s still a ways off.”
I had always enjoyed Helena’s slumber parties. At the last one, I’d bought a bunch of cheap cosmetics and had the girls pair up and go into a dark closet to give each other makeovers. Though Helena had gotten eye shadow in her eye, it was all great fun.
When I was a child, I wasn’t allowed to go to slumber parties until I was ten. Once I turned twelve, I was forbidden again. Mom said, “You never know. You pretend spend night at someone’s house and be somewhere else.”
“But I would never do that!” I swore up and down, finally appealing to my father for assistance. He told me to respect my mother.
I shouldn’t have been surprised. Mom wasn’t like any of the other mothers. My friends came over with a mix of anxiety and anticipation. “Will we have to bow? Take our shoes off? Kneel on the floor?” my friend Shauna asked.
“Just the shoes,” I said.
Mom was always pleased to see my friends show up. “You popular girl, huh? Only popular girl have so many friends.”
“Please, Mom, I have like three,” I’d say each time. This was true.
“Tell me what new at school while Sue get ready.” Mom would try to waylay them as they came through, inviting them to sit on the couch beside her.
“I can’t understand half of what she says,” Shauna would tell me afterward, right in front of my mother, as though she were deaf instead of accented.
“Tell me about