The War Between the Classes (Laurel-Leaf Contemporary Fiction) Read online

“It's not enough to be sorry! A girl should obey her parents.”

  I bowed my head, wanting to scream, I'm seventeen! What parents stay up until two o'clock on a Saturday night waiting for their grown daughter to come home? Didn't Papa know this was the twentieth century, that this was America, not Japan?

  “This would never have happened if you had been out with a Japanese boy,” Papa went on. “A Japanese boy would have had proper respect. He would have had you home on time!”

  “Adam respects me, Papa. Please don't say that.” It was so hard to speak politely and not cry.

  “You've only known him three months,” Mama said, her face as set and ungiving as Papa's. “Three months is no time at all. What does anyone know of another in so short a time? A girl does not show respect for herself to stay out till all hours with a boy she hardly knows.”

  I clutched the purse harder and looked away. No one could argue or disagree with Mama or Papa. It was just not done. If I dared ask a reason for some order, Papa would merely say, “Because I said so.”

  “He is not like us. They are all the same, these hakujin. I work with them every day.” Papa's voice rose in imitation of one of the rich housewives who came into his shop regularly to have their club news printed. “ ‘How is your family, Mr. Sumoto? Your wife? Your college son? Your daughter?’ After all this time, do they remember Hideo's name, or yours? No! And when I answer, their minds are elsewhere, wishing I would hurry.”

  “Adam isn't like that!”

  “He is. He's one of them. And don't forget it. He's not one of our people, which should be reason enough. And he is from money.”

  I wanted to scream, Why must you put doubt in my head? Who cares if he's not Japanese? Who cares if his father makes more money than you do? Instead, I said, “Papa, I'm sorry. Please forgive me. It was my fault. We were home by one and I should have come right in!”

  “It doesn't matter whose fault.” Papa pushed a hand against the small of his back and stood up. “You will not see this boy so often; it is not good.”

  “But tomorrow … today … we're going to the beach.”

  “No,” Papa said. “You are not. You will not see him for a week. You will come home right after school each day and do your homework and any other work Mama needs of you. Today, you will come with us to visit Hideo.”

  “Papa!” I cried in disbelief. “Papa, that's not fair!” My throat tightened and tears sprang to my eyes. They were treating me like a twelve-year-old.

  Papa held up a hand. “You will do as I say, Emiko. It's late. Now go to bed.”

  I looked to my mother, hoping for support, but Mama kept her back turned as she rinsed the dishes and put them in the drainer.

  A strange strangled cry came out of my throat and I turned swiftly to hide my feelings.

  “Good night, Emiko,” Papa said.

  “Good night, Mama, Papa,” I whispered, hurrying from the kitchen. I stumbled through the dark hall and up the stairs to my room. Trembling, I threw myself on the bed and burst into tears.

  I'd never phoned Adam at his home. My parents wouldn't approve. I waited until Mama went out to the garden to pick the last of the summer squash and Papa was in the garage, working on his truck. And then I went to the phone with an ache in my stomach. If I couldn't see Adam for a whole week, every day would be bleak and meaningless. What was I without him? And would I lose him?

  I dialed hesitantly, then hung up. But if I didn't call, Papa would be there when Adam arrived and he would tell Adam. That would be even worse. I reached for the phone again and took my hand away again. What if his mother answered?

  At last I dialed the number and, heart thumping, waited for someone to answer.

  “Hello?”

  “Hello. May I speak with Adam, please?” My voice sounded so low and timid, I had to repeat myself.

  “Just a moment.” In the background Adam's mother called, “Phone, Adam!”

  “Who is it?”

  “Some girl. I wish they'd stop calling here so often!”

  Some girl I felt suffocated with shame and doubt. Did girls call Adam often? Was I just one more girl to him? Until I heard his footsteps I stared blindly out the window to the garden. Mama looked so much at peace, bending among the rows of late-summer vegetables. If only I could feel like that.

  “Hello?”

  “Adam, it's me, Amy.” I added my name in case he was expecting someone else.

  “Hello, beautiful! Say, what's wrong?”

  I spilled out the whole unjust story from beginning to end. Biting my lip to keep back the pain, I finished with the final injustice. “Papa grounded me for a week!”

  “Amy, no! Didn't you tell him he's living in the Dark Ages? They check on you like the KGB! My parents are no angels, but they wouldn't ground me for a thing like that! They know Fm responsible. So are you! Why don't your parents see that?”

  “You don't understand. It's a question of respecting your elders. It's—”

  “They're always talking about respect. Where's their respect for you? I think your father just uses that word to keep you under his thumb!”

  Maybe Adam was right. Maybe I should stand up to Papa more. Maybe I should be like other girls who shout at their parents to get their way. But that's not how I'd been brought up. Mama and Papa never raised their voices in anger at home, so how could I? Besides, Mama and Papa really meant well; they were good people.

  “Parents!” Adam exclaimed with disgust. “Sometimes I wonder how either of us could have escaped all their prejudices. I think it's more than just coming home late that's bothering your father. It's me. It's my not being Japanese! And my parents are just as bad. Their friends are as alike as slices of white bread. They distrust anyone who isn't just like them. You remember how they wanted me to go to Westridge instead of Center High?”

  “Oh, Adam …”

  Adam's anger seemed to melt at my sympathy. “That's why I care so much about you, Amy. You're not exactly like everyone I've ever known. You're you, and for the first time in my life I've chosen someone / like, not someone my parents picked out for me!”

  My heart sang at his words and I curled into the phone, smiling.

  “Listen,” he said. “Don't worry about missing the beach party. We'll go another time if the weather stays good.”

  A vision of bikini-clad girls with blond hair and blue eyes flashed through my head. “Will you go anyway?”

  “Justin and Melissa expect me to pick them up.”

  “Oh.”

  “Don't worry, Amy. We'll see each other at school; after all, there's Otero's class. He's starting that Color Game thing we signed on for, remember? And we'll eat lunch together and” —he lowered his voice—” I'll walk you to classes even if I'm late for my own, because I can't stand the thought of not being close to you for a whole week.” His voice grew husky.

  Reassured, I closed my eyes, sharing a good silence, like an embrace. Then I glanced out the window. Papa had come out of the garage and was talking to Mama, wiping his hands on a big cloth that hung from his belt. Mama nodded, then lifted the heavy basket full of vegetables, and the two of them started back to the house.

  “My parents are coming in. I've got to go, Adam. We're having dinner with Hideo and Sue. It's going to be strained and awful, but I have to go. I wish I could be with you instead.”

  “Don't worry, honey. Nobody's going to stop us from seeing each other. Right?”

  “Right,” I echoed, though I wasn't so sure. Until recently I hadn't thought how Adam's parents might feel about his dating me. But the last time I'd been to his house to tutor his sister Bettina, I'd got an inkling. Mrs. Tarcher knew Adam was seeing me. She smiled politely enough and said all the right things, sort of. But I felt as if I was being tolerated, that it was only because I'd won the math contest and could help Bettina that she even talked to me. I couldn't shake the sense that she considered me “hired help.”

  “Bye, then, Amy, sweets. See you Monday.”

 
; “Bye. Have fun at the beach.”

  “Without you, no way.”

  The butterflies began swarming again. I hung up the phone, full of joy, and hurried into the kitchen before my parents came into the house. Mama would expect me to help wash the vegetables to bring to Hideo and Sue.

  Hideo and Sue had rented a one-bedroom apartment in a small court and furnished it with things they'd bought at swap meets and through ads in the newspaper. Although the building was old and the paint so thick at the sills that windows didn't close properly, I liked it. An avocado tree shaded their front door and they could sit outside on hot evenings on a small green lawn.

  Papa had not seen Hideo for nearly a year because Hideo had married without his consent. He had forbidden Mama and me to see him as well. I'd disobeyed once, but felt so guilty and afraid of being found out that I never went again.

  It was only recently that they'd built a small bridge between them. This would be only the second time we'd visited. The first time had been frightfully awkward with long silences. I'd tried to help by exclaiming over everything. “Look, Papa, Mama, at the wonderful things Sue and Hideo have done!” Sue had bought a Japanese lantern which Hideo had hung over the naked light bulb in the kitchen. Together they had stripped an old, ugly dresser and refinished it so the original, rich-grained wood showed through.

  The first thing I did when I saw Sue was hug her, wishing mother could find it in her heart to do the same. But Mama merely smiled that fixed polite smile she used for strangers and put the vegetables on the kitchen counter. “It smells marvelous, Sue, whatever it is!” I said, watching Mama.

  “Chicken cacciatore.” Sue looked over my shoulder at Mama. “I hope you like it. It's from the international cookbook Amy brought us.”

  “I like chicken,” Mama said. “May I help put these vegetables away?”

  “Oh, Mama Sumoto, would you?” Sue exclaimed over-brightly. “The fridge is kind of crowded, but maybe you can make room.” She lifted the lid from a big iron pot and poked at the chicken with a fork. Steam escaped into the kitchen, rich and sweet.

  “Should I set the table, Sue?”

  The visit was going well, I thought, carrying the card table into the living room and bringing in chairs. Hideo was showing Papa all the new things they'd bought or found, the travel posters on the wall, books and records, the large fern that Sue had nursed back to health by following Papa's instructions. I felt hopeful that this time Papa might actually look directly at Sue when she spoke and that Mama wouldn't just sit, hands folded, smiling.

  “Isn't it wonderful what Hideo did with those bookshelves, Papa Sumoto?” Sue asked when we all sat down to dinner. Her pale face lit up into a brilliant smile as she placed a hand on Hideo's strong, tanned arm.

  “I think this is the time for me to go bring in the chicken!” Hideo said, laughing. He touched Sue's curly blond hair lovingly. “This woman is going to make my head swell if I don't watch out.”

  “Never mind! I'd never have thought of using old bricks like that, would you, Mr. Sumoto … Papa?”

  Papa didn't answer. His eyes followed Hideo as he left the room. He'd be thinking that Sue should be in the kitchen, not Hideo—that serving dinner was woman's work. I couldn't recall ever seeing Papa lift a finger to help in the kitchen.

  “How's kindergarten?” I asked Sue, hoping she wouldn't notice Papa's rudeness. “Is it harder than teaching second grade?”

  Eyes sparkling, she said. “Those little ones are just darling. They're so tiny, you just want to wrap them in your arms. But it's really hard. I have to be on my toes every second. They don't sit still very long yet.” She lifted the salad bowl and offered it to me.

  “She's just being modest,” Hideo called from the kitchen. “Keeps those kids in line like a Marine sergeant!” In a moment he was back wearing oven mitts and carrying the steaming chicken casserole. He lowered the pot to a wobbly snack tray and began ladling out the contents.

  A silence fell at the table.

  “Papa?” I said at last. “We're going to do something very interesting in social studies Monday. It's a game. The kids get to wear color armbands which represent different social classes. They have to wear the bands twenty-four hours a day for the next four weeks! It's supposed to teach us what it's like to be rich or poor or in-between, and to be black or Latino … or some other color.”

  Papa chewed carefully, then said. “You're Japanese; you already know what color you are.”

  “I think it sounds interesting, Amy,” Sue said, exchanging glances with Hideo. “Lots of people have prejudices against others just because they're poor, or black or brown, or even …” She stopped and I wondered if she was about to say “white.” “If people had the chance to ‘walk in the moccasins’ of someone else, maybe they'd understand and be more sympathetic.”

  “Papa, what do you think?” Hideo asked.

  “I think it's a silly way to teach. Students should be reading books and doing homework, not playing games.”

  “Oh, Papa!” Hideo exclaimed, shaking his head in disbelief. “You never change!” His smile was loving. “But what do you think of the idea? Don't you think if we were all color-blind we'd get along better together? Come on, Papa, don't you?”

  Papa sat straighten “The day people don't judge others by their color is a day I never expect to see. That's just the way it is.”

  “Not everyone is that way, Papa,” I said. Adam, for one, I thought, and it made me smile.

  “We don't judge others by their skin,” Hideo said. “And we expect our children to be the same way.” He turned to Sue. “Tell them, honey.”

  Sue reminded me of a trusting fawn as she gazed first at Papa, then at Mama, then Hideo, and finally me. “We're going to have a baby. Fm pregnant.”

  “Oh, Sue!” I jumped up and hugged her. “How wonderful! Hideo!” I kissed my brother's cheek. “Isn't that tremendous! When?”

  “May, I think.”

  “Mama, Papa! Say something,” Hideo begged. “Aren't you glad for us? You'll have a grandchild!”

  Mama stretched a tentative hand across the table to touch Sue. Papa's face showed uncertainty. Had he hoped that Hideo's marriage wouldn't work? I ached for my brother and Sue. They wanted Papa's approval and blessing so badly. It would do so much to heal the break they had created by marrying. But if Papa kept up this stubborn reserve, he'd lose them. They'd turn to each other for strength and support and the Sumoto family would be split for good. I twisted the napkin in my lap tightly around my fingers, eyes on Papa.

  “If you have a child now,” he said, “your wife will have to stop working. How can you afford that?”

  Hideo moved closer to Sue and put a protective arm around her shoulder. His voice turned cold. “My wife's name is Sue, Papa. I'd like to hear you call her that. And as for whether we can afford it or not, we'll manage. That's not your worry.”

  “My family is always my worry,” Papa said. He cleared his throat and grunted as he always did when he felt uneasy, and looked at Mama. Finally, after what seemed a terribly long silence, he smiled fleetingly at Sue. “That would be nice, a baby, a child. A new Sumoto.” He cleared his throat again and this time looked at Hideo. “That would be very nice. Yes. That is good news….” He paused for a long moment, and I wondered if he would finally say Sue's name, but his eyes slid over her quickly and returned to his food.

  3

  From the moment I joined Adam the next day I felt uneasy and deceitful. It was as if Papa were standing just behind me, watching. Of course that was ridiculous; he was at work thinking of other things, yet I couldn't shake the sense that I was doing wrong. Papa had intended I not see Adam at all, and that meant anyplace, not at school or after. And here we were talking, pretending Papa wouldn't mind.

  “I'm beginning to feel as if I'm Romeo and you're Juliet,” Adam joked as we stood apart from the other students for the few minutes before the bell rang. “My mother's not too crazy about us, either.” “How do you know? Did
she say something?” Adam squeezed my shoulders reassuringly. “Now, don't start worrying. You have to know my mother. She's just funny about some things. Won't come right out and say what she thinks, but comes at it through the back door. ‘Have you seen that Conley girl lately, dear? Such a lovely young woman.’ That's Mom.” Adam made a face. “Eileen Conley's a spoiled brat, about as nice as a spider. When I told Mom that, you can guess she wasn't too pleased.”

  “I suppose we'll survive,” I said. “Papa said one week, so maybe it won't be too awful. Except …”

  “Except what?”

  “What if we choose different colors in Mr. Otero's class?” I looked aside as the first period bell rang. “Will it mean we're not supposed to talk to each other?”

  “Don't even think such a terrible thing!” Adam took my arm and we began pushing through the crowd into the building. “Listen, Amy. Nobody can keep us apart. Not your father, my mother, Otero, or his entire so-called police force. Nobody.” He stepped aside to let me pass. “It's entirely up to us and how we feel about each other, right?”

  “Right,” I echoed, wanting to believe him, but my stomach churned with uncertainty. It had seemed a fun idea, taking Otero's social studies elective together because of his “Color Game.” I'd heard about the game from others who'd taken the class before, heard enough to think it might be more than just interesting. It might be important to Adam and me in some way, might prove if our relationship really had a future. I hadn't considered when I teased Adam into signing up with me that the game might also separate us for the next umpteen weeks. Would our feelings for each other survive?

  Trying to ignore those fears, I climbed the stairs to the second-floor class with Adam three periods later. As we hurried down the hall I saw the cluster of kids waiting outside the social studies room because Otero was late. There were the usual groupings—black kids off to one side, a small circle of Latino kids, and nearest the room the white kids, with Justin in their midst, getting laughs. Several students were hanging around who weren't in the class; the G4 police force, I wondered?