Helen snuffed out her cigarette on the Kumais’ cement patio floor and turned to go back inside.
“Wait,” Bob called out.
Helen took a few steps into the soft grass again, restaining the pointy heels of her pumps.
Bob handed Helen his business card. “Call me at my office. We’ll see what we can do.”
Helen had told Frank her dream to live in Pacific Palisades months ago.
“Dear,” he said, refolding the Japanese American newspaper that was delivered to their rented house every afternoon. “That’s impossible.”
“They can’t keep us away. Not anymore, right?” Helen readjusted the embroidered doily on the middle of their dining room table.
“It doesn’t matter what the Supreme Court says. Remember what happened to the Uchidas in South Pasadena—they had to be interviewed by all the neighbors. Do you want to go through that? Get their seal of approval? I don’t want to be where I’m not wanted.”
“Who cares what they want? How about what we want?”
“It’s too far. I need to be around Japanese people. They are my customer base, our livelihood. Someplace like Gardena is a better bet for us. And what would Mama do in Pacific Palisades? She needs to be close to Japanese people too.”
Helen said nothing. She went outside and smoked two cigarettes right below her mother-in-law’s bedroom window.
Helen had absolutely not wanted to get married in camp. She hated the idea of being imprisoned with other Japanese Americans on her wedding day. Frank’s bachelor friends had agreed to move out of their barracks so that the newlyweds could have a proper honeymoon night, but Helen refused to go along with it. If Frank insisted that they get married in Manzanar’s mess hall with tissue paper flowers, Helen would force him to spend their first night together on a bumpy mattress next to his widowed mother’s, only separated by some hanging wool blankets.
“We need to get out of here,” she told Frank. “Let’s apply for special clearance.” She brought back bulletins about work in Detroit and Chicago.
But the answer was always the same. “What about Mama? At least in camp she has her friends nearby.”
Helen thought everything would have changed when Japanese Americans were allowed to move back to the West Coast in early 1945. But Mama would live with them and they had to be close to Little Tokyo.
Then came the birth of Diana. When Helen looked down at her perfectly formed daughter, this mini—human being that both she and Frank had created, she knew that she had a renewed purpose in life.
“I won’t let anything happen to you,” she had whispered in her daughter’s ear. “You will have everything life has to offer.”
Despite their earlier conversations, Helen told Frank that she was going to be looking for a new house. Frank was busy with work after all. “You should use Jun. I have his office phone number somewhere.” He rifled through the layers of paper on his desk in the corner of the living room.
“There’s an agent I met through Yoshiko,” Helen said. “I think I’d rather use him.”
Frank shrugged his shoulders. “Just don’t sign anything.”
The next day Helen kissed Diana’s forehead and left for Bob Burkard’s office in Montebello. Bob’s hair seemed freshly combed and the scent of his cologne was so strong that it tickled her nose.
They drove in his new Studebaker towards the beach.
“Who’s watching your daughter?” he asked.
“My mother-in-law.”
He showed Helen two homes and then drove her back to his office. This routine continued for four days straight.
On the fifth day, Bob parked his car in a dirt lot overlooking the ocean. “I brought us lunch,” he said, taking out a blanket and picnic basket from his trunk.
Helen thought it was strange for a bachelor to own a picnic basket. “You’ve never married?” she couldn’t help but to ask him after eating one of his egg salad sandwiches.
“Came close,” he said. “It’s just taken me some time to meet the right woman.”
“So you’re picky.”
“And what’s wrong with that? It’s the rest of your life, right? You want to get that right.”
Tears came to Helen’s eyes. She knew that she was being silly.
“What did I say?” Bob became flustered and fished a handkerchief from the breast pocket of his suit. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it.” Before Helen could stop him, he was wiping her tears with his handkerchief. He then rested his hand on her cheek. “You are a remarkably beautiful woman. Do you know that, Helen?” With that, he kissed her. Helen had never been kissed by a white man before.
On their silent drive home, all Helen could think was, What have I done?
The picnics continued the next day and then the next. Bob’s kisses quickly moved from her mouth to her neck, down to her breasts and beyond. Helen knew that what she was doing was wrong. That she would be punished someday.
“Hausu sagashi? Mama asked when she returned from one of her expeditions with Bob.
“Yes, house hunting,” said Helen, feeling grains of sand in her panties.
“Really,” Mama said in Japanese, not looking convinced of it at all.
Helen wasn’t sure if Mama had spoken to Frank about her long hours away from the house and their daughter. Frank, for all his earnestness, wasn’t the type to deal with a problem directly. Instead he usually found a solution through a side door.
“I found it,” Frank reported one evening upon returning home. “A beautiful house. It’s in Gardena, but southern Gardena. Not that far from the ocean, and when you breathe hard, you can smell salt air, really.”
Frank even had a photo of the property. A single-story wood-framed house, which didn’t look that different from the property they were renting.
“What are those?”
“Oil derricks. But you can pretend they’re towers. The Eiffel Tower.”
In the past, Helen would have been amused by her husband’s fancifulness.
“So, what do you think?”
Gardena was at least thirty miles away from Bob’s office, even further from their spot in Malibu. Helen said nothing.
“You’ll love it, dear. Really. It’ll grow on you.”
“I’m moving to Gardena. Frank’s bought a house,” Helen told Bob over the phone while Mama was bathing Diana.
“Gardena?”
Helen nodded. “I won’t be able to see you anymore.”
“Why?”
“I can’t be driving all the way to Montebello. Diana will be ready to go to school soon. I need to spend more time with her.”
“Well, then, I’ll find us a meeting place down there.”
“In Gardena?” Both Helen and Bob knew very few secrets could be hidden there.
“Listen, I’ve found the perfect house for you in Malibu. It’s just come out on the market.”
“It’s too late, Bob.”
“It’s never too late. I’ll show it to him. He can always sell the Gardena house. He’ll fall in love with it, really.”
“But why? It’s not like I’ll be able to see you in Malibu much.”
“I want you to be happy.”
Bob was being ridiculous, and Helen was angry that he couldn’t accept the inevitable. Their affair couldn’t last. Diana was getting fussy from her long hours away from her mother. Helen had to bury her feelings. She had practice, but obviously gaman, perseverance, was a new concept for Bob.
That Thursday evening, Frank didn’t come home for dinner. He hadn’t called and Helen was becoming worried. She called Frank’s secretary at home and was told that he was meeting a real estate agent on the west side of town.