Evalina
“Evalina, you have flipped your wig.” But Gia sounds admiring, not admonishing. “I knew when you finally fell for a boy, you would fall hard, but you seriously took a ferry to Alameda?”
“What else was I supposed to do? He wasn’t at the market this morning, plus these articles in the paper . . .” I swallow. “I thought maybe his family had been taken.”
“You are so dramatic sometimes. They’re not going to be taken. It’s all voluntary.”
“I don’t think so, Gia.” I twist the cord of the pay phone around my finger. “I think they’ll all be made to go.”
“I still can’t believe you took a ferry to Alameda. What are you going to tell your parents?”
“Hopefully they’ll never know. You’ll cover for me if they call or stop by, right?”
“Of course. I’m meeting Lorenzo for lunch, but I’ll just say you were with us.”
Imaginary lunches with Gia’s on-again off-again boyfriend are the only kind I can tolerate. “Thank you, Gia. I’ll let you know when I’m home.”
I hang up and push my bicycle out to the curb. The day has grown warm, but the wind off the bay still bites, so I tighten my coat. Around me, families hurry into line to catch the ferry to San Francisco. The women are dressed in bright spring skirts and sweaters, and many of the men wear their military uniforms. A group of three sailors stand nearby; one winks at me. He reminds me of Gia’s boyfriend, so I angle away.
I fold my arms around myself and watch as a seagull grabs hold of a discarded bread crust before flying away. As I track its flight, I spot the familiar green truck pulling into the parking lot. Taichi’s black hair is shiny and neat, despite the truck’s windows being down. He isn’t smiling at me as he pulls up to the curb, but he doesn’t look angry either.
The words I want to say—“I was scared. I had to see you.”—stick in my throat as Taichi gets out of the truck and walks around to where I stand on the sidewalk.
I want to burst into tears and throw my arms around him, but I can feel the curious and condemning gazes of others.
“I didn’t know what else to do,” I whisper.
“Let’s go somewhere else, okay?”
I nod, and Taichi lifts my bicycle into the back of the truck. As he hoists it, the orange from Mrs. Ling rolls out of the basket and lands in the gutter.
“Of course, you brought fruit,” Taichi says with a laugh as I stoop to pick it up.
My heart hammers in my chest as I wipe grit from the orange’s peel before dropping it into my handbag. I try to laugh too—I don’t truly believe the orange is lucky, right?—but it comes out sounding rusty.
I stand outside the passenger door until I realize Taichi is walking toward the driver’s door, not mine. Our eyes connect over the back of the cab, and Taichi winces.
“Sorry, I’ve never done this before,” he says as he jogs around the front.
I stretch the sleeves of my coat to where they cover my hands. “It’s fine.”
“No, it’s not.” Taichi jerks the handle, and the door squeals as he yanks it open. Now his laugh sounds nervous. “It’s no Chrysler.”
The kind of car Tony’s family drives. Has Taichi seen their car at the restaurant, or was that comment just a coincidence?
“Taichi, it’s fine.” I smile in a way that I hope will soothe him. “My family doesn’t even own a car.”
Taichi waits until I’ve tucked my skirt underneath me before he shuts the door and jogs back around to his own. Beyond him, the sailors watch with matching disdainful expressions. I look away, shame and anger flooding through me in a strange tangle of emotions. Taichi can’t see them, but how would he feel if he knew?
The truck putters away from the dock, and my fingers twist together in my lap. Why is my breathing so shallow? Why are my shoulders scrunched up to my ears? I’ve been alone with Taichi many times before. I don’t need to be so tense.
But it’s never been quite like this.
“So . . .” I say as Taichi says, “How long do you—”
Some of the tension between us dissipates as we laugh.
“Ladies first,” Taichi says.
But I didn’t even know what I was going to say. I just couldn’t stand the silence anymore. “No, what were you going to ask?”
“I wondered how long you have. I’m trying to figure out where we should go.”
“I shouldn’t be gone too long.” I smooth the pleats of my skirt so they cover my knees. “The next ferry leaves in an hour, so I guess until then.”
Taichi nods. “Okay. If we go up this road a bit, there’s a corner of the Medinas’ property where I think we could be alone. Being seen in public together . . . just . . . not the best idea.”
“I agree.” But the admission is still like a heavy blanket over my heart.
I look out the window as we roll by a squat, brick restaurant that has a large black-on-white sign hanging in the window: WE DON’T SERVE JAPS! it says above a caricature of a man with buck teeth, overly slanted eyes, and a sneer.
I sense Taichi shifting, and I look at him, not caring if he sees that I’m on the verge of tears.
He reaches for my hand. “It’s fine, Evalina.”
As his fingers fold around mine, tears blur my vision. “No, it’s not. It’s not at all fine.”
Taichi squeezes my hand but doesn’t say anything to combat my statement. I clench my jaw to stop its trembling, and after a few deep inhales, my tears clear. I watch Taichi as he watches the road. I love the angle of his cheekbones and eyes. I love the contrast of colors when our fingers are entwined. And even more, I love his kind heart. How hard he works, how much he respects his family, how determined he is when he wants something. How can anyone look at him and see an enemy?
“Here we are.” Taichi withdraws his hand from mine to crank the steering wheel and turn us down a dirt road at the edge of an orchard.
Road might be a bit of an exaggeration, actually. I grab hold of the door handle as the truck bumps and pitches over the rutted earth.
“Diego and I used to play in this creek when we were boys.” Taichi speaks loudly over the noise of the engine and tires. “This time of year there’s actually some water in it.”
My teeth rattle together until Taichi pulls along a grassy bank. I wait for him to open my door, and I take his hand as I climb out even though I don’t need assistance.
Taichi reaches under the passenger seat and withdraws a faded, scrappy quilt. He brushes it off. “Not the cleanest, but I think it’ll be more comfortable than sitting right on the grass.”
The only other boy I’ve gone out with is Tony Esposito, who I’ve known all my life. Every date we ever went on was perfectly planned, as if Tony had bought an instruction manual on how to be a good boyfriend and was following it to the letter.
Nothing about this date feels perfect, except for the one piece that really matters.
We settle on the quilt, our legs resting against each other, and watch the dappled sunlight play on the grass. I can think of about a thousand things to say, and yet none of them seem like the right thing to say. The minutes tick by so rapidly it’s as though we’re sitting inside an hourglass, feeling the sand beneath us shift as it drains away.
“Remember when we used to spend all our time arguing about when and if I would tell my parents I didn’t want to be a farmer?” Taichi asks with a wistful air.
“Not all our time.”
He smiles at me. “Nearly all our time.”
I used to think the two of us having a future together was contingent on Taichi being honest with his parents, telling them he wanted to go to college instead of taking over the family farm. Now I would give anything for that to be our biggest struggle.
“Why were you not at the market this morning?”
Taichi stares out at the trickle of water in the creek bed. His jaw is set, and his breathing so steady that I know he’s concentrating on keeping it that way. So steady, I know something bad is coming.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you ahead of time. I didn’t know until I got up this morning that we weren’t going.” With his free hand, Taichi smooths his jeans over his work boots. “Profits have been down. It doesn’t make sense for us to keep going, but the Medina family will continue to send others. They’ll be happy to continue sourcing Alessandro’s too, obviously.”
“Taichi.” I blink at him. “I don’t care about the restaurant. I care about you and your family. Mrs. Carrick said some of the Japanese Americans were treated badly last week. Was that you too?”
Taichi’s jaw once again clenches and his breathing is rhythmic, but at least this time he looks at me.
“Yes or no?” My voice has a frantic pitch to it. Why won’t he just tell me?
“It’s nothing I haven’t dealt with before.”
The look in his eyes—guarded pain—is enough to make tears well behind my own. “You should’ve told me.”
“It’s not pleasant to talk about.”
“For me either, but I want to know what’s going on.”
“I know. I’m trying.” His voice is gruff, and I realize he’s trying to hold in his own anger and frustration. “We’ve officially reallocated our farm back to the Medinas.”
A gasp escapes from me.
“It’s just a formality,” Taichi says. “So they can do what they need to do while we’re . . . gone.”
Gone. The word reverberates in my soul.
“My family is really fortunate,” Taichi says thickly. “Yes, our accounts are frozen, but the Medinas are a great family and have been understanding. And the FBI didn’t take Father like they did my uncle or the others who had boat licenses.”
You don’t have to be brave and grateful with me, I want to tell him. But I know if I open my mouth, I’ll cry. I don’t want to waste our entire visit sobbing.
Right after Pearl Harbor, the FBI swept through Japanese communities and arrested thousands of Issei men, meaning those like Taichi’s parents, who live in America legally, but were born in Japan. This move had been praised in the papers, but I’ve seen how the senseless arrests have hurt families like Taichi’s. His uncle was taken away to a prison camp in North Dakota just for having a fishing license.
“Has there been any word on how your uncle is doing?”
“He doesn’t say much about what it’s like there.” Taichi swallows hard. “I know that makes my aunt nervous. It makes us all nervous.”
I squeeze his hand. “He probably just doesn’t want to worry you.”
His smile is wry. “Well, it doesn’t work. We worry anyway, and we imagine the worst. And Aunt Chiyu is alone and scared in the apartment.” Taichi turns and looks at me in a calm, even sort of way, and my heart rate spikes with fear. “The reason we reallocated the farm to the Medinas this week is we’re going to move in with my aunt so that when we’re evacuated, we’re all together.”
“But—” I clench my jaw, willing away the tears. “You’ll be so close to the bay. The paper says that’s where they’ll evacuate first.”
Taichi nods as he rubs his thumb over the back of my hand. “Yes, but I’ll be living much closer to you.”
I huff an incredulous laugh. “But for how long?”
“There’s no way to know. Maybe a week. Maybe months.” He says this all so evenly and unaffected.
My voice comes out squawky. “How can you stay so calm about this? You should know. It’s just wrong for no one to tell you when you’ll be forced out of your home.”
“I know.” He squeezes my hand, and his slight smile holds affection. “But at least for the remainder of my time, I get to be near you.”
I press my eyes closed and will myself not to cry.
Even before Pearl Harbor, our relationship felt as though all we ever had to get by on was a gas can of fumes. Five-minute conversations in front of our fathers when the Hamasakis delivered produce to Alessandro’s on Mondays and Thursdays. And the same on Saturdays during market season. Some weeks we managed to steal extra time, and we almost always slipped letters to each other. We had stayed strong through this because we thought it was temporary. Because we thought this fall we might be at U.C. Berkeley together, if Taichi could get a scholarship too.
The scent of citrus tickles my nose, and I open my eyes to find Taichi peeling the orange from Mrs. Ling. He hands me the generous half.
My fingers curl around it. “How are we going to bear this?”
“We will be fine. We always knew our road would be a rough one. This is a bump.”
I snort. “This is more than a bump. This is like a . . . like a . . . canyon or something. I don’t know how we get across.”
“We’ll find a way.” Taichi pops a wedge of orange into his mouth. “We can’t see it now, and maybe it doesn’t exist yet, but we’ll find some way through this. Some bridge across this canyon.”
“I don’t want to wait for someone to build us a bridge,” I snap. “I’ll do it myself.”
Now Taichi’s smile is full, as it often is when my temper flares. He leans forward and presses his mouth to mine, melting away the firm, angry line of my lips. His hand threads into my hair, and I try to lean into the moment. Try to not let its inherent joy be stolen by all my fears about what tomorrow or the next day will bring.
“If you intend to build us a bridge, Evalina”—Taichi’s forehead touches mine, and his whisper is warm and citrusy—“then I pity whoever gets in your way.”