China Dolls (27 page)

Helen and Ruby were tied together by tragedy, yet remained wary of each other. Often I’d find the two of them sitting together in a corner of the club before we opened, conversing in low voices about who knows what. Now that Helen’s secret was out, her deep-seated distrust and hatred of the Japanese could spark on occasion. Ruby responded to Helen’s rare outbursts the same way she did when one of our boys talked about going overseas to kill Japs—by accepting another
drink, jitterbugging until she exhausted her partner, and sleeping around. Unlike the rest of us, she was not only dancing on the edge of a volcano, she was looking down into its fiery center. I don’t know if she was afraid, thinking about jumping into it, or daring it to erupt. Maybe all three.

One evening in early ’42, I sat at a table with some Navy officers stationed on Treasure Island, listening to them talk about how the place had changed since I’d last been there. The band was playing “The Japs Won’t Have a Ghost of a Chance” when Joe entered the main room and spotted me. The sureness of his gait and the way he held his shoulders told me he’d enlisted. I thanked the sailors and walked toward Joe, meeting him in the middle of the dance floor.

“The United States Army Air Forces,” he said in greeting.

Of course! What had previously been called the Army Air Corps was now the most active service of the military in recruitment, because Japan had large reserves of pilots, and we did not. The air forces wanted and needed educated men, and Joe was a college graduate, with two years of law school under his belt. The air forces was considered
the
elite service, and it was meant for him.

“When do you report?” I asked.

“Not for another couple of weeks,” he answered.

Charlie gave Joe dinner and drinks on the house. All the girls came out to congratulate him. Ida sat on his lap like she belonged there. Joe nonchalantly accepted the attention like the glittering flyboy he’d become just by signing his name to a piece of paper. Ruby regarded him with an expression I recognized. Glitter attracts glitter, and no one was more entranced than Ruby. The heat that was always between them—even during these past months, when it had been reduced to mere embers—once again ignited. In minutes, Ida was out on her ear, and Ruby had Joe completely in her thrall. Even after all this time, it was excruciating for me to see because once again the game had changed. There was something about the way he reacted to her that was elemental, primitive, sexual.

That very night, Joe proposed to Ruby, and I couldn’t help but
wish he’d chosen me instead. None of it made sense, but we were all scared of the future and hanging on to “normal” life in whatever way we could. I think—I
believe
—Joe mistook Ruby’s seductiveness, and how it made him feel, for love. And, of course, he was caught up in the moment as so many boys were. For Ruby’s part, Joe was a possible bridge to safety. That she would even consider marriage was the first dent in her armor—the rash fearlessness with which she faced the hatred around her. We were now at war, and my heart seemed insignificant compared to what Joe and Ruby were each facing. That didn’t mean they could get married in California, though.

“Let’s drive to Mexico to tie the knot,” Ruby suggested.

Joe vetoed the idea, saying it would be foolhardy to leave the country now. Instead, he wrote to the State Bar of Nevada, asking if he could marry an Oriental girl there, and received a letter denying the request on the basis that it was a crime for a Caucasian to “intermarry with any person of the Ethiopian or black race, Malay or brown race, or Mongolian or yellow race.” He next wrote to the second nearest state, Utah, and was informed that “marriage between whites and Mongolians, members of the Malay race, mulattos, or quadroons” was prohibited there as well. Each rejection infuriated Joe and further demoralized Ruby.

“You’ve got to tell him the truth,” Helen insisted one night as the three of us sat together in the apartment on Powell, with our blackout curtains trapping all light within the four walls of our living room, Tommy asleep in a basket on the floor, and the radio playing in the background.

“That I’m
Japanese
?” Ruby whispered the last word. “Not possible.”

“What will happen when he finds out you’ve lied to him?”

“If anyone told him, he’d be snowed under,” she admitted. “But who’s going to tell him?”

“Oh, honey, you don’t want to live a lie,” Helen said, but she didn’t sound all that sincere to me. “It’s not worth it. If he loves you, your ancestry won’t matter.”

If true, this was a stunning leap for Helen, who was always so against mixing. Or maybe she was just trying to comfort our friend. But Ruby’s case was different even from those of other
Nisei
. Her family had been suspected of signaling to Japanese bombers, her older brother was killed on a fishing boat in the minutes after the attack, her parents were accused of being fifth columnists. She was in a terrible and dangerous spot. That she hadn’t been picked up or reported already seemed miraculous.

“Joe is so American.” Ruby spoke haltingly, as though she were afraid to reveal her true motives. “He’s the
most
American person I’ve ever met. If I marry him, won’t that prove I’m American too?”

But wouldn’t Ruby still have the same black mark against her as her parents? Wouldn’t she seem especially suspect because she’d masqueraded as Chinese, dancing in a nightclub frequented by servicemen? If she were caught, wouldn’t that reflect badly on Joe as well? Maybe even ruin his chances for flight school?

On February 19, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which authorized the secretary of war to designate certain areas as military zones and said that he could exclude any or all persons suspected of being enemies from those places. The next day, 250 enemy aliens, mostly Japanese, were rounded up in San Francisco and sent to Bismarck, North Dakota.

“Where the hell is Bismarck?” Ruby asked, sassy as could be.

On March 2, General DeWitt issued instructions that all people of Japanese ancestry living in San Francisco would be wise to voluntarily evacuate inland. Instantly, posters appeared on telephone poles—even in Chinatown—addressed “To All Japanese.” The instructions didn’t distinguish between alien and nonalien. (It hit me then:
alien
and
nonalien
. Whether citizens or not, all Japanese were now considered
alien
.)

“Why should Princess Tai move?” Ruby asked.

The next day, we went with Joe to the Port of Embarkation in Oakland. He was going to the newly opened Santa Ana Army Air Base for basic training, which would last for nine weeks. He chucked
my chin and said, “Keep your nose clean, kid.” I blubbered like nobody’s business. Then he turned to Ruby. “I’ll get our marriage problem ironed out,” he promised. They kissed right in the open.

J
OE SENT POSTCARDS
to Ruby and me every few days:

This is an overnight city of thousands of men in the middle of bean and tomato fields. Hey, isn’t Hollywood supposed to be around here?

I want to fly, but we don’t have planes, hangars, or runways. All we do is march, salute, and learn to obey orders
.

We’re taking tests nearly every day to see how book-smart we are, analyze our eye-hand coordination, and evaluate how we react under pressure, so the brass can decide where to assign us. Some guys will be lucky to become bombardiers, navigators, or mechanics. I only want the pilot’s seat. Keeping my fingers crossed for aviation training
.

We taped these to the mirror in the dressing room.

We had our own concerns, minor though they were. The government ordered a 15 percent reduction in the allotment of yardage to be used for women’s and girls’ apparel. Dolman and leg-of-mutton sleeves became no-nos, as did tucks, pleats, plackets, hoods, and belts wider than two inches. We went along with the rules because we wanted to help our boys, but we suffered less than other women across the country, because theatrical costumes—along with bridal wear and religious and judiciary robes—were exempt from the new restrictions. In other words, we looked crummy by day and fabulous by night.

Helen took her patriotism seriously. The next time she ordered a costume, she asked the seamstress to leave out the midsection to save a little fabric. Although she’d regained her shape, she’d still had a
baby. To hide the imperfections, Eddie had her oil her midriff so it would shine. Now her midriff caught the light, but it could be slick. Eddie’s vanity wouldn’t allow him to admit he was wrong. Backstage we could hear the audience utter a collective
“whoops”
whenever she slipped a little through Eddie’s hands on a lift.

Joe had been gone three weeks when, on March 27, General DeWitt made internment and relocation mandatory for all people of Japanese ancestry, beginning in April.

“I’m not worried about that,” Ruby declared.

Four days later,
The San Francisco News
reported that Joe DiMaggio’s parents might be evacuated from the city as enemy aliens of Italian descent. If Joe DiMaggio’s parents could be rounded up, then what would happen to my friend?

“I’m Princess Tai,” she said, unabashed. “No one knows I’m Japanese.”

But I did. Helen did. Charlie did. And some of the ponies did too.

On April 1, Doolittle’s raiders sailed west under the Golden Gate Bridge, “bound for Tokyo.” Evacuation of the Japanese in San Francisco began five days later. Ruby’s Aunt Haru and Uncle Junji closed their store in Alameda and boarded a bus to the horse stables at the Tanforan racetrack in San Bruno to be housed with several thousand other Japanese. Their bank account had been frozen, and they’d been forced to sell their business, car, and most of their possessions for next to nothing, but they were allowed to take bedding and linens for each family member, toiletries, clothes, cutlery, dishes, and personal items as long as they could carry everything. Ruby made no attempt to contact them. On April 21, Japanese were ordered out of more Bay Area neighborhoods, with the result that several dancers from the Sky Room disappeared and had to be replaced.

In May, Joe finished basic training and had a few days off before he started flight school. He came up to visit Ruby. He didn’t mention marriage, because he was completely focused on flying and the next stage of his training. “I’m going to Minter Field,” he announced to a group of us. “It’s in Shafter, near Bakersfield. Even though I already
have my pilot’s license, they have guys like me start right back at square one with an open-cockpit Stearman. If I don’t wash out—and I won’t—then I’ll move on to a four-hundred-fifty-horsepower canopied BT-13.”

Ruby didn’t seem to mind that her wedding had been put on the back burner. “Maybe I don’t need to get married after all,” she said.

S
ERVICEMEN MIGHT TAUNT—AND
sometimes rough up—the Juggling Jins, our waiters, bartenders, and busboys, mistakenly accusing them of being “yellow-bellied Japs,” but they had a different attitude toward the girls in the club. Ruby, the other gals, and I spent God’s own time trying to appeal to our boys, doing what we could to manifest glamour in our suddenly unpredictable world. We developed a new hairstyle: teasing, piling, pinning, and spraying our hair until it looked like a cross between the Empire State Building and how the Mexican girls down in Los Angeles built their tresses into mile-high pompadours for Saturday night dances. We bought extra-long false eyelashes. We painted our lips to look bee-kissed. We attended to all our boys—whether soldiers, sailors, or airmen. A bunch of the show kids—like Helen and Eddie, Irene and Jack—were married, but there was a lot of fooling around. I mean a lot.

And then there was Ida. She had loads of admirers, but she always saved time for Ray Boiler, the creepy short-order cook from Visalia who used to follow Ruby around. Even though Ruby had warned Ida about him, she saw him anyway. I guess she thought she was one-upping Ruby. Since Ida was more receptive to Ray’s attentions, he gave her bracelets and earrings. He bought her scarves and hats. He brought her sugar and other rationed foodstuffs stolen from the coffee shop where he worked. When she sat with him between shows, he slipped her fifty-dollar tips. Whenever she dared to treat Ray like dirt, or brazenly dance with one soldier boy after another in front of him, he’d go nearly crazy with desire and jealousy, which caused him to fixate on her all the more. She was playing a dangerous game, and she liked it.

Finally it came time for me to get my feet wet. Almost a year to the day after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, this boy in uniform came to the club. He was a woesome thing, trying to act courageous, on his way to the Pacific. I felt sorry for the kid. We drank beer. We danced to “On a Little Street in Singapore.”

“Where you from, soldier?”

“You wouldn’t know it,” he said.

He swung me under his arm. His jitterbug was awkward, and I had to be nimble to keep him from crushing my feet.

“Try me.”

“I’m from Darbydale, Ohio.”

“Darbydale!” I exclaimed. “That’s close to where I grew up. I’m from Plain City.”

His parents were farmers. He and his family had gone to the Plain City Fair for as long as he could remember, although he didn’t recall seeing me win a dance contest.

“I never went to that part of the fair,” he admitted bashfully. “I was 4-H all the way.”

We drank a few more beers and danced a few more times. He clapped and smiled during my numbers. He reminded me of home when the world was conspiring to make me yearn—longingly and unrealistically—for the consolation and security of the town where I’d grown up. I got caught up in the moment so many ponies had before me with the soldier boys who came to the club before shipping out and might never come back. I took him to my apartment after the last show. Jeremy Scott was his name, and I was twenty-one years old. I wish I could say it was a big deal, but it was the first time for both of us, and it wasn’t anything to rave about. Grope. Poke. Bump. Grunt. Sigh. It hurt like the dickens, and it was over so fast I was flummoxed.
That’s it? I’ve been pining and worrying and saving myself for this?
He slouched out of my apartment at five in the morning. He promised to write, but he never did. For all I know, he got killed in his first firefight. Very sad if true. But from the moment he left I was scared down to my toes. What if I was pregnant? I looked for symptoms
everywhere. Did the smell of food turn my stomach? Was I sleepy? Did my breasts hurt? The girls at the club peppered me with advice.