Finally, finally, the clock was ticking midnight and the cotillion was over. I felt like a reverse Cinderella, itching to get back to my own clothes and — most important — my own desk, where beautiful white sheets of paper and a glorious ballpoint pen were awaiting me.
Mother and Father had left a little earlier, Mother no doubt hoping for a spontaneous — though, of course, appropriate — romantic moment to erupt between Julian and me if only we were left alone for a bit.
But I hardly remembered how I said a final good-bye to him — certain and entirely unconcerned that I would never see him again — or how he hailed me a cab. All I knew was that, finally, I was sitting in the back of a warm taxi and furiously thinking by the lights of the Manhattan skyline.
I was dropped off at the end of my block, where I promptly took off my shoes; even though I only had a few yards left to walk, I wasn’t going to spend one more minute in them. Then I started to actually skip toward my brownstone.
“You look happy,” a soft voice said.
I smiled before I even saw him. “I am, Tomás.”
He stood up from his stoop, where he was rolling around an old baseball. Now I knew the reason for all those stray ones under Mrs. Powell’s shrubbery.
“Have a good time at the dance?” he asked.
“Yes, actually,” I said, pausing for dramatic effect. “Because I figured out what I’m going to write for Mr. Powell.”
He smiled and walked down his steps toward me. “That’s wonderful. Can I read it?”
“When it’s finished,” I agreed.
“Thank you. You look . . . beautiful,” he added after a small hesitation.
I looked up at him, my eyes questioning.
“It’s just . . .” He paused again. “I just like the way you normally look even better.” He looked away, clearly uncertain whether he had said the right thing.
I smiled. “Me too.”
There was probably more to be said on a beautiful moonlit spring night, standing in front of a boy I liked in a ball gown and bare feet. But there was something more important that I simply had to do right then, before the jumbled words in my head had a chance to escape into the abyss.
“I have to go. To write,” I told Tomás.
He nodded and stepped out of my way, and that one gesture was probably the most romantic thing he could’ve done. I let my arm graze his as I walked past.
I was in luck. Though my mother had obviously intended to wait up for me, she had succumbed to sleep on the couch. I tiptoed past and went to my room. Without even taking off the gown or the corset, I sat down and I wrote.
The next afternoon, I sat on our sofa in the parlor, a manila envelope in my lap, my legs crossed at the knees, waiting quietly.
“What on earth are you doing sitting around in the dark, Rosemary?” Mother asked as she walked in and drew up the blinds. She was humming a little, obviously in a good mood.
It was too bad I was about to spoil that.
“Waiting for you.” I stood up and faced her. We were squared off, our wide skirts touching.
“Oh?” She looked surprised but kind of pleased. I again felt a pang — regret mixed with a dollop of fear — at having to yank her out of this haze of security. It wouldn’t be easy to disappoint her, even if I knew that it was my fundamental self that she wished she could change, the part of me that was set in stone. But after eighteen years, it was time for me to tell her the truth. It was past time.
“I want you to read something.” I stuck out the envelope so that it was only inches from her face.
She looked down at it, puzzled. “Mail for Mr. Powell?” she asked, reading the address I had carefully written on the envelope.
“It was intended to be,” I said. “But now it’s for you. Or, at least, I want you to read it first. Before I give it to Mr. Powell.”
She looked up at me, and I could see the crease already starting to form between her brows. “Rosemary, what . . . ?”
“It’s a script.” I interrupted her in a calm, measured voice, just the way I had rehearsed it. “I wrote it. Mr. Powell is auditioning female writers for his show, and I wrote a sample script of I Love Lucy.”
Mother stared at me doubtfully and then broke into a small laugh. “You’re pretending to be a writer now? That’s a pretty silly trick to play on our neighbor.”
“I’m not pretending. I am a writer. Look.” I shook the envelope in front of her again. “I wrote this.”
She laughed again but made no move to take the envelope. “Rosemary, I appreciate that you’re a bit of a daydreamer, but Mr. Powell is a professional and I’m sure he doesn’t have time for —”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said, interrupting her again. “He’ll read it. And maybe he’ll think it’s funny. Maybe he won’t. But the thing is, I know I’m funny. And I know I’m a writer. I know it because I’ve been doing it for years in school and in my head.” Just a hint of emotion got into my voice, but I stifled it. My mother respected poise over all, and she was going to get it this time, when what I had to say mattered most. “I may be a daydreamer. But if I am, it’s in the best way. It’s in the way that lets me imagine better things than what’s placed in front of me. It’s in the way that makes me go after those things, no matter what or who stands in my way.”
We were the same height now, my mother and I, and I looked evenly into her pale-blue eyes. It was like she was frozen in place. Even the breeze from the window didn’t deign to ruffle her skirt.
I knew my cue to exit. I’d always had excellent dramatic timing.
“I would appreciate it if you read this,” I said to her, then, quieter: “I think it’s good. I’m going to drop it off at Mr. Powell’s tomorrow.”
I placed the envelope on her oversized side table, and then I turned on my heels and walked out.
In my mind’s eye, my mother was picking up the envelope and looking at it. Maybe in a few minutes, she would open it and start poring through the pages inside.
But I didn’t look back to check.
Instead, I thought about how it was perhaps a little too chilly to be outside without a coat, but I didn’t care. The brisk air felt good against that spot on the back of my neck that had just started to tingle.
Rosemary and I are alike in a lot of ways.
I, too, love Lucy. It’s hard not to admire a woman who was one of the funniest, most indelible comedians to have ever lived and whose antics can make us laugh more than sixty years later. But besides that, Lucille Ball was a trailblazing businesswoman. She was the first woman to head up a major production company, where she was responsible for shepherding multiple groundbreaking shows, including Mission: Impossible and Star Trek. She fought to have Desi Arnaz as her on-screen husband in I Love Lucy when the network was skeptical of it because he wasn’t white. Best of all, she was a woman who didn’t care how foolish she looked if it served her comedy.
Also like Rosemary, I’ve always watched the credits roll on movies and TV shows, and I’ve always looked out for the female names. Even from an early age, I think I was hoping I could see myself reflected in those credits — though it took a while for me to realize I wanted my own name up there.
And although I had a great, life-altering, and positive experience when I attended film school, my time there was also permeated with lines like “Women just aren’t funny.” In all honesty, it’s not really an opinion that belongs firmly to the past, though I wish it did. For every Tina Fey and Amy Schumer and Mindy Kaling, there are just so many more male comedians and writers being given opportunities.
But the way I’m most like Rosemary is that I, too, get an inexplicable thrill from defying expectations. Don’t you?
I should be Miss Sugar Maiden because sugar is in my blood.
Pops borrowed his boss’s 1944 Chevy pickup to drive me to the audition. It’s a real skuzzbucket, with a grill that looks like someone busted out of jail. I wish we had taken the bus. Every few moments, we jerk back and forth like an ol
d couple constantly on the verge of nodding off.
Pops glances at me. His gray eyes dance like silver fish in a dark pond. “That’s a good hairdo on you,” he grunts. “You look like Elizabeth Taylor.”
I sigh with mock irritation, nervously pulling at the curls Mom ironed in place. “Well, that is a bummer, because I was going for Marilyn Monroe.”
He winces. “You’re going to send your old man to an early grave. Haven’t I been good to you, Lana?”
“I still haven’t received my pony.”
“It’s in the mail. Express.” Pops’s cheeks bunch, though we’ve rolled out that Pony Express routine at least a hundred times.
The car hits a pothole and we bounce. My ukulele squeaks inside its scuffed case, and I transfer it to my lap. It’s my most important treasure, an heirloom from my maternal grandmother, Oba, who passed it on to me in her final moments.
Pops jerks his head to the instrument. “You ready?”
“As spaghetti,” I say firmly, though a minnow jumps in my belly.
What was I thinking, signing up for this audition? I remember the day only one month ago when Mom stuck the flyer my face. “Read.”
Seeking girls (age 14 – 19) to be our 1955 Miss Sugar Maiden! Cash award, $500, plus trip to New York City! Be prepared to state why you should be on the box of Sugar Maiden, America’s favorite sugar brand. Must possess grace, talent, and a good face.
Mom knocked my arm with her swollen knuckles before I could even snort my derision. “You should do it,” she said. “You got one out of three!”
As much as I wondered if she was serious, I also couldn’t help wondering which of the three targets she thought I had hit. Mom often complains that I walk with the gait of someone with a grudge against the earth, so it couldn’t be grace. As far as talents, I can play the ukulele, as long as you like the key of C major. But probably it was my face, the quality I have the least control over. I’m the spitting image of Oba with the exception of our skin. The cane fields of Maui had browned hers like a potato.
“You could go to Berkeley,” Mom said brightly. UC Berkeley had accepted my cousin, but she had declined after adding up the high cost of books, room, and board.
“Sugar doesn’t come in yellow.” I folded the paper into fourths. If I did by some miracle win, the first thing I would do is take Mom on vacation. She needs one, especially her eyes. Turns out bone charcoal — the ground-up skeletons of cows used to bleach sugar — irritates the eyes with repeated exposure. After several years of complaints, Sugar Maiden had finally switched Mom from Processing to Quality Control, which stopped the constant itching, but she still iced her swollen eyes every night.
It would be bittersweet, using Sugar Maiden’s money to give Mom the break she deserved.
Anyway, maybe it was time for a nonwhite on the box. Sugar Maiden’s product comes direct from Hawaii, born of the sweat of thousands of islanders — Japanese, Chinese, Portuguese, Korean, and Filipinos — yet the girls on the boxes have always been as snowy as its contents.
“Look! A moose!” Pops elbows me back to the bumpy reality of the Eastshore Highway, using one of his favorite tricks. There has never been a moose sighting in the history of Oakland, California.
I sigh. “I was just wishing Mom could take today off.” She works six days a week and jokes that she’s seen so many sugar cubes, you could roll her eyes as dice.
“Count your blessings. If she were here, she might wolf whistle.”
I crack a tiny smile. Oba taught Mom that useful skill before she could read. It’s easy to get lost among the sugarcane stalks.
The July day is liquefying the Max Factor Crème Puff in Twilight Blush I swept over my face. Mom spent a whole $1.25 on it after I announced that I would try to win the contest. The packaging promised that the powder would give me a sheer, smooth radiance, but it feels like I’ve rubbed on Crisco. I roll open the window, and the breeze off the San Francisco Bay blows the last of my curls away.
We don’t often make the trek into Oakland from our strip of land in Crockett. When we do, my neck goes stiff from gawking at the windows of Capwell’s Department Store, or scouting out a sky-blue Austin-Healey — the best color. But today worries clutch at me, and the city sweeps by in a blur. This is a very bad idea. Yellow sugar never makes it past inspection; it routinely gets tossed down the sewer even though it tastes the same as white. Public humiliation is not worth five hundred dollars.
The Paramount Theatre perches like an exotic bird on a wire of everyday pigeons. Its vertical sign bisects twin mosaics of a man and a woman that soar at least a hundred feet. My heart quickens when I read the marquee: WELCOME MISS SUGAR MAIDEN CONTESTANTS!
Cars line up in front of the theater, pausing while a man in a red waistcoat helps the occupants out of their vehicles. Girls float from their carriages like springtime lilies, most sporting Christian Dior’s “New Look,” with ballerina hems, cinched waistlines, jeweled collars, and fitted cardigans.
My own garb suddenly strikes me as garish and silly. When Mom offered to make me a dress using the bark cloth Oba had brought with her from Hawaii, I thought it was a boss of an idea. Though the thick cotton with its bold patterns is traditionally used in home decoration — this piece was supposed to be our curtains — the fabric might help me stand out. Why didn’t I realize I needed as much help standing out as a jelly roll on an anthill? I wipe my sweaty palms on the ridiculous fabric.
Pops throws the gears into park, and our princely vehicle gasps, probably uttering its last breath. Pops takes in my death grip on the ukulele and my tight smile. “I hear there’s a place around the corner that sells pineapple sundaes,” he tosses out. “We could . . .”
He’s giving me an exit? Any reservations I felt fly out the window. I should be the next Miss Sugar Maiden because my family deserves this. Because only the truly brave can work a curtain with hibiscuses on it. “Pineapple gives me pimples.”
The valet squints through my half-opened window but makes no move to unlatch the door. I heave it open myself, almost swiping him in the soft parts. He glares at me.
I crane my head back through the window, noticing for the first time how skinny Pops’s legs look on the pedals, like a kid trying to play an organ. His socks are two different colors, but at least his shoes are shiny. A cobbler’s shoes should always be shiny.
I groan. “Fine. We can get a malted milk afterward, but you’re paying.”
Pops winks. “I’ll be there as soon as I can find a parking space.” The truck pitches forward.
I enter the theater cradling my ukulele case the way a diver clutches his last tank of air. Lana Lau, there’s no going back now.
The lobby looks even grander than I imagined, with scarlet carpets and marble columns threaded with silver. A line of topless maidens whose skirts look surprisingly Polynesian spans the walls. If Sugar Maiden doesn’t want me here, maybe they’ll have me.
Dozens of people cluster around the entrance, staring at a glowing pile of gold crystals backlit by a wall of jade light. It looks like something from outer space. I imagine it as a lonely meteorite, hurling through the cosmos with the rest of the unidentified flying objects until landing in this precise spot. Now it has found its life’s purpose casting its weird green light into its viewers’ darkest thoughts.
Is it possible to know one’s life’s purpose at sixteen? When Oba was sixteen, she was already pregnant with Mom. Keeping Mom alive must have been her life’s purpose. One thing’s for sure — Lana Lau has greater aspirations than to be Miss Sugar Maiden. Maybe I’ll be a lawyer, stopping big companies from bulldozing the little people, or maybe I’ll start my own company of little people.
“Are you Lana Luau?” trills a woman clutching a clipboard. A tag with the name “Billie Lovejoy” is pinned over her heart. I marvel at the way her peach suit perfectly matches her pin-curled hair and sets off her ivory skin. Now, this is a woman who knows how to apply her Max Factor Crème Puff.
“Y-yes, I
mean, it’s actually ‘Lau.’” I hand her the confirmation slip I kept in my pocket.
“You’re just as cute as a button. Look at those round cheeks, and those Cupid’s bow lips.” She cups one of my cheeks with her perfumed hand. “Just like a doll’s.”
I produce a queasy smile. Mom would’ve growled at the comparison to such a passive object. Oba’s smile had never wavered even after years in the hot fields, not even after her Portuguese husband left her, pregnant, to fend for herself. My smile — Oba’s smile — is hardly a Cupid’s bow. More like a scythe, curved, and glinting with iron.
“I’m Miss Lovejoy, your two o’clock monitor. They audition ten girls an hour, which means you’ll have six minutes to introduce yourself and show us your talent.” She bats her mascaraed lashes at my uke case. “How darling. What is it?”
“It’s a ukulele.”
She scratches her pen on her clipboard. “Oo-koo-lay-lee. Well, we are just dee-lye-ted to have an ethnic element this year. I love oriental anything.”
I shift around in my flats, the soles of which my sweat has glued to my feet.
“No costume changes needed, right?”
“Right.”
“You’re our last performer, number ten. Please follow the signs to the ladies’ lounge. I will get you when we’re ready.”
“Thank you.”
She beams again, then marches toward a cluster of girls. I pad through the carpet to a gilded staircase, conscious of eyes following me.
“Orientals,” as whites love to call us, are not a rarity here in California, but people prefer to see us in our own neighborhoods, as if we were all buttons that should be boxed by color. That means Chinese — and Filipinos — in Chinatown. Japanese — well, people prefer not to see us at all. If we’d lived here on the Pacific coast instead of in Hawaii during the Second World War, we’d have been caged up — Mom for the crime of being “half-Jap,” and my Chinese pops for the more foolish crime of marrying her.