They saw each other, surreptitiously, for several months before Ruth worked up her nerve to tell her parents—neither of whom, as it turned out, had been fooled. “We were wondering, butterfly, when you were going to tell us,” Etsuko said with a smile, and Ruth was pleasantly reminded that although her parents may have been traditional in some ways, they were open-minded in other, more important ways.
Frank wore a brand-new suit to dinner and, coming from a large family, clearly felt at ease with the extended Watanabe clan: Stanley was away at school, but there were Horace and Rose and their two sons; Jiro and Nishi; Akira and Tamiko and their children; and Ralph. Jiro was gregarious, as ever, and Ralph joked, “So, the mystery man finally appears. I was beginning to think Sis was dating The Shadow.” Ruth’s parents mostly listened—to Frank’s stories about taking work up and down the coast for the past four years—with expressions that were friendly and cordial. But Ruth had seen the same cordiality on the faces of Freddy Kurahara’s parents, and she couldn’t help fearing what hidden feelings might be lurking behind them.
But at the end of the meal, Taizo spoke up.
“It is not an easy thing to walk away from everything one knows and make a life for oneself far from family,” he said to Frank. “I did the same in coming to America.”
“I hope to make a new life—and family—with Dai,” Frank replied boldly, “should that meet with your approval.”
Ruth was afraid to breathe in the short silence until her father spoke.
“Dai is our only daughter,” Taizo said, “and a daughter by choice. We feel we could not have chosen better.”
He glanced at Etsuko, then back to Frank.
“It is good for us to see that she too could not have chosen better.”
Her father smiled with more pride and happiness than Ruth had ever seen on his face, and her heart soared.
The wedding took place at Florin Buddhist Church, with Frank in his new suit and Ruth wearing a white American-style wedding dress her mother had sewn using bolts of imported Japanese silk—something they could not have dreamed of affording ten years before. The wedding colors were green and white, reminding Ruth of strawberry blossoms in April.
The wedding banquet was held, fittingly, at Nakajima Restaurant.
Within a year, Mr. Nakajima had some new competition in town.
Chapter 7
1941
“Frank’s Diner” may not have met the dictionary definition of a diner—“a prefabricated restaurant in the shape of a railroad car”—but it measured up in every other respect. Prefabs were pricey, at least ten thousand bucks; it had been cheaper for Frank to rent a narrow, one-story building in downtown Florin and remodel it with the help of Ruth and her brothers. Frank painted the sign himself, red letters on white, and below the name, that ubiquitous imprimatur of the modern age, the Coca-Cola logo. Inside it boasted a modern curved marble service counter ringed by stainless steel stools with red vinyl cushions; behind the counter were gleaming panels of patterned chrome, a soda fountain, toaster, Sunbeam Mixmaster, glass displays showcasing five flavors of pie, and a blackboard listing the day’s specials:
BREAKFAST SPECIAL, SERVED ALL DAY: BACON OR HAM & EGGS 30￠
BLUE PLATE LUNCH SPECIAL W/FRENCH FRIED POTATOES & COFFEE: RIB STEAK 55￠
LAMB OR PORK CHOPS 40￠, HAMBURGER STEAK 30￠
DESSERT SPECIALS, FROSTED MALTED 10￠, FRUIT PIES 20￠ (A LA MODE 30￠)
On this busy afternoon, the first Saturday of December, the diner was packed: every seat at the counter was taken, as were the half dozen red vinyl booths along the wall, the patrons a mix of Nisei and Caucasian. The radio announced some rare good news from Europe: Hitler’s offensive against Moscow was failing and German forces were in retreat. Frank was working the cash register as two Nisei waitresses took customers’ orders and called them out to the fry cook in back, his ruddy, sweaty face intermittently visible through a small window behind the counter:
“Adam and Eve on a raft, java with sand, hold the cow!”
“Bowl of red, dog biscuits in the alley!”
“Zeppelins in a fog!”
The cook, Vince, swiftly prepared two poached eggs on toast with coffee, sugar, no milk; a bowl of chili, crackers on the side; and sausages in mashed potatoes.
Ruth sat at a small table in the back of the kitchen, going over the books—she served as the diner’s purchase and inventory manager. She and Frank had found Vince in the desolation of Oakland’s Pipe City, where they had gone looking to hire a couple of busboys. “If we’re going to give someone a job,” Frank reasoned, “I’d like to give it to someone who really needs it. Wouldn’t you?” This was one of the reasons Ruth loved him, and she readily agreed. After they’d found two suitable busboys, the grizzled, unwashed Vince came up and mentioned he’d been a damn good short-order cook before the Crash. They brought him home, cleaned him up, and let him loose in the empty restaurant’s kitchen, where he expertly juggled half a dozen common menu items simultaneously—and they tasted good too. They quickly found him a room in a nearby boardinghouse. The only thing he couldn’t make well was coffee, so it fell to Frank to put on a decent pot of java before he opened up each morning.
Ruth closed the books and went up to Vince as he was sliding the chili bowl into the order window: “Vince, you make this look so easy.”
“Yeah, I’m a regular Fred Astaire. So where the hell’s my Ginger?”
She laughed and went to join Frank at the cash register.
“Profits up another three percent this week,” she told him. “I’m beginning to think this may be a going concern.”
“Yeah? Can I get a raise?”
“Sorry. All the revenues have already been invested in children’s shoes.” She gave him a goodbye kiss. “Speaking of which, I have to pick up Donnie and Peggy at my folks’ place. See you at closing time.”
“Y’know, lots of diners are open twenty-four hours a day.”
“Honey, we’ve been operating in the black for two years; adding a third shift would put us right back in the red.”
He shrugged. “Someday,” he said wistfully.
Ruth drove their 1937 Oldsmobile to her parents’ farm. Etsuko was standing on the edge of a strawberry field, holding one-year-old Peggy in her arms as three-year-old Donnie ran up and down the irrigation ditches—chased by none other than his Uncle Ralph, taking a break from work.
“Hard to say which one’s the bigger kid,” Ruth said. Etsuko laughed.
“Mama, mama!” Peggy cried, arms outstretched upon seeing Ruth.
Ruth took her from Etsuko and cooed, “Hey, sweetie pie, how are you? Did you have fun with Obāsan today?”
“Mom! Mom!” Now that he had seen her, Donnie came blowing like a gale toward her, followed close behind by Ralph, who arrived breathless.
“You’ve got yourself a budding Jesse Owens here, Sis,” he said.
“Don’t I know it.” Ruth turned to Etsuko. “You and Otōsan are still coming for lunch Sunday?”
“Yes, of course. Church services start at nine-thirty. We will be at your house by eleven-thirty.”
“Our services start a little earlier, we’ll be back by ten-thirty.” Ruth heard her mother’s unvoiced sigh of disappointment that her grandchildren were being raised not as Buddhists but in Frank’s Methodist faith. To them it represented another step away from Japanese tradition, but they were mollified that the children had at least been given Japanese middle names—Peggy Mei and Donald Naoki—and even respected Ruth and Frank’s preference that the children be addressed by their American names. “They are Americans, after all,” Taizo had told his wife, “and because they are, life in America will be easier for them than it has been for us.”
Ruth kissed Etsuko on the cheek. “See you tomorrow. And thanks for watching the gremlins.” She smiled at Ralph. “Get back to work, you bum.”
“I think I liked it better,” Ralph said, “when you called me Niisan.”