Chapter Nine #2
In the afternoons Joan would walk outside with Jamie in her arms to examine Bill’s cars.
Bill had four he kept in meticulous condition, including a vintage Jaguar and a Porsche.
He was precious about his vehicles and had a mechanic visit once a month to check their condition.
The mechanic, Gene Sugimoto, was ethnically Japanese and had come from Peru.
His wife, Patty, who was Japanese as well, prepared elaborate lunch boxes for Gene to bring to work.
She also made her own beef jerky, which Gene occasionally gave to Bill.
One afternoon when Bill came out to discuss the Jaguar, which had developed a slight rattling sound, Gene handed him a box of jerky, neatly labeled as medium spicy.
“From my wife,” Gene said.
“Oh, thank you.” Bill said, taking the package. “Does she like to cook?”
“Not really.” Gene sat on the stone bench outside the garage. “But she’s not working now and has too much time on her hands. She’s the type who always needs to be doing.”
“Right,” Bill said. He sat next to Gene. The box was delicately wrapped, with red rice paper, and Bill opened it and ate a piece. It was delicious, as it always was, and he chewed as he thought.
“I don’t know,” Joan said when Bill shared his idea. “Has the woman ever been a nanny before?” The woman , Joan thought. I don’t even know her name!
“Gene said she babysits all the time for their relatives.”
“I don’t know her.”
“You didn’t know any of the other nannies before you hired them. And Gene’s wife is wonderful. A truly respectable woman.”
I bet he hasn’t even met her, Joan thought.
The following month, when Gene arrived for his appointment with Bill, he brought his wife.
Patty was in her forties, with long hair and perfect English (she was third generation—her parents and she herself had been briefly interned); she was also the first Japanese person besides Gene whom Joan had met in America.
Joan had grown up hearing countless stories of Japanese atrocities in World War II, and most of the Chinese students she knew had vowed never to purchase a Japanese vehicle.
“This is Jamie,” Joan said, tilting him in her arms so Patty could see.
She wished she could say it was due to Patty’s entrance that Jamie was screaming, but it was just a bad day; his tearfulness and bawling had begun that morning.
“I’m afraid I’m doing something wrong.” As Joan tried to hush him, she spotted a large splotch of spit-up on her sleeve.
“The nannies keep leaving, and he keeps crying.” Joan could smell the stain’s sourness on her; she felt as if she were about to cry.
Patty was dressed in loose flowy layers, a white skirt and peasant top. “How old is he?”
“Six months.”
Patty held out her arms, and after a moment’s hesitation Joan passed Jamie over to her. Patty rubbed his back. “Oh, honey. You’re not doing anything wrong. It’s just gas.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
Joan watched Patty rock Jamie. She cradled his head with her palm and swung him energetically—perhaps too energetically, Joan thought, though before she could tell Patty this, Jamie released a loud burp. He stopped crying. “You see,” Patty said, “gas. Gas is usually the problem.”
Joan was suddenly afraid. “You aren’t going to leave, are you?”
“Why would I leave? I just got here.”
How quickly events turn, how fast affection can wane or bloom. Days earlier Joan hadn’t wanted Patty to come at all; now she was terrified of living without her.
“Gene told me you need someone to work with you. Someone to help with the baby,” Patty said, still rocking Jamie.
In fact, Gene had not said so much; he’d simply arrived home one afternoon and stated in his usual maddening straightforward manner that “Mr. Bill might need help.” Help for what ?
Patty had replied. She wasn’t going to make beef jerky and bento boxes for some rich white man all day!
But she worked out that Bill had a new child (why Gene hadn’t mentioned this earlier, Patty didn’t know—she loved babies); even then Patty had been hesitant.
She and Gene were unable to have their own children, which Patty accepted with the stolid grace she did most disappointments, and through the years she had accepted babysitting jobs for relatives and friends.
In deciding on such jobs, Patty had since determined that it wasn’t only the temperament of the child which was important but also the parent—one cannot gauge a child, without first gauging the parent .
“She’s Chinese,” Gene had added. “Mr. Bill’s wife now.”
Which was a detail that had interested Patty enough to visit.
Joan scuttled to the couch. She watched Patty and Jamie as they made loops around the room, Patty murmuring softly.
Joan felt both relieved and fretful at the sight of her son so content in another’s arms. “I want to be a good mother. But then I feel tired, and I don’t get around to any of the big plans I had of being one. ”
“That’s normal. You need help.”
“I try to get help. But people keep leaving.”
There was a stretch of quiet. Joan had the strange feeling Patty was actively thinking, mulling over a topic or question. Eventually she came and sat next to Joan on the couch. “People are jerks,” she said.