A Girl Like You by Maureen Lindley Page B

fills the packing shed for days.
    Finding it hard to take orders, to have his days dictated by time sheets, he begins sending his own orders home, long lists of instructions for Tamura and Satomi, lists that comfort him and irritate them.
Make sure you clean out the rain barrels right down to the bottom. The water will turn brackish if you don’t. And Tamura, I know you don’t like it but the traps must be set in the packing sheds. We’ll be overrun if you don’t. Get Satomi to do it and tell her to be sure to get rid of the dead ones. And don’t forget to order the fertilizer in good time, and …
    Once a letter is stamped and posted, his mind empties for a bit, and he feels at ease. But a day or so later he has thought up a whole new list of things for them to do. He dreads the idea of returning to the farm and finding it neglected. You can’t blame them, but women aren’t up to the job, they won’t see what’s needed, and Tamura has never been strong.
    Encouraged by the tone of the headlines in the Los Angeles Times , the folks in Angelina figure that war with Japan is a surefire thing. The men are already being called up, and those who haven’t received their papers are rushing to volunteer before they are summoned. No one wants to be thought unwilling, unpatriotic.
    The town seems half empty without them. Old men see their sons off with fear in their eyes, young fathers leave their familieswith trepidation. The land is left to the ministrations of grandfathers, schoolboys, and the women.
    The old men gather together in the farmers’ cooperative, feeling themselves in charge, half alive again. War is the main topic of conversation. The threat from Japan is changing things, taking away the routine of their lives, their ease of mind. Angelina’s Japanese take the brunt of their anger.
    “The whole damn lot of them got a secret allegiance to Japan.”
    “When push comes to shove they can’t be trusted.”
    Lily, on the lookout for an excuse to ditch Satomi, is half sick with having to make-believe that Satomi is her best friend. She doesn’t share her home-packed lunches with her anymore, refusing Tamura’s fish and rice balls that she is usually greedy for.
    “Can’t stomach fish anymore. Guess I’m allergic or something.”
    Lily’s mother has warned that Japs can’t be trusted not to put something in the food. It’s better to be safe than sorry.
    “That’s a shame, you loved them so much,” Satomi says without sympathy. She knows what’s going on with Lily, all right.
    “Yeah, well, things change, I guess.”
    “I’m the same person, Lily.”
    “I know that, Sati.” Lily stares her down. “I’m only talking about fish balls.”
    Despite that Lily is being weird, despite that she’s getting a rougher ride at school, Satomi is enjoying life without Aaron around. It’s easy now to get her own way, tempting to take advantage of her mother’s gentle nature. She likes home better without her father in it, that’s for sure. She can hardly remember his rules now, smoking as she does without a thought to being caught, leaving her hair down, getting behind with her chores. Every now and then, though, she hears Tamura sigh in her bed, and she suffers the loss of Aaron herself, the fear that life is shifting too quickly.
    Things with Artie are still on, although she never knows whereshe stands with him these days. He is off hand with her at school, making out that things have changed between them, but full-on with her when it is just the two of them.
    “No point in us riling people up, they’re doing enough of that themselves.”
    “They are morons, Artie, all of them.”
    “Yeah, well, fuck ’em, eh?”
    Artie likes it better with Aaron away too. He calls at the farm with the excuse that he has come to help Satomi and Tamura with the chores.
    “Now that you don’t have a man around,” he preens.
    He sits around the place, watching Satomi pile the wood up in the lean-to, clean out the