Black Ice by Lorene Cary Page B

we stood crowded together in the room, my sister jumping on the naked mattress, my mother wondering about smoking a cigarette, my father by the open window clenching his jaw and rubbing the back of his neck, and me burbling and babbling as if words were British soldiers marching in pointless columns, bright and gay, with flags and bright brass buttons on crimson-colored breasts, on and on and on into battle; so long as we had nothing to do except to wait for the next thing to do; so long as the intolerable closeness remained and the intolerable separation loomed to be made, so long would this adrenaline rush through me, anarchic, atavistic, compelling.
    Outside the move-in continued. Convinced that I was missing yet another ritual of initiation, I ran down the hall to check the bulletin board. As I stood reading, an Asian boy propelled himself into the vestibule. He introduced himself without smiling and asked me my name. Then, addressing me by the name I gave, he asked whether or not I lived in Simpson House.
    “Listen,” he said. “There’s a girl upstairs. She’s just moved in. Her name is Fumiko, and she’s from Japan. She can hardly speak any English at all. She understands a lot, but she really needs someone to go and make her feel welcome.”
    “Do you speak Japanese?”
    “Of course not.” (He was Chinese-American.) He appeared to be reevaluating me. “Look, is anyone else around?”
    “I don’t know. I’ve just arrived myself.”
    “Well, welcome! Look, we’ve been helping her, but she needs a girl in her own house, and guys can’t come in. Maybe you can tell some of the other girls. Really, she’s only just come to the country.”
    Reluctantly, I agreed. I went to the room on the second floor that the boy had described, and found her. I introduced myself. We tried hard to pronounce each other’s names, and we laughed at our mistakes. Fumiko was taller than I. She kept suppressing bows. We agreed to meet again later.
    I returned to my family much calmer than I’d left, and I told them about my new friend. Now my mother seemed agitated. Just before we left for dinner, she began to tell me what items of clothing should go into which drawer.
    “You always put underwear in the top. See, it’s the shallowest one. Big, bulky things like sweaters and jeans go down at the bottom. But, now, please don’t just jam your things in. I don’t want you walking around here with stuff that’s all jerked up.”
    “I know where things go.”
    “Listen. Skirts, your good pants, all that stuff needs to behung up. Let’s see how this is packed.” My mother unzipped one of the suitcases on the bed. “You know, maybe you might want us to take this big one home. I can’t see where you have room to store it.”
    I watched my mother lift layers of underwear delicately from their berths. Her hands, precise, familiar, called up in me a frenzy of possession. “I’ve got all night to unpack,” I said. “Please don’t. I should do that.”
    “I’ll just help you get started. Lord, I hope you don’t start putting together any of those crazy outfits you concoct at home. I know you think that stuff looks cute, but it doesn’t. You didn’t pack any of those fishnet stockings, I hope.” Mama selected a drawer for panties and one for bras and slips. I’d brought a girdle—hers, of course—that was hidden in the next layer.
    “I
really
want to do that myself.”
    “I’m not taking anything away from you.” Her voice rose with maternal indignation.
    “Let the child do it herself,” my father said.
    I knew that they were going to fight. It would be a silent fight, because we were, even in this room, in public, so long as we were on school grounds. I did not see how we would avoid it. We’d been cooped up together, as my parents called it, all day.
    Then my mother laughed. “All right, all right. I was just getting you started,” she said. “You’d think I was doing something wrong.”
    We left for