“There, lookit, love, that’s the shower thingy where your parents first met,” Dingo said.
And God, yes, there it was—a brightly painted white stall made of wooden fencing, attached to the back of the little house. Maddie could see the showerhead and part of the piping—both ancient gray metal—over the top of the scalloped wood.
Last night, she’d read aloud that stupid story that “Dad” had sent via his girlfriend, Shayla. God, she’d felt stupid—two months in, and she hadn’t realized hehada girlfriend, although why he’d thought he had to hide that fact from her, she couldn’t even begin to guess.
At first Maddie had mocked it—this stupid story of how he’d met Great-Aunt Hiroko and Lisa in San Diego, after living on some dumbass island in the middle of nowhere—even though she’d been secretly moved. Not only had her mother sprung vividly to life again on those pages and pages andpagesthat he’d written, but this was a story that Maddie had never heard. Still, after the first few paragraphs, she’d turned her head to ask Dingo, “Can you imagine my stupid father with dreadlocks?”
They’d been lying together in the back of the car, parked at one of Dingo’s favorite boondocking sites as she’d read the story on the glowing screen of her phone. He had built a little wall between them with some of his camping gear—her being fifteen really freaked him out.
But he wasn’t scornful in the least. “I’d look like a dolt in dreadlocks,” he said wistfully. “Takes a certain kind of cool to do it right, and yeah, actually, Icanimagine him. He could pull it off. Keep going—this is good.”
So Maddie’d read him the entire long thing. And later, after Dingo had fallen asleep, she’d lain awake, staring up at the car’s stained and drooping cloth ceiling, thinking about Lisa and her father as teenagers, and hungering—which was stupid—to know more.
She’d finally fallen asleep, but had woken up way too soon.
One of the worst parts of boondocking, at least in Maddie’s opinion, was the lack of shades to cover the car windows. Not only was that weird when it came to privacy, but when the sun came up, the sun cameup.Combine that with having to drive to find a bathroom, and the end result was to be wide awake—even if bleary-eyed—at oh-my-god-it’s-too-early o’clock.
Every morning.
But Dingo was as congenial as ever, even if he was starting to take on a definite too-many-days-without-a-shower funk, and he’d immediately agreed to drive by the beach, to see if GAH—Great-Aunt Hiroko—was awake.
“It’s a little weird that we were planning to come out here today,” he said now, as instead of passing the house again, he stopped at the side of the road, “and then, boom, your da sends that story. We should be ready to bounce—I mean, since he knows her, he might’ve told her you’ve gone walkabout….That is, if you still even want to stop.”
Maddie nodded. “Yeah, I do. But we’ll take precautions.”
Before reading the story, she hadn’t realized that “Dad” knew GAH. Itwasentirely possible he’d called the old lady and asked her to keep an eye out for Maddie. Now, she took out her phone and scrolled through her contacts to Dingo’s cell number.
“You can do a pretty good American accent,” she said as she backspaced over everything but the D, and then added an A and a D. “If she says anything about you sounding different, tell her you have a cold. And if she asks you anything that you can’t answer, sign off fast. Pretend that you’ve got another call coming in from your whatchamacallit. CO or XO or whatever.”
Dingo wasn’t happy. “Aaah, love, you’re asking for trouble. What if they talk regularly?”
“If they’re still that close, then why haven’t we visited her since I’ve moved out here?” Maddie argued as she hit the button that would call Dingo’s phone. The old woman in the garden had noticed the stopped car and had pulled herself up to her feet, holding up a hand to further shade her eyes as she looked out at them. “I’m going in, pretending that I’m already on the phone with ‘Dad.’ I’ll put you on speaker so you can say hi—and that’ll distort your voice even more. Remember, he’s a Navy SEAL. He talks in short sentences, with lots of stupid Navy code:SpecGrooFifty-Eight. XO, CO, SEAL Team Four Hundred. NavPacOpIntel, DefConFifteen. Channel Tom Clancy.”
Dingo looked both worried and skeptical as his pants pocket started to ring, but Maddie got out of the car, closing the door with a slam, her own phone to her ear.
“Hello, this is your father,” Dingo said into her ear, his vowels ridiculously flat as she waved gaily to GAH.
“Yes, Dad,” she said loud enough to be overheard as she walked up the path. “Yup, we’re here, the address you had was right—and she’s home.” She raised her voice even more. “Aunt Hiroko? I’m Maddie. Your great-niece. Lisa’s daughter?”
“I know who you are.” The elderly woman had already taken off her work gloves and now she unlatched the gate. “I was sorry to hear about your mother. I wish someone had called me.”
For once, Maddie didn’t try to hide the rush of tears that sprang to her eyes. Still, she forced what she hoped was a brave smile. “I’m sorry—it was…It’s been hard,” she admitted. “And Dad and I are still feeling our way—working on figuring things out. Right, Dad?” She spoke into the phone, directly over Dingo, who was muttering, “Self-help book much?”
“Ten-four roger that!” he said, again with the flat vowels.
“I’m going to put you on speaker in a minute,Dad,” she told him, “after I explain why we’re here.” Shit, she’d saidweand Hiroko’s gaze flickered over to Dingo’s car, where his shadowy shape was sitting behind the steering wheel. But he was watching, and he hunkered down a bit so the old lady wouldn’t be able to see that he, too, was talking on his phone.
Hiroko, meanwhile, had returned her impatient gaze to Maddie. In books and movies, old people’s eyes were always filled with patience and wisdom and warmth, but Hiroko’s were both cool and broadcasting a very cleartick tock.
“We’re doing a project in school,” Maddie lied, “in history class, on the way Japanese people were put in camps here in California during World War Two.” Lisa had told her that Hiroko had been obsessed with that historical era.
And sure enough, the old woman took the bait. Her chin came up. “They weren’t camps, they were prisons,” she said. “It was mass internment of an entire group of people—and many of us weren’t Japanese, we were Americans. Japanese Americans, yes, butAmericans.I was born here. I should have been a citizen—but until 1952 there were laws that restricted Americans like me from doing things like owning property.”
“Seriously?” Maddie couldn’t help herself. “I mean, yeah, wow, that’s great information. Thanks. Dad thought you’d be a good source, since you know so much about it.” She spoke into the phone. “Good call, Dad.”
“I don’t just know it—I lived it, in Manzanar, a prison camp about four hundred miles north of here,” Hiroko said with a fierceness that would’ve been fascinating to explore—if Maddie had had the time to hang out without worrying that the idiot-asshole drug dealer who was actively hunting her down wasn’t about to find and end her.
“You were right,” Maddie said into her phone. “I think Aunt Hiroko can help me with this project.” She smiled at GAH. “We’re supposed to find primary source material, particularly artifacts. I don’t have a lot of time right now—school starts soon—but I’d love for my group to interview you and—” She cut herself off as if she’d been interrupted on the phone, then added, “Yeah, yeah, Dad, I know, I know.” Back to GAH as she punched the speaker button and held out the phone. The screen clearly readDad. “He has to get going to work—you know, over at the Navy base—but he wanted to say hello. Dad, you’re on speaker! Say hello!”
