JOE SENT POSTCARDS to Ruby and me every few days:
This is an overnight city of thousands of men in the middle of bean and tomato fields. Hey, isn’t Hollywood supposed to be around here?
I want to fly, but we don’t have planes, hangars, or runways. All we do is march, salute, and learn to obey orders.
We’re taking tests nearly every day to see how book-smart we are, analyze our eye-hand coordination, and evaluate how we react under pressure, so the brass can decide where to assign us. Some guys will be lucky to become bombardiers, navigators, or mechanics. I only want the pilot’s seat. Keeping my fingers crossed for aviation training.
We taped these to the mirror in the dressing room.
We had our own concerns, minor though they were. The government ordered a 15 percent reduction in the allotment of yardage to be used for women’s and girls’ apparel. Dolman and leg-of-mutton sleeves became no-nos, as did tucks, pleats, plackets, hoods, and belts wider than two inches. We went along with the rules because we wanted to help our boys, but we suffered less than other women across the country, because theatrical costumes-along with bridal wear and religious and judiciary robes-were exempt from the new restrictions. In other words, we looked crummy by day and fabulous by night.
Helen took her patriotism seriously. The next time she ordered a costume, she asked the seamstress to leave out the midsection to save a little fabric. Although she’d regained her shape, she’d still had a baby. To hide the imperfections, Eddie had her oil her midriff so it would shine. Now her midriff caught the light, but it could be slick. Eddie’s vanity wouldn’t allow him to admit he was wrong. Backstage we could hear the audience utter a collective “whoops” whenever she slipped a little through Eddie’s hands on a lift.
Joe had been gone three weeks when, on March 27, General DeWitt made internment and relocation mandatory for all people of Japanese ancestry, beginning in April.
“I’m not worried about that,” Ruby declared.
Four days later, The San Francisco News reported that Joe DiMaggio’s parents might be evacuated from the city as enemy aliens of Italian descent. If Joe DiMaggio’s parents could be rounded up, then what would happen to my friend?
“I’m Princess Tai,” she said, unabashed. “No one knows I’m Japanese.”
But I did. Helen did. Charlie did. And some of the ponies did too.
On April 1, Doolittle’s raiders sailed west under the Golden Gate Bridge, “bound for Tokyo.” Evacuation of the Japanese in San Francisco began five days later. Ruby’s Aunt Haru and Uncle Junji closed their store in Alameda and boarded a bus to the horse stables at the Tanforan racetrack in San Bruno to be housed with several thousand other Japanese. Their bank account had been frozen, and they’d been forced to sell their business, car, and most of their possessions for next to nothing, but they were allowed to take bedding and linens for each family member, toiletries, clothes, cutlery, dishes, and personal items as long as they could carry everything. Ruby made no attempt to contact them. On April 21, Japanese were ordered out of more Bay Area neighborhoods, with the result that several dancers from the Sky Room disappeared and had to be replaced.
In May, Joe finished basic training and had a few days off before he started flight school. He came up to visit Ruby. He didn’t mention marriage, because he was completely focused on flying and the next stage of his training. “I’m going to Minter Field,” he announced to a group of us. “It’s in Shafter, near Bakersfield. Even though I already have my pilot’s license, they have guys like me start right back at square one with an open-cockpit Stearman. If I don’t wash out-and I won’t-then I’ll move on to a four-hundred-fifty-horsepower canopied BT-13.”
Ruby didn’t seem to mind that her wedding had been put on the back burner. “Maybe I don’t need to get married after all,” she said.
SERVICEMEN MIGHT TAUNT-AND sometimes rough up-the Juggling Jins, our waiters, bartenders, and busboys, mistakenly accusing them of being “yellow-bellied Japs,” but they had a different attitude toward the girls in the club. Ruby, the other gals, and I spent God’s own time trying to appeal to our boys, doing what we could to manifest glamour in our suddenly unpredictable world. We developed a new hairstyle: teasing, piling, pinning, and spraying our hair until it looked like a cross between the Empire State Building and how the Mexican girls down in Los Angeles built their tresses into mile-high pompadours for Saturday night dances. We bought extra-long false eyelashes. We painted our lips to look bee-kissed. We attended to all our boys-whether soldiers, sailors, or airmen. A bunch of the show kids-like Helen and Eddie, Irene and Jack-were married, but there was a lot of fooling around. I mean a lot.
And then there was Ida. She had loads of admirers, but she always saved time for Ray Boiler, the creepy short-order cook from Visalia who used to follow Ruby around. Even though Ruby had warned Ida about him, she saw him anyway. I guess she thought she was one-upping Ruby. Since Ida was more receptive to Ray’s attentions, he gave her bracelets and earrings. He bought her scarves and hats. He brought her sugar and other rationed foodstuffs stolen from the coffee shop where he worked. When she sat with him between shows, he slipped her fifty-dollar tips. Whenever she dared to treat Ray like dirt, or brazenly dance with one soldier boy after another in front of him, he’d go nearly crazy with desire and jealousy, which caused him to fixate on her all the more. She was playing a dangerous game, and she liked it.
Finally it came time for me to get my feet wet. Almost a year to the day after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, this boy in uniform came to the club. He was a woesome thing, trying to act courageous, on his way to the Pacific. I felt sorry for the kid. We drank beer. We danced to “On a Little Street in Singapore.”
“Where you from, soldier?”
“You wouldn’t know it,” he said.
He swung me under his arm. His jitterbug was awkward, and I had to be nimble to keep him from crushing my feet.
“Try me.”
“I’m from Darbydale, Ohio.”
“Darbydale!” I exclaimed. “That’s close to where I grew up. I’m from Plain City.”
His parents were farmers. He and his family had gone to the Plain City Fair for as long as he could remember, although he didn’t recall seeing me win a dance contest.
“I never went to that part of the fair,” he admitted bashfully. “I was 4-H all the way.”
We drank a few more beers and danced a few more times. He clapped and smiled during my numbers. He reminded me of home when the world was conspiring to make me yearn-longingly and unrealistically-for the consolation and security of the town where I’d grown up. I got caught up in the moment so many ponies had before me with the soldier boys who came to the club before shipping out and might never come back. I took him to my apartment after the last show. Jeremy Scott was his name, and I was twenty-one years old. I wish I could say it was a big deal, but it was the first time for both of us, and it wasn’t anything to rave about. Grope. Poke. Bump. Grunt. Sigh. It hurt like the dickens, and it was over so fast I was flummoxed. That’s it? I’ve been pining and worrying and saving myself for this? He slouched out of my apartment at five in the morning. He promised to write, but he never did. For all I know, he got killed in his first firefight. Very sad if true. But from the moment he left I was scared down to my toes. What if I was pregnant? I looked for symptoms everywhere. Did the smell of food turn my stomach? Was I sleepy? Did my breasts hurt? The girls at the club peppered me with advice.