Read Online A Girl Like You by Maureen Lindley - Free Book Online

sheds, and stack the tomato boxes, talking to her all the while. He doesn’t mind releasing the dead rats from the traps, though.
    “Girls shouldn’t have to,” he says as he practices flinging them across the fields, seeing how far he can make them fly.
    In the seed store that stinks of the rats, a thicker sort of mousy, he kisses her, long, passionate kisses, the way he thinks girls like to be kissed. He gets a kick from the risk that Mrs. Baker might come looking for them, see his hands all over Satomi. He likes to think he might be a man with the power to shock. He pushes Satomi up against the wall, his hands wandering under her dress, wanting it so bad that he thinks sometimes of forcing her.
    “Come on, Sati, don’t hold out. Let’s do it now.” She is driving him crazy, getting him hot, and doing it on purpose, most like. “When are you gonna say yes, plenty of girls would have by now.”
    “I guess that I’m not one of them, then. Take your ring back, if you want, give it to someone else.” She is tiring of Artie, if she’s honest. She doesn’t like the way he ignores her at school, thinks it cowardly.
    “Who knows, maybe I will.”
    “Fine with me, Artie, just say the word.”
    Christ, he could have any girl he wants, why does it have to be Satomi Baker? If only she would say yes, they could do it and maybe he could forget about her, move on. Lily, for one, is panting for it.
    Tamura makes them lemonade, laughs at Artie’s jokes, and is kinder to him than Satomi is. She likes having him around the place, he livens things up, makes her feel that they are still part of the world, part of Angelina. She watches Satomi and Artie dance on the scrub of earth outside the kitchen door, to the records that Artie brings over, “In the Mood,” and his favorite, “Down Argentina Way.” Artie has rhythm, she thinks, that free vulgar sort of American rhythm. He spins Satomi into him, pushing her away, pulling her near, showing off his fancy footwork. He can boogie with the best of them.
    “Come on, Mrs. Baker, give it a try,” he offers.
    She longs to but always refuses. She is too shy, contained in the way that Japanese females are. Modest, her mother would say. And what would Aaron have thought? He wouldn’t approve of her entertaining Artie, that’s for sure. She doesn’t have the heart or the energy to forbid his visits, though. Artie is fun, and Satomi needs someone of her own age around. Lily, it seems, has deserted. She hopes, though, that Artie isn’t the one for Satomi. There is nothing of Aaron’s steel in the boy.
    While her mother sleeps, Satomi stays up in the moon hours, driving the old truck over the farm, parking up behind the sheds, smoking and gazing at the skating stars. She imagines that if she concentrates on them long enough, their energy, which seems to her to be in some mysterious way linked to her own destiny, will somehow enter her bloodstream and a different kind of life will begin.
    The waiting for that different life would be fine if only thethought of war didn’t prey on her mind so much, if only she didn’t fear Japan. The schoolyard talk is full of lurid descriptions of the cruelties that the Japanese bastards will inflict if they get the upper hand. Panic rises in her chest when she thinks about the yellow peril.
    The occasional blink of a plane’s taillight heading off into the night sets her to imagining foreign lands, lives lived more excitingly than her own. One day maybe something wonderful will happen and she will be on that plane. She will see deserts, and beaches with pink sand, and all the places Mr. Beck has told them about in geography.
    “You’re not the only one who wants to get out,” she tells Artie. “I’m not going to get stuck in Angelina for the rest of my life. I want to see the world too.”
    “We could go to Los Angeles,” Artie offers. “It’s got to be the best place on earth.”
    “Who told you that?”
    “Oh, people talk, things get