6:35 a.m. — The Boarding-House Kitchen 🔍

At 6:35 a.m. in the boarding-house kitchen on Westmoreland Avenue, I coaxed the blue gas flame beneath a dented enamel pot while Mrs. Han sliced yesterday’s rice into the soup. The room smelled of toasted barley, scallions, and the faint sourness of laundry drying near the back door. I wore my pale cotton school blouse even though classes had not begun, because Mrs. Han said the print shop preferred girls to look neat. Before leaving, I wrapped two rice balls in waxed paper and tucked them beside a nickel and two pennies in my small clasp purse. A radio in the front parlor murmured through static, but no one turned it up; the scrape of spoons and the ticking wall clock were enough. At 7:18, I stepped outside with my cardigan folded over one arm, already squinting into the bright Los Angeles morning.

12:20 p.m. — Marigold Printing Company 🔍

At 12:20 p.m. in the rear workroom of Marigold Printing Company on South Hill Street, I ate my rice balls beside a high window clouded with paper dust. All morning I had stacked cream envelopes, swept curled trimmings from the floor, and carried metal type cases only when the foreman said they were light enough. The presses struck their steady iron rhythm, and the air held the sharp, oily smell of ink mixed with hot machinery. My fingers had turned gray at the tips, so I rubbed them with a rag before touching lunch. A girl named Ruth traded me half a peach for one rice ball, then showed me how she rolled her sleeves twice so they would not catch near the press. When the wall clock reached 12:40, we returned to work, and I kept thinking how easily her kindness had crossed the noise between us.

7:05 p.m. — Back Steps Under the Fig Tree 🔍

At 7:05 p.m. on the back steps beneath the boarding house’s fig tree, I lowered peeled peaches into hot glass jars while the kitchen windows breathed out clouds of steam. Mrs. Han had bought a bruised crate cheaply at the market, and she trusted me to wipe each jar rim clean before she fastened the lids. My cardigan sleeves were pushed above my elbows, and syrup made my fingers shine whenever I missed the funnel. From the alley came the thump of a bouncing rubber ball, a dog’s bark, and a neighbor calling children home for supper. We set six jars on a folded flour sack, their amber color catching the last orange light, and Mrs. Han said one could be mine when winter came. By 9:10, in my narrow upstairs room, I wrote Ruth’s name carefully in my notebook and placed the peach pit on the sill, though I did not yet know why I wanted to keep it.