by Stacey Lee
I wiggle my eyebrows, a trick that used to cripple Jack with laughter. José tucks his mouth down in the middle as if there’s a button placed right under his cleft. The kids are beginning to horse around, flapping like chickens and making noises.
Before I begin to laugh myself, I flare my nostrils, one of my secret weapons. José’s eyebrows smash with the effort of not smiling. Time to seize the crown. Behold: the dead-fish face. I squish up my lips, cross my eyes, and wiggle my ears.
A rash of giggles spreads among the kids, which becomes a full-blown contagion. Even a few adults chuckle. A band of sweat builds around José’s forehead, and he’s grimacing so hard his mouth looks like a beak.
I can’t help myself. My cheeks weaken, and I fall upon my sword.
José crooks his finger at me, every dimple triumphant. “I win!”
I pretend to look dejected, grudgingly pulling myself to my feet. “I concede.” The best thing about this game is that everyone eventually ends up smiling.
Francesca gives me a wink when I look over at her dishing out stew. Another battle starts up, and the children’s laughter pours like warm water over a stuck jar, freeing conversation.
As the fences weaken, I count thirty-four people. Ten people short. Elodie has finally emerged from her tent and draws all eyes to her. She works the circle, a natural hostess with a knack for remembering names, dispensing bits of conversation as easily as a priest passes out communion wafers. Perched on a log across the circle, Headmistress Crouch surveys the crowd. Her face wears the same appraising expression she used in the dining room at St. Clare’s.
“Miss Wong?” Oliver Chance appears by my side. His face is rectangular, indicating an ambitious nature, and his cheeks are smooth as carved soap from a fresh shave. “Your game is very charming. The children love you.” He speaks with the careful diction of the educated.
“Thank you.”
“Are you from Chinatown?”
My smile drops off. When a man asks if a girl is from Chinatown, he is often asking her something else. “I am not that sort.”
Oliver blushes, bringing out the green in his hazel eyes. He coughs. “Oh. I didn’t mean . . . I only meant it must have been terrible to hear about the fires.”
I nod.
“We used to take our laundry there and—er, I’m sorry. I see I have offended you again.” His forehead crinkles in consternation, and his chest caves around a sigh. “Forgive me. My grandmother says I can be as dense as a peppernut.”
“I’ve never heard of that kind of nut.”
“It’s not a nut; it’s a spice cookie. We Germans eat them at Christmastime.”
Little Bess Fordham flits between us. She brakes in front of Ah-Suk, who is watching me from a few paces away, mouth tucked into a frown.
“Two Frogs on a Stick!” Bess pleads with Ah-Suk. The man’s weighty gaze slides to Oliver before turning his attention to the girl bouncing in front of him.
Oliver hangs around like a forgotten shirt. I inhale through my nose, the way Ma taught me to receive lung energy and dispel negative emotions. This young man means no harm, even if he has dropped a few thistles down my back. I remind myself that Oliver Chance is here because he lost something—a house, or maybe loved ones.
“Is your family well?” I ask.
“Mostly. My grandfather broke his ankle, but he’s tough. He says at his age, he’s lucky he felt anything at all.” He flashes a grin.
“He sounds like a character.”
We watch the Bostons hang mason jars filled with candles on a nearby tree, making the shadows twinkle.
“What you’re doing here, it’s a cut above.” Oliver’s gaze gently probes mine. “Consider me an admirer.”
A knocking starts up, and the voices die off. Mr. Fordham is banging the spoon on Francesca’s pot. “Hear, hear! The lady said dinner is ready!” Beside him, Francesca blushes prettily. “But first, a speech?” he asks her, loud enough for everyone to hear.
Francesca shakes her head. Spotting me, she points in my direction. “This was Mercy’s idea. She is the reason we are all here together.”
All eyes converge on me. My tongue ties itself in a knot, and though I do like to be up on the deck, suddenly I’m not sure if I can captain this particular ship.
A grinning Mr. Fordham opens the painting ladder in front of me. Mr. Chance is quick to offer his hand, and up I go.
Two rungs higher, I catch a bit of the breeze. Jack would’ve loved to see the mix of faces shining up at me—black, brown, yellow, and white, in all ages and sizes. In one neighborhood where all are welcome.
We all have one feature in common: an outlook. It is forged by the memory of what we went through and shaped by the hope that we will persevere. It is as indelible as a footprint on cement.
Elodie gives me one of her smirks that says I’m a show-off, and it prompts me to words. My voice sounds too small, like the squeak of a mouse in high grass. “It may have been my idea to have this dinner, but it was through the combined efforts of the girls of St. Clare’s that we are here tonight.”
Katie, back from collecting mint and parsley with Harry, begins clapping, setting off applause.
Before the noise fades, I search the trees for something more to say, but they only wiggle their leaves. In the distance, I catch sight of a trio of Chinese. I nearly fall off the ladder, but Mr. Chance steadies me. It’s the Pangs, and behind them, two more Chinese families I don’t know. They came after all, bearing a frying pan full of Earthquake Harvest. Forty-four, and then some.
Ma, I did it. Maybe now, four will leave us alone.
They join our circle, bowing politely at everyone, and the words finally come. “We are as different as peacocks from ducks, yet a tragedy has thrown us into the same pond. We have all lost something important, and for some of us, that includes friends and family members.”
José looks up at me with a sweet, almost reverent gaze, and for a moment, I could swear it’s Jack: my reason, my own personal soup. Before the tears come and my throat closes, I look away from the boy. “We dedicate this dinner to those people. Their deaths might leave a hole in our hearts as deep as the ocean, but it is only because we are deep as the ocean, and our capacity to love is as high as the sky. The earthquake took much from us. But there is much we can take from it as well.”
The moment is full, like a glass filled to the rim that might spill if you touch it. So I step down from the ladder, and Katie and Harry tuck their warm arms into mine. Francesca begins to say grace.
While the others bend their heads, I look at a rift in the clouds, pried open by the golden hands of a setting sun. For the first time since the earthquake, a little piece of my shattered heart falls back into place, and that shard is enough for now.
37
BELLIES ARE FILLED, AND STORIES EXCHANGED. There is plenty of meat, barbecued and grilled, hearty stew fortified with creamed corn, pasta with porcini mushrooms, and creamed dandelion leaves flavored with cinnamon and topped with orange peel.
I survey the crowds like a rooster eyes his flock, a profound sense of satisfaction replacing the hunger inside my own breadbasket. As Mrs. Lowry says of a successful enterprise: Teamwork makes the dream work.
Ma, wherever you and Jack are, may your bowls be filled to the top, and your chairs comfortable.
Even Ba would be amazed to see all these people eating together from the same pot. Maybe even proud of me. He never thought he’d see such a range of folks standing shoulder to shoulder in all his born days.
Well, Ba, better come quick if you don’t want to miss it.
Someone taps me on the shoulder. It’s Georgina, who has donned an army shirt over her uniform. “Been counting the numbers,” she says in her serious way of talking. “We’ve got eighty-two people here, and more coming in every minute. What should we do?”
“We feed them
until every last crumb is gone.”
Harry and Katie, who are hovering nearby, come closer to hear our conversation. Francesca leaves the admiring attentions of Mr. Fordham to join us as well.
Georgina frowns. “That happened thirty minutes ago. People are already sucking on the bones.”
A man and a woman lean over the stewpot, holding rib bones out for their kids to lick. The tray of crackers is clean of all but a few sprigs of parsley, and the pots that held the greens and the pasta have already been ported to the lake for scrubbing out.
Francesca taps a finger to her chin, the fingernail worn to the quick. “We could give them milk?”
Katie shakes her head. “We don’t know where Forgivus went. Minnie Mae went to look for her.”
I draw in a sharp breath. Forgivus was single-handedly keeping my stomach from shriveling into a raisin. The only thing I’d eaten for dinner was the cube of meat Francesca pushed into my mouth, washed down with a small jar of wine.
“Well, a party is more than the food. The company is good, and so is the fire.” It is like trying to polish a peach, and no one’s mood improves. “I wish someone had a fiddle,” I add glumly.
Francesca’s eyes dart to the man with the floppy hair, who is watching Oliver Chance carefully stack pinecones. He steals a look at me, then his pile falls and everyone laughs. “Mr. Fordham knows how to play the comb.”
Katie elbows Harry. “And Harry sings like an angel.”
Harry reacts as if a spider had swung across her field of vision. “Oh no, I couldn’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“Because, I wouldn’t know what to sing.” She backs away.
“Sing the one about the girl from Atterly Row.”
Harry puts a hand to her crimson cheek. “That one’s about a sporting woman!”
“How about ‘When Johnny Comes Marching Home’?” suggests Georgina.
“That one’s about war!”
“Well, a song’s gotta be about something,” says Katie.
More people crowd our little corner of the park, meekly looking around for something to eat. Word has spread. Though they find only a bit of hot water and mint for washing up, they still stay, maybe because the only thing worse than being hungry is being hungry and alone.
Time to raise some sand.
I inhale a deep breath, and belt out, “When Johnny comes marching home again, hurrah! Hurrah! We’ll give him a hearty welcome then, hurrah! Hurrah!”
I have a hunch about songbirds, hoping it will be hard for someone who has an ear for music to sit still while others botch up a tune. Every New Year’s, Ma would make me wrap sticky rice in bamboo leaves but would inevitably bump me from the chair to do it herself. Since I preferred the eating to making them, I ruined them on purpose so Ma would release me from my servitude.
The girls gape at me. Harry’s hands inch closer to her ears. Then she clasps them in front of her, as if hoping to keep them from floating up again.
“The men will cheer and the boys will shout, the ladies they will all turn out, and we’ll all feel gay when Johnny comes marching home!” I sing.
I dearly hope someone joins in soon because everyone is giving me the most peculiar stares—plus, I don’t know the next verse. The Gullivers’ baby begins to wail. Come on, squeaker, I’m not that bad. “Oh the old church bell . . . da-dee-da-dum . . . ” I trail off, not knowing what’s next.
“Will peal with joy, hurrah! Hurrah!” starts a velvety alto on my left—Francesca. “To welcome home our darling boy, hurrah!”
“Hurrah!” I second.
“The village lads and the lassies say, with roses they will strew the way,” adds a third voice, one so clear and light, even the birds stop to listen. Harry holds her hands with fingers curled into each other as she sings. Her posture is so straight, it looks like she’s standing on her toes.
Francesca and I join her in the chorus, “And we’ll all feel gay when Johnny comes marching home!”
As she launches into the third verse, someone begins to whistle a harmony. Then Mr. Fordham produces a comb, folds a cigarette paper on top, and blows a bass line of buzzy beats. Not to be outdone, Mr. Chance grabs a wine bottle and begins hooting some counterpoint.
And the horses are off! I lower my volume and let Harry’s voice take center stage, amazed at her transformation. The girl I always considered reserved and rather stiff unfolds like a silk fan, commanding all eyes on her.
When it’s over, they cry for another. Even those who did not get fed shout suggestions.
Harry breaks out “Oh My Darling, Clementine,” and someone adds the shaking of beef bones in a can to the arrangement. One of Elodie’s admirers tries to impress her with a jig that looks more like the convulsions of a freshly hooked fish.
With a cool breeze on my face, I turn to smile at Francesca, but she is no longer by my side. The dusky light obscures faces, so I walk a wide circle around the campsite, looking for her. I spot her talking to a soldier about twenty paces outside the pinecone circle. The soldier stands only an inch or two taller than her with his brown army hat.
My alarm freezes me in place. Then I’m hurrying toward them. At least all the evidence of our looting has been consumed. Francesca frowns as the soldier punctuates his words with hand gestures. A blond mustache hides in the sloped underhang of his nose, and his nostrils are thin, which Ma would say means he hangs onto money.
Another soldier stands a little farther away, watching our party with the hungry look of a wallflower trying to pretend he doesn’t like to dance. I recognize the sunburned skin of the man from the dog shooting, Private Smalls.
I slow, trying to read the situation. Francesca crosses her arms. The first soldier tries to grab her, but she pulls away. Spinning on her heel, she starts walking back to the camp. The man says something, and she stops again. More words are exchanged.
This must be the high-roosting place named Marcus. I head toward them, and before I am close enough to be noticed, Marcus’s cologne hits me like the corpse of a recently dead musk ox.
“I have made myself clear,” says Francesca. “I am not ready to leave.”
“But you can’t stay here; it’s not proper.” Marcus has an emphatic way of speaking, punching out syllables as if he were typing them with his mouth. “I saw those wine bottles. The mayor issued a proclamation banning the sale of alcohol, which means those are probably looted.”
“Unless they were purchased before the earthquake.”
“The quake set off a crime spree of epic proportions.” Those last two words come out sounding especially punchy. “The rug was shook, and all the nasty beetles came crawling out, looking to carry away whatever they could find. You don’t want to associate with the beetles, Chessie.”
Chessie? The diminutive rubs me the wrong way.
“Maybe the beetles are just trying to survive, like everyone else,” she says frostily.
“They shot three looters earlier today at Shreve’s Jewelry. When’s the last time you needed a diamond necklace to survive?”
Private Smalls glances back at the domestic squabble but keeps to his own lane.
“It’s a sad day when the army would rather spend time guarding jewelry stores than keeping survivors alive.” Francesca counters. “When are they going to bring food? And better shelter?”
A flash of anger crosses his face. “I don’t have time for your histrionics. I told your brother I would be dropping you off at my parents’ house, and I intend to do so.”
“I am quite content here. Tell my brother I will go when I am good and ready.”
Marcus finally notices me standing there, and his eyes, the color of dried grass, narrow in a way that say I’m one of the beetles.
I step closer and hold out my hand. “Hello, I’m Mercy Wong.”
He coughs slightly, then looks at Francesca
as if to say, Who the blaze is this sassy hen?
“Mercy, this is Lieutenant McGovern. Miss Wong is a good friend of mine. As you can see, we are very busy. Thank you for dropping by, and good night.”
“Hold on there, Miss . . . Wong.” He shows me his teeth, which look strong enough to crack walnuts. “If you are a friend, surely you can see that Francesca belongs under a roof, not here among the . . . rank and file.”
I don’t know what that means, but as it rhymes with dank and bile, it doesn’t sound very complimentary. “If it’s a roof you’re concerned about, we find ours to be quite adequate.” I glance at our tent. Harry has started a rousing rendition of “Oh! Susanna” and someone has added a drumbeat from spoons knocked against a pot.
He follows my gaze. “Your—? You mean you sleep with her?” He addresses Francesca but stabs a finger in my direction. “In that envelope?”
“There are actually four of us,” she replies.
Marcus gasps, and it’s like the sound of a jar being unstuck. “It is highly inappropriate for you to be sleeping in such close quarters with a heathen. They have all sorts of diseases, and I won’t allow it. You will come back with me, and there is nothing else to be said.” This time, he catches her arm.
“Has the mayor issued another proclamation that women can now be whisked away against their will?” I ask. “If not, who is the heathen here?”
His lip curls, and he calls me a name that is part church and all of ink.
Francesca pulls away, but he doesn’t let go.
A good businesswoman knows when to stand up to an adversary, and when to kick him in the shins. I walk up to the bully and give him a what-for right in the what-have-you.
Lieutenant McGovern lets out a yelp that sounds remarkably like the noise Jack made the time a cricket jumped on him.
Someone grabs me by the back of my collar—Private Smalls—and I give him a kick, too.