“Maybe so. But Lily was apparently upset enough to pack a few things and take off. She even left a note that now we wouldn’t have to fight over her. I just can’t understand why she hasn’t called me yet.”
“She has a lot to digest at the moment, what with her mother’s death and now this,” I replied, though secretly wondering the same thing.
There were times when I’d also wanted to run away during my teen years, as fast and as far as I could. The truth was, I knew someone who’d done just that.
“Have you called the police?” I asked.
“Of course, right away. You know what they told me? Eight hundred and fifty-thousand children are reported missing each year. Of that number, roughly four hundred, fifty-one thousand of them are runaways. The police have to concentrate on those kids that have been abducted. In other words, I was basically told good luck. I feel as if she’s fallen into a big black hole and it’s up to me to get her out.”
“I’m sure you’ll hear from her soon,” I said consolingly. “When did she leave?”
Eric suddenly looked as though he hadn’t slept in weeks. He propped his head in his hands, and his eyes began to flutter.
“Six weeks ago, and not a word since then. I’ve been racking my brain as to why she wouldn’t phone. The only thing I can figure is that Lily must resent me.”
He probably wasn’t all that far off the mark. She was at the age when girls were more aware of their body image than ever. I glanced at the photo again and could only imagine what Lily had to contend with—the grimaces, hurtful remarks, and taunts. At fifteen, I was fixated on straightening my hair and experimenting with makeup. What must Lily think every time she looked in a mirror?
“Any idea where she could have gone?” Terri inquired, while signaling the waiter for a check.
“Actually, I think she might be right here in San Francisco.”
“What makes you say that?” I asked, surprised at his response.
“Because she didn’t run away on her own. She left with her pimply faced boyfriend, and San Francisco is where he always said he wanted to go.”
“Who is this guy?” I asked, suddenly getting a whole new slant on the situation.
“His name is Randy Edgers. I met him while visiting Lily in New Orleans last year. The kid is a nineteen-year-old high-school dropout who worked in a video store. He’s all right, I suppose,” Eric said, and then made a face. “Who am I kidding? The kid’s a total loser. In fact, that’s the one thing Ellen and I both agreed on, and we told Lily so.”
“It probably made her want to be with him all the more,” I surmised, knowing that’s exactly how I would have felt.
“Terrific. Knowing that makes me feel so much better,” Eric caustically retorted. “I’m sorry, but it kills me to think Lily feels that’s all she’s worth. She deserves a hell of a lot more than that.”
“She’s rebelling, Eric. There’s no greater high in the world at that age. This guy’s probably telling Lily how much he loves and accepts her. The combination is totally irresistible. Then throw in that she most likely sees him as her knight in shining armor at a time when she’s not only grieving but is also confused and afraid. It makes it easier to understand how Lily might choose to pick up and run away.”
Like father, like daughter, I was almost tempted to say.
“That’s all fine, Rach. But if Eric really thinks they’re here, the thing to do is to check every video store in town. After all, that’s where this kid worked in New Orleans, so he’s probably doing the same thing in San Francisco,” Terri interjected, cutting to the chase.
“That’s what I have been doing,” Eric said. “I must have hit every video store in the Bay Area over the past month. I even showed Lily’s picture around, but without any luck. I don’t know what I’m going to do if I can’t find her. She needs a father now more than ever, and I’m not there for her. All I can do is wonder what might have been, had I done things differently. I never should have left New Orleans in the first place.”
There it was. The nagging regrets that we all learn to live with; the lingering question of “what if” when it comes to decisions that can’t be undone. I pushed down the tears that were beginning to creep up, bringing with them unwanted memories long suppressed.
“That’s why I asked you to come tonight, Rachel. I want you to help me.”
“What can I do?” I asked, my stomach beginning to churn in a noxious mixture of anxiety and dread.
“You know San Francisco and probably have a better idea of where to search for runaways. Besides, you can always say that you’re with law enforcement, and people will listen to you.”
“Sure, as long as they don’t squint too closely at my badge and see Fish and Wildlife written on it.”
“Just spend a day or two going around the city with me, please. That’s all I’m asking.”
I looked at Eric and knew there was no way I could turn him down; no matter how painful opening up an old wound might prove to be.
“Fine. We’ll start tomorrow,” I agreed, my body contracting into a tight knot.
I thought again of the number of runaways, and knew that finding Lily could prove to be as difficult as stumbling upon the elusive Lotis blue butterfly.
Terri convinced Eric to spend the night on his couch, fearing he’d be too tired to drive all the way home. I helped get him upstairs and then retired to my own abode.
“Hey chère. You look wiped out. Just how many drinks did you have tonight?”
Santou had kept his word. He’d remained both lucid and awake—enough so that he was concerned about the amount of alcohol I’d consumed. We’d agreed that neither of us would go over a certain limit, after an incident we had while living in Georgia.
“I only had one glass of wine. It was just a strange evening, is all.”
“How so?” he asked, sitting on the edge of the bathtub as I washed up for bed.
“It seems Eric had been married at one time and has a child.”
I glanced at Santou, certain that this was information he already knew.
“Anyway, his former wife recently died in a car crash. Lily, his daughter, was supposed to stay with her grandparents until the end of school and then move in with her dad. At least, that was the plan. Then talk of a custody battle began. Now Lily’s run away and Eric has asked for my help. He thinks she might be somewhere here in San Francisco.”
“This is a police matter, Rachel. You know that.”
“Sure. We’re also both aware of exactly what that means. Her name will end up collecting dust in a file along with hundreds of thousands of others.”
“So, what does he think you’re going to be able to do?”
“I don’t really know. My guess is he needs moral support more than anything else. Eric wants me to spend a couple of days going to different neighborhoods with him. He’d like us to talk to as many people as possible, and show her picture around. I agreed.”
Santou stood up and kissed me on the back of the neck. “That’s because you’re a good person, and one hell of a soft touch.”
My throat constricted so much that I didn’t dare speak any further. It was only as I slid into bed and turned off the light that I felt safe enough to allow a small tear to spill from the corner of my eye.
Big mistake. It opened up a floodgate. Sobs raced in, grabbing hold of my body and taking it on an emotional carnival ride.
“Rachel, what’s the matter?” Santou asked in alarm, flicking on the light.
“Turn it off!” I cried out, not yet ready to see or be seen by the world.
Santou doused the light. Then wrapping me in his arms, he rocked me back and forth in the darkness. He waited until my sobs died down and gently kissed my forehead.
“Now tell me what’s wrong, chère.”
I had no other choice—not unless I wanted him to believe that I was a total madwoman. Still, it was difficult to divulge a matter about which I’d remained silent for so long. It had been yea
rs since I’d told anyone. Mainly because there’d always been too many questions, few of which I wanted to answer.
“I had a sister that left home years ago.”
“What?” Santou exclaimed, pulling me with him as he sat up in bed. “When was this?”
“Shortly after my father died. Rebecca was sixteen years old at the time, and I was ten.”
“Why didn’t you ever tell me about it before?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I lied, and immediately burst into tears again.
Santou grabbed some tissues, and I wadded them up and blew my nose.
“That’s not true,” I admitted. “It’s because I always felt too guilty to talk about it.”
“Why should you feel guilty, chère? I’m sure it wasn’t your fault.”
“In a way, it was. I could have tried to stop her. Only I didn’t,” I confessed aloud for the very first time. “Rebecca told me that she planned to run away and made me promise not to tell anyone. It seemed like such an exciting game back then that I kept her secret. I’ll never forgive myself for not having warned my mother.”
Whoever said confession was good for the soul had no idea what they were talking about. I still felt like crap.
“Did you ever hear from her again?”
I shook my head, and tried to speak over the lump in my throat. “My mother hired someone to search for Rebecca, but she was never found. I don’t know if she’s alive or dead to this day.”
“You were just a kid, chère. You can’t hold yourself responsible for your sister’s actions.”
“But I do. Rebecca’s disappearance broke my mother’s heart. She was the favorite, the one that was clever and beautiful. I sometimes wonder if I was happy that she left, so I could try to take her place. I think my mother knew it, too, and resented me for it. No matter what I did, it was never quite good enough.”
I hated revealing so much, detested feeling this vulnerable. Yet once having started, I now couldn’t stop myself.
“I spent my teenage years attempting to prove that I was equally worthwhile. Hell, I’ve been doing that my entire life. What I finally discovered is that it’s fruitless to try and compete with a ghost. Especially one for which I feel so responsible.”
Santou pushed a jumble of curls out of my eyes and held me at arm’s length.
“Do you know what I see when I look at you, Rachel Porter? Someone who has the gumption to act on what she believes in and is willing to stand up to the world. I see a woman who’s strong, courageous, and smart. You’ve got enough spirit to take on battles that you probably won’t win, all because you’d rather go down fighting than to ever give up. The only thing you’re guilty of is not appreciating who you really are. So see yourself through my eyes, Rachel, and realize there’s no one more beautiful that I could possibly love.”
I cried once again. Only this time it was because I knew how lucky I was to have Santou in my life, and just how easy it would be to lose him. I’d learned all too well that the world is an increasingly dangerous place in which things can change in a brief instant.
That’s also true of butterflies, I mused. Only they have one big advantage over us. They get to be born twice.
I lay awake awhile longer, listening to the rhythmic pattern of Jake’s breathing, unwilling to close my eyes and slip into dreamtime. Only when the sound mixed with the mournful lament of a fog horn to become a gentle lullaby, did I grudgingly fall asleep, temporarily leaving this existence.
Nine
I felt sure I’d barely closed my eyes when something jabbed into my side, accompanied by the sound of footsteps shuffling near the bed. But it was a warm breath drifting across the back of my neck that had the hairs rising on my head.
I slowly worked my fingers under the pillow to where a .38 was lodged between the wall and the mattress. Grabbing hold of the gun, I rolled over in one lightning quick move, prepared to face down a bad-ass intruder. Instead I found my landlady inscrutably standing there in the dark, dressed in the loose garb of a tai chi master.
Mei Rose didn’t appear to be the least bit fazed by my gun. Rather she kept prodding at me as if I were a chicken being sized up for dinner.
“What are you doing?” I wailed, pondering how hard it would be to find a new place to live.
“Shh!” Mei Rose hissed like a pissed-off snake. “Be quiet or you wake up Jake. He needs his sleep.”
I glanced at the clock: 6 A.M. Or in my world, the crack of dawn, considering that I didn’t have to get up for another hour.
“What about me?” I grumbled and lay back down, only to have her fingers poke again into my ribs.
“You don’t need so much sleep. Besides, this is the time we go shopping.”
Terrific. I wondered how much jail time I’d be sentenced to for punching out a senior citizen.
I reluctantly rolled out of bed and splashed some water on my face, deciding that was all the personal hygiene Mei Rose was going to get. Then I followed her downstairs and through the front door, noticing that not even Tony Baloney was up and about at this ungodly hour.
Heading down the hill, we came to Washington Square Park, where a cluster of elderly Asians was already practicing their tai chi. The group looked completely at home, though they were in the heart of North Beach, surrounded by Saint Peter and Paul’s Catholic Church, Italian coffeehouses, and social clubs.
The women wore colorful quilted jackets of bright yellows, reds, and pinks, which turned them into a resplendent bouquet of flowers. They gossiped amongst themselves while performing the ancient Chinese exercise in a series of slow, flowing movements. I chuckled, having realized what they reminded me of: an octogenarian group of John Travoltas. Each struck a pose, as though having been caught in a freeze frame of the movie Saturday Night Fever.
“Jo Sun, Nay Ho,” they sang out in greeting to Mei Rose, as we quickly walked by.
She cheerfully waved, but didn’t come to a halt.
The smell of freshly baked sourdough bread made my stomach grumble as we passed a bakery, where a worker shoveled loaves in and out of a brick oven. I would have been tempted to stop if it weren’t for the anxious clucking of Mei Rose’s tongue.
“Hurry, hurry,” she urged, moving me along.
“Why? What’s the rush?”
“We want to get there before all the best stuff is gone.”
Considering the hour, I didn’t imagine that would be too big of a problem.
We crossed into Chinatown, and were immediately swept up in a flurry of activity.
Merchants with pushcarts scurried about, wasting no time as they darted in and out of stores selling their wares. Meanwhile, an army of elderly women crowded the streets, each engrossed in shopping for the evening meal. They were as intently focused on their mission as if they were cops pounding a beat.
I dodged an ancient woman that dashed out of Ming Kee’s Game Shop with a live bird in tow. Its beak pecked away inside its paper-bag prison, demanding to be released. I peered into the store and spied cages stacked one on top of another, each containing tightly packed fowl. There were roosters, squabs, and silken chickens with long white feathers. Little did they know that their fate was to be tonight’s dinner.
Ming Kee’s used to butcher the birds for customers right on the spot, cleaning, gutting and taking out the gizzards. However, it created an ungodly mess with feathers littering the streets and blood running into the sewers. The health department finally had to step in and crack down. Now women carried live birds home on the bus, satisfying their urge for freshness by killing the creatures themselves.
Mei Rose chuckled at my apparent fascination. “What? You never knew where your chicken dinner came from before? Maybe you thought chickens were born already packaged and wrapped in plastic at the grocery store.”
But I paid little heed, too caught up in all the action going on.
Old men were gathered in Portsmouth Square, where they played games of Chinese checkers. Even so, the loud clack, clack, clack
of thousands of mah jongg tiles could be heard coming from a nearby alley. Adding to the open-air symphony was the whine of sewing machines, humming like a hive of busy bees—only these workers were women who sat hunched over mounds of garments and pieced them together in darkly sinister factories.
“Come. There’ll be other things to look at,” Mei Rose prompted, as we cut up to Stockton Street.
Here was where the real Chinatown existed, without tourists, McDonald’s, or ticky-tacky souvenir stores. It was here that the locals came to do their shopping twice a day.
I was immediately swallowed up by throngs of pedestrians and pulled along, as if magnetically drawn, toward outdoor bins brimming with bitter melon, litchi nuts and lotus root. The vibrant colors of figs, mangoes, oranges, and durian fruit looked too intense to be real. I stood in awe and watched as Mei Rose jockeyed for position with the rest of the pros, grabbing the freshest produce that she could reach.
Then it was off to the fish market, with its display of snails, conch, and grouper. Had I been alone, I’d have been tempted to liberate all the traumatized turtles and frogs that were piled high in water-filled tubs. As it was, the frogs crawled over and on top of one another like a gang of desperate stowaways crammed inside a ship’s hold. They futilely attempted to escape the grasping hands that held them up and roughly prodded and poked at their bellies. The lesson clearly was that it didn’t pay to be among the fattest frogs in Chinatown.
Our last stop was a bakery where I joined a pigeon standing on line with the rest of the customers. The bird patiently waited for a few crumbs to fall from the mooncakes and sesame balls that they bought. I eyed the pigeon in silent warning, having become hungry enough to wrestle the bird for the crumbs myself. Mei Rose looked away in embarrassment as my stomach loudly rumbled, pretending not to know me. It was only when we walked outside that she took pity and led me toward a juk shop.
We sat at a booth and each ordered a bowl of rice porridge, after which Mei Rose happily chattered on about tonight’s meal. Only I wasn’t paying attention, my mind having wandered.
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