The Ninja Daughter

by Tori Eldridge

  Had she forgiven me? Had Pete? Five and a half years later, I still wrestled with my ghosts.

  Chapter Seven

  A faint glow from Baba’s office guided me up the last few stairs. He left the door open and a light on, supposedly to help me find my way to the washer and dryer we kept in the back. I suspected the real reason was because he didn’t like me traversing stairs in the dark. I laughed. Even when he wasn’t with me, Baba could brighten my mood.

  I glanced from his empty office, open and inviting, to my closed and locked apartment door. That pretty much summed us up.

  It wasn’t always this way; I used to be fun. I signed up for the dorm activities committee my first week at UCLA. And I always had a ton of friends. Ma used to complain that I spent too much time with friends and not enough time studying. Never mind that I only saw those friends during Saturday Cantonese class, Wushu practice, or school functions. She didn’t care about that. To her, any time not spent actively studying in my room constituted gross indolence. Fun and happiness took a back seat to diligence and duty—the back seat of a very long bus.

  I balanced my plate of food and tucked the Ziplocks of ice under my arm so I could punch in the key code. I had convinced Baba to use electronic locks because I didn’t like carrying jagged objects in my pockets—who knew when I’d have to roll off a scaffold? The staff liked the convenience. Baba liked the ability to change access codes. Everybody won.

  My apartment was almost as dark as the stairs, with only a faint glow dripping in through the glass doors at the far end. I hit the master switch and illuminated the long apartment like a diorama—I’d had enough of shadows for one night.

  First came my entrance hall with a cubbyhole bench for my shoes and a wall that separated the entry from a walk-in closet and bathroom. Next came my sleeping quarters, sectioned off by a long Chinese chest of drawers and an antique wooden folding screen on the side of my bed that partitioned it from the living space beyond. A gifted craftsman had carved the top and bottom of each of the six panels with typical Chinese designs and used fabric inlays to portray herons standing in a garden of flowering reeds and wisteria. Each night as I lay in my bed, I found new images in the carvings. Each morning, I discovered new secrets in the garden. When I stood in the entry, as I did now, the soft light from my living area shone through the carvings and dappled my bed with lovely designs.

  I slipped off my shoes and padded down the hardwood floor, glancing at the treasures I kept: meditation malas, a brass singing bowl, my silver phurba necklace, a porcelain figure of Quan Yin, and photos of Rose and my Chinese ancestors, around which I had placed offerings of incense, rice, and salt. Despite these accoutrements, I didn’t think of myself as religious. I practiced Buddhism; I didn’t worship—a distinction I took great care not to debate with Ma. She saw Buddhism as a religion. I saw it as a philosophy. Sometimes the two overlapped. Sometimes they didn’t. The same could be said of Ma and me, although our differences more resembled the hardwood of my entry-sleeping quarters and the firm mat of my dojo.

  Yep. I had a martial arts studio in my apartment. How cool was that?

  It occupied the middle portion of my home, which meant I had to cross over the slightly raised platform of interlocking squares in order to travel from one end of my apartment to the other. The squares had been painted to resemble tatami mats, giving the twenty-by-twelve space the appearance of a Japanese room in an otherwise Chinese-American home.

  Baba once asked why I used the Japanese rather than Chinese name for my training studio, but the answer felt too involved for me to explain. In the end, I just told him it was a martial arts thing. But that wasn’t the truth. Dojo meant “place of the way.” I used that name because my “way” changed when I discovered the ancient art of the ninja.

  The wooden folding screen didn’t just separate my dojo from my bedroom, it served as a cultural partition between the Japanese art I studied and the Chinese-Norwegian heritage of my birth. On the dojo side, I could honor my martial way and follow the Shinto practices related to the art. On the other, I could honor my Chinese Buddhist ancestors then wrap myself in the Norwegian Rosemaling quilt my father’s mother had stitched for me. The screen helped me compartmentalize. Even so, there were times when each of the three cultures pulled so strongly, I couldn’t figure out who I was. So instead, I focused on who I aspired to be: a protector of women.

  I paused in front of the Vermilion wall of my dojo. I had painted every other wall of my apartment, except for this twelve-foot section, the soothing shade of the palest green to remind me of nature and inspire harmony. The Chinese red at the head of my dojo served another purpose. Like most things related to Asian culture, color was symbolic. Vermilion had the dual meaning of prosperity and danger. When I looked at it, I thought of firecrackers exploding in the streets of Chinatown.

  Hóng, hóng, huǒ, huǒ! Red, red, fire, fire!

  It was a wish for our lives to prosper and expand while at the same time cautioning us of danger. That caution hadn’t helped Rose, but it helped me protect women like Rose who might need a big sister to look out for them.

  Red fueled me with the passion to fight. Green reminded me of the harmony I needed to survive. To this end, I turned my home into a vast field of fragile new grass with one dangerous spark of fire.

  Why so much green and so little red?

  Because fighting was easy. Tranquility was hard.

  Chapter Eight

  I woke to the sticky feel of plastic against my stomach and my face mashed into a cushion. The couch? I cracked open my eyelids and got a close-up view of a rust-colored world. Definitely the couch. I rolled back, peeled the zip-locks from my skin, and inched out of the borrowed sweatpants. Dry clothes waited at the other end of my apartment, but no article of clothing merited forty steps.

  I swung my bare legs over the edge of the couch and stared out at my view. The restaurant signboard took up the whole second-story face of our building, so I was basically looking at a wall. Or would have been if Baba had not applied his Midwest ingenuity to creating a balcony paradise. I couldn’t see much blue, but I saw a whole lot of green. I even had a chaise lounge for the fleeting minutes when the sun passed directly overhead. I didn’t indulge often. Every time I sat out there, I could hear Ma’s voice telling me to stay out of the sun.

  I shook my head. I didn’t want to think of Ma this early in the morning. I’d much rather have a cup of tea. And since my tea station was seven steps away on the office side of my living space, I could have it.

  My left thigh trembled as I stood. The Ukrainian had favored a forehand swing with his right hand, so the whole left side of my body felt tenderized. I hadn’t looked, but I imagined a colorful pattern of knot-sized bruises emerging. No big deal. My body and I had an agreement: I kept it strong and healthy, and it tolerated my abuse.

  I hobbled to the border of my dojo and office where my electric kettle sat on a tiny fridge under a shelf of whole-leaf tea tins. Loose or sachets, never bags. I detested those flat relics that crushed tea into dust. Leaves needed room to expand or they brewed weak. The same might be said for people. It certainly applied to me.

  Beside the kettle, on the balcony side of my office, stood my water cooler and an enormous wall map, care of the of Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transit Authority. The Metro map showed the color-coded routes of every bus, rail, and subway—most of which I had memorized. To the left of this, was my L-shaped computer desk, cabinets, and shelves. With tea in hand, I fired up the computer.

  I had been out of contact for almost twenty hours, which was a long time for any millennial. Even me. Not that I did the whole social media thing. Not anymore. I didn’t want people knowing my business, and the stuff my old friends posted annoyed me. Every smile, hug, and cheerful status reminded me of how things used to be. It had been cleaner to sever the ties. However, while I no longer had my own accounts, I did troll social media to assist others—not just the women I tried
to protect but Baba’s web-clueless friends.

  Every morning, I checked the pertinent sites to make sure no one was ruining their brand or disclosing personal information that could put them in danger. A lot of harm could be done with a carelessly worded phrase or an ill-framed photo. And that didn’t include location tagging and timestamps. People shared so much more than they should.

  Fortunately, Ma had set up Internet ground rules for me as a child that made erasing my web presence as an adult easier than it might have been. The number one rule was that I had to use an alias. I chose Rooster, my Chinese zodiac, and used an ink-brush watercolor of the bird as an avatar. I thought it was cool, so I didn’t mind. But her rules about photos were aggravating. I was the only kid I knew who wasn’t allowed to post pictures of herself. And if any of my friends posted a group photo with me in it—from Wushu or school events—they had to list me only as L. Wong, the Chinese equivalent to J. Smith.

  A Google search for L. Wong led to forty-three million hits.

  And those hits weren’t just for women. Even if someone managed to track down a group photo with me in it, they’d have a heck of a time matching the androgynous name to all the likely candidates. Over seventy percent of Arcadia High School students and California Wushu competitors were Asian. Figuring out which Chinese kid was me would drive someone nuts.

  In theory.

  If Ma had considered the patience of a tenacious stalker, she would have kept me off the net entirely. When Violet Wong set the rules, she expected them to be followed. Any school or organization that had the temerity to print my first name, got an immediate and caustic message. Ma’s temper was legendary in Arcadia. Lily Wong could not be listed, and Rooster and L. Wong could never meet. Not ever.

  Rose got off easy. By the time she came of age, Ma had mellowed. Or perhaps it was a case of second child syndrome. Either way, Ma got it wrong: Rose had been the wild child, not me. Not that I was shy. Like any person born under the dynamic sign of the rooster, I gravitated to the spotlight. I had the kind of magnetism that drew attention and got people involved. Baba claimed I had come out of the womb crackling with energy. Ma remembered it differently: “You were born vain, Lily. The first thing you did was wipe the gunk from your face so you could flirt with the doctor.”

  All that changed after Rose died.

  For the first few months, everyone in my life tried to cajole me back to my former Rooster self. The Wushu team, my dormmates, the UCLA orientation committee. Everyone missed my enthusiastic participation. So regardless of how boastful Ma claimed I was, some of it must have been merited. Of course, they all gave up trying to get me back when I dropped out of college, including Ma. So I disappeared.

  I killed my Rooster accounts on social media, didn’t do anything newsworthy, and let my Internet presence get buried beneath the weight of two point eight billion users.

  Everything I took from me, I gave to Baba, turning him into a local star and making his restaurant website the envy of our hodge-podge community. Customers flocked to taste the authentic dishes prepared by Hong Kong Vern—a big-boned, big-hearted, Viking farmer from North Dakota. Wong’s Hong Kong Inn thrived, and Baba gave me the credit.

  It was all very ninja, just not in the way most people imagined. But, of course, that was the point.

  I hadn’t trained in the shadow arts to become an assassin. I had done it to help, empower, and protect. Even at the age of twelve, when I had first started training with Sensei, I had a feeling that, one day, life would try to beat my family.

  I needed a way to fight back. I needed a way to win.

  Chapter Nine

  My inbox held an assortment of newsletters and notices, which I’d probably delete unopened, along with five emails from Ma that I might, or might not, read later in the day. I also had an emergency email—marked with a yellow exclamation mark no less—from Debbie, our neighborhood hairdresser, who “desperately” needed to embed a celebrity’s tweet in her blog.

  Seriously? That was an emergency?

  I took a fortifying sip of tea, sent Debbie a quick explanation and link to an instructional YouTube video, then moved on to what I really cared about: Monday’s SMG notices.

  Each of the special mailing groups notified me of new activity concerning court cases I followed via PACER, a government site that offered public access to court electronic records. The Federal Judiciary service gave me—and anyone else who wanted to register—access to court dockets, transcripts, and electronic case files. PACER allowed me to track the progress and outcome of trials involving the women Aleisha had hired me to help and anyone else who piqued my interest—like the cocktail waitress getting vilified by the press.

  The first notice that popped up was for Mia Mikkelsen. It had to be a sign.

  Like any good Chinese, I paid attention to cosmic communications. Did that make me superstitious? Probably. But my intuition, or whatever people wanted to call it, had saved my ass on too many occasions to ignore. Right now, the signs were telling me to attend the preliminary hearing. I checked the clock. If I hurried, I could get there in time to see a scumbag brought to trial.

  Or so I had hoped.

  By the time I had changed into paralegal-type clothing and caught a rideshare to the Los Angeles Airport Courthouse, the prelim was done and the sidewalk swarmed with protesters and news crews. One crew in particular had a sweet setup in front of the building’s architectural centerpiece: a ten-story, green-glass cylindrical stairwell.

  As I approached, three reporters raced out of the building. The one leading the pack was a pretty blond in an electric fuchsia dress. She stormed through the protesters toting signs denouncing victim-shaming, and headed straight for the two-man team in front of the stairwell.

  “Prelim’s over. You set?”

  The cameraman nodded. “Just need you.”

  His partner dashed into the electronic news gathering where I could see him donning a headset in front of a control panel and video screen. The reporter checked herself in the mirror, blotted her pancake makeup, inserted an earpiece, brushed her tresses so they fell artfully in front of her shoulders, and took her position to await her cue with a frozen smile.

  “Thank you, Randy. I’m standing in front of the Los Angeles Airport Courthouse where the People v Tran preliminary hearing just ended in a shocking dismissal. As you can see from the signs behind me, this case has sparked strong emotions concerning what these protesters are calling ‘victim-shaming’. For almost two weeks, defense attorney Curtis Pike has used the media to paint alleged victim Mia Mikkelsen as a promiscuous, jilted woman out for revenge. Today, he also cast doubt on Mikkelsen’s friend—who claimed to have seen a man of Tran’s height and size in motorcycle leathers fleeing Mia’s bedroom—by arguing that Tran did not own a motorcycle nor did his boot fit the print left in Mikkelsen’s garden. In the end, Judge Michelle Bulman ruled that while there was enough evidence to suggest a crime had been committed, there was insufficient evidence pointing to Tran as the perpetrator.”

  I headed for the courthouse entrance without waiting for the back and forth between reporter and anchor. I had heard enough. Not even a trial? Are you kidding me?

  Unlike the judge, I didn’t need sufficient evidence to keep an eye on Tran. And I sure as heck didn’t buy the boot defense: shoe sizes were easy to disguise.

  For me, it came down to whether or not I believed Mia.

  I did.

  Her story seemed plausible. Her suffering felt real. And her conviction had never wavered, even in the face of public ridicule. She could have dropped the charges and been forgotten in a month. Instead, she had held fast.

  Mia needed a big sister now more than ever.

  I entered the building and sailed through security. No one cared about the sharp wooden spike securing my hair in a tidy bun. I collected my satchel, repositioned my scholarly, prescription-free glasses, and went in search of the docket. People v Tran was assigned to courtroom thre
e eleven. After a glance at the crowd in front of the elevators, I opted for the stairs. I didn’t want to miss catching Mia, and since I looked as though I belonged, I wasn’t concerned about getting caught in the news team’s background footage.

  Despite my hurry, I paused before exiting the stairwell. Barging out the door was a sure way to draw attention. So, I took a breath and walked out of the stairwell with purpose, another paralegal heading for a courtroom. Normal. Expected.

  I found Mia staring out the wall of windows as her attorney, a rather severe-looking woman in her mid-forties, tried to engage her in conversation. I moved close enough to hear.

  “I understand if you don’t want to make a statement down there, but I need to.” When Mia didn’t respond, the attorney shrugged. “Call my office if you have any questions. I’m sorry this didn’t work out as we hoped.”

  Mia continued to stare out the window as though someone in that vast expanse might be able to tell her why she had lost. I didn’t expect her to find an answer anytime soon, so I looked back the way I had come.

  Although J Tran had his back to me, I recognized him from his stance. This was the other reason I believed Mia’s story: he stood like a fighter.

  I had noticed this before in video coverage, when reporters were clamoring for a statement. Tran had stood just as he did now—feet spread apart, arms hanging loose at his side, and utterly still. While his defense attorney swayed and gesticulated, Tran occupied space. He didn’t rock or shake his head. Instead, he held his back straight, his shoulders broad, and his head canted slightly as though he might be looking down his nose.

  But it wasn’t just his posture, it was the way his suit fit—as though it were tailor made—and the way his long hair hung in perfect waves.