I had become invisible.
It was a ninja trick. I focused my thoughts on something neutral and devoid of emotion—in this case, listening to the distant music—and in the process, I wiped my energy slate clean. No one even glanced my way as I slipped into the corridor and back to the anonymity of the club.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Once I had distanced myself from the scene of the crime, I took a moment to relax and reflect. The night wasn’t even over and I had already beat the crap out of someone.
At least it wasn’t my date.
I snorted a laugh and hurried to the cocktail lounge. I needed to take care of my reason for coming to this unlucky club before the cops shut it down for the night.
The Siren Club lounge was a glittery underwater fantasy with shell couches, seahorse tables, and cocktail waitresses costumed in sequined bikini tops and long, fitted skirts split up the center and fanned at the bottom like a tail. I followed one of these mermaids to the waitress station at the end of the bar and asked for a glass of ice.
“You want some water with that?”
I shook my head and immediately regretted it. “No, thanks. Just the ice.”
She watched as I removed a sizable cube and tucked it under my hair where a lump was forming.
“You okay? Do you want to sit down or something?”
“Nope. Just hot. The dance floor was crazy crowded. Is it usually this busy on a Tuesday night?”
She shrugged. “Popular club.”
“Yeah, it’s one of my favs. I just never come during the week.”
She studied my face as if trying to remember when she might have seen me.
“I’m usually dancing. But I come into the lounge now and then, mostly on Saturday nights.”
“Oh, that’s why I haven’t seen you. This room gets packed on weekends.”
I laughed in agreement. “Tell me about it. Hey, is Mia around?”
“Nah, she’s not working here anymore.”
“Oh no. I was hoping to hear how things went with Freddy. She was so excited about him.”
“She told you about Freddy?”
I nodded. “We bonded over an asshole customer.”
“Oh. Well, that would do it.”
I shook the water from my hand and pinched another ice cube from my glass. “So, do you know what happened with them? Mia and Freddy, I mean. I got sucked into the drama, but I don’t know how it ended.”
Her eyes brightened beneath her glittery false eyelashes. “Oh my God. You didn’t see her on the news?”
“The news? Why was she on the news?”
She checked to make sure the bartender was out of hearing. “Mia accused one of our customers of trying to kill her.”
“No.”
“Yes. But don’t worry, Mia’s a drama queen. The guy didn’t do it. She just wanted attention.”
I let my jaw drop to express the appropriate amount of astonishment. “Unbelievable. But what happened with Freddy? I feel like my favorite nighttime soap got canceled.”
She shrugged. “I don’t know, but she had a sweet thing going. Did you know the guy helped her pay for that apartment? I mean, he wasn’t model gorgeous or anything, just a regular guy. Older, of course, and shorter. But Mia’s tall so she had to be used to that.”
I leaned in. This was exactly the kind of dish I was hoping to hear. “She dumped him?”
“Don’t know, but she was definitely looking to trade up.”
I shook my head in wonder. “If I had a guy like Freddy, I’d take good care of him.” I gave her a sly smile. “I don’t suppose he still comes around?”
“Nah. Once they got together, he stopped coming. Buttoned-down type. I don’t think this was his scene. His last name’s Weintraub if you want to look him up. Oops, table five’s almost done with their appletinis. Gotta go. Nice talking to you.”
If nature abhorred a vacuum, then so did nightclubs, because the instant the waitress left, a cologne-stinking sleazeball filled her place. “Can I buy you a drink, sweetheart?” he said, running a sweaty hand up my arm.
Bad timing.
I snagged and bent three of his fingers and drove him toward the floor until his ear was level with my lips. “Did I ask you to touch me?”
He shook his head and struggled to hold himself between the pain I was inflicting and falling on his knees.
“Sorry. I couldn’t hear you.”
“No,” he croaked. “You didn’t ask.”
I increased the pressure. “And have I done anything to suggest I would want you to touch me?” When he shook his head, I did the same. “No. I did not. So maybe you should keep your clammy hands to yourself, you think?”
“Sure. Yes!”
I guided him back to standing and released his fingers. “Now go play nice. And keep your hands to yourself.”
The sudden relief from pain made him bold. “You fucking—”
I held up my palm. “You don’t want to push me tonight. Trust me.”
He must have seen the truth in my eyes because he backed off.
I tried not to feel smug. Then again, maybe I had earned my satisfaction. Not only had I taught this guy a lesson, I had damn near castrated a would-be rapist, and gotten the full name and physical description for Mia’s mystery man. Not a bad night’s work.
Now if I could just figure out what to do about Daniel Kwok.
Chapter Twenty-Five
My troubled mind wobbled like a top at the end of its spin, laden with heavy thoughts, memories, and remnants of a disturbing dream. I knew I should get out of bed, make some tea, focus on something constructive, but I couldn’t let go of my grandmother’s quilt.
Farmor—which meant father’s mother in Norwegian—had grown up in a coal town in North Dakota where she had lived in a two-bedroom house with her immigrant parents and five siblings. As the eldest daughter, much of the work caring for family had fallen to her, so much so that she dropped out of school shortly after turning fourteen. When my life got hard, I often thought of the way my father’s mother handled every bump in the road with steadying grace.
I hugged the quilt and rubbed the swirling flowers against my face. Farmor had stitched the Rosemaling designs by hand, using vermilion and pale grass-green threads to match the walls of my apartment. She had even sewn the printed patchwork steps that bordered the quilt into auspicious groups of three. With this one loving creation, Farmor had honored Ma’s Chinese culture while still sharing her own Norwegian heritage. All to comfort me after Rose’s passing.
Passing.
Farmor’s euphemism couldn’t erase the violence. Nor could it ease my guilt for choosing to make love to Pete instead of answering Rose’s text.
So why hadn’t I dreamt of Pete and Rose—or even Daniel? Any of them would have made more sense than dreaming about Tran.
As with my meditation in Sensei’s home dojo, Tran had been standing at the top of a cliff, gazing at the horizon, while I watched from the rocky beach below. He had seemed so contained up there all alone, as if he didn’t need anyone or anything. I didn’t believe it. Everyone needed something. Everyone had secrets. My dream-self burned to know his.
As I climbed, the ascent grew increasingly more dangerous. Soon, I was clinging to the underside of a ledge over jagged rocks and pounding surf. It was crazy. Why was I risking my life? I had no answer; but still, I kept going, digging my fingers and toes into sharp fissures, struggling to reach the top of the cliff. As I climbed, my thoughts wandered, and I pictured a silly image of a tiny Tran, clad in classic ninja garb, creeping across my god shelf to steal the giant polished metal disk from my shrine. He had stolen my reflection! I needed to know why, but when I grabbed the edge of the cliff, the rocks gave way, and I fell.
I woke before I hit, so I had no way of knowing if the fall would have killed me in my dream. If it had, would I have woken? Or did people die in their sleep because they died in their dreams? And
if so, could we resurrect ourselves by the same device? Every question bloomed another until my thoughts chased each other as fruitlessly as a pug chased its tail.
Once again, I hugged the quilt and thought of Farmor. Stop your silliness, Lily. There’s work to be done. She was right, as always.
I blew her a kiss. “Mange takk, Farmor.”
I only knew a handful of words in Norwegian, but “many thanks, Grandmother” were probably the most important. Unless my grandfather had a say, in which case he would tell me the most important word in the Norwegian language was bestefar, which meant best father. Bestefar took great pleasure in listing all the ways a grandfather was superior to a father, somehow missing what those arguments implied about his own parenting skills. I used to laugh at the absurdity of some of the brags until one day, when I was seven and visiting my grandparents’ farm in North Dakota, Baba assured me—out of Bestefar’s hearing, of course—that all the brags were true. Then I laughed even harder.
The three of us had been sitting in front of the fireplace on a cold autumn night while Farmor tucked Rose into bed. Bestefar and been sitting in his easy chair, me on the ottoman, and Baba on the hearth, poking at the fire.
“You know, Dumpling,” Baba had said, “the only reason Bestefar had children was so, one day, he could be a grandfather and finally say he was the best at something.”
“Hogwash,” said Bestefar, nudging me with his foot. He had piercing blue eyes instead of Baba’s more soothing cornflower, and his silky blond hair had long since turned white with age. “Don’t you listen to him. Your papa slipped in on a sandwich is all.”
“I did no such thing. I worked my butt off for you, mucking out stalls every morning before daybreak.”
“Ah, that weren’t nothin’,” Bestefar said. “I drove a wagon to school across the snow.”
I tugged at his socks. “Did it sink?”
Bestefar smiled. “Nah. It had skis. And a coal stove in da center to keep the barns—that’s what we called the kiddies—from freezing off their noses. They would huddle on the side benches while I sat up at the front, peepin’ through a slit just big enough for da horses’ reins and my own eyeballs. It weren’t like a prairie wagon, you understand, more like a big wooden box with a peaked roof so the snow would slump. But as the eldest, it was my job to drive it through da snow. Couldn’t see nothin’ but white most of the time, dontcha know. But I always got everyone to school.”
Then he winked. “Heck, your papa rode to school in my Oldsmobile with the guldarn heater blastin’.”
Spit sprayed from Baba’s mouth. “Blasting? Half the time you had the window open.”
Bestefar shook his head sadly. “See what I mean, Lily? Soft as a sow’s belly.”
“Soft?” Baba grabbed my foot. “Your grandfather had me driving posts in zero below.”
Bestefar clucked. “And they never were straight.”
“While he lounged in that very chair, drinking Akevitt and beer!”
“I never lounged,” said Bestefar, thrusting out an arthritic finger. “Never once.”
Baba waved away the preposterous claim. “Don’t let him fool you, Dumpling. He lounged plenty, especially after one of Farmor’s meals.”
“Well. That is true, dontcha know.” Bestefar patted my knee with his giant hand. “Your farmor fixes the best lutefisk in North Dakota, by golly—plump and flaky, white sauce smothered in bacon—best honest-to-god fish you ever tasted. None of this steamed black bean nonsense your papa calls cooking.”
“Hogwash! You’ve eaten at every Chinese restaurant within forty miles of Walcott and you know it.”
“Only because your mamma makes me, which she wouldn’t do if you visited more often and cooked it yourself.” Bestefar held out his hands and smiled. “So you see, Lily, I am and will always be your best father. Remember that when trouble comes knockin’.”
I smiled at the memory.
If Bestefar knew the kind of trouble I got into these days, he’d tie me to that crooked post and let winter freeze some sense into me. Not that it would help—I was stubborner than Baba and Bestefar put together. Or so Farmor had told me on my first trip to their farm.
Rose was only four months old, and I had hovered over her like a mother hen. When I found out that a calf, younger than my sister, had to sleep in the barn, I refused to come back in the house without it. I could still see my grandparents standing in the barn doorway, shaking their heads as Baba made a bed out of hay.
“Uff da!” said Bestefar. “If she wants to freeze, then let her.”
Baba and I spent the night shivering next to the perfectly contented calf. The next morning, I conceded that animals belonged in the barn and spent the day wrapped in one of Farmor’s quilts, drinking hot chocolate in her toasty kitchen.
“You’re the best mother ever,” I had said, wanting her to feel as special as Bestefar.
“No, barnebarn. You already have the best mother there is. But I’m your farmor, your father’s mother, and that’s special enough for me.”
Although I might not see my grandparents often, I carried them with me in ways I was only just beginning to realize.
I released the quilt, smoothed it over my bed, and paused to admire its beauty. Then I padded toward the dojo for my morning meditation. I had missed it two days in a row: first, because of my mad dash to the courtroom and then, because of Baba’s surprise breakfast. I wasn’t about to miss it again.
My mind was an undisciplined mess. If I didn’t remedy the situation, I wouldn’t be any use to anyone.
I bowed onto the mat, walked to the center of my dojo, and knelt into Seiza no Kamae. I could have brought out a cushion and sat cross-legged. Or I could have used the low meditation bench. Both would have been easier on my knees once I passed the ten-minute mark. But I wasn’t after comfort. I needed to concentrate, tap into a higher wisdom, and get some answers. For that, proper sitting posture felt best.
The kamidana drew my attention, as it was meant to do.
Kamidana was the Japanese word for god or spirit shelf that served as an altar for a household shrine. Mine took the form of an actual shelf mounted in the center of my dojo’s vermilion wall. The Japanese called this place of honor kamiza, or top seat. However, like most words in that poetic language, the meaning differed depending on the context in which it was spoken or the kanji used to write it. One meaning referred to the top seat reserved for a special guest or the most prestigious person in the room. Another changed the meaning to spirit seat. In my dojo, I liked to think of both the kamiza above, which held my Shinto temple, and the kamiza below, where Sensei would sit if he ever visited my home. So far, he had declined this offer. Your dojo is the place for personal discovery. Mine is to teach worthy students like you.
I placed my palms together in gassho and vowed to do my best.
The kamidana featured a miniature temple with a shimenawa rope of rice straw hanging across the top to ward off evil spirits. Paper lightning bolts dangled to purify the space. I had arranged various offerings on the shelf—rice, salt, water, plants, candles, incense, and a cloth ofuda that was given to me by Sensei. In the center of the temple, I had perched a shintai.
A shintai was a temporary repository where spirits could visit and rest. It could take the form of small objects like a stone, a wand—or in my case—a small metal disk polished into a mirror to symbolize a stainless heart and a truthful reflection.
I focused on the mirror as I began my opening recitation.
“To receive human birth is difficult, now I have received it. To hear the enlightenment teachings is difficult, now and here I hear them. If I do not take the path of enlightenment in this lifetime, when again in the future will I ever have the chance to do so?”
I continued through this and other affirmations to declare my intent, purify my thoughts, and dedicate my practice to the betterment of the world. It was a tall order—one that required daily renewed commitment. Fort
unately, the process brought its own reward. Even if I never found enlightenment, I could honestly say my life was improved by the attempt.
This appreciation of process over outcome curtailed my natural impatience—which in itself required constant and mindful attention.
I brought up the vision I had seen in my dream—Tran on the cliff, as unfathomable as the ocean that had captured his attention.
Why are you here?
When he didn’t respond, I began my climb. As in my dream, the route grew progressively more precarious until I found myself clinging like a gecko to the underside of a ledge over a jagged coast that now seemed three times farther than it should have been. This was ridiculous. The cliff had already proved unstable, and I had no reason to believe J Tran would break his silence even if I did manage to climb up to his perch. Yet having begun, I felt compelled to keep moving toward the goal.
I pulled myself onto the ledge, climbed to the next, and stopped. The conditions had changed. The cliff was now as smooth as glass and the rocky shore a thousand feet below.
I had become so fixated on my quest I hadn’t noticed. Instead of stopping to reevaluate what I thought I knew and changing my course accordingly, I had foolishly forged ahead, moving farther away from where I needed to be. This was the wisdom I needed to receive. And it didn’t come from Sensei or Farmor or Bestefar; it came from somewhere deep inside of me.
Never become so attached to following the path that you cease to question whether you should still be on it.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Half an hour later, armed with a clear mind and a cup of Darjeeling, I searched the Internet for Freddy Weintraub and found links for a film producer whose forty-seven projects included Enter the Dragon, arguably the quintessential martial arts film, and The Curse of the Dragon, a documentary about Bruce Lee. Baba had given me both of the films for my thirteenth birthday because, by then, his “ninja daughter” had amassed a room full of Wushu trophies.
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