by Lisa See
“My father will find a proper girl in China to be my wife. He says he’ll take me there to pick her out as soon as the Japanese are vanquished.”
“You mean like buying the right apple?” I could barely get out the words.
“If you mean no blemishes, then yes.” His eyes narrowed as he appraised me. “You’ll never be more than a big-thigh girl.”
And that was that. Whether he was dropping me or I was dropping him no longer mattered. I pushed myself away from the table.
“Thank you for the ice cream soda.”
“I’ll walk you to your apartment. Only prostitutes walk through Chinatown by themselves. I don’t want you to be branded a no-no girl. No man in his right senses would want to marry you then.”
I thanked him again but turned down his offer. “I’ll walk where I want to walk,” I said stiffly. “I’ll be fine.”
As I headed back to my apartment, I felt lucky. I loved Helen, but I could never live in that family, in that compound, and in constant subservience to Monroe with his Three Obediences and all.
“I thought he was American like me,” I told my friends later. “But he’s much too Chinese. My mom married someone like that—American on the outside but traditional on the inside—and look how it turned out for her.”
Ruby agreed, but Helen was very disappointed. She even cried.
Consequences everywhere.
GRACE
Let the Boy Talk
All through the spring, Helen and I went to the exposition whenever possible. We loved the bustle and jumble, the shills and their ballyhoo. Once we got over the shock of seeing Ruby that first time, we saw that, in fact, she wasn’t entirely naked. We still didn’t “approve” of what she was doing, but she was our friend, and we wanted to show our support, so we always visited her at Sally Rand’s. The girls inside the window were constantly doing new things. One time they took turns riding a burro, while the barker called, “Come and see Sally Rand’s ass.” Joe often came along. Ruby, Helen, and I loved to dance, and he jitterbugged with us to the royalty of the radio “live and in person”: Benny Goodman, Count Basie, Kay Kyser, and the Dorseys. You haven’t lived until you’ve been in front of bands like those and danced all out, and Joe and I outshone every couple on the dance floor, cutting loose with our spins, flips, and other tricks. Surprising he could dance so well? Nope. He’d learned his social moves at debutante balls in and around Chicago and the fancier combos at the hotter gatherings that took place late at night after the girls had been presented.
The more I learned about Joe, the more I adored him. He was smart, with all his classes. He pushed a rolling chair from noon to midnight on weekends, and on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from four until midnight, or later if he picked up a good fare. He’d been raised in Winnetka, which was only about three hundred miles from Plain City. The geographic proximity of our hometowns had to mean something about our values and about who we were as people, didn’t it?
“We’re a little more open about Orientals in Illinois,” he told me one day. “An Oriental and an Occidental can even get married where I live, not like here in California, where it’s against the law.”
I had no idea laws existed anywhere that barred Chinese and Caucasians from marrying. That was rotten news. Seeing my expression, Joe reached over and ruffled the hair on the top of my head.
“Don’t worry, squirt,” he said. “If you ever decide to hitch your wagon to someone like me, he’ll figure it out. Where there’s a will there’s a way. He might even take you to Mexico to tie the knot … Now let’s check to see if Ruby’s in the window. That Sally Rand sure is something, but it’s fun to see your friend too.”
I went with Joe, and he still stared at Ruby the way he had that first time, so I also invited him to the Forbidden City to watch me dance.
“When that Li Tei Ming started to sing, I couldn’t believe it,” he said after the first time he came. “She’s Oriental, but when she opens her mouth she sounds just like my aunt Myrtle.”
How many times had I heard lines like those from customers, who were trying to be polite and complimentary but were really showing their ignorance and prejudice?
“Li Tei was born here,” I responded. “Just like I was born here.”
“I guess that’s what makes you all novelty acts,” he said. “Just like Ruby is a novelty—being Oriental and all—over at Sally Rand’s.”
His comment hurt down to my bones. “We aren’t novelties,” I said as I bristled. “We’re just American girls who like to sing and dance.”
“It’s true,” he agreed. “You’re a real hoofer. You’re better than the rest of them. You should have your own act. You should be a headliner.”
When he said that, I forgave all the other things he’d said and knew that in his eyes, I was special—Oriental or not.
• • •
IN MAY ’39, Sally Rand’s place got raided, and the headlines splashed across newspapers. That didn’t keep people away, however. Everyone wanted to see what the hullabaloo was all about. Ruby gobbled up the attention. But the raid was the last straw for Helen, and she began to stay away. She claimed to be a homebody, and maybe she was, because she never dated, and didn’t wear lipstick or makeup except onstage. Ruby attracted men like ants to spilled Coca-Cola. Her attitude: “Men are nothing to get het up about as long as you don’t get in trouble.” I was saving myself for someone special. That someone was Joe.
My days started to revolve around him. I went to the exposition before I had to be at work, and he joined me before his shift. I dragged him to see special dance performances hosted by countries that didn’t have their own pavilions: Cambodia, Siam, and Burma. He took me to see new inventions: electric razors, nylon hosiery, and a television.
“Grace, soon these products will be in our homes. We’ll sit on the couch and watch television all night instead of going to a nightclub or the picture show. Entertainment will come to us—all at once, all across the country. Think of the reach that will have. Think of the fame it will bring to the entertainers. And the wealth …”
He may have been a college boy, and I loved him, but in some ways, his head was in the clouds. Those DuPont nylon stockings looked neat, though.
I learned the supreme lesson: let the boy talk. Within a few weeks, I knew everything about Joe. He believed in the tooth fairy until he was eight; he hated algebra almost as much as I did; he played football in high school; he couldn’t stand lima beans but he loved his mom’s rhubarb pie. Blue was his favorite color. He had diphtheria when he was three, and his mom stayed up with him every night until he was out of the woods. His favorite hobby when he was a boy was making model airplanes. He loved his mom and dad, but he wanted to stay in California for the rest of his life. He didn’t like taking visitors in his rolling chair to the Japanese Pavilion, because he didn’t approve of what that nation was doing in China—which made me glad that we’d decided to keep Ruby’s background a secret. She could pass, and I didn’t want Joe to hate my best friend. He was moral and concerned about politics—but not a stuffed shirt about it like Monroe.
It wasn’t as though I couldn’t impress Joe when the opportunity arose. In an effort to attract more business to the Forbidden City, Charlie got the ponies booked to do a dance in a newsreel. On the big day, a bus drove us to the beach. We lined up in the sand, wearing big headdresses that tinkled and glittered with every movement, and embroidered Chinese opera gowns with long water sleeves made of the lightest silk, which draped over our hands a good twelve inches. Our feet dragged in the sand, but our water sleeves floated and blew in the ocean breeze. We sidestepped until we were behind a coromandel screen set up incongruously on the sand to discard our headdresses and gowns, and toss them toward the camera in a manner bound to provoke good-natured chuckles. The music changed to a jitterbug. Now in bathing suits, we swung out from behind the screen. “Well, well, well,” the announcer intoned with proper surprise. “What would Confucius say?”
&n
bsp; A few weeks later, when Ruby was in bed with cramps, Joe took me to a matinee—the first picture I’d seen in ages—and we saw the newsreel. I sensed what others in the audience felt when we stripped down to our swimsuits. We had moved from foreign Oriental maidens to homespun American gals in a few frames.
“What a great opportunity for you,” Joe told me later. “Pretty soon you’ll be a genuine motion-picture star.”
Now wasn’t that better than seeing an electric razor or a television?
JOE GAVE ME a fan from the Chinese Village. A landscape of soaring mountains, pavilions with upturned eaves, and trees bent by the wind spread across the fan’s folds. Every night when I got ready for bed, I took it out of my dresser drawer, where I kept the other trinkets he’d given me—a pickle pin from the Heinz exhibit, aluminum coins from the Union Pacific railroad exhibit, and a pair of 3-D glasses. Sure, they were all giveaways—except for the fan and my first precious pair of nylon stockings—but whenever I opened the fan, I thought of Joe. On my days off, I stayed at the exposition all through his shifts, so I could be there during his breaks.
“Grace, you’re still a kid,” he announced matter-of-factly one afternoon as we walked to the White Star Tuna Resturant to buy a lunch of hot tuna turnovers with frozen peas—the latest in fancy foods. “You’re too young for me, and I’m too old for you. Maybe in another ten years …”
Even when I surprised him, he always seemed glad to see me. “You again! Great!” Sometimes we sat by the Port of the Trade Winds to watch the China Clipper seaplanes, which offered the first commercial flights between the United States and Asia, taking off and landing in the bay.
“It takes three weeks to travel from here to Hong Kong on an ocean liner,” he told me. “The China Clipper has shortened it to a couple of days.”
That seemed wondrous, but then I’d never been on a ship, let alone an airplane.
“Maybe one day I’ll get to fly a China Clipper,” he said. But I didn’t see how, especially if he wanted to go to law school.
Joe taught me to drink homemade Cuba libres, which we made by pouring rum into our Coca-Cola bottles. He told me he’d rather have me learn to drink properly with him than from the men in the club, where I might forget how to handle myself.
In August—five months after Joe first approached Helen and me with his rolling chair—he took me to see The Wizard of Oz. Sure, it was a kids’ movie, but those flying monkeys scared the dickens out of me. Watching Auntie Em and Uncle Henry search for Dorothy made me think about my parents. Does Mom miss me? What about Dad? Do they wonder where I am and how I’m doing? But those questions puffed away when Joe whispered in my ear. “The Land of Oz looks just like Treasure Island, doesn’t it?”
Just hearing his voice could wash away even the darkest thoughts.
ON A SATURDAY in early September, I sat in the Court of Flowers, watching for him. I could tell as soon as he came into view that he was cross. My stomach tightened: beware. “I had a single fare for the entire day,” he complained. “Then the guy stiffed me.” Joe burned in a way I recognized from my dad. I got up and followed as he shouldered his way through the throngs, pushing people aside. Of course, trouble finds trouble, and Joe knocked into the wrong person.
“Hey, bub!” the man shouted when Joe didn’t stop to apologize. “Are you looking for a beef?”
Joe answered by spinning around and shoving his accuser in the chest. The man lowered his head and heaved himself at Joe, who was thrown into the crowd. People peeled away, making room for the show. Joe regained his balance, planted his feet, and curled his hands into fists.
“Joe! Don’t!” I cried.
He shuffled forward. The other man was ready. I had to stop this. I reached out and touched Joe’s shoulder.
“Joe—”
He whipped around with his arms raised, ready to lay into me. I closed my eyes and cowered, preparing myself for the blow. It didn’t come. I opened my eyes and saw Joe staring at me, horrified.
“I could have hit you.” His voice shook, but his hands were still up and clenched.
Behind Joe, passersby pulled the other man away. The space around us quickly filled as the masses resumed their fun, while Joe and I remained frozen. Without breaking his gaze, I slowly straightened my body. The terrible tension melted from Joe as his fists loosened, followed by his arms, and finally his shoulders.
“I don’t know what happened,” he said. “I’m so sorry, Grace.”
I put a hand over my mouth and ran through the crowd until I found a trash can. I threw up. I was still heaving when Joe’s fingers began to smooth my hair from my forehead. I flinched; he pulled away. I retched again; he placed a hand on the small of my back. I shook from fright.
“I’m sorry,” he crooned. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry …”
Usually, at the end of our time together, Joe headed to Berkeley and I returned to the city. But on that night, he escorted me back to San Francisco on the ferry. He was still twitchy, but so was I. I hadn’t felt this way since the last time my father beat me to mash almost a year ago. I couldn’t stop shivering. Joe wrapped his jacket around my shoulders and took me to Foster’s on Jones Street for something to eat. He tried to get me to talk, but what could I say? I was too embarrassed to tell him my father had walloped me for years and that for one terrifying second Joe had reminded me of him. I could never hurt Joe’s feelings that way, not when he hadn’t actually hit me.
“You’re a good egg,” he said, heartbreakingly apologetic. “My mom and dad would love you.”
Just like that, pure joy erased my fear. We still hadn’t kissed on the lips, but I could wait.
When we arrived at my building, Joe glanced up and saw that the lights were off in Ruby’s and my apartment. He said good night without asking to come up.
A MONTH LATER, the exposition closed. Some said it was for the winter; some said it was because the fair was in such financial trouble that the organizers needed to come up with an improved vision. Now, Joe came to the city on Saturday nights to see me dance. Sometimes he sat with Ruby—who’d gone back to job hopping—and they watched all three shows. Other than that, I rarely saw my roommate, and I didn’t see Joe as much as I would have liked either. No kisses. No proposal. Nothing. I told myself Joe was taking his time, because I was young, and he was still a student.
With fewer tourists in town for the fair, the Forbidden City’s prospects began to dim. People gossiped that Charlie was bankrupt and that the club was in receivership. Once a week, everyone lined up outside his office to get paid. He hated to part with his cash—whether at the racetrack, in a kitchen poker game, or to compensate his employees. It’s true what they said about him: he wept when he paid you. One night he bawled so hard that Ida griped, “He cried so much, I wanted to give him back his money.”
I’d seen Charlie weep and had him plead with me too: “You don’t really need this, do you? Let me keep it for you.” But I always pocketed my pay without an ounce of guilt or sympathy. I had things to buy and things to do. I couldn’t contemplate the idea that the club might close.
FEBRUARY ARRIVED. I’D been in San Francisco for sixteen months. It had been five months since that night on Treasure Island when Joe almost hit me, but we’d both gotten over that, and my feelings for him had only grown. Today was the first anniversary of the day we met again at the exposition. One year! That was a lot of jitterbugging and talking. I was ready for something more, and I’d decided that tonight would be the night with Joe. I was going to kiss him and tell him exactly how I felt.
I arrived at work and was ready when Charlie called, “Fiedee, fiedee, fiedee! Hurry, hurry, hurry! It’s showtime!”
I was a bit distracted by my decision, so I had to force myself to concentrate as we lined up behind the velvet curtain. Charlie opened the evening: “I want to introduce you to some lovely southern belles … from South China! Grace, Helen, Ida, May …”
We began the promenade, our umbrellas twirling just as they ha
d on opening night, only now Charlie put up a hand to stop me, as he did during every show.
“Now hold on a second, little lady,” he drawled. “How y’all doin’ t’nite?”
“Ah, hawney,” I purred back, “I’m all riled up with no place to go.” I glanced at the audience. “Will you kindly gentlemen—and ladies too,” I added with a tiny curtsy, “allow this gal to show y’all a good time?”
Our customers chortled. They just couldn’t make sense of what they were hearing and seeing, but they absolutely loved it. (I earned an extra five dollars a week for speaking my few lines and for bringing tea to the Lim Sisters at the start of the evening. It seemed like a fortune, and yet I spent every dime.)
That night—as every night—we danced close to the patrons, who drank, smoked, and ate by the red-tinged light of their coolie-hat table lamps. They ogled us in our satin peep-toe sandals, skimpy outfits, and amusing headdresses perched at improbable angles. We swished, wiggled, and writhed. We pranced with a single forefinger raised in the air—jazz style—as we gazed heavenward like naughty angels. I scanned the room and found Joe at a table on the second tier.
When the number ended, the ponies and I went backstage, elbowing past the Juggling Jins, who’d replaced the Merry Mahjongs when they’d gone on tour to “kick the gong around” other cities. These weren’t the only changes we’d had in the fourteen months since the club opened. When Jack Mak decided he needed an assistant, he’d chosen Irene, one of the chorines, to help him. They’d gotten married two months later. (“I told him no funny business until I have a ring on my finger,” Irene said at the wedding. “I couldn’t risk getting knocked up.”) A new girl, Ruthie, had replaced Irene in the line, and she was nice enough. Tonight, after the last show, she would leave real fast, trying to escape before she had to deal with persistent stage-door Johnnies. Other girls—like Ida—would change slowly, guaranteeing that someone would be outside to take them out.