China Dolls

by Lisa See

  “What’s this?” Eddie stood in the doorframe, still in his tails. His big grin faded as he absorbed the changes in Grace. Without another word, he crossed the room and wrapped his arms around her. “It sure is swell to see you, kid.”

  She got a little weepy, but Eddie took care of that with more hugs and kisses followed by words of concern and encouragement.

  “You never wrote,” he said. “We all worried about you. Even Charlie.”

  “You mean he’s forgiven me?” she asked.

  “For cutting out that night? He was never mad at you. But, babe, you didn’t need to do that. No guy is worth it. Believe me.”

  Grace blushed. “So everyone knows my business?” When neither Eddie nor I answered, she quickly changed the subject. “What are you two doing here?”

  “You just saw what we’re doing.” Eddie scratched his chin. “The hotel wanted a novelty act, and we’re providing it. They’re paying good money.”

  “We want to get some movie work too,” I added.

  “Movie work.” Grace frowned. “Boy, have I ever failed at that.”

  “Don’t give us that look,” Eddie chided. “No one ever said it would be easy. This business is all about breaks. Sometimes you get a good break. Sometimes you get a bad break. That’s the breaks! So perk up! Laugh a little!”

  “Every show business career has low points,” she agreed tentatively. “It’s easy to get down and beat yourself up. Even for big movie stars. You finish a movie, and then what? Will I ever work again? I love one thing about show business, though.”

  “Let me guess,” Eddie said, game. “You work here, and you make friends. You work there, and you make new friends. Pretty soon you start bumping into those folks in clubs, theaters, and movie studios. And sometimes they pop up in the most surprising places, because our world isn’t that big. See? Here we are!”

  “Oh, Eddie.” Grace’s eyes brimmed with tears. “I’ve missed you all so much. Shoot! I’ve even missed Ida!”

  WHEN THE TWO-WEEK gig at Casa del Mar ended, Grace invited me to move into her drab room in a boardinghouse in Hollywood. Eddie rented accommodations in the same building. So far, Grace hadn’t asked about Ruby and had closed off any attempts by me to discuss her, but once we were roommates, the subject was unavoidable.

  “We may as well get it out in the open,” Grace volunteered when I started to unpack my suitcase. “How is she?”

  “Ruby told me she felt terrible about what happened.” I paused to get a sense of Grace’s reaction. “She was heartbroken when you left.”

  “I was busted up too—”

  “Grace, what can I say? The whole thing was horrible.”

  My words delivered sharp stabs into her heart. She still ached. I’d never realized a woman could not be married and feel so deeply.

  “When I look back, Joe didn’t actually do anything to me.” I could see that she’d given this a lot of thought—months, alone, of thought. “He treated me like a smitten kid, and I was. Now I can say I’ve survived the agony of first love.”

  “And Ruby?”

  “That’s harder. We were friends. She should have told me. But then I think about how I reacted. No wonder she didn’t tell me.”

  I took the framed photo that I’d wrapped in a sweater out of my suitcase and tucked them together in a drawer. “She’ll want to hear that I found you.”

  “Don’t tell her. Please? It’s embarrassing enough that I acted like a dumb kid. It will humiliate me even more for her to know I’m down on my luck.”

  “All right then.” I reached for her hand. “It’ll be just the two of us—Grace and Helen.”

  EDDIE AND I made the rounds of the studios and had as little luck as Grace had. We had fun, though. Sometimes, after a disappointing day, Eddie would buy a pint and bring it back to Grace’s and my room, where I’d make grilled peanut butter sandwiches on the hot plate. Cocktails and a gourmet meal! On Sundays, we splurged and had cornflakes and milk or maybe leftover rice with sugar and cream on top. Grace took us to a little place in Chinatown called Sam Yuen. The food was good and cheap, and the owner liked me because we spoke the same dialect. “If you girls ever want jobs …” As if I could ever be a waitress …

  I thought we had it made when Eddie got us signed with a booking agent, Max Field, who agreed to represent the two of us as dance partners, Grace as a soloist, and Grace and me as a team. Max looked for all kinds of gigs: club dates, one-nighters, three-night stands. Grace and I got the first booking, doing a variation of “Let Me Play with It,” which we’d once practiced with Ruby, for three weekends at the Florentine Gardens. Eddie and I got a couple of gigs too. One night I stayed home with a fever, and Grace stepped in as Eddie’s partner at a floor show at La Rue. This gave Eddie an idea: “Let’s put an act together for the three of us.”

  We bought time at a dance studio to work on a ballroom routine. Grace and Eddie loved Cole Porter, and they searched for the perfect tune—with a nice tempo and the right sentiment—before settling on “You’d Be So Easy to Love.” Eddie took turns practicing lifts with Grace and me.

  “Astaire and Rogers, Toy and Wing, Veloz and Yolanda—they all make lifts seem easy, but they aren’t,” Grace said one afternoon after she’d crashed on her behind for the ten thousandth time that day. How often did Eddie drop us on our shoulders, our hips, our heads, our knees? How often did we go flying through the air, slipping across the floor, banging into walls? We were covered with bruises. But no matter how often I found myself splayed on the floor, I got right up and moved back into Eddie’s arms. I loved dancing with him. All the while, he stared into my eyes.

  “You have to feel that we’re in love.” His voice burrowed into me. “Let the audience see that I’m seducing you and that you’re weakening. The audience wants to know you’re mine.”

  And I could play along, because it wasn’t real.

  Max saw the act and said we were great. Then he sat us down and pointed out the obvious: Eddie’s evening dress—with the long coattails and broad lapels, the shirt with the stiff front, and the white tie—was frayed. Max was even tougher on Grace and me. “You two look kiddified. You’re young, fine, but proper gowns will make you look elegant, polished, and sophisticated.”

  No one had ever called me “kiddified” before, and it was pretty insulting given how I’d been raised to have the nicest dresses in Chinatown and how I had so many beautiful cheongsams made for me in China. So Grace and I went out and I used the last of the money I’d brought with me to buy matching sequined chartreuse gowns—backless—which didn’t look one bit kiddified. Max immediately got us booked to debut our act at the Vendome on Sunset Boulevard. “It isn’t the Trocadero or the Mocambo,” Eddie said, “but it’s still a ritzy nightclub.”

  On the night of our show, Grace went to check the house. She returned bubbling: “Ida Lupino, Ann Sothern, and Randolph Scott are sitting at ringside tables!”

  “No one would ever call them jaw-droppingly famous,” Eddie sniffed, but I could tell he was pleased to have movie stars in the audience.

  We billed ourselves as the Chinese Dancing Sweethearts. Grace and I wore our new sequined gowns, which caught the light and reflected into the audience. Eddie, in his new tuxedo with shimmering lapels, and his hair oiled to glisten, hoped to draw all the women’s eyes to him. We flowed back and forth across the floor, embracing and releasing each other, and then coming together again. Eddie’s choreography incorporated graceful arcs, sweeping shoulders, dramatic lifts, and deep knee bends. A dip here, and Eddie kissed me; a dip there, and he kissed Grace. For the finale, he put an arm around each of our waists, lifted us both off the floor, and twirled us in mesmerizing slow motion, showing not only our delicacy but his strength as a dancer and as a man. We earned back everything we’d spent on our costumes, but we were not asked to return.

  “Why would one man dance with two girls?” the Vendome’s manager asked after we performed. “What does it mean? Do Chinese girls do that?”r />
  Max got us a few other bookings at second-rate joints, but splitting $17.50 a week between three people was no way to earn a living. The Chinese cooks in the club kitchens so pitied us that they gave us leftover ice cream and stale rolls. We’d take home our handouts, steam the rolls, and then dip them in the melted ice cream. I could have written home and asked for money, but I didn’t want to give my father the satisfaction. Besides, to me, this was all still a big and fun adventure.

  Then our luck took a turn for the worse. We were rejected again and again, with one kick in the pants after another. In October, Max finally managed to book a gig for us to do programmers—putting on our act before shows at the Orpheum movie palace, right across the street from where Ruby had told us she lived with her parents when she was a girl. This was the last gasp of vaudeville, and our trio was slotted between a jumping dog act and an old woman who should have abandoned burlesque a long time ago. We tried to be better than the other performers, but the audience just wanted the movie to start.

  One night, after two weeks of shows, Eddie fell into a dark mood. We were backstage, the film was playing, and it reflected on us in reverse. Eddie sat on a wooden crate, put his elbows on his knees, and stared at the floor.

  “I’ve been working as an entertainer for a long time, and I’m right back where I started,” he said, his voice dry and black. “My father was a doctor, and he expected me to become one too. When I was in my first year at Yale medical school, I’d go to the local speakeasy, where they held dance contests as part of their cover. The first prize was fifteen bucks. What I’d do for that now.”

  I put a hand on his shoulder. “Come on, Eddie. Let’s go home.”

  When he shrugged me off, Grace and I grabbed a couple of stools and pulled them next to him. We gathered our skirts and draped them over our knees to keep them from slipping onto the filthy floor.

  “I used to go down to New York on weekends to see Fred and Adele Astaire on Broadway. I’d watch the show three times in a single weekend. I’d practice what I’d seen on the sidewalk. Then I’d go up to Harlem and watch Bill Robinson, Peg Leg Bates, the Nicholas Brothers—”

  “I saw Bill ‘Bojangles’ Robinson in The Little Colonel at the Rialto,” Grace interrupted. “I didn’t much care for Shirley Temple, but I loved Bill Robinson—”

  “I’d go in the alley behind the Cotton Club between shows,” Eddie continued, “where the guys would be smoking, drinking, showing off to each other. It’s 1925, and you just can’t believe who’s dancing there—”

  Nineteen twenty-five? I was only seven years old then. If he was in medical school in 1925, he would have been somewhere around twenty-two years old. That meant he had to be about thirty-seven now. I glanced at Grace. She blinked back at me: Holy smokes!

  Eddie ran a hand through his hair. “My dad has family connections in New York Chinatown, and he sets me up for a job in a clinic over winter break, because he wants me to get experience. Instead, I visit my buddies over at the Cotton Club. ‘You gotta help me, man,’ I tell them. They send me to a speak down on Fifth. When I walk in there, the headman looks at me like I’ve got a screw loose, but they’ve got a good band and I start dancing on the floor—alone, among all the couples. Pretty soon they’re backing away, giving me plenty of space. They dig it! They start throwing money at me. It’s raining coins and bills. I make picking up the money and putting it in my pockets part of the act. I make more dough in those five minutes than I would have made in five days working for my dad’s friend. The music ends, and I’m still picking up money. The headman comes over and says, ‘You dance like that five times a night and you got a job.’ ” Eddie lifted his chin. “Do either of you have a drink on you?”

  Of course not.

  “But it’s a speak,” he went on, “so we’re raided a lot. I’m dancing in my tails, while everyone else is running for the back door. Then it was time to go back to Yale.”

  Eddie lifted his head. He seemed tormented by memories. “My dad wants me to shadow him as he takes care of his patients. He was one of the first Chinese to attend medical school in America. I’m proud of him, but I don’t want to be a doctor. I don’t want to deliver babies or lance boils. One night I ask my mom to come to my room. I open my box with all the money I made in the speak. She asks, ‘Who did you rob?’ Not long after that I leave for Hollywood. My first job you wouldn’t believe. I’m dancing at the opening of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, and then before every movie showing. It seems like a big accomplishment, but it’s actually not my big break. I get a solo in a movie. I leap off a piano and land in a split. Everyone tells me that will become my signature move. I thought I had it made.”

  “That is your signature move,” I said, “and you do have it made. You’re just going through a rough patch—”

  “I understand, Eddie,” Grace interrupted. “With every good opportunity that comes along, I get the sense I’ll only go so far. Even if I do get a part in a movie, it will be as a maid or dragon lady. And even if I succeed, I’ll always be compared to—”

  “I don’t want to be a copy of someone else,” Eddie grumbled. “I don’t want to be the Chinese Fred Astaire. There are enough imitators already. I mean, how many Chinese Fred Astaires can there be? I don’t want to be the Chinese Bill Robinson either.”

  Grace sympathized. “Who hasn’t heard of the Betty Grable Legs of Chinatown, the Chinese Sophie Tucker, the Chinese Houdini, or the Chinese Bing Crosby?”

  “Isn’t that just shorthand?” I asked, trying to be business-practical. “Isn’t it a way for customers and casting directors to put people like us into a recognizable box—”

  “Like if you can’t afford Errol Flynn, you put a man in tights, give him a bow and arrow, and throw a felt hat with a feather in it on top of his head, and people will make the connection?” Eddie asked bitterly.

  So I’d insulted him.

  “I want to be recognized for who I am and for what I do.” He sighed. “I was hired to play a Hawaiian, an Indian, and a Japanese. They never wanted me to play a Chinese, because they said I didn’t look Chinese enough. I didn’t look right to play a waiter, houseboy, or hatchet man. I can’t win,” he said, anger surfacing. “Even Charlie Chan’s Number One Son never gets the girl. So here I am, flanked by two babes. But that brings the other stereotype—that Chinese men are oversexed, and we’re going to rape white women and pollute the race. If that weren’t enough, we’ll never make what other entertainers make. Hell, we’ll never make what Negro entertainers make. Back at the Cotton Club, Ethel Waters and the Nicholas Brothers earned about a thousand bucks a week. Bill Robinson made thirty-seven hundred big ones. Charlie and the other club owners will never pay us anything close to that. Never!”

  On the way home, Eddie stopped at a liquor store and bought a quart of gin. When we got back to the apartment building, he didn’t invite us to share it with him.

  HELEN

  A Tide of Emotions

  By Thanksgiving, we were “on the beach”—no work, no bookings in sight. Our dinner that night: ten cents’ worth of buns picked up in Chinatown. Grace and I needed jobs, but getting employment anywhere—as Americans who looked Chinese—felt as futile as plowing the sand and sowing the waves. That said, on the Monday after Thanksgiving, Grace and I lucked (ha!) into positions making hot fudge sundaes at C. C. Brown’s on Hollywood Boulevard, a block from Grauman’s Chinese Theatre and practically across the street from the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. The job allowed us to eat a little, and sometimes people left us nickel tips under their saucers. The manager, Tim McNulty, was nice. He was tall, soft-spoken, and kept his hair neatly trimmed. I’d never worked in a restaurant before, but Tim was patient and easygoing, teasing me about the deliberate way I sprinkled the slivered almonds and set the cherry just so. And really, making and serving hot fudge sundaes to people hungry for a mouth-happy experience wasn’t all that bad.

  When Tim asked me out just four days into the job, I surprised myself by accepting. I wa
s lonely, and I’d been lonely for a very long time. I liked having a man take my hand when I got out of the car, hold my elbow when we walked on the street, put an arm around my shoulder when we sat in the movie theater. Hours later, Tim kissed me on the front porch of the boardinghouse. It wasn’t like Eddie’s performance kisses. I’d never kissed a lo fan before, and it made me wonder if everything would be different with him. The next day, when I went to work, he was attentive without being overbearing. A sensation of light burning the edges of my loneliness allowed me to say yes to a second date a couple of days later. We didn’t do anything fancy—no big night on the town—because he didn’t have much money either. He was just a sweet man, who invited me back to his apartment after dinner. His room was clean and orderly. The way he made love to me … His skin was so white against mine, and for a few minutes I forgot everything as a familiar warmth started to overwhelm me, washing me to the precipice … Then, from deep inside me, I felt darkness well up and brutally grasp my heart. Inwardly I pulled back, but I had nowhere to escape. I didn’t try to get Tim to stop. I forced my body to go numb and waited for the final spasms of pleasure to shudder through him. And then, and then …

  I began to cry. How could I have let Tim touch me at all? I knew that making love could be good and comforting for wives and mothers, but this was a terrible mistake for me. I’d been trying to quench my thirst by looking at plums, console myself with what could be, but now I felt wretched.

  “It’s all right,” Tim comforted, but he couldn’t possibly understand my feelings. I sat up, making sure the sheet kept me decent, and began pulling on my clothes. The whole time, he kept talking. “Don’t go. Don’t leave like this.”

  When I put on my shoes and stood, he slipped out of the bed too. Naked. I covered my eyes.

  “I’m not this person,” I said. “I don’t do this.”