China Dolls

by Lisa See

  I did great in the other numbers—for an audience more focused on girls gyrating in colorful costumes than on footwork—including the “Chinese Coolie Dance,” in which we wore conical straw hats. This caused Charlie to quip to the audience, “Dancing is strenuous but better than going back to the laundry.” Very funny. After everything I’d just heard, I figured Joe had to be here, and I looked for him in the audience. As I made a turn, I spotted him, sitting at a table with a group of guys his age—probably friends from school. My stomach drew up under my chest and my breath caught. As pragmatic as I wanted to be, my feelings for him came rushing back—my love of the sound of his laugh, the endearing way he ran his hand through his hair when he was chagrined, the strength of his arms when we danced, and the desire I’d felt for him since he first approached me on Treasure Island. I tamped all that down. I couldn’t allow myself to be “in love” with him anymore, but a part of me burned with disappointment, jealousy, embarrassment, and, yes, love. No more doormat! I forced myself to keep smiling as I shuffled forward, following the other ponies to the center of the dance floor. Self-preservation first. I needed the job.

  After the routine, I lingered by the curtain to stare out at him anyway. Had he noticed me? Then I became aware of a presence behind my left shoulder. I glanced up and saw the sweet and very handsome face of a young man. Out on the floor, Charlie introduced the Forbidden City’s newest crooner, George Louie, the Chinese Frank Sinatra. Hearing his name, George ducked through the curtain and onto the stage. He held the microphone with both hands, closed his eyes, and began to sing “I’ll Never Smile Again,” sounding exactly like a recording by the heartthrob and going over huge with the women in the audience.

  I rushed back to the dressing room, passing the Lim Sisters on their way to the curtain. And, boy, were they different! Instead of wearing baptismal gowns, they sported sequined, off-the shoulder, one-piece, skintight costumes. A martini glass sprouted from each sister’s headdress at a tipsy angle. Their lips had been painted bright red, and their toenails gleamed crimson through their gold satin sandals.

  Helen was in the dressing room when I got there, sitting as far from Ruby as she could get and still be in the same room. The tension between the three of us seemed to thicken the air. I couldn’t figure out where to go or what to do. Neither of them called me over either. Helen was too busy “preparing,” and Ruby couldn’t stop preening in front of the mirror. I changed into my next costume and touched up my makeup. When Helen rose to leave, I managed to say, “Break a leg.” She nodded in grateful acknowledgment. I heard the music for the Chinese Dancing Sweethearts, but I didn’t need to see Eddie and Helen dance. I knew every pattern and variation. They must have been a hit from the roar of applause. I was straightening my hose when Helen glided back into the dressing room. Her cheeks were flushed from exertion and happiness. Her stomach was flat against her gown, but it would be only a matter of time before she was too big to dance in front of an audience. I could wait.

  “Grace. Helen.” Ruby slowly wended her way through the other girls, careful not to brush her perfectly powdered skin against any feathers, sequins, or flesh. “Come see my act.”

  Helen and I looked at each other across the room. No thanks.

  “Aw, come on, Helen,” Ruby pleaded, putting a hand on Helen’s shoulder. “Don’t you want to see what all the fuss is about?”

  “If you put it like that—”

  I ended up following them both to the velvet curtain stage right. I wasn’t going to be left out. Ruby picked up her ball as Charlie began his introduction: “I promised you the mysteries of the Orient, but it’s up to you to see if what they say about Oriental girls is true. The usual way or the wrong way? Please give a big round of applause for Princess Tai, our very own Chinese Sally Rand, fresh from the real Forbidden City in China …”

  Ruby balanced the ball before her, then glided through the curtain. A single blue spot followed her as she paraded from one end of the dance floor to the other, always moving her ball, so that the so-called mysteries of the Orient remained just that. Not once did Joe take his eyes off Ruby and her blue-tinted arms and legs. As soon as her music ended, and Ruby was safely through the curtain, the rest of the cast came out to lead the patrons in a rousing Chinaconga through the club. By the time I passed Joe’s table, he was long gone from it, his hands on Ida’s hips, laughing, shaking from side to side, and sending out an emphatic kick in beat to the music.

  Three dinner services. Three shows. Three Chinacongas. Then it was time to change, grab friends, and meet stage-door Johnnies, or move on to a bar for drinks or a late-night coffee shop for scrambled eggs. Ruby stopped by Helen on her way to the door.

  “I loved your act,” she said.

  “Thanks.” Helen seemed genuinely pleased.

  Ruby gabbed on for a bit—complimenting Helen on her turns and how good she’d gotten at extending her lines—ending with “You want to come with me to Sam Wo?”

  “Sure! I haven’t been there in ages.”

  I didn’t know what Ruby was up to—acting all chummy with Helen—but it surprised me that Helen could be so easily seduced.

  “You coming too or what?” Ruby asked me.

  “You’d better believe it.” Again, I wasn’t going to be left out.

  Once we were seated at our old table at Sam Wo and had ordered bowls of noodles, Ruby peppered Helen with questions. I listened in wonder as Helen let out everything about Tim and her marriage to Eddie. When she said she was content to live with her parents, at least for now, Ruby turned to me.

  “How about you?” she asked.

  “I’m staying with Helen and Eddie, but I need to get a place of my own.”

  “A place of your own?” Ruby’s eyebrows shot up. “Forget that! You’re going to bunk with me.”

  “I want you to stay with me,” Helen said. “There’s plenty of room.”

  She stared at me confidently, seeming sure of a positive answer, while I considered her offer. The compound? Monroe? Her baby coming? Not one of those things appealed to me, nor did they fit with my plan to put myself first.

  “I’ve got a two-bedroom apartment on Powell,” Ruby continued, “with the works: a telephone, a radio, a full bathroom, and a kitchen, not that I use it. A lot of entertainers live in the building—Jack and Irene Mak, George Louie, and the Merry Mahjongs. They’re playing over at the Sky Room. Oh, and Dorothy Toy—”

  “The Dorothy Toy?” My idol? My inspiration?

  “She lives in Apartment Seven,” Ruby went on. “She’s on the road most of the time, so I haven’t met her yet, but once the door to her apartment was open and I saw toe shoes dangling from a curtain rod.” She paused. “If you live with me, you’ll have your own room.”

  “I doubt Grace will be able to share the rent,” Helen said.

  “She doesn’t need to worry about that. I make plenty of dough. Besides,” Ruby added, pinching my cheek, “I owe you one.”

  She let me absorb that, while Helen fidgeted.

  “What about Joe?” I asked.

  Ruby tapped her nails on the table. “I already told you. There’s not much between us anymore.”

  “Much? What’s that supposed to mean?” Helen asked.

  “I mean nothing,” Ruby corrected herself in an offhand manner. “There’s nothing between us. We’re just pals.”

  An image of the evil triplets came to my mind. Then I thought of the Lim Sisters and how they’d worked together since they were kids. In those sets of three, one girl was always in charge, one was a strict follower, and one was always a bit outside. But who was the leader among Ruby, Helen, and me? Ruby, because she was Princess Tai? Helen, because in Chinese tradition she had more standing than two unmarried girls? I had nothing and was at what I figured had to be the lowest point in my life, but they were fighting over me. In this one way I had power, and it would be my decision that would determine things now. Think of yourself first.

  “I’d love to live with you, R
uby,” I said. I wanted it to sound casual, like she was doing me a favor, but really I’d be living in the same building with other stars. Wouldn’t that say something to others about who I was?

  A MERE FOUR months later, a reporter and a photographer from the Associated Press were assigned to follow Ruby (a star) and me (her sidekick) for a spread called “Maid ’N’ China.” Ruby and I woke early—around noon—so we could paint our faces and apply false eyelashes. We changed out of our cotton nightgowns and into silk pajamas. We brushed our hair loose around our shoulders and dabbed Prince Matchabelli behind our ears. Then we unlocked the door, returned to our own rooms, climbed back in our beds, and were ready for the promised 2:00 P.M. knock. Ruby called, “Come in.” Then Princess Tai and I took turns yawning and stretching for the photographer. Next, I sashayed into Ruby’s room—the photographer clicking all the while—and sat on the edge of her mattress. The reporter asked if Ruby and I were best friends, and we answered in unison. “Of course!”

  The article would eventually run in newspapers all across the country, including the Fort Worth Journal Gazette, the Oakland Tribune, and so many more. The caption for the bedroom photograph would read: “Maidens made in China say good night to the nightingale and good morning to the skylark.”

  Ruby and I changed into street clothes and led the boys on a walk along Grant. We waved to passersby, who either turned their faces away from the camera or smiled enthusiastically at the two no-no girls. We entered Shew Chong Tai, an import shop that specialized in toiletries from the old country made for women Helen’s mother’s age.

  “We come here for the Chinese cosmetics,” Ruby confided to the reporter. “I put them on my face until my skin looks like snow-white silk.” Although we were already in full makeup, Ruby patted some cream along my jaw with a fingertip to illustrate what she meant. Then she reached for a box of paw fah. “We use this gel made from tree bark to glue our spit curls. See, it’s a natural marcel.” She stuck a few strands of my hair to my cheek with the foreign concoction.

  In real life, we never went to that store or used those products. We preferred going to Union Square. We wore white gloves and hats to shop. We sat on a sofa in a large room in the store, and a saleswoman would come out and ask us what type of outfit we wanted. A day dress, a cocktail dress, a formal dress? Did we want it in mousseline de soie, panne velvet, or crepe de chine? Did we prefer georgette, poplin, or voile? We’d tell her our sizes—zero or two, depending on our time of month—and she’d go to the stockroom, bring out the clothes, and we’d say yea or nay. If we saw something we liked, we’d be escorted to a dressing room.

  The photo caption for our Chinatown shopping expedition read: “Two Chinese dishes—not chop suey, mind you!—stroll along the tong-scarred streets of Chinatown, wearing fur coats over the latest Western fashions. Stylists say that dollar for dollar Oriental beauties dress more smartly than their Occidental sisters.”

  When we arrived at the Forbidden City, Charlie bowed to the reporter and photographer, and they found themselves bowing back. Ah, Charlie … On my first payday after I’d returned from Los Angeles, he asked me to close the door to his office so he could speak to me privately. I remembered how he used to run a routine to let him keep my salary or to try to short me, but these days the club was flush. “I promised the Chinese Dancing Sweethearts three hundred a week,” he said. “That was supposed to be divvied up three ways, but that didn’t turn out the way we planned, did it? I owe you fifty dollars, but … well … here.” He pushed three fifties across the table—the same amount that Helen and Eddie were now each making.

  “Is this for powdering Ruby?” I asked.

  “If it will keep her happy, then I’m happy.”

  “Did you pay this much to Ida?”

  “Hardly, but Ruby wants you. If you don’t want to help her, that’s your decision. But a word of advice. She brought you here. She can get rid of you just as easily. Divas, you know … Now take the money.”

  His gesture, which he continued to do weekly, changed my life. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have been able to afford to patronize shops with Ruby, buy a three-quarter-length seal coat on layaway, use Western Union to start sending money once a month to Miss Miller to slip to my mother, and still have enough left over to save twenty dollars a week. (I still abided by my mother’s wish that we have no actual contact. Wiring money through Western Union also protected my privacy. I didn’t want my father to come looking for me.) Charlie paid Princess Tai a lot more than either the Chinese Dancing Sweethearts or me. Ruby earned five hundred dollars a week at a time when office workers were lucky to make forty. Eddie would have gone out of his gourd if he’d caught wind of that. But he didn’t hear, because I didn’t tell Helen. As for the news that Ruby had brought me here and had control over me … I couldn’t exactly hold my nose in the air and act all hoity-toity, because my intention had been to use her too. But something unexpected happened along the way. Ruby courted me with her generosity, her humor, and her giddiness. She reminded me how to have fun. She forced me to remember why we’d liked each other in the first place. The makeup job was still pretty unpleasant from my perspective, but what’s ten minutes out of twenty-four hours for one hundred and fifty bucks a week? Besides, she’d tell jokes and keep me amused while I dabbed, dabbed, dabbed, and tried not to stare at what was in front of my face. And she continued to help me in other ways, like insisting I be part of this interview.

  The reporter and photographer remained outside the dressing room while Ruby slipped into a kimono. I let the men in and watched as they tried to keep their eyeballs in their sockets. Sitting before them was a stunningly beautiful woman with just the thinnest silk between them and her naked flesh. Funny, isn’t it? Men see us every day. They see us in our clothes every day. We’re naked under our clothes every day. But present them with a different picture—a girl wearing nothing beneath her kimono—and they can think about only one thing. And in her own way, Ruby was shrewd. As soon as she came offstage, she covered up. She never paraded around so the guys in the band could see her, but, boy, did they ever try. All anyone actually saw was her twitching derriere as she ducked through the velvet curtain at the end of her act.

  “I started out using fans, just like Sally Rand taught me,” Ruby chirred. “But using fans is hard work. Each one weighs twenty-five pounds and—”

  “They keep more of you covered,” the reporter finished for her, his voice predictably gruff.

  “Do I look like I could heft all that weight?” Ruby asked, oblivious to his tone. “I still dance with the fans, but I much prefer my bubble.”

  “What advice would you give to our female readers to attract a man?”

  “A woman should always look elegant,” she answered.

  “What’s the fun in that?” he asked.

  “Not everything is about fun.” A tiny frown crinkled the space between her eyebrows. When I first met her, she’d said she wanted glitter in her life. Since then, she’d figured out not only how to have glitter but also how to “sell” glitter and glamour to an audience. “Grace, the other performers, and I do all sorts of things to help our community,” she continued. “We’ve performed at charity shows in Santa Cruz, Salinas, and San Jose to benefit the Rice Bowl Campaign. None of us Chinese like what the Japanese are doing in China.” This was her story, and she was sticking to it! “And once a year, before the big game, Cal alumni rent the Forbidden City for a night to raise funds. Charlie stacks five hundred people in here. We’ve got the Cal band and Cal glee club, but we give them our regular show too. Go Cal!”

  The reporter scribbled all this in his notebook. Then he glanced up, serious. “Our readers would like to know if you’re truly naked behind your bubble.”

  Ruby’s laugh filled the room like tinkling crystals. “That’s for me to know and you to find out! You boys need to go to your table now. The other girls have to get ready and”—she leaned forward and caressed the reporter’s knee with a red-lacquered fingernail�
�“so do I.”

  After the show, the boys from the Associated Press wanted to see what we did next.

  “I’m not the kind of girl who needs to be taken to expensive joints, but I sure like them,” Ruby confessed.

  Actually, if Ruby and I had been alone, we probably would have gone somewhere for noodles. Or, if we wanted to spend a little more money, we would have joined up with a group of show kids to go to other clubs.

  “What’s happening tonight at Bimbo’s 365?” someone might ask.

  “Shall we go to Finocchio’s? Or would you prefer the Italian Village?”

  “How about Andy Pond’s Breakfast Club on Kearny? We can eat bacon and eggs and listen to jazz at the same time.”

  “If we’re having breakfast, let’s go to Coffee Dan’s.” (The café was open twenty-four hours a day, and you could get a shot of bourbon in your cup of joe.)