A River of Stars

by Vanessa Hua

  Countess Tien massaged her hands, complaining her fingers ached. She’d developed her own physical therapy for the baby Scarlett had dropped. For an hour each day, she pinched her son’s nose to straighten it, as he flailed his arms and legs in protest.

  A crash outside made everyone jump in their seats. Mama Fang’s lanyard snagged on the spindle of her chair, jerking back her head. Rubbing her neck, she set the keys on the counter before peering out the patio door.

  “Hello? Who’s there?” She disappeared outside.

  “Did you see him? That man?” Countess Tien said. “I saw his reflection in my window the other night.”

  “Nali!” Nothing, Lady Yu said. “You’re dreaming.”

  The keys to Mama Fang’s office. To the safe. To freedom.

  Before Scarlett could brush against the keys, push them behind the hot water dispenser to fetch later, Mama Fang returned. She washed her hands in the sink and slipped the keys around her neck. “Raccoons. Knocked over the can. Garbage everywhere.”

  Scarlett bit back her disappointment. As much as she wanted to flee Perfume Bay, she had to remain here until after delivery. Boss Yeung could love a daughter; she’d seen the softness in his face when his eldest called. When Scarlett and the baby returned to China, he would forgive the misfortune of her gender.

  Scarlett’s ambivalence about the pregnancy had been a kind of grief, she had come to see. Because Boss Yeung had claimed the boy wholly, it felt like she’d already lost the baby. A daughter was hers to protect.

  Mama Fang ladled soup into Daisy’s bowl.

  “More soup?” the teenager asked.

  At least it wasn’t a dish that tasted like baby food; many meals at Perfume Bay were steamed and mashed. The cook’s constant boiling soured the air with wine, ginger, and vinegar, and fed mold that slicked the kitchen walls. Daisy pushed her bowl aside, sloshing soup onto the tablecloth, and tucked back her overgrown bangs. Her barbs were hollow and halfhearted, tinged with misery after her failed escape. The other guests wanted nothing to do with her. Daisy’s jailbreak must remind them of their own captivity, a condition they’d rather not consider closely.

  Daisy needed a mother in a house full of mothers and mothers-to-be. Scarlett tried to catch her eye, puckering her mouth to show her shared distaste for the soup. The teenager flipped her off. Brat.

  After dinner, Mama Fang followed Scarlett, asking how she felt, how she slept. As much as she hovered during the day, she typically didn’t come into their rooms. She led Scarlett to bed, tucking pillows around her to take pressure off her joints. “Sleep with one between your legs, one behind your back, and between your arms. Feels like someone’s holding you. When men aren’t around, women find a way.”

  Mama Fang sat on the edge of the bed, wafting a granny’s scent of medicinal herbs. “Strong women, like you. Like us.”

  Scarlett tensed, wondering why she’d taken this sudden interest in her.

  “You left home young, didn’t you?” Mama Fang asked. White roots peeped out from her hairline, above a forehead smooth as tofu pudding. She might have been in her mid-fifties. Judging from her hands—thick and strong from hard labor that probably started when she was a girl—she hadn’t led a pampered life. If Papa Fang existed, he never visited, and Mama Fang never spoke of him. Maybe, before founding Perfume Bay, she’d run a brothel. Maybe she’d been a rich man’s mistress and cashed in jewelry to open the center.

  “Young as Daisy,” Scarlett said. “Younger.”

  “Me too.” Mama Fang said she had worked as a maid in the home of a wealthy Hong Kong family. “It was—”

  “The others here, they never worked,” Scarlett said.

  Mama Fang pursed her lips. She didn’t expect to be interrupted. Yes, yes, she said, and continued her story. She’d been very lonely, but the family’s son was kind to her. After he’d gotten her pregnant, she gave the baby to his family. “I did it for my boy,” Mama Fang said. “You can do it for yours.”

  Too stunned to speak, Scarlett let the words sink in.

  Boss Yeung wanted to raise the baby, Mama Fang said, and give him a life of comfort and security. “You’ll be free,” Mama Fang said. Free, along with a twenty-thousand-dollar gift for her sacrifice and for her silence.

  Scarlett knew at once he’d been too much of a coward to ask himself. He must have enlisted Mama Fang, who would perform any service, sell anything, anyone for an additional fee.

  “He—” Scarlett couldn’t bring herself to say more, but Mama Fang seemed to understand.

  She put her hand on Scarlett’s arm. Her touch was more comforting than Scarlett would have expected.

  “You can travel,” Mama Fang said. “Buy a condo or open a shop with the money.”

  For once, she hadn’t sounded so grasping. She also must have been a woman scorned, paid off by a wealthy family, and she was offering advice to her younger self. Her voice softened. “If you want to become a partner at Perfume Bay, I welcome you. You, me: there’s so much possibility.”

  Scarlett’s shock turned to rage. Mama Fang was counseling her with one hand in Scarlett’s pocket and the other in Boss Yeung’s. Flailing like a dung beetle, she tried to sit up, resisting Mama Fang’s attempts to help her. Scarlett hated her. She hated him. She hated herself for being tempted by what this money could buy: a new car, time off for a year or more, and an apartment for Ma who could quit her job at the clinic. Fantasizing only for a moment, but still a moment. In suspecting she might be a gold digger, Boss Yeung had turned her into one. She swung her legs around, her joints creaking, feeling jumbled as a bundle of sticks.

  They both stood. “My daughter, you don’t need to be ashamed,” Mama Fang said. “Some women aren’t meant to hold babies.”

  “I’ll learn.” Scarlett choked out the words. “You said I’d learn.”

  “After what happened, the honorable Master Yeung worried about his baby, but I told him we’re monitoring you closely.” Mama Fang sighed, seeing Scarlett’s outrage. “I had to tell him. The bill, for the emergency room. For the tests. If he had you declared a threat to your child, you’d lose your son.”

  Your son. Boss Yeung didn’t know Scarlett carried a girl. As soon as he did, he and his money would disappear. He’d end Scarlett’s stay at Perfume Bay. She had to get as much as she could from him before he discovered the truth. Mama Fang studied her as though Scarlett were a salt-and-pepper crab and she wanted to extract every last morsel out of her.

  “More,” Scarlett said. “I want more. If you get me more, then—”

  Mama Fang took out a red envelope from her jacket pocket, bulging with hundred-dollar bills. If Scarlett signed the papers giving up her rights by tomorrow, she’d convinced Boss Yeung to add a three-thousand-dollar bonus. “To show he’s taking care of you.”

  She must have secured a bonus for herself, too. She placed the envelope in Scarlett’s hand, closed her fingers around it, and gave what she must consider the highest compliment of all. “We think alike. Never settle for the first offer.”

  Scarlett forced herself to smile and clasped her hands with Mama Fang’s. At that moment, she heard the door slam, then someone blunder down the hall, with heavy footfalls that sounded like the erratic raps of a ghost. In the hallway, they found Lady Yu barefoot and groping the wall. She was panting, heaving, and she stank of vomit. Mama Fang touched her arm, and Lady Yu collapsed and slid to the floor. Other guests closed in, a tangle of bellies and arms. Mama Fang shouted at them to get back and when they withdrew, Lady Yu was grimacing, moaning with her eyes closed, pounding the heel of her palm to her forehead as if she might knock out the pain. Mama Fang’s bifocals had fallen to the floor, and a cracked lens had popped out of the frame. Nurse Sun ran in, huffing, the pink tunic of her uniform covered in spit-up.

  “Call an ambulance!” Countess Tien shouted.

  “911,” Dais
y said. “Call 911.”

  Mama Fang didn’t want to get authorities involved, Scarlett could tell, when she announced that she and Nurse Sun would take Lady Yu. Except that Mama Fang couldn’t drive, because her glasses were broken, and Nurse Sun, the only one on duty, didn’t know how. She was the youngest on staff, a newlywed and new to the United States, and her husband drove her to and from work. The babies, unattended in the nursery, started wailing. Mama Fang dangled the keys and asked if anyone knew how to drive.

  Scarlett owed them nothing. Not Mama Fang, who’d sold her out, not Lady Yu, who’d schemed against her. Scarlett wanted the police to expose Mama Fang and shut down Perfume Bay, but if she didn’t drive—now—Lady Yu and her baby might die. She took the keys from Mama Fang. Outside, she hoisted herself into the old van, the seat an uninterrupted expanse from door to door, long and wide enough for someone to take a nap. She’d never driven a vehicle this big, ungainly as an ox. After pulling up to the front door of Perfume Bay, she had to pee. She’d developed the bladder of an incontinent granny. She hobbled inside, where Nurse Sun was trying to maneuver the wheelchair through the living room. Every time the nurse bumped into furniture, Lady Yu slipped toward the floor. When Scarlett emerged from the bathroom, Nurse Sun had her arms around Lady Yu’s waist. From behind, Mama Fang had hooked her arms under Lady Yu’s shoulders.

  They followed Scarlett to the van, Mama Fang climbing beside her into the front passenger seat, and Lady Yu leaning on Nurse Sun in the back. The other guests gathered in the headlights, clutching babies rescued from the nursery. They feared for their friend, and feared for themselves even more, realizing, as Scarlett had, the danger they were in as pregnant women. She, like everyone else here, had believed herself safe, yielding to the illusion that giving birth was under her control, if only she ate a certain combination of foods, swallowed certain herbs, and performed certain exercises. In truth, their bodies had been overtaken.

  The residential streets of this hilly neighborhood were dark, without streetlights, and when Scarlett made a right turn out of the driveway, the front tire jumped the curb, throwing everyone back in their seats. By tomorrow, she’d have a bruise on her chest where the seatbelt held her. In pregnancy, blood seemed closer to the surface of her skin, as close as her emotions, pumping like a fire hose through her body. Lady Yu groaned noisily. Overwhelmed, Scarlett screeched to a halt and took her hands off the wheel. If she got into an accident, if the police pulled her over, she’d be detained and possibly arrested. What if she was deported? Her daughter would lose her chance for American citizenship.

  “Breathe,” Mama Fang told Scarlett. “In through the nose. Out through the mouth. Breathe.” She repeated, Scarlett followed and eased off the brake. Traffic was light, and with each block, her speed and confidence grew.

  At the hospital, Mama Fang dashed into the emergency room, and orderlies emerged with a gurney to fetch Lady Yu. When an ambulance appeared in her rearview mirror, Scarlett drove the van into a red zone and left the engine running, rather than find a parking spot. She didn’t know how long Mama Fang would be inside the building. She hit the wipers, which sprayed and swept the windshield clean, and turned on the radio, spinning the dial until she landed on a rock music station. She adjusted her seat, belt, and mirrors, feeling like an astronaut harnessed in a space capsule before blastoff.

  The car behind her honked and she pulled ahead, pushing lightly on the gas. The van glided to the end of the aisle, all but driving itself. The engine throbbed through her, power restrained, though at the ready, urging her on. America called to her: the land of cars, of fast highways that opened up the country that she’d always wanted to explore, the country where she could make a life for her daughter. She could keep going, she would keep going, over the speed bump, out of the parking lot, onto the street, and into the unknown.

  Heading east, she hit all green lights, the road stretching endlessly ahead. Unrolling the window, she let in the breeze and drummed her fingers against the side of the van. Each beat matched her pounding heart. She brushed her hand across the red envelope stowed in the inner pocket of her tracksuit jacket and then accelerated, the lights around her blurring into stars.

  Chapter 3

  The Grand Canyon beckoned. Las Vegas, San Francisco, New York, and the White House, every destination Boss Yeung had promised they would visit together. The names sounded like an incantation—Niagara Falls, Yellowstone—and were the closest to marriage vows that would ever pass between them.

  New York had the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, yellow cabs, and a Chinatown, where people could tell her how to find housing, a doctor, and other services for those underground, but the drive to New York would take at least five days, likely more. Her back ached, as if clamped in a vise, and she needed to pee again. The baby rode on her bladder, and in her travels, she’d have to stop as frequently as a city bus in rush hour. And what if the van’s engine died, stranding her along the side of the road?

  A car honked and she sped up. She couldn’t risk getting pulled over by police. She squinted at a sign on the intersection. None of the words were familiar and she couldn’t tell what direction she was headed. Las Vegas was east of Los Angeles, wasn’t it? She’d changed planes there, waiting in the terminal long enough to try a slot machine that ate her dollar. Housing would be cheap and plentiful—she’d seen the grid of subdivisions across the desert from the air—but she didn’t want to give birth in a city built on illusion and loss. Her daughter might as well stake a claim to a mighty city, a storied city known the world over, even if Scarlett moved on soon after.

  After. She couldn’t predict the outcome of the next hour, let alone the next month, the next year, the decades in which she would be watching over her daughter. She rolled up her window. She couldn’t stay in Los Angeles. Mama Fang must have contacts among the Chinese here, the shop owners and restaurateurs who would keep an eye out for a hugely pregnant woman in exchange for a reward.

  She choked back a sob. Despite everything, she wanted nothing more than to fall asleep in the passenger seat while Boss Yeung drove, the heat turned on high, music low, her head against the cool glass. He’d been rugged, resilient as a mountain. It would be a very long time, if ever, before she might be a passenger again, before she would ever feel so protected. If only she hadn’t agreed to come to Perfume Bay. Far from him, she had become a line item, a unit of sale. If only he hadn’t listened to his friend Uncle Lo—an investor in Perfume Bay and founder of a media empire that spanned Asia and beyond—who’d recommended sending her here.

  The golden arches loomed on the corner, familiar like nothing else had been all night, and Scarlett turned into the lot. Due in less than a month, she couldn’t get far, not tonight, not when exhaustion drew her under. Not for a while, and the loss of the road trip she’d considered just now was a disappointment as great as any she’d already suffered. Boss Yeung would never accept her refusal of his bribe. Men like him were used to taking what they wanted, and she knew he’d come after her. She’d put as much distance as she could between herself and Perfume Bay, and decide tomorrow where she might find safe, secret harbor.

  McDonald’s was crowded, though it was past nine. Perfume Bay served dinner early, to ensure early bedtimes, and the full tables reminded her that the world she’d left had carried on. In the bathroom, she splashed water onto her face, trying to wake up. The bruise from her catfight with Lady Yu was fading away, but her eyes were puffy, and she was moonfaced, haggard. She’d aged a decade in a day.

  Maybe she should have a Coke. A Coke! Above the counter, the menu dazzled, with pictures of hamburger buns puffy as blimps, and drinks glistening with condensation like morning dew. Her mouth watered. Pointing to what she wanted, she ordered a soda and a small bag of fries, and paid with a hundred-dollar bill from the wad tucked into her jacket.

  She should tape the money into the waistband of her underpants. No thie
f—no one but a doctor or nurse—would root near her crotch and risk a baby tumbling out. Stepping away from the counter, she greedily dug into the fries, scorching her fingers. The scent was golden as a day at the beach, a scent that coated her tongue with the savory promise of grease and held both the wonder of the first bite and the satisfaction of the last. The salt was gritty against her tongue, the fry crisply giving way under her teeth, the fluffy interior a starchy cloud of potato, the taste of earth and sea.

  She gulped the Coke, sweet and bubbly, a kick to the brain. A switch flipped and color returned to her black-and-white world. How muted, how miserable she’d been at Perfume Bay! She hadn’t consumed caffeine in months because coffee, tea, and soda were forbidden. Fried foods, too. According to the tenets of Chinese medicine, such dishes stoked internal fires, causing nosebleeds, blemishes, and worse. Superstition. Or maybe not? Scarlett had been uncertain enough to obey.

  With each bite, she cursed Boss Yeung. With each bite, she cursed Mama Fang, and by the time she reached the exit, she’d finished the bag of fries. She returned to the counter and ordered another—supersized. Glorious: the glossy red box, striped yellow-and-white inside. When she’d first arrived in the factory city, fast-food trash had awed her: the shiny wrappers and waxy cups were finer, brighter than anything in her village. Even into her twenties, sometimes she’d pretended she was eating at a McDonald’s in Manhattan or Paris, as if the golden arches were a magic portal that she might slip through to the other side of the planet. She now knew escape never came as easily as closing your eyes and wishing yourself elsewhere.

  Another customer waited for her order. Her son, standing beside her, might have been eight. They both had the same stocky build, the same narrow nose. His head bowed, his eyes locked on his comic book. “Boy or a girl?” the woman asked.

  That much, Scarlett understood. Girl, she said. Sharing the news for the first time, she felt a fluttering excitement. So much of her pregnancy had been in secret until now.