A River of Stars

by Vanessa Hua

  Scarlett suppressed the silly urge to ask Daisy to float the sheet over her again, even though she craved the feeling of a sheet falling over her like snow. She was drifting off when she awoke with a start. Daisy was turned toward her, her expression guilty.

  “You touched my face,” Scarlett grumbled.

  “It was an accident.”

  “Don’t touch me again!”

  “You were breathing so loudly. I thought—if you turned away—it wouldn’t be so loud.”

  Scarlett couldn’t help but laugh. Daisy shrank back. Scarlett knew why the teenager had touched her because she’d done the same to Boss Yeung, many times when he was starting to snore. The sound was maddening! Scarlett rolled over, drawing the sheet over her shoulders. A siren went by and down the hallway, the communal toilet flushed, and the tidal pull of sleep drew them under.

  * * *

  —

  The tasseled lamp was hers for the taking. The stack of cookbooks, the cracked radio, and wooden chair, too, if Scarlett wanted. All were heaped on a corner at the edge of Chinatown. The selection was best at the end of the month, Old Wu explained, when people moved out of their apartments, leaving couches, computer monitors, microwaves, and dumbbells in their wake. If you knew when and where to go, you could find treasures daily.

  They were on their way to the Pearl Pavilion, a banquet hall that welcomed skimming, side deals, and other loose interpretations of the rules. Old Wu suggested they sell the van to the manager in the lull between lunch and dinner. Every hour in the parking garage racked up more fees and every hour, Mama Fang and Boss Yeung were drawing closer. Daisy was at the library, searching online for William.

  “Can’t we come back for this?” Scarlett didn’t want to show up to the negotiations carrying a lamp like an itinerant peddler.

  “It’ll be gone,” Old Wu said. You had to be prepared, willing to snatch something up no matter where you were going. You wouldn’t have a second chance. Blink, hesitate, and the treasure would disappear into the hands of the decisive.

  At Perfume Bay, she had been coddled, her every minute, her every bite and breath scheduled and monitored. The shock of all the choices before her now felt like plunging through ice. She tucked the lamp under her arm and followed Old Wu, who crowed about his top finds: outside of a luxury mattress store, he’d once discovered crumpled twenties, eighty dollars total. After testing out mattresses, a rich shopper must have been so relaxed that the bills tumbled out of his pocket! Another time, Old Wu spied a baggie full of green leaves, oily and densely packed, pungent as a skunk—da ma! Marijuana. He didn’t have much use for it, but he made sure it didn’t fall into the hands of a child or an addict. He smiled slyly. He’d given it to his neighbor Joe Ng, the one who’d gotten into a fight at Portsmouth Square. For all his boasting talk, Joe lived with his mother at Evergreen Gardens, and the rascal benefited from da ma’s relaxing medicinal qualities.

  Only the poorest and most desperate in China picked through trash, grannies searching for glass bottles and aluminum cans to redeem. Wearing thick gloves, sticky with spilled juice, they batted aside wasps to fill clanking burlap bags. At the parks, some of them hovered nearby, taking the empty can from your hand. If the pampered wives of Perfume Bay had seen Scarlett carrying the lamp, they would have jeered at her. But if those women were forced to fend for themselves, they would have given up within the hour.

  Old Wu took the lamp from her. After retiring from the restaurant trade, he’d turned scavenging into an art, transforming the streets of San Francisco into a shopping spree. You had to see possibilities where others did not, he told her. Maybe you never imagined yourself with a chrome stool, topped with a red leather cushion, but you understood how it might fit into your apartment or your neighbor’s. You couldn’t be greedy. Just as you were to leave a few grains of rice at the bottom of your bowl to seed your next meal, you shouldn’t rake the sidewalk clean.

  They skirted the edge of Chinatown, quicker than fighting the crowds on Stockton Street, and passed a narrow house, trimmed in gold and purple, where toys were arrayed on the front steps beside a sign, FREE! Wooden puzzles with missing pieces, nested cups, a plastic pail and shovels, and a green-striped caterpillar. She’d seen that caterpillar—many, in fact—at the toy factory where she used to work, before she’d taken the job at Boss Yeung’s.

  The caterpillar seemed brand-new, straight out of the box, soft and cuddly, not a thread frayed, the colors bright after its long journey: rolled off the assembly line, packed onto a cargo ship, off-loaded onto a truck, and driven to a store here. Not a trace left of the factory’s harsh chemical reek of plastic and rubber, the dizzying paint fumes, the stink of the industrious. Maybe she knew one of the women whose hands had touched this caterpillar, stuffed in the fluffy fibers, attached the shiny eyes, and sewed the body closed. Did Scarlett process her paperwork, or eat with her in the factory canteen?

  She tucked the caterpillar under her arm—her daughter’s first toy. Long before she’d known she would come to America, her touch had rippled across the ocean. The goods had been designated export-quality, unavailable for sale within China—too expensive, too fine for locals—but she had never considered the endpoint. She had often puzzled over the exact purpose of the items they manufactured. Did the strange objects—green plastic bowler hats, necklaces of bunny-shaped beads—fill a pressing need or create one by coming into existence? This house must bulge with plenty, shelves, bins, and boxes overflowing with toys.

  Back in Chinatown, they slipped through an alley on cobblestones slick with garbage, and passed a market where turtles and frogs flopped in plastic buckets. The bubbling tanks sounded like beakers boiling over in a mad scientist’s lab. They were a block away from the Pearl Pavilion. According to Old Wu, legions of tourists ordered neon-orange chicken and heaps of fried rice during the day. At night, at its banquets, the restaurant served shark’s fin soup, chewy slices of abalone, and hand-pulled noodles.

  He asked a busboy where they could find Manager Kwok. In the back, in his office. A dirty dish cart sat by the kitchen, piled with scraps grander than any feast Scarlett’s village had ever celebrated. Fistfuls of rice, beef, bell peppers, and bean curd sat untouched. Hunger dug at her. As a child, she’d eaten meat only once a year, and this much wasted food made her want to cram the leftovers into a take-out box so she and Daisy could feed themselves for days.

  Manager Kwok, slouching in a baggy pin-striped suit, looked up from his paperwork and smiled. “Sifu! You’re too late for lunch, but we can find something in the kitchen.”

  Old Wu had explained to Scarlett why the manager owed him. Years ago, he’d worked as a busboy at a restaurant where Old Wu, the cook, kept the staff well fed. “I didn’t come for the food—I came for you,” Old Wu said.

  “Don’t believe everything you hear,” Manager Kwok told Scarlett. He had the uneasy swagger of a man in charge in practice though not in name, at the whim of an absent master. She’d heard the rumors: the owners of the Pearl Pavilion lived in Hong Kong and used the restaurant to wash dirty money clean. Manager Kwok’s mildewy office, cramped and dim compared to the immense, brightly lit dining room, had fake wood paneling and a stained swamp-green carpet. A cigar humidor and a model of a motorcycle, with swooping fenders and bulbous tires, perched on top of a liquor cabinet. Old Wu shifted the lamp from one arm to the other.

  “You lift that off the back of a truck?” Manager Kwok asked. Old Wu set the lamp onto the floor and pulled out a chair for Scarlett, who awkwardly cradled the caterpillar in what remained of her lap. In the toy’s midsection, bells tinkled.

  “You want to book a red egg and ginger party?” he asked, referring to the meal that celebrated a baby’s survival and marked his first hundred days.

  Boss Yeung must have something grand in mind: a banquet in Hong Kong in a hall that overlooked the harbor, with Italian marble, floor-to-ceiling windows, ab
undant gold leaf and crystal chandeliers. The baby dressed in silk satin prince’s robes, tiger hat and tiger shoes to ward off evil, cradled in Boss Yeung’s arms and no one else’s.

  “We can do any menu you want. Roast pig? Roast duck? We’re using the recipe that Sifu taught us! How many? Ten tables, we’ll get you a discount.” He nodded at Old Wu. “In addition to the discount we reserve for our friends.”

  “Don’t you need a second delivery van? I have a bargain,” Old Wu said.

  Scarlett bristled. For all his kindness, she’d had enough of other people speaking on her behalf. In business matters, she knew better than him. Hadn’t she cut costs at Boss Yeung’s factory?

  Manager Kwok leaned back in his chair, the leather squeaking under him. He tented his fingers together, his nails buffed to a shine, the pinky on his right hand kept long as a talon. “I don’t have the budget for it.” The cost of food had gone up and banquet bookings had gone down.

  “The engine’s powerful, very powerful,” Old Wu said.

  The manager checked his phone.

  “Built like a tank. Hit by another car, won’t get a scratch. The other car will crumple.”

  The manager laughed politely. He didn’t look up from the cracked screen of his phone.

  “I’ll try the Jade Dragon,” Old Wu said. “But I wanted to give you the first chance.”

  The seat dug into the back of Scarlett’s thighs. Old Wu had told her the manager wasn’t above serving stolen liquor at banquets, and she had to appeal to his greed. “The van’s old, probably older than the one you have.”

  Manager Kwok studied her. “That’s not much of a sales pitch.”

  “It’s reliable and roomy. Sell the one you have and buy mine. An easy profit.” She’d let him realize that he could pocket the difference.

  “No profit comes easy.” But he rubbed his chin, considering.

  Chapter 5

  The stylist snipped at Scarlett’s hair, the shears rasping. Scarlett was grateful she wasn’t chatty. She glanced into the mirrors and saw Daisy in the chair beside her, her eyes closed. She must be as exhausted as Scarlett felt. To disguise themselves, they were lopping off their hair. They might have saved a few bucks by doing it themselves, but Scarlett didn’t want to end up looking like a lobotomy patient.

  Besides, if they’d stayed a minute longer in their apartment, they might have gone mad. Evergreen Gardens was permeated with the smell of many bodies and many years, the steady accumulation of sweat, steamed rice, and sesame oil. Their tiny apartment held a double mattress left by the last tenant, and milk crates stacked high, packed with their diapers, wipes, clothes, and other baby supplies. Their stockpiling reminded her that she would never travel light again. Each day, Old Wu had dropped off another find: portable cribs and umbrella strollers like new. Even with his help, the money she’d taken from Mama Fang and received from the sale of the van would dwindle quickly.

  He’d confirmed that the big and busy hospital in San Francisco accepted patients in an emergency without insurance and with every kind of malady. Together, they’d practiced the route and peeked into the hospital: red brick with wrought-iron window frames and a few cracked panes, the complex resembled a haunted house, but inside the hallways were clean, the equipment modern, and the staff seemed calm and efficient.

  Without Old Wu, they wouldn’t have gotten settled. She was grateful for his attentions, which must have gone far beyond his usual efforts, but maybe none of his other neighbors had ever needed as much help. Others at Evergreen Gardens seemed to have noticed his sweetness toward her; a few times, they’d come in together from the street, and the aunties standing in the hallway had fallen silent, probably gossiping about them.

  Scarlett’s due date was fast approaching, which added urgency to her days. If she and Daisy didn’t cover their tracks, they’d get caught, putting an end to all they wanted for their babies. That morning, in the middle of their apartment, water had gushed from between Scarlett’s legs, spattering the floor. She’d been certain she was going into labor until she realized she’d pissed herself—another humiliation that her body wanted to squeeze in before delivery.

  The salon was thick with the smell of hair spray, chemical solutions, and burned hair. The scissors poked Scarlett’s scalp and she yelped, jerking away. The stylist didn’t apologize and resumed cutting. Scarlett had pointed out what she wanted in a dog-eared magazine, but how many times had she walked into such salons, requesting a trim but leaving with a bob, asking for a body wave and getting a dowdy perm? Chinese stylists—here or back home—had minds of their own.

  “Not too short,” Scarlett reminded her.

  “You don’t want the baby pulling on it,” the stylist said.

  Scarlett studied the wet hair piling up on the floor, hair that Boss Yeung used to run his fingers through, hair that had grown long in their months together. That was all behind her now. She’d begun thinking about the future. Not only next month, but next year, the next two years and longer still. She wouldn’t return to China, which she might have known from the moment her flight descended over Los Angeles.

  To stay in America, Scarlett would have to find a job and fix her papers. Only then would she be safe from Boss Yeung, who must have detectives fanning out after her. She didn’t have enough money to hire an immigration consultant. But if they found Daisy’s boyfriend, his family could help Scarlett pay for a lawyer.

  At Boss Yeung’s factory, the men had expected even the most senior women on staff to serve tea and defer to them in meetings. All around China, princelings, the pampered children of high Party officials, prospered, drawing upon connections that Scarlett lacked. And Scarlett, born in the countryside, didn’t have the papers that made her eligible for public schools and hospitals in China’s cities, and neither would her daughter, who would be born overseas. If she and Boss Yeung had remained together, he could have paid the fine, giving their child a mainland residency permit. Without him and his support, her daughter could only attend the worst schools, dim, crumbling, and poorly run. The other students would jeer at her, the bastard daughter of a single mother, second-class in every way.

  In America, without these limits, Scarlett and her daughter could attempt so much more.

  She no longer feared he’d disown the girl she carried. Now she was certain that he would steal the baby out of spite, if Scarlett couldn’t get her papers in time. The Americans would side with him. That boy from Cuba, whose mother drowned trying to bring him here—he’d been sent back to his father. The pregnancy had changed Boss Yeung as much as it had changed her, or maybe she’d never known him. All the qualities that drew her to him, all the qualities she’d thought they shared, she now questioned. Clever or duplicitous? Determined or single-minded? Clear-eyed or cruel?

  He used to awe her, when he made his rounds at the factory, his stride long, his gaze sharp, when he addressed the battalions of workers in their jumpsuits and caps lined up in front of the gates. How powerful he’d seemed. He’d done this, made this, was in charge of all these people. The women in their hairnets straightening as they passed, murmuring, “Lao ban, lao ban.” The boss, the boss.

  Much of her life in the city had been ephemeral: new streets paved and blocks demolished overnight, and the neighbors revolving through her apartment building. Strange as it sounded, the business that Boss Yeung built up had seemed a monument for the ages. He’d been solid, steady like no other man had been in her life: not the father she didn’t remember, not those she dated who soon left her after discovering she would never put their interests ahead of hers.

  When she was with him, she pondered places, possibilities she might never have noticed. She’d been intent as a mole on her goals—and as blind to the world above where she burrowed. With him, she’d raised her head. She studied his habits and how he ran the factory; she took his advice on dealing with her landlord. After he turned con
trolling, she told herself that no one had ever cared enough to make such demands upon her, and that he valued her as no one else did. She’d come to realize he must have deemed her worthless but for her womb. The prospect of an heir had made him as ruthless as one of those legendary emperors who waged wars, emptied royal treasuries, and swallowed crane eggs and tortoise soup for a chance at immortality.

  Scarlett shifted uncomfortably in the stylist’s chair, her tailbone sore. She could taste the prenatal vitamin pill she’d swallowed an hour ago, their last chance to plump up their babies, to give them mighty lungs, bright eyes, and sleek skin, and their last chance to muster their own strength for the delivery ahead.

  Daisy squealed, staring into the mirror at the pixie cut that complemented the delicacy of her features. “I love it—but will William recognize me?”

  This afternoon, she was going to stake out the computer science department at Cal, the university her boyfriend attended. His email and social media accounts had been deleted, and if not for Daisy’s bulging belly, it would have seemed to Scarlett that he might never have existed. Someday, he might make himself known. For now, he’d retreated from the world. Still, Scarlett understood Daisy’s insistence that they find the father of her child so he could attend their son’s birth.

  “You’ll recognize him,” Scarlett said. “We don’t want anyone recognizing us.”

  Daisy ran her fingers through her hair. “My head feels so much lighter.” She started talking about the night she had met him, when he’d been bargaining in his broken Chinese at a market in Taipei. He offered the equivalent of twenty U.S. dollars for a knickknack worth two dollars. “I want two,” he said.

  The knickknack seller gave him far less change than what he was owed.

  “You’re getting played,” Daisy informed him. “Don’t cheat him,” she told the vendor.

  “Na liang kuai na dai zhe qu.” Mind your business. “Gun dan.” Get lost.