by Vanessa Hua
Scarlett opened her mouth, letting drops fall in. She’d never been thirstier and water had never tasted sweeter. From her school days, she dimly remembered the water cycle, the muddy river beside her village, drawn into the clouds, liquid to steam to ice before falling back to earth. The drops she tasted might have begun in that same river, frozen crystals riding on the jet stream, now melting and falling and washing her clean.
“Careful,” Daisy said. “You don’t know what’s flying by.”
“You caught something.” She poked Daisy’s hair.
Daisy yelped, touching her bangs. When her hand came away empty, not covered in bird poop, she realized Scarlett had been teasing.
“It’s good luck,” Daisy said. “When a bird spreads its droppings on you.”
“Good luck for the person standing next to you!”
Daisy snapped a photo of Scarlett and her daughter. Scarlett rubbed Didi’s cheeks, jowly as a baron’s. “Bao bei.” Darling. He had an easy giggle, set off when Scarlett tickled his belly. His lips were rosy as a doll’s and the neighbors said his long lashes were wasted on a boy.
Pedestrians ran by, shielding themselves with newspapers or jackets draped over their heads, or stood in clusters under awnings, waiting out the storm. Anyone watching Scarlett and Daisy would have thought that they were insane, women in peril, fleeing fire or fists to take refuge in the rain. Scarlett kissed the top of her daughter’s head, sweet with shampoo, the downy hairs tickling her face.
Didi craned his neck, swiveling his head to observe everyone going by.
“He watches everything,” Scarlett said. “Like a Secret Service agent.”
“Not Secret Service,” Daisy said. “He will be the one they are guarding.” A president-in-the-making. She ruffled her son’s wispy hair. As his head grew, Didi had gained the unfortunate receding hairline and flyaway tufts of a clown. “Next month, he’s a hundred.”
A hundred days. Scarlett hadn’t been keeping track, but since her daughter was slightly older than Didi, that must be coming up for her, too. Liberty didn’t care, didn’t know one day from the next. Scarlett couldn’t record her daughter’s every development, but a now-familiar guilt twisted in her gut for failing Liberty. Her own mother had never celebrated Scarlett’s birthday. None of the children in the village did and even now, it didn’t carry much significance for her. But because a hundred days mattered to Daisy, it mattered to Scarlett. She couldn’t help resenting Daisy, whose family could have paid for a dozen parties in honor of their grandchild.
“I heard I’m supposed to shave his head,” Daisy said. Drops glistened in her hair.
“Who told you that? Auntie Ng? Granny Wang?” Scarlett asked. The rain was starting to slacken. Liberty cooed, demanding her mother turn the sky’s spigot back on.
“It will make his hair grow in,” Daisy said.
“First he’ll be bald as an egg!”
Daisy stroked his head. “Maybe that’s why. So your baby will look like a red egg.”
To celebrate their baby’s first hundred days, parents served red eggs for luck and unity, pickled ginger, and other delicacies. She and Daisy didn’t have money to pay for celebrations, nor anyone to invite except for Old Wu. She’d never attended one—she didn’t know any parents in Dongguan wealthy enough to keep their children with them in the city. Their babies remained in the village, under the care of their grandparents.
Her expression wistful, Daisy mentioned the embroidered silks and tiger shoes she and then her sister had worn in pictures, shoes that their mother kept in a teak chest in her bedroom. Having a child made you consider your own upbringing. Daisy didn’t remember much of the festivities that honored her younger cousins: gifts and a roast pig.
How could Scarlett and Daisy keep a tradition alive if they’d forgotten most of it, or if it was foreign to them, too? And why look back? You had to let go of the past and its demands on the future. Daisy was hardly a traditional maiden, plucking at her zither under a willow tree, her feet bound, love letters hidden in her sleeves, or a filial daughter serving her father tea and bowing before her mother.
An auntie pushed past, the wheels of her shopping cart squeaking, loaded with pink plastic bags. The pork. The pork! Aiya! Scarlett raced upstairs, deposited Liberty into her crib, rushed to the kitchen and pulled the pan from the oven. The ends of the shoulder were overcooked, tough as leather, but fat had bathed the rest, the glistening meat tender and shredding under her fork. She exhaled, relieved she hadn’t ruined it, and shredded the rest.
When Daisy arrived, she gave her a taste of the pork. Daisy swallowed, murmuring in enjoyment, and sucked her teeth. “It needs salt.”
Scarlett grabbed the fork out of Daisy’s hand. “That’s how I’ve made it every time.”
“The saltier it is, the more drinks you could sell.”
“I don’t sell drinks.” She scrubbed the fork in the sink.
“You could. Get them cheap, sell for twice as much. Don’t your customers ask?”
“They’re hungry,” Scarlett said. “Not thirsty. They’ve had enough to drink.” A gust spattered rain against the window. “If they come out tonight.”
“I can help you. I mean, I can work the cart.”
Scarlett stared at her, first surprised—then territorial. “No.”
“You shouldn’t have to do it all yourself.”
“I have a system.”
“It’s my turn,” Daisy said quietly but firmly.
Now she understood. Daisy didn’t want to be stuck in the apartment, not when the world had beckoned to her this afternoon. Scarlett came home with stories about odd customers, the strange sights—the male belly dancers or the man who bought out her night’s supply, paying from a wad of hundred-dollar bills; the redhead who spoke Mandarin. Daisy wanted to see for herself. Scarlett knew a pretty girl might sell more hanbaobao. But the hanbaobao had been Scarlett’s idea, Scarlett’s creation, and she wasn’t ready to share. “Not tonight.”
“Tomorrow?”
Scarlett said nothing.
“She cries when you leave,” Daisy said.
Liberty. Scarlett flushed. As if she had any choice! As if she preferred her customers to Liberty.
At times she did. To move freely without little hands, a ravenous mouth, attached to her. To complete a task without interruption. To end the night with success, sold out. She tossed the squeeze bottle at Daisy, who fumbled and caught it.
“Fill it,” Scarlett said.
Daisy tugged on the top, and then tried to unscrew it. “How?”
Scarlett reached into the refrigerator for the second pan of pork shoulder, the metal cool against the burn on her palm. She slammed the pan onto the counter. The forks jumped and clattered onto the floor. Daisy flinched.
“Make this.” She slid the pan toward Daisy, the metal hissing against the counter.
“How— For how long?” Daisy looked at the oven with trepidation, as if the door were the jaws of a lion about to swallow her whole.
“You don’t know how. You don’t know a thing.”
* * *
—
Scarlett winced under the garbage bag, a makeshift poncho. Rain was falling, and at sundown, the temperature was dropping. She hoped that the lure of Friday night would bring out customers. But those who braved the rain rushed past her cart and into waiting vehicles. She rubbed her forearms, trying to warm up. The hem of her pants was soaked from the gutter, and her feet were wet and numb, but she couldn’t go home until she sold enough to pay for tomorrow’s ingredients. She checked under the lid, the billowing steam a slap to her face. She stirred the roast pork turning dry and stringy. She wanted to curl up on the buns, pile them under her head and tuck them under her neck. They’d go stale after tonight, hours of labor, cups of flour wasted.
“Han-bao-bao! Han-bao-bao!” she chanted
as a group of men passed—white, Indian, and Chinese—clad in polar fleece jackets. They ignored her. When she called out, “Free sample!” the tallest one halted. She’d never offered samples—she’d never had to—but she split a bun in half and made him one, radiating steam. Her fingers tingled from the heat. He gobbled it down and wiped his fingers on his jeans. “Thanks.” He loped to the car where his friends were calling for him.
She balled her hands into fists. She wanted to fling a bun at the back window. She should have let Daisy run the cart tonight; she never would have wanted to try again. A moment later, she felt small as a gnat. Daisy’s talk of a red egg party had reminded Scarlett of all that her daughter lacked. All that Scarlett couldn’t provide. The lightning strike of rage—she’d learned that from Ma, or maybe she’d inherited it. Either way, she knew she hadn’t escaped. When Scarlett was at her most frayed, Ma settled like a mask over her face.
Her mother had been forged by the Cultural Revolution, when people had to go for the throat or else get ripped to shreds. The Party forced them to act in a manner they privately reviled. Ma might have wished she’d never taken a job at the clinic, but she’d resigned herself to cracking down on other families, in order to provide for her own.
As cold and discouraged as Scarlett felt tonight, she knew she had more choices than Ma ever did. “Han-bao-bao! Han-bao-bao!” she chanted, three falling notes that enticed no one.
Boss Yeung would have said she couldn’t provide for her child, but he’d also had forays into failure—miracle socks that needed no washing, indestructible mobile phones heavy as bricks—that he kept in a glass case in his office, a reminder of the mistakes that had shaped his success.
She blinked. Her life with him had ended. He would steal Liberty out of her arms if he had the chance. Rain fell harder, and she edged under the green awning of a pizza parlor where a waterfall gushed. She’d always maintained a respectful distance from the entrance of bars and restaurants, parked in between or by the intersection, but the gutters were full, flooded with murky water and trash, the storm drains backing up. The pizza parlor was empty, too, the owner glumly leaning across the counter on his hairy forearms. A row of pizzas slick with grease sat under heat lamps.
She heard a voice calling from down the street. “Hau Hanbaobao!” Shrimp Boy cried.
Queen of the Hanbaobao. A crony of Manager Kwok’s, he was known for his schemes, both illegal (collecting protection money) and borderline (reselling goods of possibly stolen origins). He also had a reputation for violence, though tonight—damp from dashing from awning to awning—he seemed less intimidating. His girlfriend was at his side, too young to be out so late. Her phone rang, that song Scarlett had been hearing in Chinatown, with the refrain in English, “I love you hot.”
Shrimp Boy glared at his girlfriend and she silenced her phone. Despite the chill, he’d unbuttoned his shirt halfway to his navel and Scarlett glimpsed the tattoo etched on his chest, the tail of a dragon or a curving sword. He had a thin scar above his right eye—from a knife fight?—and his bulbous nose would someday become purple with drink.
“Slow night?” His voice was low, scratched by cigarettes. His hands were soft, unpricked, unburned, unworked. He folded a twenty-dollar bill into her hand. “Take care of yourself.”
He must think himself benevolent. His girlfriend fidgeted, impatient, and they disappeared into a bar just as a pair of giggly white women emerged, wobbly in their high heels. Under short coats, their legs were bare to the elements. This time, Scarlett thrust samples at them. They swallowed, and out of sympathy or out of hunger, they split an order, taking dainty bites, trying to not smudge their lipstick.
A pack of men was headed down the street. If she could detain the women, they would attract the men, persuade them to line up and treat themselves to a snack. With street food, crowds generated more crowds.
Scarlett tried to hand them another bun. “Fresh, hot.”
While the women declined her offer, the men got in line and she sold five orders. If she sold five more, she’d have enough to buy meat tomorrow. If she steamed the buns, they might revive enough to last another night, slathered in the sauce. From the corner of her eye, she felt someone watching her, and when she turned, she glimpsed a man ducking into a bar.
“Are you ever in the Mission?” a customer asked. She shook her head. “You should come to the Mission.” After hearing the question several times recently, she’d gathered it was a neighborhood in San Francisco, but too far to walk to from Chinatown. Even on nights with slow sales, at least talking to customers improved her comprehension of English and of the city.
She searched down the block for potential customers. When she turned around, she stood face-to-face with the irate owner of the pizza shop who must have noticed that she’d intruded on his sidewalk. Scowling, he pointed down the street and told her to go away—now. She quickly assembled a hanbaobao for him, which only irritated him more. “You got a permit for that?”
Permit. The police. Scarlett took off with the cart, her heart pounding, and slipped in a puddle at the end of the block. She landed hard on her knees, the breath knocked out of her and the cart slid out of her grasp—no, no, no—into traffic. Cars veered and honked, brakes squealed and miraculously the cart survived two lanes of traffic only to hit the curb and tip over with a clang and a crash, spilling its load. The white buns bright against the dark street, like toadstools against a muddy hillside.
* * *
—
An hour later, Scarlett unlocked the door and heard frantic rustling. Inside the apartment, she discovered Daisy lurching toward the CD player, emanating an otherworldly music, new and strange to Scarlett, echoing harps and plinking strings. Daisy leaned back on her heels, a guilty expression on her face. Was this how she passed the hours alone with the children? Those minutes that added to infinity but were never long enough to complete a thought, a conversation, or a cup of tea. The babies were asleep in their portable cribs, Didi’s fists above his head, Liberty’s flung apart as if she were singing an aria.
She’d never witnessed Daisy getting them down at the same time and she’d never asked how. Now she felt queasy with guilt.
“Sold out?” Daisy asked.
Scarlett wasn’t ready to discuss the evening’s disasters: the total loss of hanbaobao, the dented cart, and the temporary banishment from that stretch of North Beach. “What’s this?” She glanced at the CD whirling in the stereo.
“Found it,” Daisy said quickly.
“In the rain?” Scarlett hadn’t seen anything to scavenge on her walk home. “Where?”
Daisy didn’t answer. The space heater whirred beside her. She stretched up her arm and swung her head, repeating the gesture three times. It almost looked like an imitation of a Celestial Goddess pose, itself a rip-off of traditional tai qi exercises. Her teachings had caught on because of their familiarity, a mash-up of Buddhism, astrology, and wishful thinking.
Scarlett tore off the garbage bag and sat on the bed, tugging at the wet shoes and socks that clung to her skin. Her toes were wrinkly and pale as earthworms. She’d scraped her stomach and her knees in the fall, and her right hip would have a big bruise.
She slipped out of her clothes, toweled off, and changed into her pajamas. Old Wu snored through the walls, the sound ragged and wet. She leaned into the portable crib and touched Liberty’s head, half-hoping that she might stir awake and she’d have to pick her up. Soon enough, Liberty would cry for her and Scarlett could take her to bed. Daisy gave her a mug of hot water from their portable teakettle. Scarlett warmed her hands, closing her eyes, letting the steam bathe her face. She sipped, her insides thawing. Scarlett didn’t want her peddling hanbaobao, but Daisy would stifle in the apartment with no company other than their neighbor Little Fox. Her fiancé had finally arrived from China. The wedding was scheduled for this month, and Little Fox’s daily prayers now conce
rned her desire for imminent conception. Scarlett could help Daisy find some other preoccupation: a set of science textbooks or tickets to the planetarium or the zoo. Not much, but she had nothing else to give her.
Daisy had so much of her life ahead of her, all those years in which Scarlett had preferred the uncertainty of the city to the stability of the village, solitude to companionship, responsible to no one but herself. Giving birth had changed all that.
Daisy repeated the stretch, her body supple in ways Scarlett no longer felt. She could have been a typical high school student studying for her final exams but for the baby in the crib.
Scarlett climbed under the covers. Couldn’t Daisy turn off the light? Mei you limao, no respect, no consideration for her elders. The teenager wore a thick pair of wool socks, and her sweater looked new, too, cream cable knit with navy blue piping at the V-neck, her size, the sleeves not yet frayed, the knit not yet pilled. Cans of formula stacked in the corner, though Scarlett couldn’t remember the last time they’d replenished it. Another community giveaway? No one at Evergreen Gardens had mentioned it. Stolen from a market? Laden down with babies, Daisy couldn’t move with stealth, or maybe the commotion of two squirming infants provided the perfect cover. Or were they gifts from a new suitor? Daisy, lonely, might have fallen under the spell of the next man who could rescue her. Scarlett yawned, too tired to consider the matter further, and when the music faded away, so did she.
Chapter 14
After settling into his couch, Boss Yeung passed the cigar under his nose, inhaling the aroma, and cut off the ends with a V-shaped incision. Both men puffed as Uncle Lo passed his gold-plated lighter beneath the cigars, rotating the flame. Boss Yeung drew the smoke into his mouth, the end of the cigar glowing red, his head swimming. He hadn’t had anything stronger than smog in his system in months and the chemo had changed his sense of taste, turning the cigar foul as leaves moldering under a wet log.