A River of Stars

by Vanessa Hua

  In this neighborhood, old fashioned streetcars, sleek as lipstick tubes, rumbled along the grubby block of check-cashing shops and liquor stores. Adela, the lawyer, had the glamour of a movie spy, all dark curls and a throaty accent, and the steel to stand up to a judge. She ticked off a list of forms they’d need—joint tax returns, rental agreement, and life insurance with Scarlett and Daisy naming each other as beneficiaries—and questions authorities might ask. “Where did you meet, and when? Who proposed, and where?”

  “Last year, on a retreat for pregnant women,” Daisy said. Her son nestled in her lap, drooling. Liberty squawked like a parrot until Scarlett handed her keys to jingle.

  Daisy said she’d proposed in their apartment after dinner. She and Scarlett had agreed it seemed less suspicious if the U.S. citizen asked—and not the foreigner angling for a green card—but what did they know?

  Adela didn’t take any notes. Their answers had to hold up, and so did they. This consultation seemed like the first of many character tests. “What do you like to do together?”

  They said nothing. They hadn’t prepared for that question.

  “We—” Daisy switched into Mandarin. “There are too many questions! We can’t answer them all.”

  “We’ll have time to get ready,” Scarlett said to her. If Daisy was caving in under the lightest interrogation, they would never survive the years-long charade and scrutiny. “Say something!”

  “It’s your turn.” Daisy jiggled her son on her knee. On the long walk from Chinatown, she’d been quiet, and her reluctance felt sticky as tar.

  A streetcar clanged outside. “We take walks,” Scarlett said finally. She didn’t sound convincing. If she and Liberty were deported to China, Didi would lose the girl he knew as his sister, and the woman he knew as another mother. And Scarlett would lose the woman she’d grown to trust. To love.

  For Scarlett to become a permanent resident, they would have to document their relationship, keeping records of their joint bank account, billing address, and tax returns for the next two years, the lawyer said. So many forms, so much paperwork, she was sure to slip up. Convinced their bid would fail, Scarlett was ready to leave when her daughter threw the keys on the floor. Cheeks burning, she reached down, but the attorney retrieved them for her.

  “Everyone says it gets easier,” Adela said. “They’re lying. Not until they’re four.”

  She checked her computer screen. “I’ll get everything in order.” Not a guarantee, not a prediction, but a promise that she would guide them through the process.

  “Do you have kids? How old are they?” Daisy asked.

  “A four-year-old.” Adela smiled.

  It felt like an inside joke, shared between mothers of young children who understood the struggles of getting through the day intact, and starting all over again at dawn. Scarlett had never felt like she belonged, but right now, what she and Adela shared as parents mattered more than what they didn’t.

  * * *

  —

  The thrift shop sold clothes by the pound. Babies strapped to their backs, Scarlett and Daisy squeezed past the racks of Hawaiian shirts, fedoras, and plaid hunting caps, past the mannequin’s legs in fishnet stockings pointed seductively in the air, past the crumpled loafers and scuffed heels and in the back—dimly lit, dusty, and tinged with body odor—they found the deflated wedding dresses. Cream and ivory and snow white, edged in sequins and lace, poufy gowns and slinky sheaths in itchy polyester, satin, and sheer rayon with the mothball smell of decades past, of old memories and forgotten ones, the sour hint of broken engagements and jilted brides cleaning out their closets.

  As they’d been leaving the attorney’s office, Daisy had suggested coming here. Scarlett hadn’t known such stores existed, not in China, where you spun and sewed your clothes yourself when you couldn’t afford store-bought, and when you could, you splurged on the latest fashions. No one wanted to look poor. The factory girls would have passed up secondhand clothing as dirty, tainted with bad luck or with rejection, and Countess Tien and Lady Yu would have deemed it unfit to use as cleaning rags.

  According to Daisy, Levi’s, cotton tees, and other used clothes from America were popular in Taipei among the arty and rich. Even if all the garments were—as Scarlett pointed out—originally made in China, in a journey that zigzagged around the world, by cargo ship to the West and on a return trip to the East by air, stowed away in the suitcase of a jet-setting boutique owner.

  In the mirror, Scarlett held a dress up to herself, the hem rustling on the floor, the lace scratchy as brambles against her neck. She twitched, her skin crawling when she pictured herself going into the dressing room, exposing her sagging belly, wide hips, and stretch marks on her thighs to the harsh lights, and tugging at the unforgiving fabric, the seams straining against her body.

  Daisy had a silky frock draped over her arm that Scarlett could tell would flatter her, suitable for an outdoor wedding, for a bride barefoot with hair long and loose. With an expert eye, she plucked another from the rack, with a trumpet skirt, long sleeves, and empire waist, plain but elegant, and handed it to Scarlett.

  The teenager loved to dress up, to consider the possibilities. Only this morning, she was a reluctant bride-to-be, but now excitement lit her eyes and flushed her cheeks. For a moment, it seemed she could forget her fears of getting caught in a sham marriage. A moment that Scarlett wanted to draw out to keep the game going, to coax Daisy into joining her at the altar. She reached for a dress festooned with bows and thrust the rustling cloud at Daisy. “In case the other one doesn’t fit.”

  Daisy studied the dress and smiled, apparently understanding the rules without explanation. She selected one for Scarlett, with puffy sleeves and a bodice encrusted with fake diamonds that might have been stylish when she was an infant. They took adjoining dressing rooms, where Scarlett set her daughter on a blanket on the floor. She stroked Liberty’s head. Had her own mother ever touched her with such tenderness? She must have, but Scarlett couldn’t remember.

  She wiggled out of her clothes with her back to the mirror, her nipples erect and tender in the drafty room. After slipping on the gown, tulle cascading over her like beer foam, she stepped out and discovered Daisy wearing her dress—or rather, the oversized dress was wearing her. She gripped handfuls of fabric to keep it from slipping off her otter’s body.

  They grinned, carefree and silly as they were only with their babies, never with themselves. They were infected by an air of mischief, as if pulling off a prank, or preparing for opening night of a performance. They linked arms and walked solemnly toward the full-length mirror.

  She and her sister used to dig through their mother’s closet, Daisy said. She’d been a bride many times. “I made veils out of toilet paper.”

  They poked at each other’s skirts. “How do you get through a crowd in these big dresses?” Scarlett asked.

  “You don’t,” Daisy said. “People get out of your way.”

  They changed into the gowns Daisy had picked. This time, when Scarlett zipped up the dress, the underwire stiff as armor, she no longer felt giddy, but intent, as if suiting up for war. The silky material felt light and soft against her skin. She inhaled, seeking a hint of the previous owner’s perfume, but she detected only the chemical scent of dry-cleaning. No matter if the marriage had ended after three days or three decades, or if the couple was still happily married, the dress would lend its glamour to Scarlett. How would Boss Yeung react if he saw her now, dressed like a bride? Would he remember the salt on her skin, the sticky warmth of their bodies under clean cotton sheets, feel regret—or disgust? She’d take anything, anything but his indifference. Liberty was cooing, giggling on the floor, her hands reaching to stroke the satin. Scarlett picked her up and found Daisy in the hallway equally transformed—not a girl playing dress up, but a woman, a mother, a bride getting married, in the eyes of the law if not in Go
d’s. Her wife, her life.

  * * *

  —

  They scheduled their ceremony at City Hall in the first slot available, just before Scarlett’s visa expired. Because they couldn’t walk through Chinatown in their bridal finery, they had to stuff their dresses into crinkly black garbage sacks and tiptoe past their nosy neighbors. Auntie Ng called out as they were exiting the building, asking where they were going so early in the morning. They slammed the door behind them.

  At City Hall, they heaved their bags and empty strollers onto the conveyer belt at the guard station, and changed in the handicapped stall of the public bathroom. They couldn’t both fit, and had to leave the stall door open for extra room. The floor was gritty and chilly beneath Scarlett’s bare feet. She slid on her silver-sequined shoes, bracing herself against the handrail, trying not to drop the hem into the toilet, which reeked of disinfectant and urine. Old Wu had scavenged the shoes for her months ago, but she hadn’t worn them until now. In his infatuation, he’d seen her as she couldn’t see herself, as someone who would have occasions for such impractical, glamorous footwear. She felt guilty for hiding her marriage to Daisy, one of the many secrets she kept from him. If he’d known, he could have walked her down the aisle, given her away like in the movies.

  She expected to get married in a dreary room with battered office furniture, but after they checked in, the clerk, a brisk black woman with ornate braids swept into a crown, informed them the judge was marrying couples under the rotunda that day. “Up the stairs and under the dome.”

  Each tucked a bouquet of wilting roses from the corner drugstore under her arm. With one hand, they pushed a stroller, and with the other, they hoisted the hems of their heavy, slippery dresses. A woman passing by exclaimed, “What beautiful dresses! Congratulations!” Scarlett forced a smile at the well-wishes of a stranger, but Daisy remained stone-faced.

  They rode up one floor, the pulleys groaning and squeaking, and when the elevator doors parted onto the rotunda, a flash greeted them. Under the dome flooded with light like a cathedral, Casey snapped pictures and tied blue ribbons to their wrists. “For good luck,” she said, explaining the old English tradition. It was too late for Scarlett to find something borrowed or new. She’d have to treat it like any other superstition: focus on what fell in her favor and ignore the rest.

  For the album they’d present to immigration officials, she and Daisy would toast each other with plastic flutes of sparkling apple cider beside a frilly white cake. Chatter floated up from the ground floor, punctuated by the ding of the elevators.

  While waiting for their turn, Daisy checked her phone. She’d been obsessively logging on to William’s website several times a day. She gasped. He announced that he was taking a break, going home to the Bay Area for his mother’s birthday.

  She had to write him.

  “Two months,” Scarlett said. Two months until she received her conditional green card, but their attorney warned that the waiting period could be much longer.

  “I’ll send it in code. Something only he knows I know,” Daisy said.

  “He might already know,” Scarlett said, something that only just now occurred to her.

  “The detective almost found us. They must have found his parents.”

  Daisy frowned. Scarlett shouldn’t have voiced her suspicion without knowing for certain, but she needed to stop Daisy from sending out a desperate new message that revealed too much—a photo of their son? their address?—that would lead authorities straight to them. He hadn’t sought her out, for any number of reasons that must now worry Daisy. He might have decided against trying to find her because of his career, or maybe he’d fallen out of love with her.

  Daisy’s complexion had gone wan as a frog’s belly. “He can’t know. He doesn’t know. Maybe his parents didn’t tell him.”

  Their turn arrived. The judge peered over his black binder at them, his expression stern.

  “I have to try,” Daisy said.

  The cellophane on the bouquet crinkled in Scarlett’s sweaty hands. The judge was going to proclaim them frauds. “We’re getting married.”

  “We’re not married yet,” Daisy said loudly.

  A couple of meters away, Casey and her wife watched with concern. “Need a moment?” the judge asked. “But only a moment.”

  The next party waited behind a set of marble posts while a maid of honor fluffed the bride’s train. Scarlett put her arm around Daisy and they turned their backs on the judge and their witnesses. Daisy trembled, Scarlett tightened her grip, and they both went still, amazed by the view down the broad staircase where a fleeing princess might drop her glass slipper. More flashes of light, snapped by Japanese tourists visiting San Francisco, entranced by the exotic sight of lala brides.

  “Please.” Scarlett held her breath. Every silent vow they’d made to each other had been building up to today’s, the only one the bureaucrats recognized. Didi squealed and Liberty cooed, a reminder of the family Daisy had formed, whom she could count on and who counted on her.

  Daisy nodded. They turned around to face the judge, who sped through the ceremony. He told them to join their hands, and Casey gathered their rings and roses. Daisy’s hands in hers were small and sweaty as mice in a den, and they stared at each other in mutual terror as the gravity of this undertaking sank in. Boss Yeung hadn’t remained faithful to his wife. Many couples didn’t—maybe most—and yet dozens were gathering here to proclaim their commitment, among the hundreds, thousands who would marry across the country today. Tempting fate and staking a claim, an act of faith even for the godless.

  “No words of mine or any other person truly marry you,” the judge said. “You marry each other when you exchange your vows and commit yourself to this union.”

  Scarlett slipped the ring onto Daisy’s finger, the cheap band tugging on her skin, pale as candle wax. Daisy did the same.

  “You may now kiss,” the judge said. They hadn’t practiced, hadn’t discussed it, though they had known of its eventuality. They leaned in and a flash fired. Their mouths brushed together with a lukewarm passion that Daisy remedied by cradling Scarlett’s face in her hands. Her lips were soft and warm. Scarlett breathed in the deeper scent of her, the salt and heat that she had come to know in their months together, a scent that had become as familiar as her own.

  Chapter 22

  Boss Yeung unlatched the cage and slipped the rat a treat. Sleek, spotted like a Holstein, it sat on its hind legs, gnawing at the oversized chocolate chip cookie that he’d saved from lunch. He never could abide wasting food, even if he no longer had much of an appetite. This rat had to be hungry, like all the specimens in this laboratory, where researchers were studying how starvation could lengthen life. The bony rats survived on a third of the calories of their typical diet, and must spend their days dreaming of gray-green pellets. Raised in the lab from birth, they’d never known the pleasures of their wild cousins who pawed through the trash eating pizza crusts and meat scraps, and died young, fat, and happy.

  Uncle Lo’s entourage had arrived yesterday and the university officials had arranged tours of the research facilities, a private session for his niece with the equestrian coach, a round of golf on the campus course, a private consultation with the chief oncologist for Boss Yeung, and a reception this evening at the museum.

  It seemed Uncle Lo wanted to associate his family’s name with Stanford, and burnish his reputation as pioneering and benevolent. But Boss Yeung had misunderstood how wide his friend’s ambition stretched; Uncle Lo didn’t want to live on only through his deeds. Like many a modern mogul, he wanted to live forever, to conquer death as he’d conquered his rivals, and the research he was funding at Stanford examined how a man might someday live for centuries. No doubt, Uncle Lo would be the very first beneficiary.

  Despite the powerful ventilation system, the air was rank with rat urine and antiseptic, an
d the VIP guests hurried out of the lab, Uncle Lo in the lead, trailed closely by the development officer and the interpreter, a young woman who spoke rapidly with no emotion, her movements jerky as a windup doll.

  Until the stop in the animal lab, Boss Yeung hadn’t paid much attention to the tour. He’d missed Scarlett even more keenly since his arrival in California, a knot of longing at his throat. Everything he’d loved about her, her boldness and her determination, had come rushing back. This morning, he brought her childhood notebook onto the balcony of the hotel room, holding it out in front of him like a dowsing rod. No quivering led him to her or their son. After visiting her village, he felt closer to Scarlett than he had in months, closer even than when they’d been together, and yet she remained out of reach. She’d never forgive him for asking her to give up their son.

  The lab would have amused her. Brilliant minds and tens of millions of dollars were devoted to investigating the lean meals of her childhood. He wanted her at his side, navigating, remarking. He missed those moments of content silence settling between them.

  The rat finished off the cookie, twitching with frantic energy. Its brain must be short-circuiting with this blast of sugar and fat. Its saucer ears, veined and delicate as a fairy’s wing, tiny paws that could have sewn a puppet’s clothes, and shiny black eyes. Apparently, some Americans kept rats as pets, but you could never forget that these vermin snatched food from your mouth. You had to be vigilant. At Boss Yeung’s shortbread cookie plant, the foreman kept the premises sanitary and secure from all such creatures.

  “Baba?” Viann asked. Her first word, the tender name she had reverted to after he’d fallen ill. She asked if he needed to sit down; he looked as if he might faint. Uncle Lo had insisted they both come on this trip. A farewell of sorts, though none of them admitted it, the last time Boss Yeung might be continent and coherent.