Songs of Willow Frost: A Novel

by Jamie Ford

  “How about next Friday?” Liu Song blurted in a way that surprised her. She wasn’t sure if it was because she didn’t want to let him go, or because she simply enjoyed the protection of his company. “On my way home the other day I noticed an early show playing at the Moore Theatre. It’s a new movie, I think you’ll like it.”

  To her delight he didn’t even ask what the film was. He immediately said yes.

  Liu Song had never been to a first-run theater before. The second-run storefront theaters showing last year’s movies were all her family could afford. But she assumed they’d go qu helan and was fine with that. Going to the movies and paying her own way wasn’t actually a date, and she was comforted by that fact as she remembered her mother’s worrisome admonitions about being alone with a man—any man.

  Colin tipped his hat. “Perfect. I’ll meet you there.”

  Lovesick

  (1921)

  When Liu Song arrived at the Moore Theatre, Colin was already there with tickets in hand. He took off his hat and fanned his face, even in the cool air.

  “Is that a new dress?”

  Liu Song tried to smile demurely, but she nervously blushed instead. “I sold a grand pianola this week, can you believe it? So I went a little crazy and bought a brand-new outfit. Do I look au courant?” She had bought modish stockings and fashionable heels too. They were the first new clothes she’d ever owned—the first to actually fit her in all the right places. She chewed her lip, then stopped when she worried she might be smearing her lipstick. She thought it would make her feel grown-up, but instead it only made her more self-conscious, especially in front of the other theater patrons, none of whom were Chinese. She looked down as the lacy fringe that graced her hips fluttered in the breeze and swayed with each hesitant step.

  Colin paused as though speechless. “I … don’t believe there are adequate words in the English tongue,” he said. “All I can say is nei hau leng.”

  You look beautiful too, Liu Song thought. I wish I could tell you.

  Liu Song could hardly believe that he saw her as anything other than an awkward, damaged, lowborn girl—someone who spoke her parents’ country Cantonese, and was a dropout on top of that.

  “You are more than you know,” he said. “Your future …” He whistled. “I just hope I’m around to see it.”

  Liu Song remembered something else and asked, “Do you have plans for after the movie?” She then realized how unflatteringly forward that sounded. Her parents had been modern in their vocation and manner of dress, but she’d still come from a traditional household, where girls did not invite boys—let alone men—to anything.

  “It’s just that I have a commitment,” she quickly added. “Mr. Butterfield sold that pianola this week to one of the owners of the Stacy Mansion—he closed the deal by telling them I would perform at its unveiling, which is later tonight. I thought it would be prudent to have someone escort me …”

  “Ah, of course. That explains the dress,” Colin said, nodding in agreement.

  INSIDE THE THEATER Colin tipped the usher, who led them with a Matchless flashlight to a pair of first-row balcony seats. Liu Song marveled at the view. Not only was she eye level with the screen but also from that vantage point she could see the packed main floor and look directly into the pit, where a seven-piece orchestra tuned up their instruments and an organist sat stretching his fingers. Colin mentioned that he’d read that the tuxedoed musicians were from Russia and the highest paid in the city.

  The audience twittered with excitement when the conductor struck up the opening fanfare and the houselights dimmed. Liu Song stared wide-eyed into pitch black as the music filled the theater. She felt herself being transported elsewhere as her eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness, as the curtain rose and a projector’s beam split the void, illuminating particles of dust suspended in the air, gently swirling like glitter in a snow globe. The orchestra moved deftly through the overture, as the words Bits of Life appeared on-screen, followed by the opening credits.

  “It’s an anthology,” she whispered. It was a new word, one she struggled to pronounce but hoped would impress. “Four movies in one.”

  Colin nodded and smiled. “You’re becoming an expert already.”

  Liu Song delighted in each short film, occasionally peeking at Colin, who watched with a seriousness beyond the simple entertainment on-screen.

  She watched as Colin leaned forward in his seat when he saw the Chinese clothing and Oriental set pieces. Lon Chaney appeared as the main character, Chin Chow. He was a fairly well-known actor, to be sure, but even with his makeup and beard, Liu Song thought he looked awkward and pretentious. Fortunately his fatally flawed wife was played by a new actress, Anna May Wong, who stole the screen from her more famous counterpart.

  She leaned over. “They saved the best for last.”

  As Liu Song watched, she couldn’t help but think of her mother—not the sickly woman slowly dying but the proud woman onstage—victorious, if only for one night.

  “You know, that could be you up there,” Colin whispered. When their hands touched on the armrest, they each pulled away, embarrassed, just as Anna May died on-screen. The radiant Chinese starlet swooned, inhaled dramatically, flaring her nostrils as the orchestra played to a crescendo. Then she batted her eyes and collapsed as the curtain fell and the audience clapped and cheered. Colin gave the show a standing ovation.

  AFTERWARD THEY CAUGHT a jitney cab to the Stacy Mansion. Colin led her past the doorman to the parlor, where a few of the younger men recognized him, which surprised and impressed Liu Song. The men in blue blazers spoke of yacht racing and rowing, and of course acting, theater, photoplays, and moviemaking.

  “They finance films. Union money,” Colin said afterward.

  “Are you a member here?” she asked.

  “No.” He laughed at the thought. “They have certain membership requirements that I am unable to meet. But they do have a splendid pub in the basement, which is open to the public—the Rathskellar. Of course they no longer serve strong spirits, but it’s still a nice place to see or be seen, if you catch my meaning?”

  Liu Song did. And then again, she didn’t. Not firsthand anyway. She’d seen places like this only from the outside—the Stacy, the Carkeek Mansion, the Seattle Tennis Club, with their iron fences, topiary, fancy roadsters, and elegant women in diamonds, pearls, and sheared mink boleros. She felt like a pauper in her gauche three-dollar dress. Even the coat-check girls looked more fetching, more becoming. She wouldn’t have been surprised if the men and women of the club asked her to run along and find a lint brush, a cigarette lighter, or perhaps the humidor from the gentlemen’s smoking lounge.

  “Ah, you must be Liu Song—what a clever name. Stupendously appropriate, don’t you think?” A man with a finely manicured silver beard and gold spectacles took her hand and touched it to his lips. “I’m Marty Van Buren Stacy. Thank you so much for agreeing to grace my humble little establishment with your presence.”

  “I’m …” Liu Song was overwhelmed by his hospitality, unsure of how he’d recognized her. Then she felt silly as she realized she was the only Chinese woman in the room—probably the only one ever to have set foot in the club. “Thank you.”

  “And Master Colin, it’s good to see you again. I can’t say that I’m surprised to see you here attending to this young songstress. Birds of a feather—as they say.”

  Liu Song watched in awe while Colin mingled among Seattle’s royalty as though he were one of them. It became obvious that behind Colin’s modesty lay more affluence than he’d initially let on—not that it mattered to her. If anything, his lofty status only confirmed the gulf of culture and society that separated them. He had more familial obligations than he’d probably let on as well. Back in China he must have been a prince among men, from a family with generations of servants attending to their every need. She knew that he was well beyond her social status, that to be here with her was a tremendous act of charity. Plus, while
he was still regarded as someone of value in a place like this, he would never be fully accepted—which must have been humbling. To come here, Liu Song thought—to be seen with me, he must have owed my father a great deal.

  “We have a special room all set up for you,” Mr. Stacy said.

  Liu Song looked at Colin, who seemed unsurprised.

  “You will stay for dinner, won’t you?” Mr. Stacy asked. “Then after dessert and all the guests have arrived, you’ll favor us with that exquisite voice of yours, yes?”

  “We’re honored,” Colin said. “Thank you for your generosity.”

  A maître d’ led them to a private room near the back that had elegant furnishings and a formal setting for two with flowers and a lit candelabrum. But the wallpaper was old and tobacco-stained, and there were cracks in the wainscoting.

  The maître d’ held the chair for Liu Song and gently placed a fine lace napkin in her lap. She felt naked for not having worn evening gloves. She looked up at Colin, who was masking a frown as they were left alone with the prix fixe menu.

  “Is something the matter?” she asked hesitantly, worried that he was now embarrassed by the dress she wore or that her table manners were somehow flawed.

  “It’s nothing,” he said. “This is splendid.”

  “No, really. You can tell me …”

  He set down the menu. “Have you not noticed?”

  “Noticed what?” she asked.

  “That we’re sitting in the servants’ dining room.” He regarded the wallpaper, the worn carpet with cigarette burns. “We’re not normally allowed in a club like this—not out there anyway, so they’ve fancied up this … place …”

  It wasn’t shocking news to Liu Song. She’d hardly believed it when they accepted Mr. Butterfield’s offer. But perhaps talent, she’d thought, whatever little she might have, transcended class and social standing—even race, perhaps.

  “It’s just one evening,” she said optimistically. “They get me for a five-hundred-dollar piano. They can keep the piano. You get me for a song.”

  Colin found his smile, then looked at his menu. “Well, what’s for dinner?”

  BEING CHINESE, LIU Song thought she had eaten her share of exotic food—compared to the Western palate, at least. She’d grown up on black pickled eggs, on spicy marinated chicken feet, salty dried cuttlefish, and an assortment of dried fungus. But what the waiters at the Stacy Mansion offered on domed silver platters was a continual surprise—one gastronomical dare after another. They dined on green turtle steaks, eel, frog legs, and Liu Song even tried the escargot, which tasted rich, buttery, and delicious until Colin told her what it actually was. She was certain that she must have turned as green as the dish, which was covered in garlic and fresh parsley. She held her napkin to her mouth, trying not to think of the fat banana slugs that left sticky trails of mucus along the alley near her apartment. She felt so ill she hardly touched the thick slice of ginger cream pie that was served for dessert.

  Though it was probably just nerves, the thought of performing in such a formal, decadent place, for such seemingly important people, made her palms sweat. She tried not to think of her barren alleyway apartment, where she’d sleep that night beneath a secondhand blanket she’d purchased from a thrift store. A sad, worried, neglected part of her heart feared that this was all just some cruel parlor game—bring in the poor Chinese girl, expose her to such finery, and then laugh over snifters of brandy and glasses of tawny port as she wilted in the spotlight.

  “You’ll be fine,” Colin said. He must have seen her chewing her lip. “You are your mother’s daughter. It’s your job to set the room on fire.”

  She felt invigorated at the mention of her mother. She envisioned herself in her mother’s gown, with the Widow’s mask. Then she felt butterflies in her stomach as she heard a parlor bell ringing down the hall and the muffled sounds of conversation began to settle down. She heard Mr. Stacy speaking to his guests, who were clapping and laughing with excitement.

  The waiter returned with a glass of sparkling mineral water. “It’s that time,” he said.

  Liu Song rose to her feet, ran her tongue across the front of her teeth, checked her appearance with Colin, who nodded graciously. She sipped the water and was led down a hallway to the back of the mansion, where the servants’ stairs were located. She went up one flight, passed the colored help, who smoked hand-rolled cigarettes and stared at her. Then she came around to make a solo entrance, descending the mansion’s ornate formal staircase. There must have been fifty pairs of eyes staring up at her—members, guests, escorts, and assorted relations, all of them sparkling in their formal attire, beaming with the oblivious confidence that comes only from old, gilded wealth. She saw Colin in the back of the room, smiling and waving encouragingly.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” Mr. Stacy announced, “all the way from the mystical, magical Orient, Miss Liu Song Eng.”

  She curtsied and waved, though she was quietly blanching at not only her uncle’s surname but also her mistaken homeland. She’d never taken the steamship journey to the Orient, or even been out of the country. She’d barely traveled the West Coast. She noticed Colin, who shrugged and raised his eyebrows as she remembered her father talking of the illusory presence of the stage. Where the unreal becomes real. She smiled, even as the women in the crowd whispered to one another and pointed in her direction.

  She drew a deep breath while the audience quieted. Mr. Stacy winked at her, cigar in hand, then walked past an old pump organ and unveiled the grand pianola to the delight of the audience. Liu Song could smell fresh wood soap and see her reflection along the top of the keyless reproducing piano. And Mr. Stacy didn’t even need someone to work the pedals. He merely pushed a button and the bellows inflated, moving the cylinder inside as the pianola began playing “A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody.” Liu Song started singing softly but quickly elevated to the top of her range, growing more confident with each chorus. She followed that with “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” staring at Colin as she crooned, “My heart is sad and I’m all alone …”

  The crowd marveled at her voice and her young age. They begged for one more song, and after a cylinder change, she favored them with a sad, soulful rendition of “Till We Meet Again.” She wailed the high notes of each bar as though squeezing every remaining drop of sorrow out of her ruined heart—from the loss of her father through the loss of her mother, and even her innocence. She stared longingly at Colin, so close but so impossibly far away. He was within her reach but seemed forever beyond her grasp.

  Afterward she collected praise and compliments, which she modestly received, doubting the authenticity of such kind words—too much wine, she thought. They probably had a hogshead hidden somewhere about. Then she remembered Prohibition and found some small validation. Even Mr. Stacy’s wife made a point to shake her hand and invited her back to perform anytime—a rhetorical gesture; she didn’t really mean it. Then again, she didn’t not mean it either. The whole thing left Liu Song happy but confused, accepted but still so alone—the much-adored center of attention while onstage, but a soloist in life.

  She rested her voice as she and Colin rode back to King Street Station beneath a cloudy, starless sky. She was unsure of what to make of the whole evening. Did he really want to be with her? Or was this a debt to her father, some strange, forced social obligation? She wanted to ask but was afraid of the answer.

  He shared his umbrella as he walked her back to her apartment, past the old Hip Sing Tong building and the new Eastern Hotel. He stopped where the alley met the street. She heard a tomcat wailing in the distance, and a ship’s foghorn echoed from somewhere out on the murky blue-green waters of Puget Sound. He lowered the umbrella so they could see each other beneath the flickering streetlights. The rain had let up, dampening their cheeks, their hair, and their eyelashes with a fine mist.

  “You are a natural,” he said. “I have to study. I have to work at it, but you—it’s who you really are. You’re like a
sunflower. You come alive when you step into that spotlight.” He looked at her as though waiting for a reaction. “Did you see the looks on their faces? I think they saw you as a novelty at first—an amuse-bouche, but by the end of the night, every man wanted you—and every woman wanted to be you.”

  She looked up into the drizzly night sky, embarrassed that she didn’t understand his French but equally charmed by his words. “I didn’t really notice all that.”

  He shook water from his umbrella. “Well, I noticed. Believe me …”

  She watched as he loosened his tie and stepped aside while a black couple walked by followed by a group of drunken old Chinese men heading back from some gambling den.

  “Now I’m frightfully embarrassed to ask you this, especially after the way you wowed everyone tonight.” He tipped his hat back with the point of his bumbershoot. “Well, I’m a member of Seattle’s Chinese Opera Company, and I love the work there, but I’ve been trying to find bigger roles, in front of a wider audience. And as luck would have it, I landed a part in a musical at the Empress Theatre. It would mean the world to me if you came and returned the favor—watched me for good luck.” He looked at her sheepishly and then handed her a card with his phone number and address. “Maybe you can give me a few pointers afterward.”

  “I can do that,” she teased. “I can watch.”

  “Liu Song.” As he spoke his breath turned to vapor. “I know we didn’t meet under the most auspicious of circumstances. And … I don’t want to overstep my boundaries in any way. It’s … just that …”

  That you want to kiss me? She tried to project her thoughts directly into the center of his brain—or his heart, whichever got the message first. Her face felt flushed, and her stomach tightened. It was more than just the cool air that made her hands cold and clammy. She looked up at him hoping, expectant. She felt his hand gently on her arm as he removed his hat with the other hand, leaning in. She could smell his nervousness and feel the welcoming warmth of his skin. Her ears were ringing.