China Dolls (13 page)

I kept going out with him anyway, because I didn’t want to hurt Helen’s feelings, and, if I’m honest, because he took me places I couldn’t afford on my own. The next time I went out with him, he praised me: “You’re as American as pink lemonade at a Kansas fair.” Then he went on, proving Ruby right. “But, Grace, you’ll be better off behaving like a proper Chinese girl.”

Helen heard what her brother said very differently than Ruby. “Wear a
cheongsam
the next time you see him, and he’ll sing a different tune,” Helen counseled. “And it’s true. If you want to be a proper Chinese wife, you’ll follow the Three Obediences.”

Monroe and I went dancing down by the Embarcadero, because at the parties he usually went to all the Chinese girls sat on one side of the room and all the boys sat on the other. “No one would be so brazen as to dance with the opposite sex in public,” he said. “If I’m in Chinatown and I see a girl I grew up with,” he confided on another occasion, “I have to cross the street so I don’t have to tip my hat or say hello. If I went out with her three times, her parents would ask me how much I expect to earn. I have to play for keeps. No fooling around.”

What a butt. He was as rigid and disapproving as my father, except he didn’t hit me. Helen, again, had a polar opposite interpretation. “A proposal has to be in the air,” she proclaimed. “He’ll be such a good catch for you. And the best part? If you marry Monroe, you’ll be my sister-in-law, and we’ll live together in the compound.”

But no matter what she said, Monroe and I weren’t right for each other. I allowed Helen to indulge in her fantasy, because I was happy she wanted me with her that much. Eventually, though, I’d have to get up the courage to tell her the truth. In the meantime, I was seeing the city on the arm of a respectable young man and getting plenty of free meals. Not true love, but not bad either.

“H
APPY
C
HINESE
N
EW
Year!” Ruby prodded me awake.

I didn’t bother to open my eyes. “Happy New Year to you too,” I mumbled. “Now let me sleep.” I rolled over and pulled the pillow over my head.

“I have news.” She nudged me again. “I finally have a job.”

That got me to sit up. “You what?”

“I’m working at the Golden Gate International Exposition.” She gave a high, melodious giggle. “The exposition opened last night. I was there!”

“Is that so?” When I’d gotten home at three in the morning, Ruby was still out, but that wasn’t unusual. Ruby and her boys … Those relationships weren’t serious, so Helen and I never had to worry that there might be someone who would try to horn in on our friendship
with her. “But how? And what are you doing?” How did she get hired at the fair when I couldn’t?

“Being Oriental counted in my favor this time. The fair is all about Pacific harmony—”

“Are you in the Japanese Pavilion?” I remembered that it was supposed to be the biggest and best of the country-sponsored pavilions.

Ruby shook her head. “Not there.”

“The Cavalcade of the Golden West?”

“The big pageant? Nah, not that either.”

Finally, it hit me. “Are you working in the Gayway?”

Ruby wrinkled her nose. “Don’t be upset.”

“But, Ruby, the Gayway?”

“It’s an amusement park.” She let that rattle around in her noggin before changing her mind. “Or maybe a carnival.”

“The man who interviewed me when I went there for a job said the Gayway wasn’t a place for a girl like me. If it isn’t right for a girl like me, then it can’t be right for a girl like you—”

She waved that off. “It’s Helen I’m worried about,” she said. “I know this will be a problem for her.”

“For her?
I
don’t like it!”

“Grace, be a sport, will ya? I needed a job. You understand that.” She stared at me earnestly. “Will you please help me with Helen?”

I put my hands on my head. “Oh, brother!”

“Tomorrow’s your day off. Come to Treasure Island and bring Helen. You’ll see it’s not so bad.”

I swallowed hard and agreed.

“Let’s go to Chinatown and see the festivities. I’ve got money now. The day will be on me! Happy New Year!”

“I’ve never celebrated Chinese New Year,” I admitted.

Ruby glowed, triumphant. “Now’s your chance. Get dressed.”

We spent the morning pushing through crowds, getting a good spot to watch the dragon dance, sampling treats sold from vendor
carts, covering our ears when strings of firecrackers crackled and popped on corners. A little before two, Ruby headed to her new job. I continued to explore. At the corner of Grant and Commercial, I saw Helen’s family coming toward me on the sidewalk. Mr. Fong strode a yard ahead of the rest of the family, and his demeanor—his importance—sent other pedestrians scurrying out of the way. His seven sons followed behind him. I spotted Monroe and waved. He nodded but didn’t wave back. Helen came next, wearing a lavender silk
cheongsam
embroidered with white peonies. A tiny woman, dressed in a navy blue tunic over black pants, with her hair pulled back into a severe bun at the nape of her neck, hung on to Helen’s arm for support. She had to be Helen’s mother. A group of young women, some carrying babies and others with small children clustered around their legs, brought up the rear. I’d learned a lot in my few months in Chinatown, and I recognized Helen’s sisters-in-law as FOBs—fresh off the boat. They were dressed up like Helen, but the way they’d styled their hair and left their skin unembellished by lipstick or rouge made them seem foreign. They kept their eyes modestly downcast and maintained a respectful distance not only behind their husbands but also behind their mother- and sister-in-law.

When the group reached me, I saw why Helen’s mother was having such a hard time walking. She had bound feet! I’d heard about bound feet from my dad. He said they were a sign of status. (Whenever he said that, my mom lowered her head.) What I saw looked like deformed stumps. Just then, Helen caught my eyes. The two of us held steady for a fraction of a second, and then she glanced away. Was she embarrassed that I saw the prosperity and status (but also the backwardness) of her family or that she saw me, a common chorus girl? She passed me, didn’t say a word, and proceeded on with her kin, with the sisters-in-law and their children trailing behind—squeaking and peeping like chickens with their just-hatched chicks.

T
HE NEXT DAY
, Helen and I met at 3:00, walked down to the Ferry Building, and paid twenty cents each for round-trip tickets on a Key
System ferry to the Golden Gate International Exposition. I figured if I worked up to the Gayway after Helen and I saw a few attractions—the place was huge—she’d be a lot less judgmental. I hoped she’d be able to weave the Gayway and whatever Ruby was doing there into a bigger vision of the world’s fair.

When we got to Treasure Island, we investigated the idea of riding on one of the trams, the fronts of which had been decorated to look like elephants, or hiring one of the rolling chairs, which looked like oversize wheelchairs that were pushed by handsome young men, but Helen was too excited to sit. We hurried from attraction to attraction, from pavilion to pavilion, exhibit to exhibit. We ate hot dogs, bags of popcorn, cotton candy, and drank five-cent Coca-Colas. Finally, Helen began to complain about her feet. We collapsed on a bench next to a lagoon, too exhausted to walk another step. It was after 11:00, and the place was lit with beautiful colored lights. I was just about to spill the beans about Ruby when a sandy-haired young man pushing a rolling chair came to a stop before us.

“I recognize you.” His smile tweaked up on the left. His eyes were the same bachelor-button blue I remembered, and, of course, he was still tall and fit.

“Joe?”

His lopsided smile spread wider. He nodded at the rolling chair. “I got the job!”

“I didn’t.”

Joe and I laughed. Helen looked at me questioningly.

“We met four months ago, on my first day in San Francisco,” I explained after I introduced them.

“The exhibits are going to close soon.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Do you girls want a ride back to the ferry dock?”

I tipped my head slightly to stare at him. “Actually, I was just about to tell Helen about another friend of ours who works in the Gayway.”

Helen raised her eyebrows. “What’s this all about?” she asked suspiciously.

“Ruby has a job here,” I went on. “I thought we could see her together.”

“There’s only one Oriental girl in the Gayway,” Joe interjected helpfully. “I hoped it might be you, Grace, when I first heard about her. It sure wasn’t!”

As soon as he said that, I realized I hadn’t asked Ruby exactly
where
she worked. This was going to be a surprise for me too. I noticed that Helen’s eyes had narrowed. As happy as I was to see Joe again, introducing Helen to the idea of Ruby working on the Gayway wasn’t going quite as I’d hoped.

“How much will it cost if you take us to her?” Helen asked.

“Ordinarily fifty cents each for a half hour,” he answered, “but it’s on the house for you two.”

We settled into the chair. I twisted around in my seat to look up and back at Joe. He gave me that crooked grin again. “Gayway, here we come.” He took us past the Columbian, Netherlands East Indies, and Argentine pavilions and straight into the Gayway. Here was a man with rubber arms. There was a sword swallower. Just around the bend: a glass eater, a snake charmer, and a fellow who swallowed a neon tube that lit up his innards; a fat lady, a bearded lady, and a lady with no arms, who did everything with her feet, even play instruments! There were arcades, shooting galleries, a flea circus, carnival rides, and a racetrack for monkeys. If the main part of the exposition portrayed the elegant and tasteful, then the Gayway appealed to baser instincts—vulgar, but so much fun.

Joe pulled to a stop in front of what looked like a western saloon with a hitching post. He pointed to a sign that ran across the width of the building:
SALLY RAND
’
S NUDE RANCH
.

Oh, God. This was worse than I’d imagined.
Why
hadn’t I asked Ruby what she was doing out here?

“Ruby won’t be in there,” Helen stated with certainty.

“An Oriental girl works inside,” Joe said. “You’ll see.”

“Not Ruby,” Helen insisted. “Besides, I doubt
we’d
be allowed in there.”

“This is for families, I swear,” Joe vowed.

“But it says ‘nude.’ ”

“It’s not
that
nude,” Joe said. “Sally Rand was one of the most famous performers at the Chicago World’s Fair. Now she’s here.”

“Have you been inside?” I asked.

“You bet!” he answered a bit too enthusiastically.

Helen and I paid twenty-five cents apiece and then waited in a line that moved very slowly. Joe was right. There were people of all ages—even little kids—in the line, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say that the majority were men on their own. Joe said he’d made enough money for the day, so he stayed with us. Finally, we entered the building, following the people herded ahead and shoved by those behind. Gene Autry’s “Back in the Saddle Again” blared from speakers attached to the ceiling. We peered to our right through plate-glass windows and into a large room. Inside, about twenty girls—wearing cowboy boots, holsters with fake pistols (one in front and one in back, placed at strategic places), bandannas tied around their breasts (or no bandannas at all—just hair taped, glued, or swinging long and loose to meet the decency codes), Stetsons, and nothing else—paraded back and forth in front of the window, posed with a hand behind an ear, whispered to each other. Some of them played badminton, which caused their breasts to jump and wiggle. They may have called this a place for families, but I hadn’t seen anything like it in Plain City. I caught sight of a little boy with his eyes bugged out to here.
Boing!
—like in a cartoon. His mother finally noticed and dragged him out.

Helen grabbed my arm. “Look!”

One girl behind the window had set her cowboy hat on the floor so she could swing a lariat above her head. Her black hair swished back and forth across her breasts, concealing her nipples but shimmering like satin against her pale skin. It was Ruby.
Our
Ruby. We gripped the handrail, trying to maintain our position in front of the window as new visitors pushed against us. From where we stood, Helen and I could hear a woman’s voice calling orders: “Get off your
duff, Betty. Jump a little higher, Sue. Keep that rump up when you bend down to get the ball, Alice.”

I rapped on the glass with my knuckles. A girl with curly red hair looked toward the sound. I pointed to Ruby, sending a message that I wanted her attention.

“Hey, Ruby. You have visitors!”

Ruby dropped the lariat—and let’s just say she’d never be a whiz at rope tricks—came to the window, and put her hands on the glass. “Helen! Grace! I have a break in ten minutes. When you exit, come around to the side door. I’ll meet you there.”

Even through my shock, I perceived the energy coming off Joe. I saw the way he stared at Ruby. At first I thought he was embarrassed, but then I realized he couldn’t take his eyes off her. His desire jarred open something startling in me. My yearning for him was so deep I could barely breathe. Not once had I felt that way with Monroe. I didn’t want to
be
Ruby, but I wanted Joe to want
me
like that.

The crowd surged against us, and we were pushed back outside and into the night. The lights teased my eyes. The cold air nipped my face, but with so many people crowded together it felt as though a thousand hands caressed me.

“I wouldn’t call that appropriate for children!” Helen declared. “How could she?”

I shrugged, striving to appear responsive. I stood so close to Joe his clothes brushed against mine and his breath warmed my cheek.

“Will you introduce me to your friend?” he asked.

“Of course,” I said.

Helen blinked. Had both her friends gone crazy?

A few minutes later, Ruby—dressed in slacks and a sweater—oozed through a door and onto the Gayway. “You found me!”