China Dolls (18 page)

Carried by the Wind

Things happened fast after Grace left. I’d always been second in the line, but Ida got promoted over me. That was all right. I couldn’t see myself bringing pots of tea and kowtowing to the Lim Sisters every night as part of a five-dollar raise. And Ruby? Unemployed, and without Grace to help with the rent, she gave up her apartment and went back to live with her aunt and uncle in Alameda. We met once for tea, but it was awkward. I’d recognized what was going on between her and Joe months ago. Anyone could see—if they’d chosen to look—that they weren’t exactly “in love.” What they had was irresistible, wet, and uncontrollable. And
fffft
. Over. A raging fire doused. It wasn’t personal or deep to Ruby, and maybe not even to Joe.

“I’m not seeing him anymore,” Ruby told me, as though that would make her any less guilty in my eyes. “It burned us up to see Grace hurt like that.”

I’d always been wary of Ruby. The reports coming out of China were worse every day. The barbarian monkey-people were burning, looting, and raping their way across my ancestral homeland. Maybe brutality was in the nature of
all
Japanese and therefore in Ruby’s. Monroe had cautioned me: “You’re going to get hurt.” That it ended up being Grace instead of me made me feel like a sea slug on the ocean floor. I should have done a better job protecting her.

“Have you heard from Grace?” Ruby asked.

“No, and I don’t have a way to reach her.”

Grace and Ruby were like blossoms blown from a tree—carried by the wind, relying on goodness in Grace’s case and wiles in Ruby’s. They insisted that they’d endured so much, but I interpreted their tragedies differently. Grace’s father had beat her; there were worse things in the world. Ruby’s parents had wanted to return to Japan; good riddance. Grace went to seek her dream in Hollywood, Ruby would glitter wherever she was, while I had scars I would take to my grave.

“I miss the three of us being together,” Ruby said.

A part of me enjoyed seeing her suffer, but later, as I watched her retreating, I was reminded just how fleeting life is. Love disappears. Friendships dissolve. I was alone once again.

I
N
A
UGUST, SIX
months after Grace left, business at the Forbidden City slowed even more. Charlie was so broke, he couldn’t even change a twenty for a customer. Many of our acts moved to jobs either at other clubs in Chinatown or out on the road on what the show kids called the Chop-Suey Circuit. When Eddie got an offer to dance at the Club Casa del Mar—a private beach club and hotel in Santa Monica—he jumped at the chance. One problem: the run was for a duo.

“They want a Chinese Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers,” Eddie explained. “Now who wants to be my Ginger?”

I was quick to sign up for auditions because, first, I was looking at going back to work at the Chinese Telephone Exchange, and, second, if I got the job with Eddie, then I could search for Grace. (Ida laughed at me. “That will be like looking for a needle in a haystack.”) Every girl saw this as an opportunity not just to go to Hollywood but to be with Eddie. You could practically hear the wedding gongs, cymbals, and firecrackers. Finally, he got around to me. All right, so I was last on
his
list, but when he took me in his arms I was able to follow the subtle pressure of his hand on my back, the way he leaned in to me, or he pulled me toward him. Afterward, he sat me down.

“You’ve changed a lot since you first started at the Forbidden
City,” he said. “You used to be so shy, and you talked like you’d been raised in a moon-viewing pavilion overlooking a lake. I don’t mean to insult you.”

“You haven’t.” Because I
had
changed in the nearly two years since I’d first auditioned and Mr. Biggerstaff asked me to lift my skirt to see my legs. At the very least, I could now speak the lingo, so I sounded like I belonged in a nightclub.

“If you come with me,” Eddie went on, “I won’t have to deal with any goo-goo eyes coming from you, will I?”

“No goo-goo eyes,” I promised.

Eddie still wasn’t sure. He wanted to see if I could learn a complicated routine.
“Even metal and stone can be pierced by hard work,”
he recited, which reinforced my knowledge that he’d been raised by good and proper Chinese parents. We practiced in the afternoons before the Forbidden City opened for business. We worked on a ballroom number to “Night and Day”—a song I remembered Grace singing to herself. I soaked into my body every turn, every flick of the wrist, and every lift Eddie showed me. He wanted the dance to end with my back bent over his thigh and his head on my chest. It was a romantic and beautiful move, and it would look gorgeous when I wore a gown, which would drape on the floor around me. When we perfected the maneuver, he pulled me back to my feet, and then brought me into his arms. He stared into my face for a long moment, and then he kissed me. His lips were soft and delicate on mine. His mouth tasted like bourbon.

“You’re doing a fabulous job,” he said. “You look good.”

“Thanks,” I said, “but please don’t do that again.”

He hired me right then and there.

Baba made a stink, but I did my part by falling back on my tried-and-true helping-Monroe-with-his-tuition routine, which allowed us both to save face.

O
UR
C
LUB
C
ASA
del Mar show went over big. Eddie was marvelous—his surprising height making his long lines seem even longer—and I
made a solid partner, swaying around the floor by myself while he performed showy antics. The
Los Angeles Times
wrote: “Audiences were spellbound by Eddie Wu and Helen Fong’s Oriental stylings. How long before we see this terpsichorean duo on the silver screen?”

A few nights into the run, I was in my dressing room pulling a stocking up my leg when I heard a knock at the door.

“Come in,” I called.

The door opened, and there was Grace, holding the
L.A. Times
clipping in her hand like an offering. She’d lost a lot of weight and was now so thin that her hip bones protruded like twin ledges against the fabric of her tired evening gown. Her cheeks were hollow, and her complexion was pale and waxy. We may have been Chinese, but we were theater people now. I allowed myself to be hugged and kissed. Then we babbled about what a surprise this was, that the show was terrific, and wasn’t it great to be together again? But it didn’t take a diviner to see that Grace’s spunk had been drawn from her.

“What’s this?” Eddie stood in the doorframe, still in his tails. His big grin faded as he absorbed the changes in Grace. Without another word, he crossed the room and wrapped his arms around her. “It sure is swell to see you, kid.”

She got a little weepy, but Eddie took care of that with more hugs and kisses followed by words of concern and encouragement.

“You never wrote,” he said. “We all worried about you. Even Charlie.”

“You mean he’s forgiven me?” she asked.

“For cutting out that night? He was never mad at you. But, babe, you didn’t need to do that. No guy is worth it. Believe me.”

Grace blushed. “So everyone knows my business?” When neither Eddie nor I answered, she quickly changed the subject. “What are you two doing here?”

“You just saw what we’re doing.” Eddie scratched his chin. “The hotel wanted a novelty act, and we’re providing it. They’re paying good money.”

“We want to get some movie work too,” I added.

“Movie work.” Grace frowned. “Boy, have I ever failed at that.”

“Don’t give us that look,” Eddie chided. “No one ever said it would be easy. This business is all about breaks. Sometimes you get a good break. Sometimes you get a bad break. That’s the breaks! So perk up! Laugh a little!”

“Every show business career has low points,” she agreed tentatively. “It’s easy to get down and beat yourself up. Even for big movie stars. You finish a movie, and then what? Will I ever work again? I love one thing about show business, though.”

“Let me guess,” Eddie said, game. “You work here, and you make friends. You work there, and you make new friends. Pretty soon you start bumping into those folks in clubs, theaters, and movie studios. And sometimes they pop up in the most surprising places, because our world isn’t that big. See? Here we are!”

“Oh, Eddie.” Grace’s eyes brimmed with tears. “I’ve missed you all so much. Shoot! I’ve even missed Ida!”

W
HEN THE TWO-WEEK
gig at Casa del Mar ended, Grace invited me to move into her drab room in a boardinghouse in Hollywood. Eddie rented accommodations in the same building. So far, Grace hadn’t asked about Ruby and had closed off any attempts by me to discuss her, but once we were roommates, the subject was unavoidable.

“We may as well get it out in the open,” Grace volunteered when I started to unpack my suitcase. “How is she?”

“Ruby told me she felt terrible about what happened.” I paused to get a sense of Grace’s reaction. “She was heartbroken when you left.”

“I was busted up too—”

“Grace, what can I say? The whole thing was horrible.”

My words delivered sharp stabs into her heart. She
still
ached. I’d never realized a woman could not be married and feel so deeply.

“When I look back, Joe didn’t actually do anything
to
me.” I could see that she’d given this a lot of thought—months, alone, of thought. “He treated me like a smitten kid, and I was. Now I can say I’ve survived the agony of first love.”

“And Ruby?”

“That’s harder. We were friends. She should have told me. But then I think about how I reacted. No wonder she
didn’t
tell me.”

I took the framed photo that I’d wrapped in a sweater out of my suitcase and tucked them together in a drawer. “She’ll want to hear that I found you.”

“Don’t tell her. Please? It’s embarrassing enough that I acted like a dumb kid. It will humiliate me even more for her to know I’m down on my luck.”

“All right then.” I reached for her hand. “It’ll be just the two of us—Grace and Helen.”

E
DDIE AND
I made the rounds of the studios and had as little luck as Grace had. We had fun, though. Sometimes, after a disappointing day, Eddie would buy a pint and bring it back to Grace’s and my room, where I’d make grilled peanut butter sandwiches on the hot plate. Cocktails and a gourmet meal! On Sundays, we splurged and had cornflakes and milk or maybe leftover rice with sugar and cream on top. Grace took us to a little place in Chinatown called Sam Yuen. The food was good and cheap, and the owner liked me because we spoke the same dialect. “If you girls ever want jobs …” As if I could ever be a waitress …

I thought we had it made when Eddie got us signed with a booking agent, Max Field, who agreed to represent the two of us as dance partners, Grace as a soloist, and Grace and me as a team. Max looked for all kinds of gigs: club dates, one-nighters, three-night stands. Grace and I got the first booking, doing a variation of “Let Me Play with It,” which we’d once practiced with Ruby, for three weekends at the Florentine Gardens. Eddie and I got a couple of gigs too. One night I stayed home with a fever, and Grace stepped in as Eddie’s partner at a floor show at La Rue. This gave Eddie an idea: “Let’s put an act together for the three of us.”

We bought time at a dance studio to work on a ballroom routine. Grace and Eddie loved Cole Porter, and they searched for the perfect
tune—with a nice tempo and the right sentiment—before settling on “You’d Be So Easy to Love.” Eddie took turns practicing lifts with Grace and me.

“Astaire and Rogers, Toy and Wing, Veloz and Yolanda—they all make lifts seem easy, but they aren’t,” Grace said one afternoon after she’d crashed on her behind for the ten thousandth time that day. How often did Eddie drop us on our shoulders, our hips, our heads, our knees? How often did we go flying through the air, slipping across the floor, banging into walls? We were covered with bruises. But no matter how often I found myself splayed on the floor, I got right up and moved back into Eddie’s arms. I loved dancing with him. All the while, he stared into my eyes.

“You have to
feel
that we’re in love.” His voice burrowed into me. “Let the audience see that I’m seducing you and that you’re weakening. The audience wants to know you’re mine.”

And I could play along, because it wasn’t real.

Max saw the act and said we were great. Then he sat us down and pointed out the obvious: Eddie’s evening dress—with the long coattails and broad lapels, the shirt with the stiff front, and the white tie—was frayed. Max was even tougher on Grace and me. “You two look kiddified. You’re young, fine, but proper gowns will make you look elegant, polished, and sophisticated.”

No one had ever called me “kiddified” before, and it was pretty insulting given how I’d been raised to have the nicest dresses in Chinatown and how I had so many beautiful
cheongsams
made for me in China. So Grace and I went out and I used the last of the money I’d brought with me to buy matching sequined chartreuse gowns—backless—which didn’t look one bit kiddified. Max immediately got us booked to debut our act at the Vendome on Sunset Boulevard. “It isn’t the Trocadero or the Mocambo,” Eddie said, “but it’s still a ritzy nightclub.”

On the night of our show, Grace went to check the house. She returned bubbling: “Ida Lupino, Ann Sothern, and Randolph Scott are sitting at ringside tables!”

“No one would ever call them jaw-droppingly famous,” Eddie sniffed, but I could tell he was pleased to have movie stars in the audience.

We billed ourselves as the Chinese Dancing Sweethearts. Grace and I wore our new sequined gowns, which caught the light and reflected into the audience. Eddie, in his new tuxedo with shimmering lapels, and his hair oiled to glisten, hoped to draw all the women’s eyes to him. We flowed back and forth across the floor, embracing and releasing each other, and then coming together again. Eddie’s choreography incorporated graceful arcs, sweeping shoulders, dramatic lifts, and deep knee bends. A dip here, and Eddie kissed me; a dip there, and he kissed Grace. For the finale, he put an arm around each of our waists, lifted us both off the floor, and twirled us in mesmerizing slow motion, showing not only our delicacy but his strength as a dancer and as a man. We earned back everything we’d spent on our costumes, but we were not asked to return.