China Dolls (22 page)

Grace dabbed the sponge in foundation and smoothed it down my back, over my rear, and along my legs like some kind of automaton. I picked up a pouf from the counter, dipped it into a yellow Bakelite container, and patted powder on my chest, breasts, and down my stomach. Clouds of powder wisped away from my naked body and drifted across the room, causing the other girls to brush at their costumes and stare daggers at me in the mirror. Maybe I deserved it, but Grace remained oblivious to the discontent around us. The kid had
surrendered to me that easily and completely. I felt bad that she’d so lost her spark and fight.

“Charlie needed something—or someone—to spice things up,” I twittered nervously. “ ‘Come back to my place,’ he said. ‘You’ll be a headliner, but I can only pay you fifty a week, because you’re …’ ” I leaned down and whispered in Grace’s ear, “ ‘Japanese.’ ” I straightened. “Obviously, I wouldn’t be a problem for him anymore. The Sky Room has lots of Japanese ponies, and Charlie now has girls from Hawaii and the Philippines. There just aren’t enough Chinese girls to fill all the jobs, and customers see what they want to see: an all-Chinese revue.”

“An Oriental is an Oriental is an Oriental—”

“Anyway, I tell him my name is Ruby Tom. Only he doesn’t like it, see? ‘We’re going to turn you into something special—something no one else has,’ he said. ‘You’ll be Princess Tai, who escaped from China.’ If I was going to be a Chinese princess, then I sure as hell wasn’t going to accept fifty bucks a week!”

“What about Joe?” she asked.

Ah!
The big question.

“Joe? He still comes to the club, and I see him from time to time—”

“He’s one of her many now,” Ida mumbled loud enough for us to hear.

“Don’t you mean he’s one of
your
many now?” I shot back. The other girls laughed. I sought Grace’s eyes in the mirror. “He’s a long way from home, there’s a lot of temptation around here, and boys will be boys—”

“Give the guy a break,” Ida cut me off. “You broke his heart, and Grace here threw him for a loop. Now he’s doing what he’s supposed to be doing. Sowing some oats—”

Grace clenched her jaw.

“Try not to think about it, Grace,” I said comfortingly. “Here, take the pouf,” I ordered, changing the subject. “Make sure the powder covers everything.”

Grace obeyed wordlessly.

“Now that you’re here,” I continued, “you can always powder me. It’s good to have a real friend take care of Princess Tai. Help me with my shoes, will ya?”

She kneeled before me and slipped the uncomfortably high-heeled shoes onto my feet. The red patent leather contrasted stunningly against my powdered skin. I leaned in to the mirror for a final look-see and to test that my gardenias were firmly in place.

“I’m ready, except for my bubble.” I rolled my shoulders. “You’ll find it in the cubby under the stairs by the stage. The bubble needs to be perfectly clean, so use the cloth and spray I keep there. No smudges! I don’t want to look like I’ve been manhandled! Not until
after
the show!” I winked. “Before you go, I need your help with one more thing. My patch. As you know,” I said as Grace—who, it seemed, had not one ounce of feistiness left in her—awkwardly applied herself to the task, “Sally Rand worked with a fan, and so do I sometimes. But Princess Tai’s specialty is the bubble.”

“
Fiedee, fiedee, fiedee!
Hurry, hurry, hurry! It’s showtime!” Charlie called through the door to the dressing room. The other girls began to leave. Grace started to rise, but I put a hand on her head. It was not my finest moment, but why—
why
—didn’t Grace fight back? Why didn’t she bat my hand away, stand up, and say, “Knock it off!” or “Eat a beet!” or “Get over yourself, Ruby”?

“At first, I was scared to death,” I told her. “I was practically frozen with fear. It’s hard to walk around the stage, holding the bubble just so. But ever since that article hit, we’ve been sold out every night. Now Charlie has to take reservations!”

“
Fiedee, fiedee, fiedee!
Hurry, hurry, hurry!”

“Come on, Grace,” Ida called from the door. “You don’t want to miss the cue.”

As I watched Grace leave with the other ponies, I decided I’d need to try a different strategy. I’d never been too keen on Helen, but if I played her right, then I might be able to catapult Grace out of the hole she’d dug for herself and win back her friendship. Okay, so it was a long shot, but a girl has to try.

GRACE

Just a Kid

I easily picked up the first routine, which wasn’t all that different from the inaugural number on the Forbidden City’s opening night. As soon as it ended, I followed the other girls back to the dressing room for a quick change. Ruby asked me to stay with her once I was ready, but I returned to the curtain to watch the next act. The audience clapped and hooted when Bernice Chow—who’d replaced Li Tei Ming, who was “on the road”—appeared onstage to belt Ethel Merman’s trademark ditties. Jack Mak was up next. Maybe other people didn’t notice that he’d been drinking, but I did. And so did Irene, apparently; she acted the part of capable assistant except for the stinkeye she sent in his direction.

I watched, but my mind was reeling. I’d been in Los Angeles for fourteen months, and left a complete failure. I arrived here, and became an instant failure when Charlie demoted me, and Helen and Eddie stabbed me in the back by saving their own hides. Then I saw Ruby. Talk about kicking someone when she’s already down! Who would have guessed it could get worse than that? But it did, because the next thing I knew I was powdering her and serving as her gal Friday. Brother! And it sounded like Ruby was still keeping up the masquerade of actually
being
Chinese. (
Princess Tai
. Ha!) But none of that really mattered, because what was happening wasn’t about
her
. It was about
me
. What was wrong with
me
? For a flash of a second, I saw things very clearly: I’d been beaten down my entire life—by my
father, by my skin coloring, by circumstances that seemed beyond my control. The result: I’d never had a real boyfriend, and I’d let people push me around. I’d never fought hard enough for
me
. I may have been standing at the curtain of a swanky nightclub, but inside I was at rock bottom. I needed to start thinking of myself first—
my
happiness,
my
career,
my
heart. I was going to climb up. If that meant slapping some powder on Ruby—ugh—I’d do it. Lingering there, I began to feel
fortified
, even if it irked me that it had been Ruby who had jolted me awake. Damn her.

I did great in the other numbers—for an audience more focused on girls gyrating in colorful costumes than on footwork—including the “Chinese Coolie Dance,” in which we wore conical straw hats. This caused Charlie to quip to the audience, “Dancing is strenuous but better than going back to the laundry.”
Very funny
. After everything I’d just heard, I figured Joe had to be here, and I looked for him in the audience. As I made a turn, I spotted him, sitting at a table with a group of guys his age—probably friends from school. My stomach drew up under my chest and my breath caught. As pragmatic as I wanted to be, my feelings for him came rushing back—my love of the sound of his laugh, the endearing way he ran his hand through his hair when he was chagrined, the strength of his arms when we danced, and the desire I’d felt for him since he first approached me on Treasure Island. I tamped all that down. I couldn’t allow myself to be “in love” with him anymore, but a part of me burned with disappointment, jealousy, embarrassment, and, yes, love. No more doormat! I forced myself to keep smiling as I shuffled forward, following the other ponies to the center of the dance floor. Self-preservation first. I needed the job.

After the routine, I lingered by the curtain to stare out at him anyway. Had he noticed me? Then I became aware of a presence behind my left shoulder. I glanced up and saw the sweet and very handsome face of a young man. Out on the floor, Charlie introduced the Forbidden City’s newest crooner, George Louie, the Chinese Frank Sinatra. Hearing his name, George ducked through the curtain and onto the
stage. He held the microphone with both hands, closed his eyes, and began to sing “I’ll Never Smile Again,” sounding exactly like a recording by the heartthrob and going over huge with the women in the audience.

I rushed back to the dressing room, passing the Lim Sisters on their way to the curtain. And, boy, were they different! Instead of wearing baptismal gowns, they sported sequined, off-the shoulder, one-piece, skintight costumes. A martini glass sprouted from each sister’s headdress at a tipsy angle. Their lips had been painted bright red, and their toenails gleamed crimson through their gold satin sandals.

Helen was in the dressing room when I got there, sitting as far from Ruby as she could get and still be in the same room. The tension between the three of us seemed to thicken the air. I couldn’t figure out where to go or what to do. Neither of them called me over either. Helen was too busy “preparing,” and Ruby couldn’t stop preening in front of the mirror. I changed into my next costume and touched up my makeup. When Helen rose to leave, I managed to say, “Break a leg.” She nodded in grateful acknowledgment. I heard the music for the Chinese Dancing Sweethearts, but I didn’t need to see Eddie and Helen dance. I knew every pattern and variation. They must have been a hit from the roar of applause. I was straightening my hose when Helen glided back into the dressing room. Her cheeks were flushed from exertion and happiness. Her stomach was flat against her gown, but it would be only a matter of time before she was too big to dance in front of an audience. I could wait.

“Grace. Helen.” Ruby slowly wended her way through the other girls, careful not to brush her perfectly powdered skin against any feathers, sequins, or flesh. “Come see my act.”

Helen and I looked at each other across the room.
No thanks
.

“Aw, come on, Helen,” Ruby pleaded, putting a hand on Helen’s shoulder. “Don’t you want to see what all the fuss is about?”

“If you put it like that—”

I ended up following them both to the velvet curtain stage right. I wasn’t going to be left out. Ruby picked up her ball as Charlie began
his introduction: “I promised you the mysteries of the Orient, but it’s up to you to see if what they say about Oriental girls is true. The usual way or the wrong way? Please give a big round of applause for Princess Tai, our very own Chinese Sally Rand, fresh from the real Forbidden City in China …”

Ruby balanced the ball before her, then glided through the curtain. A single blue spot followed her as she paraded from one end of the dance floor to the other, always moving her ball, so that the so-called mysteries of the Orient remained just that. Not once did Joe take his eyes off Ruby and her blue-tinted arms and legs. As soon as her music ended, and Ruby was safely through the curtain, the rest of the cast came out to lead the patrons in a rousing Chinaconga through the club. By the time I passed Joe’s table, he was long gone from it, his hands on Ida’s hips, laughing, shaking from side to side, and sending out an emphatic kick in beat to the music.

Three dinner services. Three shows. Three Chinacongas. Then it was time to change, grab friends, and meet stage-door Johnnies, or move on to a bar for drinks or a late-night coffee shop for scrambled eggs. Ruby stopped by Helen on her way to the door.

“I loved your act,” she said.

“Thanks.” Helen seemed genuinely pleased.

Ruby gabbed on for a bit—complimenting Helen on her turns and how good she’d gotten at extending her lines—ending with “You want to come with me to Sam Wo?”

“Sure! I haven’t been there in ages.”

I didn’t know what Ruby was up to—acting all chummy with Helen—but it surprised me that Helen could be so easily seduced.

“You coming too or what?” Ruby asked me.

“You’d better believe it.” Again, I wasn’t going to be left out.

Once we were seated at our old table at Sam Wo and had ordered bowls of noodles, Ruby peppered Helen with questions. I listened in wonder as Helen let out everything about Tim and her marriage to Eddie. When she said she was content to live with her parents, at least for now, Ruby turned to me.

“How about you?” she asked.

“I’m staying with Helen and Eddie, but I need to get a place of my own.”

“A place of your own?” Ruby’s eyebrows shot up. “Forget that! You’re going to bunk with me.”

“I want you to stay with me,” Helen said. “There’s plenty of room.”

She stared at me confidently, seeming sure of a positive answer, while I considered her offer. The compound? Monroe? Her baby coming? Not one of those things appealed to me, nor did they fit with my plan to put myself first.

“I’ve got a two-bedroom apartment on Powell,” Ruby continued, “with the works: a telephone, a radio, a full bathroom, and a kitchen, not that I use it. A lot of entertainers live in the building—Jack and Irene Mak, George Louie, and the Merry Mahjongs. They’re playing over at the Sky Room. Oh, and Dorothy Toy—”