China Dolls (48 page)

Eddie lifted his chin and spoke directly to Baba. “I’m not going to change who and what I am.”

“So? I won’t be changing who I am, and it’s clear Monroe hasn’t changed who he is,” Baba replied. “The gossips will do what they do, but you are part of my family and that will never change.”

Mama reached up and took Eddie’s hand, which wordlessly seemed to seal the deal. Perhaps the most overused Chinese curse is
May you live in interesting times
. With the addition of Eddie and Maryanne, the people who lived in the compound were about to experience some “interesting times.” I was glad to keep my little Tommy out of it.

A
FEW DAYS
later, Eddie departed for California with Mama, Baba, and the newlyweds. Even though he was leaving, I didn’t feel he was
abandoning me. He was doing what was best for me, for Tommy, and for himself. In that regard, we would be forever partners in the true sense of the word. When Tommy and I returned from Grand Central Terminal, our suite felt empty. Tommy missed Eddie already, but I’d always be number one in my son’s eyes. But the separations were hardly over. Miami awaited Grace, and Ruby would be heading to Las Vegas, but what about me? Never have I heard so much crying up the virtues of wine to sell vinegar.

Ruby pressed me to go with her: “That way you’ll be close to San Francisco
and
Los Angeles. Don’t you want Tommy to see Eddie and meet his real father too?”

“What? Do you expect me to show up on Tim’s doorstep?
Here we are
. Forget it,” I pronounced with finality.

Eddie called and repeated his suggestion that I move to Los Angeles—close, but far enough for us to lead our own lives: “We’ll always be like a pair of mandarin ducks—forever an affectionate couple. And I don’t want to lose Tommy.” I promised that, no matter where I decided to live, I’d make sure Eddie saw Tommy at least twice a year.

Grace put the screws to me too: “Come with me and you’ll be the first millionaire among us.”

They all
wanted
me. I was being given a chance for a new beginning. I could release the bad things that I’d done and that had been done to me, which meant goodbye at last to my natal family, goodbye to the compound, goodbye to Eddie, goodbye to Ruby, and goodbye to so many sad memories, resentments, and jealousies. I would no longer let my history determine my destiny. I would go to Miami with Grace.

I had made it this far without revealing my deepest secrets, and, for a moment, I forgot that to believe in dreams is to spend half your life asleep.

GRACE

Movie Talk

A week later, as we were finishing our contractual obligations to the China Doll, scouts from a new television show called
Toast of the Town
visited the club. Ed Sullivan, who’d written so much about us in his column since we’d come to New York, was to be the host. “He’s looking for an Oriental act,” Sam Bernstein said when he called to discuss an offer.

“I’ll do it!” I practically shouted into the receiver.

“I bet you would, but it’s for a trio. Would you be willing to work with Ruby and Helen?”

Helen rejoiced when I told her about the opportunity. “This could be the beginning of Heaven and Earth! Epoch-making! Finally, after all these years, we’re going to perform together … and on national television. Think of where that could lead …”

We didn’t have a lot of time to prepare, Helen had never been much of a hoofer, and Ruby’s specialty was walking around with a bubble in front of her. Ruby spoke to Mr. Arden on his last day at the China Doll, and he came up with all sorts of cockamamie concepts for what we could perform. Helen called Eddie to get his ideas.

“Be the girls you’ve always been,” he told her. “Be yourselves.”

When Helen relayed that message to us, I pictured something in my mind.

“We’ll do ‘Let Me Play with It,’ ” I said. “We can update the original arrangement by dropping the country sound and going with all
strings. We’ll do the routine we taught Helen back on the Waverly Playground but all in soft shoe. If we keep it simple, then we’ll still have enough breath to sing. Of course, everything will need to be squeaky clean for Mr. Sullivan, but it could be fun … and unexpected.”

Helen and Ruby loved the idea.

“What should we call ourselves?” Ruby asked.

“That’s easy,” Helen said shyly. “The Swing Sisters, like I suggested all those years ago in Sam Wo.”

Ruby and I loved
that
idea.

We worked on the routine in the afternoons, and then we went to the China Doll for our three shows. I’d rarely been so exhausted, but excitement and anticipation buoyed all of us.

Several nights later, I left the China Doll early, hoping to spend a few quiet minutes alone going over the details of our
Toast of the Town
performance before Ruby, Helen, and Tommy returned to the hotel. I waded through the usual stage-door Johnnies, waving them off as the endearing nuisance I’d grown to accept. A tenderly thin man, wearing a fedora pulled low and leaning his weight on a cane, stood a little removed from the other Johnnies. He was tall and his shoulders were broad, but the message he sent with his body was one of frailty. His eyes pulled mine to his.

Joe
.

Next to him, an older woman—wearing practical walking shoes, a decidedly non–New Look dress, and a mink stole wrapped around her shoulders—pulled on her fingers nervously. A worried expression creased her forehead.

Struggling with my emotions, I glanced at the cane and then back into Joe’s eyes. At last, I lifted my chin and strode forward purposely. “Joe,” I said, professional yet friendly. “This is a surprise. How good to see you.”

“Grace.” He drew out the syllable like it was wine being poured into a goblet.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, all good cheer.

“My mom and I have come to look at NYU and Columbia. I need to finish law school. My parents would like me to be closer to Chicago—”

“We’re in New York to see you,” the woman, who had to be his mother, interrupted.

I absorbed that, and then asked Joe in my most chipper tone, “How did you know where to find me?”

“It’s a cinch Winchell knows!” he answered, reciting the popular tagline.

That told me he’d read about Mario and all the others, and yet here Joe was on the sidewalk in front of the China Doll. The stage-door Johnnies edged closer.

“I’d like you to meet my mother.” Joe gestured to the woman beside him. “Mom, this is Grace. Grace, this is my mom.”

“Mrs. Mitchell.” I extended my hand.

“Call me Betty.” Instead of shaking my hand, she held it in both of hers. “I came with my boy, because I wanted to make sure he didn’t turn chicken. He’s got all sorts of medals now—the Bronze Star, the Air Medal, and a Purple Heart,” she recited proudly. “But he’s always been a bit of a scaredy-cat when it comes to girls.”

“Mom.” Joe stared at his shoes. I felt for him, because no one can embarrass you more than your own mother. Despite my best efforts to protect myself, I could feel my defenses crumbling and my heart opening.

“Are you set now, Son?” Mrs. Mitchell asked. When he nodded, she returned her gaze to me and squeezed my hand. The message couldn’t have been clearer.
Don’t hurt my boy
. Then she embraced Joe. “I’ll see you back at the hotel.”

After she left, we stood silently, searching each other’s faces. His was wan—from lingering pain? From months as an invalid? His eyes looked as though they’d seen too much. I wondered what changes he saw in me. Finally, I said, “Let’s go somewhere we can talk without all the ears.” I cocked my head to the stage-door Johnnies, but I was actually fretting that Ruby would emerge from the club any second.

Joe and I walked, slowly, slowly, because of his limp. He had always seemed invincible, but to me he felt almost ghostlike. It hurt me to see him so frail. We found an all-night diner and slid into a booth. The waitress served us coffee. He pushed his cup back and forth in front of him nervously. I fought to regain my resolve:
I can’t help him. He dumped me
.

“No reason to make this long,” he began, his voice slower and more deliberate than I remembered.

“Take as much time as you’d like,” I said.

He didn’t seem to want to do that either.

“I had a rough go, Grace.” Joe struggled to get out the words. “My plane and I got shot up pretty bad. My right lung was pierced, and my leg took a lot of shrapnel. I barely made it back to the airfield. By the time they pulled me out of the wreckage, I’d lost consciousness. I didn’t wake up for a long time. When I did, I had gangrene.”

I sucked in a breath through clenched teeth. The side of his mouth ticked up at my reaction.

“I fought them hard, but they took my leg,” he went on. “I can’t tell you how angry I was … at myself, at the world. That’s when I first told you to stop writing back to me.”

Whatever backbone I’d hoped to have went to mush. “Oh, Joe. That’s just awful. I wish you’d told me. I would have helped you.”

“At first, I didn’t want you to worry about me,” he admitted. “And, of course, you’re Grace. You kept writing anyway. But later, when it looked like I was going to die, I didn’t want to hurt you. I wanted you to be free of memories of me—”

“That’s the most preposterous thing I’ve ever—”

“After they amputated my leg,” he continued, speaking right over me, “I didn’t want to come back to you as less than a man.”

What was he telling me exactly? I blurted out my first crass notion: “It’s just your leg, right?”

A long moment passed. Then he threw back his head and laughed.

“Then all is perfect.” I tilted my face and gave him my best China doll smile. “After all, your manhood isn’t measured by your leg.”

He laughed even harder at the audacity of my comment.

“A lot of guys got it worse than you.” I thought of Yori and all the waiters, busboys, and servicemen, who didn’t make it back.

“But I was an ace.” Joe hesitated before trying to explain himself. “I thought, when this thing is over, I’ll forget about law school and become a commercial air pilot. Remember how we used to talk about that? I won’t be able to fly commercially now,” he stated with grim finality. “You need all your parts—”

“So you’ll fly for fun.”

He gave me a wry smile. He didn’t need to explain. What if I’d never been able to dance professionally?

“Anyway,” he went on, “it took a long time before I was stable enough to be sent back to the States. Even when I got home, I didn’t want to see you. I felt sorry for myself, but my anger was what kept me from getting in touch. I’d promised I wouldn’t be around you when I was like that.”

Disappointment still radiated from him, but I didn’t sense fury or bitterness. His fighting days were over.

“What changed?”

“Time. Home. My mom and dad. I told them about you. And they—my mom especially—have been working on me. But I’ll be honest with you, Grace. I’m not who I was.”

“Neither am I.”

That hung heavier in the air than I expected. Outside, night was melting into dawn. The clock on the wall read 6:34. I needed to get a little sleep before meeting the gals at 2:00 for our last rehearsal before
Toast of the Town
, and then I had three shows tonight. I still had no idea what Joe wanted, but I needed to be firm for the sake of my friends.

“I’m really sorry, but I need to go to my hotel and get some sleep. The next two days are big for me, Joe.”

He didn’t ask why. Maybe this hurt him. But if he wanted to say something or ask me something, then
he
needed to act. I wasn’t going to help him, not after everything we’d been through. Yet the look on
his face pushed me to ask, “Will you come and see me tonight at the China Doll?” As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I regretted them. “Ruby will be there.”

“I know,” he responded. “I had a lot of time in the hospital and even more time in Winnetka to read the gossip columns. But why would I care where she is? I came to see you.” He shook his head. “What I mean is, I’ve come
for
you. My life is no good without you.”

Romantic words, and I so wanted to believe him, but a part of me was in turmoil. He was the love of my life, but could I trust him after he’d left me high and dry and broken my heart? And what would he do when he saw Ruby? She was so beautiful, and he’d always been entranced by her. My insecurities went even deeper than that. Even if he no longer cared for her, was he just falling back on someone he thought would take him now that he was crippled?

While all this was batting around in my head, Joe was watching me, bemused, taking in, I felt sure, every questioning emotion that must have been playing across my face. Even after our long separation, he knew me so well.

“I’ll come to the last show,” he said finally. “That’s always been your best.”

A
FEW HOURS
later, Ruby woke me out of a sound sleep. “You look like hell,” she quipped after I sat up and put my feet on the floor. “Hurry up. We need to rehearse.”

Over the years, I’d learned that people deceive each other in many ways. By hiding: secreting clothes and money under the bed so you can escape, as I had done. By destroying: tearing up receipts so your husband doesn’t see what you spent on that new pair of shoes, as Irene had done. By changing the topic: “Good show tonight, dear?” as Eddie had asked Helen after he’d spent a night carousing. By outright lying: “I’m Chinese,” when actually you were Japanese, as Ruby and Ida had done. But the best—and easiest—is simply to keep your mouth shut. You tell yourself, “This isn’t a good moment” or “We’ll talk about it later.” People recite those inanities, but that doesn’t
make them any less liars, cheats, or deceivers, which is how I managed to get dressed, ramble five blocks with Ruby and Helen to the studio to practice our routine for the last time, then walk to the China Doll and get ready for the night’s shows without mentioning that I’d seen Joe, what he’d said just a few hours earlier, or that he’d be in the club for the third show when we performed.