China Dolls (7 page)

“Really, Helen, that was pretty neat,” I agreed. “Thanks
again
.”

Helen waved us off. “It’s the least I can do after everything you’ve done for me.”

Yes, we’d scratched her back, and now she was scratching ours. That’s how people get ahead … and make “friends.” But Helen and Grace were making a mistake if they thought I was “nice” too. I was nice enough, but I was ambitious. I wanted the adoration that comes from being famous and not just a pretty girl from the islands.

Mrs. Hua came back through the door and set the contract on the table. Grace picked up the pen, hesitated, and turned to Helen. “Would you like to live with us? Maybe Mrs. Hua has an even bigger apartment.”

Helen nipped the idea in the bud, glancing at her brother. “It’s safer for me to be in the compound with my family.”

I wasn’t sure how she’d be “safer” there, but maybe she could do only so much. She could defy her father by walking through Chinatown with Grace and me, and tempt fate by learning to tap in a very public place, but being on her own—away from her family—might have been the one line she couldn’t cross. I might not cross it either if I lived in a “compound”!

The next morning, Helen was sitting on the stairs outside the apartment when I arrived. She had a bag of groceries and some flowers wrapped in butcher paper. Once upstairs, she got straight to work—putting the blooms in a vase she’d brought with her and setting
the bouquet on a doily she’d tatted herself. Next, she shelved the groceries. When Grace thumped into the room with her suitcase, the apartment already looked more livable. Grace and I divvied up the space in the closet and dresser. (When Grace thought I wasn’t watching, she put five sawbucks in an envelope and tucked it under a sweater in her drawer. Emergency money, no doubt.) Neither of us knew how to cook, so Helen scrambled eggs and toasted bread by holding it over the hot plate. After breakfast, Grace and I brushed our teeth in the sink. Then we went together down the hall and waited in line with tenants from the other five apartments on our floor to use the toilet.

At 10:00, we beat it to the Forbidden City for final auditions. I had this in the bag. Walton asked to see the routine we’d learned the previous week, but this time we had to sing another old-fashioned song—“Let Me Call You Sweetheart”—while we danced.
A cinch
. Helen did well too. What she lacked in dance experience, she more than made up for with her pretty singing voice. When we finished, a few girls were asked to step forward, thanked, and dismissed. The remaining twelve of us rearranged ourselves onstage. I took a place in the front row, wanting to be seen. Walton signaled for the music.

We were making the third turn when Grace came to a dead stop. We were still in the opening part of the routine! I shot an encouraging look in her direction.
Dance!
She struggled to fight back tears. By the time I made my next turn, they were rolling down her cheeks. I liked Grace—my roommate now—but if she were dismissed, then my spot would be sealed for sure.

Eddie Wu bounded onstage, took Grace’s hand, and pulled her stage front. “Five, six, seven, eight,” he counted loud enough for all of us to hear. “Let me call you sweetheart …” They danced the last half of the routine together, adding a flourish or two. They were spectacular, outshining everyone else. When the music ended, Walton and some of the others clapped. Eddie dropped Grace’s hand, chucked her chin, and then went back to his folding chair.

Walton, Charlie, and Eddie conferred in low voices, while everyone
else tried to cover their apprehensions by adjusting the trim on a sock, going over a move again, or fluffing curls. I stayed perfectly still, with one leg slightly bent and a hand on my hip. Walton asked us to form a single line. Grace stood with her head bowed.

“Irene Liu,” Walton said. “Congratulations. You made it.”

The second spot went to May Bing. Helen nodded when her name was called. (She’d never be one to show excitement.) Other girls were dropped or accepted until just three of us were left for the last two spots. Grace, another girl, and I held hands.

“Grace Lee, you’re in—”

She made it after freezing, then lucking in to Eddie helping her?

“You’re our best dancer,” Walton added as she walked offstage to where the other new hires clustered together. “Today your nerves showed. Never let anyone see you’re scared. Never let anyone guess you’ve messed up the dance or forgotten the lyrics. You have the potential to be a star, Grace. Act that way, and it will come true.”

Only two of us were left standing.

“Ida Wong, step forward please.” Walton looked at his clipboard. “Congratulations—”

My stomach lurched, and the room whooshed with shocked exhales.
How could Ida have been chosen over me?
No one could believe it, not even Ida, who was pretty in that cute-as-a-button kind of way. I glanced at Charlie out of the corner of my eye. He lifted a shoulder in halfhearted acknowledgment. My attempt to cozy up to him—a married man—had completely backfired. He must have seen me as trouble. Well, nothing to do about it now. I hopped down off the stage, packed my things, and beat it for the door.

“Abyssinia!” I called to Helen and Grace. Silence. “I’ll be seeing ya,” I translated.

Grace started to come toward me, but she was stopped by Charlie’s call. “You’re my glamour girls now. Please gather around …”

My eyes swept across the room one last time, and then I left the Forbidden City. I waited for Grace and Helen on the sidewalk, wondering
what in the hell I was going to do now. And I’ll be honest. I hurt like mad, and I was scared.

Soon enough, Grace and Helen came down the stairs.

“It doesn’t make sense,” Grace said when she saw me. “You should have gotten hired too.”

I looked away. I wasn’t about to start busting out the waterworks. I had a little money, but when that ran out and I couldn’t pay the rent on my new apartment, then what? Stand in a soup line? Sleep on the street? Beg? Go back to my aunt and uncle’s place with all their bawling brats? “It’s all right. I’ll try at one of the other clubs—”

“Finally,” Helen muttered, interrupting me.

It took me a moment to realize she wasn’t speaking to me. I followed her gaze and saw a middle-aged Chinese man approaching. He wore a well-tailored suit and carried a copy of
The Chinese Digest
folded and tucked under his arm. He reminded me a bit of Charlie, actually. Black hair, neatly trimmed. Well fed. An air of importance.

“So what the gossips say is true,” he said, stopping before Helen. “My daughter has disgraced me.”

“I haven’t disgraced you, Ba—”

“No? Then what do you call not showing up to work at a job
I
arranged for you? What do you call dancing in the playground? And then there’s this!” He pointed at the entrance to the Forbidden City.

“It’s a better job. Besides, how can I disgrace you any more than I have already?”

Next to me, Grace looked frightened, like she thought he was going to wallop
her
. I sensed she might bolt, so I grabbed her arm and held her in place. Helen’s father stood there—dignified, his hands clasped before him, aware that people—
white
pedestrians—watched us. And the way he stared at me? I understood it right away, because he wasn’t the first person to see me for what I was, even if it was rare. The disgust in his eyes made me want to push right back. I struck a
pose—a hip thrust forward, my eyes staring defiantly into his face, the fingers of my left hand barely caressing the petals of my gardenias. Grace was a quivering mess, but I wasn’t afraid or intimidated at all. And Helen?

“I’ll still put my earnings in the family pot,” she said matter-of-factly, as if her disobedience and lying would mean nothing to her father. “Now I can give more toward Monroe’s tuition.”

“If you dance here, you will be one notch above a prostitute,” he proclaimed. “Is that how you want people to regard me in Chinatown—as the father of a no-no girl?”

Next to me, a light flipped on in Grace’s eyes as she finally put two and two together.

“I won’t be hurting the family,” Helen insisted calmly. “I’ll be helping more than before. And besides, this isn’t a reflection on you—”

“Don’t be stupid! You have a choice to bring shame or honor on your family. Which is it going to be?”

Helen met her father’s disapproval with surprising stubbornness. “You always say you expect me to maintain the proprieties, recognize right from wrong, and not bring embarrassment on our family.”

“That’s right. Embarrassment!”

“I’m going to make twenty dollars a week,” Helen said.

Her father blinked. “Twenty dollars? A week?”

“Are any of my brothers making that much?” she asked.

He grumbled a bit more—“What will our neighbors say?”—but it was clear Helen had won. I guess the money had convinced him. Still, he’d gone down a lot easier than I expected.

“You can do this on one condition,” he said, acting like he’d once again gained control over his daughter. “I won’t have you walking all over Chinatown … at night … unescorted. Monroe will drop you off and bring you home.”

“Yes, Ba,” she answered, sounding both contrite and disappointed, as though he’d failed a test she’d given him.

“All right,” he said. “I expect you to be home in time for dinner.”
As he gathered himself to leave, he ran his eyes over me again. “And, Helen …”

Here it comes
, I thought. Now my new friends would know the truth about me. I didn’t have a clue about how they would take it.

“One word of warning. Watch out for this one. She’s a Jap,” he said, nodding in my direction.

Helen acted unimpressed. She gave him a bland look:
As if I didn’t know
.

Faced again with his daughter’s coolness, he squeezed the newspaper a little more tightly to his ribs and continued down the street. It was a moment of triumph for Helen, utter bewilderment for Grace, and the icing on what had already become a crappy day for me. Grace was the first to speak.

“Why would he say that about Ruby?”

Helen frowned. “You really are a bumpkin,” she said. “Ruby is Japanese. Can’t you tell?” She pointed to the sign above our heads. “It’s the Forbidden City. Like Charlie said, it’s for Chinese. The Japs have invaded China, so no Japs allowed. Naturally, Baba wouldn’t want me to spend time with someone like her.”

My being Japanese wasn’t why I didn’t get hired, but I said nothing to square the error. Grace stared at Helen—shocked, shocked, shocked. “What are you talking about?”

Helen spelled it out again. “Ruby is Japanese.”

Grace looked like someone had bopped her one. “Why would you—he—say that?”

“Because it’s true,” Helen insisted, her tone superior.

“It’s also mean.” Grace turned to me. “You’re Ruby Tom,” she said, positive as could be. “That’s a Chinese name. You’re a real Chinese girl.”

“Ethel Zimmerman changed her name,” I said, “because she thought it wouldn’t look good on a marquee. Now she’s Ethel Merman. My real name is Kimiko Fukutomi. Ruby suits me better, and Fukutomi … well … I shortened it to Tom.”

“That’s a Chinese name, right?” Grace repeated weakly. Then she
lightly tapped her head with her fingertips—another light going on. “When you said your family wanted to go home, you meant to Japan.”

I nodded.

“Oh!” The surprised syllable came out like the first time you put a hand down a boy’s pants. “I get it. You’re like a Negro pretending to be white.” She sighed. “Where I grew up … Prejudice, you know—”

“I’ve always been able to pass,” I said, trying to put an end to the commiseration. “I’m good at it. In the Occidental world, no one can tell that I’m different. Even here in Chinatown, most people don’t see me as different.”

“I did,” Helen pointed out. “And my father and brother did too.”

Three people out of this entire enclave? I couldn’t be too worried about that.

“I’m sorry if you’ve been hurt,” Grace said.

I shrugged. “I’m not hurt.”

“We all have secrets,” she went on, still trying to comfort me.

I figured that meant I was supposed to ask about
her
secret, but I wasn’t fast enough, because she blurted, “I ran away from home. My dad beat me …”

Hardly a big surprise, given the bruises her clothes didn’t quite cover and the cut she tried unsuccessfully to hide under lipstick, but I nodded sympathetically. “I’m sure you did the right thing.”

Neither Helen nor I followed up with additional questions. I can’t speak for Helen, but I didn’t want Grace to lose any more face than she already had, poor thing. Grace and I now turned to Helen.

“Japanese and Chinese have always been against each other. And it’s not just this war,” Helen said, her voice as distant yet impassioned as my mother’s. “Japan is powerful. It can face any country—”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” I mean, really. Like this was news? “You want to know what my parents taught
me
? They say all you Chinese think you’re great because your culture is so much older than our culture. You accuse us of stealing your language—”

“You did,” she responded, not wanting to let it go. “Japan has long held a grudge against China. Japan wants to dominate China politically and militarily. It wants to take control of China’s raw materials, food, and labor—”

“I hate all that,” I said, repeating what I told my father when he boasted about Japan’s imperialistic aspirations. “Those things have nothing to do with me.”

“I lived in China, as I’ve already told you,” Helen went on. “When the Jap bombers came, we …” She took a breath and held it. “I mean, Monroe and I were walking on the road. We saw the red sun on the sides of the planes. We heard a warning gong from a nearby village, but what could we do? We saw a pilot in one of the cockpits. He shot at us.”

“That’s terrible,” I said. “But those things still have nothing to do with me.”

“Really, Helen, you can’t blame Ruby for events that happened in another country,” Grace threw in, defending me.

“Because it’s not
my
country,” I added. Again, I’d often said that to my parents, which drove them nearly crazy. “I was born here. I’m an American, just like you and Grace.”