North of Beautiful (27 page)

Then, suddenly, Jacob said, “I remember a few things, but I wonder how much of it I remember because of the pictures Mom took. Like at the orphanage. Do I remember the nursery or is it the picture of all those cribs?”

“I didn’t think they allowed people to take pictures?” I asked quietly, remembering what I had read about China’s orphanages. I kept my eyes on the ground now, not to look where I was going but so I could focus on Jacob’s words, undistracted by anything else around me.

“They don’t now — and they stopped letting people right after Mom adopted me. Some stupid BBC program about Chinese orphanages shut down adoptions for almost a year. They claimed that there were dying rooms for certain kids.”

I could imagine those kids. The ones with birth defects or diseases, cerebral palsy, club feet, cleft palates. Port-wine stains.

“There was no real proof of them,” Jacob said. “Anyway, Mom slid right on in before that lockdown.”

“How old were you?”

“About three.”

“Three.”

“Some of the kids stay at the orphanages until they’re eighteen.” He shrugged, matter-of-factly. “That’s where I probably would have been still. I mean, who would have wanted a boy with a cleft lip when they could have tried for a normal kid?”

“But your mom saw you.”

“She was thirty and had given up on finding her soul mate. So she decided to adopt. And then a couple years after that, she met Dad. She should have held out.”

“I know what you mean.”

Jacob stopped, drew in a breath, and then looked meaningfully at me. “But then we wouldn’t be here.”

“True.” I never thought I’d be grateful to my dad for anything. But standing here with Jacob in this dirty alley within sight of at least two chamber pots, I was. Without my father, I wouldn’t be here.

“And what about your dad?”

Again, Jacob went quiet, and this time, instead of assuming that he was blowing me off, I knew he was just thinking before he chose his words carefully. He stopped before a door that had been painted cinnabar red once, the color now a faint streak over bare wood.

While I waited for him to answer, I zoomed into the rusty brass handle. I lowered the camera to find his intense gaze on me. “He’s such a hypocrite. For all his talk about naturally occurring beauty, he left Mom for a younger woman. God, I think Bimbette even has fake boobs.”

“Would your mom have been happier if they stayed together?”

“Happier?” He cocked his head to the side, ran his fingers along the warped door. “I think she just wanted to have the choice.”

“Your mom doesn’t seem like the kind of woman who’d stay with a man who didn’t want her.”

“Would you?”

It was a rhetorical question, not a personal one directed at me. Still, I couldn’t look at Jacob when all I could picture was Erik’s face at Christmas, ashamed that his cousin had seen me after my surgery. And here I was, still officially together with him.

We were at the end of the alley now, back near the bazaar. Above the roofline of these decrepit buildings was Shanghai, gleaming, modern, and new. The narrow streets were packed with even more shoppers now. Jacob checked his cell phone for the time. “We can do one more thing before lunch. Unless you’re hungry.”

“I need a little something,” I admitted. And then, more suspiciously, “One more what?”

“Oh, ye of little faith” was all he would say.

“Just like home,” Jacob said, smiling wryly as we wandered back in the direction of the Yu Garden, toward a circular sign with a familiar green mermaid. He was right; we could have been in Seattle except this Starbucks sign hung off the corner of an upturned roof just like the ones in the garden.

“No, remember?” I said. “Colville’s too small to have a Starbucks. This is nothing like my home.”

It usually took a day before I got tired of Seattle’s sprawl and busyness, its steep hills that were hard for me to drive, its maddening one-way streets. Just three hours away from Merc’s quiet apartment and I was overwhelmed by Shanghai and the sheer number of people walking, driving, and biking. Scores of bicyclists pedaled past us, their no-frill bikes nothing like the tricked-out roadsters the tourists in the Methow rode in their flashy spandex and special shoes.

“You’ll get used to all the people,” he assured me as we crossed the street to Starbucks.

“Okay, hang on,” I said, holding my hand to my chest in mock horror. “You’re actually stepping foot in a bastion of American consumerism over a homegrown place? Geez, I need my camera.”

“Take a look inside. This is China.”

True, there were more tourists in the teahouse across the street than in the Starbucks. Chic women tottered inside on impossibly high heels, a man in a tailored suit had not one but two cell phones at his ear. This was modern Shanghai.

Jacob opened the door to the familiar scent of dark coffee. “Adventure in life is good; consistency in coffee even better.”

“Spoken like a true coffee snob.”

“That would be aficionado. Anyway, we need caffeine; you’re crashing.” He grinned at me, flourishing me inside.

“Sorry, I have to document this.” But as soon as I removed my camera from my bag, the barista snapped something sharp at Jacob, glaring at him. He shrugged, shook his head: I don’t speak Chinese.

The barista raised her eyebrows at him, obviously concluding he was an imbecile before she tapped emphatically on a sign at the counter:
NO PHOTOGRAPHY.
Chagrined, dumb tourist me, I dropped the camera back in my bag, but not before I whispered to Jacob, “Damned barista.”

Jacob chortled, hugged me to him. “You got that right.”

Chapter twenty-three

Cartouche

THE NEXT MORNING, I ROSE early, around four. I couldn’t fall back asleep. Mom must not have, either; she was rustling around in her bedroom. So I grabbed my journal from the bedside table and tiptoed to her room, careful not to wake Merc in the living room.

“Jet-lagged, too?” she whispered when I opened her door. I nodded. Her packages from yesterday’s shopping excursion were laid out on the bed in a semicircle around her. She could have been Scrooge, counting her gold, just as gleeful, but much more generous. Mom turned down the sage green coverlet and scooted over to make room for me, giving me the warm spot.

“Are you having fun?” I asked Mom, careful when I crawled in beside her not to jostle her few purchases: the three bundles of raw silk, all in muted beiges. A few brocade frogs, like the ones used for clasping traditional Chinese clothes. And four small gold tassels.

She nodded, her eyes glowing. “I just can’t believe I’m here. Susannah would have been so proud.”

I kept quiet, afraid to make a noise for fear of scaring off this unexpected conversation. Mom rarely mentioned her big sister.

“You know, I was supposed to come here with her, oh, about twelve years ago,” she said, dreamily. She pleated the soft green sheet that draped over her stomach. I didn’t have to ask what stopped her: three letters, begins with D, rhymes with “cad.” “We’re following the itinerary almost exactly, too — a couple of days in Shanghai, then Beijing, then Xi’an, then back home.” Her lips pursed unconsciously at that unintended reminder: home.

I didn’t want to think about home any more than she did. So I asked, “What did you buy yesterday?”

“Oh, some things for your bedroom. You know how I’ve wanted to redo your room for the longest time. I thought I could make you curtains with this,” she said, fingering the silk. “It’ll go with everything.”

Beige was no color I would have picked out for myself, not when there were verdant greens like the ones on Merc’s bed. A flash of irritation tugged at me. Why had she wasted her money? I was going to college, damn it. I wouldn’t be in that room much longer.

“Mom,” I said mildly, “you should keep this for yourself, especially if you like it.”

“I’m having a few things made.”

“Not much. One skirt.” Norah had regaled us at dinner with the story of their expedition to the fabric market, how Mom couldn’t believe that stall after stall sold materials and buttons and zippers. “All of, what, seven dollars?”

“Five. I don’t need anything more,” she said simply.

She meant, she didn’t deserve anything more.

My stomach growled. We had eaten an early dinner with Jacob and Norah, Merc too busy to join us at five. Before I could stop her, Mom heaved out of bed and bent down to her luggage, withdrawing an unopened bag of trail mix.

“Here, honey,” she said, tearing the bag open for me. She looked sadly at the plastic bag, and I knew she was wishing she could pour the contents into a hand-painted ceramic bowl. Food, she always contended, tasted better beautifully presented.

Immediately, I felt guilty for being so irritated with her. Her first thought was always about me, my comfort, my pleasure. “Do you want some?”

Automatically, Mom reached for the bag, but as her fingers dipped inside, she withdrew them, empty-handed. “Actually, I’m not really hungry.”

I must have looked surprised. God knew, I was. But Mom shrugged. “The tailor told me I was too fat.”

“Mom!” I forgot to modulate my voice, I was that outraged. Mom shushed me, casting a wary glance at the door as though she expected Dad, the joy police, to barge in. But there was only Merc outside in the living room, sleeping. No, probably working. We hadn’t seen him come in last night. The image of the tailor laughing at Mom, making fun of her, got to me. I knew I should have stayed with Mom yesterday. My voice I could quiet, but my words refused to remain silent: “That’s awful. Why didn’t you tell me yesterday? Why didn’t you call me? I would have come.”

But then Mom did the oddest thing; she laughed. “You know, she was just telling me the truth. I am too fat.”

Mom, you are not. The denial was so ready on my lips, but I swallowed the false words when I saw the relaxed expression on Mom’s face. She had closed her eyes, a little smile playing on her lips like she was remembering something fondly.

I demanded, “So what did Norah do? Did she say anything?”

“Oh, she said quite a lot. Until I stopped her.” Mom turned her head toward me, eyes still closed, like a stuporous cat basking in the sun. “You know what, though? I appreciate the candor in this country.”

We were quiet then. I wrote in my journal, catching up where I had left off last night, too tired to write. I probably should have stopped sooner yesterday; over the course of a page, my handwriting had gone from perfectly architected letters to illegible scrawl. Mom sighed contentedly beside me, and I thought she might have fallen back asleep until my stomach gurgled especially loudly.

“Go ahead and eat, honey,” she said.

“Do you think Merc will mind though? Me eating in his bed?” I whispered like I was doing something wrong. The concept of breakfast in bed was unheard of at home; Dad would have lectured us about all the millions of germs a single bite of food invited into bed.

“Oh, who cares?” Mom said blithely, still not opening her eyes. “They’re just crumbs. No big deal.”

So I took one peanut, popped it into my mouth, chewed. Mom nodded, satisfied that she had fulfilled her maternal duty of keeping me well fed.

“So, honey,” she said, only now opening her eyes, “what . . .” Her voice trailed off. I could feel Mom wanting to say more, her silence so pregnant with thoughts she was unable to express.

“What, Mom?”

“Oh, noth —” She stopped abruptly and sighed. Then, “Just be fair to him.”

I flushed guiltily, knowing instantly what she was getting at. In a rush, she continued, “Be fair to Jacob. And Erik.” She sidled an uncertain look at me, afraid she had overstepped her bounds. “Jacob’s already been abandoned once, and now his dad’s left. . . . Just be fair. Okay?”

“Mom, I am,” I said, shaking my head adamantly as if I wasn’t doing anything wrong. “We’re just friends.”

“Are you so sure about that?”

No, I wasn’t. But I couldn’t admit to Mom any more than I could admit to myself in my journal that in the most screwed-up way, it was beginning to feel like I was cheating on Jacob whenever I thought about Erik. Not the other way around.

That morning, we were supposed to catch a ride with Merc to Jinmao Tower, eat breakfast with him, and then reconnoiter with Jacob and Norah in their hotel lobby to go to the Shanghai Museum together. What happened instead was this: Merc received an emergency call at six in the morning (apparently, business happened round the clock in Shanghai), decided he didn’t have time to eat breakfast with us after all. So to save money, Mom and I hitched a ride with him to work, where we planned to forage a cheap pastry of some kind. But then in the lobby, Mom said, “Let’s call the Fremonts, see if they want to join us.”

So I called. Mom looked relieved when Norah agreed to find a café with us as though a foray by ourselves would have been doomed to failure.

By seven thirty, we were done with our coffee and buns filled with barbecued pork. Norah checked her watch, asked, “What time does the museum open again?”

“Nine,” I answered. I chose to ignore Jacob’s snort as I bussed our table of the cups and plates. Yes, I was the walking, talking itinerary.

“What should we do now?” asked Mom. I noticed she had left a bite of her Chinese pastry on her plate.

“Let’s head over anyway. We can poke around a park,” said Jacob, playing with a packet of sugar. He glanced at me, grinned wickedly. What was he up to now?

I couldn’t wait to find out.

As early as we were, the park Jacob picked for us to visit was already bustling with activity. We walked past a man who was doing some kind of calisthenics on a bench, balanced on his head, legs splayed open in a feat of astonishing male flexibility.

“Hey, can you do that?” I teased Jacob.

He grimaced. “Ouch.”

We left our mothers before a group of old men and women practicing tai chi, their graceful, balletic movements belying their age. Dressed in loose tops and roomy pants, they followed the same routine like a choreographed dance. There was no instructor, no one calling out the ancient moves. How many times had they practiced this? A lump formed in my throat, their fluid motions were so beautiful. Jacob had already started up the path, and I was about to follow him when, without any embarrassment, Norah started miming their slow swinging of an arm, the meeting of the hands in the middle.