China Dolls Page 3

  When the performance ended, the dancer picked up a towel and wiped the sweat from his face. He loped down the stairs, dropped onto a folding chair next to a woman and two men, all of whom had their backs to us. I focused on the girls by the stage. A couple of them were attired in playsuits like Grace, but the rest wore street clothes. I didn’t recognize a single girl. Not one of them was from Chinatown. The air I sucked in felt clean and free.

  That’s when I saw her, one particular girl, who had a spot to herself. Suddenly I wanted out of there, but Grace gripped my hand tightly and pulled me across the floor toward the creature, who was strikingly different from all the rest. Light seemed to glow out of her skin. Her black hair was highlighted by a pair of shockingly white gardenias pinned just above her left ear. Her eyes sparkled, and her lips formed a perfect bow. She wore tap pants and a pale pink blouse with puffed sleeves not all that different from Grace’s, only hers had embroidery on the collar and cuffs. Her bare legs ended in ankle socks with delicate lace ruffles and basic black shoes with two-inch heels.

  “Sit with me,” she trilled when we reached her. “I don’t know anyone either. I’m Ruby Tom.”

  “Helen.” Grace pointed to me before putting her hand on her chest. “Grace.”

  Ruby, excited, continued, “Can you believe Eddie Wu?”

  “Eddie Wu?” Grace echoed even as the three of us scrutinized each other to see where we fit in. Ruby and Grace looked poor in their homemade outfits; I was better-dressed than anyone in the room. Ruby’s features were willow-delicate, Grace had perfect cheekbones, while my face was a little rounder and softer. Ruby sparkled; Grace could be summed up in four words—skinny legs, big bosom. Otherwise, we looked quite similar: petite, slim, with black curls falling over our shoulders, except that Ruby wore those gardenias in her hair, which made her look like a glamorous crane amidst a flock of chickens. We shifted slightly. We’d finished with our evaluations. No wind; no waves.

  “The guy who was just dancing,” Ruby picked up as though no time had passed. “Isn’t Eddie amazing? He’s a regular Fred Astaire.”

  “But he’s Chinese,” Grace pointed out in a low voice.

  “That’s why they call him the Chinese Fred Astaire!” Ruby slapped her thigh. Then, “Are you two trying out to be chorus girls? I don’t remember either of you from the auditions at Li Po or the Sky Room, though. But you know how it is. New girls are coming every day. Everyone wants a chance—if not here, then at one of the other clubs that are opening.”

  “Have the other clubs already hired dancers?” Grace asked.

  “I didn’t say that,” Ruby answered. “They just didn’t want me. A couple of other new girls are here today too. There might even be more by the end of the day or tomorrow.”

  “You seem to know a lot about it. Are you from here?” Grace asked.

  “Hardly.” Ruby tossed her hair. “I was born in Los Angeles. My parents owned a curio shop across from the Orpheum Theater—a hot place for vaudeville when I was a tot. I used to dance and sing outside our store—just for kicks. People would stop, and my brothers would circulate through the crowd with hats, asking for change. We had a wild time!”

  Ruby glanced at me. Well? But I couldn’t fathom what I was supposed to say to someone like her. Among other things, she was what you’d have to call cheung hay, a blabbermouth. I elected to keep my thoughts to myself.

  “Later we beat it to Terminal Island in Long Beach,” Ruby went on, “because my pop wanted to return to fishing. My mom is a teacher. She said she could go wherever children need her, but my parents still weren’t happy. They decided we should move to Hawaii.”

  “Hawaii?” Grace burbled. “So exciting! That’s not even the United States. Is that why you talk the way you do?”

  “Talk the way I do?”

  “Hot? Kicks? Beat it?”

  “Sailors! As for Hawaii, it’s a protectorate or a territory or something like that.” Ruby shrugged. “My family has been there about five years. Now my parents say they want to go all the way home. Beat it while the beating is good. But I told my pop I love glitter. I told him I want to be famous.”

  “I want to be a star—” Grace began.

  “My pop asked why I would want to be in America at all,” Ruby continued, once again speaking right over Grace. “He says we’ll never be accepted as Americans.”

  “My dad says that too,” I volunteered hesitantly.

  But Ruby didn’t seem all that interested in what I had to say either. “I went with them to Hawaii,” she chattered. “I kept up with my ballet and tap, but I also learned hula. I’ll show you how to do it.” She took a breath before zeroing in on Grace. “What about you?”

  “I’ve studied ballet, tap, piano, and voice—”

  Just then, one of the men sitting next to the male dancer stood and clapped his hands to get everyone’s attention. Now that I got a good look at him, I knew who he was: Charlie Low. He’d built the first grand apartment building for Chinese—the Low Apartments—up on Powell. He probably deemed himself the grandest man in Chinatown, but if he was, then he would have identified me on sight, and he didn’t. He was just a middle-aged lucky so-and-so with a healthy girth that proclaimed to all that he could eat well even in these hard times. But, as they say, the fish is the last to realize he lives in the water, meaning Charlie was just another creature in the pond until someone bigger and better—like my baba—pulled him out and showed him what was what.

  “I’m Charlie Low,” he announced. “This is my wife, a little gal with a big voice, Li Tei Ming.” Then he motioned to the two other men still sitting on their chairs. “These two cowboys are Walton Biggerstaff and Eddie Wu. One is your choreographer, and the other is a dancer. You can guess who is who.” That earned some giggles, and Charlie threw his shoulders back in response. “This will be the best nightclub San Francisco has ever seen. Okay, so it won’t be the first Chinese nightclub, but it will be the first Chinese nightclub outside Chinatown. We’ll appeal to the most discriminating San Franciscans. I’m talking about lo fan.”

  Grace frowned. Her ignorance of even the most basic Chinese words amazed me. I whispered, “He’s talking about Occidentals—white ghosts.”

  When Charlie said, “I want girls who can sing and dance,” I started to rise as did a couple of others. Grace and Ruby pulled me back to the floor.

  “Wait!” Ruby whispered. “Just listen!”

  Charlie chuckled at the reaction he’d gotten. “You kids got me wrong,” he went on. “We know most of you don’t know how to dance. How could you? You’re proper Chinese daughters. Am I right?” The other girls, who’d gotten up, sat down again too. “We want to see if you can move. If you can move and you’re pretty, then we’ll teach you to dance. It won’t be hard, I swear. The main thing I want is pretty. Got it?”

  “Well, then, we don’t have anything to worry about,” Ruby whispered again. “We can’t miss!”

  “I won’t have a lot of rules around here, except for one,” Charlie continued. “I’m going to hire only Chinese for my floor show. This is our chance, and we’re going to make this place unique … and fun! Now, here’s Walton. Consider him your maestro and call him Mr. Biggerstaff.”

  The tall and lanky lo fan got to his feet and spoke in a voice as smooth as caramel. “I want to see you all onstage.”

  My stomach churned nervously as I followed Ruby and Grace. They moved like dancers, which I wasn’t. I was clumsy and scared, but a girl a couple of rows over lumbered like an old water buffalo. Even a crow loses its gait when attempting to roam like a swan.

  “Let’s start with each of you walking toward me,” Mr. Biggerstaff said.

  This part went fast. Either a girl could walk in a straight line or she couldn’t. Either she had biggish breasts or she didn’t. Either she was short or she wasn’t. (Not that any of us was all that big—barely five feet or so, and not one over one hundred pounds.) Either she was pretty or she wasn’t. Fifteen girls were thanked and dis
missed on the spot. They were told to send other Chinese girls who were new to town and wanted work.

  “Now give me four lines,” Mr. Biggerstaff ordered. Ruby, Grace, and I ended up in the back. “Three steps forward, toe tap, two steps, kick, and turn to the right. We’ll do four bars. Start on the right foot. One, two …”

  Ruby moved well—delicate, like an ibis—but Grace was completely transformed. She was terrific, truly gifted. Charlie, Eddie, and Mr. Biggerstaff could barely take their eyes off her. She shone with each step, kick, and turn. At the other end of the spectrum, I was pathetic, and my dark and heavy clothes made me look even worse. Was I washing my face in a whirl of dust and disappointing myself needlessly?

  After several run-throughs, Mr. Biggerstaff asked everyone to get offstage except for the first line. Ruby, Grace, and I went back to the spot on the floor where we’d been earlier, only this time, instead of sitting cross-legged, Ruby slid down into splits and began to stretch. She was unbelievably limber. She was showing off, clearly, doing her best so that Mr. Biggerstaff, Charlie Low, and the others might notice her. I watched as Grace’s eyes narrowed, calculating. She held Ruby with her gaze and slowly spread her legs until she, too, was in a complete split, and then she raised her arms over her head and lowered her torso to the floor. Oh, yes, she was better than Ruby. From her impossible position, Grace inclined her head to look up at me. I plopped down next to them.

  “I’ll never get the steps,” I admitted mournfully.

  “And you have no natural talent either,” Ruby observed. It was the first time she’d spoken directly to me, and it was to say something that sounded pretty mean. But Grace elbowed Ruby, who grinned to show she hadn’t actually meant me any harm. “This isn’t real dancing. You’re plenty beautiful, but you need to put some feeling into your walk.”

  “Quiet over there.” Mr. Biggerstaff stared at us sternly. “If you want to talk, go outside. If you go outside, don’t come back.”

  I pulled my lips between my teeth and bit down hard. My fingers twisted in my lap. The longer I was here, the more I wanted this.

  “One more time, girls,” Mr. Biggerstaff said to the line onstage. “Five, six, seven, eight …”

  “You can dance if you can count,” Grace whispered. “Miss Miller, my dance teacher back home, drilled that into me. One, two, three, four. Five, six, seven, eight. Come. I’ll show you.” She led me to a corner, where we’d have space to practice. “It’s an easy routine—one I could have taught the second and third graders in Miss Miller’s school.”

  Grace explained that we were simply forming a big square. That I could hold in my head, even if my feet were still disobedient.

  Ruby came over to watch. She crossed her arms as she studied my movements. “Have you ever seen a woman with bound feet?” She didn’t wait for me to answer. “I have. In Hawaii. You need to try walking like those women do—like you don’t want to put too much weight on your feet.”

  This time, when I took the first three steps, I pretended that my toes and the bones in my midfoot were broken and wrapped in binding cloth. I imagined myself floating across the floor, avoiding the anguish that any pressure would cause, sending the illusion of fragility, of a cloud drifting over moss. I dreamed I was happy and in love.

  Ruby beamed. “Better.”

  “Much better!” Grace agreed.

  Over the next half hour, girls in the first, second, and third lines did their routines twice and then were either chosen for the next round or dismissed. Those who looked sweet and dainty made it through, even if they hadn’t mastered all the moves. A feeling hovered over the room: If you aren’t pretty, then it doesn’t matter how talented you are. When our line was called, Grace reminded me to smile, and count in my mind, and not with my lips. (Only problem: I’d been taught never to show my teeth. If I had to smile, then I should cover my mouth with a demure hand.) Ruby told me to relax. (Aiya! Like that would be possible.) But as the music played, I saw myself by a pond with weeping willows dripping their tendrils in the water, cranes flying across the sky, and soft fingers on my cheek. Ruby’s advice was working. We did the routine twice, and then Mr. Biggerstaff told us to come to the front of the stage. He spoke quietly with Charlie, Li Tei Ming, and Eddie Wu, and then asked me to step forward.

  “What kind of legs do you have?”

  The question took me aback. I glanced at Ruby and Grace, who gave me encouraging nods. I lifted my wool skirt to just above my knees.

  “Higher, please.”

  I edged the skirt up my thighs. When I’d woken in my bed this morning, I never thought I’d end up here, doing this.

  “Perfect!” Mr. Biggerstaff proclaimed. “I hoped you might have something useful under there.”

  Ruby, Grace, and I made it through to the next round. Ruby squealed and hugged Grace and me. (I wasn’t raised to be touched so freely, not even by family members, but I was brave about it.) Of the forty or so girls who started out that morning, fifteen made it to the next round for the eight dancers needed.

  “Thanks so much for trying out and better luck next time,” Charlie addressed those who’d been cut. “The girls who’ve made it, congratulations. We’ll be auditioning again tomorrow and the day after that for additional ponies. On Monday, we’ll all meet here again. We’re going to see if we can teach you to do a simple tap routine. If you have tap shoes, bring them. If you don’t, then I’m afraid you’re done here. Oh, and you’ll be singing too. That’s it for today. Monday then.”

  “One last thing,” Eddie Wu called out. “You, the babe with the gardenias in your hair. I like them. The smell is intoxicating. I’m drunk on you.”

  Li Tei Ming playfully swatted the back of Eddie’s head, Ruby waved him off as though men spoke to her like that all the time, and the other girls in the room covered their mouths to hide their giggles. But I understood what he meant. She had a similar effect on me—as though I’d been sipping mao tai from thimble-size porcelain cups at a wedding banquet.

  Grace and I clambered downstairs behind the still-glowing Ruby and out onto the street. We were so different from one another, and we could have easily broken apart right then. I could have gone back to the Chinese Telephone Exchange to meet my brother to take me home; Grace could have gone back to her hotel; and Ruby could have gone back to wherever it was she came from. One of us needed to speak. An act of kindness had started me on this road this morning; an act of kindness from Grace now propelled us forward on this new journey.

  “I’m guessing you haven’t learned how to tap, and you don’t own a pair of tap shoes either,” she ventured. “What if we take you to buy proper shoes?”

  “That would be great—”

  “As long as we’re shopping,” Ruby cut in, “we should get you some dance clothes too. You look more like an old widow than a chorus girl. I want to have an entourage when I’m famous, but you’ve got to dress the part.”

  “I accept, but you’ll have to let me buy you dinner in return,” I offered, figuring neither of them had much money or would know where to eat even if they did.

  “Sure!” Ruby answered a little too eagerly. “Shall we go?”

  I shook my head. “I can’t right now. First I need to go back to where I met Grace this morning. I work near there. My brother always picks me up and takes me home.”

  Ruby gave me a sideways look, trying to figure me out.

  “You need your brother to take you home?” she asked. “How old are you?”

  “Twenty,” I answered.

  “I’m nineteen, and I walk wherever I want to walk,” she said.

  “But if I walk from one end of Chinatown to the other unescorted,” I explained, “the grapevine will have sent out word before I get halfway there. Once someone saw me eating cherries on the street. Why did I get in trouble? Because it wasn’t ladylike for me to eat on the street. Mama and Baba always say I have to guard my reputation like a piece of jade. Otherwise”—how did I get going on this path?—“who will marry me?�
�� I managed to finish.

  “Who wants to get married?” Ruby hooted.

  Grace dissolved into giggles. I made myself giggle too, but the sound was bitter in my ears. Neither of the other girls noticed.

  “My brother picks me up at five,” I said. “Will you wait with me?” What was I thinking? Monroe would be taken aback to see me with two outsiders, to say the least. Nothing to do about it now.

  We walked into Chinatown. Immediately, I felt eyes on me. At last it occurred to me that someone might have already told my father I hadn’t shown up for work today. Nothing to do about that now either. I wanted to push the boundaries. I wanted to see if he’d actually notice me … and, if he did, do something about it.

  The three of us sat on the curb outside the telephone exchange—our knees pressed together, getting to know each other, and discussing what songs to pick for the next round of auditions. This was a new experience for me, at once exhilarating and sickening. A sudden panicked desire to run home and shut the door to my room nearly overwhelmed me. The cage that usually held me came as much from deep inside me as it did from my father. But when I saw Monroe approaching, his strength gave me courage. He wore his usual outfit: dungarees, a T-shirt, and a blue college jacket with CAL written in script on the left breast. I knew the effect he had on girls with his smooth skin, wide eyes, and longish black hair that brushed across his forehead. Ruby would never have a chance, but Grace might do. What would it be like to have someone like Grace live in the compound with us? I let that idea flitter across my mind. I smiled as I rose to my feet. Ruby and Grace got up too.