I jutted my chin. “It’s all right.”
“When you’re thirty,” she went on glumly, “he’s going to be nearing fifty. When you’re fifty, he’s going to be-”
“My baba’s a lot older than my mama. That’s how it’s supposed to be-”
“In the Chinese tradition,” Grace finished for me. Then, “It’s not even his child.”
“That doesn’t matter to me.”
“Won’t your parents figure out the baby is”-she struggled for a polite way to say what was impolite in any circumstance-“half and half? Your father has an eye for these things.”
“Maybe he’ll just see a grandson.”
LITTLE CHANGED IN our lives. I wrote to Mama and Baba about my marriage; two weeks later, a boxed set of Canton ware with twelve place settings was delivered to our door. I let a proper interval elapse before I sent a telegram announcing my pregnancy; in the return mail I received from my mother a crisp twenty-dollar bill to use to buy maternity smocks and a note advising me to suck on salted preserved plums to settle any morning sickness I might experience.
Eddie and Grace switched rooms, but we still ate our meals together. Eddie went out for auditions and drank alone. After the lunch shift at Sam Yuen, I’d walk to the Kong Chow Temple to pray, make offerings, and beg for a son.
“But girls are so adorable!” Grace squawked.
“Every Chinese woman wants a son,” I explained. “What is a daughter but a disappointment?”
“You don’t mean that,” Grace chided, but I meant exactly what I’d said.
“A fact is a fact.” I sighed, trying to sound Chinese-practical when inside I was desperate. “A girl is a worthless branch on the family tree.”
Grace listened and did her best to sympathize. “You should be happy. You have a husband. You’re going to have a baby. Can’t you see how lucky you are?”
We made some halfhearted attempts to revive our spirits, but the heaviness of sorrow, anger, and failure had overwhelmed us. There were things I wanted to tell Grace, but I didn’t know where to begin. She wanted to run away again-I could tell-but she had nowhere to go. And Eddie? Perhaps we all wanted to go our separate ways, but as Grace put it one night-rather sullenly, I might add-“We’re locked together as so many entertainers get stuck with bandmates, dance partners, and costars.” As though we were nothing more than that.
AT THE END of April, a telegram arrived for Eddie from Charlie Low, whose fortunes truly had changed thanks to that Life cover story. He offered the Chinese Dancing Sweethearts three hundred dollars a week as headliners. It was still nothing compared to what Bill Robinson earned, but three hundred dollars a week for our trio was huge money.
“I’d give anything to return to San Francisco,” Grace implored. (Unspoken: “to get away from this misery.”)
“We’ll never get in the movies if we go back to the Forbidden City,” Eddie said weakly.
“Movies?” I scoffed, and I hoped this wasn’t a sign that I was going to turn into one of those wives who belittled her husband for not planting the rice in even rows. “We have a baby coming. I want to go home. If you won’t take the job at the Forbidden City, then we’ll work at a different club in Chinatown.”
“If I have to work at a Chinese club, then I want it to be the best.” Eddie surrendered, bowing to my wishes.
Two days later, we packed our bags, took a bus to Union Station, and boarded a train to Oakland. Naturally, I worried about how Baba would react to Eddie, but I was even more anxious about how my husband would fit into the household. When we reached my family compound, we walked together through the interior courtyard to the back building. I opened the door. Baba, wearing his usual suit, sat in an overstuffed chair, reading the Chinese newspaper. Mama perched on a window seat, her bound feet resting on a small footstool. A cluster of my nieces and nephews played jacks in a corner.
“Helen’s here!” one of them squealed.
Then they were all up and rushing at us from this and other rooms, proving the saying: The house is like a marketplace.
“Let me see this husband,” Baba ordered, but fortunately his demand was lost in the whirlwind.
“You’re not showing yet,” Mama said, barely audible above the din.
“Did you bring presents?” one of the children asked.
“Did you meet any movie stars?” a sister-in-law inquired shyly.
“Have you eaten yet?” Mama beckoned me farther into the room with the traditional greeting. “Does your husband drink tea?”
“Will you name the baby after Ahpaw or Yeye?” my oldest brother’s little boy asked.
“I doubt Helen will name her baby after your grandma or grandpa,” Washington informed his son. “Just like I didn’t name you after your yeye. Would you rather be called Jack or Do Keung?”
“Jack,” the boy admitted and ran to his mother.
Monroe drifted up to Grace. I heard him whisper, “No hard feelings, I hope.”
What could she possibly say to that except “None whatsoever”?
He picked up Grace’s suitcase, and we went to my room, where a cot had been wedged between my bed and the window.
“The cot’s for Grace,” Monroe explained, “until she can find a place of her own.”
With all the rooms in the compound they couldn’t find a spot for my friend?
Everyone jammed around us to take stock of the new brother-in-law and inspect the girl who’d tagged along with the newlyweds.
Washington took charge. “Take a few minutes to freshen up, then please return to the living room. Dinner will be served shortly.” Not much of a warm welcome-perfunctory at best-but I guess that was to be expected.
After everyone filed out, Eddie went in the bathroom to change. When he came out, he sat on the bed, pulled out a flask, and took two deep swigs.
“I don’t want to go out there by myself,” I said to him.
He gave me a steady look and then swiped another gulp from the flask.
“I’ll go with you,” Grace volunteered.
But when we got to the living room, Washington gestured to the kitchen door. I expected this too, and automatically obeyed. Grace followed me into the kitchen, where Mama directed all the activity. My sisters-in-law chopped, peeled, and obediently obeyed orders, while little kids ran in and out between their legs. Mama asked me to set the table-in Chinese so Grace wouldn’t understand. Rude. But I guided Grace to the compound’s dining room, which had one long table to accommodate thirty relatives plus guests. We set the table. People found their seats, and dishes started to stream out of the kitchen: almond chicken, roast duck, scrambled eggs with char siu, minced pork with pickled vegetables, tofu with black mushrooms, steamed fish with ginger, scallions, and cilantro. It wasn’t a fancy meal-just home cooking-but the clatter of chopsticks on the sides of rice bowls, the noisy slurping of tea, and the spitting out of bones and inedible bits all made me very happy.
Eddie still hadn’t appeared, and I could see Baba growing increasingly agitated, but Monroe was swell, sitting between Grace and me, putting tiny morsels from the main dishes into our rice bowls. (Could there be hope for Grace and Monroe yet? Doubtful… but maybe?) Baba and my other brothers talked among themselves; my sisters-in-law circulated to make sure the serving dishes never emptied, the teacups stayed full, and the children didn’t do anything to upset their elders, while I fretted the edge of my napkin. Where was Eddie? Why did he have to humiliate me this way? He came from a good family. Didn’t he know the effect his tardiness would have on his father-in-law?
Eddie finally appeared and took the empty seat next to Baba. My father rapped his knuckles on the table to get everyone’s attention. The family fell silent as he congratulated me on my marriage and expressed “delight” at the forthcoming birth of his next grandchild through tight lips. Then Baba turned his attention to Eddie.