“No one wants them in the neighborhood-”
“My dad says they’re just a rat’s hair above a speakeasy-”
I dropped another nickel into my coin purse.
“You win, lady,” the ringleader conceded. “You want to work in a big-thigh show, that’s your headache.”
“Big-thigh show?”
“Don’t you know anything?” he asked. “You really want to let people see your legs?”
As long as it’s just my legs…
“Please tell me where to go,” I said.
I waited while he exchanged looks with his buddies. All I needed was one name to give me a start.
At last, he said, “Wilbert Wong has the Li Po-a cocktail lounge on the next block. He’s changing it into more of a club. Andy Wong-not related-runs the Chinese Penthouse. It opened last December with all-Chinese entertainment.”
He rattled this off like a town booster. This place was turning out to be a lot more like Plain City than it looked on the surface: a small town, where everyone knew everyone else’s business, especially when it came to the taboo.
“I heard Andy Wong is going to change the name to the Sky Room,” the smallest boy ventured, which earned him an elbow to the ribs.
“There’s Charlie Low’s new club. It’s not even open yet,” the oldest boy continued. “Two years ago, he opened a bar here on Grant Avenue. No Chinese girls or women allowed. What am I saying? No Chinese went, period!”
“How would you know?” I asked, challenging him.
“I know,” he responded.
Any boy could spout off about the birds and the bees-and other naughty things-but he often got the details wrong. It would now be up to me to figure out how much of what this little boy said was accurate and how much was gobbledygook picked up from listening to the whispers of older kids.
“Charlie Low’s wife is a singer,” he continued, “and he’s giving her a showplace called the Forbidden City. It’s on Sutter Street-”
“Not even in Chinatown,” the smallest boy interrupted again.
That appealed to me, because Chinatown was too scary for me.
“Can you point the way?” I asked.
“First, you go…”
His voice trailed off, and his eyes widened. The other two boys stared gape-mouthed at something over my shoulder. I turned to see what they were ogling and saw a girl about my age gingerly step off the curb and come toward us. She wore a practical outfit: a gray wool pleated skirt, a long-sleeved black sweater, charcoal-gray wool stockings, and oxfords. She was Chinese, with flawless porcelain skin. She looked rich, like out of a movie, except that I’d never seen a Chinese who looked like her in the darkness of the Rialto.
“I know how to get to the Forbidden City,” she said in melodious voice. “I’ll take you.”
Although Joe and the man on Treasure Island had both been perfectly nice to me, I wasn’t accustomed to kindness. Now here was a girl, offering to help, as if magically sent. I glanced down at the boys, trying to get a sense of what I should do.
“She’s Helen Fong,” the ringleader said in awe. “If she wants to help you, let her!”
The other two boys, acting their young ages at last, covered their mouths and giggled. The girl named Helen gave them an unyielding look, and they went quiet but fast.
“Kew, Chuen, Yee, I don’t think your mothers will be too happy to hear you aren’t in school,” she observed coolly. “You’d better hurry along now.”
The boys stood and brushed the sand off themselves. When they held out their palms, I paid them their promised nickels. Once they scampered off, I turned to Helen.
“Where to?”
HELEN: Calling to the Heavens
“This way,” I answered, but what in the world was I thinking-skipping work, walking through Chinatown unescorted, and talking to a total stranger?
My pace was brisk, and I felt the girl wordlessly tagging along behind me as I wove down Grant. She caught up at a red light.
“My name’s Grace,” she said.
“Nice to meet you.”
“Thanks so much for helping me,” she went on, trying to appear composed, I thought, but actually sounding as scared as a fawn panting in fear at the sight of the moon.
“It’s nothing,” I responded, but it was everything. This morning, my brother Monroe had walked me to the door of the Chinese Telephone Exchange, where I worked. After he left me, I’d simply stood there, unable to bring myself to enter the building. I couldn’t face another day of listening to the other women talk between calls about what they were going to make for dinner that night for their husbands, how clever their children were, or how hard it was to make ends meet. Those women just weren’t pleasant to me. I understood, I suppose. I earned the same five dollars a week they earned and gave every dime to my father for my “upkeep,” but everyone knew my family was one of the best and most important in Chinatown.
So there I’d been, outside the telephone exchange, daydreaming about how the thousands of women-wives and concubines-in China’s imperial court had once spent their entire lives hidden inside the walls of the palace with no family or friends to love them. To amuse themselves, the women used to catch crickets and keep them in cages near their pillows. The crickets’ songs-haunting, calling to the heavens of their loneliness-told not only of their own lives but also of the women who were cared for, but equally helpless, in the cage of the palace. I lived in a traditional Chinese compound right in the heart of Chinatown, with twenty-nine of my closest relatives. A sense of futility had nearly overwhelmed me as I realized my life wasn’t all that different from those of the crickets who belonged to the women, who, in turn, belonged to the emperor. Right then, I’d noticed the girl in the street, talking to those silly boys. She looked as lost and lonely as I felt. She wasn’t fresh off the boat from China, but she was new to town, of that I was certain-a country bumpkin in her tatty store-bought dress. I’d edged to the intersection. As I’d listened to her conversation with the boys… I don’t know… I felt compelled to help her.
Once Grace and I were clearly out of Chinatown, my spirits lifted. No one from the neighborhood was watching me, hoping to curry favor with my father by reporting on my actions. We crossed the street, turned right on Sutter, and continued until we reached a sign that read FORBIDDEN CITY AUDITIONS. NO EXPERIENCE NEEDED. Music wafted down the stairs, enveloping us right on the street.
“Here it is,” I said.
“Come with me. Try out with me.”
I shook my head. “I can’t. I’ve never had a dance lesson.”
“It says no experience needed. We’ll stick together. I promise.”
Before I could protest further, Grace took my hand. I never would have expected that from a Chinese girl. I shivered. Didn’t she know it was rude to touch like that? I guess not, because she gave me an encouraging smile and pulled me up the stairs. I had leapt so far out of my cage-out of myself-that I followed Grace like I was the one who was lost and she was now leading the way. Or maybe she was desperate and afraid to go in alone.
In the entry hall, workers-dressed in baggy pants, sleeveless undershirts, and painters’ caps-carried lumber and other construction materials. A Chinese woman, sitting at a table made from two-by-fours and a sheet of plywood, handed us forms with spaces for our names, heights, weights, and ages. I wrote down the address of my family’s compound. I glanced over Grace’s shoulder as she scribbled the name of a hotel in a seedy part of town.
The woman, who I was sure recognized me, took Grace’s form and scanned it. “You’re seventeen?” she asked, not bothering to look up.
“Is that all right?”
“We’ve got younger inside. We just don’t want you to be too young.” She pointed down the hall. “You can change in that room on the right. After that, sit with the other girls trying out today. They’ll call you when they’re ready.” She didn’t specify who “they” were.