Then Charlie fired me. I couldn’t believe it, not after he’d come to my house with soup, put my name in lights, and was raking in plenty of cabbage I had earned for him.
“You’re giving me the bounce?” I asked. When he nodded, I tried to defend myself. “You know I didn’t do anything, Charlie. I’d never hurt Ruby.”
He jutted his chin.
I went on. “It could have been someone in the audience or from one of the other clubs. It could have been Irene. Or Bessie. The ones who talk the loudest are the guiltiest.”
“You’re causing too much trouble,” Charlie said.
“But I’m a hit! Who are you going to get to replace me? First Ruby. Now-”
“Esther’s going to do her girl-in-the-gilded-cage act.”
“Are you kidding? Maybe she-”
He cut me off. “You’re a doll, Grace, but I’m tired of all the name-calling and bellyaching. You’ve made me a lot of money, but I have a business to run. I can’t afford to have bad blood spill out to the front of the house. I can’t risk queering all my hard work.”
“Your hard work-”
“You’ll land just fine, because there are plenty of other clubs in Chinatown…”
I walked out of the Forbidden City with my tail between my legs and a big guilty sign on my back. And there wasn’t one goddamn thing I could do about it. I wrote to Joe, and he called me right away from the pay phone on the base. He was livid, but it didn’t scare me because his anger was on my behalf. He was defending me. Soon his words became more comforting. “You’ll get through this, Grace. You’re a resilient woman, and you’re going to come out of this stronger than ever.” He was so convincing that even I, who’d been feeling pretty darned sorry for myself, believed him.
Max Field didn’t let me down either. “Charlie Low’s shortsightedness will be Chinatown’s gain,” he said. “We’ll make him sorry he ever let you go. You watch. When he comes begging with hat in hand, we’re going to sock him one good.”
Max booked me two weeks here, four weeks there. Maybe I was resilient, like Joe said, because I’d finish a run at Andy Wong’s Sky Room and open at Eddie Pond’s Kubla Khan the next night. I did six weeks with the Lim Sisters, who joined me at the Lion’s Den. They’d refashioned themselves once again. They’d discarded their martini headdresses and now dressed in modified military uniforms and sang from the Andrews Sisters’ repertoire: “Strip Polka,” “Don’t Sit under the Apple Tree,” and “Here Comes the Navy.” I played with the Merry Mahjongs at the Club Shanghai, and even ran into Li Tei Ming at a one-nighter at the Club Mandalay. I did my Oriental Danseuse routine and my fame grew. I could walk into a department store without Ruby at my side, and the salesladies recognized me right away.
ALL THROUGH THE summer, Joe sent letters to me from Minter Field-sometimes once a week, sometimes more. His missives still had lots of technical information. He’d just finished his advanced pilot’s training in the 650-horsepower AT-6, which had retractable landing gear. “I don’t know yet what assignment I’ll be given-transport, bomber, or cargo plane-but I’m still hoping for a fighter,” he wrote. “Those are the most dangerous and exciting for a guy like me.” As the weeks passed, he stopped mentioning Ruby. The tone of his letters changed, too, as he peppered me with questions: Did I have a five-year plan for my life? What did I want to do after the war? Should he become a lawyer or follow his heart and become a commercial air pilot like he’d always dreamed? I couldn’t imagine that he and Ruby had ever had a single communication like the ones he and I had regularly.
Since that first phone call, he’d gotten into the habit of buzzing me every Sunday morning as well. I’d be as sleepy as all get-out, having been at the club until just before dawn, but he’d be bright and chipper, having just come back from mess hall, chapel, or an early-morning training flight. We talked about nothing, really. Would I ever think about attending a college class? He thought I might enjoy American history or drawing. “Or you could take kinesiology,” he suggested. “It might come in handy if you ever want to teach dance.” Soon we were even able to talk about Treasure Island, and it was as though Ruby had never existed. We searched for and found only good memories, because that’s all that mattered. “I’ll never forget the nylon stockings you gave me,” I told him. “What I wouldn’t do for a pair of those now.” He liked to remember how we used to swing-dance together. “I’ve always enjoyed dancing with you,” he said. “We sure know how to cut a rug.” And it was true. We’d always made a great couple on the dance floor.
JUST BEFORE THANKSGIVING, an envelope arrived with a return address I didn’t recognize. Inside was a letter from Ruby:
Grace!
I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to write. I wanted to forget myself, forget everything. I have not been a good friend. I hope you’ll forgive me.
I’m in an internment camp in Utah. The other night after dinner, they showed Aloha, Boys! What a surprise! But I’m happy for you, Grace. You looked great.
There’s a lot I could say, but I’ll boil it down to this. I’m stuck in a sandpit. No one has come to our aid. Not the Red Cross, Salvation Army, nor the ACLU. Maybe you can do something to get me out of here now that you’re a big star.
Help!
Ruby
When I showed the letter to Helen, she said she’d received something similar: “Everyone at the club got a note from Ruby, and some of the customers too.”
“I should write her…”
“Why? What can you or any of us possibly do for Ruby?” Helen asked. “No one wants to get in trouble, but you should be especially careful. Either you housed a Jap or you turned her in. Better to toss the letter and keep out of that mess.”
I agreed a little too quickly, but how had I become such a coward? What was I afraid of? I mean, I’d lived with Ruby after Pearl Harbor. I’d protected her secret, and-if not for her-I could have gotten into serious hot water for that. I loved her, she needed a hand, and I wanted to help her very much, but I was paralyzed by fear-scared out of my pants to get involved or act in a manner that might be perceived as unpatriotic. I wasn’t the only one to abandon a friend. Plenty of people had neighbors or business associates who were sent to internment camps, and they didn’t do a thing for those folks either. We weren’t proud of it. It was just a fact.
I followed Helen’s advice and threw out the letter. I mentioned none of this to Joe either. I didn’t want to upset him.
ON DECEMBER 17, 1943, in the spirit of one ally honoring another, the U.S. government overturned the Chinese Exclusion Act, which had barred the immigration of all Chinese to our shores except for students, diplomats, merchants, and teachers. At last, Chinese could become naturalized citizens. Helen’s parents, however, refused the offer. “We don’t want to lose our rights to return to the home village,” Mr. Fong told me when I visited Helen and Tommy in the compound. “We don’t want to go home and be called barbarians or foreign devils.” But most folks considered the repeal an act of forgiveness.
That same day, Charlie called Max Field to invite me back to the Forbidden City “in honor of the current spirit of forgiveness,” but actually Esther had run off with a sailor. Max-smug as can be-immediately phoned me to present Charlie’s offer, which included a gigantic salary bump. No hard feelings. I gladly accepted. The club was booming, and Charlie was now making money hand over fist. Consumer goods were scarce, courtesy of rationing, so money flowed into entertainment. The ponies were making as much as $60 a night in tips. And that was on top of their $50 a week. I earned a lot more than that, and the money ran through my fingers faster than you can say snot. I bought a mink coat for $2,250, and my first car-a used Chevrolet sports sedan for $659, all cash. Of course, I didn’t get to drive it much. Gas rationing. So I rented space in a garage and parked the car there most of the time.