“Not where I’m from either,” Grace said.
“Or me either,” Ruby allowed, the corner of her lip twitching. “That’s one of the reasons my parents wanted to move to Hawaii. They could live cheaply, and they’d be closer to getting home-”
“Baba wants all of us to work,” I interrupted, and Ruby went back to her noodles. “My other brothers and I are all supposed to chip in for Monroe’s tuition, but there aren’t a lot of jobs for girls like me. Baba says that no matter how bad off we are, he’ll never let me work in a garment factory. Being a maid or working as an elevator operator in one of the department stores on Union Square doesn’t appeal to him either.”
“But you have a good job already,” Grace blurted.
I sighed. “The manager at the Chinese Telephone Exchange is indebted to my father. I’ve been working there for six months. I hate it, and I’m only making five dollars a week. If I get the job at the Forbidden City, I’ll make twenty dollars a week.”
Grace croaked, “That much?”
The sum must have seemed fantastical to her. Ruby ran the tip of her tongue over her teeth. Twenty dollars must have sounded like a fortune to her too.
“Didn’t either of you ask what the pay was going to be?” When they shook their heads, I said, “But that’s the most important piece of information.”
Ruby ignored the criticism. “What happens when your father finds out you’re dancing?”
I jutted my chin. “Fathers like to give orders and tell you what to do. The next minute? Who are you? Get out of my way! Having a worthless daughter isn’t just something Chinese say. It’s been in our culture for-”
Grace cleared her throat. “My father said I could have anything and do anything I want in America. That’s why he forced me to take dance and singing lessons with the other girls in town. He made me do everything they did.”
I wanted to ask, If he’s so great, then what are you doing here? But I didn’t, because her talent and her pluck couldn’t hide the fact that offstage she seemed barely above a frightened street urchin. But then Ruby saw only her own light and heard her own music, and I was happy to be anywhere but in the compound. Yet as dissimilar as we were, it was as clear to me as chrysanthemum jelly that all three of us were alone in the world-each in our own ways. I saw, felt, an invisible string of connection tying us together.
Since the conversation seemed to have reached its end, Grace went back to fingering her chopsticks. Finally, she asked, “Could one of you gals teach me how to use these?”
“You don’t use chopsticks?” The idea was astounding.
“I’ve never seen them before, so how could I know how to use them? Plain City…” Grace hunched her shoulders, humbled, embarrassed. “How do you eat soup with sticks?”
“Cripes!” Ruby exclaimed again.
We showed Grace how to pick up the noodles with the chopsticks and dangle them over her porcelain soupspoon before lifting them to her mouth. She was beyond hopeless, but she ate like she hadn’t had a meal in a year.
“You’ll get better,” I promised. “If you can teach me how to tap, then I can certainly teach you how to eat like a proper Chinese.”
After dinner, we walked back to the telephone exchange, where we spotted Monroe waiting for us. “If you were going to have noodles here in Chinatown, you should have told me,” he said, proving what I’d said about Chinatown’s gossip mill to be true. “Next time, we’ll all meet there. Okay?”
Grace, excited, grabbed Ruby’s and my hands. What was it about these girls and all their touching? Didn’t they have any manners?
“Thank you,” Grace said to Monroe, whose cheeks went crimson. “Thank you so much for letting us see each other again.”
I waved goodbye to my new friends and let Monroe escort me home. Most people rented apartments, but not my family. Our home took up nearly a whole block. We occupied an American version of a Chinese compound, with four sides, each with two stories, surrounding an interior courtyard. My six oldest brothers, already married with wives and children, inhabited the side wings. Monroe and I lived with our parents in the back of the compound, where we also had the public rooms. The laundry-supply business faced the street.
Monroe opened the gate, and we walked across the inner courtyard, which was littered with tricycles, balls, and other toys. Suddenly, he stopped and turned to me.
“What are you doing?” he asked gently.
“I’m trying to start my life again-”
“After everything our family has been through, especially you… I’m worried you’re going to get hurt.”
A lot of responses ran through my head, but I wisely didn’t speak them.
“You’re only just beginning to recover,” he went on. “You have a good job. I come and get you every day. Let things return to normal-”
“Nothing will ever be normal again.”
“Helen-”
“Don’t worry about me. This gets me out of the compound. That’s what you all want, isn’t it?”
Monroe stared hard at me. I loved him best of all my brothers, but his concern wouldn’t help me or change my fate. He sighed. Then he continued to the back of the courtyard and entered a door that led to the dining room. Everyone would just be gathering for dinner, but I didn’t want to see all those babies and small children. I also wanted to avoid the kitchen, where my sisters-in-law would ignore me and my mother would struggle for something to say as though anything she could utter could possibly change my status in the household or the world. How could I live in a compound with three generations of my relatives-all so alive with all their breathing, eating, and siring-and still be so lonely?
I ducked through a side entrance, went upstairs, threaded my way along the deserted hallway to my room, and shut the door behind me, but I could still hear the bustle and noise of the family. On a small table next to the window was a plate of oranges-neatly stacked-unlit candles set in pewter dishes, an incense burner, and a photograph. I began to weep.
RUBY: A Real Chinese Girl
On Saturday morning, I left my aunt and uncle’s house, took a ferry from Alameda to San Francisco, and walked to the Chinatown playground. Grace and Helen were already there. Sitting on a bench. Talking. Time for work! Grace and I taught Helen steps with one sound-the ball tap, heel tap, brush, and scuff. Every so often, mothers entered the park with their strollers, whispered when they saw us, and then rolled right back out.
“What are they saying?” Grace asked.
“They’re calling us no-no girls,” Helen answered.
No kidding. But Grace didn’t get it. She was a great dancer, better than me by far, which was downright irksome, but she truly acted like she’d just fallen off the turnip truck. I liked her even so. I saw in her what she probably saw in me-that we’d been hit by hard times, that we’d put cardboard in our shoes when the soles had worn out, and that we were on the thin side from too many dinners of watery soup.
On Sunday, same travel time to get to the Chinatown playground. I arrived first. Then Grace. We got to watch Monroe drop off his sister.
“This is the busiest day of the week in Chinatown,” he yakked, kicking and complaining, “and you’re in the playground!” He gestured to the apartment buildings that surrounded the park. “Lots of eyes up there… and everywhere. Ba’s going to find out.”
He was right, but either Helen wasn’t able to think of a better place to go or she was choosing to be deliberately defiant. I couldn’t get a read on her. Monroe beat it to the library, reminding Helen with a call over his shoulder that he’d “fetch” her at Fong Fong Chinese Tea Pavilion at five. Then Grace and I spent the morning showing Helen taps with two sounds-the shuffle, scuffle, slap, and flap. She was pretty, which was hard for me to admit, but, man, she was a real cement mixer. By noon, it was clear she simply wasn’t catching on.