Текст книги "Mambo in Chinatown"

Автор книги: Jean Kwok

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Текущая страница: 18 (всего у книги 23 страниц)

Nineteen

It was time for Ryan to fulfill his part of our agreement. Zan had been so excited when I told her. She and I took the subway into Brooklyn to meet him at his apartment, a fourth-floor walk-up in a nice residential area.

When Ryan opened the door, I glimpsed a jungle of greenery behind him. “Hey, come on in.” His feet were bare beneath his simple cotton pants and T-shirt.

There were masses of plants everywhere in his large studio. His bed was just a mattress on the floor, like mine, although his apartment was much more spacious. The mattress was covered by a red blanket, with a low shelf next to it, filled with worn books. He’d built a tall arched trellis over the bed, the kind you see in gardens, and it was surrounded by several pots of ivy that grew upward, interweaving through the slats. When he was lying down, he’d be able to look up at the leaves and trailing tendrils forming an archway of green above the mattress.

His windowsills held a system of artificial lights shining upon an array of dazzling orchids. The blooms weren’t orderly, like the new ones I’d seen in flower shop windows. His orchids were in various stages of flowering, with long and branching spikes: some bore tight purplish buds, some were barren. They’d been cared for and survived, veterans that had bloomed time and time again.

I gestured at the orchids and raised my eyebrows.

He shrugged. “They’re my favorite flowers. You guys want a drink?”

“Just some water, please,” I said as Zan shook her head.

While Ryan was busy in the kitchen area, I kept pulling my eyes away from that bed, lying in the middle of his room like an open heart. I glanced at Zan, who was fidgeting with her fingers. I was pretty sure she hadn’t been in a strange man’s bedroom like this before.

A long-haired orange cat with a white ruff wandered out from behind a pot of ferns. I bent down and extended my hand. It waddled over and sniffed.

“That’s Sushi.” Ryan handed me my glass. “I’ve been telling him he needs to get into shape but he doesn’t listen.”

Sushi rubbed himself against my legs as I sipped the water. “So why do you like orchids so much?”

“They’re so strong and resilient if you treat them right. They’ll bloom repeatedly for you.”

“I always thought they were too exotic to be good houseplants. Too difficult.”

“In the wrong environment, the most beautiful orchid is like a weed. A weed’s nothing more than an unwanted plant.”

–

We piled into Ryan’s car, which he’d parked on the street, and he drove us to the middle of a fairly empty parking lot. I noticed a van with the words “Patrick’s Landscaping” on it. “Is that yours?”

“Belongs to the boss. I didn’t have time to get it back to the company lot last night. He doesn’t mind, though.”

Zan was staring at the van with longing. “Can we drive that one?”

Ryan chuckled. “Why don’t we start with something a bit smaller?”

His dark green car was fairly new. He let Zan sit in the driver’s seat while I stayed in the backseat. She glanced at me and I could tell she was about to burst. She bounced up and down a few times.

Ryan slid into the passenger seat next to Zan, then turned to say to me, “You can get out now if you want. You sure you want to risk your life?”

“That’s what friends are for.” I rolled down the window and felt the sunshine on my face.

He asked Zan, “So what do you know about driving a car?”

“Everything,” she said.

“Good. Ever driven one before?”

“No. But I read about it.”

“Right. So first you have to—”

Zan reached out and adjusted the mirrors.

Ryan blinked. “Good. Do you know where the controls are?”

She pointed. “Steering wheel, controls for the lights. Brake. Accelerator pedal. Gear selector lever. Has park, drive, neutral and reverse settings.”

“You sure you’ve never driven before? What do you do for a living?”

“I run an egg cakes cart. Can’t drive it. No motor.”

Ryan and I both laughed. Then Zan revved up the engine and we were off with a jerk.

–

Zan made a few rounds of the parking lot, then took off for the streets. She was a natural. There were a few close calls because she tended to drive too fast, but Ryan had his hand on the steering wheel and managed to bring us back on track. By the time we got out of the car, she and Ryan were chatting like old friends.

I gave her a big hug. “You were amazing!”

She tipped her head back and turned her face to the sky. “I drove!” Then she remembered Ryan. “Thank you. If you ever want any free egg cakes, just come to Canal Street.”

Ryan grinned. “I’ll remember that. I taught my sister and a couple of friends to drive but I’ve never seen anyone learn that fast.”

“It’s because I want it more,” Zan said.

We said good-bye to Ryan and headed toward the subway station.

“I like your guy,” she said, slinging her arm around my shoulder.

I shook my head and sighed. “He’s not mine.”

–

I needed a dance costume and competition shoes since my Latin shoes were riddled with holes. I didn’t mind wearing them at the studio but I couldn’t use them while performing so I had to order a new pair, which I would save for competitions. I was sitting in the teachers’ room with Nina and Katerina, trying to figure out what I should do.

“How much does a ballroom costume cost?” I asked Nina.

“Roughly between five hundred and five thousand dollars. Some can be even more, cheap ones cost less, but the wrong dress can hurt you on the floor.”

I drew in my breath sharply. “Maybe I should just go buy a bikini somewhere. How do you manage it?”

Katerina answered, “It’s really hard. You’re lucky you’re doing Latin.”

“Why?”

She looked at me like it was obvious. “No feathers, of course. The smooth dresses cost a fortune because of all the stones, sequins and ostrich feathers lining the hem of the dress. Latin is less material.”

I was going through some of the costumes hanging from the rack in the teachers’ room. “Much less. There’s almost no material at all.” I studied one red-and-black number. It was so brief that I couldn’t figure out which part of the body it could possibly cover. “I’m not sure I can wear something like this.”

Nina said, “Why not? You got it, flaunt it. At least you don’t have my saggy boobs.”

“Stop it with your boobs. I can’t wear this because it’ll slip off and I’ll be naked in front of a thousand people.”

Katerina said, “That happened to a friend of mine. No problem, you just keep on dancing. They’ve seen it before.”

“No, thanks.”

Nina said, “She must have put it on wrong. The costumes are made to stay put. Even if they look like they’re barely hanging on to your skin, they shouldn’t budge.”

“What I do,” said Katerina, “is I make them myself. The most work is the stones.”

“Can you design dresses?” Maybe there was hope for me.

“She made this one,” said Nina, pulling out a large sleeveless jade green dress. It was much more modest than the others, looking more like a cocktail dress than swimwear. It shone with rhinestones around the neckline and had a ruffled hem.

I took it and held it up in front of me. It was too big but I enjoyed the way the fabric felt against my legs. “I like that. Whose is it?”

“Designed it for a student. She is probably seventy years old. She’s picking it up tomorrow,” Katerina said.

“Could you make one like it for me?”

Katerina evaluated me. “Sure, but you could wear something much sexier. It’ll also be cheaper if you apply the stones yourself.”

“This style is good for me.”

“You’d need another color,” Nina said. “You can’t wear green. You’ll look like a frog.”

“How about a bright robin’s-egg blue?” Katerina said. “It would look great with her skin and hair.”

“Yes, that would do,” said Nina. “I’ll show you where you can buy the fabric and get the best stones on the Lower East Side.”

–

I had trained my body, but it seemed my hands were still as clumsy as ever. I worked on my dress in the teachers’ room when I could.

“Isn’t glue faster?” I was so tired and my fingers bled from all of the times I pricked myself. I could hardly hold the needle anymore. I had completed so little of the dress after hours of work. Often I placed the stones in the wrong place and had to tear them out and sew them in again.

“Yes,” said Katerina, “but I have been watching you. You are not a person who should use glue. Trust me. Needle and thread, when you make a mistake, you can undo it. If you do something wrong with glue, you will smear the fabric and it will look horrible. You’ll ruin your dress.”

I shut up and went back to sewing. It was painstaking work, finishing the dress stone by stone, but when I was finally done, it glittered and shone. I’d panicked at home one day when I saw one of my rhinestones glittering on our vinyl floor and quickly stepped on it before Pa could notice.

–

Uncle Henry had come up with a treatment plan for Lisa and today was the first session. She begged me to accompany her to the procedure. I canceled all of my evening students and left the studio at the dinner break to meet her at Uncle’s office, where she was waiting for me downstairs.

“It’ll be all right,” I said. “You’ll see.”

Lisa’s face was drawn. “Sometimes I feel like I’m the older sister. No matter how hard you try to be tough enough for this world, you’re a romantic at heart, Charlie.”

“And what are you?”

“A realist.”

I stroked her arm. “It’s not going to be that bad. Come on, let’s go upstairs.”

Her legs seemed worse and I let her lean on me until we got to Uncle’s office. In addition to Uncle Henry and Dennis, both the Vision of the Left Eye and Todd were in the waiting room; so they were pulling out the big guns. The Vision saw us and sniffed. I guessed she still wasn’t happy with me. Todd gave me his easy smile and I noticed a number of paper shopping bags at his feet.

As we greeted each other, I heard the Vision say to Lisa, “It was your birthday recently. Did you wash your hair on that day?”

I knew what was coming. Pa didn’t want us to wash our hair on birthdays or holidays because it was supposed to bring bad luck.

“No, I didn’t.” Lisa was telling the truth. She tried to please Pa when she could.

“That is correct.” The witch turned to me. “But you did.”

How had she known? “I can’t remember,” I lied. With my job, I had to shower every day. Dancing was physical and I was constantly close to the students, but in my defense, I washed my hair on my own birthday too.

“You must be more careful of your sister.” Then the Vision addressed Uncle Henry. “We may proceed.”

“What are you going to do?” I asked. Lisa’s hand was trembling and I clasped mine around it.

“A moxibustion procedure,” said Uncle. I knew what that was. Acupuncture needles were inserted into the skin. Then the herb mugwort was burned near the needles to enhance their effect. “The Vision will pray for her at the same time, also exorcising any spirits.”

I shuddered at the thought of a malignant soul preying upon Lisa.

“Which type of moxibustion shall we perform?” Dennis asked. There were several levels of intensity, which ranged from uncomfortable to severely painful.

Uncle smiled at Dennis. “What would you do?”

Dennis didn’t hesitate. “Given the severity of the situation, the best would be direct scarring moxibustion.”

I heard Lisa’s gasp of fear as I pulled her behind me. “Absolutely not.” With this type of moxibustion, a small cone of mugwort was placed on the skin at an acupuncture point and burned until the skin blistered. The skin scarred after it healed.

Uncle Henry was shaking his head as well, looking a bit surprised.

Dennis said, “Of course, that may not be necessary. A less invasive procedure might be adequate as well. We wouldn’t want Lisa to be uncomfortable.”

The Vision said, “Her father has given permission to do whatever we need. We mustn’t hold back just because of a young girl’s squeamishness.”

I said, “But no one knows if this will work or not. You say I’m hurting my sister because I wash my hair on her birthday and then you want to scar her?”

Uncle Henry said, “Don’t worry, Dennis was just making a suggestion. I don’t think there’s any need to go so far. We can do repeated treatments of the milder sort instead. But she will need to return more often.”

I took a deep breath and turned to Lisa. “What do you say?”

“I want you to come in with me.” She darted a glance at Uncle and the Vision, avoiding Dennis’s eyes.

“Not possible,” said the Vision. “The room is too small. Dennis is needed to assist the doctor with the burning of the mugwort, I’ll be there to drive the evil spirits away, and there is no space for anyone else.”

“It would be a danger to Lisa,” Uncle Henry said. “You know that, Charlie. We are only trying to help her. We will do acupuncture with nonscarring moxibustion. I am also her family. I would never hurt her.”

Lisa was looking at me pleadingly.

“The door stays open,” I said. “I’ll be in the hallway.”

Uncle Henry sighed. “We’ll do it your way this time, Charlie, but you cannot be so difficult or we will never get your sister healed.”

–

Todd followed me out to the hallway and we leaned against the wall. Through the open door, I could see the Vision undressing Lisa down to her underwear, then having her lie face down on the examination table. While Dennis held her steady, Uncle Henry took a thin acupuncture needle and attached a ball of spongy mugwort to the top of it. Slowly, he inserted the needle into Lisa’s calf. I saw her tense. I clenched my fists as well.

The Vision closed her eyes, starting to invoke the gods and spirits. “Come cleanse this girl. Purify her and remove all that is tainted.”

To my surprise, I felt Todd wrap his hand around my left fist. “Gentle. You’re going to need that hand.”

I looked at him with some irritation. He was jittering his leg up and down, and it was distracting. “What?”

“Forgive yourself, forgive the hand.”

“All right, Todd.” Sometimes I thought Todd wasn’t completely right in the head. No one normal would work for the witch anyway. I turned my attention back to Lisa and winced to see Uncle inserting needles all along her legs and spine. I didn’t have a view of Lisa’s face from where I was but her body was rigid. Then I smelled the sweet smoke as Uncle and Dennis started to light the mugwort. If any of it fell onto Lisa’s skin, it would burn her and be almost impossible to remove because of the density of the needles. After allowing the mugwort to burn for some time, Uncle and Dennis blew out the fire. They removed the needles and Lisa was allowed to get dressed again.

“That wasn’t too bad, was it?” said Uncle Henry to Lisa.

She didn’t meet his eyes. “I want to go now.”

“She’s going to have to come back,” Uncle Henry said. “I’ll make the appointments with your pa.”

–

The next week, I thought up an exercise program for Lisa. I would start by getting her to stand for a few minutes to strengthen her legs, and before we knew it, she would be back to her old self again. At the beginning, she had only lost control over her legs for short, discrete periods, but now it seemed they were just weakening in general. The school nurse checked her again but didn’t find anything unusual. Lisa needed the cane most of the time these days, but still Pa asked me not to accompany her to her second session with Uncle Henry on Saturday. He’d heard I’d been difficult the first time.

When Lisa returned from the session, the skin on her face lay pale and worn, like the surface of an empty plastic bag. She looked thin and hunched over. The weather was finally warm—spring had arrived—and she was wearing a long skirt.

“Let me see.” I flipped her skirt up over her bare legs.

Lisa leapt back in her chair. “Don’t touch me!”

I held up my hands. I’d never seen Lisa react like this. “I only want to make sure they didn’t scar you.”

“They didn’t,” she said bitterly.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. Get away from me.”

Lisa was just upset after her session. I would have been too. I wished we didn’t have to do this now but the weekends were the only time we had together. I placed an aluminum walker that I’d borrowed from Godmother Yuan in front of Lisa’s chair. Godmother still had it from when she needed one after her fall last year.

“Are you sure about this?” Pa looked worried.

“It’s good for kids to exercise, right?”

He didn’t seem convinced but he didn’t say anything else.

I placed Lisa’s small hands on the bars of the walker. We hauled her upright so that she was standing. I timed it with a stopwatch in my left hand.

Almost immediately, Pa said to Lisa, “Are you tired? Do you want to sit?”

Lisa looked straight ahead, swaying slightly on her skinny legs.

I pressed my lips into a thin line. “Pa!”

He ignored me, only focusing on Lisa. “I think she wants to sit.”

“She’ll be all right a little longer,” I said.

Lisa said, “Just because you think you’re the expert in everything these days doesn’t mean you’re always right, Charlie.”

I bit back an angry retort. Finally, when Lisa got tired, she whimpered. Her legs began to buckle and we let her sit. I wrote down the date and time in a little pad.

I started exercising Lisa every weekend.

“You’re being too hard on her,” Pa would say to me. I felt as though I were holding both him and Lisa upright. There were days when she would resist us angrily, dragging her weight back into the chair and dropping her hands from the walker. Sometimes, it was as though she wasn’t present at all. I was always exhausted afterward.

After two weeks, Lisa could stand for a longer amount of time. But her eyes were still hopeless.

–

“I want to take Lisa to a neurologist,” I said.

Pa was outraged. He slammed his hand down on the rounded edge of the kitchen sink. “No, no,” he yelled, slapping with each “no.” “No! She’s just a child, leave her alone.”

I tried to speak in a reasonable voice. “We have to find out what’s wrong, Pa.”

“Uncle is helping her,” he said, turning his back to me. “He said she’s coming along well. She just needs a few more sessions.”

“Pa, Uncle doesn’t see every—”

He put his hands over his ears. “You’re trying to kill me.” He turned on both taps full blast and bent over the sink. The conversation was over.

–

“Just a little longer,” I said quietly.

Lisa kept trying to sit down. Her face crumpled up like a little child’s and she began to cry, not even trying to hide it. She made small whimpering sobs and her cheeks glistened with tears.

We let her sit down.

“Oh dear heart.” Pa wiped her eyes with his white handkerchief. I couldn’t watch.

That night, as I lay on my mattress, I felt Lisa’s anguish rip through me. It was as though each sob tore into the soft flesh on the inside of my chest. I longed for Ryan’s arms around me, to hold and comfort me. And then I turned away and I was crying, stifling my sobs so she wouldn’t hear.

–

A few days later, Ryan and I were in the small ballroom, practicing the overhead lift again. We were now able to get through it without someone spotting us. I’d done this lift easily with Julian, but Julian was in a class by himself. I had to run to Ryan and jump, then he held me by the hips and lifted me straight into the air while I arched backward. It was terrifying because I was so high, probably eight or nine feet up, in a position where I couldn’t do anything to save myself if he dropped me or I lost my balance.

Today, for some reason, I glanced down in the middle of the lift. I could see the top of his tousled hair, the highlights gleaming in them, and then all was lost. I pitched forward and Ryan threw himself underneath me so that I wouldn’t get hurt when I landed. We wound up in an undignified heap on the floor.

He lay there beneath me, unmoving. I was terrified he’d hit his head on his way down. “Ryan! Are you all right?” I felt his neck, trying to figure out where his pulse was. That was when I realized his eyes were open, and he was laughing silently. “What?”

“That’s your idea of first aid? Strangling me?”

I leapt off of him. “Very funny.”

“You almost killed us both, and you’re mad at me.”

“You’re right.” I reached out a hand to help him up. “I’m sorry. I just lost my concentration.”

“I was watching you in the mirror. Why were you looking at my hair in the middle of our most dangerous lift? Do I have dandruff?”

The truth popped out before I could stop myself. “You have these pretty bronze highlights.”

His expression became this complicated blend of embarrassment, irritation and satisfaction. Then he said, “Let’s move onto the next part.”

That was the body ripple. With his body covering mine, one arm wrapped around my stomach, my right hand in his left, my other arm behind his head, we undulated together before I twirled out into the whip turn. At the beginning, we had been out of sync, so that his chest was moving upward while mine was going down, and his hips were done before mine got started. But now we had it perfectly synchronized. We were supposed to look sexy during the move, which meant he bent down so I had my head against his jaw, my face partially turned to his, as if we were about to kiss.

I tried to take the step into my turn but found I couldn’t move. Instead, Ryan tugged on my hand until I’d turned around and was wrapped in his arms. His eyes were closed and he was rubbing his cheek against mine as he bent me backward over his arm.

“Would you still rather dance with Keith than with me?” he whispered against my ear.

I felt hot, as if my veins were filled with wine. “Maybe not.”

As he turned his head, I felt his breath fall upon my lips, and I forced myself to say, “We can’t.”

“It’s all right, I’m faking my desire,” he murmured.

I smiled despite myself. Then he kissed me. His taste, his smell, I’d waited so long for this. I lost myself in that kiss, my hands entwining in his hair before I remembered where we were, and what would happen if someone walked in on us. And Fiona, and Pa. Ryan was just reacting to touching my body, while I was in danger of losing my heart and soul. I drew back, my lips throbbing.

He cupped his hand to the nape of my neck. “I’m not sorry I kissed you.” He bent in to kiss me one more time and I let him before I pushed gently against his chest. Slowly, he pulled back and let me up. He held my face with his hand and let his finger brush against my jaw. I felt his hand tremble. Then he dropped it and turned away.

I busied myself collecting our CD from the stereo. “Lesson over.” My voice was hoarse. The door quietly opened and shut, and then he was gone.

–

Ryan canceled all the rest of our lessons that week. I didn’t know what it meant or what to do. Was he ever going to come back? What would I do if he didn’t? Walking in the park in the June sunshine with Nina a few days later, I spotted a gardener tending the flowers and my heartache must have shown on my face.

Nina said, “Are you all right?”

I ran my hand through my hair, then told her about Ryan and the kiss.

“I knew it.” She was speaking quickly, frightened for me. “If you get involved with him, not only will they fire you but no other studio in New York will touch you. You’ll be blacklisted. No one wants a pro who sleeps with the students. It’s bad for business.”

I pressed my lips together and shivered despite the sunlight on my face. “I don’t want to go back to my old life. If Ryan leaves, I don’t have a partner, and if I get involved with him, I won’t have a job. I have nothing.” I felt the dread deep in my stomach.

“No, you’ll always own something that no one can take away. Even if you were faced with losing your job, you’d keep the knowledge in your body, your passion for movement, your understanding of its power. That’s yours.”

I kicked at the dirt on the ground. “I’m so confused.” She was talking about career and love of dance, and I shared that, but mostly all I could think about now was Ryan. “Sometimes I think he cares about me a little. But it’d be such a shock to my father, I’d feel so guilty about dating a non-Chinese guy. And the worst thing is, he’s got a girlfriend . . .” My voice trailed off.

Nina turned her face away.

“I know it’s bad.”

“Yes, it is. Charlie, you shouldn’t even be thinking about him in that way. He’s a student. I’m so sorry, honey, but it doesn’t matter about him and the girlfriend. He’s bad for you. You remember what happened to Estella. I heard they’ve broken up by now. You have such a bright future ahead of you as a dancer and a teacher. Go find yourself a nice professional man to play with. Listen to Doctor Nina here. Get this student out of your system.”

I rubbed my eyes. “I’m finished with him as soon as the competition is done. I’ll turn him over to another teacher.”

–

After my talk with Nina, I was resolved to break things off with Ryan. I didn’t want to call Ryan from the studio, just in case we got into personal territory. I copied down his mobile number from his file and then waited until the next day, Saturday, to phone him. I wanted some privacy.

It rang a few times and then his deep voice answered. “Ryan Collins.”

“Ryan, it’s me.”

He immediately knew who I was. His voice gentled. “Hi.”

I made my tone very businesslike. “You didn’t come in last week. I wanted to make sure you were all right.”

He coughed. “Umm. Yeah. I’m fine. Just a bit of the flu.” Like I was born yesterday.

“Feeling better now?”

“Yeah.”

I cut to the chase. “Are you going to bail on me and the competition?”

There was a silence. “No. I’m in until then.”

“Me too.” I forced myself to say it. “After that, it might be better for you to go to another teacher.”

There was another pause, then his voice sounded strained. “I’ll be done with dancing by then. I’ll be ready for the wedding. That was the goal, wasn’t it?”

My entire chest ached. “Okay, well . . . thank you for staying with me through the competition.”

“Listen, should we just get the rest of our bargain over with? There’s a party uptown tonight.”

I wasn’t sure I’d heard him correctly. “After what happened?”

“I want to take you, all right? I missed seeing you this week.”

Despite all of my resolutions, I felt myself soften. I kept my tone cool. “I promised, didn’t I? What do you require from me?”

“Bring shoes you can dance in. And wear something sexy, will you?”