Текст книги "Mambo in Chinatown"

Автор книги: Jean Kwok

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Текущая страница: 2 (всего у книги 23 страниц)

Two

I could already tell in the elevator that I was out of my league. The building was on the Upper East Side, a world away from downtown Chinatown. I squeezed myself into the corner, trying to avoid my blurred reflection on the metal walls. The man standing across from me had streaks of gray in his hair and the shiniest black shoes I’d ever seen. His pants had been perfectly pressed. I was dripping with sweat, but he seemed collected and fresh in his crisp shirt. I took a deep breath as the doors slid open. We stepped out of the elevator together and he allowed me to precede him down the carpeted hallway to the gilded double doors. Another blast of air-conditioning hit me as he held a door open for me. Some sort of fast classical music was playing.

“Oh, my dear Nina,” he said to the young woman sitting behind the reception desk. He had a hint of a Southern drawl. “Are they still torturing you like this?”

She looked up, one hand clutching her long brown hair, and blew out a sigh. “Hi, Keith, I can’t take this anymore. I just disconnected someone by accident again. Go on in, Simone’s already in the ballroom.”

The man named Keith laughed, then glanced at me. “Maybe she’ll rescue you.”

Nina looked at me as Keith stepped through another set of doors. Her features flowed into each other so smoothly that she seemed to have been carved from marble. “Are you here for the position?”

“Yes. I’m Charlie Wong.” How did they both know I wasn’t a dance student? I shifted my weight from foot to foot, trying not to look as nervous as I felt.

“I thought you’d be a guy.” She looked down to check her list. I couldn’t help staring at her a little when she couldn’t see. She was probably one of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen and she was doing the job I wanted. Nina found my name, then gave me a quick genuine grin. “Glad you’re a girl, though. Just go through those doors into the ballroom, hang a left and the manager’s office is tucked in the corner,” she said, pointing. “And watch out, they’re doing quickstep.”

I had no idea what she was talking about but as soon as I stepped through the next set of glass doors, I shrank back as a dancing couple ran toward me at full speed. They pivoted gracefully out of the way, staying in place while they did a series of little synchronized kicks in time to the music, and then raced off again.

I realized I was standing on the edge of the main ballroom. It was the sort of room that felt as if chandeliers were hanging from the high ceilings, although there weren’t any. Perhaps it was the wood paneling, or the tasteful lighting. A few small tables were placed against the right wall and several couples sped across the room counterclockwise. Some were posing in front of the floor-to-ceiling mirrors, which covered every wall except for the one by the tables. In the distance, I could glimpse my reflection. I resembled a ball of red yarn.

I couldn’t seem to start breathing again. To the left of me, set in the corner of the ballroom, was a closed door. I started to walk toward it, feeling the dancers notice me with just a tiny angling of their heads, a swivel of their hips to position their bodies so they could keep me in sight. I clenched my jaw and knocked on the door.

It cracked open and a tall African-American woman with pronounced cheekbones peered out. “And you are . . . ?”

“Charlie Wong.”

She pulled the door the rest of the way open. She had short tight curls that accentuated her oval face and a body rounded with pregnancy. As she stepped aside to let me pass, I saw her eyes flicker to the cloth wrapped around my head.

The office was small but luxurious. Framed photographs and posters of dance couples in different poses covered the walls. I stood in front of the massive desk until the woman seated herself behind it.

“I’m Adrienne,” she said. “Sit down.”

I took a seat, then we studied each other for a moment. In her tight sleeveless white top, her stomach bulged but her arms and shoulders were muscled and sinewy. She didn’t blink as she gazed at me. Her eyes were tilted, a light hazel, striking against the dark creaminess of her skin. She was clearly someone who did not suffer fools gladly. I fumbled in my bag for my résumé. It was a bit crinkled when I pulled it out and I braced myself for what she would say when she read about my old jobs that had ended too quickly. To my relief, she hardly glanced at it before tossing it onto the pile on her desk.

She steepled her fingers together. “Why don’t you tell me a bit about yourself?”

Images of Lisa, Pa, the noodle restaurant, my high school, rushed into my head and strangled my voice. What could I say that would be relevant to this beautiful place, these gorgeous people? “I’m not sure where to begin.”

“Why don’t you start by telling me why we should hire you?” The door behind me opened and a man stepped in. “Ah, there’s Dominic.”

Dominic had pale skin in contrast to his dark hair and eyes. He was wearing a light suit that appeared simple but must have been expensive from the way it fit him, as if it’d been poured over his body. He arched one spidery eyebrow at me in what seemed to be both a question and a challenge. He then leaned silently on the wall behind Adrienne next to an enormous poster: a stunning dark dancer poised in the arms of her partner as if she were about to take flight. I realized the poster was of the two of them.

She saw the understanding in my eyes. For the first time she smiled. “I haven’t always been five months pregnant, you know. That was taken after the first time we won the American Ten Dance title.”

Although I had no idea what that was, I nodded. I hadn’t even known there were ten dances. I swallowed, then tried to answer her question. “I don’t really know why you should hire me over all of the other people who are probably dying to work here.”

Adrienne gave a snort caught between surprise and laughter. “Well, you’re honest, I’ll give you that.” She leaned back in her chair and stared at me, then said, “So what’s Charlie short for? Charlotte? Charmaine?”

I cleared my throat. “Umm, nothing. It’s just Charlie.”

Neither of them said anything for a moment, then Adrienne continued, “What’s your deal, Charlie-short-for-nothing?”

When I gazed at her blankly, she linked her fingers across the top of her belly and said, “What do you really do? Tap dancer, writer, musician, fire-eater?”

“Dishwasher.”

Her full lips quirked. There was a pause, then from behind Adrienne, Dominic said, “Interesting.” He had a slight foreign accent. I couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or not.

Adrienne asked, “And after your day job?”

“It’s actually a day and night job,” I said.

Now they both choked back a laugh.

While I was trying to figure out if I should say something else or not, Dominic asked, “Do you have any administrative experience?”

“I’ve worked in three different offices as a receptionist,” I said with perfect honesty. I hoped they wouldn’t check my résumé, which would reveal I’d only lasted a few weeks at each job before being fired.

“Have you ever had any dance training?” Adrienne asked.

I wished I could claim something that would impress her, anything, but I had to be truthful. “No.”

“Really? No ballet lessons as a child, no secret dreams to become a dancer?”

Surprised and appalled, I said, “I’m the clumsiest person you ever saw. I could never dance.”

“Everyone can dance,” she said automatically, as if she were quoting something she’d learned by heart. “That’s the Avery Studios principle. But we are indeed not hiring any dancers. Is that clear?”

“My mother was a dancer,” I said. “But I didn’t inherit any of her talent. I’m more like my father.”

“What does he do?”

“He’s a noodle-maker in Chinatown.”

Now Adrienne smiled. “Charlie, why in the world do you want this job?”

I didn’t allow myself to think. I didn’t know how to get this job, which I didn’t deserve in any way, so I told them the truth. “Because this place is so beautiful. If I worked here, I’d be able to be around the dancers. Because it reminds me of my mother, who died when I was fourteen.”

Adrienne’s face had grown serious. When she finally spoke, she addressed Dominic instead of me, and her voice was almost a whisper. “What innocence. Were we ever this young?”

I forced myself to continue. “I’m already twenty-two. But I promise that if you give me a chance, I’ll do everything I can to deserve to stay here. I’m probably not the best receptionist you’ve interviewed. But I think I want this job more than anyone else.”

They were silent, then she said, “Could you step outside for a moment?”

Since they hadn’t told me where to go, I went out into the ballroom and stood beside the door of the office. Keith and a tall blond woman were pivoting around the room in perfect little circles together, as if they’d stepped out of a black-and-white movie. In my haste to leave the office, I hadn’t closed the door properly and it swung open an inch. I leaned against the wall, realizing I could hear Dominic’s voice.

“I like the last one better,” he said.

“The brunette? She’s too dramatic. Trust me, she’s an actress or something in her spare time. I’m tired of hiring a new receptionist every six months. Everyone only wants to work here because it’s a dance studio. We attract every wannabe in New York City, and goodness knows there are enough of them. We’re like a rest stop.”

“Fine, but does it have to be her? I mean, look at her.”

I froze. I was sure they were both gazing through the window in the door, where they’d be able to see my reflection on the mirrors of the opposing ballroom wall. I pretended to be fascinated by the dancers passing by.

There was a pause, then Adrienne said, “She’s okay.” Another long silence. She continued, “She has no dreams of being discovered. And she’s got experience.”

Dominic finally spoke. “Is that a towel on her head? Come on, the receptionist is the gateway to our studio. She’s got to look representative.”

“Dominic, we’ve already got enough sex appeal here to sink the freaking Titanic. She just needs to look decent, and she needs to not leave to go join the circus after two weeks, like everyone else.”

“I think you’re going too far.”

“I like her,” Adrienne said. I couldn’t help my sudden smile. “The dancers are constantly grumbling about needing to man the front desk. Clients are becoming unhappy and we’re losing money. We get that cloth off her head and if she doesn’t look insane, we hire her, okay?”

There was another silence, which I assumed was Dominic’s surrender, and then Adrienne pulled the door open and said, “Can you come back in here, Charlie?”

I felt my pulse pounding in my throat as I stepped back in.

Dominic said, “Would you please take that—thing—off your head?”

I tried to keep my hands from trembling as I unwound the long red strip of cloth. In my mind’s eye I saw my hair as it burst free: bushy, unevenly cut, tufts sticking out at random.

Did Dominic flinch?

“Now I see why you’re wearing the scarf,” Adrienne said. She came over and studied me. “The face is nice, though, now that I can see it without being distracted by all that material.”

To my surprise, she took hold of my shoulders and gently moved me so that the light from the window in the door fell upon my face, an object for them to examine.

“Good bones,” Dominic said. “No makeup.”

I winced.

“She doesn’t have bad taste,” Adrienne said kindly, “just no taste. She’s a blank slate. The dancers can help her.”

Dominic sighed. He pulled Adrienne close and pressed a kiss to her temple.

I was hired.

–

It was late afternoon and I knew Lisa would be at Uncle Henry’s office in the heart of Chinatown, street number 88, which many people thought was lucky. It was one of the reasons he was so successful. After taking the elevator to the third floor, I stopped in front of the sign that read “Traditional Chinese Medicine, Henry Wong” and collected myself. Uncle and Aunt would frown upon anything less than serious behavior. I opened the door to find Lisa sitting behind the reception desk. The room was crowded with Chinese people who were waiting to see my uncle. Lisa ran to me as soon as I entered.

“I got the job!” I said, trying to keep my voice low while jumping up and down with excitement. Lisa leapt into my arms and gave me a hug. The top of her head came up to my nose now.

“I knew you would, Charlie!”

“Where’s Aunt and Uncle?” I asked, looking around.

“Uncle’s with a patient and Aunt went out with the Vision.”

“You’re taking care of the office alone?”

“Now that they’ve got Dennis, she goes out more often.”

Lisa had mentioned a new assistant. I lowered my voice so that none of the patients could hear us. “I hoped this job would mean you wouldn’t have to come here anymore, but the hours are from one thirty to ten thirty in the evening, so I still won’t be home after school. I’m sorry.”

She looked downcast for a moment, then whispered back, “Don’t be silly. Even if you were home, Pa would make me come here.” It was true that our family owed Uncle a great deal. He had paid numerous medical bills for Ma. “Besides,” Lisa added, “I need the experience anyway. It’ll help for college.”

It was just like her to find the bright side. I wasn’t so sure I would have been comfortable working here. All around us were large glass jars containing wolfberry fruit, dried antlers and dehydrated lizards.

“What’s that?” I pointed at a new jar, prominently displayed behind the desk. It was filled with what looked like pale, fleshy roots soaking in a light-colored liquid. We walked over to it, still keeping our voices down.

“Snake penises in wine,” Lisa answered.

“Are you serious?”

“Extremely. The whole thing had to be specially ordered and the snake penises cost fifteen hundred dollars a pound. I could sneak you a glass if you want.”

I gagged. “Very nice of you. I never knew snakes had such large . . .”

“Probably from very big snakes. We don’t tell the patients this but they often cut it off when the animal is still alive.”

“Is that legal?” I looked away from the jar.

“There are many things that are not legal but commonly accessible if you know the right people.” Lisa imitated a commercial. “Snake penis wine is sure to warm your kidneys and enrich your qi, not to mention what it’ll do for your sexual prowess.”

I tried to stifle my laughter. “You shouldn’t be talking about such things.”

“What? I have to listen to it all the time. Half the stuff here is for helping those old guys in bed. Look here.” Lisa pointed to a jar of dried seahorses. “Also a popular choice to improve your virility. Only four hundred dollars a pound. Ironic that it’s actually the male seahorse that gets pregnant, isn’t it? Doesn’t seem too manly to me. But who am I? I just keep my mouth shut around here. If I were to speak, I’d tell them to just go get some Viagra.”

I snorted and covered my smile. “Well, I still believe in this stuff when it’s used right. If Uncle sells it, I’m sure it helps. Don’t you remember, that milk-vetch root soup cleared up my skin?”

Lisa didn’t answer. I started walking around the jars, reading their labels now. It’d been a long time since I’d been here, since my hours at the restaurant usually didn’t allow me to visit. I passed a jar filled with dried, dark red centipedes, and one that appeared to hold a large baked cobra. “But I don’t know why they have so many poisonous animals in here.”

“Because ‘poison fights poison.’ That’s what they believe.” Lisa shrugged. “I personally think it’ll just give you a stomachache and some really weird dreams.”

“Lisa.” It was Uncle Henry, standing in the doorway. There was a young man next to him.

Her smile vanished immediately. “Yes, Uncle.”

“Uncle Henry,” I said, greeting him with the honor due an elder.

“Charlie, so glad you stopped by. Have you met Dennis? He has an undergraduate degree in pharmacology and has been opening my old eyes to modern science.” Uncle smiled at me and his face changed from stern to handsome. As always, he wore a dark green Mao suit, buttoned up to the neck.

Dennis shook my hands. He had a shock of black hair, full lips and bushy eyebrows. “I’m really learning a great deal here. It’s fascinating.”

I decided not to mention my new job. If it didn’t work out, I didn’t want Uncle’s pity and it wasn’t much anyway, not compared with what someone like Dennis could do. I’d always wished I could be better than I was for Uncle. In high school, the only respect I ever got from the other kids was for being Uncle’s niece.

Uncle Henry had a softer version of Pa’s features. I’d heard matrons whispering, “What a fine figure of a man Doctor Wong is,” even though most of his hair was gray by now. He was a traditionalist and refused to consume any sort of non-Chinese food. If he hadn’t had rice, then he hadn’t eaten. He and Aunt Monica had never been on a vacation away from their house. He didn’t see the point of wasting money, he said, although he would like to return to his home, China, some day. I remembered that when I was a child, he’d often paid special attention to me. He was the one who would sit at our plastic table in our tiny apartment and try to explain fractions to me. When Aunt Monica got impatient with me for not catching on faster, he would soothe her by saying, “Charlie is trying.” But that had changed as I’d grown older.

“We need an extra pair of hands for a moment, Lisa,” Uncle said. When Lisa followed them down the hallway, I trailed after her.

He opened the door of the examination room to allow Lisa to enter and I saw a woman lying on her stomach, acupuncture needles protruding from the smooth curve of her naked spine. The smell of mugwort drifted out to me. Uncle stepped in behind Lisa and Dennis, then turned to me with a smile. “Would you please watch the front office for me for a moment, Charlie?” With a little nod, he closed the door in my face.

It was clear he remembered as well as I did the day I’d been fired from his office. When I was around twelve, before Ma had died, they had tried to have me help in his office just as Lisa was doing now. “I would be happy to teach Charlie,” Uncle Henry had told my parents.

I remembered Aunt Monica standing over me with her hands on her thick hips. “How could you have dropped the vat of rat fetuses all over the waiting area? Do you know how much that’s worth? And we’ll never get the oil stains out of the carpet.”

After that, I’d been banned from working in the office. I felt guilty that Lisa had been stuck with the job simply because I’d been no good at it. But at least she wasn’t a dishwasher. I would do anything to keep her out of the restaurant life.

I’d been sitting behind the desk in the office a few moments when Aunt Monica and the Vision walked in, trailed by Todd, the Vision’s assistant.

I stood and greeted them. “Aunt Monica, Mrs. Purity, Todd,” I said. Behind her back, everyone called Mrs. Purity by her true title, the Vision of the Left Eye, but none of us dared do it to her face. Like most children in Chinatown, I’d been taught to be afraid of her. She was considered the most powerful witch in the area, and people believed witches bound the souls of young children to themselves to serve them. Witches needed souls who would do their bidding to travel in between ours and the spirit world. They were even suspected of murdering children to gain their souls. As kids, we’d been forbidden to be alone with her.

The Vision was small, her back more crooked than I remembered, dressed in too-short cotton pants and a flowered shirt, looking just like the hundreds of old ladies in Chinatown. She carried a red plastic handbag. Her face was shaped like an iron with a small pointed forehead and blunted at the chin, the brown skin unwrinkled and unflinching, and set deep in one socket was that wandering eye, roaming loose in the blankness of her face, staring where it would.

Aunt Monica gave me a controlled nod. Her lips were screwed tight, her eyes cold under reddened, hooded lids. Her hair was white and had been for years because Uncle Henry didn’t want her to color it. He said the dyes caused cancer. It was well known that they’d been desperate to have children, especially a son, but they had not been successful. I remembered from my childhood that their house had been filled with fertility Buddhas and ancient drawings of plump, healthy boys. They believed that this would help bring a male child into their life. Aunt Monica had followed a diet of coconut and eggs, so the baby would have smooth white skin, and had stopped watching animal shows on television for fear that the baby would emerge looking like an ape. But no child came at all.

I’d always suspected that Uncle’s own desire for a boy was the reason my Chinese name, Cha Lan, meaning “beautiful orchid,” had been turned into Charlie in English. Everyone knew it was easier to be accepted with an American name, so after choosing a Chinese name for a child, many parents would ask English-speaking friends and family for suggestions for an American equivalent. I’d been the one who had suggested Lisa when my little sister had been named Lian Hua, “lotus flower.”

After I’d figured out from Uncle’s behavior that boys were more desirable than girls, I’d asked Pa, “Did you want a boy too?”

Pa beamed and said, “When I could have two girls who remind me of their ma? Of course not!”

Ma had hit him playfully, saying, “You are a charmer.”

“I got you to come with me, didn’t I?” said Pa. But then their laughter had died. Ma’s face had grown tight, as if with grief for something she had lost.

Todd, the Vision’s assistant, gave me a friendly smile. He was tall, with hair that was shaved high up behind his ears in a partial mohawk. Despite his hairstyle, there was a sweet light in his eyes. I remembered him as a solitary kid from high school, where he’d been a few grades ahead of me. He’d been working for the witch for a while now. He was wearing neon green sneakers, and kept tossing the top of his mohawk out of his eyes as he cracked his gum. He was the least mystical person I could imagine. I didn’t know why the witch put up with him, except that possibly he was useful for carrying heavy things. “What’s up?” he said.

“I’m all right. You?”

“Yeah, I get by,” he said.

The Vision had her functional eye aimed directly at me. “This is the older daughter.”

“Yes,” said Aunt Monica in the half whisper she always seemed to use with the witch.

The Vision reached out and took my hand in hers. Her skin felt cool and slightly damp. The waiting room was full and I realized the Vision was going to impress us with her psychic abilities. I tried to pull my hand away but she held on and closed her eyes. She spoke loud enough for everyone to hear, “No boyfriend, husband or mate.”

My chest tightened with fear. It had been a while since I’d dated anyone. How did she know? And what was she going to say about me?

“You are without equal,” Aunt Monica said to the witch.

The Vision continued. “You must take your own blood, your menstrual blood. You take the papers you catch the blood with and wait until the night the moon disappears altogether. That night, you lay the papers on the roof tiles of the man’s house. Anchor them with a stone. Let them dry for seven days and seven nights under the sun and the growing moon. Then crumble them into ash and put them in his coffee.”

I choked and yanked my hand out of hers. Everyone around us looked impressed. The witch paused. Her eyes were open again. I managed to nod.

“When he drinks it, he will know no one but you.”

My cheeks were on fire. Obviously the witch had looked into my future and seen that the only way for me to ever get a boyfriend was for me to bespell him with a used tampon, and now half of Chinatown knew that as well. Todd chewed vigorously on the gum in his mouth, trying not to laugh.

Aunt Monica stared at the Vision. She clasped both of her hands around the Vision’s and said, “Thank you for this wisdom.”

“I could do no less for your niece,” the witch answered. “If she should need a beauty potion—”

“I have a new job,” I blurted, desperate to change the subject. I also knew how powerful the Vision was. While I’d already given up on my love life, I still had some hope for the studio now.

“I know,” said the Vision. “It will amount to nothing.”

Her words fell upon me like stones. She blinked and turned her normal eye to me. Her face cracked into a smile. “Do not take it so hard, girl. A husband is a fine thing to have. Use the spell.”

Lisa, Dennis and Uncle Henry came out of the examination room at that point, followed by their patient. She seemed to be in her late thirties and was dressed plainly, with a dirty air filter mask sticking out of her bag. I guessed she was a garment factory worker, possibly a seamstress. She bowed low to Uncle Henry. “I couldn’t move my arm without pain before I came to you. Now I’ll be able to work again. However much I owe you, it cannot repay my debt.”

Uncle Henry spoke in a voice so soft that I could only hear him because I was standing right next to them. “I know your husband just lost his job. There is no charge.”

She pressed her lips together and I was afraid she’d burst into tears. Wordlessly, she pressed his arm, then left. A few of the patients were already crowding around the Vision as I waved good-bye to Lisa and exited the office. My uncle’s patients and her clients often overlapped. While I was walking back to our apartment, I was filled with pride for my uncle. Turning over in my head the Vision’s bleak words about my future, I wished I had inherited some of his gifts.