Текст книги "Mambo in Chinatown"

Автор книги: Jean Kwok

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Текущая страница: 6 (всего у книги 23 страниц)

Six

Lisa and I stared into the vat filled with live frogs. Some were black, while others were olive with black markings. As we watched, the fishmonger scooped out the largest one, a mottled purple-black frog, and popped it into a plastic bag. He tied the handles together. The bag writhed as the frog kicked. The customer dropped the bag into her large shopping tote and left, looking satisfied.

Lisa said, “Can we buy some vegetables now?”

I signaled the fishmonger for a few pieces of sea bass, which were fortunately already dead. Then Lisa and I took our time looking at the different produce stands. Lisa’s red wool jacket brought out the gloss in her hair. It’d taken me weeks to save up for the sneakers she wore, the ones she’d wanted so much because the other girls had them. I didn’t care about clothing for myself but I loved making Lisa happy. She stuck her finger in a pile of hairy rambutan. I shook my head, silently telling her not to touch. Then she paused over some bitter melon.

“Do you want one?” I asked. “I thought you didn’t like them.”

“I don’t. But Pa does, especially with salted black beans and fish. I’m trying to expand my tastes now that I’m becoming more mature.”

I laughed. “Good move.” I studied the rough, pockmarked skins of the bitter melon. “These are really light green. That means they’re going to be old and bitter.”

Lisa made a face. “Pa can soak them in salt water. Maybe I’ll just have a taste and you guys can have the rest.”

“Oh, thanks a lot!” But Pa did love them and we hardly ever ate them at home. I bought one and then we went to the soy man to pick up some sweetened soy milk and fresh tofu. Our grocery money was dwindling by then but Lisa looked with so much longing at the containers of doufu hua, sweetened tofu pudding, that I bought her one.

On our way home, we passed Gossip Park. It was a beautiful autumn day so we sat on a bench just inside the park and I opened Lisa’s pudding for her, then dribbled the syrup on top.

She paused with her spoon over the plastic bowl. “Don’t you want any?”

“No, you go ahead.”

She happily gobbled everything up. When she was done, she wiped her mouth with a paper napkin and sighed. A tall girl with her hair in two long braids passed by on the street behind us, arm in arm with her mother.

I said, “Hey, isn’t that your friend Hannah?”

Lisa scrambled around to look, then sat down again. “Yeah.” They’d already gone down the block. “She’s taking the Hunter test too.”

“Anyone else?”

“A white kid named Fabrizio. I don’t know him that well. Hannah’s studying with her parents for it every night.”

A pang passed through me. I tried to sound casual. “What are they doing?”

Lisa rolled her eyes. “You know. That family lives to do homework together. It’s the way they have fun. They’re like, ‘Oh, I know the answer to question number three!’” Lisa pretended to shoot her hand in the air. “When we were in elementary school, I overheard her mother complaining to the teacher because Hannah had homework over Mother’s Day weekend. She said, ‘When Hannah has homework, I have homework.’”

“Well, at least they care about her. What do her parents do?”

“Her dad is a dentist and her mom works in the bank. Hannah’s always showing off that both of her parents speak perfect English.”

“Well, I’m going to help you prepare for the Hunter test too.”

Now Lisa looked worried. “That’s okay, Charlie. I’ll manage.”

“No. I’m going to figure out what we have to do and then we’re going to do it.”

–

That night, I woke suddenly on my mattress on the floor. Lisa was sitting up on the couch next to me. My heart pounded in my chest. Something was wrong.

“Lisa, are you all right?”

She didn’t answer. She started feeling around in her sheets with her hand. Finally she spoke in a small voice, looking astonished, “I peed in my bed.”

Relief poured over me. “Oh, that’s nothing. I’ll help you.” I turned on the light, then we took the sheets off together and rolled them up. “I’ll wash them at the laundromat this morning after Pa goes to work and he doesn’t have to know.”

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” Lisa said. “Next thing you know, you’ll have to give me a bottle at night like a baby. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry. I bet you’re just nervous about the test and everything else that’s going on.” I ruffled her long hair. “Good night, sweetie.” I gave Lisa my blanket and she rolled over and went back to sleep.

I stayed awake for a while. Lisa was so smart, I often forgot she was only eleven. She hadn’t wet her bed in years. But her body was changing now and it made sense she would hit some rough spots along the way. Maybe my new job and this exam were causing her more anxiety than I’d realized. I knelt by the sofa Lisa slept on, felt her soft rounded forehead, and brushed it three times with my left hand to ward off evil.

–

Later on that week, the studio started holding auditions for a new dance teacher. The phone rang off the hook with requests for information. On the day of the first audition, the entire ballroom was packed with men and women of all different sizes and descriptions. Some women had their hair up in buns like classical ballerinas, some were dressed in outrageous outfits with bare midriffs and feathers.

“Oooh, I like the one with the low-cut green leotard and pink shorts,” whispered Viktor, wagging his eyebrows at Katerina. “Maybe we have to get you same outfit. I think it is very American.”

She burst out laughing and wrapped her arms around his waist. “You are an idiot.”

Nina and Mateo put on microphones and went to the front of the room to demonstrate. Adrienne and Dominic stood to the side, watching. Even before the group was supposed to do the combination, some people were marking it with their bodies, flinging their arms and legs around wildly regardless of who might get hit. They learned a few short combinations, then the entire room did the routine together, then Nina and Mateo had them do it in groups of ten. I couldn’t tell the difference between any of them, only when someone went the wrong way. People paired up with each other, becoming flustered as they didn’t know how to lead or follow.

It was a sort of controlled chaos. I noticed Dominic, Adrienne, Mateo and Nina circulating through the crowd, whispering to certain people. Somehow they picked out a group of thirty-five people who were invited back to take the two-week training course, which was actually an elimination class. Every day they decided who would be allowed to return the next day.

I heard the dancers discussing the candidates after every session in the reception area. Adrienne said that mainly what the studio needed was someone to teach beginning students and groups, so personality was vital. They wanted someone who could dance well but was also approachable, whom students could identify with.

“I like the redhead,” Mateo said.

“He’s handsome but arrogant. I’m afraid he’s going to turn into another Estella,” said Adrienne.

“What about the other one, that one with the endless legs?” Nina asked.

“Too tall, and bowlegged too. She’s going to tower over half of the male students,” Dominic answered.

“I have my hopes set on the blonde. She’s a quick learner, good technique and a great personality,” Adrienne said, but that woman didn’t show up the next day. She’d gotten cast for a Broadway show.

–

On nights after Lisa was asleep, when I wasn’t too exhausted by my day, I stayed up to work on a present for her. I wanted to give her something after she took the Hunter test to let her know how proud I was that she was trying, and also so that if she didn’t get in, she would have some consolation. Although the January test was months away, I knew how slow I was. I bought a ball of shiny purple yarn with glitter woven through it. I’d seen other girls in her class wearing long sparkling scarves. Years ago, Zan had shown me and our friend Mo Li how to knit, but while Zan’s stitches had been perfectly uniform, mine were lumpy. I had caught a slight cold and my throat was bothering me, but even as I frowned over my attempted scarf now, I tried to keep my spine straight and neck long, like the dancers at the studio.

I glanced at the photo of Ma and our jar of Broadway show money. Now that I was earning more as a receptionist, I gave Lisa a dollar to put in there every week. I still gave most of my paycheck to Pa. He was trying to save money for our future too. I’d tried to convince him that he didn’t need to provide us with dowries anymore but he’d said, “Dowry, college, same thing.”

Lisa continued to sleep badly, waking up exhausted and pale. She had nightmares and was now wetting her bed once or twice per week. At first, I’d put extra cloths underneath her sheets to keep the urine from soaking into the sofa, but soon I bought her some waterproof bedding from the bit of my salary I kept for myself.

Now she started thrashing on the couch. I dropped my knitting and hurried over to her. I held her and pressed my lips against her temple. “Lisa, you’re dreaming. It’s okay, it’s not real.”

She blinked, stared at me, then sat up. She hugged me tight. “Charlie, I wish I could always be with you.”

Startled, I was silent a moment, then I hugged her back. “I’m here. Are you feeling all right? Is there something wrong at school?”

Lisa just held me. Then she said, “No.”

I pulled away to stare at her slender face in the dim light, so much like Ma’s with its widow’s peak and pointy chin. “Really? You know you can tell me.”

Her eyes began to redden but she didn’t speak.

“There is something. What is it?”

She sniffed and looked away. “Nothing you can help me with.”

“It’s the stress of the Hunter test, isn’t it? You don’t need to take it.”

“No, I’m fine about that.”

“You don’t have to go to that stupid school. Or is it because you don’t feel prepared?” I’d meant to get some books to help her study but didn’t really know where to start. Every time I saw a textbook, I felt a cold lump in the pit of my stomach, remembering all of the times I’d struggled myself. I had to pull myself together for Lisa. I was a bad sister.

“Really.” Lisa laid a hand against my cheek. “I’m okay and the test’s not the problem. I promise.”

I placed my hand over hers. “Good. Then we’d better get you back to bed.”

“How often is this happening?” Pa stood in the doorway of the living room. He looked older than usual, his disheveled hair stood on end.

I looked at Lisa. Her eyes begged me not to tell him. “First time,” I said.

–

The next morning, Pa brewed the caterpillar soup for us. He had kept the caterpillars in an airtight box loaned from Uncle Henry all this time because Lisa and I had refused to eat them, but now he was adamant. We all sat around the small table with bowls of the viscous liquid in front of us. It was gray mixed with brown and smelled like dank earth. Thank goodness Pa had strained the caterpillars and herbs out of the soup. He must have known that if we’d been confronted with the bodies, we would have refused no matter what he said. But I had seen the little worms as he’d dropped them into the ceramic pot.

I stared at my bowl. “Are you really sure this works?”

“It’s unscientific and unhygienic,” said Lisa.

“Lisa.” I didn’t want to drink it either, but I didn’t want her to be disrespectful to Pa. It was too late to avoid the soup now.

She continued as if I hadn’t said anything. “This could result in our getting parasites. In the best-case scenario, we’d throw up from disgustingness.”

I breathed in. “Come on, Uncle Henry just cured that new delivery boy from the noodle shop of asthma, remember? He knows what he’s doing.”

“He used acupuncture. That guy didn’t have to drink worm soup.”

Pa’s angular face was firm. “This worm soup cost us almost a hundred and fifty dollars.”

Lisa swallowed and glanced at our Broadway show jar. A hundred and fifty dollars was a huge part of our household budget. I knew what she was thinking. We could almost have saved for another ticket with this amount. But I thought of Lisa and her nightmares. Maybe it would work. I’d drink the soup because that meant she would too.

“Drink up,” Pa said. “This is good for all of us. I will too. It is only because of Uncle Henry’s kindness that we have access to such powerful medicine.”

Lisa and I had years of experience drinking this sort of thing. We waited for the soup to cool, then held our breaths and gulped it down as quickly as possible. It tasted vile: bitter and slimy, with an undertone of mud. Then we ran to the sink and washed our mouths out with water.

“That is a waste,” Pa said.

“I want a glass of soda,” Lisa panted.

“Not allowed,” said Pa. “The bubbles will counter the power of the soup.”

I was heaving like I was going to vomit. I wanted to, only Pa would be so disappointed.

“Here.” Pa gave us each a piece of dried salted plum. It was a relief to have another taste in my mouth.

“They were boiled so long, all the germs in the caterpillars must have been sterilized, right?” Lisa said.

“Sure,” I said. “Can we talk about something else now?”

Pa said, “I think I feel stronger already.”

–

The next morning, I woke up and my cold seemed to have been cured overnight. Lisa, though, remained unchanged.

–

For the first time in my life, I now rode the subway every morning, rocketing north out of Chinatown. I descended into the station in one world, and I emerged, half an hour later, in an entirely different one. Riding the subway was fascinating to me, watching all of the people get on and off. As the train went uptown, the number of Chinese people in the car decreased. They were replaced by men and women in long black coats, reading their cell phones. When I spotted a subway car ad for lupus treatment, I bit my lip, wondering if Lisa had some disease like that. What if she was really sick? No, she was a young healthy girl. She was just stressed.

More people got on and off. I particularly studied the other young women who seemed to be, like me, on their way to work, yet in some ways looked so different. Many of them wore simple clothing that somehow still managed to be attractive by the way it fell over their bodies. They all seemed to have the same types of flat shoes or black boots and oversized bags. It felt as if the rest of the world knew something I didn’t, like they were dancing the tango together while I was doing freestyle, flailing away by myself.

At the studio, I’d grown more comfortable since Estella left. Simone still intimidated me but she kept more to herself. The class of potential new dance teachers had recently petered out: Adrienne and Dominic had narrowed it down to three people, but then all of them had dropped out for one reason or another. One had gotten a job at another dance studio, another decided to move out of New York, and they couldn’t reach the last one at all. Now they had decided the upcoming period was too busy with ballroom shows and preholiday preparations to start another audition process, so they would wait until after the New Year to hire someone.

Adrienne was in the office every day at seven months pregnant. And I was still making mistakes. When I was under stress, I would sometimes forget how all of the buttons on the phone worked.

I had so much trouble with writing things down that Adrienne had said one day casually, “I think you may be dyslexic. Have you ever considered that?” I remembered a teacher in high school had mentioned that possibility to me as well, had wanted to talk to Pa about testing he’d need to approve. But Pa had been too nervous to come to school and I didn’t want Uncle Henry or Aunt Monica to think I was somehow damaged goods, so I’d told Pa that the problem had been solved. I couldn’t even really explain what dyslexia was to him either, since I wasn’t sure myself. But in any case, it was not a positive sign if your boss thought you might have a learning disability.

I overheard Dominic talking to Adrienne about me in the office next to the reception area. “She cut off Giovanni on the phone.” Giovanni was the Avery head of our entire region.

“No. Was he angry?” Adrienne sounded horrified.

“He seemed to think it was funny. Said she had a sexy voice but maybe we should hire someone who could actually do the work.”

“Sexy?”

“I know, but on the phone you can’t see how she’s hiding in her baggy clothing.”

I was mortified. I’d hoped the glamour of the studio had rubbed off on me and that I was becoming a bit stylish since starting work there. Aunt Monica had told me I was too boyish and muscular, so I tended toward clothes that helped compensate. Pa taught me to cover my legs at least below the knee, midcalf if possible, and now that it was cold out, I was wearing a few layers underneath my clothing to add to my thin coat. I spent as little as possible on my own clothing, knowing how important it was for Lisa to look nice at school and fit in with the other girls. I didn’t want her to be as unpopular as I’d been. Most of my dresses and more formal clothes were hand-me-downs from Aunt Monica or leftovers the local ladies had saved for us from the garment factory.

Growing up, my only female role models had been Aunt Monica and Godmother Yuan, and even though I’d known Aunt Monica’s taste for shiny fabric and large flowers was not the epitome of elegance, it was probably unavoidable that it would influence me a bit. Zan and Mo Li weren’t much help either; then, they’d been just as clueless as I was. But it was obvious even to me that neither the dancers nor the students at the studio dressed the way I did. The students’ clothing was plain but sleek, while the dancers, of course, wore flashier, more clingy clothing. It was so confusing. I’d never really cared about how I looked before. Once again, I longed for a mother I could talk this over with.

I remembered a time Ma and I had been at Aunt and Uncle’s house in Queens. I was about ten years old. It was before Lisa’s birth. We were waiting for them to come home and Ma had taken me into their bedroom, then opened Aunt Monica’s jewelry box.

“Should we?” I asked.

She’d giggled like a child caught in the act. “No. This is very naughty of us.”

Then she’d put a gold bracelet on her slender wrist and a jade necklace around my neck. She held up her arm, allowing the sleeve of the shirt she wore for waitressing to fall away, revealing the curve and muscle of her skin, her fingers unfurling like the petals of a flower as she watched herself in the mirror. Then with one arm high and one bent in front of her like a branch in the wind, she’d whirled into a series of turns, one after another after another, until suddenly she stopped with her arm still high, facing herself in the mirror. Even then, I understood it wasn’t the bracelet she longed for but the space that went with such a piece of jewelry, the room and time to dance again.

“I am like a little girl here, Charlie,” she said. “Playing at dressing up. Just the weight of this thing makes me remember.”

I’d hardly dared make a sound for fear of disturbing her strange mood. I was afraid to frighten her into silence again but I wanted to know. “What, Ma? What do you remember?”

She gave a little laugh and said, “Lights. The smell of powder. An empty stage and my arms and hair weighed down with jewelry and clips. Everything made to catch the light.”

“Like you,” I said.

She’d caught me up in her arms then and held me. “You, you are my light-catcher.” And then she’d tickled me until I couldn’t breathe and when we were done, we both put back the pieces of jewelry we’d borrowed.

Even now, I wished I’d been old enough to buy her jewelry, to dress her up one more time before she died.

–

Then I made another big mistake. I’d booked Simone for the beginners’ group class on Tuesday evening but didn’t realize she had an extra lesson with her private student Keith then. They were getting ready for an upcoming showcase at the Copacabana and she couldn’t move him. And now no one else was free to teach the group, either. This emerged at the Monday meeting, and to make things worse, dance coach Julian Edwards was present because he had to finalize details for the show with the dancers.

“Who is responsible for this?” Dominic roared.

I could feel everyone trying not to look at me.

“I’m really sorry,” I said.

“This is the final straw, Charlie,” he said. “We gave you a chance but there have been so many issues.”

Adrienne laid a hand on his arm. “We’re already looking for a new dancer, Dominic. Unsuccessfully, I might add. Let’s not have to find a new receptionist at the same time, okay?”

Dominic took a deep breath. “This is a big problem. We are understaffed. The class tomorrow evening, it is already booked full and there’s no one to teach it. All those prospective students. Can’t anyone move their private students?”

Everyone looked away. My heart was pounding from my near-firing. I would be back at my old dishwashing job soon. I would have to leave the studio, Nina, the whole ballroom world.

Mateo spoke up. “It’s one of our busiest nights. Everyone’s got their regulars coming in then and the show is this weekend. We can’t reschedule anyone right before the Copacabana event.”

There was a pause, then I made myself speak. “Is there anything at all I could do to fix this? Maybe I could help teach it?”

“What?” Dominic cocked his head as if he was sure he’d misheard me.

My cheeks were on fire. “I don’t know. Never mind. I really want to help if I can since it’s my fault. It’s just that I’ve assisted in tai chi classes . . . I thought . . .”

Nina said, “I think it’s a good idea.”

“She’s not a dancer.” Dominic shook his head.

“Maybe true,” Nina said slowly, “but they’re all beginners. No one could be worse than they are. All we do is show them a few basic steps. A walrus could teach the class and they wouldn’t know the difference. I’ve done it. Believe me, I know what I’m talking about.”

I felt dizzy and cold all at once. What had I done? I couldn’t teach ballroom. Were they really considering it?

Adrienne murmured, “It’s an idea.”

Dominic said, “Adrienne, I love you more than life itself but when it comes to the dancing I must decide. Absolutely not.”

Adrienne continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “How could we cover Charlie’s job?”

Nina said, “We can put the phone on the answering machine then. Most of the check-ins at that time are for the group class anyway. We all welcome our own students for that lesson, and Charlie checks off the students in the group as they come in. Problem solved.”

“I didn’t mean to teach it alone,” I said. “Just that maybe I could help.”

Adrienne said, “Well, there’s no one to do it with you, Charlie. Dominic and I are both booked to give coaching sessions then. You’d be on your own.”

Dominic said, “I am artistic director here and I am putting my foot down.”

“Are you trying to upset a very pregnant woman?” Adrienne patted her large stomach. “Sweetheart, this is just a temporary solution. It could work for this one time.”

Dominic looked like he was having trouble swallowing. “Darling, I can’t allow this. We have standards to maintain.”

To my surprise, Nina got up and walked over to me. She knelt at my feet and slipped off my pumps. “Dominic, take a look at this.”

She stared at my Magic-Markered pumps in her hands with disgust. “What have you done to your shoes?” Then she tossed them aside and stretched out my foot, pulling up the material of my pants so you could see my leg. “Point.”

“What?”

“Point your foot.”

I did, my toes lengthening, the arch high and pronounced as it always was, just like Ma’s had been.

She held my foot and turned my leg out. “Don’t sickle your feet inward, turn them outward.” Then she looked at Dominic as if this said it all.

Everyone was staring at my foot. “How did you know?” Dominic asked her.

“She takes off her shoes underneath the desk at the end of the day,” Nina said.

Dominic walked over to me and said, “Stand up.”

When I did, feeling awkward in my shoeless feet, he held one of my arms out to the side. “Could we possibly get some of this clothing off?”

I was wearing a thick button-up sweater over a thin man’s undershirt that I’d stolen from Pa.

“May I?” he asked.

I glanced at Nina for a moment. She nodded slightly, so I started to unbutton my sweater, conscious that I was wearing only a worn tank top underneath.

After I’d slipped my arms out of the sleeves, Dominic looked at me impassively, like a doctor. “Stand up straight. Hold out your arms.”

I held in my breath and stood as Ma had taught me all those years ago. Shoulders down, arms held from the back, neck long.

“Make a fist,” Nina said.

When I did, I could feel the muscles in my arms and shoulders tense. The entire circle of dancers was still.

“She can beat you up, Dominic, better watch what you say,” said Mateo.

“Where did you get a body like this?” Dominic asked.

“Dishwashing. I’m more bony than anything else.”

Nina said, smiling, “I couldn’t believe it either when I first saw her. She spilled coffee on her shirt and I loaned her my sweater. And those feet.”

I looked down at my toes. “What about my feet?”

Katerina spoke up. “I would kill for feet like yours. Any dancer would.”

I didn’t understand. They were the same feet that had stood at a sink for years.

Dominic said, “Why in the world do you dress the way you do?”

My expression must have shown my hurt.

He ran his hand over his face like he was in pain. “Even if we do entertain this ridiculous idea for a moment, who could possibly teach her the basics? Simone?”

Simone threw up her hands. “Come on, why me? I’d miss the dance session with Julian. She’s not a dancer. Look at her!”

Nina took a breath, her eyes flashing, but before she could speak, a voice came from the corner.

“I’ll do it,” said Julian. He folded his arms and leaned back in his chair, inscrutable.

There was a collective gasp. Adrienne struggled to speak. I had never seen her at a loss for words before. “Julian, that is very kind of you but we need you for our own training today.”

“I have time afterward and I’ll do it for free.” Now we all gaped. I’d seen Julian’s checks and knew he charged five hundred dollars per lesson.

I spoke the thought on everyone’s mind. “Why would you possibly do such a thing?”

He smiled. “When you get to be where I am, you’ve seen it all. I’ve held so many international titles, coached almost every top professional dancer. I enjoy a new challenge. It would be interesting to teach someone fresh. Someone with potential.”

Everyone was now staring at me. Julian Edwards had labeled me as someone with potential. Simone looked like she had something unpleasant in her mouth, but Nina had the biggest grin on her face. I could feel my heart in my throat, a distant thin pulsing.

Dominic said to Julian, “You are trying to kill me, old friend.”

Julian’s eyes were filled with mischief. “And enjoying every moment too.”

Adrienne said, her face blank, “That’s settled then. Nina, you’re going to talk clothes with her, then Julian can try to teach her a few steps.”

“Clothing?” I said.

Adrienne said slowly and carefully as if I were stupid, “You won’t be sitting behind a desk. Even for one class, you’re part of the dream that is Avery Studios. You need to look the part. As much as you’re able.” She shifted her gaze to Nina. “Good luck.”