Текст книги "Mambo in Chinatown"

Автор книги: Jean Kwok

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Текущая страница: 9 (всего у книги 23 страниц)

Nine

It was the weekend. I checked out my reflection in every window I passed, trying to hold myself long and straight like a dancer. I’d barely been able to contain myself when I told Lisa and Zan. Lisa had squealed and hugged me tight. Zan had cracked up, saying, “I gotta see you doing the cha-cha-cha.” When I was at tai chi class, I could barely contain my excitement. Godmother said to me, “You are looking happy today, Charlie” and I’d simply nodded. I didn’t dare risk telling her because I wasn’t sure how she would react. Like Pa, she might disapprove of my dancing. But most of all, I wished I could tell Pa and that he would be proud of me.

That evening, I headed out to Brooklyn Chinatown in the Sunset Park neighborhood to visit my friend Mo Li, who’d come back early from Boston University for the Thanksgiving holiday. Her parents had an apartment on Eighth Avenue, which was considered extremely lucky since in Cantonese, “Eighth Avenue” sounded roughly like “Road to Wealth.” Her father, who’d been an engineer in China, was probably working at a casino in Atlantic City that night and her mother was a cleaning lady doing the night shift at a hospital, so she wouldn’t likely be home either.

I was always surprised by how much Brooklyn Chinatown resembled the Chinatown I knew, with Chinese storefronts and signs everywhere. However, the streets were wider and everything was more spread out. You could tell it had developed later because it still had room to grow, while my Chinatown felt dense, like you could barely squeeze another food stand into it.

When Mo Li opened the door to her apartment, I saw her face and recoiled. “Are you all right?”

She wasn’t wearing her glasses and one eyeball was huge, while the other one seemed tiny. She looked like a stroke victim. “Yes, I’m just trying on these circle lenses. Come in. Zan will be here soon.”

I hugged her, then drew back. “What in the world did you do to yourself?” I still wasn’t sure if I’d need to drag her to the emergency room.

“They’re contact lenses. I only have one in. I was just starting on the other one when you rang the doorbell.”

“No contacts ever made people’s eyes look like that.”

Mo Li brought me into their little bathroom, where a contact lens case was perched on the yellowing sink. There was a brown lens floating in one compartment, with a dark outer ring and spidery lines painted toward the clear center.

“That is one scary-looking lens,” I said. “Is that a colored contact?”

“It’s a circle lens. The colored part is larger than your real iris. People use them to make their eyeballs look bigger.”

“Why in the world would you do such a thing?”

“They’re incredibly popular in Asia. How do you think Grace gets her eyes to look so big?”

I thought for a moment. “Lucky at birth?”

“No, silly. She’s wearing these things, plus false eyelashes and a load of makeup. I’ll pop the other one in and you’ll see.”

When Mo Li turned to me again, her eyeballs were enormous. “Now you look like an alien.” I peered closer. “There are almost no whites in your eyes anymore.”

She studied herself in the mirror, then sighed. “I guess they’re not for me.”

“Why are you messing with this stuff anyway?”

Mo Li started taking the lenses out. “You know how I’m into the cosplay thing?” Mo Li and her family had moved here from mainland China less than ten years ago, but she had embraced American culture more than any of the rest of us. She loved science fiction and fantasy books. When she got to Boston University, she started hanging out with a bunch of new friends and she began dressing up as some of her favorite characters for conventions. “I got a set of circle lenses to make my eyes blue for my last role. Then this American girl who’s also pre-law—she’s always really put together—she told me that maybe I needed a different look. You know, to be competitive. I’m graduating this year and they say law school is so cutthroat.”

I studied Mo Li, with her soft body, rounded shoulders and horn-rimmed glasses. She’d gained some weight at college but her eyes, now that I could see them, were as lively as ever. “You’re the smartest person I know. You don’t need googly eyes to be competitive.”

“I guess at heart I still feel like a fobby.” A fobby was her nickname for what the kids called FOBs, the students who were Fresh Off the Boat, as opposed to ABCs, American-born Chinese.

“That’s ridiculous. You haven’t been a FOB for years.”

“You were the only ABC who would talk to me,” she said. “You and Zan were the only people who even noticed me at first.” Mo Li and I had met in high school. Mo Li’s English was already excellent because she’d studied it as a second language in China, and she soon shot ahead of the rest of us in class. The other smart kids wanted to bring her into their circle then, but she always stayed friends with me and Zan. She’d tried to help us with our schoolwork too, though I had so little time to study. I was already working odd jobs to help Pa out after Ma died.

“Don’t you remember that the teachers tried to call you Molly and you refused? You said, ‘My name is Mo Li.’ You stay who you are and you’ll be just fine.”

Her smile showed her small, even teeth. “You actually look different.” She narrowed her eyes. “I can’t put my finger on it. It’s like you got taller or something.”

“I’ve got some news too.”

After I’d filled Mo Li in and she’d finished jumping up and down, she said, “I can’t believe you actually taught a dance class! But then again, I can. You’ve always had this gangly grace.”

I snorted.

She went on. “Really. You’d spill everything in the dining hall, but in gym you could beat even the guys sometimes. Hey, do you want the circle lenses? You could probably use them more than me.”

“I’d blind myself trying to get them in.”

“True. Well, if you don’t need them, I guess I don’t either.” The buzzer sounded. “Oh, that must be Zan. I’ll be right back.”

While Mo Li went to open the door, I wandered around her apartment. Unlike ours, her apartment had no religious icons whatsoever. I was used to Chinatown, where almost every store had an altar hidden away in the back. Mo Li had explained that religious rituals had been discouraged by the Communists, so she and her parents were agnostics. There were no red strips of paper with lucky sayings on them. The only thing hanging on her walls was a fine Chinese landscape, probably brought over from the mainland, and a ragged poster of the periodic table. A bumper sticker that read “Boston University” was stuck on the window, probably because they didn’t own a car to put it on.

Since they’d moved to Brooklyn, they had more space than we did. Mo Li didn’t have any siblings, due to China’s one-child policy, so she had a tiny room all to herself. The living room was cluttered with cardboard boxes and the little kitchen was through an archway. One box was open next to their coffee table, which was covered with decks of playing cards. I sat down on the flowered sofa next to the table.

Zan took off her coat and waved at me as she came into the room. Mo Li called, “Would you guys help me do the decks? The faster I’m done, the sooner I can just hang out. You want some soda?”

Zan and I sighed. We each picked up a deck and started sorting it. Since Mo Li’s father worked at a casino, he often brought extra odd jobs like this home. All of the playing cards needed to be resorted after use. They got paid ten cents per pack or something like that. I started organizing mine by color, then suits, then number. Mo Li brought a few glasses of cola over to us.

“Why are you home so early?” Zan asked. “It’s not Thanksgiving yet.”

Mo Li said, “My ma flunked the naturalization exam. She has a chance to retake it next week. I need to help her study.”

“Aren’t you missing your own classes?” I asked.

“Yeah, but I’ll manage. She can’t do it without me.” Mo Li’s ma could barely speak English. “She’s been listening to tapes and practicing, but she gets so nervous. She can hardly look at the examiner.”

For a moment, we all worked on our cards in silence. Mo Li was faster than we were, probably due to all the practice she’d had. She tied off her deck with a rubber band and grabbed another one from the box. “So, Zan, what’s the gossip?”

Since Zan’s egg cart was in one of the busiest parts of Chinatown, she saw and heard just about everything that happened. Zan took a new deck too. Everyone was faster than I was. “I saw Winston with a new girl.”

My heart sank. Not that I cared. “Who was she?”

“Don’t know. Maybe a college student. But I’m sure she’ll be gone soon too. And the police were clearing out the park again. I heard the Vision got rounded up.”

Mo Li looked up. “Really? For fraud?”

I said, “Come on, she works a lot with my uncle. Many people swear she’s for real.”

Mo Li sniffed. “There’s no scientific evidence that any sort of paranormal activity exists. I think she’s just milking people for their money.”

Zan said, “They didn’t arrest her. It sounded like they just told her to stop burning joss paper in the park.”

“Western medicine doesn’t know everything,” I said. I didn’t like them dismissing Pa’s and Uncle’s beliefs.

“At least it’s regulated,” Mo Li said. “In the east, you have no idea what you’re getting for your money.”

Zan sensed the tension and tried to change the subject. “Hey, Charlie, how’s Lisa doing?”

“Well, at school she seems to be doing really well. She’s going to try out for Hunter high school. By the way, Mo Li, do you think you could help me with something? Did you bring your laptop home with you?”

“Sure,” said Mo Li. “I have tons of work to do.”

“Can you help me register her for the test?”

“Of course! I don’t have an Internet connection here but we can go around the corner to the coffee place. They have free Wi-Fi.” I’d been worried about getting through the online registration for the test with my minimal computer skills. Things were so easy when you knew how. “Hunter’s a really big deal.” Mo Li sounded impressed. “The Hunter kids at BU are fierce. They’re so articulate, like they’re not afraid of anyone.”

I knitted my brow. “I know it’s a good school. It’s just that she seems so stressed by it. She’s wetting the bed at night and having nightmares. I’m worried it’s too much for her.”

Zan said, “Remember Lisa always used to freak out when she didn’t get perfect grades on her report card?”

I smiled. “Yeah. If something didn’t go right at school, she’d put her head down and pound her fists on the table. That was a while ago, though.”

“People go crazy about those things. Believe me, I know,” Mo Li said. “I bet it’ll stop as soon as it’s all over. Come on, let’s go get her registered for the test.”

–

At work on Monday, a heavy older Greek woman sat behind the receptionist’s desk. She had hair that was so black, it had obviously been dyed. Her eyebrows were dark against her pale skin and she had a mole on her cheek with a long hair growing out of it. When she smiled wide, her bright lipstick smeared across her uneven front teeth.

Adrienne came over to Nina and me. “Charlie, this is my mother-in-law, Irene. She’s going to be taking over your job for a while. We’re very grateful she’s helping us out like this.”

Irene gave me a wink. “She’s just getting me out of the house. That’s okay, I’ll stay here as long as things stay interesting.”

I said, “Do you want me to help Irene—”

“No, that won’t be necessary,” Adrienne interrupted hastily. “Thanks, Charlie, but I’ll show her the ropes. We need to get you started on your new job first.”

I had dressed carefully that day. I’d worn the dress that Pa had deemed too immodest for the dinner with Uncle. Although it had a square neckline and was therefore open around my neck, it hit me at midcalf and hung loosely around my body.

Adrienne and Nina walked with me into the teachers’ room. On the floor were two large shopping bags filled with clothing.

Adrienne started talking. “Now that I know what you can look like, I want an improvement from you. I didn’t say anything before because I didn’t know we had a choice, and because you were the receptionist. But if you are a dancer, we need you to appear like one of us. So I was cleaning out my closets because I need to make room for the baby’s clothing anyway.”

“She always brings in stuff for us,” Nina said. “At least once or twice a year, she’ll bring in a couple of shopping bags full.”

“Well, this time, you get first pick.” Adrienne considered me. “In fact, just take it all, Charlie.”

“I couldn’t do that.” I could already see from the rich fabrics that the bags were filled with expensive clothing. “What about the other dancers?”

Nina said, “We’ve been given stuff for years. Now it’s your turn.”

I pulled out a soft dress in a dark burgundy color and touched it to my cheek. It was a rehearsal dress like the one Nina had lent me. “Why are you getting rid of this? It’s in perfect condition.” I turned to her in wonder. “You’re doing this to help me.”

Adrienne rubbed her forehead. “Would I do that? Well, I do go through my things regularly and maybe I got rid of a tiny bit more than usual, but I’m entering a fresh phase of my life. I need new clothing. And Dominic and I have retired from competing, so I don’t need most of the rehearsal stuff anymore. A lot of it is Lycra, which will stretch or contract as needed. You can always hem something that’s too long.”

I walked over to Adrienne without saying a word and hugged her.

She hugged me back. “We are going to make you unveil your beauty, Charlie, even if it kills all of us. Now I have to make sure my mother-in-law doesn’t take over the studio while I’m in here, so I’ll see you later.” Adrienne left.

Nina was grinning at me. “Come over here. This is your locker,” she said, showing me one of the gray cabinets.

I touched it, trailing my hand across the metal surface. I really belonged here now, in the teachers’ room.

“You can put your things in there. Although you should take those off and burn them.” She pointed at my shoes. “You can’t dance in those. You’ll twist your ankle and get injured. You have to buy a pair of real dance shoes.”

I worried about the extra expense. “How much will that cost?”

“You need to get good ones because you’ll be in them the whole day long. Shoes are the only tool a ballroom dancer has, so they’re very important. There are cheaper ones on the market, but you need to get the ones the professionals wear. So you’re looking at about a hundred and seventy dollars for the shoes, with shipping probably close to two hundred.”

I gasped. “For one pair of shoes?”

“Yes.” Nina opened her locker and took out her Latin shoes, which I now saw were the same as the ones Katerina had. “The strap around the bottom of the foot will give you support. The heel will keep you balanced. You actually need two pairs, Latin and smooth.” She took another pair out of her locker. I had seen Katerina wearing this sort when she rehearsed. I had thought they were flesh-colored pumps but now I noticed that the top had elastic around the edges, so that the shoe crumpled up upon itself when no one was wearing it.

“I can’t afford that,” I said.

“Well, since you’re just beginning, you could do everything in your Latin shoes. You’ll need to decide at some point what kind of dancer you’ll be.”

“What?”

“If you’ll concentrate on smooth or Latin dances.”

“I thought we had to do all of the dances.”

Nina sighed. “Of course we do. I don’t mean with students. I mean as a pro. When you’re a part of a professional couple, you’ll specialize either in the smooth dances or in the Latin ones. Sometimes that’s determined by your body type. If you’re smaller, you have to do Latin. It’s always those tall couples with the long legs who win in smooth. They glide across the floor like they’re flying.”

“Simone is tall and she does Latin with Pierre.”

Nina said thoughtfully, “Simone is really talented. I hate to say it because she can be such a you-know-what, but she’s good. She trained at Juilliard, could have been a ballerina at the School of American Ballet. And she doesn’t let you forget it either. But she’s a very versatile dancer.” Nina looked me over. “You’re right in the middle. You could probably go either way.”

“Well, since I have to get a pair of Latin shoes anyway, I’ll be a Latin dancer.”

Nina burst out laughing. “That’s very practical of you.”

“I’m a sensible person.”

“Your heart’s going to pull you one way or another. Take off your stockings.”

“Why?”

“Because I need to tape your feet.”

I stopped asking questions. It was all too much. I just did as she said.

She took my left foot and started sticking Band-Aids on it, around my heel, the wide part of my foot. By the time she was done, my foot was almost completely covered, and looked like it had been in a car accident.

“Preventative taping,” she said. “You are going to get the worst blisters anyway. This will just slow down the process enough that you have time to toughen up your skin before your feet start bleeding too much. Most pros won’t tell you to do this. They’ve been dancing so long that their feet are totally deformed, like mine.” She stuck out her foot. It looked fine to me, slender and graceful, until I realized that there were thick calluses across the heel and front of the foot, in exactly the same places she had taped on mine. “But I remembered when I came back after the baby, I’d been out long enough to lose my calluses, and boy, did my feet bleed. I almost couldn’t get the blood stains out of my shoes. That was when I decided to be careful and tape my feet again. Actually, it was Simone who gave me the tip. I guess it’s a ballerina thing.”

“Was it hard to come back?”

Nina raised an eyebrow. “Oh yeah. No studio in the city would hire me, even though I’d been really good before I left.” Her voice was bitter. “Only Adrienne took a chance on me, a single mom. You’re not supposed to have a baby before you’ve ever won a title. Come on, let me do the other foot, then we’ll go order your shoes.”

–

Adrienne let me borrow from my next paycheck to pay for the shoes, and she used her credit card since I didn’t have one. Katerina was nice enough to continue lending me her shoes until my own came.

I rooted through the bags Adrienne had brought for me. There was so much beautiful and luxurious clothing. Velvet skirts, cocktail dresses, silk scarves and, most important of all, Lycra dance dresses and tailored pants that I would be able to move in. I had already felt in that last dance session how hard it was to dance at a professional level in my regular clothing. I would hide these at the back of the closet at home, where Pa wouldn’t notice them.

I pulled on a black dance skirt with built-in panties; the skirt flared when I twirled. On top, I added a tight black camisole, and over that, a thin pink silk cardigan. I didn’t recognize myself when I looked in the mirror. The pink brought out the flush in my cheeks. I raised a hand to my face. Then I went into the ballroom for my first dance session as a professional.

–

That dance session, Simone was indisposed. I found out later that she was so furious about my being hired instead of Pierre that she’d walked out. After our class, one of the other dancers would train me. The first day, I had Nina as my teacher. She put a large yellow booklet in my hands. On the front, it read “The Avery Way” and it showed “Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Supreme Gold levels.” Inside was a long list of dances and the steps for each one at each level.

My spine was rigid.

“Relax,” Nina said, cracking her gum. She wasn’t allowed to chew it while teaching but they let her do it when she didn’t have a student. “You have time to learn all of this before your exam.”

This was like school again. “What exam?”

“We’re all certified. You’ll be tested to confirm that you know all of these school figures perfectly—both parts, orientation, the count, everything. But don’t worry about that yet, just try to get the steps down. Let’s start with waltz today. Stand next to me, we’re both going to do man’s part first.”

I stood next to Nina and considered us both in the mirror. Nina was as lovely as ever, but for the first time, I didn’t look horrible either. I stood a bit straighter. Nina drew a large circle counterclockwise around the ballroom with her arm. “If you imagine that circle drawn onto the floor, then that is your line of dance, otherwise known as ‘LOD.’ The left-turning promenade step starts diagonally to the wall . . .”

The rest of the dance session passed in a blur for me. That first lesson, we covered about three steps each in all ten dances, doing both the man’s and the lady’s parts: foxtrot, waltz, tango, eastern and western swing, rumba, cha-cha, samba, mambo and merengue. I didn’t have any energy to wonder which ones I liked best.

At the end, Nina said, “You did really well. Next time, you should bring your cell phone and record the steps. It’ll make it a lot easier for you to learn and remember.”

I felt ashamed. “My phone doesn’t have any video.” My mobile only had the most basic functions.

Nina hid her surprise. “We’ll use mine and you can watch it when you’re free in the studio. They won’t book you for private lessons for a while anyway.”

I perked up. “Really?”

“Of course not. You’ve got to learn the entire Bronze syllabus backward and forward, and you’ve also got to start learning some technique. Believe me, you’ll know the whole syllabus by the end of the month but the technique takes years.”

Katerina took over for the technique lesson. She slid her foot along the floor, pushing it into the ground with her foot turned out, her leg one long sinuous line.

“Push your foot forward, bring your weight with it, and then transfer your weight. No, too late.” She kept her hands on my hips. She was standing right behind me in the small ballroom again. “You are doing American-style Cuban motion here, so you have to transfer your weight, then move your hip, on the bent knee.”

This was even harder than learning steps. My entire body ached.

“You are trying too hard to use this,” she said, pointing to my head. “Turn off your brain and trust your body. You must learn with your body.”

That I could do. When I let go of my attempt at control, I could do what she was asking much more quickly. I took a deep breath and tried to find the silence inside that Godmother always spoke about.

Later that day, I sat in the ballroom at one of the small tables and really watched the lessons. I noticed when Nina had a couple who were beginners, because she was teaching them some of the same things I’d learned. I was surprised at how long it took them to cover one step. I took courage from this, and from the fact that I always saw the pros working by themselves in front of the mirrors. When they had a free moment, they were often walking, rolling their hips or doing turns by themselves in an empty spot.

While everyone else was teaching, I went to an unoccupied corner and started going over material I had learned that day. For the first time, I felt as if I might have a chance to actually be good at something. Like Godmother said, nothingness was the beginning of the universe.