The puffs under his eyes flatten when he smiles. “We will pretend you are a wealthy heiress from China, come for a taste of American education. Brush up on your manners, as even the staff will need to be convinced.” He holds out his hand. “Welcome to St. Clare’s.”
I grasp it, catching the gleam in his eye as I do, like a man setting down aces.
I have been outwitted at my own game. I just volunteered to secure him a potential windfall, and for nothing but three lousy months of school under false pretenses. How did I think I could best a business tycoon? He could smell my desperation as strong as that pomelo. I am a mewling idiot.
Well, at least now I am a mewling idiot who attends St. Clare’s.
5
THE LINE OF CUSTOMERS AT BA’S WINDOW stretches into the street. Four o’clock is rush hour at the laundry. My nose twitches. The scent of alum and too-flowery soap coat the air like a thick layer of dust.
Ba ticks off items as Mrs. Fitzcombe passes him her clothes, one at a time. Though Ba’s temperament is usually aloof bordering on crabby, he is always patient with the elderly. With a flick of his wrist, Ba shakes out each piece, wasting no movement.
His eyes flit to mine, then he resumes his work without a word.
The shop is only big enough for two people, and his assistant is already inside. But I can’t just stand around while I wait.
The moment I enter the shop, the humidity sticks my funeral dress to my legs, and my hair begins to clump. The hanging shirts and dresses greet me like a host of disapproving elders, silent and judgmental. Ba’s assistant nods at me from where he’s stirring the boilers, put into a depressive trance by the repetitive motion. We might be in one of the many levels of Chinese hell, the one in which sinners are steamed to death in a toxic cloud of soapy perfume.
I squeeze in beside Ba at the counter to help him separate clothes into bins. It’s mindless work, but with Ba’s displeasure like a third person wedged between us, my fingers feel clumsier than normal.
“The school accepted me,” I tell him in Cantonese so the white customers don’t get too nosy.
He ticks off another order, giving no indication that he heard.
“They gave me the . . . scholarship. They’ll cover everything—tuition and room and board.” I don’t tell him about the trial period. It would just tie another knot in his mood. If I succeed in getting Monsieur the right to sell his chocolate, no one need be the wiser. “I leave tomorrow.”
His pencil stops scratching, and his eyebrows bend like wire hangers.
I cringe. “I mean, with your permission, of course.”
He doesn’t answer, and we continue to take clothes without speaking.
As each minute trickles by, I begin to lose hope that Ba will let me go after all. If there was any place for softening, it would be here in the laundry, where even the glass windows look like they might melt. But Ba marches around, separating colors like a machine. Ma told me she had worried when she saw that her husband-to-be had rigid ears, as people with ears that don’t bend can be intolerant. But those same features also make him fiercely dependable. May those ears bend for me today.
A sour-faced woman pushes a frumpy dress with several layers of skirts at me. “I need this by tomorrow.”
Her lofty tone needles me. “With this much fabric, it’ll take at least three days to dry, minimum.”
The drapes around her neck tighten. “You people are always angling for more money, more tips.”
Her comment wrings all the patience out of me, and I feel the poplin crushing in my fists.
I’ll give you a tip: Leave this stuffy old dress back in the nineteenth century where it belongs and get out of our shop.
Ba’s warm hand pats mine, and I release the fabric. “You may go,” he tells me in Cantonese. At first, I think he’s telling me to go home. But then his expression relaxes.
He nods, and I know he is talking about St. Clare’s.
“Thank you, Ba.”
After dropping Jack at school the next morning, I set my rudder for Pier 6, where Tom will be collecting his father’s herb shipment. On the way, I rehearse my Chinese heiress act, keeping my posture straight as bamboo and throwing haughty looks to everyone I encounter.
I pointed out to Monsieur Du Lac that a Chinese heiress is not entirely plausible, as even girls from affluent families rarely receive an education in China, but he dismissed my concerns. China has been closed to foreigners for so long that its social structure remains a mystery to most people, especially rich American girls. To make my presence further palatable, my “father” would be contributing a new bell for the school chapel. Monsieur is as clever as a crow, and I was foolish to think I could dazzle him with a few shiny objects.
I reach the bustling seaport of the Embarcadero at the bottom of the hill.
Holding my nose past whale carcasses along the harbor, at last I reach Pier 6. A three-mast clipper half a block long watches me through a pair of green eyes painted on the prow. Chinese sailors believe the eyes will detect and deter sea monsters. As if that wasn’t striking enough, sparkly gold letters spell out the words Heavenly Blessing.
I spot Tom squatting near his pull cart. He built it using crates and old roller skates after the city outlawed daam tiu—poles balanced on shoulders. Yet another law to persecute us Chinese. As he rummages through his shipment, his traditional mandarin collar jacket squeezes his muscular frame. He taps the end of his pencil against each packet of herbs as he counts, and when he’s finished, he heaves each crate onto his pull cart. I could watch him tally all day.
Nearby, a scowling man in his sixties with a black skullcap hunches over a cane, watching sailors lift feed sacks onto a dray.
Tom’s too busy counting packets of coix seeds to notice me loitering.
I pinch my cheeks to pinken them and smooth the hair behind my ears. My heart does a two-step, but I make my voice easy, jokey even. “We got a wart outbreak here? Must be enough coix seeds in there to cure all of China.”
Tom glances back at me, his normally smooth face dimpling in exasperation. He gets to his feet and dusts off his pants. “What are you doing here?”
“Thinking about buying myself a ship. How about that gaudy bead?” I nod toward the clipper. “The life of a pirate would suit me well—a wind at my back and the world at my front. You could be chief engineer, so you can put some of that knot tying to use.” I gesture like I’m spreading a banner. “Mercy the Fearsome.”
Tom glances at the man with the black skullcap, who is now glaring at me through the slashes of his eyes. A rumbling starts up in the man’s throat.
“If you are merciful, you will not be feared,” Tom mutters.
“Not fear as in afraid. Fear as in respect.”
“All right, Mercy the Respectable. But that one’s not for sale. It’s one of the fastest Chinese ships in the Pacific.”
“Looks like a piece of junk.” I think I’m quite funny sometimes. Tom blinks, and I nudge him with my elbow. “Get it, junk?”
The man makes a hacking noise, then spits, very close to my foot.
Before I can voice my disgust, Tom says in Cantonese, “Mercy, this is the honorable Captain Lu. That’s his ship.”
Captain? He hardly looks sturdy enough to pilot a baby buggy. With a grimace, I bow my head. “Are you well?”
The man grunts.
“And this is Wong Mei-Si. Your pardon, sir, she has too much phlegm in her spleen.” That is his way of saying I’m foolish.
“I hope you will not choose this girl as your wife,” says the old man to Tom. “Even a pretty name like Beautiful Thought cannot hide her bossy woman cheeks.”
I bow my head, not letting on that I take this as a compliment.
Tom produces a queasy-looking smile, then turns to me. “The captain is a very important and influential man, and he is generous to c
arry our meager shipment. We do not wish to keep you from your duties, sir. Please excuse these humble nobodies.”
“Wait, Wong?” The man smacks his lips, and the moles on his forehead shift positions. “Do you know Wong Wai Kwok? They say his wife is the best fortune-teller in Chinatown.”
His question doesn’t surprise me. Sailors are a superstitious lot, and they are always consulting Ma for propitious sailing dates. “They are my parents. Thirty-three Clay Street, please visit.”
He harrumphs, a rough and wet sound. A group of sailors approaches, and the captain dismisses us with a shake of his cane.
Tom leads me to the opposite side of the pier. We lean our elbows against the railing so Tom can keep an eye on his cargo. I take in all the boats, always coming or going. Business is good here in the Paris of the West, which Ma says is why her fortune-telling business has slowed. People at the top of the wheel don’t care to know when the wheel is going to fall again.
“Did I tell you about my idea for floating shoes?” I say lightly.
“That sounds even worse than the spider silk factory.”
“They’d be impossible to lose in water.”
“Since when do people swim with their shoes on?”
I grin. “Maybe they should. One day their soles might save their souls.”
The M shape of his upper lip that suggests vitality flattens as he tries not to laugh. “I hope you didn’t walk twelve blocks just to tell me bad jokes.”
“No.” I lose my place for a moment, distracted by Tom, who I swore I used to be able to look at eyeball to eyeball. Now I have to bend my neck back to look at him. Morning sun reflects off his even forehead. I stand very still, posture as straight as Ling-Ling’s, face panned toward his, like a sunflower waiting to be pollinated. Being demure really puts a crick in the neck.
“Mercy?”
“Hmm?”
“Did you have something to tell me?”
“Oh.” I shake myself out of my trance. “Yes. You’re looking at the newest student at St. Clare’s School for Girls. I’ve been given a three-month term, extension dependent on my procuring the right for Chocolatier Du Lac to sell chocolate in Chinatown.”
His tightly held mouth falls open. “Well, he has the nerve of a wasp. Do any of those other girls have to dig through tunnels to see the light? Chinese people don’t even like chocolate.”
“Tell that to Jack. And anyway, I might have put the idea about selling chocolate into his head.”
His breath hisses through his front teeth. He always does that when he’s annoyed.
“But I was bargaining for the whole three years, plus I only offered to get him an audience with the association.”
“And how were you going to do that?” He removes his newsboy cap and slaps it against his hand.
I don’t say a word and instead let my big eyes do the talking.
Another hiss breezes past his lips. “If I had a nickel for every time you asked me for a favor—”
“You could buy yourself a whole lot of cacahouètes!”
“I don’t want to know what that is.”
I smile brightly. “I’ll just let it eat at you, then. So what do you say? Could you slip us in to this Friday’s meeting?”
“What am I supposed to say? No?”
“Try it. Nooo.” I make my mouth round and draw out the word.
He mimics me, “Nuhh-yes. You see, it’s impossible.”
I give him a light shove, though his solid form hardly moves an inch. “You’re top drawer, Tom, son of a Gunn. I owe you a haircut.”
He snorts. “After that last one, how about you keep your razor away from my head, and we’ll call it even.” Reaching into his pocket, he produces a bag of mooi, salted plum, and holds it open to me. “Well, I wish you every success.” His words slip out easily, like water through fingers.
I pluck out one of the shriveled fruits, unreasonably bothered. Though I know Tom is happy for me, is he also glad to escape the pressures of marriage? The mooi sets off all the water sprinklers in my mouth, sour and salty at once. “Tom?”
His cowlick sticks up, a little bit of mischief on his head. “Yes?”
I sift through words as if they were mah-jongg tiles, searching for the right pieces. “Do you think I’m meek?”
He laughs. “Hardly. You’re more . . . daai daam,” he says, a word that roughly means “no fear.” “If you tell a mountain to move, it will listen to you.”
I poke the toe of my boot at a bulb of seaweed, wishing his observation pleased me more.
He removes the cleaned mooi stone from his mouth and, with one smooth motion, sends it spinning into the ocean. It skips three times across the ruffled surface before sinking. “Remember last Easter, how you told me you were going to that school?”
I think back to when we stood at the top of the cemetery as we did after every Easter dinner. That night, I pointed out St. Clare’s steeple, visible from the southern slope. “You asked me if I’d eaten a ling ji.” The medicinal “spirit” mushrooms sometimes give people hallucinations.
A smile plays around Tom’s mouth, but his eyes are like distant stars. “There is nothing you can’t have if you want it badly enough.” There’s an ache in his voice that squeezes my heart.
“You are daai daam, too. You don’t need Mr. Wright’s permission to build your own airplane, you know.”
“No.” He gives me a wry smile. “Just my father’s.”
His words hang between us for a moment. Both of us shoulder the weight of our fathers’ expectations, but for him it is worse, as the herbalist’s only son and with his mother gone, too. As children, we would help Ah-Suk separate herbs into jars, bickering over who had to touch the deer phalluses and squirrel feces. But even as Tom grew older, he never developed an interest in Chinese medicine the way his father had hoped.
He wrings his cap. “I’d better finish unloading.”
“Sure.” I try not to let my disappointment show. Silence, which usually feels like an old friend, now squirms between us.
He rakes a hand through his stiff mop, then replaces his cap. “Tell Jack we’re still on for kite flying this weekend.”
Impulsively, I hug him. “Oh, Tom, that will mean a lot to him. Thank you.”
“Don’t be polite,” he says, meaning you’re welcome.
His breath is warm and sweet.
The first time Tom kissed me, I was twelve, and he was thirteen. I persuaded him to go swimming with me at the beach, though it didn’t take much effort—the day was hot enough to melt the dailies off the wall. The ocean roared as we stood on a crescent of sand. I was suddenly very aware of how small I was, a speck of pepper waiting to go in the stew. Tom hesitated, but I grabbed his hand. “Come on, you tortoise,” I teased. “Don’t be scared; I won’t let you go.” But before we could venture farther, a wave crashed over us, and we were spun into the ocean. Water stung my eyes and filled my nose. I thought for sure it was the end.
Just when I couldn’t hold my breath any longer, the ocean spit us out. We lay heaving on the sand, limbs entangled. As he gazed at me, water dripped from his face onto mine. He lifted my hand to show me that although I had let go, he had not. “Remind me never to listen to you again,” he said in a surly voice before sliding his salty lips over mine.
It was more a kiss of relief, of joy at surviving, of the need to feel something warm and alive. It never happened again after that, though I often wished for it.
As I do now.
He lets me go. I pick my way back down the length of the pier and I could swear his eyes follow me. But when I turn around, Tom has returned to his work, his strong back flexing as he heaves a crate onto his pull wagon.
6
LATER THAT NIGHT, MA, JACK, AND I WAIT on the corner of Dupont and Stockton for Monsieur Du Lac’s automobile. Ba doesn’t see me off, ci
ting too much work, but I know it’s because he has already given as much approval as he can give. Ma catches me looking in the direction of the laundry shop and tsks her tongue. “New shoes take time for working in.”
A small crowd has collected around us to observe the spectacle of me in my fine navy dress. It is one of four that Monsieur Du Lac had delivered, along with a cream-colored shawl, black stockings, black boots, and a smart-looking felt hat. I look like a proper St. Clare’s girl, at least from the neck down.
The dainty Ling-Ling and her shrewd mother peer through the window of Number Nine Bakery. Despite my efforts to ignore the buzz around me, a few comments from the mostly male crowd get through.
“She’s going to some fancy school up on Nob Hill.”
I groan. Chinese people think anything of value must be located on Nob Hill.
“Must cost a lot of money.”
“They don’t have money. Maybe she has caught the eye of a wealthy man’s son.”
“Mercy? Her cheeks are round but not the rest of her. No one wants to hold a spring onion at night.”
“She’s easier on the eyes than your sorry wife.”
Ma turns around and barks, “If you keep talking nonsense, your tongues will fly out of your mouths like bats from a cave.”
Instantly, the chatter stops. No one wants to cross a fortune-teller, especially one as formidable as Ma.
Ling-Ling minces up to me bearing a tiny square of steamed cake, and all eyes shift to her silk-clad figure. Though her feet are not bound, she likes to walk as if they are to make herself more attractive. Her ma follows behind like a dragon’s barbed tail. “Sister, you are looking as fresh as a bubbling spring,” Ling-Ling simpers. “I have brought you some prosperity cake for your voyage.”
I take the waxy package with the cake, which is burned on one side and would’ve been thrown out, anyway. Ma makes a noise at the back of her throat. They just wanted an excuse to poke around in my business. “Ling-Ling, Auntie, you are too generous.”
“It grieves us to see you go. But I am sure you will have many admirers in your new life.” Ling-Ling’s eyelashes flutter coyly. It is said that she rubs her face with the pearly sliver of an abalone shell every day for a lustrous countenance.