Mambo in Chinatown

by Jean Kwok

  Now Dominic joined us. “You have line.”

  The rest of the group fell silent. Everyone looked at me.

  I gave a broken laugh. “I don’t even know what that means.”

  “Look in the mirror,” he said. I turned and saw myself. He took my arm and held it out to the side. He swept his hand from my neck through my shoulder out through my arm. “That is line. It can be developed, but for some it is a gift. You have a great deal to learn, but you want it.” He tapped me on my collarbone. “That wanting, that will bring you where you need to go.”

  Adrienne said, “And now, we need to see you in our office. The rest of you, disperse.”

  —

  Adrienne, Dominic and I stood in her small office, the same place she’d hired me. I saw her and Dominic exchanging glances. Obviously, they had agreed on something.

  Dominic said, “Charlie, we are very sorry but we must let you go.”

  My head jerked back. How could this have happened? Of course it had. I’d been silly to think I could ever be anything but a dishwasher. It felt especially bitter after I’d just struggled through the dancing, which I’d desired most. My neck seemed to close up, making it hard to breathe.

  Adrienne put her hand on my shoulder, her voice gentle. “The thing is, we like you, Charlie, but you are a terrible receptionist. None of us were getting our calls anymore. You kept making mistakes with the roster for the teachers. That booking problem with the beginners’ class was the last straw. Dominic and I spoke after that and we agreed we had to take the final step.”

  I pressed my hand against my throat, blinking. I would never see the studio or the dancers again. I struggled to speak. “I understand.”

  “However,” Dominic said, “you might have a chance as a dancer.”

  I froze. Could I have heard him properly?

  Adrienne cocked her head. “Are you sure you’ve never had any dance lessons?”

  “My mother used to train me, only at home. And I’ve done tai chi for years, but I’m too awkward, I could never be a dancer.”

  “Tai chi, huh?” Adrienne said.

  Dominic said, “Stop being critical of yourself. That’s my job. I’ll pick on you and everyone else too. Was your mother a dancer?”

  “She was a soloist with Beijing Ballet.”

  There was a moment while they took it all in. “You’re fired and you’re hired,” Adrienne said. “You’ll have to start your training right away.”

  I couldn’t believe it. My heart expanded in my chest and I could feel the smile starting to spread across my face. But I was still worried. “Who’s going to do my job?”

  They looked at each other. Obviously, they’d discussed this too. “My mother,” Dominic said with a small grimace. “She has moved to New York because of the baby. She insisted. And she’ll drive Adrienne insane if I leave her at home all day.”

  “Did you both know before I even taught that class?”

  “We hoped,” Adrienne said. “When Julian Edwards says someone has potential, we listen. Then you learned so much in that lesson with him, but we weren’t sure what you would be like in front of a class of students. You were wonderful. At the beginning, that warmth is so important. You made them feel like if you could do it, so could they.”

  “That’s exactly what I believe,” I said.

  “See? The dance session today was our final test. And you passed with flying colors.”

  “I was awful.”

  “You were, for a professional dancer. But you’re only a baby pro. There are others who started ballroom at your age. I’ve seen you watching the dancing ever since you came here. You have a tremendous hunger in your eyes, and we are looking for a new dancer. I have to tell you that although you’ll be paid more, you’ll have many extra expenses too, like dance shoes and dresses, coaching sessions. In the long run, I’m not sure if you actually come out ahead financially.”

  “You’ll need to train hard, as fast as you can,” Dominic added. “It’s much more difficult to learn how to dance than to answer phones, although maybe not for you.”

  Adrienne snorted.

  “How can I start teaching students?” I asked. “I’m hardly any better than they are.”

  “Never say that. First of all, I would never hire you unless you had much more potential than our average student. Second, you are going to be dancing every day, at least eight hours a day. You will be trained by the best—namely, me and my staff. You’re going to learn exponentially faster than any student. In a week, you’re going to be far beyond any of the beginner students. In six months, you’ll eclipse any student here.”

  “Will I ever be as good as the other professionals?” I asked.

  Adrienne touched a finger to her cheek. “Absolutely. I think you will show us how long that will take.”

  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 close
r. “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.”