Mambo in Chinatown

by Jean Kwok

  “I’ll bite. What?”

  “Me. I am going to be hanging onto your arm, holding you back until the two beat every single time. That’s going to be like trying to stop a rampaging bull. Couldn’t we do rumba or merengue?”

  “Sure, you’re the dance teacher.” He was downcast for a moment, then looked determined. “Though if there’s one thing I learned from boxing, it’s that you need to push yourself sometimes. Reach beyond what you know you can do.”

  I thought about this for a moment. I didn’t want him to be unhappy, especially when he was mainly doing this to help me. “Why do you want mambo?” Then I remembered. “Is it that friend of yours who said white guys can’t do Latin?”

  There was a long pause before he spoke. “His name is Felipe. He’s my best buddy and was my biggest competitor when I was boxing. He lived uptown and I was in Brooklyn, but the best boxing gym’s in Brooklyn so we met there. We had the same coach, used to spar together all the time. We’re like brothers. He’s part Cuban, part Dominican and he’s ribbed me my whole life about how I’ll never able to dance. And when I stopped boxing, he continued.”

  “How did he do?”

  “Won so many titles.” Ryan’s smile was sad. “He’s pretty famous now in the boxing world. Anyway, I’d like to watch his jaw drop. Just once.”

  “You want him to come watch the competition?”

  “He’s not really the type to attend one. Actually, I was hoping that you and I could do it for him somewhere, like at a party. He lives in Spanish Harlem and I’ve seen lots of couples dancing to this type of music there.”

  I repeated, “Spanish Harlem.”

  “I’d be with you.”

  “Ryan, I’m not really supposed to see you outside of the studio.” Though I was tempted.

  “What?”

  “We’re not allowed to fraternize with the students.”

  “Whoa.” He held his hands up. “I have a girlfriend, remember? This is just dancing at a party together. I could even pay you.”

  It stung a bit, that he hadn’t intended his invitation in a romantic sense, although I knew anything between us wasn’t possible anyway. I frowned. “They do hire us out sometimes but for more formal events like a showcase or a wedding. I don’t think a party uptown would qualify.”

  “What kind of dumb rule is this?”

  I put it as clearly as I could. “If the studio thinks we’re having a romantic relationship, I’ll be fired.”

  “I don’t want to get you into trouble.” He ducked his head. “I guess my friend will just have to keep believing I can’t dance.”

  At the mention of his friend, a thought popped into my head. “Do you own a car?”

  “I don’t want to drive to Harlem. It’ll get stripped.”

  “So you do have one.”

  “Yeah?”

  I took a breath, then leaned in to say softly, “All right. We’ll do mambo for the competition and I’ll go to Spanish Harlem with you. No one will ever know about the party, okay?”

  He straightened, looking glad. “Are you sure? It’s your job.”

  “We’re not in love, so even if they do catch me, I’ll probably be all right. They’ll believe I’m telling the truth.”

  His face became impassive. “Yes, good thing you wouldn’t be hiding anything.”

  “But then I’m going to ask you to do a favor for me too. I have a friend who needs a car.”

  —

  On my way to the studio later that week, I kept tracing an advanced mambo step in my head as I walked through the Chinatown streets. Maybe Ryan and I could use this in our routine. It was swivel swivel hold, then hop freeze, and did I come out on the left or right leg after that? I started to mark the combination on the pavement. Oh yes, it was the right leg. I looked up to see a Chinese lady in boots and a puffy brown coat staring at me. She closed her mouth, gathered up her plastic shopping bags and literally ran away from me as if I were a crazy person. Oops. It wasn’t easy to do a mambo in Chinatown.

  Just yesterday, our downstairs neighbor had come up to complain again about all of the noise in our apartment. Luckily, I was alone at home then.

  “It sounds like a bunch of elephants are stomping around in here,” he said. “You two girls were always so quiet. What’s happened to you?”

  “I’m so sorry. I’ll make sure it stops.” I resolved to practice at home only in my socks from then on.

  —

  I wondered if I could pretend to be sick for the matchmaking dim sum session on Sunday morning with Grace, but I was afraid Godmother Yuan would never forgive me. I chose my clothing carefully. It was a matter of pride that I wanted to look nice, although I still dressed more conservatively than I did at the studio. Pa was already gone and Lisa had left for a friend’s apartment.

  When I entered the restaurant, I saw Grace and a number of other people seated at a large round table. I knew from watching matchmaking sessions at the noodle restaurant that the girl was usually placed at the opposite end of the table from the intended guy, with all of their family and friends in between. I wondered why it was done this way, since it was so awkward for the potential couple, but I thought it showed whose opinion really mattered regarding the match: the family’s.

  Indeed, Grace was at one end and I scanned the opposite side for her suitor. My jaw dropped. It was Dennis, Uncle Henry’s assistant. Pa was sitting there too. What in the world? Pa stood up to wave at me and I saw he was wearing his best clothes again. To Grace’s left were her friends and relatives, including Godmother Yuan, Mrs. Yuan and Winston. Oh no. Now I understood. The official matchmaking session may have been for Grace and Dennis, but Winston and I were a bonus. I glanced back at the door, but by then Godmother had locked onto my arm and was steering me to the table. Too late to run.

  Winston stood up so quickly when I arrived at the table that he almost knocked his chair over. Grace was as pretty as ever. However, while I’d always seen her laughing, now she seemed bored and resentful. To Grace’s left were people who must have been Dennis’s friends and relatives. I greeted everyone at the table and shook hands with the people I didn’t know. Pa grinned at me. Winston had been placed far from Grace, to make it clear that he wasn’t her boyfriend. There was an empty seat in between Winston and Dennis. I obviously wasn’t considered attractive enough to be a threat to Grace or they would never have put me, an unmarried woman, next to the potential suitor. In any case, I tried to head for a spot near Pa instead but Godmother’s fingers were like iron. My stomach rolled as I sat in between the two young men.

  Dennis’s eyes flitted around the room as if he was as mortified as Grace to be there. It must have been doubly embarrassing for him that Pa and I were present as well. When the waiters set several pots of tea on the table, everyone waited for Grace to stand up and pour. She didn’t. There was a long awkward silence, which Godmother Yuan tried to break by asking Dennis what he did for a living. She was surprised to learn he was Uncle Henry’s assistant. I realized that the two families didn’t know each other, but had been set up by a professional matchmaker, probably one of the older women on Dennis’s side of the table. Finally, since I was the only other young woman present, I stood up and poured the tea into everyone’s china cups one by one, leaving my own for last, as was proper.

  I could feel Winston’s gaze on me and I didn’t want to speak to him so I pretended Dennis was a ballroom student and started talking to him.

  He perked up. “I think it’s really interesting to apply scientific measurements to age-old techniques.”

  I thought about the jars in Uncle’s office. “I’ve always wondered exactly which medicines worked and which ones didn’t. Although I feel sorry for the animals that get killed for them, especially in cruel ways.”

  “I was just learning about a technique where they shove an ink stone down the throat of a living poisonou
s toad and then leave the creature to dry in the sun. The ink is supposed to be very potent in curing certain diseases.” His face was more animated than I’d ever seen it.

  I grimaced. “I think that sort of thing should be outlawed.”

  “You’re very kindhearted. But don’t you think human well-being is more important than some animal’s?”

  I tried to keep the smile on my face as we continued chatting. The older people picked out the food they wanted from the waiters who pushed the dim sum carts around the restaurant. It was actually pretty easy to be sociable now that I had to do it for my job. Once Pa caught my eye and jerked his head toward Winston. I must have turned beet red and made sure not to glance in his direction again.

  When I stood up to refill everyone’s cups again, I realized that Mrs. Yuan, the matchmaker and Grace were all watching us with varying degrees of animosity. Of course, the matchmaker wouldn’t get her extra fee if Dennis preferred me to Grace. I met Grace’s eyes and made a little gesture with my hand to say, “Sorry, go ahead. He’s yours.” Her lips twitched but she continued to study me instead of Dennis.

  For a moment, I remembered our old easy friendship. After we’d grown apart, I’d been jealous of Grace. I’d wondered, if I’d still had a mother and grandma like her, would I have been as attractive? Now I saw her as a girl wearing too much makeup, weighed down by the need to look perfect all the time, by all of those logos on her bags and shoes. I thought about what Zan had told me about Grace being caught in bed with a girl. Maybe Grace was just like me, with desires that couldn’t be expressed in our small community. Had she been in love with that girl? Had her parents made them stop seeing each other? Did she feel as lonely as I did sometimes? I realized that in a way, Grace and I were similar, both trying to figure out who we were outside of our parents’ world.

  I didn’t know how Dennis and Grace were supposed to fall in love anyway, when they’d been seated at opposite ends of an enormous table. With all of the disapproval of my conversation with Dennis, I had no choice, so I turned to Winston. “How have you been?”

  He was considering me. “You’ve grown up, Charlie.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The way you look, the way you carry yourself. You’re so confident.”

  I lowered my eyes to the table. “Well, thank you.”

  “It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?”

  I didn’t answer.

  Winston bent in close to my ear and whispered, “I’m sorry. About everything.”

  I carefully swallowed the dumpling in my mouth, then met his eyes. “It’s all right. I’m past that now.”

  Half of his mouth pulled upward in that smile I’d loved. “I can see that. This new you is very attractive.”

  “And that’s our problem right there.”

  He looked puzzled. “What?”

  “You like the new me but I liked the old you.” And with that, I turned away from him.

  —

  Pa caught up to me as I walked away from the restaurant. “Pa, you set me up!”

  He spread his fingers. “You wouldn’t have gone otherwise. Anyway, it was Godmother’s idea. She came to the noodle restaurant to ask my permission.” Of course. Why hadn’t I realized that before? She couldn’t have me, an unmarried girl, present at a matchmaking session without Pa’s permission, whether or not I was the intended victim.

  Pa continued, “So I said it was all right as long as they invited Winston too.”

  “Pa!” Sometimes I could just strangle him. “Did you know Dennis would be there too?”

  “No, she didn’t tell me who the suitor would be. I recognized him at the restaurant, but I only got there a few minutes before you did. You seemed to like him better. He must come from a good family if the matchmaker recommended him. You pick.”

  I breathed deeply to calm myself. “Pa, I want to be free to make my own choices.”

  He blinked, confused. “But I’m letting you choose.”

  “Between two guys that you know!” I wondered if a person could get arrested for yelling on the street in Chinatown. “Leave my love life alone. I don’t want anybody.”

  Pa furrowed his eyebrows. “Are you sure?”

  I couldn’t trust myself to answer and stalked off down the street, fuming.

  —

  The next weekend, Lisa and I were making up our beds as usual. She stumbled as she bumped into our old coffee table, which had been in the middle of our room for as long as I could remember.

  “Come on, help me set up the mattresses, Lisa.” I hated it when she tried to get out of helping me. She staggered over to the sofa and sat down abruptly on the floor. She had missed the couch.

  I sped over to her. “What’s wrong?” I tried to help her up but it was like she’d lost all connection to her legs. I managed to haul her onto the sofa and laid her on it.

  “I can’t feel my feet,” she whispered.

  “Pa!” I yelled. “Something’s wrong with Lisa!”

  As Pa came running from the kitchen, Lisa said, “No, I’m all right.” Her calves started spasming, as if the muscles were out of control.

  “She’s having a stroke.” I placed my fingers against my throat, hardly able to breathe. This was too similar to what had happened with Ma.

  Lisa’s legs went limp. Gingerly, she lowered first one, then the other foot onto the ground. “No, I’m not. I’m just very tired.”

  “You lost control of your legs.”

  Pa was aghast, his skin ashen, the lines on his face deeper than I’d ever seen them.

  “We need to call an ambulance.” I reached for the phone.

  “No, do you remember what happened to Ma? My legs are fine now.” Even though Lisa was too young to remember Ma’s death herself, she was aware of all the bill collectors who had harassed us for years after Ma died.

  I looked at Pa and he pressed his lips together. I understood. We wouldn’t be calling.

  At the beginning of Ma’s illness, when she’d almost fainted from a severe migraine, Pa had called an ambulance and they’d brought her to the hospital. I remember that long night with them both away. Aunt Monica had come over to our apartment and stayed with me the whole night. She’d slept in the living room on the floor by my feet. When I cried, she’d held me until I fell asleep again. Often when I was irritated by her, I remembered that night.

  Ma returned the next day, looking frail. They’d run tests on her but they were still inconclusive. However, the bills were clear. We were pursued by creditors and bill collectors for years, until long after Ma was dead. In the end, Uncle Henry paid the rest of them off for us and refused any repayment. That was partly why Lisa had to keep working at his office, to try to pay back a small part of that debt, which both brothers understood, although no one would speak of it.

  After that, when Ma’s symptoms returned, Pa was afraid to call the medical authorities. He had Uncle help us and when Uncle couldn’t, Pa went to the temples and the witches. He returned to our own kind of medicine, which he understood and trusted. In his eyes, the western doctors had failed to discover anything with their tests and had charged us a fortune on top of that, only burdening us with a huge debt. When Uncle Henry fed Ma cool, yin energy foods like pears, lotus seeds and white gourd to help rebalance her energy, Pa believed it helped her headaches. It didn’t stop her miscarriages, though, which continued until she finally had Lisa. But then she died a few years after that. None of us really knew what the cause of death was. In the months before her death, she’d started losing feeling in her legs, just like Lisa now. She’d been disoriented and dizzy, until she’d hardly been able to walk any more. Then she died from what seemed to be a massive stroke one night.

  Most of Uncle Henry’s patients weren’t covered by insurance and neither were we, which was normal in Chinatown. I was pretty sure that most of the dancers were
n’t insured either. It was too expensive. They paid their own bills and desperately tried not to be injured. Most of them were young enough that they didn’t have many physical problems. It seemed so wrong to me, now, that we couldn’t bring Lisa to the hospital for fear of the costs. But Pa was right that we couldn’t control which tests they would do in an emergency room. Who knew how high the bill would be? If I was certain they could help cure Lisa, I would sell my soul in a second, but what if they sent her back to us with no answers and we were then up to our necks in debt with nothing to show for it? We’d be worse off than ever.

  Still, we’d spent so much money on the Vision and traditional cures and Lisa was only getting worse. I was starting to doubt. What if she suffered from the same thing as Ma, whatever it was? “Pa, we need to bring her to a specialist who can figure out what’s wrong. Maybe a neurologist.”

  “They won’t find anything. They’ll just take our money.” Pa ran his hands, coarse from all his manual labor, over his face.

  —

  That afternoon, Lisa and I sat on the couch in the apartment waiting for the Vision to come, while Pa set tea in the kitchen. This was supposed to be a major emergency ritual.

  Lisa had panic in her eyes. “There’s nothing wrong with me. Maybe we could make a run for it.”

  My eyes trailed to the door. I was afraid of that old witch messing around with Lisa, but I was willing to try it if she might help. “Pa’s already agreed to hire her, so if she comes and you’re not here, he’s going to pay her anyway. That’s the way he is.”

  “Do you think she’s going to make me eat something?”

  “Could be. But I think she’s more about spells and incense and that kind of thing.”

  Lisa shivered and looked like she was going to cry. “I hope they don’t move on to Uncle Henry’s type of treatments next. I hate taking medicine or being poked with a needle.”

  I hugged her. “Hey, I thought you wanted to be a doctor.”

  “I want to be the one doing the poking.”

  “It’s going to be okay, Lisa. Whatever it is, it’ll work out.”