by Lisa See
My being Japanese wasn’t why I didn’t get hired, but I said nothing to square the error. Grace stared at Helen—shocked, shocked, shocked. “What are you talking about?”
Helen spelled it out again. “Ruby is Japanese.”
Grace looked like someone had bopped her one. “Why would you—he—say that?”
“Because it’s true,” Helen insisted, her tone superior.
“It’s also mean.” Grace turned to me. “You’re Ruby Tom,” she said, positive as could be. “That’s a Chinese name. You’re a real Chinese girl.”
“Ethel Zimmerman changed her name,” I said, “because she thought it wouldn’t look good on a marquee. Now she’s Ethel Merman. My real name is Kimiko Fukutomi. Ruby suits me better, and Fukutomi … well … I shortened it to Tom.”
“That’s a Chinese name, right?” Grace repeated weakly. Then she lightly tapped her head with her fingertips—another light going on. “When you said your family wanted to go home, you meant to Japan.”
I nodded.
“Oh!” The surprised syllable came out like the first time you put a hand down a boy’s pants. “I get it. You’re like a Negro pretending to be white.” She sighed. “Where I grew up … Prejudice, you know—”
“I’ve always been able to pass,” I said, trying to put an end to the commiseration. “I’m good at it. In the Occidental world, no one can tell that I’m different. Even here in Chinatown, most people don’t see me as different.”
“I did,” Helen pointed out. “And my father and brother did too.”
Three people out of this entire enclave? I couldn’t be too worried about that.
“I’m sorry if you’ve been hurt,” Grace said.
I shrugged. “I’m not hurt.”
“We all have secrets,” she went on, still trying to comfort me.
I figured that meant I was supposed to ask about her secret, but I wasn’t fast enough, because she blurted, “I ran away from home. My dad beat me …”
Hardly a big surprise, given the bruises her clothes didn’t quite cover and the cut she tried unsuccessfully to hide under lipstick, but I nodded sympathetically. “I’m sure you did the right thing.”
Neither Helen nor I followed up with additional questions. I can’t speak for Helen, but I didn’t want Grace to lose any more face than she already had, poor thing. Grace and I now turned to Helen.
“Japanese and Chinese have always been against each other. And it’s not just this war,” Helen said, her voice as distant yet impassioned as my mother’s. “Japan is powerful. It can face any country—”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” I mean, really. Like this was news? “You want to know what my parents taught me? They say all you Chinese think you’re great because your culture is so much older than our culture. You accuse us of stealing your language—”
“You did,” she responded, not wanting to let it go. “Japan has long held a grudge against China. Japan wants to dominate China politically and militarily. It wants to take control of China’s raw materials, food, and labor—”
“I hate all that,” I said, repeating what I told my father when he boasted about Japan’s imperialistic aspirations. “Those things have nothing to do with me.”
“I lived in China, as I’ve already told you,” Helen went on. “When the Jap bombers came, we …” She took a breath and held it. “I mean, Monroe and I were walking on the road. We saw the red sun on the sides of the planes. We heard a warning gong from a nearby village, but what could we do? We saw a pilot in one of the cockpits. He shot at us.”
“That’s terrible,” I said. “But those things still have nothing to do with me.”
“Really, Helen, you can’t blame Ruby for events that happened in another country,” Grace threw in, defending me.
“Because it’s not my country,” I added. Again, I’d often said that to my parents, which drove them nearly crazy. “I was born here. I’m an American, just like you and Grace.”
Helen stared in the direction her father had gone.
Grace, still anxious, fumbled for something to say. “We’re still friends, aren’t we?”
Helen gave herself a small shake. Even I—who had known her less than a week—could see that somewhere deep inside a struggle was going on. She shifted her gaze to me, and we locked eyes. Finally, she spoke.
“I will keep your secret.”
Was her change of heart a little too quick? My entire life I’d heard about the centuries-long animosity between Japanese and Chinese, but I knew almost nothing about Chinese girls or how one like Helen might think and act.
“What about your father, Helen?” Grace asked. “You’ll be disobeying him if you see Ruby.”
“How am I disobeying him? He said watch out for her, not don’t ever see her. I went to school with Negroes and Mexicans. He didn’t like that either, but he had to live with it. Besides,” she added, “Ruby won’t be working at the Forbidden City, so it’s not like I’ll be with her every day.”
Grace needed to know one more thing. “Are you really going to give all your money to your father?”
“Of course,” Helen answered. “My brothers and I all do. He provides for us. We live with him. And he gives us spending money. Anything else you want to know?” The way she asked seemed designed to put an end to the conversation. “Are we set then? Good. Now let’s get some noodles.”
We began to walk, with Helen in the middle. I peered around her and into Grace’s face. She still looked a bit numb from shock and confusion. Between us, Helen wore an expression I couldn’t decipher. The three of us were as different as could be, and—despite the sudden revelations—I had a hunch that the two of them were harboring deeper truths, just as I was. In the same way I sensed that Helen and Grace had attached themselves to me like sucking sea creatures, I understood that I had glued myself to them too. The realization shook me something fierce. This was stranger than moving to Hawaii with my parents; defying them with my attitude, smart mouth, and boys; returning to the mainland to live with Aunt Haru and Uncle Junji; or abandoning the identity I was born with for one that might be more practical. Friendship was uncharted territory for me, maybe for all of us. Would the three of us end up as good companions or as vicious enemies?
None of that mattered to me if I didn’t get a job.
GRACE
A Few Glorious Minutes
“Smile, damn you. Smile!” Mr. Biggerstaff yelled. It was late November, and we were at his studio, about midway through rehearsals for the Forbidden City’s opening. He’d explained that we’d be doing three one-hour shows each night with five acts of dancing, singing, and what he called novelties. In between those acts would be short bridge routines by the ponies, culminating in a big production number for the finale.
“Do it again! One, two, three, four … Again! Five, six, seven, eight!” He made us practice at the barre to build our strength: “Keep your knees directly above your feet.” He ordered us to do crawling splits across the floor to increase our flexibility: “Wider, wider!” He had us twist into pretzels—all edges erased—to improve our agility: “Stretch. And keep smiling, damn it. Didn’t anyone teach you to smile? Show your teeth! Teeth! Teeth! More teeth!”
Mr. Biggerstaff put me in charge of the line. I kept an eye on the other girls—especially Ida Wong, who could be a real nuisance—making sure they hit their marks, didn’t get lazy with their turns or kicks, and stayed in time to the music. This caused jealousy among some of the gals, and they stopped talking to me for a few days, but I had to be tough on them, because they were now my responsibility.
“Rehearse, perspire, perfection!” Mr. Biggerstaff encouraged us. “Rehearse, perspire, perfection!” He made us dance and dance and dance. “I want your hop to come on the drummer’s downbeat. The kick is on the upbeat. Listen! Don’t you hear it?”
Everything he asked us to do was easy for me, but most of the other girls had never danced before. They were getting my thirteen years of experience in six we
eks. If a girl didn’t learn the routine quickly, he went after her, cutting her down, making her cry, but ultimately forcing her to improve. It was hard work and long hours. I forgot the time. I forgot to eat. And for a few glorious minutes each day I forgot to miss my mother or feel bad that I couldn’t write to her, knowing that, if I did, my father would find out, track me here, and drag me back to Plain City.
“Take five, girls,” Mr. Biggerstaff called.
Helen and I sat on the floor a little apart from the other ponies, who massaged one another’s feet, stretched, and gossiped. Every day Helen arrived at rehearsal in a dark wool skirt, long-sleeved black sweater, and charcoal-gray wool stockings, but she quickly changed out of them. To my eyes, it seemed like she was shedding not just layers of clothing but layers of tradition. Now we huddled together—inseparable—watching Eddie warm up for his routine by entertaining us with little combos. He ended with his left leg tipped behind his right, his elbows close to his torso, and his fingers spread wide. He winked flirtatiously, and we clapped. He’d taken a couple of ponies on dates, but he’d never asked Helen or me. When I pointed that out to her, she wrinkled her face like she’d just smelled a glass of sour milk.
After rehearsal, we poured into the street. Fog draped heavy and white over the city, leaving the sidewalks eerily quiet. The melodies of chattering young girls rang through the night like police sirens. As the other ponies melted into the fog, Helen and I headed to Chinatown. For all of Mr. Fong’s insistence that Helen always be escorted by her brother, the practice was haphazard at best.
Ruby waited for us in Sam Wo, our favorite café. “I’m starved,” she announced.
That first night on the street outside the Forbidden City, something invisible but very strong had clicked between us like cogs catching and holding a tractor wheel. Now, as we ate, we talked about insignificant things.
“The hair on the left side of my head is fine and won’t hold a curl,” Ruby revealed. “That’s why I pin gardenias above that ear.”
“My feet are too long,” Helen complained, even though they were smaller than Ruby’s or mine.
I told them my bosoms were growing too big, to which Ruby agreed, saying, “They’re whopping for a Chinese girl.”
We ate—I was now adept at using chopsticks—and laughed as Ruby told us about her latest job.
“I don’t know anything about housekeeping,” she chirped. “The apartment was so nice I was afraid to touch anything. The lady released me. And after only one day! But that wasn’t a good position for me, because I’m not neat, and I can barely wash a plate.”
We never talked about deep things—why I’d run away, how scared Helen must have been when the Japanese pilot tried to shoot her, or when Ruby had made up her mind to pretend she was something she wasn’t. Instead, Ruby taught Helen and me how to hula, Helen taught Ruby and me how to make simple soups on our hot plate, and I taught them things I’d learned from the movies, like how use makeup to make our eyes look more dramatic. Ruby and I had to watch our money, so we showed Helen how to make false eyelashes by taking strands of hair from our brushes, winding them around our fingers, snipping them with scissors, and gluing them onto strips, which we then applied to our eyelids. We copied my favorite actresses’ hairdos and the way they plucked their eyebrows. We didn’t spend a cent, but, along the way, we fell in love with each other. The show kids said we went together like ginger, scallions, and garlic: put us in a pot and you get the perfect dish.
Now, as we lingered at our table, sipping tea and waiting for Monroe to pick up Helen, I got up my nerve to share a little more about myself. I told them about three girls back in Plain City whom I’d named the evil triplets. Velma, who was Finnish by blood, had once been my best friend. When we started kindergarten, we met another girl named Ilsa, also Finnish. The three of us played together all the time, but at the end of first grade, Maude—another Finnish girl—got taken in by Velma and Ilsa, and I was pushed out for good. Soon, their sole pleasure came from teasing and bullying me.
“In fourth grade, the evil triplets told the class not to give me a card on Valentine’s Day,” I confided, “even though the teacher said that kids needed to give cards to every child in class or not give them at all. The evil triplets argued that I wasn’t a proper Christian, even though I was baptized in the same church they were. When I tried to fight back, they chanted, ‘Ching chong Chinaman sitting on a fence, trying to make a dollar out of fifty cents.’ ”
Helen got steamed—“That’s awful!”—and Ruby shook her head sympathetically. To have these girls hear me and feel for me made me like them all the more.
“It must have been easy for you to have friends,” Ruby said to Helen, “since you grew up in Chinatown.”
“Hardly. When I was little, I was supposed to stay inside with my mother.” Helen tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “When I got to school, the other girls only played with me because their parents said they had to. Those girls are all married now. They have babies.” Her voice hitched, and she shrugged. “Plus I now work in a big-thigh show. If I see one of those girls on the street, she looks away. None of them wants to associate with me. Their husbands wouldn’t like it. Of the three of us, I’ll bet you’re the one who’s had the most friends.”
Ruby nodded slowly, pretending deep thought. Finally, she said, “I’ve had friends. Lots of friends. Every Tom, Dick, and Harry!”
Helen looked aghast, and then her face cracked as she burst out laughing. Ruby and I joined in. One of the waiters rolled his eyes. Here we go again.
“I’ve never had friends like you,” I said after we regained our composure.
“I’ve never had friends, period!” Helen softly slapped the table for emphasis.
“The three of us are like the Three Musketeers,” I said. “We get strength from each other, and we have adventures together. We’re all for one and one for all.”
“I don’t plan on being in any duels!” Ruby scoffed good-naturedly.
“Did you ever hear of the Boswell Sisters? Maybe you’re like them.” This came from a man at a neighboring table, which sent us into a cataclysmic fit of giggles. A man(!) just talked to us. He’d been eavesdropping on us! We could flirt with him all we wanted, because we were three girls together. So we broke into song, piecing together the lyrics to “Someone to Watch Over Me” and throwing in some exaggerated arm movements for the benefit of our audience of one, who clapped appreciatively and scooted his stool a little closer to our table.
“Maybe it’s better to say we’re like the Andrews Sisters,” Ruby announced when we came to the end of the song.
“Three friends are better than sisters,” I said, even though I’d been dumped by Velma and the other evil triplets. I never wanted a day to come when I’d be excluded by Ruby and Helen in favor of someone like Ida. “Besides, we aren’t sisters.”
“And it’s a good thing,” Ruby agreed. “Sisters are stuck with each other, whether they like it or not. We chose each other. We wouldn’t be here now if Helen hadn’t found our apartment. So thank you, Helen, again, for being right there when we needed someone.” She gave a smart two-finger salute to our benefactor. “Anyway, all that makes us better than sisters, like Grace said.” Her eyes sparkled. “Hey, what if we put an act together and called ourselves the Swinging Sensations or the Oriental Wonders—”
“How about the Swing Sisters?” Helen suggested.
“We aren’t—”
“Sisters,” Ruby finished for me. “But so what? We’re singers and dancers—”
“You’re dancers too?” The man on the stool leaned forward, skeptical.
Ruby stiffened. “Of course! We’ll show you.”
The customer regarded us in unveiled delight as we jumped up and started pushing tables and stools out of the way. The cooks came out from the kitchen to see what all the hubbub was about, wiping their hands on their aprons, shoving their folded paper hats back on their foreheads. We lined up. I counted, “Five, six, se
ven …” And we broke into “Let Me Play with It.”
Halfway through the number, Monroe came in the door, bringing with him a rush of damp air. He scowled as he took in the scene. Our voices trailed off, the man on the stool slid back to his own table, and the cooks slinked into the kitchen.
“Time to go,” Ruby said to Helen.
Monroe was clearly upset to see his sister and her friends dancing in a neighborhood restaurant, but he didn’t yell or anything like that. Instead, he radiated disapproval. That was fine for Helen; he was her brother. But to me, his attitude was upsetting. He was younger than Eddie Wu and just about the most darling boy I’d ever seen—almost as cute as that boy I’d met on Treasure Island. It probably helped that Monroe was the first Chinese boy I’d seen up close.
We waved to the man on his stool as Monroe herded us out the door. When we reached the Fong family compound, he dashed through the main entrance and into the courtyard—his chore done for the night.
“He likes you,” Helen said after her brother disappeared from view. “He’s always staring at you.”
“It’s true,” Ruby agreed. “Which one do you like more—Monroe or Eddie?”
I shrugged, trying to pretend indifference when I’d never been on a single date. Now, any time I saw Eddie or Monroe, a slightly seasick sensation roiled my stomach and I blushed. (If dreaming about a boy and a man at the same time seems like something only a bad girl would do, then I told myself that I wasn’t in Plain City anymore, and I had some catching up to do.) Eddie appeared to regard my silly comments, hard work in the line, and girlishness with casual indifference, while Monroe …
“Sometimes it feels like your brother is taking in every movement, every word, every outfit I wear, and analyzing them—”
