by Lisa See
But that wasn’t the worst of it. In a rage or in despair, he’d staggered into an Army recruiting office and enlisted.
“Those places are open twenty-four hours a day, so they can take you any time you want.” He laughed hideously. “Uncle Sam wants you!”
“Oh, Eddie,” I sputtered. “You could get killed.”
He put a hand on his hip and turned to Charlie. “You can’t have a black-eyed Chinese Fred Astaire after all,” he said, flippant but resolute.
“Jesus, buddy, what have you done?” Charlie shook his head, deeply troubled. Then he turned to me. “Don’t worry, Helen. We’ll take care of it.”
By the end of the first show, Eddie’s anger and humiliation had burned off. The reality of his situation began to crinkle his edges, yet he continued to act the matinee idol.
“You babes all love a man in uniform,” he uttered with false bravado.
During the one-hour break after the second show, he and Charlie paced backstage, talking in low voices. By the end of the third show, Charlie had a plan. “Helen, get Tommy. Grace and Ida, we’re going to need you too.” His eyes brushed over the other show kids. “If any of you want to come, that would be great.” As we started to move, he added, “Don’t change—not your costumes, your shoes, or your makeup. I need you all just the way you are.”
What a spectacle we were—a troupe of performers in skimpy costumes with coats or jackets thrown over our shoulders—drawing the utmost attention to ourselves, like we were acrobats going from village to village, eking out an audience and a few yuan. We reached the Army recruiting office, and it was open just as Eddie said it would be. The weak-jawed sergeant and the skinny lieutenant working there seemed both surprised and wary as we filled the space with our sequins, top hats, chiffon, hosed legs, and rouged cheeks. Charlie did the talking, explaining that we were patriotic, that we were Americans, that he’d sent more than half his staff to war, so he was asking for one small favor.
“Could you tear up the paperwork my star here was fool enough to fill out last night?” he asked, pointing to Eddie, a tall man, dressed in a tuxedo, with powder on his face, and surrounded by a zoo of colorful performers.
The lieutenant made little grunting sounds, which translated to “You’ve got to be joking.”
Charlie went on. “Mr. Wu has a wife and a baby.”
The lieutenant shifted his eyes to Tommy and me, then motioned to the sergeant, and said, “So do we.”
“And,” Charlie continued undaunted, “Mr. Wu has a contract to fulfill. I’ve got it right here.” He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a sheaf of papers folded into thirds.
The lieutenant paged through the document. “He’s only got two weeks left,” he said. “Sure, we’ll give you that.”
Two weeks? For all Charlie’s plotting, he hadn’t bothered to read the contract. On to the next idea:
“As you can see, we’re performers. We’ve all”—here Charlie motioned to the rest of us—“done our bit for the war effort. I’d like to recommend that you put Mr. Wu in the Special Services to entertain.”
Even the sergeant got a kick out of that one.
Charlie took umbrage at their attitude, straightening his back and setting his face. “We’ve performed at war bond drives, for the Red Cross, and at Chinese Rice Bowl celebrations. We’ve also done USO tours to the local bases for all the different branches of service.”
We nodded in agreement—little dolls in a penny arcade.
“No dice” came the verdict. “Everyone has to do their part.”
“Of course they do,” Charlie agreed, “but the Special Services—”
“He’s an Oriental. No one wants to see an Oriental when we’re at war with the Japs.”
“We aren’t Japs,” Ida got up the nerve to say.
“And we’ve entertained thousands of boys already,” Charlie added. “Come by the club tomorrow night. We’ll”—and here, again, he gestured to us in our costumes—“show you. You should see Eddie dance—”
But no dice meant no dice.
There was one sure way out, but Eddie would have to speak it himself.
TWO WEEKS LATER, a group of us were at the Port of Embarkation in Oakland, saying goodbye to Eddie as he set off for boot camp in Tennessee. We stood on the platform with so many other women and children, bawling our eyes out. He picked up Tommy and kissed him. Then he pulled me into their embrace. He whispered into my ear, “Give the boy a chance to grow up properly. Loosen the reins a little. You cannot refuse to eat just because there’s a chance of being choked.”
He boarded the train.
“I love you,” I burst out.
Eddie’s voice cracked as he called down to me. “I love you too. And be good to your mom, Tommy.”
We waved our goodbyes, and then Grace, Tommy, and I returned to the car, drove back across the bridge, and went to work.
“I’m all alone now,” I said, although I was tied more than ever to my family.
Grace promised that she’d stick by me until Eddie came home, and Charlie was a prince. He invited me to stay on as a soloist—doing the exact same routine I’d done with my husband, only he was missing. My dancing solo was like my trying to draw a portrait of a dragon and ending up with a doodle of a dog, but Charlie was too softhearted to demote me back to a pony.
GRACE
Every Particle of Happiness
At the end of March—a year after Ruby was picked up—Ida packed a bag and went to stay with one of the ponies. I went downstairs and waited on the street for Joe to arrive. Soon enough, he hopped off a cable car and swept me into his arms. There was nothing brotherly about his kiss, let me tell you. He held me close as we walked to the Mark Hopkins Hotel, where an elevator whisked us to the nineteenth floor. The Top of the Mark had once been an exclusive nightspot for San Francisco’s café society. Now it catered to the elite-of-the-elite servicemen. Since it was wartime, not only was I allowed in but I was permitted to enter on the arm of an Occidental. Joe slipped the maître d’ a tip, and we were shown to a window table, which had a spectacular view of the city, including the Navy base on Treasure Island and the lights in the Berkeley Hills.
After a waiter took our order, Joe and I studied each other. He’d finished his two years of training, and the way he looked in his uniform—with the wings on the flap of his jacket pocket—was very impressive. His face had formed angles. His sandy-colored hair was trimmed and neat. His smile was still a bit crooked, but he was clearly a man now.
“It’s good to see you, Grace—”
And that’s as far as he got before a flyboy with a floppy mess of hair and the radiating energy of a kid on his last night of leave approached our table. “What squadron?”
When Joe answered, “The Flying Knights,” a gang of guys grabbed him and hauled him out of his chair.
“We’re Flying Knights too!”
“Come with us!”
One of the men sized me up. “Don’t forget the little slant-eye!”
Joe put up a hand. “Hang on there, bub. This is Miss Grace Lee, and she’s my girl.”
The flyboys took that in, decided to accept me as Joe’s sweetheart, and herded us to the bar.
“Let me buy the drinks,” Joe offered.
The band of young men hollered and whooped.
“Forget it!” someone brayed.
The man with the floppy hair called to the bartender. “Bring our squadron bottle!”
I was told that anyone in that squadron could come to the Top of the Mark, ask for the squadron bottle, and drink as much as he liked for free. Whoever finished the bottle had to replace it. Joe exchanged vitals with the guys. We drank shots. It was a good way to start our time together, because what were the alternatives? Let’s have a long chat about Ruby? Let’s go over everything that’s gone wrong between us in the past? Let’s talk about the war and where you’ll be going? Instead, we experienced the moments as they came. I was nuts about Joe. He laid on the flattery,
but it never got too sticky.
I danced with one after another of his squadron buddies. Latin bands were just coming in big, and I was twirled across the floor for hours to the sounds of Carmen Cavallaro and his orchestra. When Mr. Cavallaro slowed the tempo, Joe cut in with a jolly “Hey, bub, quit bird-dogging my girl.” Joe swung me away, holding me in his arms, bringing me slowly into his rhythm.
When we left the club, a light rain drizzled. Joe offered to hire a taxi, but I wanted the fresh air, some time to find quiet between us, and to prolong the anticipation—even after all my months and years of desire for him—a little longer. As we walked back to my apartment, we encountered some rowdy servicemen, who made the predictable rude remarks about an Occidental being with an Oriental. A fight could have broken out, but Joe pulled me away before things went too far, saying in a husky voice, “We have other things to do.” His doing that made me want him all the more.
We reached my apartment around three in the morning. Both of us had drunk a fair amount, but we knew what we were doing. I took him to my bedroom. Rain pattered against the window, soothing, lulling, beautiful. We were both eager and filled with desire as we tantalized each other with touch: his hand on my naked breast, his fingers slipping into wetness, my tremulous palm around something hard and proud.
“Neither of us wants to get in trouble,” Joe said, pulling away from me.
I promised, “Nothing will happen. It will be all right. Don’t stop.”
I had a sense of my breath being sucked into his lungs and his breath being inhaled back into mine, of his flesh skimming against mine, of him reaching that part of me that so longed for love.
“Grace.” He arched his back and pushed himself up on his hands so he could look down at me. “Grace, baby, I love you.” Then he drove himself into me and let me watch the pleasure I brought him shudder across his face. When it was over, we lay curled together, happy, sated, his finger tracing circles around one of my nipples and my hand resting on his chest. We forgot time. We forgot our responsibilities. We forgot everything except that in that moment we loved each other more than two people had ever loved each other.
The next few days felt leisurely and blissful—with nothing to do except stroll the streets, hold hands, and sneak a bit of time alone to monkey around in my room. But every particle of happiness has a price. All too soon I was at Fort Mason, saying yet another goodbye, begging another young man to write, kill the enemy, be careful, and promise to come home. The difference this time was that I loved this boy with all my heart, and he loved me too.
• • •
HELEN AND I grew closer. She told me she hoped one day to have her own house and garden. She wanted to live a “normal” life with Eddie and Tommy when the war was over. Joe and I hadn’t made plans, but I didn’t want what Helen wanted. I couldn’t imagine not performing. Maybe I would never be a Hollywood star, but I was a star in a jewel of a city. Helen and I comforted each other when news from one or the other front was bad, and together we did what we could to help the war effort.
We read all the pamphlets—“Make It Do Until Victory” and things like that—to teach us how to cut a man’s suit into a smart (if boxy) suit for a woman and how to shop and conserve in our households, but suits wouldn’t work for us and we didn’t have households of our own. We easily accepted the rationing of meat, coffee, and butter, because we didn’t buy meat ourselves, didn’t drink much coffee, and rarely—and in my case, never—cooked. I had my car, which I barely drove because of rubber and gasoline rationing. I suppose we could have gathered newspapers, scrap metal, bacon grease, rubber bands, and milkweed pods, but we didn’t know where to start.
“I don’t even read the paper,” I said one afternoon. I was a long way from writing reports on current events for social studies class in Plain City.
“Where am I supposed to find scrap metal?” Helen wondered. “Hasn’t it all been turned in already?”
We were sitting on Helen’s bed, propped against the wall. Tommy climbed back and forth between our laps.
“Mama’s in charge of all grease in the compound,” Helen went on. “She takes it to the reclamation center herself. It makes her feel like she’s helping Monroe.”
“I have rubber bands,” I said, “but they’re so darn small. It’s hard to imagine they’ll make a difference.”
Helen visibly ransacked her mind. “What do you suppose the government wants with milkweed pods?”
I shrugged. “You got me.”
We volunteered our time to sell bonds, but there were other jobs—more important jobs—women could do to help. After Congress passed a bill establishing women’s corps in the Army, Navy, and Marines, one of the ponies joined the WACs, but Helen couldn’t do that.
“Not with Tommy so young,” she said. “I don’t want you to enlist either. Whatever we do, we’ll do together, like you said.”
All around us, Chinese were getting jobs we never dreamed possible. Even a woman who didn’t speak a word of English could leave the sweatshop, where she’d done piecework, to sweep floors at a shipyard. Mabel’s sisters worked as draftswomen and flangers. Instead of making 25 cents an hour, they were now making $1.25 an hour.
“A gal in my building works as a file clerk at the Naval Auxiliary Air Station in Oakland,” I said. “I wouldn’t mind doing something like that.”
But later, when I mentioned my idea to Charlie, he scoffed. “My Oriental Danseuse spending her time filing? You’re already doing more for morale than most women.”
Maybe Charlie was right. Then Irene Mak volunteered as a Gray Lady. Once a week, she hired a sitter for her kids, put on her uniform—a gray dress with a white collar, white cuffs, and a white hat embroidered with the Red Cross insignia—and went to the Oak Knoll Naval Hospital, where she escorted injured boys to the X-ray department, took amputees to a nearby golf course to get them “back in the swing of things,” and helped some of those with grievous injuries write letters to their girls back home breaking off their relationships so they wouldn’t be “a burden.” It wasn’t long before Helen joined Irene—two mothers helping the war effort. So much for sticking together, but I didn’t let it bother me. I was glad she’d found something to make her feel useful.
IN LATE APRIL, I received a letter from Joe. He was stationed at Henderson Field on Guadalcanal, and he’d just flown his first mission:
I got assigned a P-38 Lightning. Just what I wanted. The Germans call it “the fork-tailed devil.” The Japs say, “Two planes, one pilot.” It’s great for dive-bombing, level-bombing, and ground attacks. I’ll be flaming Jap bastards out of the sky. My first time up, I inflicted damage on the enemy, but I wasn’t able to shoot down the plane. That’s all right. This little fighter is responsible for destroying more enemy aircraft than any other. We’re cleaning up the Pacific one island at a time. I’ll get mine next time. Grace, baby, I’m coming back to you an ace. I promise you that.
He added that he loved me and wrote words I would hold in my heart forever.
IN MAY, CHARLIE and Mr. Biggerstaff began putting together a new show to carry us through the summer. Ida had been at the club since the beginning, and I pushed her to create a solo to get her own spot at the bottom of the bill. We practiced in our apartment, and I helped her design a costume: skintight, rose-tinted satin shorts and jacket, cream-colored peep-toes, a matching top hat, and a walking stick. The night before she was to audition, her boyfriend came to town. She visited with Ray during the breaks at the club, but she also chatted with servicemen, sitting on their laps as she typically did and signing napkins for boys to take with them to battlefields. Ray seemed more steamed than usual, which only egged Ida on to act even more devil-may-care. After the show, Ray and Ida went their way, while the rest of us went to the Variety Club. Around 5:00 A.M., I headed home.
I should have suspected something when I saw the door to my apartment was ajar, but I figured Ida and Ray had just come in, or he’d just left to drive back to Visalia. Police si
rens wailed in the street. Didn’t the cops realize folks were sleeping? I shut the door behind me as I turned on the light. Something that looked like red paint spattered the walls and blinds. A horrible rusty smell filled my nostrils and the back of my throat. Blood smeared across the floor to Ida’s bedroom. Suddenly, there was Ray holding a long knife wet with blood. I was too terrified to scream or run.
“Maybe I’ve lost,” he said in an oddly calm voice, “but at least the other guys won’t win.”
He stepped toward me. I closed my eyes. Then something crashed through the door.
“Police! Drop the weapon!”
Officers tackled Ray to the ground. I sprinted into Ida’s room. Her head was twisted back, and her neck was slit. The rest of her body lay splayed at unnatural angles, with her legs and arms askew. Her glassy eyes stared unblinking at the ceiling. Her blood was slick on the floor. I skidded and fell, then groped my way to Ida’s side and touched her hand. It was still warm.
“Ida!” But it was useless. She was dead.
Jack Mak and Chan-chan, one of the acrobats from downstairs, elbowed their way through the phalanx of cops and into the room.
“We heard fighting—”
“I called the cops—”
“So did I—”
“Ida,” I said.
That shut them up. Chan-chan looked like he might keel over. Jack grabbed the acrobat’s arm and helped him back to the living room. “Put your head between your knees—”
The policemen handcuffed Ray to a chair. I made myself stay with Ida. Jack returned to the bedroom and hovered over us protectively. Ida had always been so ready with the wisecracks. She’d made me laugh and cringe with her “I Do Annie” song. And now all that vibrancy was gone, leaving an empty shell.
“Look through her dresser drawers,” Ray kept repeating. “You’ll see I’ve done the country a favor.”
The detectives—one burly, one stout—arrived, did a quick survey of the scene, and then motioned to the police officers to join them in a corner. The cops spoke in low voices; the detectives scribbled into notebooks, lifting their eyes occasionally to glance into the bedroom at Ida, Jack, and me, over to Ray on his chair, and to Chan-chan, who sat on the sofa. Finally, the four men nodded in agreement and started to break apart.
