China Dolls

by Lisa See

  I recited the usual good wishes. “Break a leg!”

  As their music started, my heart was full. Kiss me once, and kiss me twice, and kiss me once again … Was there anyone in the audience who didn’t respond to that postwar ballad—so romantic it made you want to cry every time you heard it? Helen floated onstage, her gown flowing, her arms extended. Eddie was supposed to be right behind her. Instead, he stared out at her, slack-jawed, his body shaking. Helen completed the circle that would bring her and Eddie face-to-face with the audience. When she realized she was alone, her smile wavered.

  “Eddie,” I urged in a whisper, “you’ve got to get out there.”

  He shook his head.

  “Come on, Eddie,” I prodded. “Helen’s alone.”

  But he was paralyzed. He’d survived the war, but he wasn’t the same. Shell-shocked. He’d done well during rehearsals, but now he was crippled by stage fright. Onstage, Helen kept dancing—Ginger minus her Fred. I remembered back to my final audition at the Forbidden City, when I froze and Eddie helped me.

  “We’ll do our old routine,” I whispered. “Two girls and one man. Hear it? The tempo is a little slower, but we can do it.”

  “No.”

  “It’s easy, Eddie. We practiced this ten thousand times, and we’ve got that neat trick at the end. All you have to do is count in your head. Say it with me. One, two, three, four.”

  “Five, six, seven, eight,” he mumbled.

  I took his hand. “One, two, three, four. Ready? Here we go.”

  Together we glided out. The audience applauded. The Oriental Danseuse was making an early appearance! I heard Eddie counting under his breath. I whispered through my stage smile, “You’re doing great.” I prayed that Helen would decipher what we were doing. Eddie and I did a couple of turns from the old routine, slowly moving closer to Helen. When she changed her steps—awkwardly to be sure—to fall in with us, I relaxed a little. Eddie released me and took Helen in his arms. Back and forth we went, weaving together and apart, but Eddie was terribly stiff, his face expressionless. Our grand finale, when Eddie lifted us off the ground and spun Helen and me, was a huge success. We took our bows, with Helen and me each putting a hand on Eddie’s back to push him down.

  When we came offstage, almost the entire cast was there. They parted to let us through. Everyone loved Eddie, and they offered congratulations. “That was great!” “You still have your magic!” “You slayed it, buddy!” Eddie kept his head down, refusing to acknowledge the sympathetic lies. Helen tried not to cry.

  Then: “A Chinese Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers act won’t work if Fred is a clod.” It was Mr. Ball, and he proceeded to berate Eddie in front of us. But there was no time to defend Eddie, because it was opening night. The show must go on! The Lim Sisters were a smash with their new fruity Carmen Miranda headdresses and full ruffled skirts and sleeves, and the audience went ape for Bernice’s rendition of “Let’s Do It.” Our reviews were over the top. The Merry Mahjongs earned “Wow of the Week,” Ruby grabbed “Best Undressed Doll of the Week” (with a special note about her “gorgeous chassis”), and I snagged “Woo Woo of the Week.” That skunk columnist Ed Sullivan, who, it turned out, worked at the same paper as Lee Mortimer, wrote in his “Little Old New York” column: “It’s a slant-sational show. The wolves brayed wolf whistles at all the China dolls.” Mercifully, no mention was made of the Chinese Dancing Sweethearts.

  THE MORE WE tried to help Eddie, the worse he got. He forgot how to lead. He forgot his lines. He forgot how to count in his head. It was heartbreaking to see, and, after six weeks, Mr. Ball notified Eddie and Helen that he wouldn’t be renewing their contract. “It’s just as well,” she said in resignation. “These new people can’t get Ruby’s makeup right.” Then one of those darned Merry Mahjongs volunteered to help, saying, “I’ll dance with you.” Chan-chan and Helen, with assistance from Mr. Arden, put together an endearing routine, in which Chan-chan’s only role was to partner Helen, lifting and whirling her so she looked like an angel. Helen, never one to trust good fortune, decided to work as Ruby’s dresser as well. Eddie reacted to all this by going back to dipping his bill, staying out all night, and coming home in the morning still boiled to the eyes. Helen was worried sick, and Ruby and I worried about both of them.

  The club was rocking, though, jammed wall-to-wall with customers. The line to get in went around the corner. We hummed with one-shot business as servicemen, many of whom had first been enchanted by the charms of Oriental girls in Japan, the Philippines, and China, returned to the States and sought out those same beauties before going back to Florida, Kentucky, or Maine. Even the Smart Set got a kick out of seeing Oriental girls swinging, shaking, and jiggling to Latin rhythms—so much so that some wags began calling the club “El Chino Doll.” And Ed Sullivan? Like most Americans, he put his suspicions about Japanese Americans behind him and became a reliable chronicler of Ruby’s every move.

  And I was living the life I’d dreamed of in Plain City. When I stepped onstage, everyone in the club stopped to watch me. I demanded attention, and I got it. I had lots of admirers. They sent so many flowers that sometimes my dressing room smelled like a florist shop. I shunned the special house drinks for champagne and developed a love of caviar. I went to parties until the sun came up. I slept most of the day. The next two years were a helluva ride, but it can be lonely at the top without someone special to love you.

  HELEN

  A Camellia Drops

  It was 1948, and the China Doll had been open twenty-six months. On the surface, things still seemed to be clicking, but champagne living had lost its fizz. The China Doll—“New York’s Favorite Rumba-vous”—and other nightclubs were drying up, because people stopped spending money like there was no tomorrow. Our boys had come home, married their sweethearts, gotten jobs, and moved to the suburbs, where they drank martinis, bounced children on their laps, and watched television. Those people were mortgage poor—and they had to save for washers, dryers, lawn mowers, and power tools—so some nights we performed our hearts out, giving everything we had, to a half-filled house.

  Reporters began to ask our ages. We always gave the same rehearsed reply: “Age is a number, and I have an unlisted one.” In truth, Grace was twenty-seven, Ruby was twenty-nine, and I was thirty. A female performer is a lot like a camellia, which doesn’t fade, wilt, drop petal by petal, or brown on the stem. At the height of its beauty, a camellia drops whole from the bush. You can’t escape aging no matter how talented you are. We still looked beautiful—perfectly ripe—but after ten years as entertainers, we weren’t young or naïve anymore. We were like carps stuck in a dry rut—or, as lo fan might say, world-weary showbiz broads.

  You cannot wait to sink a well until you’re thirsty nor can you wait to make a cloak until it starts to rain. When Mr. Arden announced he was leaving New York for Las Vegas, where he promised to stage the splashiest productions in that town’s history, he asked us to join him. Mr. Ball, not to be one-upped and possibly taking advantage of his rumored “connections,” proposed taking the China Doll floor show to Las Vegas too. That gave Ruby the idea of putting together her own small Oriental revue and trying the gambling city as well. “I’ll call it Ruby and the Dancing Chopstix,” she said. I’d always seen her as birdlike, but by now I understood she was more like a hawk than a skylark. I couldn’t imagine her ever slowing down or retiring. As for Grace … Mario, the pineapple prince, had recently come up from Miami, bearing a thirty-thousand-dollar platina fox fur and an engagement ring. She’d never been all that faithful to him—and, let’s be honest, she didn’t love him—but after all this time, she considered his offer.

  “Beggars can’t be choosers,” she said, which made me sad for her. The burdens of her mother and father had been lifted from her and she’d achieved great success, but she was still missing the one thing she’d longed for since the day I met her: romantic love. It seemed all her hopes for a true happily-ever-after had faded after Joe broke up with her. �
�I sure don’t want to be alone down there with just Mario,” she said. “Why don’t you and Tommy come too? You could go into real estate,” and it seemed like a great idea, because I had long handled our living arrangements and could spot a defect a mile away. “I bet in six months you’ll be riding around in your own Rolls-Royce.”

  Ruby enticed me with a different plan. “The Mahjongs have agreed to be in my revue. Wouldn’t you rather keep dancing with Chan-chan than go to Miami?”

  “I love you both,” I said, “and I want to be with both of you, but I need to think about what will be best for Eddie and Tommy.”

  At the beginning of June, my parents came to New York to meet up with Monroe, who’d finally been released from Walter Reed, and to see Tommy, Eddie, and me. Through the miracle of penicillin, my brother had survived his lobar pneumonia. However, he’d been sick a long time—so long that he’d fallen in love with and married his nurse, a girl from Indiana, who happened to be an Occidental. Aiya!

  Mama, Baba, and the newlyweds reserved a table for the show. They ordered dinner and clapped at all the right places. Grace, Ruby, Tommy, and I peeked out of the curtain to stare at the bride, who was as white as white on rice, or however that American saying goes. My parents did their Chinese best to pretend she wasn’t at their table. My marrying Eddie—who also sat with my relations—was nothing compared to marrying a lo fan.

  When the first show ended, Ruby and Grace changed into gowns and came to my dressing room. They’d promised to stand by me when I met the family. Baba entered, followed by the others until the room was jammed. Eddie pulled the bench out from under my makeup table, took Mama’s elbow, and helped her to the bench, where she sat down and tucked her bound feet out of view. Baba congratulated us on the show, but mainly he gushed over me, telling me what a great performer I was. Maybe I truly had risen above my brother!

  Then Baba spotted my son. He stiffened as he took in Tommy’s hair and complexion. He went on to handle the introductions anyway, ending with “And this is Maryanne Lively—”

  “Baba, her name is Maryanne Fong now,” Monroe cut in good-naturedly. He put a protective arm around his pretty wife’s waist and pulled her close. He was corpse-thin but so happy. “She’s your daughter-in-law now.”

  Into the subsequent silence, Mama finally spoke. “We want you to come home, Helen. We want to reunite with Eddie and our grandson too.”

  “Yes, it’s time for you to quit this life,” Baba agreed. “A man does not travel to distant places if his parents are still alive.”

  He may have been trying to display generosity and forgiveness, but his words were like nails in my eyes. “I’m not a man. I’m only a daughter—and worse, a widow—as you’ve forever made very clear.”

  “Considering you’re a daughter, you should be grateful we want you to come home.” Baba bristled. “This is an opportunity for us to be a family again. To live in the compound—”

  “I agree with your father,” Mama picked up. “You can’t spend your life powdering some woman’s rear end and dancing around. When you have a child, you can’t live like a vagabond.”

  Mama had a point, but then Baba went on. “You need to be a proper mother to Tommy. It’s true, he might be more comfortable in another family. He’s a mongrel, but at least he’s a son.”

  Baba had made a tactical error. He could treat me as a worthless daughter for all eternity, but I’d never allow him to hurt my son. Always place righteousness above family loyalty.

  I turned to Eddie. “Let’s go to Miami and buy a house through the G.I. Bill.”

  Grace smirked (she’d won), Ruby looked peeved, but Eddie shook his head no.

  “I want to go to San Francisco,” he said. “Charlie will take me back. Maybe I’ll be fine at the Forbidden City.” He paused to let me digest the idea. Then, “I saw too many people die to be anything other than who I am. I can be myself in San Francisco.”

  My lungs emptied of air. “I don’t want to lose you, Eddie.” In an abrupt reversal, I added, “I’ll even go back to the compound, if we can stay together. I’ll do anything for you, Eddie, because you did everything for me.”

  For a second, I stepped out of my body and sensed how strange it had to be for the others to witness such an intimate moment—my husband practically announcing his preference for men and my trying to hold our marriage together, even if it was in the oblique manner of a proper Chinese couple, in so tiny a room. And I’ll say this: nothing that was said came as a surprise to my relatives, but that Maryanne sure didn’t know what had hit her.

  “A family without a woman is like a man without a soul,” Eddie recited. My parents nodded, happy that they had him on their side, and recognizing, at last, that he had come from lineage as good as, if not better than, ours. “I love you and Tommy, but you don’t need to stay with me out of duty or obligation. I’ll buy a house for the two of you. What city you choose is your business, but you might want to consider Los Angeles, where you’ll be closer to—”

  Tommy’s real father …

  “—me,” Eddie finished. He may have been humbled and shell-shocked, but he would forever be a gentleman in my eyes. He’d never let me down when I needed him the most.

  “I don’t want you to be alone.” My voice cracked.

  “He won’t be alone,” Baba declared, breaking into the conversation. “Your husband will live with us. We have enough disgrace with you being a widow and a big-thigh girl, but at least you aren’t divorced.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. It was better to have Eddie as a son-in-law than me as a daughter? The realization was excruciating yet oddly freeing. I felt like a balloon that had been released from a child’s fingers—up and away …

  “I wanted to give your father eight sons,” Mama murmured. “Eddie can be our eighth son. He needs loved ones to take care of him. Maryanne is a nurse, which is even better than having a doctor in the family. I promise you, Helen, that I’ll cherish him as my own.”

  All eyes turned to Eddie. He was a man of elegant grace, but his defeated shoulders and bowed head illustrated more than any words how broken and fragile he was. Still, he was better than a daughter, a widowed daughter, or a divorced daughter.

  Eddie lifted his chin and spoke directly to Baba. “I’m not going to change who and what I am.”

  “So? I won’t be changing who I am, and it’s clear Monroe hasn’t changed who he is,” Baba replied. “The gossips will do what they do, but you are part of my family and that will never change.”

  Mama reached up and took Eddie’s hand, which wordlessly seemed to seal the deal. Perhaps the most overused Chinese curse is May you live in interesting times. With the addition of Eddie and Maryanne, the people who lived in the compound were about to experience some “interesting times.” I was glad to keep my little Tommy out of it.

  A FEW DAYS later, Eddie departed for California with Mama, Baba, and the newlyweds. Even though he was leaving, I didn’t feel he was abandoning me. He was doing what was best for me, for Tommy, and for himself. In that regard, we would be forever partners in the true sense of the word. When Tommy and I returned from Grand Central Terminal, our suite felt empty. Tommy missed Eddie already, but I’d always be number one in my son’s eyes. But the separations were hardly over. Miami awaited Grace, and Ruby would be heading to Las Vegas, but what about me? Never have I heard so much crying up the virtues of wine to sell vinegar.

  Ruby pressed me to go with her: “That way you’ll be close to San Francisco and Los Angeles. Don’t you want Tommy to see Eddie and meet his real father too?”

  “What? Do you expect me to show up on Tim’s doorstep? Here we are. Forget it,” I pronounced with finality.

  Eddie called and repeated his suggestion that I move to Los Angeles—close, but far enough for us to lead our own lives: “We’ll always be like a pair of mandarin ducks—forever an affectionate couple. And I don’t want to lose Tommy.” I promised that, no matter where I decided to live, I’d make sure Ed
die saw Tommy at least twice a year.

  Grace put the screws to me too: “Come with me and you’ll be the first millionaire among us.”

  They all wanted me. I was being given a chance for a new beginning. I could release the bad things that I’d done and that had been done to me, which meant goodbye at last to my natal family, goodbye to the compound, goodbye to Eddie, goodbye to Ruby, and goodbye to so many sad memories, resentments, and jealousies. I would no longer let my history determine my destiny. I would go to Miami with Grace.

  I had made it this far without revealing my deepest secrets, and, for a moment, I forgot that to believe in dreams is to spend half your life asleep.

  GRACE

  Movie Talk

  A week later, as we were finishing our contractual obligations to the China Doll, scouts from a new television show called Toast of the Town visited the club. Ed Sullivan, who’d written so much about us in his column since we’d come to New York, was to be the host. “He’s looking for an Oriental act,” Sam Bernstein said when he called to discuss an offer.

  “I’ll do it!” I practically shouted into the receiver.

  “I bet you would, but it’s for a trio. Would you be willing to work with Ruby and Helen?”

  Helen rejoiced when I told her about the opportunity. “This could be the beginning of Heaven and Earth! Epoch-making! Finally, after all these years, we’re going to perform together … and on national television. Think of where that could lead …”

  We didn’t have a lot of time to prepare, Helen had never been much of a hoofer, and Ruby’s specialty was walking around with a bubble in front of her. Ruby spoke to Mr. Arden on his last day at the China Doll, and he came up with all sorts of cockamamie concepts for what we could perform. Helen called Eddie to get his ideas.