China Dolls

by Lisa See

  “Be the girls you’ve always been,” he told her. “Be yourselves.”

  When Helen relayed that message to us, I pictured something in my mind.

  “We’ll do ‘Let Me Play with It,’ ” I said. “We can update the original arrangement by dropping the country sound and going with all strings. We’ll do the routine we taught Helen back on the Waverly Playground but all in soft shoe. If we keep it simple, then we’ll still have enough breath to sing. Of course, everything will need to be squeaky clean for Mr. Sullivan, but it could be fun … and unexpected.”

  Helen and Ruby loved the idea.

  “What should we call ourselves?” Ruby asked.

  “That’s easy,” Helen said shyly. “The Swing Sisters, like I suggested all those years ago in Sam Wo.”

  Ruby and I loved that idea.

  We worked on the routine in the afternoons, and then we went to the China Doll for our three shows. I’d rarely been so exhausted, but excitement and anticipation buoyed all of us.

  Several nights later, I left the China Doll early, hoping to spend a few quiet minutes alone going over the details of our Toast of the Town performance before Ruby, Helen, and Tommy returned to the hotel. I waded through the usual stage-door Johnnies, waving them off as the endearing nuisance I’d grown to accept. A tenderly thin man, wearing a fedora pulled low and leaning his weight on a cane, stood a little removed from the other Johnnies. He was tall and his shoulders were broad, but the message he sent with his body was one of frailty. His eyes pulled mine to his.

  Joe.

  Next to him, an older woman—wearing practical walking shoes, a decidedly non–New Look dress, and a mink stole wrapped around her shoulders—pulled on her fingers nervously. A worried expression creased her forehead.

  Struggling with my emotions, I glanced at the cane and then back into Joe’s eyes. At last, I lifted my chin and strode forward purposely. “Joe,” I said, professional yet friendly. “This is a surprise. How good to see you.”

  “Grace.” He drew out the syllable like it was wine being poured into a goblet.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked, all good cheer.

  “My mom and I have come to look at NYU and Columbia. I need to finish law school. My parents would like me to be closer to Chicago—”

  “We’re in New York to see you,” the woman, who had to be his mother, interrupted.

  I absorbed that, and then asked Joe in my most chipper tone, “How did you know where to find me?”

  “It’s a cinch Winchell knows!” he answered, reciting the popular tagline.

  That told me he’d read about Mario and all the others, and yet here Joe was on the sidewalk in front of the China Doll. The stage-door Johnnies edged closer.

  “I’d like you to meet my mother.” Joe gestured to the woman beside him. “Mom, this is Grace. Grace, this is my mom.”

  “Mrs. Mitchell.” I extended my hand.

  “Call me Betty.” Instead of shaking my hand, she held it in both of hers. “I came with my boy, because I wanted to make sure he didn’t turn chicken. He’s got all sorts of medals now—the Bronze Star, the Air Medal, and a Purple Heart,” she recited proudly. “But he’s always been a bit of a scaredy-cat when it comes to girls.”

  “Mom.” Joe stared at his shoes. I felt for him, because no one can embarrass you more than your own mother. Despite my best efforts to protect myself, I could feel my defenses crumbling and my heart opening.

  “Are you set now, Son?” Mrs. Mitchell asked. When he nodded, she returned her gaze to me and squeezed my hand. The message couldn’t have been clearer. Don’t hurt my boy. Then she embraced Joe. “I’ll see you back at the hotel.”

  After she left, we stood silently, searching each other’s faces. His was wan—from lingering pain? From months as an invalid? His eyes looked as though they’d seen too much. I wondered what changes he saw in me. Finally, I said, “Let’s go somewhere we can talk without all the ears.” I cocked my head to the stage-door Johnnies, but I was actually fretting that Ruby would emerge from the club any second.

  Joe and I walked, slowly, slowly, because of his limp. He had always seemed invincible, but to me he felt almost ghostlike. It hurt me to see him so frail. We found an all-night diner and slid into a booth. The waitress served us coffee. He pushed his cup back and forth in front of him nervously. I fought to regain my resolve: I can’t help him. He dumped me.

  “No reason to make this long,” he began, his voice slower and more deliberate than I remembered.

  “Take as much time as you’d like,” I said.

  He didn’t seem to want to do that either.

  “I had a rough go, Grace.” Joe struggled to get out the words. “My plane and I got shot up pretty bad. My right lung was pierced, and my leg took a lot of shrapnel. I barely made it back to the airfield. By the time they pulled me out of the wreckage, I’d lost consciousness. I didn’t wake up for a long time. When I did, I had gangrene.”

  I sucked in a breath through clenched teeth. The side of his mouth ticked up at my reaction.

  “I fought them hard, but they took my leg,” he went on. “I can’t tell you how angry I was … at myself, at the world. That’s when I first told you to stop writing back to me.”

  Whatever backbone I’d hoped to have went to mush. “Oh, Joe. That’s just awful. I wish you’d told me. I would have helped you.”

  “At first, I didn’t want you to worry about me,” he admitted. “And, of course, you’re Grace. You kept writing anyway. But later, when it looked like I was going to die, I didn’t want to hurt you. I wanted you to be free of memories of me—”

  “That’s the most preposterous thing I’ve ever—”

  “After they amputated my leg,” he continued, speaking right over me, “I didn’t want to come back to you as less than a man.”

  What was he telling me exactly? I blurted out my first crass notion: “It’s just your leg, right?”

  A long moment passed. Then he threw back his head and laughed.

  “Then all is perfect.” I tilted my face and gave him my best China doll smile. “After all, your manhood isn’t measured by your leg.”

  He laughed even harder at the audacity of my comment.

  “A lot of guys got it worse than you.” I thought of Yori and all the waiters, busboys, and servicemen, who didn’t make it back.

  “But I was an ace.” Joe hesitated before trying to explain himself. “I thought, when this thing is over, I’ll forget about law school and become a commercial air pilot. Remember how we used to talk about that? I won’t be able to fly commercially now,” he stated with grim finality. “You need all your parts—”

  “So you’ll fly for fun.”

  He gave me a wry smile. He didn’t need to explain. What if I’d never been able to dance professionally?

  “Anyway,” he went on, “it took a long time before I was stable enough to be sent back to the States. Even when I got home, I didn’t want to see you. I felt sorry for myself, but my anger was what kept me from getting in touch. I’d promised I wouldn’t be around you when I was like that.”

  Disappointment still radiated from him, but I didn’t sense fury or bitterness. His fighting days were over.

  “What changed?”

  “Time. Home. My mom and dad. I told them about you. And they—my mom especially—have been working on me. But I’ll be honest with you, Grace. I’m not who I was.”

  “Neither am I.”

  That hung heavier in the air than I expected. Outside, night was melting into dawn. The clock on the wall read 6:34. I needed to get a little sleep before meeting the gals at 2:00 for our last rehearsal before Toast of the Town, and then I had three shows tonight. I still had no idea what Joe wanted, but I needed to be firm for the sake of my friends.

  “I’m really sorry, but I need to go to my hotel and get some sleep. The next two days are big for me, Joe.”

  He didn’t ask why. Maybe this hurt him. But if he wanted to say somethin
g or ask me something, then he needed to act. I wasn’t going to help him, not after everything we’d been through. Yet the look on his face pushed me to ask, “Will you come and see me tonight at the China Doll?” As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I regretted them. “Ruby will be there.”

  “I know,” he responded. “I had a lot of time in the hospital and even more time in Winnetka to read the gossip columns. But why would I care where she is? I came to see you.” He shook his head. “What I mean is, I’ve come for you. My life is no good without you.”

  Romantic words, and I so wanted to believe him, but a part of me was in turmoil. He was the love of my life, but could I trust him after he’d left me high and dry and broken my heart? And what would he do when he saw Ruby? She was so beautiful, and he’d always been entranced by her. My insecurities went even deeper than that. Even if he no longer cared for her, was he just falling back on someone he thought would take him now that he was crippled?

  While all this was batting around in my head, Joe was watching me, bemused, taking in, I felt sure, every questioning emotion that must have been playing across my face. Even after our long separation, he knew me so well.

  “I’ll come to the last show,” he said finally. “That’s always been your best.”

  A FEW HOURS later, Ruby woke me out of a sound sleep. “You look like hell,” she quipped after I sat up and put my feet on the floor. “Hurry up. We need to rehearse.”

  Over the years, I’d learned that people deceive each other in many ways. By hiding: secreting clothes and money under the bed so you can escape, as I had done. By destroying: tearing up receipts so your husband doesn’t see what you spent on that new pair of shoes, as Irene had done. By changing the topic: “Good show tonight, dear?” as Eddie had asked Helen after he’d spent a night carousing. By outright lying: “I’m Chinese,” when actually you were Japanese, as Ruby and Ida had done. But the best—and easiest—is simply to keep your mouth shut. You tell yourself, “This isn’t a good moment” or “We’ll talk about it later.” People recite those inanities, but that doesn’t make them any less liars, cheats, or deceivers, which is how I managed to get dressed, ramble five blocks with Ruby and Helen to the studio to practice our routine for the last time, then walk to the China Doll and get ready for the night’s shows without mentioning that I’d seen Joe, what he’d said just a few hours earlier, or that he’d be in the club for the third show when we performed.

  My omissions left me jumpy and on edge. After the first show, I went to Helen’s dressing room. Eddie had sent Tommy a new set of tin soldiers, and he was lining them up in neat rows on the floor. I sat on a stool to watch, but I nervously clicked my Oriental Danseuse nails against each other to the point that Helen said, “Stop worrying. We’re going to be great tomorrow.”

  The second show was swell. When Ruby’s cue came for the third show, I followed her to the curtain. I watched as she slipped off her kimono, picked up her fans for her last performance of the night, and sidled onstage into her blue light. I peeked out at the house and spotted Joe. He appeared mesmerized by Ruby and her feathers. The smell of her gardenias seemed to waft through the club like a dark vapor. Could that same old triangle of Ruby, Joe, and me ever be broken? Would I ever be able to forget that they’d been together? I was a grown woman—a famous woman—but an impulse to flee gnawed at my insides. This time I was determined to stay and fight.

  Ruby’s act ended, and she swept offstage right past me—her ostrich feathers caressing my face, arms, and breasts. I needed to tell her about Joe—he was mine—but there wasn’t time. I heard the music for my routine. I lifted my hands, extending my absurdly long nails, and let my feet carry me onstage. My mind churned with visions of Ruby and her feathers and Joe’s expression as he’d watched her dance. Now it seemed as though all the things that made him the man I loved had drained from his face. Through the laughter, the clink of champagne glasses, and the happy sighs of the club; above the band, cutting through the sound of my feet padding across the stage, my breathing and the beat of my heart—but surely it was my imagination—I heard Joe’s chair scrape across the floor as he pushed himself away from the table. He lurched from the room. Was he running from me again? Or was he running to Ruby?

  Onstage, all I could do was keep counting in my head—one, two, three, four—and finish my number. I didn’t stay for my second or third bows. Instead, I ran to Ruby’s dressing room. I opened the door to find Helen wiping off Ruby’s makeup and Tommy on the floor with his toy soldiers. I shrugged as if I’d made a mistake.

  “Don’t bother with me. I’ll see you in a couple of minutes.” I retraced my route, feeling confused and worried. Where had Joe gone? Had seeing Ruby dance changed his mind about me? I entered my dressing room, and there he was, sitting on the bench before my mirror, holding a rose he’d plucked from one of my bouquets. I felt like I was able to breathe again—from relief … and gratitude.

  “All the husbands are returning to their Rosies,” he began. “Those women don’t realize that the men who went away are not the same as they once were.” He glanced past my shoulder into the hallway, struggling with his emotions. “Grace, the things I saw. The things I did.”

  The years without him completely fell away, as did my doubts. Whatever he’d done—or not done—to hurt me in the past no longer mattered. He was my future. He’d always been my future.

  “Whatever you have in you, I can take,” I said.

  “This thing”—he tapped his artificial leg—“isn’t good enough for what I’m about to ask, so I hope you’ll accept me where I am.” He inhaled. Held it. Then, “I’ve made a lot of mistakes, and I’ve wasted a lot of time. I love you. I don’t want another minute to go by without you. Grace, will you marry me?”

  I didn’t hesitate. I’d been waiting for the question for so long. “Yes.”

  “Are you sure?” he asked, unwilling to accept my answer so readily. “Are you willing to give up everything for me when you’ve already seen my weaknesses and stupidity?”

  “Yes,” I said as I kneeled before him.

  “I’ll never be able to dance with you, Grace. Not like we danced before.”

  “We’ll do the box step.”

  “If we get married, neither of us can ever run away again—emotionally … or otherwise.” He rapped a knuckle on his leg. I saw him then as so vulnerable. He was telling me he was committed, but he needed me to be as well.

  “I love you, Joe. I always have.”

  He took that in. Then, “We won’t have the moon, Grace, but we can be happy—”

  Such movie talk!

  “Let’s get out of here. Let’s never look back.” He whistled the opening bars to Kay Kyser’s newest hit. I’d love to get you on a slow boat to China, all to myself alone. “Come with me now. Don’t pack. Don’t say goodbye. We’ll get out of here and go to San Francisco. I’ll go to Stanford or back to Cal to finish up at Boalt.”

  In that moment, I knew I’d won the prize I’d always wanted: love. I loved him so much I would suffer anything for him. I loved him more than my own life, I realized. Yet this was the moment when the two things I’d dreamed about for so long—love and stardom—collided. And I wasn’t willing to give up either.

  “I didn’t have a chance to tell you this morning, but Ruby, Helen, and I are going to be on a television show tomorrow. I can’t back out now. I need to be there for them.”

  He had just proposed and asked me to run away with him this instant, but now his eyes burned with disappointment.

  I tried to explain. “They’re my friends …”

  “And you want this.”

  I bowed my head and nodded. But how could I be ashamed when this opportunity might be the greatest of my life?

  I got up, opened my purse, and handed Joe a ticket for tomorrow’s show. “I hope you’ll come.”

  He held the ticket in his hands and stared at it wordlessly. Finally, he reached up to me with his eyes. What I saw in them was sure and
true. He was happy for me. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

  “I love you,” I said.

  “I’m nuts about you too, Grace.”

  With that, he used his cane to stand, and he limped out of my dressing room.

  I took a deep breath, sucking in happiness, releasing worry. I loved Joe more than dancing, but what about Ruby? I didn’t want to hurt her in case she still had feelings for him. Play it light, and it might go easier.

  I didn’t bother to change. I walked down the hall to Ruby’s dressing room, hesitated before the closed door to brace myself, and then entered. Helen wore a pale pink cotton sweater set with a light gray skirt that came midcalf. She was on her knees, having just finished removing Ruby’s body makeup. Ruby leaned in to the mirror, smoothing cream under her eyes. She was dressed in her kimono and gardenias. Tommy sat in the corner, making his first battle moves with his soldiers. I swallowed and clicked each of my nails from the pinkies to my index fingers once against my thumbs as the three of them turned to look at me.

  RUBY

  The Dark Shadow Side

  “Joe is here,” Grace announced as she entered the room.

  My neck stiffened. Below me, on the floor, Helen sighed.

  “He’s asked me to marry him,” Grace went on, “and I’ve said yes. We’re moving to San Francisco—”

  “What about the Swing Sisters?” I asked with seemingly dead calm, calling on all the rules my mother had taught me about not showing my emotions.

  “I’m staying for the show,” she answered breezily.

  “Great, but what about the Swing Sisters?” I repeated.

  “The Swing Sisters?” Grace looked confused. “I was worried you’d be upset about Joe.”

  Joe, Joe, Joe. She’d always been stuck on that guy—like I cared. Joe was one thing; my career was quite another. “What about our plans?” I persisted. “What about our new lives?”

  “What about your revue?” Grace asked unperturbed. “What about Helen taking Tommy to Miami?”