Girl in Reverse (9781442497368)

by Stuber, Barbara

Also unpictured are the sorority girls, because sororities and fraternities aren’t school sponsored. They’re social clubs outside high school. Patty and Anita are dying to become cupcakes despite our old oath of allegiance.

  And there’s no picture of the gang of greasy guys who grab their chests on the bus and whisper, “Hau ru, Tea Cups?” as if I wouldn’t comprehend what “cups” of mine they’re talking about.

  A bus is a battleground if you look like the enemy.

  What would Mother say if I asked her for advice? Go quietly to the bathtub, Lillian, and soak in bleach water.

  Dad’s advice? Make a joke of it.

  Ralph’s? Be a hero.

  My advice to myself? Carry Kleenex.

  When I walked out of social studies, it looked like running away, but it wasn’t—it was the first Chinese thing I have ever done. But what now? Fight back every time somebody says something? Walk out? Drop out? Gone Mom must have felt tested living here with illegitimate me. Or maybe she was really a spy or a tramp or she was sick or broke. Who knows why she left me in Missouri and sailed away?

  I flip more pages.

  Elliot’s caricatures are everywhere. He drew the Future Homemakers of America Club as hobos. The ROTC rifle team holds boomerangs. The Typing Club president is all thumbs—slightly funny, but not very. I see his drawing of himself in the Brush and Pencil Club—thick glasses on a lanky stick figure with paintbrushes for fingers.

  I see my tiny face peeking out of the Red Cross Club group picture. Ugh. I shut the yearbook, look away, close my eyes. I won’t be in this year’s photo because I quit going. I’m too Red for the Red Cross now.

  * * *

  On Wednesday Elliot James says, “Thank you so much for throwing my clothes away.” He flips the fringe of his scarf. “I dug it out of the trash.”

  Thanks for calling me stupid. I tilt my head, shrug, neither admit nor deny it.

  Mrs. Van Zant, the art teacher and yearbook sponsor, walks through the door carrying a thick folder. She steps around me, makes a beeline for Elliot, because they are getting an early start on the yearbook. They consult about page layouts and his drawing of the front of the school building. “My vote is a double spread for the title page. The Sentinel 1951. You will make Wilson High look regal.” She moves her hands together in prayer point and bows to Elliot.

  They talk about the theme this year, “Patriotism,” and the Student Council’s vote last fall to eliminate homecoming because of the Korean War. Boo hoo hoo. Not everybody liked it, but I guess patriotism was more popular than popularity.

  I look at Mrs. Van Zant bent over Elliot. I imagine a cartoon with him holding an umbrella as she drools all over his talent. “I hope you’re planning something wonderful for our Fine Arts Showcase in March,” she says, shaking a finger at him.

  From their conversation I learn that he takes advanced life drawing and sculpture classes at the Kansas City Art Institute. I learn that Mrs. Van Zant believes Elliot should be teaching the classes.

  She glances at my whisk broom. Yes, Mrs. Van Zant, I am the truant with no artistic talent. I am the custodian’s apprentice. “I remember you,” she exclaims. “Lillian Firestone, isn’t it? Why haven’t I seen you in here this semester? You showed promise your freshman year.”

  I did? I smile to be polite, but she’s wrong. “I—I’m left-handed,” I stutter as Mrs. Van Zant heads out the door.

  Elliot stares at me like I’m crazy. “So what? So am I! They tried to make me switch but I couldn’t.” He sharpens his pencil with a pocketknife, drums his fingers. He gestures come over here. He’s about to prove his left-handed drawing brilliance.

  I meander over with my dustpan.

  “Tilt your head up,” he says. “Turn this way.” I don’t. I stare at the pile of pencil shavings he is creating on the floor. “I’ll clean it up,” he says. “Just turn here a sec.”

  He holds a pencil vertically, horizontally, and diagonally in front of my face. He squints, covers one eye, and measures the space between my eyes by sliding his inky thumb along the length of his pencil. His glasses look like he has finger painted them with dust and spit.

  “Drawing your face,” he says, pointing the pencil right at me, “I’d exaggerate the triangle shadow along your nose, and the cleft in your chin, and your cheekbones.” He taps his own cheeks, looks off, puzzled, as if my face is an unsolvable geometry problem. “You know, the combination.”

  Elliot stretches to get a side view. My cheeks burn. I turn from his dissection of my face. “When did you come from China?” he asks.

  “I didn’t.” I stare at spots of paint the color of dried blood on the floor. “I was born in San Francisco. In Chinatown.”

  “Interesting,” he says. I know he’s figured out that I’m adopted. No secret there. Elliot dives back into his yearbook drawings, his pencil turning paper into people.

  I remember almost nothing of Chinatown. My new mother explained my history to me when I asked about her big stomach. She had gotten pregnant with Ralph soon after my adoption. I didn’t have you in my tummy, Lillian. A lady who came here from China did. We know nothing about her. That’s all over now.

  My new mother couldn’t carry me because she worried that the baby inside her would stop growing like all the others had. So she lay on the divan, and whenever she sat up, the lap I wanted to climb onto disappeared. Even before he was born Ralph overtook it.

  In sixth grade, when Patty and Anita and I discovered the facts of life, I tried for the first time to imagine the man “involved” with Gone Mom. We didn’t dare mention it out loud, but we all thought my birth mother wasn’t married to him and had committed a mortal sin and would go to hell if she didn’t get forgiveness. I actually pictured her coughing and moaning in hell, all smoky and overcrowded. How could I know if she had ever properly asked for forgiveness? Done penance. Chinese people were heathens, not Christians. She might not have even known she was supposed to confess.

  Any other record of her existence is sealed forever. She has been sealed off inside me, too. But since I walked out of class, Gone Mom has been creeping in—turning my tear faucets, twisting my stomach, and unwrapping memories, like the one that awoke me last night. We were together in a dark room reaching for a giant, glowing pearl hanging from the ceiling by a chain.

  And now Elliot James has started poking at Gone Mom with his pencil.

  The door bangs open. I jump. Elliot is off without a word. I watch him tramp across the empty practice field to his car parked on the street. I mop my face with a handful of damp paper towels that smell like dirt. I straighten the stools and wipe a cluster of round mirrors on gooseneck stands. They’re self-portrait supplies. Broken flashes of my face bounce up at me—my teeth, the view up my nose, a Cyclops.

  I squeeze my eyes shut, hold my cheeks. Go away, Lily.

  Chapter 5

  I’m cold and jittery positioned in the streetcar shelter at the Country Club Plaza with my hat pulled down and my muffler up, praying my father doesn’t walk by. Traffic slides between the shelter and the Chinese restaurant across the street. The House of Chow is a leasing experiment, as my father calls it. He described his dilemma about offering the Chows retail space. “Orientals are . . . shrewd,” he said over his glasses. “So far they’re okay, but . . .”

  Mother had dabbed the corners of her mouth and given him a smug we’ll see kind of nod.

  A banner stretches across the wooden overhang of the restaurant entrance announcing: CHINESE NEW YEAR CELEBRATION FEBRUARY 5. It is written in English. Another hanging banner, written in Chinese characters, could say anything at all.

  I am here because Elliot made me feel like a stooge about China. Hopefully one of the Chows will walk out and at least I will have seen a Chinese person lately.

  And sure enough, in a minute two people do. Mr. and Mrs. Chow, the owners. Mrs. Chow is loaded down with a ladder and a long string of red and gold lanterns. They probably need help, but if I walked over this very minute they woul
d stop and gawk, wondering, Who are you? And I would reply that I am a Chinese character without a plot.

  I’ve held a teeny fantasy that Gone Mom might be Mrs. Chow, which is nuts because Mrs. Chow is obviously a planner with foresight and guts. Good for her. She and Mr. Chow would not have a baby girl, feed her, clothe her, love her, and then abandon her. They would have helped their daughter. They would have taught her Chinese cooking and fancy napkin folding and calligraphy and how to be true in the world. They would have had a proud bamboo family tree and dragon decorations for her birthday party. They would have clapped when she stood up for herself for the first time and walked out on prejudice.

  Mrs. Chow’s loud voice carries across the street. She gestures wildly to her husband. “Siu sam!”

  He flaps his hands at her. “Okay, okay.” He’s got a yellow stocking cap, baggy pants, and foggy glasses. With raised arms, she points with her chin where he’s supposed to position the ladder. Between the tops of her rubber boots and the hem of her bulky green coat are sections of bare leg. Her calves are thick and sturdy as she struggles up the rungs with the string of lanterns cascading on the ground behind her. “Mou dit douh!” he yells.

  The clink of wind chimes floats across the street. They sound free and flighty. But the Chows don’t. They’re all business. Mr. Chow strains to hook his end of the lantern string. He says, “You the boss,” and she says, “Siu sam, siu sam.”

  Mr. Chow plugs in the bulbs. The entrance gleams, with rows of glowing lanterns nodding in the breeze. Passersby stop to look. Clap. Mr. Chow grins, extends his hand, bows. “Xie xie. Good see you. Long time no see!”

  The Chows are not huddled behind the Bamboo Curtain. They are not avoiding themselves. They’re loud and colorful, making a living off their Chineseness.

  I feel like clapping too, when a gong sounds in my head: Siu sam, siu sam—be careful, be careful. Mou dit douh—don’t fall down. Xie xie—thank you. It’s Chinese and I understand it! I whisper, “Siu sam, siu sam” and “Leih li douh”—“Come here”—and “Mamá,” with the accent on the second syllable. I hear her voice and mine mixed, amazed by this singsong Chinese music box still wound in me.

  I squint across the street. Somebody is helping hold the door for Mr. Chow while he carries the ladder inside. He’s chubby with a Boy Scout hat.

  Ralph!

  He waves at me. Oh, God! Please, please don’t tell them I’m over here. Ralph bows. Mr. Chow answers heartily, “Joi gin.” Good-bye. Good-bye.

  My brother trudges toward the streetcar shelter. There is only one Ralph Firestone in the whole world, but somehow he’s everywhere! He hands me a fortune cookie. “From the Chows’ place.”

  I put it in my pocket. Crumbs go flying when he cracks his. The paper fortune strip falls in a puddle. I do not help him get it. “What are you doing here?” I snap. “Has there ever been a day in your life when you were not bugging me?”

  Ralph shrugs.

  “If I needed a pet I’d get a hamster. If I needed a shadow I’d rent one. What are you doing here?”

  “Shopping.”

  “What?”

  “At the Chow House they’ve got a neat gift shop. And I’m also stalking you. Polishing my tracking skills. Remember?”

  “Real stalkers never wave at their quarry.”

  He gives me a sidelong glance. “What are you doing here?”

  “Observing Chinese people.” I do not add that I already checked the encyclopedia and our world history textbook, which have only distant pictures of people constructing bridges or working in factories with faces no bigger than the head of a pin. The pictures of the Chinese soldiers in the newspaper and newsreels are too scary to face.

  We walk to Cooper’s Drugs a few blocks away. I need a notebook. Ralph needs a mirror—more stalking equipment. We’re safe here. If Dad shows up now, we can talk our way around being at the counter drinking hot chocolate together on Saturday afternoon.

  I shove a napkin at my brother and shudder. “There’s marshmallow globs in your braces and crusty chocolate ick on the corners of your mouth.” He gives me a wide grin. His hair is plastered to his forehead and his ears stick out, pink as petunias.

  The door swings open and in steps a slew of older sorority girls and Patty and Anita. I shrink on the stool, turn to Ralph. “Oh, God. Cupcakes.” I cock my head. “Let’s go.”

  “Hey, there’s Anita,” Ralph says, “and Patty and Maureen. What do you mean—cupcakes?”

  “Sorority girls. Let’s go.”

  So Ralph does. He goes right over and says in Mr. Chow style, “Hi, Anita. Long time no see.”

  I have no choice but to follow. They give me quick, flashy waves and smiles and squiggle into their corner booth—the Cupcake Corral. Maureen, my former locker partner, smiles, turns to my brother, and says, “Wow, Ralphie, you’re taller!”

  Anita stands, facing me across our deep pit of crippled awkwardness. “Are you gonna get a chocolate Coke?” I say. Why do I care what she orders anymore? I don’t. Her eyes flicker. She moves her head—maybe.

  “Your current event about the Red Cross was great.” I hear the whole drugstore—even the cosmetics consultants and pharmacists—gasp at the most pathetic nonsense sentence I have ever uttered. Anita and I both know I quit the Red Cross Club because I didn’t fit in. My face tingles. Even Ralph looks surprised.

  Anita looks down. “Yeah. Sorry you stopped coming to club,” she says, and slides back into her seat. She and Patty and Maureen wiggle their fingers. “See ya.”

  I bump out the door—a cliqueless alien. Ralph goes back to the counter and pays.

  I head to the streetcar, silent. I’m done. Permanently. I can’t trust my mouth and I can’t trust my whole self not to get up and walk out of class or throw Elliot’s clothes in the trash or stalk the Chows.

  Ralph nudges me. “What’s a sorority?”

  “Uh . . . like Boy Scouts . . . but it’s for high school girls, except it isn’t Girl Scouts either. You can’t join if you want to. You have to be asked. Anita and Patty are grooming themselves so they’ll get in next year. No merit badges either, Ralphie. Just tryouts.”

  “Tryouts?”

  “Number one: You have to be white. Number two: You must act cupcakey sweet on the outside. Three: Wear pearls. Four: Swear off your pre-sorority friends, and if you are Jewish or poor or something, hide it. No pandas or yellow monkey girls allowed. Oh, and you have to be cliquey and . . .”

  Ralph looks up. “What’s ‘cliquey’?”

  “Keeping with your own type. Labeling people, talking behind their backs, and being two-faced and . . .”

  “Oh, neat! You mean like you talking behind their backs, calling them cupcakes?” Ralph gives me a sorry look. “I’m stickin’ with Scouts. At least there’s a handbook.”

  * * *

  On the bus he asks about the Chows. “Okay . . . so, why were you spying on them? Do you think they’re your real parents or something?”

  “No!” I squeeze my hands. “That’s impossible.”

  “Grandparents?”

  “No.”

  “Aunt and uncle?”

  “God! Forget it. I just wanted to see some Chinese people. That’s all.”

  Ralph’s not convinced. “You thought Mrs. Chow might be your first mom, didn’t you?”

  “NO!”

  Ralph’s tone turns soft, curious. “Have you ever seen her?”

  “Uh, duh. I only lived with her for three years.”

  “I mean, like in pictures.”

  I do not say that currently it feels like any Chinese lady in the universe could be my birth mother. I do tell Ralph that I call her Gone Mom, because it sounds kind of Chinese and it fits her perfectly.

  “Do you have any of her old stuff?” he asks.

  “Nope.” I sigh, retrieve my fortune cookie from my pocket, and crack it open. It reads:

  Bodhisattvas surround you.

  I turn the strip over. No translation. I hand it to Ralph.<
br />
  “What’s bo-dee-sat-vaas?” he asks, holding the fortune up to the bus window.

  “Who knows?” I close my eyes.

  “We gotta go eat at the Chow House sometime. They’ve got an aquarium full of red fish and a shop that sells finger tortures and these neat dragon kites.”

  “I won’t ever go in there. Plus it’s not Chow House, which sounds like a cowboy diner. It’s the House of Chow.” My voice sounds a little haughty.

  “Right. Chinese cowboys only.” Ralph tosses part of my cookie and catches it in his mouth while I sit back wondering why in the world I care what the Chows’ restaurant is called.

  When we get home Mother is playing solitaire at the kitchen table with the radio on: Yes, folks, we bring the world to you. . . . I hear Ralph sneak to the attic. I sit on my bedroom floor, hold my new notebook between my palms, and let it fall open to a random page. I write, and then whisper the name: “Gone Mom.” I tape my “Bodhisattvas surround you” fortune on another page. I stretch my legs and shut my eyes. More scraps of my Gone Mom memory-dream appear.

  I’m little. She’s standing and I’m sitting on her arm. The room is dim with lacy shadows on the floor. We look up at a ceiling filled with lighted dragons. They bite each other’s tails with pointy fangs. Gone Mom holds her palm flat against my backbone so I won’t fall. She counts and says, “Gau luhng.” Nine dragons. Footsteps echo around us. A glowing ball, the dragon pearl, hangs from the center of the ceiling. I stretch my hand to grab it.

  My eyes pop open. I look up at my own raised hand. Where in the world were we?

  My vanity mirror reflects snowflakes shoved by the wind. I walk over, sit down, and search my face for bits of Gone Mom. My door bangs opens. No knock. I grab a Kleenex and turn. Ralph stands in the opening hiding something behind his back. “Hey! I—”

  “Disappear, Ralph! Have you ever heard of the term ‘privacy’?”

  He looks from me to the mirror and back. “Staring at your face isn’t gonna change it, Lily.”

  “Well, don’t you ever try it,” I snap. “Yours is getting all bumpy.”

  Ralph blinks, shrugs. “I was gonna say your face was fine, but forget it.” He flips off my ceiling light and slams the door.