“Yes. And it’s a good idea.” Bruce was almost startled by the priest’s question. He had been lulled by the gentle monotone of the man’s voice.
“I’m not sure there is anything else I can tell you.”
“Thank you. You’ve been very kind. I wondered about this—” He paused, not sure how to proceed. “This feeling Mr. Tsung has for his Chinese culture. Would you say he is something of a racial purist?” What I mean, he thought, but can’t say, is how is Tsung going to react to the appearance of a half-Chinese daughter?
“Are you asking me if Mr. Tsung is a bigot?” Father Fu’s face split into an engaging grin. “Offhand, I’d say no.”
Bruce laughed at himself. The good father was aware of his intensity. He had overplayed his hand, and he knew it.
“You might talk to Malcolm Gee, the realtor. He and Raymond have been active for years in both the Rotary and Lions clubs. They’ve done a lot of good in the community. I’ll get Gee’s number for you if you stop in with me at the church office before you go.”
It was almost sundown when Bruce finally left Chinatown and headed home. He was discouraged. What had he found out, actually? Not much more than he had known already. From Malcolm Gee, Bruce had learned that Tsung was a sometime Sunday painter, but didn’t work very hard at his craft any more. Probably his artistic hobby was the last vestige of his fling at being an artist in his youth. Suddenly, Bruce wanted to see Donna. He wanted very badly to see her. As soon as he got into his house he dialed the Hunts’ number. His luck held. She answered the phone.
“Have you eaten yet?” he asked without preamble.
“No. The Hunts are going out, and E.J. is over at Mark’s mother’s for the evening—I think Irma’s even keeping him overnight. I’m on my own. I haven’t gotten around to eating yet.”
“My housekeeper won’t like it, but I don’t feel like eating alone. Why don’t I come over and get you and we’ll eat out together?”
“Why won’t Violet like it?”
“I told her this morning I’d be home, so she’ll have made something.”
“Maybe you should eat it.”
Her indifference stung him. “I just thought you might enjoy going somewhere.”
“Why not? Okay,” she said, sounding pleasant, but definitely not eager.
Suppose her great declaration had simply been a teenage fantasy? Suppose she was over it now? He had a quick, intense, recollection of the pressure of her mouth on his.
“I’ll pick you up in ten minutes,” he said, his voice a little thick.
“I’ll be ready, but you know, I’m not that hungry. Maybe something light, okay? No big deal.”
“Right.” He set the receiver back in its cradle and discovered that his palm was moist. What the hell was wrong with him? Crowds, he was thinking, we should be with lots and lots of people. The way he felt at the moment, he knew better than to be alone with her.
Half an hour later, they were walking down Fisherman’s Wharf among teeming hordes of tourists. It was the most crowded place he could think of.
“I thought you didn’t like Fisherman’s Wharf,” she said, dodging two portly people in Hawaiian shirts. “You always said it was too touristy. Are we going to eat down here?” She looked into the restaurants they passed, at the stalls of cheap goods, the vendors selling hot dogs, popcorn, balloons. She stopped at an open-air counter full of tourist trinkets.
“This is a good year for ceramic cable cars marked Souvenir of San Francisco, isn’t it?” she asked.
Bruce picked one up and turned it over in his hand. A nearby mime imitated his action perfectly.
“Do you like crab? You said you weren’t hungry. Maybe we could just walk around and eat some crab.”
“Fine.” Donna had noticed a number of people eating out of plastic containers with small plastic forks as they walked along in the gathering dusk. Lights in the restaurants and along the street were beginning to come on.
They stopped at one of the large brick crab pots, and a man in jeans, torn T-shirt and large rubber apron fished a big cooked crab from a cauldron full of boiling water. He slammed the crab onto a stack of newspapers and began cracking the shell with a mallet. Then he broke it into pieces and put great chunks of the succulent white meat into two containers.
“Mmm, good,” Donna said, taking her first bite. “This is the way to eat crab. It doesn’t need a lot of gooey dressing.”
They walked in companionable silence for a time, weaving their way through the crowds. There were a few benches, but all were filled, so they sat on the edge of the wharf, their legs hanging over the greenish water that slapped at the pilings below. At a little distance, there was a small fishing boat, old rubber tires hanging from ropes over its sides to act as shock absorbers.
“You seem a little glum tonight,” Donna said after a time. “Today not go so well?”
“It’s Raymond Tsung. I’ve been doing my homework. The only new things I came up with today are that he’s an intermittent Sunday painter. Water scenes mainly. And he speaks Mandarin as well as Cantonese. The other stuff I’m finding out is…is…”
“Is what? He’s Jack the Ripper in disguise?”
“No. Anything but. He’s Mr. Perfect. The more I hear about what a great solid citizen he is, the more I wonder how…”
She poked at the uneaten remains of her crab, looking down, her silken hair hiding her face.
“You mean you don’t think he’s going to welcome me with any big parade, right?”
“Oh, you could get your parade. He might be overjoyed with an unknown daughter. But…well…it could go either way, Donna. You might get your parade. Or…” He poked savagely at his own crab. “Or he may just call his security men and have us thrown out. It’s a toss-up.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE NEXT MORNING Donna and Bruce crossed paths briefly in the employees’ lounge at Fenton and Hunt. Both were taking a late coffee break.
“Hi. You coming or going?” Bruce asked.
“Going. It’s time for me to get back. She gave him a bright smile, dumped the remainder of her coffee into the sink, and tossed the plastic cup in the trash.
“I haven’t forgotten I promised you a trip around the bay in my boat,” Bruce said, filling his cup.
“Great. Thanks. But I haven’t figured out yet how you’re going to get all those other people on the boat. What have you got? A liner?”
“What other people?” He glanced up from his cup in surprise.
“The other nine hundred and ninety-nine.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I haven’t missed the fact, Bruce,” she said, smiling as if to remove any sting from her words, “that ever since I tried to seduce you, you’ve always made certain never to see me except in the midst of intimate little groups of at least a thousand people. I didn’t miss that, you know.”
He gave a shout of laughter, but his color heightened. “Oh, you picked up on that, did you?”
“Yes. I’m taking it as a compliment on my degree of seductivity,” she said demurely.
“I don’t think there is such a word as seductivity, but I get your point.” He stirred his coffee with a plastic stick.
She wanted him to mention the boat trip again, but instead he said, “I just had a call from my old friend, Edison Wong. He had another bulletin about the Tsungs.”
Donna braced herself, and tried to look pleased. “And what’s new with Mr. and Mrs. Tsung?”
“Eddy’s wife’s sister goes to the same hairdresser as Mrs. Tsung. The story is that Mrs. Tsung wanted to have more children, but it just didn’t happen. Apparently, she’s a real hard-core mother type. She was after Mr. Tsung to adopt, but he vetoed that.”
“Oh? Did Eddy’s wife’s sister find out why?”
“I asked Eddy, and it turns out he had asked his wife that, and she said, her sister said, that Mr. Tsung is very family-oriented. Said he is very proud of the family name, etcetera, and only wanted their o
wn kids, not someone else’s. So Mrs. Tsung had to be satisfied with the two kids they have.” He glanced up at the clock. “Good grief. I’ve got to beat it. I have an appointment about now.”
At home that night, in her lovely green-and-gold bedroom at the Hunts’, Donna lay sleepless for a long time, staring at the light and dark shadows that played across the coved ceiling, as the sheer window curtains blew in and out. She smelled the slight scent of salt air, and in the far distance, thought she could discern the faint sound of two or three foghorns in mournful conversation.
She knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the coming meeting with Raymond Tsung was gong to be a difficult one. She tried to imagine, but couldn’t, how he must have been during his time with her mother, Prairie. She had learned some time ago that Raymond and Prairie had lived together for a time, sharing a single room with another couple in a crummy district of “the city.”
“It was rather nice,” Prairie had said long ago. “There was a little stove and fridge down at the end of the hall, and we all had sleeping bags. And Ray got the prettiest paper fans from Chinatown, and we tacked them on the walls. And Ray painted two pictures of boats.”
Donna felt a creeping sadness, as she always did when she thought of Prairie. What would Prairie think if she knew what Raymond Tsung had become? He’d come a long way from a sleeping bag in that crummy room with paper fans on the walls; from riding his motorbike up and down San Francisco’s hills with Prairie behind him, her flowered peasant skirt billowing in the wind. Did Raymond Tsung regret his brief wild period? Was he ashamed of it? He didn’t, she was sure, even know that she existed, because by the time she’d been born, Raymond had been replaced by Donald something-or-other, after whom she was named.
And when this strange man who was her father found out she existed, what then? She didn’t want to think about that. She crawled out of bed and struggled into her robe without turning on any lights. Clutching the robe tightly around her, she went to the window and pushed aside the filmy curtain. The garden below was in darkness, and she felt a cool damp mist against her skin. She shivered.
And what about Mom and Dad? The unwelcome thought was suddenly in the front of her mind. What were they going to say when they found out what she had done? What were they going to think, to feel? Would they feel somehow betrayed? Abandoned? They didn’t deserve that. What was Mom doing now, this minute? What was Dad doing? What was Jimmy up to? The thought of her little brother brought a lump to her throat. They were probably all in bed, without a worry in the world. Vancouver was in the same time zone. Yes, they’d all be sleeping peacefully. They didn’t know about Raymond Tsung yet.
And when they found out, what then?
Mom had taken her in, given her love, a home. And when she’d married Dad—he had married them both, taken on a complete family.
“Well, your mom said it was a package deal or no deal,” he had joked with her. “So I was stuck, you see?” She felt her eyes stinging when she remembered how desperately she had wanted her mother to marry Evan McGrath.
And they had done it. They had given her everything she had ever needed and wanted. Hers was a far cry from the half-life she’d had with her own mother, in and out of foster homes with Prairie drifting back into her life at midterm to take her out of yet another school for some reason, or for no reason at all. She had been a frantic little girl with bitten fingernails. A torn, divided little girl. Overjoyed to see Prairie again—because she did love Prairie, and always would—but heartsick at the idea of missing school, once again losing whatever friends she’d managed to make. Six- and seven-year-olds should not have to endure anxiety attacks.
Then Donna thought about Sara Fletcher, her new mother—her true mother, regardless of which woman had borne her—and about Evan McGrath, the kindness they’d shown her, the fun, the security, the priceless stability they’d given her, so freely, and with such love.
How could she have forgotten that? Why had she started this stupid quest for Raymond Tsung? She might have known that Bruce would find him.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” she murmured to the empty room. She suddenly realized that she was crying. She stood by the open window, both hands pressed to her mouth, her open robe moving in the night wind. She needed—desperately—to talk to Bruce. Right now. She hurried to her bedside phone, stumbling a little over the hem of her gown, and picked up the phone with unsteady hands to dial his number.
“Hello?” His voice when he answered sounded as if he was wide awake.
“Bruce? Bruce.” Donna gulped out his name and swallowed hard. What an idiot she was. She had reverted to her little-girl custom of calling him when she needed a friend. Her glance passed over her bedside clock. Even as a child she hadn’t called him in the middle of the night!
“Oh, I’m sorry. I…didn’t realize the time.”
“Donna? For Pete’s sake. That’s okay. I’m accustomed to women calling me in the middle of the night. That’s the story of my life. I just can’t fight them off.”
“Oh, Bruce—” She laughed shakily.
“You’re crying, Donna.” His voice was suddenly gentle. “What’s wrong, Chickie? Sorry. I forgot you don’t—”
“No, no. It’s all right. You can call me anything you want. I really shouldn’t have phoned you, but I—” Her control wavered, and she said in a small voice, “I’m homesick.”
“Oh, good Lord! That’s serious! That could be terminal. I’m coming right over with my little black bag. Donna? Donna?”
“Yes.” She gulped. “I’m still here. Bruce, you don’t have to do that. I’m just being foolish.”
“No, that’s quite all right, miss. I make house calls. And I’m a well-known specialist in foolishness. Tell you what, I guess the Hunts are asleep, right?”
“Right. You can’t come. It’s okay.” She was feeling better, just talking to him.
“Nonsense. I don’t mind missing my well-earned rest. But wait ten minutes and go out back, will you? By that tree. We can’t talk on the terrace. It’s right under their bedroom.”
“Okay. Right. I’ll be there,” she said, suddenly breathless. She went into the bathroom, splashed her face with cold water and toweled it dry. Her eyes would be swollen. Well, it didn’t matter. It was pretty dark out there. Bruce wouldn’t even notice. She was about to hurry into the hall, but stopped. She couldn’t meet him in her nightgown and robe! He’d think she was trying to seduce him again. She rushed to the closet and groped wildly among the clothes there. She grabbed the first things at hand.
It seemed awfully dark and empty at the bottom of the garden. The hammock and the chairs were shadowy white shapes. She stood close to the tree to be in its shadow in case she heard footsteps coming down the nearby alleyway. She heard nothing until the soft scrunch of Bruce’s car tires on the driveway. He was so sweet, so kind. Not many men would come out like this in the middle of the night on a silly whim; and that was all it was, a whim. She felt choked with gratitude when she heard the back gate squeak faintly as he came in, then the metallic sound of the latch falling back into place.
“What in God’s name are you wearing, Donna?”
“Oh.” Bruce was suddenly beside her, peering at her in the darkness. “I…just grabbed these. Just jeans and a sweater and…this…poncho thing.”
“You’re planning a trip to the Antarctic? A turtleneck and poncho on a night in midsummer? You’re mad. Absolutely mad. I’ve always said so.”
“It is too warm!” she said with a sudden sense of discovery, pulling the poncho over her head. After it came the turtleneck sweater.
“Hey. Wait. Not everything. It’s not that warm!”
“No. It’s all right. I’ve got a shirt on underneath. See?” She flung the sweater onto a chair on top of the poncho. She stood before him, arms spread wide.
“Well, you sure messed up your hair. And your shirttail is out now. Pull yourself together, woman, and sit down.”
She sat on the edge of the hammock, s
wung up her feet and stretched out, patting the space beside her. Oh, it was nice being with Bruce.
“Come on, there’s room for two.”
“Not without a bundling board, there isn’t,” he responded with a laugh, sitting on the edge of the nearest chair and reaching for her hand.
“What in the world is a bundling board?” She slipped her hand confidently into his. It felt so good, so right.
“An early-American device. Made from wood. They were hinged and fitted up into the high headboard of a bed so that they could be let down as a partition.”
“You mean a wooden board that pulled down to the mattress?”
“Right down the middle, like a fence. It was for courting couples in winter in New England. The guy could still come to court the girl, but thrifty New Englanders weren’t about to burn a fire all night. So the couple got into bed under the covers and pulled the bundling board down between them. That way they could at least talk without freezing to death.”
“I don’t believe it. You’re kidding.” Donna had to laugh. She felt better and better. She wanted to ask, “Are we a courting couple?” but didn’t. He had been nice enough to come over in the middle of the night. She would keep it light.
“Is this the beginning of a course in American history?” she asked instead. “Well, if we have to do history tonight, it’ll be a relief to get something besides Chinese anyhow.”
“Makes sense,” he said, caressing the back of her hand. “Our Mr. Tsung is Chinese-American, isn’t he? So we do both. Two hundred plus years of American history, and a mere seven thousand years of the Chinese variety. Not a bad balance, certainly. Now, miss. Tell me your symptoms.” He dropped her hand and sat back in his chair. She was sorry, because now his face was hidden in heavy shadow.
“Oh, I got to thinking about what a dumb stunt I’ve pulled, and what Mom and Dad would say if they knew, and…I don’t know. Thinking how great they’ve been to me all these years, and how much I owe them…”
Yes Is Forever Page 9
