The Chinese Groove, page 14
Leo, like Henry, asked for me every night. He sat on the blanket with his stubby legs crossed, elbows on his knees and his chin propped in his hands. The little mouth breather made listening into a sport, which I played to win. I called up from the depths of my childhood curtailed all the folktales and legends my mother had told to me. Aviva said I should tell the stories gratis for the sheer pleasure of childhood ritual handed down through generations, but Kate knew to slip me a twenty. Seeing as the fee structure was as flat as the service day was long, I spoke in Mandarin in hopes of putting Leo to sleep as fast as I possibly could. My cadence was his lullaby, my recycled repertoire his glide path to the country of conked-out, the district of doss, the suzerain of slumber, where often I joined him from my spot on his bedroom floor.
HENRY SAID I COULD have a weekend off to visit Lisbet. Kate was right next door, and he’d ask Huntington to drop by. Lisbet and I made a date. Can’t wait to see u, she wrote.
On Commencement Day, I watched Eddie and Paloma cross the stage in cap and gown and took pictures of them smiling with their arms around their parents. Mrs. Low pulled me into a great big hug. Are you making yourself useful, like I said? She was thrilled that Eddie and Paloma had completed their two years at City College and were moving on to four-year universities. Eddie was going to S.F. State and Paloma to U.C. Berkeley. You can do it too, Mrs. Low said. Get your ye ye to pay for it. Her enthusiasm touched me. No one had ever thought of me attending college, not even Henry. Mrs. Low hugged me again and gave me a red envelope with fifty dollars in cash, enough for me to buy a ticket for the overnight bus to L.A. with munch money to spare.
The day finally arrived. I knocked at the saltbox stretch. The door flung open and Crouder rushed to pleasure himself on my leg. Before I could say a word, Aviva was off and running.
“Leo, Shelley’s here!” She motioned me inside. She wore black stretchy pants that ended at the knees and an egg-yolk-yellow jacket that gave her a bilious look. Her curly hair was tucked under a Giants baseball cap. “Thank God you’re here. There’s been unhappiness in the house.”
Leo ran into the room. “You shut up!” he yelled.
Aviva knelt and tried to hug him, but Leo dashed away. “Well, at least he said something. Kate and Orit are looking at apartments again. They haven’t found a thing to rent; everything’s so expensive. It’s stressing Leo out. I’ve told them, listen, stay here as long as you like. Ted’s made the adjustment. I knew he’d be okay once we cleaned out Eli’s bedroom. We’re having a wonderful time. I love all the energy they bring.”
“Hello, Shelley,” Ted said, coming upstairs. His arms and legs looked very brown and his face was windburned. He spent every weekend taking long solo bicycle rides over the Golden Gate Bridge and into the Marin Headlands. It didn’t seem to bother him that Leo didn’t speak. It gave them something in common.
“How were your finals?” he asked.
I flashed a thumbs-up. Earlier, he’d taken me aside to ask if Father had sent me adequate funds to pay for a second term, and I told him that Henry had offered to pay if I did well on my exams. Anything to protect his investment, Ted had said, sounding exactly like his father. He couldn’t bring himself to credit Henry for kindness.
“I’ll be gone a couple of nights. I’m going to L.A.,” I said.
“But who will take care of Henry?” Aviva said. “We’ve got our hands full here.”
“Shelley can take a vacation. I don’t doubt he needs one,” Ted said.
“You’re no help,” Aviva said. “You won’t even set foot in his house.” More than once, she suggested that he go next door and check on his father. Ted refused. He did everything else she asked of him but not that.
“I’ve left him dinners,” I said. “For lunch, he’ll go out. He can get his own breakfast. And Huntington said he’d drop by.”
Ted frowned. “Huntington’s been spending a lot of time there,” he said to Aviva. “I see his car often.”
“The UPS guy dropped off a package addressed to him at your father’s the other day. I brought it into the house.”
“I hope my father isn’t putting more ideas in his head. I don’t need another job.”
“Stop feeling so self-conscious. You’re more than qualified for that job,” Aviva said.
“So I’m going then,” I said.
They looked at me, surprised that I was there.
“Have fun,” Ted said.
“You look really nice,” Aviva said. “That’s a nice shirt. Are you going to see a girlfriend?”
Yes.
SHE WAS WAITING FOR me on the curb in a sundress and glasses and looking smaller than I remembered. It took me a moment to believe it was really her. When I did, love came rushing back. She’d changed her hair color from black to almost white and her slippers to leather sandals. As the bus pulled up, she tucked her book and sunglasses into her bag and scanned the windows. I scrunched low and ran again through my options: handshake, hug, kiss, no kiss, cheek, mouth, elbow. I felt like anything I did would be wrong. I stared at the floor of the bus, saw Father there on his hands and knees, scrubbing. The footprints of others, the aunties’ dirt. But I had gotten away from all that. I’d climbed on my mop and soared across the sea all the way to Peach Blossom Land. Blinking Father from my sights, I pulled up my socks, flattened my hair, rose to my feet, and waved.
As soon as I stepped from the bus, she hugged me and held on. She felt different in my arms, lighter in breadth, hollow in her bones, and her smell, musky with sweat, was unfamiliar.
“How are you?” she said, stepping back to get a good look. My heartbeat was so violent, all I could see of her was smile. The old Lisbet, the one sapped of spirit the last time I’d seen her in Gejiu, had never smiled so big.
“I’m sorry,” I blurted. “I’m sorry for how angry I was.”
Lisbet laughed. “How long have you been waiting to say that?”
“Since I saw you last. Almost a year ago.”
“That’s a long time to hold your breath.” She didn’t let go of my hand. “Anyway, we’re here now. And you! Living with your rich American uncle, just like you said you would.”
“He’s not rich, but I’m going to be. I’m a businessman, working with a team of technology innovators to tap into the Chinese market.” The words pouring out of me as if I were Aviva.
She raised an inquisitive brow, the old amusement playing on her face. There was my Lisbet, not so different after all. She tucked her arm through mine. “I want to hear all about it.”
She drove us to a café in Santa Monica that overlooked the ocean. “I need the sea,” she said. “I need to verge on water.” We settled ourselves at a table under a striped umbrella, my heartbeat finally slowing. I listened as she told me of her travels and how, when she found a place she liked, she stayed a little while, working in cafés and bars until she grew restless and moved on. She’d intended to write to me, but she didn’t know what to say that wouldn’t sound false or stupid, so she just kept on going. She’d been to Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia. The Maldives, Seychelles, and Madagascar. Places her father had sailed to. She always knew she’d see me again. Of that she’d been certain.
“You should’ve told me. It would’ve helped.”
“I was such a brat, I’m sorry. I was awful to everyone, especially my mom. Now that Bobby has left her, she wants us to try again. I feel sorry for her. She doesn’t know how to be alone. She says she admires my independence.”
“I’m never alone. I like it that way.” I told her about Ted and Aviva and their son who was gone and Leo who wouldn’t talk. And Kate and Orit living downstairs in what used to be the office, and Henry who was a miser with everyone but me.
“I’m glad it’s worked out well for you. You look good. Happy.”
“You make me happy,” I said.
Another big smile. Without her black hair and the dark kohl that had used to rim her eyes, she looked fragile. Still, she was beautiful, the morning sunshine turning her cropped hair into a cap of light. She held my arm tightly as we walked. I thought she’d want to go down to the water, but she said the beach here was too crowded, so we got back in the car and drove north to Malibu along the coastal highway, beach towns on one side, ocean on the other. Houses clung to the sides of cliffs like orchids ornamenting trees.
“I’ve been to beaches all over,” Lisbet said. “Zuma is still one of my favorites.”
She parked the car on a narrow side street and led me across the road. She waited while I used the changing room to struggle out of my jeans and into a pair of Eddie’s swim trunks that required a double knot. We walked down a beach as wide as a river, our feet ecstatic in the soft, warm sand. Lisbet had brought a blue-and-white cotton blanket, a favorite from her travels, trimmed with tassels like the tail tips of white cats. We spread it on the sand. The day was mild, not hot enough for swimming, but Lisbet said that whenever the ocean called, she followed. I watched as she stepped out of her dress. She was wearing an old bikini printed with tiny blue stars, its bottom slightly sagging. Her breasts, shifting in their triangle cups, sped up my heart again. Before I could reach for her, she ran into the water.
I wasn’t a good swimmer, so I watched her from the sand. Again and again she dove. I remembered Miss Chips telling Yu and me that her niece was coming from California, and how I’d pictured her as a blond on a surfboard, big-bottomed and big-breasted, gyrating in the spray. What a lazy lad I’d been, consigning my imagination to the dull mentality of the pack. We all of us feel safe behind our walls. Lisbet was the first to unlock the gate in me. To her, I wasn’t a spawn of a bastard; son of a failure; moneyless, motherless boy. I was a person with a history and a future of my own. Is there any mystery why she was the one I chose?
She ran up and scattered water on my head, “from the baptismal font of the blessed sea,” she said, and plopped herself on the sand. She asked me to tell her more about my San Francisco life. I began talking and couldn’t stop. I described Cook urging me to improvise, improvise, and the green bean-o-rama and the boardinghouse rumpus and old Mr. Lee, the erhu player who gossiped. Eddie and Paloma, my business partners, billionaires in the making. I showed her my key chain, 888. I said that Leo was a pretty cool kid who couldn’t go to sleep without a bedtime story. He and I went every week to see the bison in the park. That’s where I learned how to fly-cast, courtesy of Henry and Supervisor Huntington Wong, the son Henry wished he had.
Lisbet listened closely to every word, her eyes fixed on me behind her dark glasses. As I talked, she ran a finger tipped with salve around her mouth. I wanted to kiss the smear from her lips and dive in the swell of her belly, but I wasn’t brave enough. I told her how Aviva entered every room like a whirlwind, and that Ted was like an abandoned well, dug deep and covered by moss. Diana and Eli I consigned to the grave because bringing up the dead wouldn’t raise the specter of romance, only the specter of specter.
“You describe them so well, I can see them.” She was propped on her hands, arms straight behind her, like Mother used to sit leaning back to listen to Father. Sand freckled her thighs, and the tops of her breasts had turned pink.
“Can I tell you the best part? Even better than finding a family, better than having a home?”
“Tell me!”
“It’s been great material for my poetry,” I said.
“Your poetry?”
I jumped to my feet. I had no idea what I was about to say but if I didn’t fire now, I’d never launch the rocket. The surf pounded behind me. In front of me, a mirage. I felt like I was holding back the ocean.
On my foot
A little white dog has come to sleep.
Go home, little white dog.
There is another who loves you.
Lisbet clapped; I bowed, overjoyed with relief that a poem had presented itself at last.
“You see, I never forget a promise.”
She sat forward and cocked her head. “What promise?”
“To become a poet like you asked. I’ve been working on it since you left Gejiu.”
Lisbet frowned. “I don’t remember asking you that.”
“You made me promise! Three splendid poems.”
“Oh. I’m sorry. I don’t remember.”
“By Golden Lake,” I said. “Rainy day? Giant puppets?”
Lisbet looked embarrassed. “I told you I was a brat.”
I’d been holding fast to a one-sided promise. I would’ve been mad had it not been for the rush I felt when speaking my very own verse, or maybe it was Lisbet’s legs now casually crossed on the blanket that were causing my blood to drum.
“It was a good poem,” Lisbet said. “Short but sweet.” She leaned in and kissed me. A second kiss was long and lasting. She moved my hands about her body. We went to the empty lifeguard tower, but it was locked, so we took up our things and walked a long way, past Point Dume and around to the other side. At the far end of the beach, tucked among rocks, Lisbet spread the blanket. “Come here,” she said, lying back. I panicked trying to unknot my swim trunks, but Lisbet waited calmly, unpeeled from her own suit and elegant in the sun. When I finally freed myself, Lisbet handed me protection—City College standards, yes means yes—and that was another challenge. The sand, you see, and my fumble. Lisbet helped me put it on with practiced hands, which made me swoon harder. I closed my eyes against the dazzling light. Finally, there was something in Peach Blossom Land that was better than I’d imagined.
We returned to the car in the late afternoon and discovered that the backpack I’d left under the seat was gone.
“Damn,” Lisbet said. “I forgot to lock the car. I’m sorry.”
I had my wallet, but my bus ticket was in the backpack, and I didn’t have the money to replace it. Embarrassed, I admitted I was broke.
“I have cash at the house,” Lisbet said. She stared across the highway and pointed to the cliffs. “My mother lives up there.”
The road wound halfway to the top. A white house stood in a riot of garden color, its wall of windows ablaze. Tall palms feathered the eaves, and the courtyard was still and quiet. I heard the surf pounding far below, a figment, I realized, like the roll of a rocking boat that a sailor feels on land.
“Wait here for a second,” Lisbet said, and she hurried into the house. I buttoned my shirt and dashed sand from my hair, composing myself to meet Lisbet’s mother. Thumping and bumping started up in my nervous belly with an added flutter of shame. I’d never brought Lisbet home to meet Father. Several times she’d asked, and I’d said he worked late, he was sick, he was busy. Was I ashamed of her? she’d said. No, of Father, but I had kept silent, hiding from her his weakness and the misery under our roof.
Lisbet reappeared. “She’s not here. Come in.”
The house had spacious rooms, flooding light, excellent napping couches—all that I’d imagined for my rich American uncle. From our perch I could see a long wash of blue sky and ocean that stretched as far as my eye could wander. I thought of the view from Henry’s picture window of little box houses, telephone poles, and asphalt. His was lower Peach Blossom Land; this was upper.
“Bobby’s in the film business. Obviously,” Lisbet said.
“Where’s he gone?”
“A friend’s house. He calls every night. He feels bad, leaving me with my mother. He’ll pay for my ticket out of here whenever I want.”
“Are you leaving?” This time, I’d find a way to stop her.
She shook her head. “Maybe just for a while. But I’ll be back. My mother’s talking about moving. I’ve promised to go with her.”
“Come to San Francisco. Then we can be together!”
“We can be together now,” Lisbet said, and we went into one of the cool, dark rooms and conjoined ourselves again. I lay beside her as she slept, making plans for our future. Lisbet would move to San Francisco and team up with me, Eddie, and Paloma, a perfect match, since who knew better than Lisbet what a traveler might want from an app? I’d bring her around to Henry’s house and introduce her to everybody and she’d see right away how good it feels to join a new family. I fell asleep dreaming of us sailing through the Golden Gate.
15.
Crossing the Bridge
I RETURNED TO THE SALTBOX AND FOUND HENRY ALONE, standing with his back against the wall next to the picture window like a soldier trying not to get shot.
“What are you doing?”
Henry gestured violently. “Stand back. Don’t let them see you!”
“Who?” I asked and went to the window. He rushed at me, lost his footing, and pitched toward the glass. I caught him just in time.
“You’re going to hurt yourself.”
“I saw someone out there! I’ve seen him before, spying on the house. Now there’s two of them. Get down!”
“Come sit,” I tried to soothe him.
“Don’t just stand there! Draw the drapes!”
We never bothered to close the curtains. I had to hunt for the pull cord.
“Keep close to the wall!” Henry said.
I took hold of the brittle cord and yanked. It broke off in my hand.
“Goddammit!” Henry roared. “Now you’ve gone and done it.”
I got him into his armchair and brought him a cup of tea, careful to avoid the window. I’d never seen him so worked up. He sat stiffly, clutching the arms of the chair. I could tell he was in pain. When I tried to hand him his tea, he shook his head with a grimace.
“What have you done to yourself?” I tried putting a pillow behind his back but moving him made it worse.
“It’s nothing,” he insisted. “Put some bourbon in that cup.”
“Did you fall?”
“I was moving boxes out of the downstairs room into the garage. Next thing I know, my back’s like a slab of cement.”
