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 would 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.
“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.
I’m sorry. I’m awful. I touch my cheeks in the dark. They’re wet. I wipe my face, imagining Gone Mom’s fingers are mine, wondering if the only place in the whole raging world she exists is in me. I slide my new notebook between my bed and the wall. With her name written in it, it’s already too full . . . and too empty.