Chapter Twenty-Two

Itsy’s passport is somewhat reassuring. The official stamps on its pages corroborate her story of travel and travail. More to the point, she is precisely sixteen years old and so a consenting Chinese adult.

Returning the passport to Rui Long’s small hands, I say, “The photo does you little justice, but what camera can capture the torment of the human heart or the lightning from a young woman’s eyes? Have a seat.”

Upon Itsy’s arrival at this apartment scarcely a minute ago, I closed the door behind her and peered through Lillian’s emerald curtains long enough to conclude that no one had noticed her arrival or else had not cared. And why should they? Many students live with their families in this dormitory and so come and go in their white-over-blues as a matter of course.

Rui Long drops her small amber body into the nearer settee chair and tosses her mane. “I so appreciate your letting me just show up like this, Mr. Mancer,” she says. “I am seriously going out of my head.”

“Call me Julian,” I say, settling into the other chair.

The schoolgirl winces. “I don’t know if I can call you that.”

“Try it. Juuuuuuulian.”

“Julian.” She rolls her eyes. “Whatever. I told my father I was going to the supermarket. You know how I talk to him? I hold up something. So I hold up a grocery bag and say go supermarket me now okay and split before he can start with all his evil-ass—aw, man, I don’t even know. My dad’s just so totally disapproving. His whole family just does not get that I am not a little Chinaman or whatever. My mom’s half-black and half-Thai, and my dad’s totally Chinese. I just got my dad’s side, and so what? They’re like giving me stuff to eat I can’t even recognize as food.”

“Why’d your mother send you here?” I ask.

“She couldn’t deal with me. I was always in some kind of mess. Finally she says my daddy sent for me. My daddy ain’t sent for nobody or nothing. He hates my yellow ass. I’m sorry but it’s true. Now I’m like, ‘How am I supposed to go to a Chinese school when I don’t speak no Chinese?’ But the guy at the embassy said my dad must’ve paid a huge bribe to get me in this school, so whatever.”

I’ve learned already that Chinese-Americans are roundly scorned in this country, especially the young women. If you’re not expert in Chinese culture, do not come over here in a yellow skin.

Rui Long’s school jacket sags open, and I try not to stare at the contours of the thin white blouse, assuming there’s anything there to see. Her dark eyes are blinking and darting every moment. When they hold my face for an instant, I feel as though neither eye is looking at me but at something just behind me. I almost want to turn around.

“What do your friends call you, Rui Long?”

“Back in Westmont, I’m Doo.”

I stare at her. “Doo?”

“Short for Doodle. I’m all the time doodling on something. Nervous energy, I guess.”

I’m still staring. “Does your father have a room for you?”

“I stay in his auntie’s bedroom, or great auntie, or whatever in the world that woman is. In the same bed with her. I put my sleeping bag on the floor. I have to keep everything shut up inside my suitcase ‘cause this Chinese lady’s going through it every time I leave the room. I’m like shit, the winos back in Westmont live better than this.”

Rui Long wilts. “Mr. Mancer, I’m really so sorry. I swear if I had anybody else to talk to—but from the first time I saw you, I don’t know, I just felt like you were somebody I could trust.”

The schoolgirl’s sorrowful eyes rise to meet mine, and I go for a comforting smile. Hopefully she doesn’t spot the fangs.

It’s certain that Rui Long doesn’t spot the gap where my missing gold maxillary first premolar crown should be. I now have a temporary. Tomorrow I re-visit Dr. Xylophone for my first fitting. There comes a time when you stop panning for gold in your rectum. A time when you by God break down and get fitted for a new crown. I can more or less afford one, as the Shenzhen Textbook Publishing Company has actually paid me in full. Just like Lil’s school, they pay out in bright new bank notes so salmon-belly pink that Mao Zedong looks occidental.

Still, after all the dental work I’ll be left a weensie bit short of the eighty-seven thou’ I owe that debt collector. But he looked like a fellow with a good sense of humor.

“All this is my fault,” moans Rui Long. “I so know that. But now what am I supposed to do? My momma won’t take me back, and my daddy can’t even talk to me. I don’t even have no clothes. I got two pants and one…”

I let Rui Long ramble on, enjoying the small gravelly voice as it slides from dialect to dialect, Little Miss Valley Girl for a few lines, the Channel 6 news reporter for a bar or two, then she’s back to the palm-lined bullet-riddled streets of LA. To witness that buffalo-wing jive coming from this perfect Chinese face is a novelty I’m not sure I’ll ever quite get past.

“… I don’t know, man,” she concludes. “Like, I pulled a rune this morning—you know the runes?”

I nod.

“I have the Barbie deck. Sounds really dumb, I know, but sometimes it’s just so right. I got the Mall Closed card. It’s like I can’t go forward, so I have to go back only I don’t know if that means back to Westmont or—”

“I think your rune is telling you to focus inward on the native magic of your unique artistic voice,” I reply authoritatively.

Rui Long’s mouth sags opens, the lips sticking together momentarily. “That’s it,” she whispers. “Focus inward.”

“Personally I use the GQ deck,” I say. “Whatever works for you.”

“My God,” breathes Rui Long. “Mr. Mancer, you are just such a powerful finger pointing to the moon, if you know what I mean.”

“I think you listen to Shatrina,” I say dryly.

“Totally. Till my momma took away my radio, Shatrina was like my guiding light and shit.”

“You know?” I say thoughtfully. “I think you’re really stressed just now. Doo. I can see it in your aura. Lots of red and burnt-orange and just the slightest touch of mocha near the right earlobe.”

“You read auras? Really?”

“I’m a ninth-degree master of a little-known school of Nepalese Foot Reiki. I don’t accept students.”

Shoving aside the small table, I say, “Give me your syzygy, I mean your left foot. Don’t worry. I’m a professional.”

“Geez, I’ve never had Reiki,” Itsy says giddily, raising her foot. She’s wearing heavy white sneakers with a wad of purple bubble gum on the left sole. Placing the heel between my knees, I begin to loosen the broad violet lacing, fully enjoying this now. Itsy’s nylon socks are eggshell-thin. I force myself not to speculate on her taste in undergarments.

This is a client.

The laces thoroughly loose, the shoe surrenders to my hands and I toss it. An oaken smell rises, that of dried leaves on a November day. Grasping the toe of the sock, I slide it off the tiny foot, place my palm beneath the sole, close my eyes, and announce, “You are a very old soul.”

I always start with you-are-a-very-old-soul.

Before I can say, “You have lived many lifetimes,” I’m jolted by something quite unexpected. Though my eyes are closed, I clearly see the person seated before me. Not her exterior, but a vast constellation of glowing pinpoints of light. Puzzled, I open my eyes. When I close them again, the array is still there. Before I can file this experience away under Strange But Not Presently Pertinent, I realize that the light display is richly embedded with information. Curious now, I focus for a moment on the inflow of what I can only describe as an emanation from the person before me. Suddenly the thought registers: this is a very old soul who has lived many lifetimes.

Stop it.

“You have lived many lifetimes,” I say gravely but before I can continue, another realization intrudes, one less prescient than present. I know that the essence of this creature is severe and magnificent and not to be trifled with.

I file this information away under Stranger and Even Less Pertinent.

“Hold the arms of the chair,” I order Rui Long.

She complies and I pull foot, chair and all, toward me. Itsy’s naked heel now rests a scant inch away from something else severe and magnificent and not to be trifled with.

Rui Long giggles, enjoying this. “What else do you see in my aura?”

“Shhhh.”

My fingers search for a pressure point along the second metatarsal, generally effective for stimulating the right nipple. I still can’t say exactly what slumbers beneath that white poly-cotton blouse of hers, or rather how much of it. But I’m always willing to learn. Ah. Here’s the pressure point. My fingertip circles it soothingly, imagining the supple corona of a rising nipple.

“Close your eyes,” I command, “and take a deep breath.”

The two almond eyes roll closed.

“Deeper. The biggest breath you can take.”

Rui Long inhales and the open jacket parts a bit more. Two rising nipples appear through the thin poly-cotton. They are lower on her chest than expected. Pleasant discovery.

“Wow,” she says. “I’ve never felt so…”

“Shhh,” I say, pulling Itsy’s foot slightly closer.

Oops. Too close.

The almond eyes open and blink, and the foot vanishes from my lap. “I gotta go.”

“What? In the middle of your Nepalese Foot Reiki session?”

“I think my dad’s looking for me. I mean, I know he is.”

Quickly pulling on her sock and shoe, Rui Long bends to tie a violet shoelace, her thick hair nearly reaching the floor. I fight the urge to reach out and touch the glossy tresses. This is a very beautiful girl. Too bad she’s sprinting for the American Teacher’s Door.

“Thanks for the Reiki and everything, Mr. Mancer. I just—see you in class, okay? And I’ll remember what you said about the native magic and stuff.”

“Feel free to come again any time you feel—”

The door slams behind the itsy schoolgirl.

“—troubled.”