I lingered by the table when Grace walked down the hall.
“If I get the job, how much will you pay?” I inquired.
“Twenty a week,” the receptionist answered. I could almost hear additional words pouring out of her mouth. As though you need it. Then she bent back to her paperwork.
I could have walked out right then, but I was intrigued. Maybe I could do this. I traced the path Grace had taken and entered the half-finished ladies’ room. She had changed into a soft pink one-piece playsuit with short puffed sleeves and little shorts.
“I made this,” she boasted, “after I saw Eleanor Powell wear something like it in Born to Dance. I couldn’t tell the color of the playsuit in the film, but I thought this fabric would look pretty against my skin.”
I hadn’t been to many movies, so I didn’t know what to say.
She glanced in the mirror, squished her curls a couple of times to perk them up, and covered a cut with lipstick. I’d never be so rude as to ask her what had happened, but then she turned in my direction, frowned, and asked me a totally inappropriate question.
“You don’t know how to doll up, do you?” she said with a laugh. She poked around in her bag and fished out a slippery thin pink hair ribbon, which she tucked between her lips. She turned me toward the mirror, ran her fingers through my hair, and then whisked the ribbon from her lips, passed it behind my neck, and pulled the satin strips to the top of my head, where she tied a bow. “That’s better!” And it was, because the pink lifted my cheeks’ natural color.
We exited the restroom and followed the sound of music and rhythmic tapping. At the end of the hallway, I saw construction framing-for what looked like a bar to the left and a large central room. The stage looked done, though. The place was still a skeleton, but as my mind put flesh on it I began to see a nightclub like the one in Shanghai where I’d once danced the fox-trot…
Onstage, as if testing it for the first time, a Chinese man, twenty-six or twenty-seven, or maybe older, wearing cream-colored pants and a blue button-down linen shirt, slid across the floor, spun, and then resumed tapping. His arms appeared simultaneously loose and taut. The slap of his shoes as they hit the parquet-tat-a-tat-reverberated through the floorboards and shivered up my spine. His hair was slicked back with pomade, but his athletic steps-rattling now foot over foot across the front of the stage-caused strands to break loose and flop across his forehead. This, in turn, made him flip his head back after every dance phrase to clear his vision. And he was tall-almost six feet-which was extraordinary for a Chinese. He had no musical accompaniment, but his feet tapped out a rhythm that continued to build. Rah-cha, rah-cha, tat, tat, tat. Spin. Slide. Now his arms and legs flew-like a windmill. A group of forty or so girls, who sat cross-legged on the floor before the stage, clapped and cheered. Next to me, Grace radiated delight. I couldn’t help feeling the same way, because this was a lot better than the Chinese Telephone Exchange.
When the performance ended, the dancer picked up a towel and wiped the sweat from his face. He loped down the stairs, dropped onto a folding chair next to a woman and two men, all of whom had their backs to us. I focused on the girls by the stage. A couple of them were attired in playsuits like Grace, but the rest wore street clothes. I didn’t recognize a single girl. Not one of them was from Chinatown. The air I sucked in felt clean and free.
That’s when I saw her, one particular girl, who had a spot to herself. Suddenly I wanted out of there, but Grace gripped my hand tightly and pulled me across the floor toward the creature, who was strikingly different from all the rest. Light seemed to glow out of her skin. Her black hair was highlighted by a pair of shockingly white gardenias pinned just above her left ear. Her eyes sparkled, and her lips formed a perfect bow. She wore tap pants and a pale pink blouse with puffed sleeves not all that different from Grace’s, only hers had embroidery on the collar and cuffs. Her bare legs ended in ankle socks with delicate lace ruffles and basic black shoes with two-inch heels.
“Sit with me,” she trilled when we reached her. “I don’t know anyone either. I’m Ruby Tom.”
“Helen.” Grace pointed to me before putting her hand on her chest. “Grace.”
Ruby, excited, continued, “Can you believe Eddie Wu?”
“Eddie Wu?” Grace echoed even as the three of us scrutinized each other to see where we fit in. Ruby and Grace looked poor in their homemade outfits; I was better-dressed than anyone in the room. Ruby’s features were willow-delicate, Grace had perfect cheekbones, while my face was a little rounder and softer. Ruby sparkled; Grace could be summed up in four words-skinny legs, big bosom. Otherwise, we looked quite similar: petite, slim, with black curls falling over our shoulders, except that Ruby wore those gardenias in her hair, which made her look like a glamorous crane amidst a flock of chickens. We shifted slightly. We’d finished with our evaluations. No wind; no waves.
“The guy who was just dancing,” Ruby picked up as though no time had passed. “Isn’t Eddie amazing? He’s a regular Fred Astaire.”
“But he’s Chinese,” Grace pointed out in a low voice.
“That’s why they call him the Chinese Fred Astaire!” Ruby slapped her thigh. Then, “Are you two trying out to be chorus girls? I don’t remember either of you from the auditions at Li Po or the Sky Room, though. But you know how it is. New girls are coming every day. Everyone wants a chance-if not here, then at one of the other clubs that are opening.”
“Have the other clubs already hired dancers?” Grace asked.
“I didn’t say that,” Ruby answered. “They just didn’t want me. A couple of other new girls are here today too. There might even be more by the end of the day or tomorrow.”
“You seem to know a lot about it. Are you from here?” Grace asked.
“Hardly.” Ruby tossed her hair. “I was born in Los Angeles. My parents owned a curio shop across from the Orpheum Theater-a hot place for vaudeville when I was a tot. I used to dance and sing outside our store-just for kicks. People would stop, and my brothers would circulate through the crowd with hats, asking for change. We had a wild time!”
Ruby glanced at me. Well? But I couldn’t fathom what I was supposed to say to someone like her. Among other things, she was what you’d have to call cheung hay, a blabbermouth. I elected to keep my thoughts to myself.
“Later we beat it to Terminal Island in Long Beach,” Ruby went on, “because my pop wanted to return to fishing. My mom is a teacher. She said she could go wherever children need her, but my parents still weren’t happy. They decided we should move to Hawaii.”
“Hawaii?” Grace burbled. “So exciting! That’s not even the United States. Is that why you talk the way you do?”
“Talk the way I do?”
“Hot? Kicks? Beat it?”
“Sailors! As for Hawaii, it’s a protectorate or a territory or something like that.” Ruby shrugged. “My family has been there about five years. Now my parents say they want to go all the way home. Beat it while the beating is good. But I told my pop I love glitter. I told him I want to be famous.”
“I want to be a star-” Grace began.
“My pop asked why I would want to be in America at all,” Ruby continued, once again speaking right over Grace. “He says we’ll never be accepted as Americans.”
“My dad says that too,” I volunteered hesitantly.
But Ruby didn’t seem all that interested in what I had to say either. “I went with them to Hawaii,” she chattered. “I kept up with my ballet and tap, but I also learned hula. I’ll show you how to do it.” She took a breath before zeroing in on Grace. “What about you?”