Skinny Dragon Mother flashed one of her powerful silent messages that only an idiot wouldn't understand. Message 403 was a bit of detective work worthy of any squad in the city: Everything couldn't be fine. Worm daughter slept at home last night and night before. Came home tonight again. Tomorrow day off. If everything so fine, why no boyfriend for three days? Skinny was so excited by the prospect of April's failure at love with a Spanish ghost, she'd stopped the wheezing for the moment. Her renewed health didn't help April's morale one bit.
"One two tlee," she repeated, about getting a new boyfriend.
April didn't miss much, either. Usually the Dragon- real name Sai Yuan Woo-was happy to show off her brightly colored, look-like-silk blouses that didn't match the patterns of her slacks and jackets. This was her attempt at scaling the peaks of high American style. But tonight she'd dressed down; she was wearing her peasant outfit. Black peasant pants, shapeless black cotton jacket, black canvas shoes with the rubber band across the top. She must have changed when Mike called those three times trying to reach her. Whenever the Dragon dressed this way, she wanted to hide her true motives and true self. Her goal was to appear humble and simple to the daughter she wanted to control, and nothing special to the gods who ruled the heavens and earth so they wouldn't confuse her prosperity in Astoria, Queens, USA, with happiness and cause her harm. Whenever Sai became a peasant, ten kinds of bad luck for April were on the way. The outfit was as lethal as a voodoo hex.
The phone rang, the dog started barking, April stood there, certain that pins were sticking in the real her. The ringing phone caused her mother-way overbalanced at the moment with aggressive male yang-to grab her arm and roughly shake her. Skinny was several inches shy of five feet and weighed about three and a half pounds, but she spun April around with no trouble. The phone rang a few more times. April ignored it. "Maybe boss," Skinny screamed. "It's not my boss."
"How know, nil Maybe lose job." Sai punched April's arm. She didn't want worm daughter to lose job until she had a rich Chinese husband. When she wasn't calling April worm daughter, she called her ni, which was just plain old you.
"Okay, okay." The screaming that passed for love in the Woo household propelled April into the bedroom just in case Maslow had been found in the last hour and she'd missed it. But they both knew the caller was the Spanish threat to the Han dynasty.
"Sergeant Woo," she said into the receiver.
"Querida, why are you acting like this? Are you crazy? Carla is nothing to me. She's just a mixed-up girl I helped once. I told her all about you. She has the highest opinion of you. You're overreacting. You know what girls are like. This is nothing." Mike blabbered into the phone.
"Mi amor, I know what girls are like. La puta was wearing my nightgown, demanding money from you."
"What's this puta?" Skinny Dragon screamed.
"Ma!" April put a finger to her lips.
"I can explain it," Mike insisted.
"Well, explain some other time. Stealing my case and cheating on me in one day is more than I can swallow."
"Bu hao waiguoren, guole," the Dragon muttered happily. Looked to her like the Han dynasty was safe for another day.
"That's not fair," Mike protested.
"Fair has nothing to do with it." The teenager was in his apartment. She was scantily clad and she was not his sister. Mike didn't have a sister. And she wasn't his cousin because she didn't speak Spanish. April knew Carla was one of those girls on the phone that Mike talked to longer than he should. He was certainly guilty of letting her spend the night. And he was guilty of not saying a thing about it this morning.
Skinny picked up a pillow from April's pathetic single bed and started whacking it with gusto. She was having the time of her life. "New boyflen, one, two, tlee," was her new chant.
"April, I don't want to end the evening like this. I made a mistake. I had a couple of beers and let her crash at my place. She slept on the sofa. I swear I didn't touch her," Mike insisted. "I never promised her any money or any clothes. Trust me on this."
Oh, now he'd been drunk. It was sounding worse and worse. "Thank you for sharing that. I happen to know that men will do anything when they're drunk," she said softly. "What do you think they invented alcohol for? I love you, but don't call me back tonight, okay? I just need to calm down." April hung up. She didn't want to fight with her mother listening.
Skinny finished punching the pillow and patted her new hairdo. "You hunglee. I got good dinna. Happy famree clab, Oh Oh soup, flied lice, ramb and scarrions." Skinny reeled off the menu.
Her mother's cycle of batter then feed filled April with a deep sadness. Why would her mother be glad to see her lose face? Her cheeks burned yet another time and tears that she would never in a million years let escape prickled painfully behind her eyes. Why couldn't she have a sweet and sympathetic mother? The phone started to ring again. She decided not to answer it. Skinny's silence as she trotted down the stairs for food from her kitchen spoke loudly. Triumph had never been sweeter.
Thirty-two
More than anything in the world April wanted to sleep, but the ghosts and goblins intervened with a review of the Chinese facts of life to punish her for falling in love. Fact: All men were bu hao (no good) ghosts; they always reverted to their true selves in the end. Fact: The only worthwhile constants in life were the struggle for money and position, or: getting ahead. Everything else (like pleasure) was a waste of time. Fact: There was no way men could be in harmony with all that yang pushing and shoving them in all the wrong directions. Didn't matter what you called it. Yang or testosterone; same thing. Fact: Of all the ghosts (kinds of people in the world) the very worst ones were the Spanish ghosts. Fact: Mike Sanchez was a Spanish ghost.
Around and around these facts went. Did she really believe this? Not a whisper. Was the belief system deeply ingrained in her? Definitely. Skinny Dragon brought her food on a tray, just like the restaurant person she used to be. Her father, who'd cooked the food himself earlier in the evening and brought it home on the subway just for her, hid out in his room smoking and drinking scotch, a silent presence who nevertheless let his views be known. April didn't want the food but was not able to resist her mother's attempts to cheer her up.
"Ni, you know how much best quality food like this cost at Shun Lee Dragon?" she scolded in Chinese, then resorted to English. "Fifty dolla!"
April smelled the delicate aromas of soft-shelled crab bathed in sweet ginger sauce, the spicy lamb and scallions, the fried rice with just a touch of oyster sauce for flavor; and she thought: more like a hundred and fifty dollars. She played with the chopsticks, wishing she hadn't been so hard on Mike on the phone.
"Hey, no good worm, ni ting (listen you). Too much trouble, bring home on subway. Just for bu hao daughter. Eat."
"Oh, Ma, I can't eat. I had a bad day."
"Had good day. Lose bad yellow ghost. Now find China ghost. No cry," she commanded in Chinese.
"You don't know anything, Ma." Mike is a good man. Just too trusting.
"I know Spanish gui, bu hao."
April sighed. The daughter was no good-nothing better than a worm. The Spanish ghost was no good. By Skinny's estimation nobody was any good. The Dragon tapped her head to show her knowledge lay beneath the awful dyed hair.
"Don't call him Spanish. His name is Mike. He's a good man." With a soft heart that sometimes got him in trouble. But April didn't want to debate the matter with her mother.