JUJU HAD BEEN furious—at the doctors who murmured about Gracie’s unstable behavior and how she’d be better off in a mental hospital. And at Ernest for thinking Gracie would be fine back in Chinatown and not at Juju’s house on Queen Anne Hill.
But as Ernest stared through the cracked window toward King Street Station, he knew that while his apartment was certainly lacking, Gracie’s home was with him. That had always been true, except for the time when she’d become lost to herself. And to him. At least the neighborhood still had a certain familiarity. Despite the good and the bad, there was also peace. In the end Gracie had chosen to be here, and she seemed more comfortable now. Though she didn’t always remember him as her husband, she now always remembered Ernest as her friend—a beacon, a safe harbor. After a day of sporadic rest, always waking up with him nearby, that was still the case.
Even Juju had to relent then.
Ernest stretched his back and tried to relax as he read the Sunday Seattle Times. It was the World’s Fair Souvenir Edition, THE LARGEST EDITION IN THE PAPER’S HISTORY, or so a front-page headline declared in bold black and blue type.
Gracie still wanted to go to the expo. In her waking moments, that was all she talked about—often mixing up the new fair and the old.
Ernest skimmed articles about pencils and postcards being given away; stories about livestock judges from France; the Spacearama featuring twenty-five UFO experts and astronomers from around the world; even photos of the feathered, high-heeled showgirls who would be performing Salute to Ziegfeld. Nothing surprised him anymore, not even reading about the Russian cosmonaut Gherman Titov, who’d visited the fair last week and had offended everyone by stating that he didn’t believe in God. “I,” he declared, “believe in man and science and the future.”
The future, Ernest thought. Everyone in town seemed to be happily abuzz, even at the hospital, where silk-screened Century 21 decals had been slapped on doors and windows. It was a collective celebration—the future was here, ready or not. Meanwhile a part of Gracie was still marooned on an island somewhere in the past.
Ernest was finishing the paper, reading about abstract paintings that had been hung sideways at the Fine Arts Pavilion, when Rich, Hanny, and Juju arrived. They carried an enormous basket of flowers and a bouquet of helium balloons that swayed and twirled beneath the ceiling fan. Ernest watched their strings slowly twist into a knot.
“Someone from church sent these,” Hanny said with a smile. “The manager downstairs asked me to bring them up.” She put them in a corner of the room where other arrangements from the hospital had already begun to wilt.
Ernest smelled something savory and was surprised to see that Rich had a familiar carton on his lap, tied with twine. Hanny’s fiancé undid the string and folded back the lid, tilting the box so Ernest could see inside.
“The Lun Ting Bakery?” Ernest asked in disbelief.
“Hanny said these were your wife’s favorite comfort food.”
“Mine too,” Ernest said as he took one of the bau. It felt warm as he peeled the wax paper from the bottom and bit into the pillowy pastry, a barbecue-pork-filled cloud. He could smell the mushrooms, the scallions, even before his taste buds could react to the filling. The buns were a welcome change from the bland hospital meals he’d been subsisting on for the past few days.
“How’s Mom reacting to her new surroundings after her little setback?” Hanny asked. She reached into her purse for a pack of Winstons. Ernest watched as she lit a cigarette with a matchbook from the Golden Apple Nightclub down the street.
Setback? Ernest thought. He was grateful she had seen only her mother resting in the hospital, not her collapse in the street.
“Maybe tomorrow we should bring her buckwheat udon from Maneki? Ma always loved that place,” Hanny said to Rich. “She even worked there as a hostess once upon a time, long before the war. She used to tell us stories of how all the women would read poetry and sing folk songs to homesick Japanese boys, who called them nihonjin tori. Ma was one of those Japanese birds who raised enough money to fund the Japantown library.”
Ernest checked on Gracie, who was still napping as their daughters reminisced about their mother volunteering at the Betsuin Buddhist Temple and the Japanese Community Center, how she used to lead dances in the street during Obon each summer.
Meanwhile, Rich was busy exploring the tiny apartment, examining the faded prints on his walls, the books in Ernest’s bookcase. He tilted his head as he read the titles: America Is in the Heart by Carlos Bulosan and Nisei Daughter by Monica Sone; romantic novels by Longus, Chéri by Colette, and Henry De Vere Stacpoole; and volumes of translated poetry by Li Bai and Cao Xueqin. Ernest listened as Rich read the title of Stephen Crane’s Maggie: A Girl of the Streets.
“Seems like your apartment is nothing but books,” Rich said.
“A terrible habit.” Ernest smiled. “Picked it up in my youth.”
Rich furrowed his brow. “It’s like books are your religion.”
“Well, my mother was a Confucian, and I believe my father was a Methodist,” Ernest answered with a shrug. “But I didn’t see either one again after I was four or five.”
Rich nodded and clicked his jaw. He seemed to consider this as he drifted to Ernest’s makeshift kitchen, examining photos on the refrigerator of Hanny and Juju as little girls, playing in a plastic swimming pool, drinking from a garden hose.
“What’s the story with this morbid-looking thing?” Rich held up a picture postcard of an oil painting that stood out from the black-and-white smiles of the photographs. The postcard’s flat colors depicted a woman with a book and a cigarette. A sad, partially decorated tree, surrounded by faceless women, haunted the background.
“Let me guess, Matisse?” Rich asked.
Ernest shook his head. “That’s Edvard Munch.”
“The Norwegian guy who painted The Scream?” Juju asked.
Ernest nodded.
“So what’s it called then?” Rich raised his eyebrows, unimpressed. “Boring Lady in a Bar Painted by a Second Grader?”
Ernest sighed and ran his fingers through his graying hair. “That particular piece was created when the artist was somewhat down on his luck, and drinking too much. Hanging out in low places. He titled that painting Christmas in the Brothel.”
Hanny glanced toward the kitchen as she lit a cigarette.
“Like that Tenderloin place where you and your wife grew up?” Rich asked.
Ernest nodded. “Sort of an inside joke, if you will, from an old friend.”
“From Uncle Paz?” Juju asked.
Ernest shook his head as he regarded his old typewriter.
The stack of blank pages, layers of onionskin. He’d tried writing something—anything, weaving memories together for Gracie’s benefit, but the few mottled pages he’d typed were little more than awkward attempts, rambling sentences filled with typos, imperfections that had been corrected with Liquid Paper, leaving bumps on the smooth surface that stood out like benign tumors.
Rich turned the postcard over. He touched the stamp, which had been postmarked in North Seattle. He read the back and casually looked up. “So, who’s Margaret Turnbull?”
FADED
(1910)
Ernest opened his eyes as a sharp, metallic ring jarred him awake. He mistook it for another fire alarm before he realized the sound was coming from the telephone in Miss Amber’s room. He heard the ringing again and again as he sat up. His first confused, panicked thoughts were of Fahn.