“We’re just friends.”
She gave me a disbelieving look; I could hardly blame her. Robert and his enormous boat of a car attracted attention. Most girls in my position would probably be over the moon.
“If I finish early, I might go back to Falim tonight,” I said.
“All right.” Mrs. Tham waved cheerfully as I left. That was the advantage of having two places to stay over—you could always claim you were somewhere else. I needed at least a day or so if I was going to do what I had planned.
* * *
In the dim back corridor at the May Flower, the Mama stopped me and pressed an envelope into my hand. It made a lovely fat crinkling sound. “They paid up for the private party. Well, Kiong went to collect it from that red-haired doctor. It’s your share, plus the back pay that you’re owed. Cleaned out your things already?”
“Almost.”
I kept a spare frock in the dressing room, which I planned to wear today. All of us girls did, just in case there was a rip or spill. Feeling pensive, I hurried down the corridor with its peeling mint-green paint. Hui was in the dressing room patting rouge on her cheeks. She did Saturdays from afternoon all the way through the evening shift.
“You on today?” She looked surprised.
“She asked me to help out,” I said, struggling with my dress.
“Here, I’ll help you.” Hui deftly unhooked me. I must tell her soon that I’d quit, but it didn’t seem like the right time now, not when we were rushing to get ready.
* * *
I’d never worked a Saturday afternoon before; it was crowded and the band played more local dances like joget. The music was cheerful, and forgetting my worries briefly, I quite enjoyed it, though I didn’t see any of my regulars. I’d miss this: the waxed dance floor, the sweating faces of the band members whom I now knew well enough to nod and smile at as we went by. The smell of cigarettes and sweat, my aching calves, and Hui’s bitingly funny remarks. As I slid into the cordoned-off dancers’ pen after a turn with a plump government clerk, I felt a stab of regret. Perhaps I shouldn’t quit after all.
I knew only a few of the other girls today since we were usually on different shifts, but Anna had come in. I hadn’t seen her since the night of the private party.
“I saw something good just now.” Anna always had a sleepy, heavy air about her and today it made her tall figure somehow more voluptuous.
“What?”
“A really handsome fellow. He was waiting outside for a friend. I made him promise to dance with me when he came in.”
The other girls giggled. I listened with half an ear.
“What do you mean by really handsome? You’re always saying that!”
“But he was! He might be an actor from Singapore or Hong Kong.”
There was a lot of eye-rolling, but we were all rather curious, myself included. Many Chinese opera stars were bombarded with love letters, home-cooked meals, and money from frenzied female fans. The only person I knew who looked as though he ought to be in pictures was Shin. Then a dreadful thought occurred to me: perhaps it was Shin.
“He was tall, with nice shoulders. Narrow hips,” said Anna, “And he had this northern Chinese look, with a high nose and cheekbones.”
Alarm was spreading; a swarm of fire ants pouring down my back.
“Look, there he is!”
My stomach plummeted. It was indeed Shin—and with him were Robert and Y. K. Wong. The three of them threaded their way through the crowd, Y. K. Wong leading them. His narrow face with its elongated jaw was alert as he searched the faces of the girls. Our eyes met. I had nothing, not even a fan, to block his triumphant gaze from where I sat, a large rosette and number pinned to my breast, like merchandise for sale. Panicked, I willed my frozen legs to jump up. A dull roaring rose in my ears as they came closer. Even if Y. K. Wong had spotted me, it meant nothing as long as Robert and Shin didn’t. Run!
With a gasp, I was out of my chair, stumbling past the other girls with their cries of surprise. Y. K. Wong grabbed my wrist. “I’ve been looking for you.”
I stared past him at Robert’s shocked face. I couldn’t bear to look at Shin. Robert’s eyes were wide, showing the whites around them. His mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. “Ji Lin—are you working here?”
I dropped my head wretchedly.
“You’re really working here? Like a prostitute?”
His voice was incredulous. Too loud, like a slap in the face. Time slowed to a nightmarish crawl. I saw Shin’s jaw tighten, the telltale shift of his shoulders. I knew the danger signs when my stepfather snapped. Could see the future unravel in a gritty, jumping newsreel: Shin would hit Robert in the mouth, break his teeth and nose, and go to prison all because of my stupid, stupid choices.
I flung myself in front of Robert. There was a glancing blow to the side of my head, hard enough that my ears rang, though Shin must have held back at the last instant. I fell over, a tangle of limbs with Robert. Screams, a mad scramble. Discordant trumpet notes as the musicians wavered, then manfully started playing again. Shin was holding my face in his hands. “You idiot,” he said.
Hui was shrieking like a harpy, “What are you doing?”
“It’s all right.” Gasping, I struggled up. “He’s my brother.”
I tugged at him. Desperation numbed my stinging ear. The bouncers were heading over purposefully. In the corner, the Mama’s face was like thunder.
“Ji Lin!” Robert called, but I was running, slipping through the crowd that parted, surprised faces, mouths gaping in ohs and ahs. Dragging Shin with me, his hand in mine. Behind us, Kiong barreled his way through the dancing couples, colliding and apologizing. Through the side door, down the mint-green corridor marked private. The dressing-room door banged open. I grabbed my bag—the finger!
Kiong’s shout echoed as he burst into the corridor. Then we were out, through the back door into the dirt road behind the dance hall where we ran and ran as though the devil himself was chasing us.
38
Ipoh/Taiping
Saturday, June 27th
It was the end of everything, I thought. I don’t know what possessed us, but we ran like children, Shin and I. As though we were ten years old and had been caught stealing mangoes from the neighbor’s tree. We raced down street after street until I didn’t recognize where we were anymore and doubled over, gasping, against a wall.
“You know, there’s nobody chasing us,” said Shin.
Kiong had done no more than stick his head out of the back door and yell, “Louise! What’s wrong?” And likely nothing would have happened if I’d stopped and talked to him. Kiong was quite reasonable; arguments between customers happened all the time, and the only person who’d been injured was myself.
“Does it hurt?” Shin examined me, looking for bruises. “I didn’t mean to hit you.”
“I’m fine,” I said, shrugging off his hand.
“I’m sure you are,” he said drily. “Anyone who can run half a mile is probably in good health. Why were you running anyway?”
Shame burned my cheeks. “I couldn’t bear it. The look on Robert’s face. And all of you showing up together.” The words, like a prostitute, still rang in my ears.
Shin sank down against the roughly plastered wall. My mother had drummed it into us that only beggars, drunkards, and opium fiends sat in the street in broad daylight, but there was no one around right now, so I sat down, too.
“Why’d you jump in front of him like that?”
“Because you were going to hit him.”
“He deserved it. Bastard.”
I grimaced. “Are you angry with me, too?”
“What do you think?” He gave me a long look.
I stared hard at a crack in the pavement. It looked like a map of the Kinta River. “There weren’t many options. Not ones that paid well. But I’m not a prostitute.” It was a terrible conversation to be having with my stepbrother, whom I might be in love with, I thought. I ought to keep a diary of all the worst moments in my life. It might be amusing in fifty years’ time, but not now. Definitely not now.
“I didn’t think so. Places like that are pretty careful with their girls.”
“How do you know?” I watched him from under my lashes, frowning.
“I’ve been to dance halls before. There are lots of them in Singapore.”
Suddenly, I was so annoyed with Shin that I could barely look him in the eye. “I suppose I shouldn’t have worried about telling you, then.”
He tilted my face up. “You were worried about me?”
Too close, I thought. He was much too close, and that casual touch disarmed me. With a jerk, I pulled away. “Not just you,” I said. “My mother, Mrs. Tham. And Robert, of course. From his point of view, I’m ruined.”