Love surged in Charles. Gracie wasn’t lost. Living away from home those two years hadn’t ruined her. Family was still family. “Good girl, xiao bao,” he said, reaching out to pat her on the head as she loaded the dolly with boxes.
Grace straightened up and smiled at him, then skipped ahead. She was taller, and she’d loosened up the prim, baby-doll manner she’d had as a girl, all quiet voice and shy eyes. It had been such a shock when Grace, at fourteen, ran away with a boy who flattered her into thinking he was in love with her, who tricked himself into thinking the same thing. A Japanese boy, no less, a fact that Charles felt was a betrayal of the entire nation of China and everything she had suffered at the hands of the Japanese soldiers. He would have expected that kind of treachery from Saina, maybe, but not of his youngest, a girl who had never so much as ordered a pizza on her own and still liked to be tucked in bed each night by Ama. She was fourteen and the boy was fifteen, so they didn’t get far; Saina had come home and tracked the wayward lovers to a family friend’s empty beach house in La Jolla. A new Gracie had ranted and raved and called it a Shakespearean tragedy; Saina had insisted that she was being more like silly Lydia Bennet, the runaway youngest daughter in Pride and Prejudice, than a Bel-Air Juliet; and Charles had privately lamented and rejoiced at the irresistible beauty of his daughters. But when Grace responded to his order that she never speak to the boy again by wailing at the dinner table every night and trying, again, to run away with him, Charles had packed her off to Cate, which, besides being the only boarding school he’d heard of in California, also used its feminine name to make him think at first that it was an all-girls school. A week into the semester, he missed Grace terribly and was increasingly upset that the school was coed, but by then it was too late to go back on his declarations.
But now here they all were again. Almost all. Charles pushed the last of the magnolia-scented lotion out through the back door and slammed it shut, testing the knob to make sure that the warehouse was locked against any other interlopers.
十三
I-10 East
EVERYBODY BUT BARBRA was on the phone. She alone had no one to notify, no one with whom to plot or commiserate. Her everyone was in the seat right next to her, driving with both hands on the wheel and a phone wedged to his ear, edging his shoulder away from her as if that would be enough to keep her from overhearing. Grace chattered to Andrew. Even Ama talked—shouted, actually, voice sharp, face animated—to a someone.
Barbra nudged her husband. “How are all the phones still on?”
He took a hand off the wheel to cover the mouthpiece, and whispered to her, “Not end of month yet.”
And once it was, what then? Would they just be cut off from civilization, left to languish in Saina’s house, relegated to the role of poor relations? Barbra closed her eyes and leaned her head against the cool pane of the window, letting the family’s conversations wash together. They alternately spoke and were quiet, listening to the people on the other end of their lines with an intensity that exhausted her, ratcheting up their voices with each response.
CHARLES: That is all the names I have. What did they say?
AMA: Yi ding yao zuo fan la!
GRACE: Yeah, I thought tonight too, but they think it’ll be too late—
AMA: Shei ne me xiao qi? Qian, wo gei qian!
GRACE: Something Palms? Thirty-four Palms? Ninety-nine Palms?
CHARLES: Of course. Everything good also is difficult. No, no matter—
GRACE: Oh yeah, that’s it, Twenty-nine. So just tonight.
AMA: Hao le la, bu yao zai chao . . .
CHARLES: The money, don’t worry about.
GRACE: Seriously? Who, like a bounty hunter?
CHARLES: Enough for this.
GRACE: And they just showed up?
CHARLES: Okay, okay, I wait.
GRACE: Oh my god, Andrew, really? They just took it?
AMA: Hao, wo men bu jiou jiou dao le. Xiao Danzi zen yang ah?
CHARLES: Yes, I wait. You call me again when you have anything. Thank you.
GRACE: Are you okay? Did they do anything to you?
AMA: Ne jiou hao le. Hao, bye-bye.
GRACE: What did you do?
GRACE: (Laughing.)
GRACE: But seriously, I can’t believe it happened like that. Dad said something about giving it back, but I thought it would be something . . . civilized, at least.
GRACE: Yeah, okay. So we’ll see you tomorrow. God, lock your doors! Do you think they’re going to try to repossess your iPod or something?
GRACE: (Laughing.)
GRACE: Okay. Bye.
Barbra heard her stepdaughter sigh and, despite herself, felt a prick of worry for Andrew. “Grace? What happen to your brother? What are you talking about?”
Grace was quiet for a moment, then she searched out her father in the rearview mirror.
“Dad, Andrew said that a repo man came and took his car.”
Charles kept his eyes on the road.
“Did you know that was going to happen?”
Barbra watched her husband’s grip on the wheel tighten as he stared straight ahead. Then he shrugged, small.
“I don’t know, exactly.”
“But you knew that he had to give the car back. You said.”
Silence.