China Dolls Read Online Free PDF Page B

the skirt up my thighs. When I’d woken in my bed this morning, I never thought I’d end up here, doing this .
    “Perfect!” Mr. Biggerstaff proclaimed. “I hoped you might have something useful under there.”
    Ruby, Grace, and I made it through to the next round. Ruby squealed and hugged Grace and me. (I wasn’t raised to be touched so freely, not even by family members, but I was brave about it.) Of the forty or so girls who started out that morning, fifteen made it to the next round for the eight dancers needed.
    “Thanks so much for trying out and better luck next time,” Charlie addressed those who’d been cut. “The girls who’ve made it, congratulations. We’ll be auditioning again tomorrow and the day after that for additional ponies. On Monday, we’ll all meet here again. We’re going to see if we can teach you to do a simple tap routine. If you have tap shoes, bring them. If you don’t, then I’m afraid you’re done here. Oh, and you’ll be singing too. That’s it for today. Monday then.”
    “One last thing,” Eddie Wu called out. “You, the babe with the gardenias in your hair. I like them. The smell is intoxicating. I’m drunk on you.”
    Li Tei Ming playfully swatted the back of Eddie’s head, Ruby waved him off as though men spoke to her like that all the time, and the other girls in the room covered their mouths to hide their giggles. But I understood what he meant. She had a similar effect on me—as though I’d been sipping mao tai from thimble-size porcelain cups at a wedding banquet.
    Grace and I clambered downstairs behind the still-glowing Ruby and out onto the street. We were so different from one another, and we could have easily broken apart right then. I could have gone back to the Chinese Telephone Exchange to meet my brother to take me home; Grace could have gone back to her hotel; and Ruby could have gone back to wherever it was she came from. One of us needed to speak. An act of kindness had started me on this road this morning; an act of kindness from Grace now propelled us forward on this new journey.
    “I’m guessing you haven’t learned how to tap, and you don’t own a pair of tap shoes either,” she ventured. “What if we take you to buy proper shoes?”
    “That would be great—”
    “As long as we’re shopping,” Ruby cut in, “we should get you some dance clothes too. You look more like an old widow than a chorus girl. I want to have an entourage when I’m famous, but you’ve got to dress the part.”
    “I accept, but you’ll have to let me buy you dinner in return,” I offered, figuring neither of them had much money or would know where to eat even if they did.
    “Sure!” Ruby answered a little too eagerly. “Shall we go?”
    I shook my head. “I can’t right now. First I need to go back to where I met Grace this morning. I work near there. My brother always picks me up and takes me home.”
    Ruby gave me a sideways look, trying to figure me out.
    “You need your brother to take you home?” she asked. “How old are you?”
    “Twenty,” I answered.
    “I’m nineteen, and I walk wherever I want to walk,” she said.
    “But if I walk from one end of Chinatown to the other unescorted,” I explained, “the grapevine will have sent out word before I get halfway there. Once someone saw me eating cherries on the street. Why did I get in trouble? Because it wasn’t ladylike for me to eat onthe street. Mama and Baba always say I have to guard my reputation like a piece of jade. Otherwise”— how did I get going on this path?— “who will marry me?” I managed to finish.
    “Who wants to get married?” Ruby hooted.
    Grace dissolved into giggles. I made myself giggle too, but the sound was bitter in my ears. Neither of the other girls noticed.
    “My brother picks me up at five,” I said. “Will you wait with me?” What was I thinking? Monroe would be taken aback to see me with two outsiders, to say the least. Nothing to do about it