“Good morning, Mr. Merritt, Noemi.” I get busy assembling a tray.
Merritt claps his hands over his ears. “Quit hollering.”
He is the source of the sour-mash stench. Violet crescents hang under his eyes, and his hair leans to one side like wheat in a breeze.
“Hold your nose, and throw it back,” says Noemi. “Like you did your daddy’s good Scotch last night. I heard you told everyone about the first girl you were sweet on.”
Merritt groans. “What?”
Noemi drops an especially large pebble onto her pile, then gets up to stir a pot of oatmeal. “Don’t worry, you didn’t mention names, only that she had raven hair and pearls for teeth.”
Merritt squints at me through bloodshot eyes, then holds up the glass to me. “Well then, here’s to first love.” He gulps it down with several jerks of his Adam’s apple.
Merritt sniffs at his glass. “Smells like a sewer. What’s in it?”
“Egg yolks, Worcestershire, and a pinch of white pepper. Pepper is power. It solves a lot of problems you don’t expect it to—swelling, bruises, and hangovers.”
Merritt coughs, and his empty cup strikes the table witha thud. His chest heaves, and with one hand clamped over his mouth, he runs out the door to the courtyard.
Noemi shrugs. “Works every time.” She spoons oatmeal into a bowl. “Today’s oatmeal and peach preserves, and that porcupine can take it or leave it. August was the last straw, especially now with that mess of a streetcar. I needed that bicycle today.”
“She will send it back.”
Pots clang as she moves them around the stove. She sighs. “Fine. I made a ham. Cut a few slices if you want.”
I hop to the task for both of our sakes.
Noemi wipes her fingers on her apron. “I’ve been thinking about those suffragists.”
“What about them?”
“The Fifteenth was supposed to improve our lot, giving our men the vote. But then themanstarted taking it all away. It’s like they put a plate of hot biscuits in front of us, but before we get a chance to eat, they say, that’ll be five dollars. And if you come up with the five dollars, they say no, no, no. You gotta tell us, if you got sixteen hens and thirty-seven roosters, where is Rutherford B. Hayes buried?”
“I don’t know about the poultry, but Rutherford B. Hayes was from Ohio.”
“Wrong. It’s a trick question. Hayes is still alive. Point is, they make it so hard. Now, if women got the vote, maybe that gives us a second wind. Adds our fists to the fight. Those suffragists say the Fifteenth gives the vote toallcitizens, not just the men. But we got to insist on it.” She gives a pot of chowdera stir. “Imagine, Jo, if women got a say, that could change the whole stew.”Banggoes her spoon, punctuated by theclangof a closing lid. “They’re meeting Monday night at Grace Baptist. You could come with me.”
I imagine the suffragists, reform-minded women of the middle class, their starched skirts dragging the pavement. Women with whom I have little in common. Those who dwell in shadows get along by not standing out,notby raising their fists to the sky. And even if women are given the vote, Chinese will still get left behind.
Noemi steers her hopeful face toward me.
It is one thing to speak under the safety of Miss Sweetie’s name. Quite another to take a public stance under Jo Kuan’s. “I’ll think about it.”
Nineteen
Old Gin must stay at the Paynes’ the next few nights, citing much work. Though he maintains this work concerns the horse race, I can’t help taking it personally. Things have not been the same between us since our skirmish over the letter. Perhaps my stand-in father expects to marry me off soon, so why bother trying to smooth things between us? I hunker down in the middle row of the streetcar, too tired to walk and feeling cowardly for my weakness. The stench of sewage and overworked bodies smells extra foul this evening, locked in by a layer of brown clouds that float like the scum off boiled bones.
Once home, I give myself a thorough scrub with barley water. It is already Wednesday, and Nathan might be wondering whether he scared Miss Sweetie away.
In a fragment of looking glass that Old Gin uses for shaving, I study the lower half of my face, with my pearl lip and rounded chin. Is it possible to identify someone as Chinese based onlyon a few bits? Itwasdark. Well, Miss Sweetie is not the sort to be intimidated. She is like an old rash that keeps coming back, each time more cranky and twice as determined.
I lift my chin and put my fists on my hips. The face in the mirror loses its injury, though my ache over Old Gin persists on the inside.
Though I want to write about the streetcar rules, the topic is even more controversial than “The Custom-ary.”
Only two sheets of paper remain in Old Gin’s dresser. I should’ve picked up more when I was at Buxbaum’s. I peek in the fabric drawer, and to my dismay, the silk pieces have conjoined and transformed into a jacket with a breast pocket. The sleeves are still unfinished, though Old Gin has neatly squared the collar. Old Gin does everything with precision. Why should giving away his daughter be any different?
I tuck it away, and my fingers brush a tiny box, the second item that had belonged to Old Gin’s wife. I lift the lid, and the sweet scent of cedar fills my nose. A silk padding still holds the shape of the snuff bottle that once lay there. The bottle has been lost, but its top remains, a jade bead with an attached spoon for drawing out the snuff. I once asked to use the box to hold ribbons, but Old Gin shook his head. “A turtle shell may one day hold soup, but not before the turtle has moved out.”
