Mambo in Chinatown (22 page)

As soon as we started to move, I relaxed. Felipe was a phenomenal street dancer and kept us right in time to the music, his hands
firm yet gentle. He led me into combinations I’d never seen before, although I recognized some of the elements. He threw my hand up, caught it, then twisted us so that both of us were dancing in parallel with our arms interlinked. He untangled us, spun me out and caught me again. It was exhilarating. I never had any idea what was coming next, yet we always stayed in sync. Then there was a tap on my shoulder and it was Ryan.

I saw the surprise on Felipe’s face. He stepped a few feet away from us to watch as Ryan took me into dance position and we started to move. Ryan wound me in, then gave me a push on my shoulder blade to spin me out. I did one and a half turns to return to facing him. Then he picked me up and tossed me onto his shoulder, where I perched for a moment before dropping onto his side, where he spun us both around and around. It was thrilling to just let go and dance, without anyone telling me about my arms, my legs or my head. I hadn’t had so much fun since that night at Decadence with Zan and Mo Li. I was free and joyful, powerful and sexy. I loved moving together with Ryan, we were a unit yet we each had our own roles. I felt as if I had left my body behind and Ryan and I simply were the dance.

Everyone had cleared the dance area and was watching us, drumming on the roof in time to the music. Ryan nodded at me and we started running through our choreographed routine from the beginning, going from lift to lift as if we’d been dancing together our entire lives. When Ryan brought me up into the overhead lift, people started to cheer. It was dizzying, being up in his arms, high against the stars. We did the final turns that ended the number, and finally Ryan bowed as I curtseyed. There was a moment of silence before the crowd applauded, then Felipe came over with a huge smile and gave Ryan a high five.

Then I felt someone nudge my arm and realized this time it was
the girl from the kitchen who wanted to dance with me. Ryan smiled as he stepped aside. She started moving in front of me, expecting just to dance facing each other, but then I took her into dance position and began to lead her. She beamed. Her body was strong, and when she turned, droplets of sweat flew off her hair. We did a few basics, then side breaks and underarm turns. She didn’t know any steps but was a natural turner. I spun her for a triple, then dropped underneath my own arm for a double myself. When our dance was over, she leaned over and kissed me on the cheek before walking away.

I returned to the spot on the roof where Ryan and I had been sitting and was immediately surrounded by other men who wanted to dance with me. How things had changed. I kept shaking my head with a smile until Ryan found me and wrapped his arms around me. They stayed away after that.

We sat on the rooftop together watching the dancing, with me resting my head against his chest. What a different world I had lived in. It wasn’t only that I used to have a different job, I’d been another person, and now, dancing had freed me. It felt like a hallucination—the music, the night air, Ryan by my side. I sighed and closed my eyes with the city twirling its skirt of lights around me.

—

Hours later, Ryan and I stood outside looking for a taxi. Felipe had accompanied us to help. Even though it was now quiet, my hearing was still dulled from the hours of music. Felipe and I stood on the sidewalk while Ryan stepped into the middle of the avenue, trying to flag down a cab. None rode by.

“You were incredible,” Felipe said with his light accent. “When I first saw you with Ryan, I didn’t understand, but now I do.”

He thought I was the new girlfriend. “Oh no, he’s still with Fiona.”

Felipe’s bushy eyebrows shot up. “You know her name.”

“Of course I do. Ryan wouldn’t hide her from me.” I couldn’t stop myself from asking, “So, what’s she like?”

“Great woman. A bit bossy, but you know, that’s life. Very pretty.”

I blinked and stared at the pavement.

“I’ve hurt you. I’m sorry.”

Was I that transparent? Apparently. “No,” I lied, then added, “We’re not involved. We only dance together.”

“How interesting.” Felipe bent over and slowly kissed me once on my left cheek, then on my right. He smelled like rum and smoke. For the third kiss, I felt his lips a hair away from mine when he suddenly wasn’t there anymore.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Ryan was still holding on to Felipe’s T-shirt. He’d just yanked him off of me.

“She’s not your girlfriend,” Felipe said. “She just told me.”

“She’s my partner so stay the hell away from her.” Both men had squared off, facing each other. I stepped in between them and pushed them away with one hand on their rib cages.

“It’s late and we’re all tired,” I said. When they didn’t seem to be listening, I pounded on both of their chests with my fists. “Stop it!”

Ryan looked down at me and started to chuckle. “Only you would get in between two boxers. You have no sense.”

Felipe began to grin as well. “I didn’t know you felt that way about her, brother.” He walloped Ryan on his shoulder, leaned down and mock-whispered to me, “Never got that reaction from him before.”

I said, “If you guys aren’t going to tear each other’s throats out, how about I try to get a taxi?”

“Go ahead,” said Ryan, “But nothing’s around for miles.”

I stepped out onto the street. Behind me I could see Felipe had his arm wrapped around Ryan and was whispering something to him, gesturing toward me while he did it. I raised my arm and a cab pulled out of the shadows, coasting to a stop in front of us.

Ryan stared. “How did you do that?”

“I think they were afraid of you. I’m a woman. Get in.”

I waved good-bye to Felipe as we drove off and he blew me a kiss.

“What did he say to you?” I asked, leaning back against the vinyl of the seat.

“Some crap about how great you are. I think he was still hoping to get your number. I hate that guy.”

I smiled in the darkness. “I liked him.”

“I’ve never seen Felipe so surprised. It was all worth it.”

“I’m glad,” I said softly. “So did you spend your whole youth sitting through those parties, unable to dance with anyone?”

“That about sums it up.”

We were quiet. However wonderful this night had been, it was the end of something. We’d completed our deal. He was committed to Fiona, I was committed to not losing my job, and Pa wanted me to find a nice Chinese man, a Dennis or Winston. I sighed.

“You sound sad.” The lights from the street slid across his face.

“I guess I am.”

I felt his hand on the side of my neck, pulling me toward him. “Don’t be,” he said.

I gazed up at him. “Ryan, we can’t do this.”

He closed his eyes and swallowed. “I know. Come on, just pretend I’m a girl.”

I sighed as I rested my head against his shoulder.

When we stopped near my apartment, I pulled out my wallet but he waved it away. As I opened the car door, he caught my hand. There was something open and pleading in his eyes. I touched his cheek for a moment, then I pulled away and stepped out of the taxi.

T
here were only about ten days left before Lisa’s school went on vacation for the summer and I had an appointment to see Mr. Song again. I wasn’t sure there was anything he could do to help Lisa, but I had to try. Through his window, I could see the hot blustery weather outside. It was drizzling.

Mr. Song was wearing a pale blue shirt with no tie. He shook my hand vigorously. “I was just thrilled to hear that Lisa will be going to Hunter, although we will miss her here, of course.”

“We’re very grateful to you.”

“Oh, that’s nothing. What can I do for you today?”

I chewed on the inside of my cheek. “The thing is, we’re worried about Lisa.” I made myself explain to him about Lisa’s symptoms, that she hadn’t actually fallen as she’d told the school, but we didn’t know why she was becoming so weak.

He looked concerned. “Some of her teachers have noticed a change in her but we assumed it was the combination of the physical injury and her leaving our school soon. Many kids start to mentally
check out when they know they’ll be going someplace else next year, but it’s much more worrisome if there was no physical injury to begin with.” Mr. Song got up and started rifling through his file cabinet. He pulled out a number of forms. “If you can get your physician and father to sign these, the school nurse will be able to begin constructing a health plan for Lisa. It’ll allow the nurse to communicate directly with your medical practitioner and then she can pass the information on to the right person at Hunter. The only problem is that we’re approaching the end of the school year so we’ll need the forms quickly.”

“We don’t have a family doctor.” Uncle Henry had always taken care of us, despite his lack of a medical degree, and we’d gone to a public clinic for standard vaccinations. “My father is pretty resistant to western medicine.”

Mr. Song frowned and said, “That’s unfortunate,” which made me defensive.

“It’s because when my mother died, the medical bills were astronomical. We don’t have any health insurance.”

“But times are different now. Recent changes in the law don’t allow insurance companies to deny children under nineteen coverage on the basis of a pre-existing condition.” He’d lost me. He must have seen the confusion on my face because he explained, “It used to be that if Lisa did have a condition, the insurance company could refuse to cover her, but now they can’t do that anymore. She could get free or low-cost health insurance.”

I’d had no idea. I felt torn between fear at the thought of Lisa with a disease and elation at the possibility of providing health insurance for her. “What would we have to do?”

“I’ll give you the right forms. The main thing is for your father to sign them. If the parent refuses to diagnose or treat the child,
then we enter into a gray area of ethics. Usually, unless actual threat to the child’s life can be proven, the school’s hands are tied.”

“I don’t know if I can convince Pa.”

“I’d be glad to come by and talk to him.”

Pa was so intimidated by school officials, I didn’t think he would hear anything Mr. Song had to say. “I’m afraid that might do more harm than good.”

Mr. Song scribbled something down on a business card and passed it to me. “That’s my personal cell phone. If you think there’s any chance I could do anything, day or night, just give me a ring.”

“Thank you. It helps just to know you’re out there.”

—

I couldn’t wait to talk to Pa about Lisa and her insurance, but I didn’t want to barge into the noodle restaurant again. This was too important. I needed to keep my head level. I’d talk to him tonight or maybe even tomorrow morning, when we were both calm and rested.

When I got to work, Simone wasn’t there. As Adrienne started the Monday meeting, she said, “I’m sorry to have to tell you that Simone is in the hospital. She won’t be coming back to the studio due to some personal problems.”

“What?!” Mateo exclaimed. “Is she all right?”

Nina looked sad. She knows something, I thought.

“She is fine now.” Dominic continued, “She has had some health issues and we must respect her privacy. She sends all of you her love. We will miss her greatly and wish her the best. We’ll also need to redistribute her students and will be speaking to you individually as soon as we’ve made our decisions. For starters, Nina, since you’re our remaining competitive Latin dancer, we are hoping that you’ll take Simone’s place with Keith in the competition.”

Nina glanced at me. I gulped. The last thing I wanted was to have to compete against her. I closed my eyes for a moment. I knew that whatever happened, we’d be friends first and competitors second. When I met her eyes, I managed to smile. She relaxed, then said, “Sure.”

It had never occurred to me that Simone would leave. In the locker room, the teachers were abuzz, but I noticed again that Nina kept silent.

Katerina said, “Why would she go?”

Mateo said, “Sweetheart, those wet eyes of hers, the acne, the way she was so jittery. The nasal spray?”

When Katerina still looked blank, he said, “Cocaine. And probably a whole load of other stuff too.”

—

I talked to Nina alone as soon as we were both free. “You knew about Simone and the drugs.” It wasn’t a question.

Nina nodded. “Simone and I worked together at my old studio in the East Village. We used to be pretty tight, then I had to stay away from her for my own health because she was still using.”

“But why did she do it? She seemed to have everything.”

“Simone had a hard upbringing. I think she was sexually abused. She even worked in a strip club for a while.”

I gasped.

Nina wasn’t meeting my eyes. “I was embarrassed to tell you this before, but when the dance studios wouldn’t hire me back, I auditioned at a club to be a cocktail waitress too. I had a baby at home. It was so gross. I was still me and, God help me, I thought about taking the easy way out. Simone told me about it because she knew I was hard up. They’re not allowed to touch the waitresses at that place and it’d be a couple of hundred a night. I’d be able to clear out
my bills, take care of Sammy, help out my folks. So it sounded okay to me, you know?”

“Did you go through with it?”

“Well no, because I bombed the audition. The guy just looked at me for a long time at first. I guess I passed that part, because then he asked me three questions. First: ‘Do you do drugs?’ I’d stopped so I could say no. Second, ‘Do you have a boyfriend?’ I didn’t like that because it sounded like he was hitting on me but I thought, ‘Hey, I can handle guys,’ so I said no. Last one wasn’t really a question. He said, ‘Take off your shirt.’ I asked him why and he said the management wanted to know. I got it.”

I stared at her blankly. “I don’t.”

“The management was planning to have sex with me. They probably did all of the new girls and he needed to check me out first. I told that guy to screw himself and walked out. I have to live up to my little dude. I need to be a mommy that will make him proud when he grows up.”

“I can’t believe Simone went through that.”

“Like I said, the childhood stuff will mess you up. Her dad died when she was young and I think her stepdad . . . Well, all of her relationships with men were crazy. It was like she had no boundaries left.”

I thought of Ryan, who’d also lost his father. Nina had just shared so much with me and I trusted her too. I blurted, “I went to a party with Ryan this weekend. I really like him, Nina.”

But her reaction was less forgiving than I’d hoped. “Charlie.” Her face was stern. “Listen to me. I’ve been through it. You’re dancing with him. He’s your partner. You rely on him, he counts on you. It’s so easy to fall under the spell, but is it real? And what about being a dancer and a teacher?”

I pressed my lips together. “I know all those things and yet I still want to be with him.”

“Everyone wants to be with their partners. Take the energy and use it on the dance floor. Don’t make that leap and then regret it the rest of your life, like me.”

—

I braced myself to see Ryan again after our date in Spanish Harlem. Now that it was summer, he came to the studio fairly late in the evenings because he basically worked until the sunlight was gone. This was one of the busiest times of the year for him, yet he was still making time for our lessons.

Following everything that had happened and my latest conversation with Nina, I had once again resolved to be absolutely professional with him from now on, but the moment he stepped into the studio in his big boots and gardener’s outfit, I melted.

I stood by him as he bent to change into the dance shoes he’d bought. “Do you think anyone on earth has wider feet than you do?”

“I often think they’re like two loaves of bread.” Then he peeked at me through his hair, which had fallen into his eyes. “Sometimes I worry I might embarrass you when I come in straight from work. Not the kind of clothing Keith would wear.”

“No.” I cleared my throat. “I’m proud you’re my student. Come on, let’s get started.”

It felt better than right to dance with Ryan again, but I blocked any other thoughts from my mind and heart. He must have decided to do the same, because he didn’t bring up anything personal again. I told myself it was better this way.

—

Pa wasn’t home yet when I got back from the studio that night. I decided to wait until the next morning, when we both wouldn’t be exhausted.

At the breakfast table, Lisa poked at her steamed bun. Pa was praying long and hard at Ma’s altar. I knew he hoped her spirit would be able to help us. He’d been going to temple more often as well. When he finally joined us, I brought out the stack of forms that Mr. Song had given me. “Pa, I went to see Lisa’s guidance counselor yesterday about her health problems.”

They both looked up. Pa said, “Why did you do that? Now the school will think she’s a bad student.”

“That’s crazy. Why would they do that? She’s having a medical problem and they should be aware of it.”

“It’ll bias the teachers against her. They’ll think she’s a sickly child.” Pa had grown up in Communist China, where the less you said to any official, the better.

Lisa said, “I like Mr. Song. What did he say?”

“He told me that we could probably get low-cost or even free medical coverage for you. That means we’d be able to send you to doctors and get your tests. We could find out what’s going on.” I could barely contain my excitement. “The money wouldn’t be a problem anymore.”

Both Lisa and Pa looked taken aback. Lisa shrank into her chair. “I don’t know, Charlie. I don’t want to be tested by loads of doctors.”

“Who knows what they will do to her?” Pa added. “They told Mr. Lee he had asthma. He had needles, inhalers and then it turned out he had lung cancer. Within five months, he was dead. Almost bankrupted his family as well.”

“We’d be insured. We wouldn’t have to pay.”

Pa’s face was bitter. “They lie. When your ma was in the hospital, the doctors told me not to worry too. They didn’t tell me what the bills would be like. Those big companies tell you one thing, but when you owe the money, it’s a whole other story.”

I struggled to stay calm. “Pa, this is different from China. There are laws. They can’t say you’re insured for something and then suddenly, you’re not.”

“You don’t know the way the world works, Charlie. Uncle Henry doesn’t believe in it either and he’s an educated man. And I don’t want Lisa to disappear into a hospital where they’re doing all kinds of things to her. They can use her like a test rabbit.”

I finally understood. For Pa, it wasn’t even about the bills. It was about losing control to a foreign system and watching someone you loved die slowly. I felt my face soften, but I knew this was important. “All I want is to help find out what’s going on with Lisa and heal her.”

“That’s what I’m trying to do!”

“Pa, don’t you realize how much Lisa’s symptoms are like Ma’s? Aren’t you scared?”

Lisa drew in a quick breath. I immediately laid my hand over hers, regretting I’d frightened her.

The veins on Pa’s forehead bulged. “I’m thinking about it day and night. It would help me if you would work with us instead of deserting us for that foreign world of yours. Ever since you’ve started working at the computer company, you’ve changed. I don’t even know who my daughter is anymore.” He stood up, grabbed his keys and walked out of the apartment.

I clenched my fists. Lisa had her head down on the table. I tried to keep the anger out of my voice. “Lisa, why didn’t you help me there?”

“I don’t want to go to the hospital.”

I was on my own.

—

The first time I saw Nina and Keith dance together, a pang ran through me. She was simply stunning. Simone had been a brilliant
dancer but when she danced, it was her technique that stood out. It had sometimes seemed as if she was going through the motions. Despite any strip clubs she might have worked in, Simone had been uptight. I’d heard her laughing when Keith made a joke, saying, “That is so humorous,” which took the fun out of anything. I saw now that she had been constantly trying to fill a role that only she could see in her mind.

Nina existed in a relaxed glow that just made you want to be near her. She made it all look easy. I saw Keith smiling with her and knew that her popularity in high school hadn’t been because of her looks. It was just Nina. Despite their age difference, Keith and Nina looked fantastic together. He blossomed as well, dancing with a passion and freedom I hadn’t seen in him before. Watching their rumba, my heart rose with the thrill of the dance, then sank as I thought of the competition. Of course Nina had learned their routine in a heartbeat. They would undoubtedly win. For a moment, I was consumed by jealousy.

Then I remembered something Ma once said to me. “The hardest part of making a sacrifice isn’t the moment when you do it. That’s the easiest. You’re too busy being proud of yourself for being so noble. What’s hard is the day after that and the following one and all of those days to come. It’s needing to make that sacrifice over and over again, the rest of your life, while in your mind, you can still taste that which you lost. Or what you think you lost.”