Outrun the Moon(14)

I squeeze in beside Ba at the counter to help him separate clothes into bins. It’s mindless work, but with Ba’s displeasure like a third person wedged between us, my fingers feel clumsier than normal.

“The school accepted me,” I tell him in Cantonese so the white customers don’t get too nosy.

He ticks off another order, giving no indication that he heard.

“They gave me the . . . scholarship. They’ll cover everything—tuition and room and board.” I don’t tell him about the trial period. It would just tie another knot in his mood. If I succeed in getting Monsieur the right to sell his chocolate, no one need be the wiser. “I leave tomorrow.”

His pencil stops scratching, and his eyebrows bend like wire hangers.

I cringe. “I mean, with your permission, of course.”

He doesn’t answer, and we continue to take clothes without speaking.

As each minute trickles by, I begin to lose hope that Ba will let me go after all. If there was any place for softening, it would be here in the laundry, where even the glass windows look like they might melt. But Ba marches around, separating colors like a machine. Ma told me she had worried when she saw that her husband-to-be had rigid ears, as people with ears that don’t bend can be intolerant. But those same features also make him fiercely dependable. May those ears bend for me today.

A sour-faced woman pushes a frumpy dress with several layers of skirts at me. “I need this by tomorrow.”

Her lofty tone needles me. “With this much fabric, it’ll take at least three days to dry, minimum.”

The drapes around her neck tighten. “You people are always angling for more money, more tips.”

Her comment wrings all the patience out of me, and I feel the poplin crushing in my fists.

I’ll give you a tip: Leave this stuffy old dress back in the nineteenth century where it belongs and get out of our shop.

Ba’s warm hand pats mine, and I release the fabric. “You may go,” he tells me in Cantonese. At first, I think he’s telling me to go home. But then his expression relaxes.

He nods, and I know he is talking about St. Clare’s.

“Thank you, Ba.”



After dropping Jack at school the next morning, I set my rudder for Pier 6, where Tom will be collecting his father’s herb shipment. On the way, I rehearse my Chinese heiress act, keeping my posture straight as bamboo and throwing haughty looks to everyone I encounter.

I pointed out to Monsieur Du Lac that a Chinese heiress is not entirely plausible, as even girls from affluent families rarely receive an education in China, but he dismissed my concerns. China has been closed to foreigners for so long that its social structure remains a mystery to most people, especially rich American girls. To make my presence further palatable, my “father” would be contributing a new bell for the school chapel. Monsieur is as clever as a crow, and I was foolish to think I could dazzle him with a few shiny objects.

I reach the bustling seaport of the Embarcadero at the bottom of the hill.

Holding my nose past whale carcasses along the harbor, at last I reach Pier 6. A three-mast clipper half a block long watches me through a pair of green eyes painted on the prow. Chinese sailors believe the eyes will detect and deter sea monsters. As if that wasn’t striking enough, sparkly gold letters spell out the words Heavenly Blessing.

I spot Tom squatting near his pull cart. He built it using crates and old roller skates after the city outlawed daam tiu—poles balanced on shoulders. Yet another law to persecute us Chinese. As he rummages through his shipment, his traditional mandarin collar jacket squeezes his muscular frame. He taps the end of his pencil against each packet of herbs as he counts, and when he’s finished, he heaves each crate onto his pull cart. I could watch him tally all day.

Nearby, a scowling man in his sixties with a black skullcap hunches over a cane, watching sailors lift feed sacks onto a dray.

Tom’s too busy counting packets of coix seeds to notice me loitering.

I pinch my cheeks to pinken them and smooth the hair behind my ears. My heart does a two-step, but I make my voice easy, jokey even. “We got a wart outbreak here? Must be enough coix seeds in there to cure all of China.”

Tom glances back at me, his normally smooth face dimpling in exasperation. He gets to his feet and dusts off his pants. “What are you doing here?”

“Thinking about buying myself a ship. How about that gaudy bead?” I nod toward the clipper. “The life of a pirate would suit me well—a wind at my back and the world at my front. You could be chief engineer, so you can put some of that knot tying to use.” I gesture like I’m spreading a banner. “Mercy the Fearsome.”

Tom glances at the man with the black skullcap, who is now glaring at me through the slashes of his eyes. A rumbling starts up in the man’s throat.

“If you are merciful, you will not be feared,” Tom mutters.

“Not fear as in afraid. Fear as in respect.”

“All right, Mercy the Respectable. But that one’s not for sale. It’s one of the fastest Chinese ships in the Pacific.”

“Looks like a piece of junk.” I think I’m quite funny sometimes. Tom blinks, and I nudge him with my elbow. “Get it, junk?”

The man makes a hacking noise, then spits, very close to my foot.

Before I can voice my disgust, Tom says in Cantonese, “Mercy, this is the honorable Captain Lu. That’s his ship.”