Shanghai Girls (Shanghai Girls #1)(69)

“Keep talking to your father-in-law,” Tom instructs May. “Tell him that one out of every fourteen of his neighbors works in the movies. It’s a good way to make extra income. I could even get him a job. I promise he’ll make more money in a week than he did in three months sitting in his antiques shop.” The idea makes us laugh.

People in Chinatown are often called “acting conscious.” When the studios realized they could hire Chinese for as little as “five dollars a Chink,” they used our neighbors for crowd scenes and to fill all kinds of nonspeaking roles in films like Stowaway, Lost Horizon, The General Died at Dawn, The Adventures of Marco Polo, the Charlie Chan series, and of course The Good Earth. The Depression may be receding, but people need money and will work for it in any way possible. Even people in New Chinatown, who are wealthier than we are, like to work as extras. They do it because they want to have fun and see themselves on the silver screen.

I don’t want to work in Haolaiwu. Not for any old-fashioned reasons but because I understand I’m not beautiful enough. My sister is, though, and she wants this badly. She idolizes Anna May Wong, even though everyone around here talks about her as though she’s a disgrace, because she always plays singsong girls, maids, and murderers. But when I see Anna May on the screen, I think back to the way Z.G. used to paint my sister. Like Anna May, May glows like a ghost goddess.

For weeks Tom begs us to sell him our cheongsams. “I usually buy clothes from people who bring them back after a visit to China, because they’ve gained too much weight at home. Or I buy them from people who’ve come here for the first time, because they’ve lost so much weight on the ship and on Angel Island. But these days no one’s going home because of the war, and those lucky enough to make it out of China have usually left everything behind. But you two are different. Your father-in-law looked out for you and brought your clothes.”

I don’t mind selling our clothes—I chafe at having to wear them for the sake of China City’s tourists—but May doesn’t want to part with them.

“Our dresses are beautiful!” she cries indignantly. “They’re part of who we are! Our cheongsams were made in Shanghai. The material came from Paris. They’re elegant—more elegant than anything I’ve seen here.”

“But if we sell some of our cheongsams, then we can buy new dresses—American dresses,” I say. “I’m tired of looking unfashionable, of looking like I’m fresh off the boat.”

“If we sell them,” May inquires shrewdly, “what will happen when China City reopens? Won’t Old Man Louie notice that our clothes are gone?”

Tom waves away that worry as inconsequential. “He’s a man. He won’t notice.”

But of course he will. He notices everything.

“He won’t care as long as we give him a portion of what Tom pays us,” I say, hoping I’m right.

“Just don’t give him too much.” Tom scratches his beard. “Let him think you’ll make more money if you keep coming back here.”

We sell Tom one cheongsam apiece. They’re our oldest and ugliest, but they’re splendid compared with what he has in his collection. Then we take the money and walk south on Broadway until we come to the Western department stores. We buy rayon dresses, high heels, gloves, new undergarments, and a couple of hats—all from the sale of two dresses, with enough left over that our father-in-law isn’t angry with us when we put the remaining money in his palm. That’s when May begins her campaign, teasing him, cajoling him, and, yes, even flirting with him, trying to get him to surrender to her desires just as our father did in the past.

“You like us to keep busy,” she says, “but how can we keep busy now? Bak Wah Tom says I can make five dollars a day if I work in Haolaiwu. Think how much that will be in a week! Add to that the extra I’ll make if I wear my own costume. I have plenty of costumes!”

“No,” Old Man Louie says.

“With my beautiful clothes, I might get a close-up. I’ll earn ten dollars for that. If I get to say a line—just one single line—I’ll make twenty dollars.”

“No,” Old Man Louie says again, but this time I can practically see him counting the money in his mind.

Her lower lip trembles. She crosses her arms. Her body shrinks into itself, making her appear pitiful. “I was a beautiful girl in Shanghai. Why can’t I be a beautiful girl here?”

The mountain crumbles one grain at a time. After several weeks, he finally gives in. “Once. You may do it once.”

To which Yen-yen sniffs and walks out of the room, Sam shakes his head in disbelief, and blood rushes to my face in pleasure that May’s beaten the old man just by being herself.

I don’t catch the title of May’s first movie, but since she has her own clothes, she gets to play a singsong girl instead of a peasant. She’s gone for three nights and she sleeps during the days, so I don’t hear about her experience until the shoot ends.

“I sat in a fake teahouse all night and nibbled on almond cakes,” she recalls dreamily. “The assistant director called me a cute tomato. Can you imagine?”

For days she calls Joy a cute tomato, which doesn’t make much sense to me. The next time May works as an extra, she comes back with a new phrase: “What in the H,” as in “What in the H did you put in this soup, Pearl?”