A-Splendid-Ruin(10)

Shin regarded me solemnly. “Of course, Miss May.”

I did not mistake her quiet censure. I had been wrong to ask. But I smiled as if I were satisfied, and when Shin had finished with my hair—doing it far more expertly than I could, even with her deformity—and held out my coat and my hat for me to put on, I thanked her, and went into the hall to wait for Goldie. Idly I counted the fawns and cupids on the table—where was the angel with the harp they’d gathered so reverently round yesterday? Perhaps it had heard my thoughts and whisked itself away. Its absence was notable, given that now all the little worshippers were praying to nothing.

Goldie came out of her room, shoving a jeweled hatpin into the crown of her hat, which had a brim nearly the width of her shoulders. It was lavishly decorated with ribbons and bows in several shades of yellow to match the short jacket she wore. She glanced at my hat, not so wide, much less fashionable, and with ribbons pinned into place so they were interchangeable and thus one hat could serve for a dozen.

“Your hair looks very fine this morning,” she said. “Oh, I didn’t mean—”

I laughed. “Shin worked a miracle. Thank you for sending her.”

Goldie looked surprised, but then she leaned close and lowered her voice. “Mind her, May. The Chinese are the best servants we can get, but they have their faults. For one thing, you can’t believe anything they say. They’re terrible liars. Everyone knows it. Even the police don’t believe them unless they’re in a cemetery. They won’t lie in front of their ancestors, you know.”

“No, I didn’t. She’s—her finger—”

Goldie made a face and shuddered. “I know. It’s horrible, isn’t it? Does it trouble you? I’ll have her sent away immediately. You needn’t look at her again.”

“Oh, no, no.” I didn’t know whether to be grateful for Goldie’s quickness in easing my discomfort or alarmed at it for Shin’s sake. “That’s not what I meant. I just wondered how it happened.”

“She came to us that way. Papa says she probably lost it in some factory, but I think she must have been a tong girl.”

“What’s a tong?”

“A Chinese gang. They’re everywhere in Chinatown. There’s something insolent about her, don’t you think? Either she never really looks at you, or she looks too intently.”

I couldn’t say, having done my best not to look at her.

“I think she got into a fight with another tong girl and”—Goldie shrugged—“well, you know.”

“I don’t really. I’ve never known any Chinese,” I confessed.

“You don’t want to know any here, either, if you understand me. But never fear, I’m here to tell you everything you need.” Goldie patted my arm reassuringly. She started down the stairs.

I touched her elbow to stop her, and when she looked back at me, I said, “Please do. Teach me everything important, I mean. This is all so new, and I don’t wish to embarrass you, or your parents. I want to make you proud.”

She smiled. “I will never lead you astray. We’ll be seen everywhere together, after all. I’m certain we’ll become the best of friends.”

It was her special talent to know the perfect thing to say. I had not had many friends in Brooklyn; I was the only one at the shop beyond Mrs. Beard herself, my mother had quickly ended whatever relationships I’d managed in our neighborhood, and the other ladies in the boardinghouse had been much older, more kindly aunts than friends. Now here was beautiful, vibrant Goldie, saying that we would be the best of friends, and I was foolish enough to think it was what I wanted above all else.

Downstairs, Goldie paused, glancing over the telephone table with a frown. “Where is it, Au?” she called, though the butler was nowhere in sight. “Don’t tell me it’s not here yet.”

Like magic, the butler appeared. He had a newspaper in his hand, and he handed it to her without a word, and then disappeared again rather quickly.

Goldie opened the San Francisco Bulletin excitedly. “Oh, I wonder what he said.” Her bright blue eyes scanned the page, and her smile sank. “There’s nothing about us! Nothing at all! How can that be? It was the party. Everyone was here.”

Not everyone, I thought, remembering Goldie’s disappointment over the mysterious but obviously important Mrs. Hoffman.

Goldie gave the paper to me. “Perhaps I’m missing it.”

I glanced down the page until I found the headline Society News, by Alphonse Bandersnitch: The Friday Night Cotillion Club Hosts a Dozen Debutantes at Odd Fellows Hall.

I skimmed the story below:

The popular Strozynski was booked to the very last hour preparing society “hair”esses for Friday night’s ball . . . Gossip and scandal (including, one assumes, those of city politics and impending out-of-town guests) have no place at the Greenway Cotillions, Ned Greenway is oft heard to say . . . Champagne was in attendance and no doubt played the grandest of parts in Miss Hannah Brookner’s recitation of “Little Orphant Annie,” and her particularly inspired “An’ the Gobble-uns ’at gits you Ef you Don’t Watch Out!”

I burst into laughter.

“What?” Goldie asked. “Did I miss it? Is it there?”

“No, it’s just this bit about ‘Little Orphant Annie.’ Did she really recite that at a ball?”