Buddha Baby (24 page)

Lindsey stood at the register and waved goodbye. After about five minutes, Yeh Yeh still hadn't shown up, so she flipped the "closed" sign and made her way to the back of the store. At the end of the refrigerated aisle that held fresh chunks of coconut and spiky durian fruit in yellow nylon netting, Lindsey pushed open a swinging door that led to a back room and called out a hello. She walked down a few steps into the dark space and felt the empty silence. A subterranean chill wafted through the room, and she shuddered.

"Hello?" she said again.

The back room was as scary as she remembered. It was a dirty, sunken place where Lindsey once imagined Fu Manchu might get her. She maneuvered around a stack of musty boxes with Chinese writing on the sides, and she peered down a dark cellar door, spotting a conveyor belt where deliveries came up.

She was afraid of rats and suspected raccoon-sized ones lurked down there. At a lamplit desk she found piles of receipts impaled on a rusty spike, accounting binders stacked beneath a pile of coupons, copious amounts of junk mail, and strangely, a Magic 8 Ball.

She picked up the plastic toy and shook it. She tried to think of something to ask the black ball, and finally ventured the question, "Am I really ready to get married?"

Flipping over the plastic sphere, she waited for the answer to appear. The cloud of purple ink swished from side to side until an answer floated to the surface:

UNCLEAR AT THIS TIME.

She shook the black toy again. "If I kiss Dustin Lee just once, will my life be ruined?"

She spun the magic ball and shook it vigorously. After a moment an answer appeared:

ALL SIGNS POINT TO YES.

Lindsey sighed. She looked up to the low-ceilinged loft. "Yeh Yeh?" she called.

Climbing the precarious ladder, she poked her head up above the platform. As she reached the top, there was barely enough headroom to stand as she surveyed the humble space with its narrow cot, several crates lined up for a makeshift table, and cigar boxes on the sloping floor of warped linoleum.

Curiosity got the better of her. Being careful where she stepped, she searched for sinister Chinese things that she had seen in movies and cartoons: torture devices, opium pipes, or other drug paraphernalia. She was anxious to think she might find a hatchet, knives with blood, or magic potions.

After several minutes of snooping, she didn't find anything other than a tube of denture glue and a Duncan butterfly yoyo. She looped her finger through the string and gave it a few spins. A minute later, she heard the front doorbell chime faintly. She scrambled back down the ladder and flew out the door and down the aisle toward the front counter.

"Hai?"

It was Yeh Yeh. He unwrapped two Styrofoam soup containers from orange plastic bags and said, "I go out to get lunch, where is El-more?"

Lindsey grabbed a container before it spilled. "He said he had to leave."

Yeh Yeh tossed her a plastic spoon. "You come visit. Fine, fine.
Wonton mein. Sik la .
. ."

Lindsey slurped some noodles in duck broth, then tried to pinch a wonton with her chopsticks, but it kept slipping from the tips. She finally skewered it against the wall of the Styrofoam container. Chewing, she said, "I have some photos I'd like to show you." Pulling the manila envelope from her shoulder bag, she emptied the pictures on the counter, flipped them all right-side up, and lined them in a straight row.

Yeh Yeh moved slowly at first, but she could tell he was intrigued. He wiped his mouth with a napkin, picked up a couple of photos, and held them up to the light, scrutinizing them. As she chewed, Lindsey watched him. He didn't ask her where she got them or what she knew. While he examined the rest of the pictures, for a second Lindsey thought she saw his eyes get teary with emotion, but she wasn't quite sure. As she slurped soup and worked her mouth around slices of duck, she spit out parts that were too bony or too fatty. Eventually, she couldn't take the suspense.

"Well?" she said.

Yeh Yeh whispered, "Is it Pearl or Opal?"

Lindsey had no idea what he was talking about. "They're pictures of Yun Yun," she said.

He replied, "Of course, of course," then placed the pictures back on the counter and resumed eating, shoving some more noodles in his mouth.

"Who are Pearl and Opal?" she asked.

"Your Yun Yun, American name is Minnie, but long time ago we call her Pearl. I just forget, sorry."

Lindsey nodded, confused all over again about Chinese people choosing American names, then picking up nicknames as well. Then her mind snagged on a weird thought: Pearl, Minnie… Minnie Pearl. Wasn't that some old country singer? She forgot to ask who Opal was.

When they were finished eating, Yeh Yeh cleaned off the counter and threw the Styrofoam containers into the trash. Then, to Lindsey's surprise, he took a pint of whiskey from behind the cash register, poured some into a paper cup, and nonchalantly began to sip it like it was tea.

Yeh Yeh picked up one of the photos again and placed it back down quickly. They sat quietly for a while as Lindsey bided her time. In her experience, aggressive questioning usually made sources retreat. Her tactic was to let the speaker say anything he or she wanted. She would vacuum up all the hints, hearsay, and memories and piece them together later, eventually fitting them onto her Frankenstein creature of family history. She waited silently and hoped he would continue.

After a customer came in and bought a pack of cigarettes and some Mentos, Yeh Yeh absentmindedly began to dust the
mui
canisters with a rag. Lindsey sat still and waited some more. When she first headed down here she was so determined to shake information out of Yeh Yeh like pears from a tree, but now that they were actually together, she didn't know how to force him to talk. She swallowed and tried to think of a way to get the conversation going. After a moment, she ventured, "I guess Yun Yun has always been a little bit shy."

Taking another sip from his paper cup, her grandfather said, "Not so much shy. Just worrywart." His eyes crinkled a little and they shared a smile.

But then the smile disappeared. He stared out into space, as if transfixed by the cuttlefish snacks hanging from the pegs in the aisle.

"I didn't know your Yun Yun back then, only met her later. Were these taken at orphanage?"

Lindsey nodded her head. So, it seemed, Yeh Yeh did know a few things after all about Yun Yun's past. She listened as he went on,

"I didn't meet your grandma until she was older. I was cook in a big house and she was the upstairs cleaning girl. Back then, there were many wealthy houses that had Chinese people running the show. Yeah, you think I joke? It is true! And I was very happy to see her. First few week she there, I only see her when she come out back to wash and fold laundry, but one day I talk to her. In Tze Yap I ask her name, and she tell me in English that the white ladies call her Mary, but her name is Pearl. Now people call her Minnie. See, you think your Yun Yun is just Yun Yun, but she have life before!"

Lindsey nodded.

"I was the only Chinese person, especially man, that she saw most every day. I bring her things. Special piece of food I save for her, or pretty vegetable I carve and leave in laundry basket for her to find. See, I show you."

Fairly animated now, Yeh Yeh went out from behind the counter, retrieved a radish from the small, refrigerated section, and returned to his seat. He pulled out a pocket knife and, as Lindsey watched him, proceeded to deftly whittle the root vegetable into the shape of a rose. She never suspected her grandfather had such hidden talents.

"See?" He handed it to her, and she admired the carved, translucent flower, its vibrant red coloring the edges of the "petals."

Yeh Yeh stared into the cuttlefish snacks again. He said, "I like her very much, but also, Chinese people very practical. She Chinese. I Chinese, so we decide to get marry. But when we move to Locke, I don't think she like it too much."

Lindsey could almost picture Yeh Yeh as a young man taking his new bride up the Sacramento River to Locke by ferry. Her father had told her about the dirt-floor barracks that all the fruitpickers shared, and about how later the family moved into a makeshift building where the only insulation that separated the plank walls from the outside was tacked-up newspapers. They shingled the roof with the tops of tin cans that they'd saved.

Lindsey's dad had also once mentioned to her that in the evenings they ran a gambling hall. She wondered how Yun Yun must have fared in such an environment. Mulling over what Yeh Yeh had just said about Chinese people being practical, she wondered if, over the years of orchard work and hosting crews of gamblers, did Yun Yun have any affection at all for her husband? Had they desperately wanted children, or were her dad, Auntie Geraldine, and Uncle Elmore just the results of a matter of course?

Yeh Yeh started to talk again. "I was born in Locke, but moved to San Fran when I was small boy. Went to school here and everything, right in North Beach at Francisco Middle School. Then moved back to Locke with Yun Yun. By the time your dad was college-age we come back again to the city. And you know what? I was very content to be back. This place, no other place like it, you know?"

Lindsey did know, and smiled at Yeh Yeh.

She gathered up her photos and slipped them back into their folder. Before she could say goodbye, Yeh Yeh shuffled out from behind the counter and began to rearrange some cans of Campbell's soup, his back turned to her. As she called out a goodbye, he did not respond but she could hear him singing "San Francisco" again.

That night, after a Top Ramen dinner and a Reese's peanut butter cup for dessert, Lindsey dug through her bureau drawer until she found her vine and pressed charcoals. She retrieved her sketchbook, turned to a clean page, and sat down on the floor to start a drawing. Holding the brittle, black stick in her hand, she hesitated for a moment, then touched the charcoal to the paper and tentatively made a mark on the white surface.

Every drawing began with a single line. A lonely, amateur smudge on the vast, empty space that looked so naked and humiliating. After hours of working the surface, perhaps the drawing would start to look like something—a still life with fruit, leaves on the trees outside, or the curve of the sofa—but the first few lines were always the hardest and required that she screw up her courage and assure herself that no one was looking, so it was okay.

Using a snapshot of Michael she'd taken a while ago when he'd been asleep, she tried now to do his image justice. With indecisive lines and lousy shading, she created contours where there shouldn't have been any. After twenty minutes, she was already fighting the urge to give up and tear the paper to shreds, but she went on.

By nine o' clock she'd spent an hour fixing one area, only to find that she accidentally ruined the best part of the drawing. As she worked into the night, she felt the emptiness of the apartment. Missing Michael, she tried to will the phone to ring, and to her surprise, around ten o'clock, it did. "Hello?" she said, wiping her hands on a dishtowel. There was a pause, and then, "What are you wearing?" It was not Michael. Lindsey knew full well who it was, and said, "You are a pervert and I'm hanging up."