Buddha Baby (32 page)

Beyond, she could see an open door and inside, a wall decorated in the pattern of tiger stripes.

"Come in, dear."

"Hello, Mrs. Clemens."

Lindsey stood at a polite distance. Having been to the house once before, this time she was not so taken aback by the room's macabre adornments. But she did notice Mrs. Clemens's clothes, which struck her as even stranger than her usual "madam" garb. The old woman was wearing tweed trousers and an unseasonal Christmas sweater with an appliqued Santa Claus.

Lindsey said, "Sorry to barge in on you like this."

"Nonsense. Truthfully, been a little worried about you. Haven't seen you and your boyfriend walking to the park much lately. Have a seat."

Lindsey sat herself down on a chair upholstered with saffron-colored fur of unknown animal origin. At her feet grazed ceramic peacocks atop a real zebra-skin rug. Lindsey rested her elbows against deer-hoof armrests. She settled in and relaxed like she was in the most natural setting in the world.

Mrs. Clemens noticed Lindsey taking in her surroundings. She said, "I know some things don't quite go right in this room, but, well, at my age you can't go around moving things from place to place. Besides, you move around these old animals and you never know if a beak or an eyeball might pop off, and then what?"

Lindsey smiled politely, then said, "Mae's Menagerie?"

The old woman plucked a glass paperweight from her desktop and gazed at the blue-black scorpion inside. "Yep," she said, "we was the longest running house in the city. Went back to the old days of Tessie Wall, back before the earthquake, and when she and every other place went belly up, we still survived. It was the animals that kept things interesting. And the girls, of course. My Grandma Mae, she had a way with folks, and she liked to collect things. We got some stuffed pelicans left over from the Pan-Pacific Exposition in 1915, and like I said before, the stuff from Sutro's old place before they tore that down."

Lindsey shifted in her seat. "My grandfather has a stuffed jackrabbit with antlers. He says he used to work here."

The old woman let out a world-weary cackle. "Christ-amighty! He still has that old thing? I gave that to Johnny years ago." She leaned her pointy chin on her hand and laughed to herself.

Lindsey had never heard her grandfather called "Johnny." She thought his American name was "Joe," or at least that's what the old guys at the Family Association had called him. She wondered if Mrs. Clemens's Johnny was indeed Yeh Yeh, but then she figured, hell, he had the jackalope to prove it, so it must be true.

After a moment of reverie, the old woman continued, "It was your grandpa who asked me to keep an eye on you. I was down on Grant Avenue buying my herbs for my arthritis when I ran into him. Boy, was he a sight! Looked exactly the same, so I recognized him right off. Anyways, he said his granddaughter moved into a place near me. He said your phone number meant "roll over and die" in Chinese, so he was worried. I didn't know what kind of sense he was talking, but I promised I'd keep my eyes peeled for ya. Him and me go back a ways. Must have been back in the early thirties. I wasn't all but twenty even yet. My mother was running the house, and we was doing a steady business."

She stopped for a moment and opened a desk drawer. As she sifted through the contents, she went on, "Back in the old days, Chinese didn't have much choice about things. When they came to look for the gold, they was beaten up and left with only the areas other people had already mined out. Laws were made against them in using their nets for shrimping, and even for carrying their bundles using those poles. Everywhere they was discriminated against in work. But the Chinese, they resourceful. It's not like they had a natural propensity for laundry work or being house servants. They took the jobs no one else wanted. Eventually, they became a part of the everyday household. Time was, every house had a John Chinaman, and that's what we all called them, even though they had their own names in Chinese, I suppose. But that was their business and none of ours.

"Grannie Mae and Mother always said Chinese was the best servants, best cooks, everything. A Chinese vegetable seller came to the back door every day, another one brought fresh fish and crabs caught that same morning. They picked up our linens and brought them back fresh and clean. The house servants did all the cooking, cleaning and raised us kids. People like your grandfather—they was indispensable. I tell you, he sure dusted a lot of these animals. And that's why when he left, I saw fit that he should have that old jackrabbit. He always had a fondness for it."

Lindsey listened with a mixture of fascination and angst. She didn't quite feel comfortable hearing about Chinese history, let alone her family history, from a non-Chinese source. But at this point she was willing to take any information whichever way it came to her, even from a Hoarder Lady.

Mrs. Clemens tossed a few photos on top of the desk for Lindsey to see. They were old snapshots of the house, some of the exterior and one of the downstairs interior.

"See that picture taken in the parlor? Look through that door on the left. See? That skinny son of a gun is old Johnny, your granddaddy."

Lindsey scrutinized the photo and could just make out the face. She recognized his crooked grimace and low ears. He was dressed in a smock similar to the one he wore in his grocery store.

Mrs. Clemens continued, "Your grandpa was our cook and we were sore to lose him. We never thought that he and the upstairs cleaning girl would hit it off. She mostly kept to herself, but guess it makes sense. They was both Chinese, working in the house all day, bound to get together sooner or later. When he said they were going off and getting married, we all had a sip of wine in the kitchen before sending them off."

Mrs. Clemens frowned, briefly bringing all her wrinkles together and then releasing them, like the strings of a purse suddenly cinched and then loosened.

"Just like the John Chinamans, we called all the girls China Mary. She cleaned and changed the beds. Tell you what, she must have got an eyeful, seeing the things that gone on around here! No wonder she latched on to your grandpa and they beat it out of here to go God knows where."

"They went to Locke."

"Oh, yes, the Chinese town." Mrs. Clemens sifted through the photos on the desk, occasionally holding one up and studying it.

Lindsey said, "So they were in love? I always assumed their marriage was arranged."

The old lady shrugged. "Love? How should I know? Maybe they got on, but being on her own, maybe she figured she had to do something. Back then wasn't how it is now. A woman couldn't marry any fella she wanted, change her mind, then change it back again. And it was even more strict for a Chinese. There was laws to make sure a Chinese only wed another Chinese. Not repealed until the 1960s or something another."

Mrs. Clemens collected the pictures in a loose pile, then sifted around in her desk for some more. "Actually," she said,

"I don't know how they done it, but Mother's second cousin, Ella, married a Chinese man named Wong Sun Yue. Here's her photo right here. Look at my old, burly aunt in her Chinese dress and her Chinese husband selling earthquake relics in their Chinatown store. They was kind of famous. The novelty of them was a sight back then. But you see, Chinese and Caucasians been getting together for a while now."

The old woman handed the photo to Lindsey, who hadn't counted on plucking a page from the Annotated History of Hoarder Ladies. But here it was, firsthand. She put down the picture, then retrieved the photo with Yeh Yeh to study it again.

After a moment she looked up to see Mrs. Clemens gazing gently at her.

"Questions?"

Lindsey didn't know where to begin. She couldn't quite speak yet, due to a sudden case of cottonmouth. She swiveled her head toward the open doorway where she could see Jilan chasing a fluorescent ball down the stairway.

"Do you know anything about my grandmother's twin sister?"

Mrs. Clemens cinched her face again and squinted as she searched the microfiche of her mind.

She said, "I don't recall such a thing."

Lindsey nodded solemnly. Standing up to thank the old woman, Lindsey said, "If you ever need any help babysitting or anything, I don't live very far."

Lindsey turned to leave, but then Mrs. Clemens said, "Do you gots any experience cleaning animals? I'm trying to do right by the menagerie, but don't have the time to clean every single one of these critters. Think you could help sometime?"

Lindsey thought of the many hours she had logged cleaning the velvet mannequin limbs, Warhol wigs, and fur-lined teacups at the museum gift shop. She figured she was as qualified as anyone to spruce up the former bordello's bevy of one-eyed ocelots.

She nodded, and said, "I promise I'll come back."

It was the kind of night when even ugly people were having sex. The city was enduring a two-week heat wave that had reached temperatures unmatched since 1894, and when the sun-drenched days faded to azure evening skies, the city air crackled with the intoxicating possibility of animalistic rutting in the petal-soft breeze.

There was nothing quite as seductive as San Francisco on a warm, windy night. Above the skyscrapers and beyond Twin Peaks, stars flickered like bits of glass shining beneath a mermaid lagoon. The hot breath of summer rose through the night air, mixing with the earthy smell of dirt and trees. Inhaling the magical scent as she walked through the city, Lindsey saw San Franciscans laughing and flirting everywhere she went.

For her, it was one of those nights when anything could happen. She hadn't spoken to Michael since they'd quarreled, and she felt confused and adrift. It had been several weeks since she'd last seen him in the flesh and felt the comfort of his touch, and now she was irrationally beginning to think he'd never return.

In comparison, it had been just one week since she'd last seen Dustin. Hideous as it was to admit, she didn't know whose company she was wanting more, his or Michael's. She couldn't think straight, and not just because of her mounting loneliness and the strangely warm weather, but last week she'd also had the bright idea to give up all carbohydrates. She'd foolishly hoped the diet would give her more energy, but she was wrong. And tonight was the moment she just might crash. Nature seemed to be conspiring against her personally, and she was ready to surrender to her body's cravings for sweets, for Dustin, and for anything else bad that came with being bored and lonely.

When she counted in her head, it had actually only been six days since she'd sucked down a Twinkie or seen Dustin. And while she hadn't sprung for any Ding Dongs since, just yesterday she had congratulated herself on successfully ignoring Dustin's phone messages. But a few hours ago she had broken down and called him. Now here they were, standing together outside the museum at the end of her shift.

He waited at the back door for her, and when she spotted him he was holding a gardenia in his hand. By the look on his face and the warmth she felt surging up her thighs she could tell they were both thinking very bad thoughts.

"Seeing you makes my whole day better," he said. As she pinned the flower to her blouse, he added, "I had the kind of crummy day where I tried to get all my check-ups out of the way. Went to the doctor, the dentist, even had my eyes dilated."