Chasing Secrets (14 page)

T
he sun is rising when I wake up. Down in the kitchen, I hear the pop and hiss of bacon frying in the pan.

Jing is manning the skillet. Papa is reading the paper. There are baskets of biscuits on the table.

Everything is the way it's supposed to be.

“Lizzie!” Papa jumps up, wraps his long arms around me, and gives me a great big Papa hug.

“You were away too long. Don't do that again!”

“Couldn't be helped.” He pushes my hair out of my face. “I missed you.”

“I missed you, too, Papa.” I beam at Papa and Jing. I can't wait to see Noah's face. He must be so happy to have his Baba back.

“I gave Jing an examination. As fit as a fiddle, of course. What a ridiculous charade that was.”

I hold my breath, waiting for more. How does he think Jing got out? Aunt Hortense must have told Papa about last night.

Papa spreads jam on a biscuit. His face is relaxed, happy. Not twisted and small the way it gets when he's mad. Maybe she didn't tell him. “What happened while I was gone?” he asks.

I stick to safe subjects. I tell Papa and Jing about Gemma and Gus and La Jeunesse and how Miss Barstow's isn't so bad now that Gemma and I are friends.

Papa seems pleased.

My eyes fly to Jing, who knows more than anyone else about how hard Miss Barstow's has been for me. He saw how I always stood by myself. He tried to cheer me up when I came home miserable day after day.

“I would have liked to see you all dressed up,” Papa says. “Aunt Hortense must have been beside herself.” He pushes his glasses up his nose and taps the newspaper page.

“So glad that quarantine is over. But you?” Papa smiles at me. “You've got better things to worry about, like the next cotillion, I suppose.”

I can't stand to have Papa think this. I'm about to open my mouth and tell him how untrue it is, when Jing steps over to offer me a biscuit. His eyes catch mine. He winks. I take a deep breath and manage to control my tongue.

“So.” Papa looks at me. “Tell me more about this Gus fellow.”

Even as I chatter, a sudden heaviness comes over me. The quarantine is over. What will happen to Noah now?
He'll go back to Chinatown. Will I be able to see him again? Can we visit each other? I don't want to lose him. He is my best friend. I like Gus and Gemma a lot, but I can't tell them everything the way I can with Noah.

After breakfast, Aunt Hortense's houseboys come and collect her things.

I try to sneak up the back stairs so I won't run into her, but she comes looking for me. “Elizabeth!” She follows me into my room. “You and I need to talk.”

“I have to get ready for school,” I say.

She plants her feet smack in front of me, poking at the hair neatly piled on her head. “We need to talk now.”

Neither of us sits down.

“How did you get Jing out?”

“Donaldina Cameron got him out.”

“Who is she?”

“Someone Billy knows.” I don't look her in the eye.

“So that opera nonsense?”

“Billy said it wasn't exactly a lie, because we went by the opera.”

She crosses her arms and stares at me. “What do you think?”

“It was a lie,” I admit. “But why are you tougher on me than on Billy?”

“Between your papa and Mr. Sweeting, Billy has enough eyes on him. And that's beside the point here.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“I'm glad Jing's back. I missed him, too. But you can't take matters into your own hands like that, Elizabeth, and
then lie through your teeth to me. You can't treat me as if I'm nothing more than an obstacle for you to get around.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“Don't ‘yes, ma'am' me. Just tell me you didn't go to Chinatown.”

“I didn't go to Chinatown,” I say. Technically I didn't go, technically it isn't a lie, but…

“How exactly did you get him back?”

I stare at my quilt. “Like I said, this Donaldina woman got him back. She owed Billy.”

Aunt Hortense nods. This is the way Uncle Karl does things. She's used to it.

“I'm sorry, Aunt Hortense,” I whisper.

“I can't do this anymore, Elizabeth,” she shakes her head.

“Are you going to tell Papa?”

“It's not your papa I'm worried about. It's you and me. Do you think we can ever learn to trust each other?”

What a question. I've never really thought about working something out with Aunt Hortense. Do I even want to? Not really.

I don't say this, but Aunt Hortense seems to know it anyway. She sighs, closes her eyes. Her lip trembles.

“Just remember there's a price to pay for secrets. Trust is what holds us together, Lizzie. Secrets tear us apart.”

“You called me Lizzie,” I whisper.

“So I did.” Her hands are on the dresses in my closet, separating them so they hang an inch apart. When she gets to the end of the dresses, she leaves without another word.

—

When I get home from school, Uncle Karl and Papa are standing in the driveway talking. Papa has his arms crossed in front of him. Is Uncle Karl telling Papa about how I showed up at his newspaper luncheon?

I drift closer.

“I don't see it that way,” Uncle Karl says.

Papa breathes in sharply. His face is red.

“Let him go, Jules.” Uncle Karl brushes the ground with his foot. “Billy has to work this out for himself. You know he does.” He glances at me. “And as for you, Peanut…I don't even know what to say about you.”

Uncle Karl's intense blue eyes burn through me. I hold my breath, waiting for him to tell Papa what I did.

“So far as I can see, your daughter is going kicking and screaming into adulthood. Isn't that right, darlin'?” Uncle Karl asks.

I don't answer.

“You should have seen her all dressed up for La Jeunesse. You would not have recognized her.” Uncle Karl is smiling, but his eyes are talking to me. He wants to make sure I know he's telling Papa only the good things.

I run around to see if the cord is down, careful to watch to make sure Uncle Karl doesn't see me.

It isn't. Too many people around. Where is Orange Tom? I check all of his usual haunts, including the new one in the bottom of the laundry chute.

Orange Tom has vanished.

All afternoon, I keep watch, but no matter where Papa,
Billy, and Maggy are, the cord does not come down. As for Jing, does he know I know about his son? Noah made me swear not to tell anyone. That includes Jing, doesn't it?

Why didn't I talk to Noah about this before? We only thought about getting Jing out, not what would happen after the quarantine ended and Jing came home.

It's early evening by the time Billy goes out, Papa walks across to the Sweeting house, and Jing goes to the barn to talk to the blacksmith. Maggy and the parrot take the laundry in.

But still no cord. I break Noah's rule and sneak up to the third floor.

Jing's door is closed.

“Noah?” I whisper.

No response.

“Noah?”

Still nothing. I take a deep breath and pull open Jing's door.

Noah's books are not piled on the chair. Noah's button strips aren't heaped on the bed. Noah's homework assignments aren't stacked on the bookshelf. The colorful thread balls Noah and the cat played with are gone.

The quarantine is over. Noah has gone back to Chinatown. It was only a matter of time before Papa and the Sweetings found him. It was no kind of life hidden in an attic room. It's better for Noah. It's better for Jing. It's better.

I run down to my room and slam the door and then I start to cry.

W
hen I wake up, the first thing I think is no school for five whole days. It will take that long for Miss Barstow to move the school to the fancier spot in Presidio Heights. I stretch and yawn.

But then there's shouting in the hall. I run out. Billy's door is closed, but the voices come through it.

“You've been lying all this time?” Papa asks.

“Not lying, just not saying,” Billy replies.

“Lies of omission are still lies.”

“I didn't plan it. It just happened.”

“It just
happened
? A successful person has a plan. No plan is a plan to fail.”

“Failure, then. That's my choice.”

“Don't be stupid, Billy,” Papa snaps.

“You define ‘stupid' as any decision you wouldn't make.”

Jing comes up the stairs. He crosses his arms and rocks from foot to foot.

“Billy.” Papa's voice softens. “Explain this to me in a way I can understand. You're earning money for a motorcar?”

“It's not just that. I like to fight.”

“That is a barbaric sensibility.”

“Uncle Karl doesn't think so.”

“Uncle Karl and I don't see eye to eye on most subjects. You know that.”

“He knows more than you do about how to stand up for yourself. People take advantage of you.”

“They do not.”

“Remember that time in San Mateo? They said they didn't send for the local doctor because they knew he'd charge and you would treat them for free.”

“Yes, I remember. And I never went back.”

“I don't want people to take advantage of me. I need to be able to back up what I say. Otherwise it's just talk.”

“Courage comes from your heart, not your fists.”

“People don't push you around if you can handle yourself.”

“Fighting is not how you earn money or respect.”

“There's nothing wrong with being a fighter.”

“I didn't say there was; I just don't want my son doing it.”

“I'm not going to live my life as ‘your son.' I'm going to live it my way. Make my own decisions. Think for myself.” Billy bursts out of his room and storms past Jing and me.

Papa comes out, his face red. “I'm sorry you had to hear that,” he says to us, then runs down the stairs.

—

Neither Papa nor Billy is around for breakfast, but I can't stop hearing their words. Papa never gets mad like that.

The knife sharpener has arrived and is working his grinding wheel out back. Maggy's doing the laundry on the side porch, pouring bluing into the wash water. She scrubs the clothes and feeds them through the wringer. Jing is cleaning the chicken coop. I head out to talk to him.

I haven't said a word about Noah. I hoped Noah would tell Jing how I helped him. Jing must have wondered how Noah got food. Jing had some provisions in his room. Did Noah pretend it was enough? Wouldn't Jing know better?

I want Jing to know I helped Noah. That we're friends. I want it so badly, I think about it all day. “Jing?”

He looks up, scrub brush in hand.

“What's your last name?”

He rolls his tongue into his cheek. “Why?”

“Just wondering.”

“In China your last name is your first name. In China, I am Jing Chen. In America, I am Chen Jing.”

“What should I call you?”

He peeks out from under his eyebrows. “ ‘Jing' has worked well for us, don't you think?”

“How did you get caught in the quarantine?”

He dunks the scrub brush into the bucket and swishes it around. “I thought I could be helpful, but the situation was already too far gone. I stayed too long, and they wouldn't let me out.”

“I'm glad things are back to normal,” I say.

“Back to normal.” His eyebrows slide up and then down. He takes the wet brush out and begins scrubbing the gate.

“Aren't they?”

He keeps scrubbing. “Thank you for coming for me,” he whispers.

I beam. “We tried before. Billy and I. And I tried dressing up like a nurse, but the police stopped me. And then Gus Trotter wrote a letter. Nothing worked.”

He stops scrubbing. “I have never dressed as a lady before.”

“You looked good.”

We laugh.

“I heard you were a leader in Chinatown.”

“A leader?” He shakes his head. “I'm just an old magician.” He's scrubbing again, his face thoughtful.

“Did you go to college?” I ask.

His eyes grow larger. He stares at me. “Of course not,” he mutters.

“You wanted to, though, didn't you?”

His eyebrows furrow. “Why would you say that?”

“You like to read so much. I just…wondered.”

He nods.

“Did Uncle Karl have something to do with the quarantine?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.” He motions with his finger that I should follow him. He pulls three old straw hats off the hooks and puts them onto the tack trunk.

He lifts each hat so I can see there's nothing under it. “Pick one.”

I point to the straw hat John Henry took a bite of.

He picks up the hat. Underneath is an egg.

I smile at him. I love this trick. I always have.

“How'd you do it?”

“A magician never tells his secrets.”

“You taught Billy.”

“Not this one.”

“You know a lot that you don't talk about, don't you, Jing?” I whisper.

He picks up the brush and returns to the chicken coop to continue his work. I wait for him to say something else. It's only as I'm walking away that I hear him say: “You're a clever one, Lizzie. I've always known that.”