Chasing Secrets (4 page)

T
he upstairs is so silent, it seems impossible that a boy is up there. Did I imagine him? How long has he been here? Where is his mother? How does he sneak in and out for school?

I sit on my bed, looking out at the sky, which is dark gray, lit orange at the horizon. The yard is a hazy pink. I turn on the electric light, which is unreliable. Uncle Karl says soon we will use only electric lights. I hope not, because the gaslights work much better.

Why would Noah say he's not going to be a servant? Doesn't he understand the way things are? And where is Jing, anyway?

“Miss Lizzie!” Maggy breezes through, the bright green parrot on her shoulder, my mended bloomers in her hand. She smiles at me. “Supper's ready.”

“Supper's ready! Supper's ready!” Mr. P. squawks.

My stomach grumbles. Supper without Jing will be dull indeed. Wait. What about Noah? How will he get supper?

In the kitchen, Maggy has warmed Jing's beef stew and ladled it into a bowl. She has cut Jing's bread and spread butter on it for me.

“Where's Jing?” I ask.

“At the market.” Maggy sets the bowl at my place.

“It's too late for that.”

Maggy doesn't answer. She knows that if Jing is not here, she must warm supper. Does she think beyond that?

Sunday afternoon is Jing's time off. Sometimes he doesn't return until late in the night, but today is Saturday. He never takes Saturday off.

When Maggy heads for the drawing room to get the skeins of ribbons she fashions into bows for my hair, I return what's left of my stew to the pot. Then I slip back into my seat and ask for seconds.

She ladles more hot stew into the bowl and spreads another slice of bread with butter.

“I'm going to eat this upstairs,” I tell her.

She looks up from where she stands at the counter, black grosgrain ribbon wound around her fingers. “Miss Lizzie sick?”

“I just want to eat in my room.”

She gets a tray for the soup and bread, pours a full glass of milk, and then carries the tray up the stairs and sets it on the bed without spilling a drop. Maggy would do anything in the world I asked. Once, she stayed up for three nights to finish the smocking on a pinafore for me.

“Thank you.” I beam at her.

I listen for her footsteps down the stairs, the swing of the door, and the squeak of her stool. Then I pick up the tray and head for the servants' stairs, aware of each step and how it rocks the milk.

Outside Jing's door, my heart beats loudly. “Noah?” I whisper.

Noah cracks open the door. His eyes shift back and forth. He looks down at the tray. “You brought supper?”

I nod.

He moves out of the way, and I slip inside.

Where do I set the tray? I almost laugh, thinking about asking Miss Barstow this question, given all the rules I'm breaking. Entering a boy's room, not announcing yourself with a calling card, serving a servant.

Noah sees me hesitate. He takes the tray and sets it on the silk blanket. I'm not as steady with the tray as Maggy. A little of the milk has spilled.

Noah's eyes are hungry, but he takes a step back, offering the stew to me.

“I've eaten.” I spot a chair piled high with books. Noah clears the chair, and I sit down.

He climbs back into the nest of books and button strips on his bed and tucks into his stew, nibbling at his bread as if he wants it to last. He has a habit of pushing his hair behind his ears after every few bites.

“One thing I don't understand….Why did Jing go to Chinatown?”

“He's a translator.”

“What does he translate?”

Noah looks at me like I'm an idiot. “Chinese to English.”

“Of course.” I turn red. “Papa isn't home. I don't know if he'll be back tonight. I'm going to talk to Uncle Karl. If Jing got caught in the quarantine, Uncle Karl will get him out.”

“How?”

“Uncle Karl is in the newspaper business. He owns the evening
Call
and S&S Sugar. People like to be on his good side.”

Noah stops chewing. His eyes watch me warily. “Are you going to tell him about me?”

I shake my head. “No.”

He lets out an uneasy breath. “Baba will be mad I told you.”

“Jing never gets mad.”

Noah laughs.

“What? He doesn't.”

“Not with you,” he whispers. “He works for you.”

Is this true? Is there another Jing I don't know about? “What does Jing say about me?”

Noah thinks about this. “He trusts you. He says you're kind to Maggy Doyle, but…you're your own worst enemy.”

What? I'm my own worst enemy? “Why does he say that?”

Noah shrugs. “But he loves you. I thought you'd be the person I could trust.”

“Not Billy?”

“Baba thinks Billy has lost his way.”

“He has not,” I say. I don't want this strange boy talking about my brother. I stare hard at Noah. How can he know so much about us?

Downstairs, I'm putting on my boots to go talk to Uncle Karl when I remember that it's Jing's job to feed the animals. The horses are both gone—Juliet with Papa, John Henry with Billy. Orange Tom feeds himself. Maggy feeds the parrot, but the chickens…

“The chickens need to be fed,” I tell Maggy.

Maggy scrambles for her coat. She picks up a lantern—no electricity in the barn—and the basket of stale bread. I follow her outside, where the moon is a lopsided circle, a bird hoots like an owl, and the dark shapes of the hedges create spooky moon shadows. Maggy shines the lantern on the path.

The path is as familiar to me as my own feet, but it seems different tonight. I glance up at Noah's window. Is he watching me?

I leave Maggy tossing stale bread in the coop and walk up the path to the Sweeting house, all four floors lit brightly.

When I go in, maids in black uniforms are just removing the supper dishes from the long dining room table. The way they're talking and laughing, I know Aunt Hortense isn't nearby. When the maids spy me, the giggling comes to an abrupt halt.

Uncle Karl is in the smoking room, a brandy snifter in his hand. He's deep in conversation with a man who has a half-moon of black curly hair circling his shiny balding head. I'm not allowed in the leather-walled smoking room—no girls are, not even Aunt Hortense. I wait for a break in the conversation.

“Hearst put it on the front page,” the man says.

Uncle Karl groans. “Only Hearst would sanction this ridiculous escapade.”

“The plague sells papers. They're flying off the stands,” the balding man says.

“It's bad for the city. We've all agreed. Can't someone get Hearst on board?” Uncle Karl asks.

“Good luck with that.” The balding man steadies his glass as Uncle Karl fills it from a crystal carafe. “You don't suppose any of this is true, do you?”

“There isn't a doctor in the state who believes it is.”

“Still. If it were, the prospect is…”

“Unthinkable. But I don't build my business on speculation, any more than you do. You got something you're not telling me?”

“Nope.” The man clinks his glass with Uncle Karl's.

“Then we'll leave the scaremongering to Hearst. It will backfire soon enough. It always does.”

They're silent.

“Uncle Karl?” I call from the doorway.

“Excuse me, will you?” Uncle Karl appears out of the smoke. “Why, Lizzie.” He takes a puff of his cigar. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”

Uncle Karl's jackets fit better than Papa's or Billy's. Aunt Hortense says there is only one tailor in the city who is skilled enough to suit him. No matter the time of day, Uncle Karl is freshly pressed, as if he just stepped into his clothes. He has gray hair, and a kind face with sharp blue eyes. Aunt Hortense is taller than he is.

“Jing is gone. He went to the market this morning, and he hasn't come back. I'm worried he got caught in the quarantine.”

“The quarantine? Darlin', you shouldn't worry your pretty little head about such things.”

I can't help smiling at this. No one says I'm pretty except Uncle Karl. “But what about Jing?”

Uncle Karl clicks his tongue. “He's a grown man. There's no telling where he is.”

“He wouldn't go off without telling us. It's not like him. He must be in the quarantine.” I wish I could tell Uncle Karl that Jing's son is certain Jing is there.

Uncle Karl holds his cigar and his glass with his left hand. With his right, he slides his gold pocket watch out of his vest pocket and glances at it. “It's possible,” he concedes. “I'll make some calls tomorrow and see what I can find out, but only for you, Peanut.” He winks at me.

“What about tonight?”

He swirls the brandy in his glass. “What can I do at nine o'clock at night? I'll look into it first thing in the morning.”

“Yes, sir,” I say. “Thank you.”

“Is Billy home?”

“I'm not sure,” I mumble.

His sharp eyes cut through me. “You're not sure, or you don't want to say?”

I waggle my head back and forth. “A little of both, sir.”

“I wish your father would let me buy Billy a motorcar. Then your brother wouldn't be out trying to make money every hour of the day and night.”

“Papa wants him to earn it himself.”

“I know he does. Your father is a noble man, but the world is not nearly as noble as he is, Peanut, and don't you forget it.”

“Papa wouldn't agree with you about that, sir.”

“No, I expect not.”

What would my father say about all of this? I stop to think. “He'd say it's up to us to shape the world. And not the other way around.”

“And what do you think, Peanut?”

“I think Papa's way is nicer.”

“Hah, yes.” He chuckles. “It most certainly is, darlin'. It most certainly is.”

I
walk back to my house, the wind blowing the fog like ghosts chasing through the streets. No light in Noah's window. Is there enough light coming under the door for him to read, or does he have to go to bed when the sun goes down?

Maggy's light is on. Too bad. I want to run up and tell Noah that Uncle Karl said he'd help. I miss having another kid in the house. I wish for the thousandth time that Billy would be like he used to be.

As soon as I wake up, I run to Papa's room, but his coat is not hanging from the knob, his pocket watch and loose change are not on the dresser. His bed is untouched.

Billy's door is closed. When I was little, we used to sneak out to ride before Aunt Hortense got up. Now I don't dare knock on his door. He'll tear my head off if I wake him.

Downstairs, I hear the familiar sound of coal being shoveled. Jing! I run out the door and around to the cellar stairs. The door is open, but Maggy is shoveling, her curly hair pinned to her head, a streak of soot on her cheek and perspiration marks under her arms. She smiles up at me.

“Jing is still gone?”

She nods. I run out to the barn to see if John Henry is back. If he's here, Billy is, too.

John Henry stands with his lower lip so loose, you could collect pennies in it. I slip into his stall and put my arms around his fuzzy brown-and-white neck. I open a bale of hay and toss him a flake. He plods over to his manger and roots around. When his head pops up, his forelock is laced with alfalfa.

Usually on Sundays, Billy, Papa, Aunt Hortense, and I go to church. Uncle Karl doesn't like church. He says,
Going to church doesn't make a person a Christian any more than taking a mule into a barn makes the mule a horse.
He rides out to Ocean Beach or down to the racetrack to get stories for his newspaper column.

Last night he said he'd find out about Jing first thing. But Uncle Karl's first thing could be a week from tomorrow. Still, this is an emergency. He knows that, doesn't he?

In the kitchen, Maggy has made oatmeal, but everything she cooks tastes like boiled potatoes.

It's messy to carry a bowl of hot cereal up two flights
of stairs and then bring the dirty bowl back down. I fill a pitcher of water, then make two apple butter sandwiches, grab a jar of peaches and two forks, and roll everything into a kitchen towel. Noah won't like Maggy's boiled-potato oatmeal any better than I do.

While Maggy is in the chicken coop gathering eggs, I run up to the third floor.

“Noah,” I whisper, knocking softly.

No one answers.

I knock again.

Still nothing. Is he asleep?

If I knock too loudly, Billy might hear. But I can't just leave Noah's breakfast outside his door. How would I explain that to Maggy?

What am I supposed to do in a situation like this? Again I think of Miss Barstow's etiquette rules.

“Noah,” I whisper, opening the door.

Inside, the room is still. The dragon wall tapestry. The black lacquer table. The pitcher and washbasin. The red silken bedcover. The books.

“Noah,” I whisper, a little more loudly this time.

Tlick-tick.
The closet door opens. Noah ducks out from under the shirts, hopping over a kerosene lantern.

A flicker of joy flashes in his eyes, and then he scowls. “This is my room! You can't just barge in anytime you want.”

It's not his room. Uncle Karl and Aunt Hortense own our house.

“Well…I was bringing you breakfast.”

“You scared me.” He chews on his lip. “I heard footsteps.”

“We need a way for me to know it's okay to come in. I can't be knocking.”

“No,” he agrees. “We could hang something on the door.”

“Maggy might notice. What would she think about things appearing on Jing's door when Jing isn't here?”

“How about the window? If we drape something small over the blind? Would she notice that?”

“Probably not.”

He opens the closet, stands on his tiptoes, and runs his hand along the high shelf. Dust motes fill the air; a ball of red yarn falls down. He pulls out a gold braided cord with a tassel on each end.

“That's good,” I say, “but what if it's not safe to come up? Is there a way to get a message to you?”

Noah's eyes rove the room. “Orange Tom comes up here. We can attach messages to his collar.”

“What if someone finds the message? What if they read it?”

“We'll have to be careful what we write,” he says as I unroll the kitchen towel and take out the apple butter sandwiches and the jar of peaches. He spreads a cloth on his bed, as if we are having a picnic, and I set the sandwiches on it, open the peaches, and hand him a fork.

His eyes widen. “You're going to eat with me?”

“Sure,” I say. I don't want him to know I've never eaten with Jing or Maggy before.

I take a bite of my sandwich. Noah tries to stab a peach with his fork.

“I talked to Uncle Karl. He said he'd help.”

Some of the stiffness in Noah's shoulders melts away. He stares at the door as if Jing will come through at any minute.

Is it mean to tell him that it may be a while? Papa says never give a patient more information than he can handle.

“In Chinatown, do you live with your mother?”

“Mama's in China. I live with my uncle Han.”

At the wharf, I've seen people coming off the steamships from the Orient. Women in bright Chinese clothes, men in black derbies and baggy pants carrying lacquer chests, spices, bamboo, bolts of fabric, large jade figurines, teak furniture. Everyone comes here. Does anyone return?

“She went back to China?”

“She never came over. It's hard for women to leave.”

“I'm sorry,” I say. “Do you write her?”

“No.”

“Why not?” If I could write my mother, I certainly would.

He shrugs, then takes a bite of sandwich. I wait for him to say more. Finally I offer, “My mama is gone, too.”

He nods. “Baba talks about her sometimes.”

“He does? What does he say?”

Noah's mouth bunches to one side. “She was kind. She hired him even though he'd never been a cook before.”

My mother was kind. It feels good to hear this. Papa doesn't talk about Mama. He misses her too much.

“She liked to play practical jokes, and she loved chocolate. Chocolate cookies, chocolate ice cream…She even had chocolate sauce on broccoli once.”

“Chocolate broccoli,” I say, laughing. “And chocolate-covered brussels sprouts, too.”

“It was your mama's idea for him to bake things in your birthday cake.”

“Really?”

He nods.

Mama celebrates my birthday with me. Am I just like the Lizzie I was when I was little? Would she love me now, the way she did then?

“Baba said she adored you, and when she realized she was going to die, she made him promise to stay until you grew up.”

My mouth drops open. “What?” It never occurred to me that Jing would ever leave. Family members can't decide they won't be family anymore. But of course, Jing is not family. He's staying because he promised Mama.

Noah nods.

I look around Jing's room. The walls are the same as the walls in my room. The floor. The doorframe. The closet. But the room is filled with foreign things.

“Why are you here?” I ask Noah. “You came before the quarantine, didn't you?”

“We heard that it might happen. Baba wanted me out.”

“He was worried about the plague?”

“He was worried I'd starve.”

“Starve!”

“Everything is closed off. Nothing is allowed in. A lot of people think it's a way to get rid of us.”

“Who wants to get rid of you?”

“People like you.”

“
Me?
I don't want to get rid of you. I just brought you food.”

“Not you.”

Who would want Jing to starve? Jing has made almost every meal I've ever eaten. There was always enough. I couldn't stand it if Jing were hungry.

Noah stops chewing. “What's the matter?”

Papa says you shouldn't lie to a patient, but you needn't add to their worries by piling on your own. “I'm worried about Jing, too.”

He sinks his teeth into his sandwich. “My name in Chinese is Choy, which means ‘wealthy.' When I grow up, I'm going to own a bank with lots of money and free food.”

“Shall I call you Choy?”

“You should call me by my American name.”

I nod. “How are you going to get the money for your bank?”

“I'm thinking on that. Maybe I'll learn in college.”

He's going to college? I can't even go to college. “Do Chinese people go to college?”

“Some,” he says.

“Some women go to college, too.”

He snorts. “Don't tell me you want to.”

“I do.” I've never said it out loud before.

His brow furrows. “It'll be hard.”

“You think I'm stupid?”

“You're not as smart as I am.”

“What? That's not a nice thing to say. How would you know, anyway?”

“You're a girl. You'll get married, like all girls do.”

“I'm not getting married.” The flush rises in my cheeks. “Wives have to do what they're told.”

“Maybe you could marry a stupid husband, and then you could make all the decisions.”

I frown. “What would I do with a stupid husband?”

“If you got tired of him, you could take him to an auction.”

“A stupid-husband auction?” I ask. “Would the amount of money you got for him be based on how stupid he was?”

“Yes, so you'd have to prove his stupidity,” Noah says.

“My husband is so stupid…he fills the saltshaker through the little holes in the top.”

Noah grins. “Maybe you are smart enough for college. I'll help you if it's too hard.”

“I'll help
you
if it's too hard.”

He laughs, then screws the top onto the jar of peaches and hands it back.

“Keep it. In case you get hungry later.”

He frowns at me. “Okay, but…I just want you to know, I don't have girls for friends.”

“Why not?”

“Girls lie.”

“They
do not
! Well, maybe some, but not me. Why would you say that?”

“In Chinatown there's a girl who lies.”

“That's just one. Not every girl lies.”

“I suppose not.” His eyes search my face. “Are you telling me everything you know about Baba?”

I meet his gaze squarely. I want this boy to like me. I hope he can't see just how much. But doesn't he have to like me, because I'm white and he's Chinese? “I don't know anything.”

He wraps a thread around his thumb so tightly, the flesh bunches out in little puckers. “Your uncle Karl said he'd find out.”

“I know. He will!”

“But you're not sure,” he finishes for me.

“He said he would,” I whisper. “I just don't know when exactly.”

Noah weaves the thread around the rest of his fingers, and then pulls tight. “You could be my friend”—his eyes are on his fingers—“if you tell me a secret about you.”

“And you'll tell me a secret about you?”

“You already know one about me.”

I lean forward. “I want another.”

“You first.”

I take a big gulping breath. “I don't have any friends,” I whisper.

“Why not?”

“I don't know. I'm just…different. I don't like what they like, and the second I open my mouth, I stick my foot into it.”

It feels good to let this out.

He sighs as if he knows what this is like. “Is that all? Because that's nothing. We can figure that out.”

“How?”

He smiles his crazy smile. “Is there one girl you like better than the rest?”

“Not really.”