Buddha Baby (29 page)

Lindsey woke up the next morning feeling sick. Walking into the kitchen and sitting at the table, she decided to skip having coffee. Her insides felt twisted in knots. She told herself she might be coming down with a touch of the flu, but she knew she was just kidding herself. She knew what her problem was.

She replayed the events of the previous night in her head and felt her stomach churn. Hanging around Dustin was turning her into a nervous, flinchy mess. She felt like barfing all the time. As calm and cool as she was trying to act, he was definitely getting under her skin. She imagined she was slowly being poisoned with some kind of hormonal arsenic which was causing dementia. Why else would she be thinking about Kraftwerk Boy when she should have been dreaming about Michael, picking out china patterns, and reading
Here Comes the Guide
?

But she couldn't get Dustin out of her mind. She went to the bathroom to brush her teeth, and by the time she rinsed, she was actually considering calling him to go to the beach. She rationalized that they would just be two friends drowsily soaking up the sun, chatting about current events and rubbing oil into each other's lightly freckled, supple skin.

Hah. What a lie. In her heart of hearts she just wanted to see him half naked. Standing in front of the medicine cabinet mirror, she said to her reflection out loud, "You're going to be married, idiot. Keep it in your pants!"

She finished washing up, and a few minutes later she was back in the kitchen wondering what she should eat. She was used to Michael cooking her breakfast, and he had been gone for several weeks now. At a loss for what to do, she got a bowl and some milk and proceeded to inhale an entire box of Cocoa Krispies.

About an hour later she was standing with the phone in one hand and Dustin's phone number in the other. She dialed the first three digits, then hung up. Before she could get any more bright ideas, she ran to the bedroom and threw on her clothes. She was going to hop on a bus that would take her to Chinatown. She figured nothing would take her mind off Dustin's exquisitely oiled torso better than hanging out in a dusty grocery store with her grandfather.

Climbing on the 21 Hayes, she knew immediately that she was doing the right thing. Nothing was as unsexy as riding the Muni on a hot day. Watching a ratty, Haight-Street girl color in her toenails with a black Sharpie marker squelched any inclination she had regarding extracurricular romance.

A little while later she was walking down the street, passing wrinkly faced ladies and solemn Chinese men trudging uphill, clutching pink plastic sacks of vegetables. As they silently strolled by, Lindsey contemplated the disparity between what the old Chinese folks knew and what they seemed willing to tell.

She supposed she didn't blame them. After all, who wanted to remember the days when they tilled rice paddies in China or cleaned garbage cans in Stockton? Now that everyone's kitchens were remodeled with marble countertops and win-dowboxes for raising orchids, who wanted to remember the old shacks with ill-fitted planks for stairs?

As Lindsey walked, she thought about Yun Yun. She had once asked her grandmother, "What did your parents do to make a living?"

With her tightly clamped, Jason Robards mouth, Yun Yun had grumbled, "None your business."

Perhaps her grandmother thought she was protecting her from some terrible knowledge. But it all just added to Lindsey's frustration. She knew that
not
telling was how stories evaporated, facts were forgotten, and history was lost.

Lindsey initiated many such conversations and was consistently stonewalled. Sometimes her determination fizzled out. That is, until the next time she got a bee in her bonnet. The farthest she ever got with Yun Yun was when she once asked her about her childhood and her grandmother had replied, "Why do I want to remember?"

But Lindsey felt that she, her brother, and cousins had a right to know their family's history. It just didn't seem right that they had all reached their late twenties and thirties and still knew so little.

Which is why she was going to see Yeh Yeh. With nothing to do all day except sit at the cash register and sell the occasional box of Nabisco crackers or pint of whiskey, he was ripe to talk, she figured.

She passed the Chinese sausage shop with the meat hooks and shriveled, smoked ducks in the window, and continued down Washington Street until she cut over on Grant Avenue and down to Jackson Street. When she entered Yeh Yeh's store, the sensor let out a ring and he looked up from his newspaper.

"Eh, you again?" he said, then gestured for her to help herself to some
mui
. She shook her head, but thanked him anyway.

Pulling up a crate, she listened as Yeh Yeh made small talk about a sale on two-liter bottles of 7-Up and strawberries at Safeway.

"What have you got there?" her grandfather asked, pointing to the sketchbook peeking but of her bag. She'd brought it on the off chance she might stop at Portsmouth Square to sketch the pigeons.

"Nothing, just my drawing book," she said.

"Give me see," Yeh Yeh said, holding out his hand.

A little embarrassed, she handed it over and watched as her grandfather flipped through the pages. She knew her drawings weren't that great, but still hoped for a small sign of encouragement.

After a moment, Yeh Yeh handed back the sketchbook and said, "Okay, you can put back."

Well
, Lindsey thought,
at least he didn't laugh
.

Her grandfather unwrapped a piece of
mui
and popped it into his mouth. After a few minutes of silence, he asked Lindsey if she wanted to run some errands with him and she said okay. Removing his green smock, he pulled a heavy, London Fog overcoat out from under the counter and put it on, along with a wool cap and gloves. Lindsey headed for the door in her skirt and shirtsleeves into the hazy sunshine.

"Bring umbrella in case of rain," Yeh Yeh said, grabbing a portable one from a paint bucket by the front door before locking up.

Yeh Yeh wanted to get g
ai mai bows
and buy a lottery ticket at Wonder Bakery. They walked up to Waverly Place and turned into the alley.

Inside the small space was crammed wall-to-wall with Chinese men sitting at tiny tables, socializing and playing keno. Yeh Yeh ordered from the counter and Lindsey watched as the server wielded her stainless-steel tongs to retrieve the buns, then plopped them into a white paper bag.

"Your grandma not like too many things, but like these pastry," Yeh Yeh said. As they walked out, they passed a countertop with lottery slips and pencils. "Lottery very good. In Locke, I used to collect the cardboard ticket for all the old men, then run around to find winner. One time big winner gave me ten dollar. No kidding! Everybody gamble, those days. Mostly small potato, but Som Goong, he carried pistol just in case. Never use it, though. Some places down the street more serious—one thousand, five thousand jackpot. Had machine gun on top of balcony. You surprise? I'm not pulling your legs."

Lindsey stood and waited as Yeh Yeh took his wallet back out and disgarded some old lottery slips. Trying to reorganize the rest of the contents, he shook his head and said, "Too many things inside!" He sifted through the billfold, but his fingers slipped and suddenly the entire wallet and its myriad of contents fell to the floor.

"Oh!" he exclaimed, bending over to collect his things.

Lindsey knelt down to help her grandfather, and as she picked up his Safeway discount card and his Muni fast pass in its plastic sleeve, she came across a tiny black-and-white photo of a Chinese girl that she recognized as Yun Yun.

The picture was not unlike the photos that Ms. Abilene had given her, but appeared to be from an earlier period. In the St. Maude's pictures, Yun Yun was probably about sixteen, but in this photo she appeared to be about twelve. She held it up and looked at it closely before holding it out to Yeh Yeh so he could put it back inside his wallet along with the other items.

As they made their way past the tourist stores, the incense-and-funeral-papers shop, and the place with the good
don-don mein
, Lindsey thought for a moment.

"Yeh Yeh?" she said. "I thought you told me last time that you didn't know Yun Yun before you met her at the fancy house where you both worked."

"That's right," he replied, shuffling along.

"But what about that picture in your wallet?"

The old man pulled his cap farther down over his matted gray hair as he kept walking. By the time they reached the corner, Lindsey was about to repeat her question, but Yeh Yeh said, "I hear you, I hear you. You wait till we go inside store."

They walked back to the grocery store without talking. Once inside, Yeh Yeh flipped the Open sign and resumed his perch on his yellow stepstool. He opened a pack of bub-blegum and offered it to Lindsey, who took a piece and chewed it as she bided her time. A construction worker came in, bought a carton of cigarettes, and left. Yeh Yeh looked around to check that the store was empty, then began,

"That not Pearl. That Opal."

He retrieved his wallet from his pocket and removed the fragile picture, handling it carefully.

"Opal was my grammar-school sweetheart. I tell you I went to Francisco Middle School? She was there, too. Five and six grade. We never even hold hands, but we talk, and I walk her to school. We both live in Chinatown. Her family and mines live cross street in Waverly Alley, not too far from where you and I just buy
gai mai bow
. I watch her from my window, second story. She live in basement apartment down below. I watch her come and go with brothers and sisters, mother and
baba
."

"What happened to her?" Lindsey asked.

Yeh Yeh sighed. "She move away, after six grade. I was very depress see her go. I finish at Francisco, then go to high school, but not ever forget her. You believe me? Most boy think of catching frog, chase thing, blow stuff up. But not me. I have romantic feeling with this girl, just too young to know what to do." He chuckled at his own words, and Lindsey offered a smile.

Then, animatedly, he went on, "After school I went to work selling vegetable, and after a while get my job in the kitchen at the big house. Can you imagine my amazement when I saw upstairs cleaning girl? She was my Opal! First thing I say when I see her is, 'Opal, what you doing here? Your family all move back? I so happy to see you!'

"She look at me like I crazy. She say, 'I am not Opal.' Then she walk away fast. All I know is I am very confused. Then I remember. All those times I look out window and watch Opal's family across street, I remember she have a twin sister. I always wonder why this sister not go to school with us, just stay at home and cook or cleaning, or what, I don't know. Maybe the parents think no use send two girl to school. Who knows? Back then very different from now.

"Anyway, so I think, maybe this girl is Opal's sister. And you know what? I was right. After she and I get to know each other a little, talk to each other here and there, she tell me she was born on Pike Street. That's what Waverly was called long time ago. And she tell me before work at this house, she lived in a white-lady orphanage. It probably hard for you to understand these days, but back then family move, get split up. Was very common. Too many mouth to feed."

He continued, "We work together for one year before get married. Since I was from Locke, I figure we move there for a while. I hope moving could take her mind off things. We were very busy picking fruit, white asparagus, you name it. Not too much time for fun, especially for Yun Yun. But she have one friend in Locke, a girl who also used to live on Pike Street, and her family move to Locke, too. That was Mabel Ahchuck, her old-time friend. You remember we went to her son's house for big party? Anyway, Yun Yun never like the country. She was city girl. After about twenty year in Locke, we move back to San Francisco again. We buy Thirty-Eighth-Avenue place and settle here."

Lindsey was still thinking about Opal. She said, "When did you tell Yun Yun that you knew her sister in school?"

Yeh Yeh sighed again. "I never tell her. After the first time when I mention Opal's name, I never say it again. I figure if she want to talk, she would tell me. But years go by and she never say anything."

Lindsey reflected for a moment, then asked, "Did you ever find out what happened to Opal and the rest of the family?"

Yeh Yeh shook his head. "One time, after we been married for a while, I want to take a trip to Vancouver. 'Supposed to be nice place,' I say. 'Let's go on vacation.' But your Yun Yun throw big tantrum. At first I don't know why. Then she say, 'No way I going to Vancouver. They leave me here and all go there. Why I want to visit?' She scream her head off. So I figure that's where her family move."

Lindsey's mind was reeling. Her imagination was conjuring so many scenarios. She pictured the scene from
Grease
when John Travolta yelled, "Sandy, what are you doing here?" and Olivia Newton-John exclaimed happily, "We had a change of plans!" As she visualized the moment, Lindsey substituted her grandparents for the actors in the movie, but in Yeh Yeh's case, when he exclaimed, "Opal!" it turned out she wasn't the girl he knew at all.

Then the movie in her mind turned to Alfred Hitchcock's
Vertigo
. She pictured her grandfather as Jimmy Stewart realizing this girl wasn't his old flame, but an exact look-alike. She imagined Yeh Yeh getting all obsessed, just like Scottie Ferguson. Her brain jumbled the disparate scenes from the two movies together. At the same time, she tried to picture her grandparents as younger people.

Finally, she ventured, "But… how could you forget Opal and… marry her sister… and then never talk about it?"

"I never forget Opal. But she is gone, and Pearl is there. If you have someone right there, you cannot keep hoping for someone else. The old phrase is, 'The grass is always green on other side,' but cannot go living like sixth grade forever. Know what I saying?"

"Uh-huh," was all she managed to say.

"I know what I know, and Yun Yun know that I know. But still, she never want to talk. Maybe too painful. Maybe she want to forget. If that's what she want, I figure, okey-dokey. I let her forget."