Mambo in Chinatown (11 page)

“And a lesson with you is worth a hundred and twenty dollars. So it works out, see?”

I hadn’t realized I was that expensive too. I wished I could tell Pa. He would have been so tickled. “Is there really any difference between a twenty-dollar haircut and one that’s a hundred and twenty?”

Nina raised an eyebrow. “Absolutely. After Willow cuts your hair, it never curls the wrong way. No pieces stick up in the back. The cut will look very simple but it’s perfect, and it’ll do exactly what you need it to do. I’ll tell her about you. She’ll be excited.”

“And you know,” Mateo said, “I’ll do your makeup after we get back to the studio.”

—

In the crowded teachers’ room, Mateo set me in front of the mirror and started to chuckle. “I’ve never seen a woman put on makeup like you. You just throw it onto your face with your eyes squeezed shut. Then you go out and everyone’s like, ‘Oh, what a lovely girl.’”

“They don’t say that,” I said.

He patted my cheek. “You’re different, Charlie. Now, let the expert take care of you, honey.”

“What would you know about makeup?”

“Everything.”

I shut up. Mateo flipped through my makeup bag. It was a collection of cosmetics other people had discarded and given to me, plus a few pieces of makeup I’d bought after I started at the studio. “This is all wrong for you. You’ve got makeup for elderly ladies. No, old ladies wouldn’t wear this stuff. You’re buying senior citizen rejects.”

“Thanks.”

“I need some tools here,” he called out. “Who can help me?”

Nina brought over a makeup case. It was beautiful, with all kinds of colors and pretty brushes. “I got this from my mom for Christmas.”

“Some of this will work for her eyes,” Mateo said, tapping his full lips with a finger, “but I need cooler lipsticks and powders. Katerina, cough it up.”

“Okay.” Katerina rummaged in her locker and came over with her bright pink makeup bag. Simone was sniffing her nasal inhaler as she often did and pointedly ignored us.

Everyone watched my transformation while Mateo made me up with a plum liquid eyeliner, which I’d never used before. He put on much more makeup than I was used to. Lipstick, blush. He feathered eye shadow up to my eyebrows. I kept blinking when he tried to put mascara on me, so in the end he gave up and let me do that part myself.

“You don’t need any foundation,” he said. “Your skin’s perfect.”

I was surprised by how dramatic the liquid eyeliner made my eyes. He’d emphasized their slanted shape, pulling the line up toward my temples. I paid close attention to everything he did.

“It doesn’t have to be expensive,” he said, “but you need the right colors. Go ahead and get the cheap stuff but no more of those neutrals for you. You need brighter colors, more blue-based. Your coloring can take a lot of drama.”

Pa would explode if he ever saw me like this.

“I don’t look cheap?” I asked.

Mateo looked shocked then laughed. “You’re gorgeous,” he said, ruffling my hair.

I examined my face in the mirror. I still looked like myself, but more so. My eyes leapt out, my cheekbones seemed more pronounced. Instead of looking pale, the way I usually did, I appeared vibrant. I wasn’t used to wearing such bright colors, but I had to say it was an improvement.

“You have to blend. It can be bright, but no harsh lines on your face,” Katerina said. “On the stage, you’ll need even more. But for studio, this is good.”

—

I bought some inexpensive cosmetics in the colors Mateo had shown me as soon as I could. That weekend, I dragged Lisa into our tiny bathroom and made her up. She was giggling so hard I could barely do her eyes.

“Shh! Pa will hear!” I brushed some powder across her cheek. Lisa had lighter skin than I did but she still had the gold undertone that we all shared in our family. She was such a beautiful girl, with her long lashes and almond-shaped eyes.

Lisa peered at herself in the mirror and gasped. I had overdone it a bit but she didn’t seem to mind. “I want to look like this every day!”

“Absolutely not.”

“Come on, please.”

“Pa will kill me if he sees me wearing this stuff. What would he do to you?”

She drooped. “Oh, I wish he weren’t so old-fashioned sometimes.”

To cheer her up, I said, “Hey, the Broadway show jar is getting fuller. When we go, we’ll get all dressed up and I’ll do your makeup.”

Lisa’s eyes shone. “Even Pa couldn’t object to cosmetics for a Broadway show.”

—

Willow, the hairstylist, wanted me to come to her apartment in the East Village that Sunday. She was also an artist, and there were large
canvases of collages and paintings all over her tiny studio apartment. Many involved tight clusters of newspaper headlines and handwritten phrases. “Buddha Cat!” one said, and stuck all around it were even smaller clippings that said, “Meow!” There were three meows, all in different typefaces, and then the fourth, as a surprise, said, “Vomit in the cafeteria of this nation.” I’d never seen anything like this. In Uncle’s house, he had traditional Chinese paintings. Most of the art I’d seen before had been soothing and meant to blend in.

Willow was African-American and taller than I was. She was extremely muscular, so much so that I asked if she also danced. She looked very different from the girls I’d grown up with in Chinatown. I wondered if Mo Li or Zan would like her. She was independent too, practicing her art here in her studio, living on her own.

“I hate to exercise,” she said. “I’m just naturally wiry, always have been. Hairy, too.” She pulled up her loose leggings to show me the thick stubble on her unshaven legs. Wow. The hair on my legs was so fine, I didn’t even need to shave. “But I love to dance. The problem is that Nina’s so busy, and her hair’s long, so she doesn’t need to get it cut that much. But now you’re here!”

Willow touched my hair, rubbing a few strands between her fingers. “Actually, I like what you’ve got. It’s so free. What do you want to do with it?”

“I don’t actually know. I’m hopeless with this kind of thing.”

“Hang on.” Willow grabbed her cell phone and dialed. When it was ringing, she put it on speaker. I realized she’d called Nina. “Hey, girl.”

“What’s up?” Nina said. A small child was shrieking so loudly so that I could barely make out Nina’s voice.

“I’m here with your friend,” Willow said. “Only she’s not sure what she needs.”

“Oh, so glad you called before she does something dumb to it. She’s either got to keep it quite short or long enough that she can tuck it up in a French twist.”

“What?” I said.

“That you, Charlie?” Nina said. “Listen, you can’t have your hair flying into your eyes or whacking your partner when you dance. It’s either got to be short enough to stay out of the way, or long enough to be put up. You guys decide. Actually, Willow, maybe you should choose.” The child’s voice grew louder, wailing something about a Popsicle. “Listen, I gotta go, but good luck, okay?” Nina hung up.

Willow tilted her head to the side. “I think those Bettie Page–type bangs would look great on your face. Then a layered inverted bob, to accent your cheekbones here, longer in the front than in the back. It’ll bring out your eyes.”

“Really?”

She nodded. “We’ll even out your hair, and take out much of the volume. We’ll make sure it retains its movement, but won’t get into your eyes.” I felt like she’d just figured out my entire life for me.

Wearing a vinyl cape around my shoulders, I sat on a wooden stool in her kitchen and she got to work. When she was done, my hair looked like it had been chiseled out of stone, falling in a clean sweep against the line of my cheeks.

“As it grows longer, we’ll keep trimming it until we get the shape we want,” Willow said. “You have very dramatic eyes and this will really highlight them.”

I’d never known these things about myself. My eyes now did seem much larger. I hadn’t realized how much the blob of hair on my head had affected my appearance. After we were done with my haircut, I taught Willow for an hour. She blasted the music and we grooved to some mambo, merengue and cha-cha.

It wasn’t until the next morning, after I shampooed my hair, that I fully realized how good she was. It was just like Nina had said. I’d never been able to control my hair, but now it fell into place after I washed it. I hardly needed to style it. If only the rest of my life were as simple to fix.

T
hat morning, Lisa waved a letter at me and Pa. “I got my Hunter test ticket!”

“That’s great. Make sure you don’t lose it,” I said.

“I know. There was some problem with Fabrizio’s record and now maybe he won’t be allowed to take the test.”

Pa said, “Ah. Maybe he is being punished for something he did wrong. Bad acts always rebound on the doer.”

I rolled my eyes. I knew Pa thought his petty-spirits ritual had reversed some kind of curse the boy had put on Lisa. “He’s Italian. I don’t think he knows about that kind of thing.”

Lisa said, “What are you guys talking about?”

Pa and I both said, “Nothing.”

Lisa was examining my hair. “You look different, Charlie.”

I couldn’t help raising a hand to my new haircut. “Do you like it?”

Lisa nodded emphatically, while Pa said, “It is so flat. You look like a coconut.”

“Pa!” It was hard to feel pretty in this family.

He said, “Maybe you could have the hairdresser perm it for you or something. It wouldn’t be so plain then.”

“I like it simple,” I said. “Some people think it brings out my features.”

“Oh?” he said. “Like Winston?”

Now I groaned while Lisa giggled.

—

Everyone gaped at me when I walked into the studio with my new haircut and my makeup done as Mateo had shown me. Julian was back and I saw his head turn as I went by. Viktor gave a long whistle before he was cut off by Katerina playfully tackling him.

“You go, girl,” Nina said. “Willow’s amazing, isn’t she?”

Then Dominic came up to me the way he did every Monday. “However, lovely as you are, you spent the whole weekend walking like this!” he said, hunching his arms over like an ape.

“I did not!” I had tried to remember but I did forget sometimes.

“You did. People lie. The body does not lie,” he said, glaring at me. His heavy fingers pinched my shoulders back. “I can see it in the slope of your shoulders. Keep them straight.” As he was talking, he pushed in the center of my back and rolled down my collarbones.

I was used to this by now because Dominic was always correcting my body. It obviously offended him whenever it wasn’t properly aligned.

Once, Nina had pretended to be Dominic teaching a dance session. “I don’t like your feet, your legs, your shoulders and your head. Just cut them all off!”

But the week before, I’d caught sight of myself in the mirror while going to a student and I’d had to double-check that it was really me. This woman, walking proud, shoulders back and neck
stretched out long, looked like she belonged here. It was sustaining that appearance that was the challenge.

Julian was leading that morning’s dance session. Despite myself, my heart thrilled. I remembered how loose and sure of myself I felt dancing with him. He began by announcing, “We will be doing international tango and the emphasis in today’s lesson is standard technique. Simone, if you please.”

With a little smile, Simone positioned herself in Julian’s arms. He stepped right up to her, so that there was no distance in between their bodies. She arched her back and head back in a dramatic sweep away from him.

Julian adjusted her head. “Don’t break the line. It must all come from the spine.” He dropped his arms so that he was only touching her with his stomach and stepped forward and back. Simone followed him perfectly. He pivoted, and she did as well, moving as one entity. Then he stepped away from her with a nod and turned to the rest of us. “Gentlemen, when you lead with the true center of your body, you will not need your arms. When we lead with arms, we are only as graceful as an octopus, because that is what we will look like.”

Julian pretended he was an octopus. We all laughed. I wondered if he knew how appealing he was. But of course he did. “Take a partner, everyone.” Then Julian held his hand out to me and I felt my pulse flutter. “No arms, Silver syllabus international tango across the floor.”

The other dancers set off and I was astounded to see how smooth and coordinated their movements were, even though they only touched each other with their middles.

Julian put his arms around me and arched my back, while maintaining contact with our pelvises. Before I could worry about how inappropriate this would seem to Pa, he positioned my spine and
head until I was staring at a point on the ceiling. It was so awkward and uncomfortable, I forgot everything else. “How does that feel?”

“Awful,” I squeaked. I could hardly breathe in this position.

He chuckled. “That’s good. It takes some getting used to. Now, hold that and let me lead. Don’t worry about where your feet go, just keep your spine arched and your head up.” He took me into dance position and started off. I saw the ceiling spin as we went into a series of lightning-fast pivot turns across the floor. I panicked and started to straighten.

“No, hold the position, breathe into your center. You’re doing just fine,” he said. We started moving in a straight line again, then he dipped me so that my back was almost parallel to the floor, and we both flowed to the side, then he stopped abruptly and pivoted us around. With a jerk of his arm, our heads snapped to the other side. He swung me into a series of fans around his body. “Welcome to international tango. You’re a natural.”

I smiled, flattered. I had never been a natural at anything. He let me go and I looked up to see that the others were finishing their round of the ballroom, still without using their arms. Simone swung into a swirl around Dominic without any contact at all.

Then we all assembled again. “Now we switch leads,” Julian said. “Still no arms for the rest of you. Charlie, you may lead me with your hands.” All of the women got into the leading position and the men, including Dominic, took the lady’s part.

“I’ve been waiting for this day,” Simone said, as she positioned Dominic in front of her. Everyone laughed. It was the first time I’d heard Simone say anything funny. I was so used to her being unpleasant.

The others took off again, with just as much precision as they had the first time around.

“How can they do that?” I asked.

“It’s the job of the professional to be able to do both roles equally well,” Julian said. “All right, our turn.”

He turned around so that he was in the lady’s position and I was in the man’s. I took him into dance position and he arched back, as perfectly as any woman. I looked at him in the mirror and his position was flawless. It should have looked ridiculous, but on Julian, it didn’t.

“I don’t know any steps,” I said.

“Steps are a crutch,” he said, without breaking his line. “Learn to move. That’s what takes years of training. Lead me, Charlie.”

I took a step closer to him so that our bodies were touching as before. I stepped forward with my left leg and he didn’t budge. Julian broke position and looked down at me.

“You were moving with your leg. You need to propel yourself with your center. When our centers connect, then we have dance. Breathe into your middle.” He slid his hand in between our bodies and laid it on my stomach. How strange to be touched so intimately by a man I hardly knew. Pa would be shocked—or would he? He’d watched Ma perform too. Maybe he’d understand more of my life than I thought he would, if I only gave him the chance.

I clenched my teeth and stood still. This seemed impossible. Julian settled himself into lady’s part again. I forced my body to relax. I thought about how, in tai chi, I told the students we had to move from our centers, keeping our minds and bodies in balance by creating a healthy circulation of qi, the vital life force, within us. I closed my eyes and allowed my body to go forward. I didn’t feel any resistance at all.

In surprise, I opened my eyes and Julian was directly in front of me. He’d flowed with me. I did it again, simply propelling us forward but with no awareness of my feet or legs, just thinking about my center connected to his, gliding forward. He moved as if he
were a part of me, weightless and effortless. I took a step backward and he stayed with me. I went to the side, he followed. It was like he was an attachment. I laughed with joy.

Julian deliberately turned his head to wink at me. Then he arched backward again. We stepped forward and I decided to try some of the pivot turns he’d just done with me. We spun around and around. I stopped and we broke apart.

He had a broad smile on his face. “You understand. Do you know what I like about you? Not your talent, because although you are gifted, so are we all. Because you have the desire that makes the difference between success and failure. Those who succeed are the ones who are willing to follow their talent into all of the unknown places it will take them.”

—

It was the monthly studio party and I was wearing a dark red dress Adrienne had given me. It fit me closely, with a soft skirt that swung when I moved. Like all of the other dancers, I was wearing a Santa hat. I was grateful the theme this time was simply Christmas, instead of cowgirl or Grecian goddess.

The studio was dimly lit, with platters of cheese, crackers and fruit laid out on the tables. Bottles of wine stood open. We all knew better than to drink. It looked like a party, but it wasn’t for us since we were working. The students started to arrive. First came the regulars like Keith, but I also recognized two female students who had been in my beginners’ class. They waved at me as soon as they entered. Close behind them came Evelyn, her fiancé Trevor and Ryan, dressed in a crisp white shirt and tan pants.

“Mr. Sexy can come to Mama,” Mateo whispered in my ear, keeping his eyes on Ryan.

“Is Mama me or you?” I asked.

He looked at me in some surprise. “I’m Mama, of course.” Then he waltzed off.

Like the other teachers, I went to greet the students I knew. While Evelyn and Trevor were chatting with Nina, Ryan approached me, his shoulders backlit by the spotlights.

“So you do exist after all,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, Evelyn’s really set on my doing the father-daughter dance with her at her wedding but I wouldn’t come back unless you were my teacher. They told us you weren’t available then.” He looked sheepish. “Guess I’m not that brave.”

I couldn’t help smiling. “It’s intimidating to learn how to dance, but every teacher here is very nice.”

“That’s what they all say.”

I laughed. “So how come you’re here tonight?”

“It’s a part of that introductory package, along with the beginners’ lesson.”

The lights flickered, signaling that the dancing demonstration was about to begin, and we all gathered around Simone and Mateo. Much as I disliked Simone, she was beautiful on the floor. They went into a series of bolero moves that ended with her arched backward in a dip, to applause.

When the general dancing started, I found it wasn’t as hard to ask the men to dance as I’d thought, since they seemed pleased to be approached. This wasn’t personal; it was simply my job. Many of them were beginners and they were excited if we could move around the floor without crashing into someone. I left the more advanced students to the others. Keith and Simone swirled around to a complex Viennese waltz, and I found myself enjoying dancing with the students until one student said to me, mid-foxtrot, “Have you seen the new Gauguin exhibit at the MoMA?”

I stumbled. It was like he was speaking another language. “No.”

“It’s fantastic. I love all of the postimpressionist painters, don’t you?”

“Shall we try a box step with turn?” I knew he wouldn’t be able to do it, and instead of all his art talk, he started apologizing for not doing the step properly.

Then Ryan was standing in front of me with his hand extended. When the swing music started, he began to move right in time to the music.

“I see you’re not wearing your boots tonight,” I said.

“Having enough trouble not getting tied into a pretzel as it is.”

I grinned. “Do you remember the underarm turn?”

In response, he led me right into it. I sang a bit under my breath as I did a triple step underneath his arm. He even remembered the variation I’d taught as a challenge, where the man scooted underneath the arm as the lady was turning back. His steps were still too big and he wound up so far away from me that we were only touching by our fingertips.

“I’m impressed,” I said as he took me back into dance position. “Are you sure you’re only a gardener? No secret ballet lessons as a boy?”

He barked out a laugh. “Definitely not. But I used to box competitively.”

I thought about my tai chi background. “That would help explain it.”

“And I might have taken some yoga lessons.” At my surprised look, he continued, “Lots of boxers do, although we don’t tend to advertise it. Not manly, you know. But yoga helps us avoid injuries by building up flexibility and stamina.”

I noticed he still considered himself a boxer. “You don’t box anymore?”

He started doing a series of basic steps, probably so he could manage to talk to me at the same time. “I left the competition scene years ago. But I still coach kids every weekend. Keeps them off the streets, gives them a place to put all that aggression.”

“Why did you stop?”

He was quiet for a moment. “My dad was a cop and got shot in the line of duty. Didn’t have time for a lot of things after that.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” I thought about Ma. “My mother died when I was fourteen. Things were never the same afterward.”

The music faded away. Ryan held on to my hand. “So, are you teaching students now?”

“I’m still being trained.” Although I really liked him, I had to be honest. “You might want someone more experienced.”

“No, you’ll do. You’ll be saving my girlfriend’s toes too.”

Of course he had a girlfriend. I wasn’t disappointed, why should I be? I swallowed. “You should bring her with you to the lessons.”

“She’s studying in California, but she’ll be back for the wedding.”

“All right, then. I’ll get you ready for her.”

—

Zan was sprawled on Mo Li’s bare floor, while I had my legs curled up on her bed. Mo Li was back for Christmas vacation. She always wanted Zan and me to e-mail her when she was away, but neither of us had easy access to a computer. Whenever she came home, Zan and I rushed to see her and catch up on all that we had missed. Her parents weren’t home again, since they were usually working on Saturday evenings.