Paper Daughter (6 page)

It must have been ten o'clock or so when Jake stopped by my desk. I was so wrapped up in the schedule I was entering that his "How's it going?" startled me.

"Fine," I answered automatically.

Then I told him the truth. "Actually, really slowly. But I'm catching on, I think."

"Let one of us know when you want something checked." He picked up the summer guide, glanced at the field hockey page I had it turned to, and set it back down. "I should have given you this one."

When noon came, I took my lunch to the
Herald
's employee break room and settled at the empty end of a long table, the way I had the day before, when I'd eaten by myself.

This time, though, I'd barely unwrapped my tuna sandwich when Jillian dropped into the chair opposite.

"Whoa!" she said. "Can you believe the work? Yesterday Lynch dragged me all over town carrying his camera gear, and today, do you think we're taking it easy just because he doesn't have a shoot till this afternoon? No! I spent the morning chained to a computer, looking through ten million photos of early Seattle. And why? To find one showing somebody planting a seedling tree at the arboretum decades ago—just so we can include it in a spread about how great the place is today. I told him a tree is a tree, and people know how they start."

She snapped off the lid of a plastic container, looked with distaste at the cold macaroni inside, and helped herself to the peanuts I'd brought.

"With Lynch it's just job after job," she said. "You knew what you were doing, asking to go to Sports."

"That's not how it was," I told her.

"Really?" she said, but at least she looked embarrassed. "Well, maybe not. But it's worked out, right? I mean, I don't know one thing about sports, so I'd have made a fool of myself over there, while anybody can tell, just looking at you, there's nothing you're not super-competent at."

For a moment all I could do was stare at her. And then, just in case that was truly what she thought, I said, "For your information, I did not do one thing correctly yesterday. In fact, yesterday was flat-out terrible."

"Really?" she said again, this time sounding slightly contrite. But then, brightening, she added, "But you're doing better today, right?"

"That's not the point." I took back the peanuts. "You didn't know anything about me yesterday, so you just assumed what you wanted to assume. And I let you. But I won't again."

Jillian's face got red, and I braced myself for an angry reply.

Instead she said, "Maggie, can we start over? I want us to be friends. And I'm sorry about yesterday—about the sports thing and also about being so nosy. It's none of my business if your folks are divorced or your dad's split or—"

I cut her off before her apology got any worse. "My father's dead," I said. "He was killed by a driver who didn't even stop."

Jillian's hands flew to her mouth. "Oh, Maggie, that's awful. But God will get him. The driver, I mean. Well, maybe your dad, too, if you believe in heaven. When? How did it happen?"

"In May," I answered. I again tried to stop her, not wishing to find out what she might say if she got on a real roll. "He was a journalist. He'd been away on assignment, and he got hit when he stopped on his way home from the airport."

"Oh!" she said again. "Really recent! You're still in mourning! I can imagine how hard it must be. And he was a journalist? Everything here must make you think about him."

I wanted to hug the photographer who came to tell Jillian that Lynch needed her, though I seriously doubted the message.

"Anyway," she said, "I'm glad we got things fixed between us." She reached for two of the last three peanuts. "You know, sugared pecans don't cost that much more, and they taste a lot better."

And then she rushed off in a whirl of bright clothes, leaving me to sweep up shells and think about what she'd said.

***

Mourning
was such an odd, old-fashioned word. It brought to my mind images of black clothes and stoic dignity and of the kind of rooms with closed draperies that, in a movie, tell you right away someone has died.
Death's a fact,
such things say.
Don't question it.

Only I had.

I'd gotten through the early days after Dad died by not totally accepting that he had. Instead I'd slipped into a want-to-believe kind of hope, like when a kid who knows that Santa doesn't exist still hopes a swoosh of winter wind might be a flying sleigh.

Except that my hope had been much bigger: a huge, aching invention that the report of Dad's death was wrong. That it was someone else who had been run over, and that the next time the phone rang, it would be Dad calling. He'd say he'd been in a remote area with no wireless connection, out of cell range, his rental car broken down.

I'd known it was all fantasy, but it had helped me more than Mom's blaming herself had helped her, which is what she'd done those first days. Made up
If onlys
with her at the center.

"If only I'd gone with him," she'd say. "If only I'd taken him to the airport and then picked him up."

One morning she'd burst out, "What was he doing there anyway, on foot, in some neighborhood he didn't know? He should have called me! I could have read him a map."

And on another day she'd slammed a table so hard that a crystal vase fell and shattered. "It's not fair! So not fair!"

And it wasn't, I thought. Not the hidden past. Not his death. Not after.

***

Before leaving the
Herald
parking lot that evening, I sat in the car and called Bill Ames on my cell phone. He didn't answer, and I hung up without leaving a message. And with Mom home, I didn't get a chance to try him again.

He didn't answer on Wednesday, either, when I tried calling right after work. But Mom went to the copy shop after we finished a fast dinner, and as soon as she drove away, I called once more.

"I didn't expect to hear from you again," he said once he'd placed who I was. "I had the impression you weren't too happy with what I had to say the last time."

"It surprised me," I said. "I didn't know as much about my dad as I'd thought."

He laughed. "Don't feel bad. My kids go to sleep when I tell tales from ancient history. But what can I help you with?"

"I was wondering if you ever went home with Dad, like over a holiday?"

"To California? I didn't have airfare for that. And he pretty much stayed around New York, anyway."

California?
I'd never heard Dad mention living in California. But maybe it made sense. If he was considering starting his life over with a new identity, he'd have wanted to get as far away from the original one as possible. And going all the way from one coast to the other for college...

"Maggie? You still there?"

"Yes. Sorry. I was just thinking. Do you know where in California he lived?"

Now Mr. Ames was the one silent for a bit. Then, "If he ever mentioned it, I've long since forgotten. But I'm pretty sure it was a city rather than a rural area. Your dad had"—he paused as though considering—"he was street-smart. Manhattan didn't throw him, not even when we were freshmen."

"So you knew him all the way through college," I said. "I was wondering if you could tell me more about—"

Mr. Ames interrupted me. "Maggie, I'm facing an early morning. A trip to take, and I'm not packed. So unless there's something specific?"

"No, I guess not. Thank you," I said, and hung up.

It fit. That note of Dad's I'd seen and torn up, about a family search. There'd been something about California in that, hadn't there?

But California? Just the biggest state in the nation, population-wise. Probably with more places that qualified as cities than most states had towns.

I sat back and closed my eyes. How would I even know where to start looking for Dad's family—half of
my
family—in a place like that?

***

At the
Herald
on Thursday, I continued with the work that was becoming easier the better I got at deciphering disc golf and slow-pitch ball schedules. As I had the day before, I called people for information they'd forgotten to include. I verified park names and addresses in the phone book. I checked the style guide for everything, absolutely
everything
I had the least question about.

Sometimes I was tempted to take shortcuts—to tell myself a team's members would know whether a nine o'clock Saturday game was an early one or under the lights at night. But then I'd picture Dad's worked-over drafts, with leads rewritten till there could be no misunderstanding what he meant. And then I'd find out what I needed to know.

Jake or Tonk checked on my progress occasionally. They always found things for me to fix, but they found fewer each time.

And I'd learned when I could ask for help without causing them problems, because I'd gotten a better feel for the tempo of the newsroom.

I enjoyed the morning's slow start, just as I looked forward to the pace picking up in the early afternoon, the way Mr. Braden had said it would. By late afternoon the air would almost snap with the tension of stories coming together, headlines being written, pages getting finished.

The first page proofs would come off printers, and I would read a piece of the next day's paper that nobody outside the newsroom had ever seen.

***

When I returned to my desk after lunch, I typed one last swim meet program and then told Jake I'd finished inputting all the schedules he'd given me.

"Nice work," he said. "We're going to be sorry to lose you Monday."

"I'll miss being here," I said. "Though," I quickly added before he got any ideas, "I'm looking forward to doing something that's more hard news." I glanced at the piles of paper on his desk. "What would you like me to do next? I could try another rewrite."

"You could," he said, "but I've got a better idea. Grab your things."

"Where are we going?"

"Safeco Field. I've got an interview with a couple of the players, and I'm taking you with me. Before you leave Sports, I want you to see more than the drudge stuff."

"But a Mariners interview?" I exclaimed. "Just like that? What do I do?"

"Watch, listen, and have fun!"

Which is exactly what I did once I got done pinching myself that I was actually inside the working part of a major-league stadium, sitting across from two of baseball's superstars.

And I learned several things about interviewing. When Jake got one question answered, he didn't just jump right into the next. Instead he waited, and sometimes the wait prompted a longer answer that was a lot more interesting than the first, short one.

I've got to tell Dad,
I thought once, briefly, before I remembered that I couldn't.

But then I realized Dad must have known, anyway, about listening past the time when it was tempting to talk. Maybe that's one of the things he'd have taught me if he hadn't died.

When I thanked Jake back at the
Herald,
I knew he assumed it was for taking me on the interview.

It was, partly, but it was also for having given me a job that week that I'd been able to learn from and finish.

And it was for those moments, watching Jake work, when I'd remembered the side of Dad that I knew to be true.

FAI-YI LI, 1932

Outside, Sucheng is waiting. Noisy vehicles clog streets, ship workers shout, and the chains of huge cranes clang loudly. People in strange clothing, with faces that tell me they will not know our language, hurry by carryingparcels, pulling children, pushing carts, loading trucks.

Sucheng says, "This is not what I expected.
"

"
No," I say as a man bumps my arm and a woman with an expression of dislike steps wide around us.

Confused, I realize I should have looked to this moment. But always, since that night Sucheng and I fled, there was a closer one to be worried
about. "Perhaps," I say uncertainly, "we should find Li Dewei. Perhaps he will tell us what to do.
"

Sucheng and I start to walk away from the docks, and when I see persons not hurrying who look kind, I show them Li Deweis name and say one of the few American words I know,
Please.
Soon I learn another word.
Chinatown.

Sucheng and I go in the direction they point, and eventually, weaving through the new smells of salt air, automobiles, grit, and green forests, I recognize the old cooking smells of charcoal and hot fat.

I see a sign with characters I can read, and then more such signs lining a street where the men look like those I grew up with.

It makes me breathe deeply with relief, though I notice that Sucheng is looking behind us, to the ways we have not taken.

I find Li Dewei when I spot his name on the sign for a hand laundry. Pulling Sucheng into the small shop with me, I tell him I am Wu Fai-yi.

He shrugs. "That means nothing.
"

I explain that Sucheng and I are the ones he said could be his children.

"
On paper only. Why are you here?" he asks.

But his face is not as hard as his words, and he says, "Have you no plans? What did you think to do?
"

Because I cannot say
I did not think,
I answer, "Find work
"

"
Well...
"

My gaze follows his as he looks vaguely about, as though to find a solution to Sucheng and me in washtubs and drying clothes and stacks of flat brown paper bundles with string around them.

Outside there is a commotion. Three boys run through the crowd, knocking people aside, and angry words follow. The boys separate, one fleeing up an alley and the others disappearing into buildings as a car with markings jerks to a stop. Two men wearing uniforms get out, adding their voices to the noise, and people point this way and that. And then one of the men is entering here, and we in the laundry are no longer just watchers.

The official speaks to me in an accusing rush of words, and I understand that he mistakes me for one of the running boys.