Paper Daughter (8 page)

"So," I said to Harrison as we drove out of the parking lot, "what did Fran mean about
cover?
"

"You'll see," he said, turning on music full blast and heading for the Evergreen Point Floating Bridge across Lake Washington, out of Seattle and to the towns to the east. Then, relenting, he turned the music off. "You're going to be my excuse to look around," he said.

"What do you want me to do?"

"Appear eager. And keep your eyes and ears open. We might not find a story, but fishing expeditions are part of the job. The most interesting part, sometimes."

"I know," I said. "That's what my dad—"

He prompted, "Your dad?"

"He was a reporter," I said. "And I was just remembering how he used to say pretty much the same thing. That part of what keeps a newsman going are the possibilities."

Harrison chuckled. "I've never heard it put that way, but it's true. Only you said
was.
What's he doing now?"

"He died recently. But before that, he covered business news for—"

Harrison interrupted. "Maggie
Chen!
Of course! Steven Chen was your father? I've read enough of his work to know how good he was."

He was silent a moment and then said rather awkwardly, "I read about the accident. I'm sorry. I guess he'd have been pretty proud of you doing this internship."

"I don't think he'd have been all that proud last week," I said. "Not at the beginning, anyway. I got off to a pretty rocky start."

Harrison grinned. "My first morning in a newsroom—this was back in the day—I erased an editor's hard drive. Did you do anything that egregious?"

"I got coffee grounds on the Sports mannequin."

"Not even in the same league."

***

The city hall where Donald Landin had worked was a new-looking, well-landscaped building. Before leaving the
Herald,
Harrison had gotten Gary Maitlen to find out exactly what department Landin had worked in, and now, scanning a lobby directory, I said, "Planning and Development is on the second floor. Do we just go up?"

"Let's first see what's on people's minds," Harrison said, heading for a bulletin board a little way down a wide corridor.

The board held public notices—an opening on the city council, changes in the leash law—and memos to employees. Someone wanted to start a lunchtime walking program. Volunteers were sought to organize a family picnic.

A woman in the office opposite called, "May I help you?"

Harrison introduced us both and then said, "Maggie's a high school intern with the
Herald.
She wants to learn what journalism is all about, so I thought I'd show her the inside of a city hall. This looks like a pleasant place to work."

"It is," the woman said. "Everybody gets along. Not that there aren't stresses." She pointed to a
PAY TRAFFIC FINES HERE
sign on the next desk. "Customers can be difficult."

"I can imagine," Harrison said, laughing. "But good co-workers—that goes a long way. How about the elected officials? Are they a good group?"

"Pretty much," she said. "Though I don't have contact with them the way people in some of the other departments do." She picked up a pen. "You two are welcome in any of the public offices. You want directions, just ask someone."

Harrison took me into each office along the first-floor hall—Animal Control, Streets, Parks and Recreation—and in each one he gave the same speech about showing the
Herald
's intern the inside of a city hall.

I noticed that he timed our entrances to coincide with moments when all the clerks in an office were either on the phone or dealing with other people. Which gave us time to study more bulletin boards, as well as to read any papers left lying about.

"So, did you get anything from all that?" I asked when we finally reached the staircase.

"A feel for who's who," he said, "and for how things are going. If I had to make a guess, I'd say the mayor is in over his head trying to run a town that's growing faster than anyone expected it to."

"You must have read something that I didn't," I said.

"No. I'm just making inferences from things like his proposal for a moratorium on new building permits pending a catch-up on the applications already in process."

The reception we got in the Planning and Development office backed up Harrison's assessment. The harried employee that Harrison approached told him, "There's nothing here for your intern to see. And if there were, there'd be nobody with time to show it to her."

Blowing right by the dismissal, Harrison said, "I heard one of your people got killed in a street shooting not long ago. Must be hard to lose someone that way. And, of course, there'd have been all his work to deal with."

"Landin had already quit," the man said. "But you're right about his work being a problem. He hadn't been replaced—still hasn't—and the rest of us are way too overloaded to take on his stuff."

"Tell me about it," Harrison said, all sympathy.

"It's only getting worse," the man went on. "The city council's planning committee has to approve any recommendations we make, and it's not moving on anything and won't before next week." He suddenly frowned. "You're not writing this up, are you?" he asked. "Because if you are, that was all off the record."

Harrison nodded. "Understood. But what's brought the planning committee to a standstill?"

"Missing a person and nobody in charge. Toby Yeager, the city councilman who ran it for years, died of a stroke a couple of months ago."

"And what happens next week?"

"The council, when it meets, will finally get around to appointing someone to finish out his term and, I hope, get some movement going here. Look, I really do have to get back to work."

Before leaving the building, Harrison and I stopped by the mayor's office to ask for a list of people who'd applied for the council position.

The person we spoke to said, "We're still verifying their qualifications. All the names will be on the city's website when it's updated tomorrow."

***

Fran was looking over page proofs when we got back to the newsroom. Seeing us, she asked, "Find out anything?"

"Nothing specific," Harrison answered. "But things are unsettled enough out there that I'd like to do a little more checking around."

Fran asked me, "And how'd you do?"

"Great!" I said. "I listened, and I learned that you don't always ask outright what you want to know."

"Nope. Not when you don't know what you're looking for. Or when you're looking for something folks might want to hide." She turned back to Harrison. "So...?"

"Give me one more day. And if Maggie wants to keep helping, that would be great."

"Sure," I said. "More cover?"

"No way," Harrison answered. "Tomorrow we roll up our sleeves and get to work." He raised his eyebrows as though asking if I'd really meant that
sure.
"It'll be toiling at the computer. Not nearly as much fun as slinging around coffee grounds."

"That was not fun," I said. "And today was. Today—"

I broke off, knowing I'd feel ridiculous telling him I felt as if my world had opened wider. But I did.

Sure I'd been in government buildings before, usually with Mom, but this time I hadn't been a bystander. This time I'd had a job to do, even if it was only to provide Harrison with an excuse so he could do his. And that had kept the city hall from being just another building filled with people I didn't notice. It had made it a particular, individual piece of the world, and for a short time I'd been part of it.

Finally I just said, "Today was more what I hoped for."

FAI-YI LI, 1933

Li Dewei comes and goes, making arrangements to bring his wife and son over, and he grows more excited as the time for their sailing draws near.

And indeed, it does seem that he will be ready for us to be gone. They will need the space Sucheng and I take up, and since the policemen have not returned, the danger that they will come back threatens less and less.

Meanwhile, my learning continues, so that this time when we go out on our own, I will be prepared.

At night, when I am free to leave the laundry, I go to where chop suey restaurants—such American food!—bring people from other parts of the city. They wear bright clothes and talk and laugh loudly and walk as
though they have a right to more space than their bodies have need for. They do not notice me step into the street to make way.

They do not see me listening, either—-following sometimes, to hear them talk For I need to learn not just the words of my new language but also the sounds, which are difficult to form and must be spoken in unfamiliar rhythms.

During the day, I practice the sounds and patterns in my head. And because my speaking is improving, when a customer comes in, I try out the new things I know. "Two dimes," I say, without drawing any picture.

Li Dewei, on his way out one afternoon, stops to watch and listen. The customer gives me a quarter, which I know, too, and I give him a five-cent piece back.

When the customer leaves, Li Dewei hands me paper money. "Do you know how much this is?" he asks.

"
One dollar.
"

"
Do you know how many dimes make one dollar?
"

"
Ten.
"

"
Then take this dollar to the herbalist whose shop is on the corner two blocks over. Tell him it is for something to ease the ache in my knees.
"

I have not left my work during the daytime before, and my feet fly in the freedom of the sunshine.

***

The two blocks take me to a more prosperous area, with buildings where families have private living quarters above stores much bigger than Li Dewei's laundry. I have walked through it at night but never before gone inside any place.

The herbalist's shop is fitted well, with fine cabinets of many small drawers. A call bell stands on the counter, but I hesitate to ring it in case it is for important customers only.

I hear footsteps on back stairs and then see a curtain move and a girl

slip into the shop. "May I help you?" she asks.

I ask if I might see the herbalist.

"
That is my father," she says. "He is away just now. But if what you want is something simple, I might be able to get it for you.
"

Then the door opens, and a man who appears American steps inside. Excusing herself to me, the girl gives him a small, already prepared bundle and receives payment for it. I am impressed that she talks with him in his own language, and I would ask her how she learned, except it would be rude.

So I only tell her I have come for medicine for Li Dewei, and I watch her open a ledger and run her finger down lines of handwritten words, looking, I realize, for his name. It surprises me. Reading is not a thing Sucheng or her friends at home ever learned.

"
Here," the girl says. "Here is what my father gives him. I can get this for you. It will be eighty cents.
"

She takes the dollar and gives me back two dimes in change.

"
Twenty cents," I say, so she will know that I know.

Then she pulls out one of the higher drawers and brings it to the counter along with a scale. She carefully weighs out a small quantity of dried leaves before saying, "I've never seen you before.
"

I explain that my sister and I have come from China only some months earlier.

"
And what is your name?" she asks. So forward she is, asking, but her voice is so soft and her face so smooth I do not hold it against her.

"
Fai-yi Li," I answer. "And you are called?
"

An Huang
"

I have learned something about her, for she has not said
Huang An,
in the way of Chinese. But then I have not said
Li Fai-yi,
either. I hope she has noticed that, also.

"
Do you always work here for your father?" I ask.

"
Only sometimes, when he is very busy or away. I am still in school, and that takes most of my time.
"

Another surprise!
A
girl old enough to be married—she looks to be fourteen, perhaps fifleen—not only reading, but going to school!

She wraps the medicine in a square of paper. "I will tell my father when he returns that we now have a new customer." Then she smiles. "I hope you are happy that you have come to this country.
"

"
Thank you," I tell her. "Yes.
"

I go to the door then, wondering if perhaps one day there will be need for more ache medicine, so that I might have reason to return. I glance back and see her reaching to replace the herb drawer, and then...

I am not sure what happens—-perhaps an edge catches—but in the next instant the drawer is falling. An Huang gives a little cry as dried leaves shower down. "Oh!" she says, sounding so distressed. "Oh, no!
"

So I go back in, and for many minutes we work together, picking up leaves and gently blowing to clean them. Finally we sweep up all the leaf dust too fine to save.

"
Now," I tell her, looking at the quantity we have returned to the drawer, "surely this is enough that your father will not beat you.
"

"
Not beat—" She looks astonished. "Is that what you thought? That I would be punished for dropping the drawer?
"

I nod. Yes, of course, that was what I thought. It was what happened to my sister, back in China, when she was clumsy in the kitchen. It was how you taught girls to be careful.

But this An Huang says, "My father would never do that. I was only upset because I thought how hard it might be for him to replace what I had spilled. Sometimes American officials make getting Chinese medicines very difficult." Then she smiles again. "Thank you for helping me. Many boys might have run off rather than take a chance on staying and being blamed for any loss.
"