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“Ling… I think you’re the bee’s knees,” Alma said softly after a minute or two had passed. “Honestly, I do. There’s nobody quite like you out there.”
That’s why you’re breaking it off with me on a stoop in Harlem. Because I’m so very special.
“I’m sorry that I couldn’t… I’m sorry,” Alma said. She stood and smoothed the wrinkles from her shiny dress.
The man had finished his sweeping. He headed back toward his house.
“Do you… want me to help you up or… anything?”
Ling cleared her throat. “No. I… no.”
“It’s chilly. Don’t sit out here too long.”
There were a hundred things Ling thought to say back: I’ll sit as long as I like. Don’t act like my mother. I couldn’t feel any colder than I already do.
“Well,” Alma said, still waiting. Ling let her wait another few seconds.
“Well,” Ling said coolly. “Break a leg. That’s what you say, isn’t it? Even though it makes no sense.” Nothing made sense. Nothing at all.
Alma gave a nervous little laugh. “Yes. That’s what you say. It’s supposed to keep away bad luck.”
Well, it’s not working, Ling thought. She wished she hadn’t come uptown. If she’d stayed behind in the restaurant, Alma wouldn’t have been able to say good-bye.
Alma walked to the bottom of the steps and looked up at Ling. She had the loveliest face, and Ling’s chest squeezed tighter when she thought of never seeing it again.
“You’re sure you’re jake?” Alma said.
Ling was most decidedly not jake. But when people asked a question, they usually left you clues about how to answer. It didn’t take a scientist to know that what Alma was really saying was, Be okay. I don’t want to feel guilty.
“I have to go work at the restaurant,” Ling said in response. She wouldn’t give Alma the satisfaction of a clean getaway.
Alma’s smile fluttered and her lashes batted away tears. The comment had landed, Ling could see, but she took very little satisfaction from it. “Honey, please, please don’t hate me. I couldn’t bear it. Clever as you are, you’ll find someone. I know you will,” Alma said.
Ling’s throat burned with all she held back.
“I’ll write you. I will! I’ll send postcards from all over the country,” Alma said, like she was wooing an audience.
“That’s too expensive.” Ling did not want to cry. Not with Alma there, and with Seraphina’
s runners keeping watch on the street.
Alma laughed and wiped her eyes with the backs of her hands. “See what I mean? You’re always you. Always honest.”
But Ling knew that was the biggest lie of all.
Alma pointed a finger at Ling. “You take care of yourself, you hear me? You get Jake Marlowe to stop that machine. I know you can. Do right, Ling Chan.”
Do right. It’s what Ling’s mother would say. But in times like these, how could you know what was right? Ling sat on the steps for a while longer, watching Alma’s champagne-colored dress swish down the street. Only when Alma rounded the corner did Ling let out the choking sob.
“Good-bye,” she whispered.
Nearby, the bird watched her intently.
In the back room of Seraphina’s shop, Memphis and Theta kissed until at last, in need of air, Theta leaned her forehead against Memphis’s neck.
“I was so worried about you,” she whispered.
Memphis stroked a thumb across her cheek. “And here I was worried about you.”
