Blossom (The Blossom Trilogy Book 1) Read online

  “Mostly happy messages put inside cookies. Some fortunes not so happy,” pointed out Chang. Was that just a warning? Brock thought.

  Blossom took the risk of speaking freely to the stranger in the presence of her father. “Sometimes fortune favors the strong. Other times, fortune favors the delicate. But always, fortune favors the heart.”

  Chang commanded Brock’s attention by instructing, “Only eat cookies you break open. Must be offered to you. You pick cookie. You pick your destiny. Must be whole when in your hand. A cracked one bring very bad, bad, bad luck. No take.”

  Blossom smiled as she broke a cookie in two and looked up at Brock.

  “Would you like a taste?” she asked. Her voice had a playful sing-song quality to it. She offered Brock the cookie as she slowly closed her eyes and opened them to again pierce his.

  “If that broken one you’re offering me will bring bad luck, then no thank you. But I would like to try one of those next to you,” replied Brock, pointing to the pile of unbroken cookies to Blossom’s right.

  She grinned.

  Brock couldn’t stop looking at Blossom. As politely as he could, he studied the loose-fitting, jade-green silk blouse she was wearing. It had a high collar fastened together with gold-colored braiding shaped like a butterfly. Seems like too nice a shirt to be working in.

  She had billowy pants, the color of purple iris. As he gazed further down, her white socks popped out not only because they were so starkly white, but because she had no shoes on.

  She scanned the pile and selected three cookies. Blossom then offered them to Brock to choose from. He pointed to the one in the middle and she placed it onto Brock’s extended palm.

  He noticed how she looked at his rough hand against his elegant clothes with a questioning expression. Not the first time someone’s given me that look.

  Her studying gaze rose with the slowness of the bay breezes outside, from his hands to his necktie to his mouth and then to his eyes again.

  “Well, go ahead. Break open!” insisted Chang. “Fate wait for no man!”

  Brock blinked and shuddered. He clenched his fist and cracked the cookie.

  “Open! Read paper aloud before you eat!”

  Brock separated the halves of the cookie and pulled out the slip of paper. He sighed. He looked at Blossom and then at Chang.

  “I guess this is my lucky day,” he said and smiled at Blossom. His eyes returned to the paper, and he read, “Confucius say, ‘Wherever you go, go with all of your heart.’”

  He put half of the cookie in his mouth and bit down. “Hmm, it’s sweet, crisp… more like crunchy.” The crunching sounds echoed in his head.

  “Can you hear that? Or is it just me?” They must think my head’s hollow!

  “Yes, we hear. Anything else you need today before you go?” asked Chang. Ting Ting observed the entire exchange, not cranking her hurdy-gurdy at that moment.

  “No, I don’t think there is—” Brock said in a voice that trailed off, though his mind raced. He couldn’t stop staring at Blossom. He tried, but couldn’t. He didn’t care. He liked the way it felt, except how his face was hot and probably as red as the paper lanterns outside. Brock’s hand clutched the paper bag that contained the cookies, and the crackling sound brought his mind back into focus.

  “Thank you for the cookies, Blossom. I mean, shay shay. And Chang, shay shay for showing me how they’re made.”

  Blossom lowered her head in what Brock figured was a gesture of thanks, while maintaining eye contact. Her lavender eyes were thieves, stealing his breath and holding it captive.

  Get a hold of yourself, man! You’re engaged. This is wrong. This…is…wrong. He knelt down so that he was face to face with the little girl. “It was very nice to meet you, Ting Ting. Even though you say a lot with your eyes, perhaps sometime you’ll let me hear your voice in English.”

  Ting Ting smiled and bowed. Then she waved. As Brock began to leave the room, she cranked her music box’s handle.

  He put the fortune-telling slip of paper into his wallet and handed Chang a white rectangular card.

  “Come again, come again, come again.” Chang bowed and then walked toward the front door in what Brock took as a not-so-subtle way of ending their conversation. “Good day, Meester Brock St. Clair,” he said, reading Brock’s last name from the card in his hand.

  Brock responded to the signal and soon found himself back out on the congested street.

  “Blossom, Blossom, Blossom,” he uttered in Chang’s triple-repeat pattern of speech. He looked back over his shoulder at the front of The Golden Palace as he headed back to Nob Hill with a bag of fortune-telling cookies in his grasp.

  ***

  Brock retraced his path through Chinatown. He noticed two different sights this time: a shoemaker and children playing. The shoemaker sat along the street and called out to potential customers. Shoes made to order right here in the street, Brock thought. The children were spinning tops on the ground and flinging yoyos in the air. As he walked by, laughter and chattering lingered in the air.

  As Brock turned the corner and began to climb the steep slope, a cable car appeared. It was close enough for Brock to study its stained wood and high-gloss varnish. He noted how the sun reflected on the polished brass handrails. His eyes followed the car with its maroon, white and light blue painted accents. The cable car’s grip man rang the bell for all to hear and heed.

  Within a heartbeat, there was a metal-on-metal, shoulder-raising screech. Through squinting eyes, Brock saw passengers flopping around like fish just hauled in from the sea. An out-of-tune symphony of grunts, high-pitched squeals and “Good Lord” comments filled the air around the cable car that jumped its tracks.

  Passengers instantly began to rearrange themselves and their packages. “Is everyone accounted for?” he heard the conductor ask. “Please step away. I don’t want anyone to get hurt.”

  “Help us. Please help us!” Brock followed the voice around to the other side of the cable car. A young woman sat with her arms tightly wrapped around a toddler-age boy. They were seated on an outer-facing bench and their groceries were thrown onto the street.

  Brock put his bag of fortune cookies on the ground. “Is there anything I can do?” he asked the woman as he’d already begun to reach down to collect the cans of fruit and butcher-paper wrapped packages that escaped the handled net bags that once held them prisoner.

  “My son and I are fine, but I can’t say the same for our dinner tonight,” replied the woman.

  “You’ll have a lifetime of dinners ahead of you…but only one child like this one to keep a hold of,” Brock said as he stood up and put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “You made the right choice. Now you two better get down onto the street!”

  A crowd surrounded the action and several people helped collect the runaway food.

  “Everyone, please stand back,” announced the conductor as he flipped several coins in his hand that he likely collected as fares. He looked down at the groceries. “Saints preserve us! No one fell off. I’ve never been on one of these contraptions when it derailed.”

  “Thank you, sir. Your kindness is very much appreciated,” the woman said to Brock. “Son, thank the nice man.”

  “Thank you, sir,” he said and scooted closer to his mother.

  Brock tipped his hat. “Glad to be of service.”

  When it was clear he was no longer needed, Brock brushed his hands on his pants and instantly realized he’d lost his prized possession. The bag of fortune cookies was nowhere in sight. He looked around the feet of the crowd and spotted a bag. He picked it up and looked inside.

  A bag of fortune cookie crumbs. That won’t do. Not for Clarissa.

  Brock went back to The Golden Palace with visions of Blossom in his head.

  He opened the door, lifted his feet higher than usual and did not trip on his way in. The bells announced his return.

  “You back so soon!” said Chang.

  “It’s a long st
ory.”

  “Long story?”

  “I won’t bother you with the details, but the bag of cookies I bought got smashed while I was helping a lady whose groceries fell off of a cable car. There was an accident down the street. Now I need another.”

  “Another accident?”

  “No, I need another bag of cookies, please,” replied Brock.

  “Yes, yes, yes. More cookies for hero!”

  “I wouldn’t go that far, but I was happy to—”

  The words that described Brock’s recollection vanished as he looked into Blossom’s eyes. She was peering around the corner of the doorway.

  Chang looked at him and leaned forward as if to coax more words out. “You happy to do what? Be hero?”

  “Oh, I was happy to help,” concluded Brock. “Yes, I was happy to help.”

  “Fine then, here another bag. Fifteen cent, my hero.” Brock offered Chang coins from his pocket and got a bag in return.

  “Be safe. Stay away from cable car!” Chang said as he walked over to the doorway and opened the door. “Ten thousand thanks. Bye bye.”

  Brock’s attention was solely on Blossom. There’s a hammer pounding on my heart and I can hear it in my head!

  “Back to work, my daughter. This instant!” She vanished.

  Brock turned to face the doorway and discovered that Chang was there already with the door open.

  “Shay shay.”

  “Shay shay to you,” added Brock as he left the bakery.

  With the second bag of fortune-telling cookies firmly in his grasp, Brock got himself back on track to his fiancée’s house. Unlike the grip on the bag, his mind did not hold such a firm grasp on Clarissa.

  Chapter 2

  Wisdom Comes With Age

  Saturday, April 14, 1906, 11:47 a.m.

  Four days before the earthquake and firestorm

  “What you thinking, my daughter?” Chang asked in broken English. “Have you no sense? Have we not raised you to keep to yourself? To your work? To your own people? That white man…what you think he see when he look at you?”

  Back at her workstation, Blossom readied herself to answer with a deep cleansing breath and weaving her fingers together. “Ba Ba, it’s 1906, not 1806. People can talk freely now. That includes me and you.” She did her best to be firm, yet respectful, though Blossom recognized that it ended up sounding preachy.

  “Make cookies. Speak no more,” said Chang now in Cantonese.

  From down the hall came a clump-clump sound and another voice. “Climb off your high horse, my son,” said Grand Ma Maw. “And you, Blossom, you make anger in your Ba Ba.”

  Blossom looked down at the worktable.

  “She just full of fire, like always,” said Chang.

  “Yes, perhaps too much and too often,” added the old woman. “Until I draw my last breath, it my duty to run this business and this family…duty and burden at times like this. Chang, how many times I must tell you to speak in the English? The more Blossom hear and speak the English, the better her life be.”

  Blossom wondered what her father did to deserve a lifelong stream of sideways looks, heavy sighs and sharp criticism from Grand Ma Maw. Though she was a smart and shrewd woman whose wit could sharpen pencils, when it came to speaking with her son, she always seemed to have a harsh edge.

  The loud thumping of her cane hitting the floor boards continued, prompting the old woman to point out, “President Roosevelt say: ‘Speak softly, carry big stick.’ I no speak so soft, but I carry big stick!” Did she really just say that like she’d never said it before? Blossom thought.

  Blossom put down the uncooked dough in her hands and pushed back from her worktable. She knew she was in for a lecture of epic proportions, one she clearly had brought on herself.

  “Ting Ting, you probably should go home now. Or go find Little Sunflower and play a game. You know how she looks up to you,” said Blossom with the kind tone of a loving sister. “This may not be a conversation for you to hear.”

  “But—” Ting Ting replied.

  “But nothing,” interjected Chang in English. “Please leave now, my Rose Bud.” He smiled, placed the flat of his hand on her back and gently pushed her out the door to the alley. Rather than going home, Ting Ting stood outside next to the door to listen to what came next. She knew English well because she went to the same English-speaking school Blossom attended as a child.

  “Do you both expect me to do nothing for hours on end but make cookies and sell cookies, thinking about what I’m missing out there?” asked Blossom, pointing out the nearby window. “Is that the life you want for me? Is that why you came to America, to raise a mindless cookie-making, cookie-selling spinster by day and a restaurant waitress by night? Why did you send me to school every day? For this?”

  It was not the first time they’d had this discussion. But the previous discussions never concluded to Blossom’s satisfaction.

  Grand Ma Maw crossed the room at a measured pace. Blossom watched her and could feel the rust in Grand Ma Maw’s back and knees. She was old and did nothing to disguise it. She responded, “My precious one, you know your father and me only want best for you.”

  Her training showed as Blossom bowed in her grandmother’s direction.

  “But how do you know what’s best for me?”

  “Because we know you. We know the ways of our people, of ancestors who came before us,” answered Chang.

  “I honor your wisdom and your knowledge of our ways, but I don’t want to be limited by our ways. There has to be more out there for me. I don’t want to be a prisoner in this building and just watch life pass by without me,” said Blossom with a sweeping arm gesture. “I feel like a lamppost bolted to the pavement and everyone else is going somewhere.” She let the sentence die its own death. The air in the room was like quicksand.

  Grand Ma Maw looked into Blossom’s eyes, then into Chang’s. “A prisoner you say? A lamppost? This what living in America come to? Never satisfied? Always want to see beyond your home? Challenging those with wisdom, who wish you not repeat past mistakes?”

  Not repeat past mistakes echoed in Blossom’s mind. What mistakes? Whose past mistakes?

  Before Blossom could respond, Grand Ma Maw added, “Put shoes on! Always shoes on!”

  “I apologize most humbly if my open mind and open mouth have offended you…and my shoeless feet too,” said Blossom as she slipped her shoes back on. “But if I want to look at a white man and speak to a white man, I don’t see why that’s such a problem.”

  “You not act so familiar with someone we not familiar with. He here only to buy something mysterious to him: fortune cookies. He found more than he set out to find, but he not find it here again.” Grand Ma Maw placed her hand on Blossom’s hair and stroked it. “Why you act that way with him? That not like you at all.”

  “Oh, I have my reasons,” replied Blossom. It wasn’t like me, was it? It was that stupid dare I took and the childish pinky swear I made yesterday at lunch. But then I couldn’t help myself. Something changed. Something—”

  “Wisdom come with age, but sometimes age come alone. Lucky for you, I have both,” Grand Ma Maw said. “Many things end bad that began with innocent glance or kind word. Blossom, you hear but not listen too much. Now is time to listen. Listen to my words and know they come from this old woman’s heart.”

  Chang joined the conversation. “These my thinks about this matter.”

  “You mean thoughts?” asked Blossom.

  “My thinks, my thoughts…ugh, the English make me crazy. You be no reckless. You have man. He your future husband. What he think if he know how you act today?”

  “Ba Ba, I don’t have a future husband. I’m not engaged. You and Butch have an understanding and that’s all,” said Blossom.

  Grand Ma Maw spoke up. “You like last kernel of corn in chicken coop. Too many men in Chinatown. Families still in China…especially women. You, my dear one, are a treasure.”

  “You be wife of Mi
ng Yang soon,” said Chang. “He excellent match for you.”

  Blossom looked at Grand Ma Maw. “Butch, I mean Ming Yang, he’s the butcher who’s the man of your dreams. Not mine. A butcher for a son-in-law who can supply fresh meat to you! And I become a baby-making factory. That way there can be more butchering and cookie making and table waiting for years to come. I don’t know, maybe I don’t even want a man. Maybe I’m meant to be alone. That’s it! I’m supposed to be a spinster with calloused fingertips and an arched back that looks like…ah …like the rolling hills across the bay.”

  “You too picky. Ming Yang be your husband soon,” added Chang.

  “But I want more than ‘a husband.’”

  “You want what?” asked Grand Ma Maw.

  “I…want…more.”

  “I hear enough. Now you work! Cookies not make themselves,” said Chang. Blossom noticed how he scanned the card in his hand. “I expect we not see Meester Brock St. Clair in here again.”

  Then, with a flip of his wrist, he threw the card into the wastebasket and left the room. Grand Ma Maw followed.

  Blossom placed some dough on the iron, but eyed the card on the top of the trash pile. She looked around the room for any witnesses who might see what she was about to do. All was clear. Without making a sound, she made her way to the wastebasket, picked up the card, slipped it in her shoe and returned to her stool. She looked around the area again, seeing no witnesses. I don’t see her, but Grand Ma Maw is watching. I just know it.

  As she had thousands of times before, Blossom reached for a fortune-telling slip of paper to put inside the warm dough. She paused to read this particular message, though, and its sentiment could not have been more appropriate and coincidental: “Confucius say, ‘Wherever you go, go with all of your heart.’”

  She looked out the window above her work surface and whispered, “I wonder if Mr. Brock St. Clair is going somewhere right now…with the cookies and all of his heart?”