3
The elevator girl at Macy’s was a young Chinese woman wearing a sky-blue cheongsam* embroidered with yellow flowers. “Good morning,” she said to Lily and her mother. “What floor, please?”
“Good morning,” Lily’s mother said. “The junior miss department, please.”
“Yes, ma’am.” The elevator girl pressed the button for the third floor. She looked barely older than Lily herself, but Lily didn’t recognize her, which suggested she hadn’t grown up in San Francisco.
“Are you Mrs. Low’s granddaughter?” Lily’s mother asked. “Mrs. Wing Kut Low, on Jackson Street?”
As the wood-paneled elevator passed the second floor, the girl answered, “No. I’m from Sacramento.”
An uncomfortable-looking stool was bolted to the floor in front of the control panel. Lily imagined the girl sinking onto the stool to rest her feet, slipping them out of her black pumps between elevator rides. The idea of being trapped in this moving box all day—doors opening and closing, but never able to leave—seemed like a suffocating way to earn a paycheck.
“Sacramento!” Lily’s mother exclaimed, as if that were the far side of the moon. The gears creaked slightly as the elevator slowed down, approaching the third floor. “Are you alone here in San Francisco?”
“I have an uncle in Chinatown.”
“I see.”
The tone of her mother’s voice told Lily that she did not think much of this arrangement. When the elevator stopped at the third floor, the doors slid open with an accompanying ding. Lily’s mother paused in the doorway. “If you are ever in need of feminine aid,” she said to the girl, “I work at the Chinese Hospital. I’m a nurse in the obstetrics department. Mrs. Grace Hu.”
The elevator girl seemed uncomfortable. “Thank you, ma’am. That’s very generous.”
Lily cast a glance of furtive sympathy at the girl before she stepped out of the elevator.
“I worry about girls like that,” her mother said in a low voice as the door closed behind them. “She’s too young to be on her own. I can’t imagine her uncle takes good care of her.”
Lily glanced around to make sure nobody else had overheard. Directly ahead, the junior miss department sprawled beneath fluorescent lights. The floor was dotted with other shoppers, making their way from one glass display case to another. There was a mother-daughter pair near a case of hats, and the teenage girl giggled as her mother pinned a blue pillbox on her curled blond hair. They glanced at Lily and her mother as they passed, and then their gazes slid away dismissively. There were no other Chinese on the floor this morning, and Lily became self-conscious of the way she and her mother stood out. Her mother was wearing an out-of-date, square-shouldered brown suit and a matching brown hat, something that Lily had only ever seen her wear to church. And Lily’s cheap skirt and blouse, acquired on sale, were far from the height of fashion.
She slowed down to let her mother go ahead of her, as if that might make others think they weren’t together. When that thought made her flinch with guilt, she allowed herself to be distracted by the jewelry—silver button earrings and gleaming pearl chokers and cubic zirconia bracelets—and then by a framed advertisement on top of an apparel counter. It showed a trio of girls in mix-and-match suit separates. The middle girl wore a tuxedo-style jerkin over a white mandarin-collar blouse with a slim, dark skirt. She stood with one hand on her hip, one shoulder angled down, looking directly at the camera with a flirtatiously raised eyebrow. One gloved hand dangled next to the hand of the girl next to her, so close their pinkie fingers were almost touching. All three girls wore knowing smiles, as if they shared a secret.
“Would you like to try something on?”
Lily looked up from the ad to see a salesgirl approaching. “I was just looking,” Lily said awkwardly.
The salesgirl had a friendly, open face, and her light brown hair was cut in a Peter Pan style. Her name tag identified her as miss stevens. “These separates are very versatile,” she said, moving the framed advertisement aside to show Lily the clothes in the case. “You can wear the blouse with these lovely A-line skirts as well.”
“Oh, I—I don’t know,” Lily stammered, but she took a step closer to the case. The tuxedo jerkin was in a navy blue fabric with notched black lapels.
Miss Stevens took out the jerkin and laid it on the glass. “And it’s hand washable. Very smart.”
Lily reached out and touched it, her fingers running lightly over the crisply pressed texture.
“I can bring an appropriate size to the fitting room if you’d like,” Miss Stevens said.
“Lily! There you are.”
Lily jerked her hand away and looked up. Her mother was walking toward her, boxy black handbag slung over her arm, a blond salesgirl following with an armful of shirtwaists and skirts.
“I’ve found some things for you to try on,” her mother said. She glanced down at the tuxedo jerkin and raised her eyebrows. “What’s this?”
“A wonderful collection of mix-and-match separates, ma’am,” Miss Stevens said. Her gaze flickered briefly to the blond salesgirl and then back to Lily’s mother, who went to the case and examined the jerkin and the ad.
“Where would you wear this, Lily?” Her mother’s tone was short and critical.
Lily was embarrassed. “I don’t know. I was just looking.”
“It’s perfect for parties,” Miss Stevens said. “If Miss Marshall is preparing a fitting room for you, she could bring this ensemble too.”
The blond salesgirl—Miss Marshall—stepped forward with her armful of clothes, her face blandly expectant, but Lily’s mother shook her head.
“Thank you, but I don’t believe this is right for my daughter. Come to the fitting room, Lily. I have some school clothes for you to try on.”
Lily gave Miss Stevens an apologetic look before hurrying after her mother and Miss Marshall. Miss Stevens returned her glance with a thin smile as she folded the jerkin to put it away.
In the dressing room, the salesgirl hung a row of dresses, shirtwaists, skirts, and matching jackets on the wall-mounted rail. Lily’s mother took a seat on the bench inside the room. “Try on the brown dress first,” her mother said. “That one, with the black buttons.”
There was a succession of brown and gray dresses and skirts, with pale pink or baby blue cotton shirtwaists featuring demure round collars or cuffed three-quarter-length sleeves. They were the teenage version of her mother’s church suit, inoffensive but boring. Lily thought longingly of the tuxedo jerkin, but as she made her way through the clothes her mother had chosen, the idea of it became increasingly outlandish. Maybe her mother was right. Where would she wear such a thing? It would cause a sensation at the fall dance, but she wasn’t the kind of girl who caused sensations.