Girl in Reverse (9781442497368) by Barbara Stuber Page A

doing?”
    â€œHungry. We’re talking Chinese food. Chopsticks. Eel. That sort of thing. Lily says she likes her dragon eggs scrambled with a side of soy sauce.”
    â€œMe too,” Elliot says. The track has absorbed all his angst or headache or diaper rash or whatever put him on edge.
    â€œWhen you go to the House of Chow, Miss Firestone, check out the friendly Chinese fish and try the dim sum,” Mr. Howard says. “Lights you up on the inside.”
    â€œI sure will,” I mumble. My lips feel stuck to my teeth.
    With Elliot’s agitation problem over and the fact that Mr. Howard and I have ceased discussing how prejudice can make a person disown herself, we move on to the fact that Chinese people never eat alone, but always in groups, family groups, around a lazy Susan with all the trimmings. They do not sit alone chasing Cheerios around a bowl of chocolate milk like Ralph does. They share wontons and dim sum—whatever that is—and turn their families into a circle of lighted lanterns.
    This is not talk of the bloody Red Peril. This is about good luck and chopping cabbage and families and tanks of friendly, non-Communist fish and their nice owners.
    For the first time being Chinese does not sound like a crime against humanity.
    *  *  *
    It’s Saturday. I review my plans on the bus. I will enter the gift shop and purchase a fan or chopsticks and look for a wrist rest and a Martian slipper like mine. I will walk out if I start to panic. Why would I panic in the House of Chow? If Mrs. Chow is Gone Mom, if my father comes in, if anybody recognizes me, if someone asks about my past, if I start crying, if I am forced to eat eel.
    I am coming here because I am not a stuffed animal. I am a human with research to do. Mr. Howard and Ralph and everybody else flies in and out of the House of Chowfree as pigeons. Why not me? I want to meet Asian fish. And if Mother finds out I came, I will say that the Future Homemakers of America are learning the art of fortune-cookie baking without singeing the fortune.
    It’s three thirty, an off time, restaurant-wise. I enter the reception area. Straight ahead is a huge, empty red-and-black dining room. The sharp scent of ginger and scallions shoots me right back to Chinatown. I am perched on Gone Mom’s bent arm by a food cart with hubbub all around.
    I sink down on a seat by the cash register, hold my little-girl self, wipe my cheeks.
    Paper lanterns with gold tassels hang from the light fixtures. Panels carved with flowers and birds divide the booths from the round tables. The aquarium hums and bubbles, casting watery light across the reception area. Water sliding over stone dragons in a fountain enhances the carving and accents the details of Abraham Lincoln’s copper profile on the pennies tossed in the lighted pool below.
    All of China seems packed in here. I walk into the gift shop and step right on Mrs. Chow seated cross-legged on the floor unpacking a carton.
    â€œOh, God, I’m sorry!” Oh, God. Oh, God.
    I grab her arm as she struggles to stand up. “Fine. Fine. No worry. No problem.” She taps her foot to demonstrate it’s working. “I think you Mr. Chow, not customer. Sorry not get up.”
    I am at least a full head taller than she is. We give each other the once-over—me discreetly, she overtly. She glances off, clears her throat. She has a mole above her lip, gray streaks in her bun, and glasses. I have pinkish lips, thick hair loose over my shoulders, and wide-set eyes. Mrs. Chow wears black Keds and a bright apron decorated with orange and red barbecue tools. I wear penny loafers and hose, a pale blue sweater and skirt, and a white blouse. Her middle is round. Mine is not. Her hands look strong and scarred. Mine are pale and untouched. She starts to say something, then doesn’t. She smiles. So do I. She is not Gone Mom. I like her instantly.
    She sweeps her hand. “You want