Though Lily saw a few people wandering down the paths, the park was mostly deserted. She glimpsed the remains of concrete statues half-hidden in the shrubs. There was a fallen deer, its antlers broken, and the curve of a stone woman’s breasts, one plump arm extended. She and Shirley walked all the way to the old parapet that circled the site of Adolf Sutro’s Victorian mansion and found a bench facing the chain-link fence at the edge, right above Cliff House. A few tourists were taking photographs, but they weren’t prepared for the chilly day, and after they left, shivering, Lily and Shirley had the view of the ocean to themselves.
Lily opened their Cokes while Shirley opened the takeout box. Lily selected one of the chue yuk paau and took a bite. The steamed bread was a pleasingly light contrast to the salty, savory minced pork filling.
“I don’t know why you’d want to be Caucasian,” Lily said. “You’d have to eat American food all the time.”
“They can eat this food,” Shirley said as she picked up a bun for herself. “We sell it to them!”
“You don’t sell them these—they only eat the ch’a shiu* ones. Normally they eat—what do they eat?—creamed corn or something? Or tuna casserole!”
Shirley hid her mouth behind her hand while she laughed. “Meat loaf!”
“Liverwurst sandwiches!” Lily made a face.
“Chicken à la king! What is that, anyway?”
“Some kind of chicken dish, with a cream sauce? I think I ate it at the school cafeteria once.”
“Once they had creamed spinach, do you remember? It was this slimy dark stuff swimming in milk.” Shirley made a sound of disgust.
“Why do they always put their vegetables in cream?”
“Well, I do like ice cream.”
“That’s not the same.” Lily took the last bite of her chue yuk paau and wished she had some ginger ice cream to finish things off. “Do you want to split that other baau?”
“Sure. Don’t forget there’s also faat ko.”
“Oh, yum.” Lily reached into the box and broke off a spongey piece of sweet steamed cake.
“I wish I’d brought some taan t’aat,”* Shirley said.
“Mmm. Or tau sha paau.”*
“You like those. They’re not my favorite. I like the lin yung paau.”*
Lily took another sip of her soda, the sweet bubbles fizzing on her tongue. She was full and content, and when the wind wasn’t blowing, it was almost pleasant here. She watched the changeable gray of the ocean as it swelled and sank; the white lacelike foam that swirled on top like cream; the pummeling waves that crashed against the iron-colored rocks. It was constantly changing, yet always the same.
Shirley passed her a fortune cookie, and she cracked it open to pull out the white slip of paper. She popped a piece of the cookie into her mouth, chewed, and then read the fortune aloud: “‘Perseverance brings good fortune.’”
Shirley opened hers and read: “‘To know when you have enough is to be rich. Lao Tzu.’”
Lily crunched on the rest of her cookie and thought about the two messages. “They contradict each other. Don’t they? Mine says to keep going, and yours says to know when to stop. Or maybe they work together?”
“They’re just for tourists. They don’t make sense.” Shirley let her fortune go, and they watched the small piece of paper flutter into the air. It was caught by a wind current that lifted it over the chain-link fence before shooting it down toward the Pacific.
Impulsively, Lily got up to toss her fortune over the fence after Shirley’s, as if the vast ocean were a wishing well. She leaned against the cold metal railing to watch the slip of paper twirl on a long draft down toward Cliff House until it vanished from view, too small to see. Something was under construction near the south end of the building. Trucks and winches had been left there, along with giant bales of thick wire. A Caucasian boy, perhaps five years old, was standing outside the construction zone, holding on to the hand of his mother, who was holding on to her hat.
“Lily.”
She turned around. “What?”
“I’m going to enter the Miss Chinatown contest.” The wind plucked at the edge of Shirley’s scarf and tugged it loose from her hair, and she reached up to tuck it back in place. She seemed very calm, as if she hadn’t announced an extraordinary thing.
Lily came back to the bench and sat down. “Why? This morning you said you wanted to get away from Chinatown. This is . . . the opposite.”