Mambo in Chinatown

“Absolutely not.”

That was clear. I faced him. “Okay. Are you sure you want to be here?”

His face gentled. “Evelyn’s a pain in the neck but she’s my sister.”

I sighed, warming to him and thinking of Lisa. “I understand that.”

The lesson tape began with a steady foxtrot. “Let’s see if you can still dance.”

Ryan held out his hand to me. “Shall we?”

I let him hold me in dance position. He started off with his right leg and kicked me in the shins.

“Ow!”

“Sorry,” he said.

I reached out to slap him on the left thigh, the way I now did to all of the male students so they’d remember which leg was the left one. Before I knew it, he’d encircled my wrist with his hand, stopping me from moving.

I looked up at him and narrowed my eyes.

His lips quirked upward on one side. “I’m not used to allowing people to strike me, ma’am.”

“You kicked me first. And it is the dance teacher’s right to make sure her students know left from right.”

His fingers loosened and he sighed. “I knew I’d regret coming here. Go on. Do your worst.”

I slapped him on the left thigh, hard. “The leg that hurts, that is your left leg.”

We moved off into the foxtrot basic step and he didn’t confuse his left with his right again.

—

Early on the morning of the Hunter test, I bustled around. Pa leaned against the wall, a deep crease on his cheek from where he’d lain on his pillow. He’d already lit incense and we’d all bowed to Ma, to ask her for luck today. I always got home so late from the studio that I hadn’t been able to be with Lisa as she studied the night before. I remembered the hopeless cram sessions from my own school days, the desperation that turned into failure at the test. But whatever happened with Lisa today, I hoped everything would go back to normal with her afterward.

“What did you do yesterday to prepare?” I asked.

Lisa was hopping on one leg, then the other. “Not that much.”

“Stop that, you’ll wake the neighbors.” I pursed my lips. I shouldn’t have let her study by herself. “Why not?”

“I’d already done the practice test. I went over it again but I didn’t have anything else.”

“You could have studied vocabulary lists or something. That Fabrizio had hours of homework per week, you said. Maybe you should have borrowed something from him.”

Pa said, “Charlie, it’s a little too late for this now. I’m sure Lisa will do her best. What happened to that boy anyway?”

Lisa said, “They figured it out with his records and he’s taking the test today too. Ha

“What did you do with Uncle Henry and De

She looked away. “They just went over my homework with me, which I knew anyway. Mr. Song said that it was basically an IQ test, which means they don’t test so much what you know. They want to see how you think.”

“Oh, it’s okay. I’m just nervous too. In the worst case, you don’t get in and then, well, we’ll do something really nice together.” I looked at Pa. “Right, Pa?”

He nodded. “Maybe we could go to Central Park or something.”

Lisa smiled. “I’d like that.” Then she turned serious again. “Yesterday at school, I read on their website that people shouldn’t come to line up at four a.m., that it won’t help you at all. Really, who’s going to do something like that?”

I said, “Ha

—

On the subway uptown to the test site on the Upper East Side, we saw other kids and parents traveling together.

“Do you think they’re going to the test too?” Lisa asked.

“Could be.”

“It feels weird not to go to school on a Friday.” Lisa dug her fingers into my hand. “I’m nervous, Charlie.”

“It’ll be okay. You know you’re smart. What are you scared of?”

“That everyone else prepared a lot more than me. That I’ll do something wrong, like I’ll fill everything in with the wrong type of pencil and they won’t be able to grade my test. Or I’ll miss a line and every single one of my answers will be in the wrong place.”

I thought a moment, then pulled something out of my bag. “I was going to give it to you afterward but this is for you.”

“Oh, Charlie!” Lisa held it up and then started to giggle. “It’s beautiful!”

I looked at it and started cracking up too. It was the scarf I’d worked on for her for months. It was riddled with holes where I’d dropped stitches. It grew wider and wider, then suddenly narrowed, then grew wide again. The surface was lumpy because I’d pulled some parts too tightly and some parts were too loose. It looked more like a handkerchief a dog had gnawed on than a scarf.

Lisa tucked it around her neck and closed her eyes with a contented sigh. “No one else could have made something like this, Charlie. Only you.”

—

The test site area was so crowded, we had a hard time finding the entrance. The sidewalk was slippery with ice and slush, and sleet rained down upon us. Finally, we saw policemen and people wearing buttons clustered around a door. So many parents and kids were milling around.

Lisa gasped. Her breath was white. “This isn’t just a crowd. This is the line.”

What we’d thought were people standing around was actually a long line that already wrapped almost all the way around the huge block, back to the entrance. Lisa and I hurried to join them. We were an hour early, and still all of these people had beaten us here. I studied the others. A woman in a fancy coat and high-heeled boots stood in front of us, holding her son’s hand. Behind us was a heavyset Hispanic man who looked like a construction worker, with his daughter next to him. Everywhere I looked, I saw the same set expression of determination and worry. People were desperate to get into this school. What chance did my little sister have? I wished I’d done more. I should have figured out how to get her into a course, no matter how expensive.

As the line started to move, people wearing buttons reading “Hunter College High School” started walking up and down past us, calling, “Take all water and food out of your bags. Nothing is allowed inside except for your writing utensils. All electronic items will be confiscated. No candy, no snacks.”

Lisa clutched the scarf I gave her, her eyes panicked.

Suddenly, I remembered. “Do you have your pass with you?”

Lisa took it out of her coat pocket.

“Whew.”

We approached the entrance and I thanked the gods that Lisa had her entry ticket with her. The policemen called, “Parents to the left, children to the right. Make sure you have your pass out.” The crowd pushed us forward, the line separating into parents and children. The kids filed inside the building and the adults were left in the cold.

I realized I wouldn’t be allowed into the building with Lisa. “How will you know where to go?”

“Don’t worry, Charlie. They’ll tell me.” Her face was white, she was blinking to get the sleet off of her eyelashes. “I wish you could come with me.”

“Me too.” In a moment, we’d be separated. “Don’t forget to go pee before the test.”

Lisa said, “Okay” and then she was gone.

—

I went into a Starbucks and tugged on my hair while I waited for Lisa. She was terrified and all I could do was tell her to pee beforehand. I was so useless. All of the composure I’d gained in the dance studio seemed to disappear when I had to solve real-life problems. People sat around me, working on their laptops and texting on their phones. After a while, I felt embarrassed staying there, so I went out and paced in the cold. It had stopped snowing. The skyscrapers of Manhattan loomed over me. Chinatown was nothing like this. I was fairly close to the studio but hadn’t ventured further than the couple of blocks between the subway and the building.