If I looked more like Mum, I could go without the veil. Then again, if I looked like Mum, I wouldn’t be in this situation. Rounded cheeks more like a robin’s breast than a swift’s, a weightier nose, lighter coloring. A one-degree shift in my appearance might’ve changed my whole journey. Mum gave up a lot to marry Ba—not just her parents, but the underrated power to be invisible.
Briskly April shakes out another gown, and I swear a waterfall pours from her fingertips. A thick swath of silk runs from jade green at the top to an indigo blue at the hem, just like the colors of a peacock. Beaded rosettes give the fabric movement and shimmer. “This is for your meeting with the captain tomorrow.”
I snort. “Go’an. I can’t wear that.” A bit of Mum’s Cockney leaks out.
“Why not? This style just slips on.” She shows me both sides of the robe-like garment. It’s a kimono with wide sleeves that hang to the elbow. “The easy fit paired with my sumptuous fabric perfectly blurs the line between day and evening wear.”
“It’s too fine. What if I step on the hem or, I dunno, stink it up?”
“You stink the same as everyone else up here. It’s just a dress. You’re supposed to wear it, not let it wear you. That’s called style.” She gathers the kimono close to her, as if giving it a hug, then hangs it in the armoire.
The English rose droops a little in the mirror. This trousers dress and the one with the crane demand attention, for sure. But that kimono is the kind of dress that demands not only attention, but also a carriage and four horses. I sigh, resigning myself to dealing with this “style” problem later. “Have you found Mr. Stewart?”
“Not yet, but I found a clue. My sources tell me he favors purple bowlers and likes to sun himself on the Promenade after lunch.”
“Thank you.” A rush of gratitude sweeps through my heart even though I know April and I are just business associates. My plan is coming together.
“Good night, darling.”
After April leaves, I decide to take an evening stroll after all. Mrs. Sloane purchased rubber-soled boots for the walking she planned to do around the first-class Promenade on A-Deck. Even though I have to wear the pumps, I may as well get the lay of the land before hunting down Mr. Stewart tomorrow.
With dinner being served, the area is mostly deserted. The dimming sun bathes me with a last rinse of warmth and tints the sky a deep pink. Lady Sky wears rouge when she wants to be noticed.
Reaching the forward section of the Promenade, I look out onto the spade-shaped forecastle, which is crowded with bollards, winches, and spools of rope. A massive anchor lies at the end, an iron pulling us toward some giant magnet in America. Up the mast, one of the lookouts rubs his arms. Jamie said the crow’s nest is the worst place to be stuck, always either too cold or too hot, and as tedious as stirring tea with your eyes. Those lookouts must have very good vision. Neither one even wears binoculars.
Spray mists my skin as the Titanic plows the ocean. The sun hovers breathlessly above the horizon, a sovereign held by invisible fingers. Without warning, the coin seems to instantly vanish into some deep pocket.
I rub my eyes. How did I miss the sun’s fall? The heavens have played another trick on me.
My heart sags in my chest. First Mum, then Ba. And now Jamie. How can he reject me, the only remaining member of his family? We used to be inseparable, learning early on that two were better than one when one of us climbed out of the crib using the other as a stepstool. Ba and Mum taught us that family came first, but with them gone, maybe he’s looking for a new one.
I sniff, my nose running because of more than just the sudden cold.
By the time I ascend to the Boat Deck, the sky is the blue-black of a crow’s wing, lit by a feather of a moon. If Jamie is here idling with the stars, he’ll never beat me. But the canvas on the third lifeboat is pulled tight as a drum.
Fine, Brother. Give it your best shot.
A rustling picks up my ears. It’s coming from the next lifeboat down. I squint into the dark. A bit of the canvas is folded back, so neatly I almost miss it.
Jamie is here. I approach the lifeboat, my feet light. “Is the view better from this one?”
The canvas mostly covers Jamie’s form, though in the dim glow of the electric lights, I can see his elbow sticking out from where his hands prop up his head. I lift the canvas.
But it’s not Jamie’s face staring back at me.
16
Bo’s surprised face gazes up, and I bite my tongue to keep from screaming. “What are you doing here?”
“I ask you the same.”
“Where’s Jamie?”
He snorts. “Not here.”
“Anyone else in there?” I lift the canvas higher.
Bo yanks it back and continues in his careful English, “No. Now go, Stowaway, before someone sees.” He lies back again, re-covering himself with the canvas.
“When’s the last time you saw him?”
His face becomes cunning. “Why? You worry he will win?”
“Of course not,” I lie. “I worry about the bad influences around him.”
The dark slashes of his eyebrows flex. “We had health inspections before boarding.”
“Health inspections?”
“Yes. No one has influenza.”
“Not influenza.” My laugh cracks like an egg, and Bo blinks as if splashed. “Influences.” I provide the word in Cantonese before continuing in English, “You and that old one-toothed geezer think girls shouldn’t tell boys what to do.”
He grimaces. “I only meant that Jamie may not want to take orders from his sister anymore.”
I sniff. “What makes you think he took orders from me before?” The Titanic sways, and I catch myself on the smooth lip of the lifeboat.
“He told me about—how do you say?—Christmas tree.”
A cold breeze seems to slice off my nose. “He told you about that?”
During one wet spring when we were eleven, I saw men clearing trees in Cadogan Place Gardens, a few blocks from where we lived in Chelsea. I told Jamie we should bring home one of the evergreens to cheer up Ba, who hadn’t left our flat for twenty-eight days after being thrown out of a public tennis court, since “dogs and Chinese don’t need to play tennis.” If he couldn’t use the public courts, he couldn’t give lessons, and he’d already spent all our cracked-teapot money on rackets. Jamie refused to help me get the tree, saying it was a pigeon egg of an idea and that Ba should never have bought rackets in the first place. I told him he was a pigeon egg of a son for saying that. Eventually, he relented, but how could he share that story with a perfect stranger?