In a San Francisco Laundromat

The clothes are spinning in the washer, suds flying up against the shiny glass. Amy watches, waiting for the bright red flowers of her favorite shirt to appear.

It’s loud in the laundromat, even though there aren’t many people inside. But Chinatown is always noisy on the weekends, especially when the markets are open.

Grandmothers pick their ways through the narrow sidewalks, poking at fish and side-stepping discarded fruit that will be wedged in the gutters for a week. People yell out: from inside shops; at the #30 bus narrowly avoiding a jaywalker; and a man, a tourist four days into a family vacation, curses loudly when he realizes he’ll need to climb up a steep hill to reach the cable car stop at Stockton.

Inside the laundromat, Amy barely registers the noise and continues watching the clothes. It’s uncharacteristically sunny and warm in early March, and the washing machines are brighter than usual under the fluorescent lights. They seem to hum a little louder, too. If she squints her eyes, she can see her reflection as the clothes thwack and spin.

Her pants and shirts look like they’re trying to escape, limbs raised and beating on the surface.

Suddenly, she’s distracted by the chime above the door. From her periphery, it looked like her mother was entering, but it’s a different woman.

Calming, she focuses back on the machines. She’s jumpy but has no reason to be. She was told to watch the clothes while Mama bought groceries and that’s exactly what she’s doing. Still, her heart is racing.

Amy and her mother live in a very small apartment above Waverly Place. Most days, Amy goes to school before Mama gets up and then comes home to a neighbor’s apartment. Mrs. Cheung doesn’t say much and her apartment isn’t very entertaining. There are no books or candies or channels except what the dish outside her window beams in from China, but she lets Amy do her homework in the living room with the TV on. So she sits on the couch and skims her workbooks, her toes barely skimming the worn carpets, while the variety show dancers and comedians of CCTV skip across their technicolor sets.

Amy can barely understand Mandarin and has a hard time translating the songs. Most of her neighbors and friends speak Cantonese. Each day, she’s losing more and more of the language her father wanted her to learn. But he left so there’s hardly anyone to practice with.

She could practice with Mama; but by the time she comes home, Mrs. Cheung has already made Amy some instant ramen or given her money for fried chicken at Quickly, and unlocked the door to Amy’s apartment so she can go to bed. Besides, Mama usually speaks in English. She thinks Amy has lost all her language.

Chinatown is dark and usually quiet when her mother walks in from her waitressing job at a Szechuan restaurant in Outer Richmond late at night. Sometimes, she checks on Amy; and sometimes, Amy manages to stay awake.

“You did good in school?”

Amy nods.

“She give you dinner?”

Amy nods again.

“Ok.”

After her mother’s shadow departs down the hallway, Amy lies back down on the the futon to face the kitchen. But thoughts crowd her mind before going back to sleep.

Why doesn’t Mama say things in Chinese unless she’s mad or tired, she wonders. It’s hard to think in other languages but shouldn’t she be used to it by now? Maybe on my birthday, she’ll make dumplings. Is the light from the street lamps orange or is it the window that makes it look orange? Do Mama’s feet hurt after working so long? The way she walks sounds different at night, her feet shush more on the floor.

Sometimes, Amy’s Mama will be home even later. Those are the nights that Auntie Mabel and Auntie Kay from the restaurant want Mama to come to a party.

Amy takes pride in her Mama being young and still pretty, and she likes to watch the three women laugh and gossip in the kitchen. Mama is the quietest of them and she doesn’t usually smile wide, worried about the gap where a rotten back tooth fell out. Amy will wait until they leave and then wait a little more until she’s sure they’re gone. She’ll pop up and watch old shows and movies on their small TV until her eyes start to flicker.

Once, she didn’t hear the keys in the door and Mama stopped in the doorway at the sight of Amy with the TV on. She began spitting out her words, the Mandarin flowing fast and high like it was created for anger. She said that Amy was stupid and ungrateful, making her brain into soup sitting so close to the TV and not sleeping like good girls were supposed to. How was she supposed to do well at school if she acted like this?

Amy panicked and said, “But Mama, tomorrow is Saturday and there’s no school.”

Mama’s face twisted and she threw her keys down. “Don’t ever talk back to me.”

She slammed the door to her room, and Amy cried when she laid back down. For a week, she only left home to go to school and then, Mama moved the TV into her bedroom.

Still, Amy will watch TV when she knows Mama will be gone for a while. She is alert now and when she hears her mother coming in, she is like a tornado. Her heart will leap, pulling her body with it. She’ll push the off button, run down the short hallway, and dive onto the futon just as Mama opens the door.

Her mother will stand there, a small figure backlit by the washed out hallway lights, and Amy will squeeze her eyes open just enough to blur the edges. Mama seems tired and Amy thinks she can tell that rules were broken. But she closes and locks the front door without saying anything, takes off her shoes, and carries them into her room.

Maybe that’s why Amy’s heart beats so fast each time the laundromat door opens. She’s trained for flight.

The door opens again and this time, it’s a very old, very small woman Amy has seen before. She wears a long, dirty grey coat and always has plastic sandals on, even when it’s raining. Sometimes, she digs through the trash cans but the other women who collect bottles and cans shoo her away.

Amy was taught to call women of her age Na-Na out of respect, but her mother never looks or talks to this woman. She rushes by, holding Amy’s hand and tugs a little if she lingers.

The old woman shuffles to a plastic chair and sits down heavily, scratching at her arm in light circular motions. She grunts and looks at the machines whirring along the wall but doesn’t seem inclined to do much else.

Amy remembers reading a book about a princess who has to go into hiding as a kitchen maid named Furball, disguised in piles of animal skins. Maybe, Amy thinks, this woman is like a princess who has to hide from ogres. Maybe she’s forgotten who she is. Maybe she has a secret or a magic spell or a curse she needs to break.

Imagining these possibilities calms Amy’s heart while a slow heat builds in her head, like cogs in a machine springing to life. She’s just warming up to a happily ever after when Mama actually walks in. She’s carrying a big plastic bag and looks around, confirming Amy is still there, as are their clothes. Mama nods to a neighbor she knows and avoids looking at the old woman, now dozing with her head tucked into a corner.

“Guo lei,” Mama beckons to Amy. She puts her bag of groceries on the floor and together, they move the clothes from the washer to the dryer across the aisle.

When they sit down on the hard plastic chairs, Mama reaches into her bag and hands Amy a small carton of sweet soy milk. She helps her put the straw into the silver foiled hole and begins reading a local Chinese newspaper.

Amy drinks the milk and smiles. This is her favorite part of laundry day with Mama. She daydreams about princesses and hiding and whatever it is that makes hearts beat fast.