Read Online Outrun the Moon by Stacey Lee - Free Book Online

Water stung my eyes and filled my nose. I thought for sure it was the end.
    Just when I couldn’t hold my breath any longer, the ocean spit us out. We lay heaving on the sand, limbs entangled. As he gazed at me, water dripped from his face onto mine. He lifted my hand to show me that although I had let go, he had not. “Remind me never to listen to you again,” he said in a surly voice before sliding his salty lips over mine.
    It was more a kiss of relief, of joy at surviving, of the need to feel something warm and alive. It never happened again after that, though I often wished for it.
    As I do now.
    He lets me go. I pick my way back down the length of the pier and I could swear his eyes follow me. But when I turn around, Tom has returned to his work, his strong back flexing as he heaves a crate onto his pull wagon.

6
    LATER THAT NIGHT, MA, JACK, AND I WAIT on the corner of Dupont and Stockton for Monsieur Du Lac’s automobile. Ba doesn’t see me off, citing too much work, but I know it’s because he has already given as much approval as he can give. Ma catches me looking in the direction of the laundry shop and
tsk
s her tongue. “New shoes take time for working in.”
    A small crowd has collected around us to observe the spectacle of me in my fine navy dress. It is one of four that Monsieur Du Lac had delivered, along with a cream-colored shawl, black stockings, black boots, and a smart-looking felt hat. I look like a proper St. Clare’s girl, at least from the neck down.
    The dainty Ling-Ling and her shrewd mother peer through the window of Number Nine Bakery. Despite my efforts to ignore the buzz around me, a few comments from the mostly male crowd get through.
    â€œShe’s going to some fancy school up on Nob Hill.”
    I groan. Chinese people think anything of value must be located on Nob Hill.
    â€œMust cost a lot of money.”
    â€œThey don’t have money. Maybe she has caught the eye of a wealthy man’s son.”
    â€œMercy? Her cheeks are round but not the rest of her. No one wants to hold a spring onion at night.”
    â€œShe’s easier on the eyes than your sorry wife.”
    Ma turns around and barks, “If you keep talking nonsense, your tongues will fly out of your mouths like bats from a cave.”
    Instantly, the chatter stops. No one wants to cross a fortune-teller, especially one as formidable as Ma.
    Ling-Ling minces up to me bearing a tiny square of steamed cake, and all eyes shift to her silk-clad figure. Though her feet are not bound, she likes to walk as if they are to make herself more attractive. Her ma follows behind like a dragon’s barbed tail. “Sister, you are looking as fresh as a bubbling spring,” Ling-Ling simpers. “I have brought you some prosperity cake for your voyage.”
    I take the waxy package with the cake, which is burned on one side and would’ve been thrown out, anyway. Ma makes a noise at the back of her throat. They just wanted an excuse to poke around in my business. “Ling-Ling, Auntie, you are too generous.”
    â€œIt grieves us to see you go. But I am sure you will have many admirers in your new life.” Ling-Ling’s eyelashes flutter coyly. It is said that she rubs her face with the pearly sliver of an abalone shell every day for a lustrous countenance.
    I grit my teeth. “I doubt it, given it is a school for girls.”
    Her ma speaks without moving her thin lips. “Not every tree is meant to bear fruit. Sometimes a girl has too much
yeung
to be married.” That is her way of saying I am too male, as opposed to the female energy,
yam
. The woman considers herself an experton marriage, having secured the silk merchant’s son for Ling-Ling. Unfortunately he died last winter before they were married; though he
was
forty-two.
    The cake grows soggy in my palm.
    Ma puts her steadying hands on my shoulders, which have migrated to my ears. “I have found