The Scavenger's Daughters (Tales of the Scavenger's Daughters, Book One) (34 page)

Old Town Wuxi, China

L
innea exhaled a big breath to move the sweaty strands of hair off her forehead while she rummaged in the deep recesses of her bag to find her keys. Too many commuters and the lack of space had made her morning bus ride miserable and hot. Now she could breathe a sigh of relief because she was here, at
her
store. She still couldn’t get used to the words! Feeling another burst of impatience, she dug beneath the old packs of chewing gum, a few folded love notes from Jet, and a half-empty bottle of water until she finally touched metal.

She pulled the key ring out and took a step back to look up at the sign over the door:
VINTAGE MUSE
. Jet had hung it the day before and Linnea had stepped outside at least a dozen times to look at it. She’d painted it herself and loved the elaborate characters and the buds of pink Linnea flowers etched around the border. It was a little piece of her up there, and she couldn’t be more proud.

It was hard to believe, but she was finally getting her chance to rise above the low expectations that society had set for her as an orphan. More importantly, if she succeeded, she would make her Nai Nai and Ye Ye proud—and show them the years of love and care they’d given her after finding her abandoned on the street was all worth it. She felt a lump rise in her throat as she realized she’d no longer have to bow down to obnoxious boss men, or work in the streets in the freezing winter or the scorching summers.
She’d done it! Or at least she’d almost done it—time would tell if she’d be a success or have to go back to slinging tires or hawking wares from the sidewalk.

She quickly looked around at the other shops and by the still-dark store windows realized she was the first one on the block to arrive. It had been hard to get up so early but today was the most important day of her life thus far. If she didn’t get going, her
grand opening
wasn’t going to be so
grand
.

She looked through her large but empty picture window and sighed. The bare space gave her yet another huge project to throw together before her opening. She wished she’d asked some of her sisters for help but in her usual stubborn way, she hadn’t wanted to burden anyone else. Now she had a long list of tasks befitting at least a dozen workers to be accomplished on her very own, all in only a few hours. Frustrating, but it would be a while before she could actually afford to hire employees, so she’d just have to make do with her own two hands.

Ready to tackle the day, she unlocked the door and walked through.

She stood in the middle of the room and put her hands on her hips. There was so much to do! She approached the box that she’d toppled over, opened the flaps, and began to pull out shirts and stack them on the shelves next to it, trying to sort by size. The shirts were her signature item—and the main resource that had helped her pay back the original loan to Jet.

She held up one of her favorite shirts. Printed across the front was a graphic she had sketched of what used to be called a
Tiger Kitchen Range
. In the old days, the Wuxi people would line up at local shops to buy hot water to shower with. On the shirt, the huge pipe—what they called the fuel mouths—that brought in the water looked like the head of a tiger, the two big pots it poured into resembled the body, and the chimney mimicked a swishing tail. From afar it was simply a tiger, but close up the detail on the shirt was amazing. Now there were only eight such kitchens left remaining in all of Wuxi. Linnea didn’t want those pieces of history to disappear—and with the sudden success of her shirts, obviously neither did the Wuxi residents who had bought from her.

Other shirts sported graphics of old street signs, subway tickets, and other Old China memorabilia. Her shirts had been categorized as urban vintage—and Linnea was still astounded at the popularity of them. Somehow without any real advertising she had sold out repeatedly until she’d finally found a supplier to help her keep up.

But now that she had a real store with walls and a door, in addition to her shirts she was going to collect and sell other vintage pieces. She had already collected many things that were scattered around the room, waiting to be displayed in just the right way to entice a buyer. Linnea wiped the sweat from her brow and picked up the pace. She had left too much undone the day before. She’d never finish in time.

An hour later Linnea looked up when the bell hanging over her door jangled. Backup had arrived and leading the charge of her sisters was her feisty Nai Nai, pushing a wheelchair through the narrow entrance with such energy that the gray bun on top of her head jiggled back and forth. Over her plump middle she wore her blue gingham going-out apron, but Linnea noticed by the bulges that she’d still packed her pockets full of odds and ends.

“We’ve got to talk to the city about the buses being inadequate to get wheelchairs in and out. You should have seen what we just went through.” She fussed as she pushed the chair into the store, then broke into a wide smile that crinkled her face into a thousand tiny lines.

Her sister, Maggi, waved from her wheelchair as Nai Nai pushed it over the doorjamb. On Maggi’s lap, Poppy, their youngest addition, sat wide-eyed and curious, just happy to be out for a ride.

“Linnea! Nai Nai brought us to help you. What can I do?” Maggi asked, her pigtails bouncing up and down as she looked around the store, taking it all in. At nine years old, she acted like she was big enough to tackle any task.

Linnea laughed. “You mean you’re going to stop knitting long enough to do something else with those talented little hands?”

She was relieved that despite her stubbornness in not asking for help, they’d come anyway. She should’ve known they would. And her army of sisters was just what she needed to help her out of the time crunch she had created. She was speechless with gratitude.

“Linnea,” her Nai Nai began, her face set in determination, “we’ll whip this place into shape in no time. You just give the orders. Where’s Jet?”

“Oh, he was going to be here but this is the day he already promised to help his father with some special project. He’ll be here tomorrow. He was so upset to miss this.” At least, that’s what he’d said when he broke the news to her last night. Sometimes Linnea got so frustrated with his busy schedule but then he’d flash those twinkling eyes at her and make her forget why she was even irritated. And he always went out of his way to make it up to her—she felt her cheeks warm as she thought of some of the ways he went about it.

Linnea dropped the T-shirt she was folding and jumped up. She ran to the old woman and, skirting around the chair, hugged her tightly. “Nai Nai. Thanks for coming. I thought I was going to have to do this alone!”

Nai Nai shooed her away and pulled a wrapped steamed bun from her apron pocket. “
Bah.
Of course I was coming. Do you think I’d miss your grand opening? This is a big moment for the Zheng family. You’re going to be a business owner—and at only nineteen.
Aiyo!
We’re so proud of you, Linnea. And here, eat your breakfast and don’t be sneaking out on an empty stomach again. Ivy, hand me that playpen for Poppy.”

Behind her Ivy deposited the playpen against the wall as she and the other girls bickered about who would get to do what. Lily, Ivy’s twin, kept her hand on Ivy’s arm as the girl guided her around the unfamiliar territory. Lily swung her new walking cane to find her way, but she wasn’t quite used to it yet and still depended on her sister to help her around unfamiliar areas.

Linnea still recalled when the girls had been brought to them at only five years old. Officers had brought them by after their mother had been taken away by the police. The girls were meant to be transferred to the orphanage in the next city over, but knowing their Ye Ye like they did, the
officers asked if he’d take them in. The girls had huddled behind the officer, bedraggled and reeking of smoke. Nai Nai had shuffled them through the door and tried to comfort them. Even then Ivy had protected Lily and refused to allow anyone else to touch her. She’d helped her sister eat, bathe, dress—everything, until she’d finally felt like they were in a safe place.

Now they were fifteen, and Ivy was the loudest. Her voice carried over everyone else as she walked to the front window display box.

“I want to work in the window!”

Lily followed along. She never complained about being blind, probably because she’d always had Ivy to depend on. The two were so connected that many times she didn’t even need to hold on; she could just feel where her sister was leading.

“But what about their lessons?” Linnea asked, knowing that since the year before when the city had begun sending a tutor for the girls who couldn’t go to regular school, it was considered top priority in the Zheng household.

Calli shook her head. “The only lesson they’ll learn today is how to follow their hearts and keep at their dreams until they come true. And Peony is thrilled to skip school. You can probably get her to do anything you want.”

Linnea scanned the room and saw Peony busy on the other side of the store, already scoping out the new items and probably trying to figure out how she could swipe some new things for herself. Linnea thought Peony at ten years old the most beautiful of all her sisters with her mixed blood that gave her golden eyes and fair coloring. Even the natural auburn highlights in her hair added to her exotic look and Linnea knew that when Peony grew older, she would be even prettier. But the most amazing thing was that her little sister didn’t have a clue of her own beauty; instead she acted like a tomboy—and was into everything. She usually went to the local elementary school, but she didn’t like it and wanted to stay home and be tutored, too.

Linnea stopped looking at her so intently before Peony noticed.

“Where’s Ye Ye?” she asked Nai Nai.

“He’s coming. Jasmine pulled him over to watch those old buzzards on the lane playing mahjong. Now that he’s feeling better I can’t get him to stop all his
socializing
.” She waved her hand dismissively in the air. “You’d think he was a celebrity or something the way everyone wants to have time with him.”

Linnea smiled at her Nai Nai’s words that she knew hid a deep affection for Ye Ye. She had never seen two people more in love; even after all their years together they were still totally devoted to each other. And she should have guessed her little sister, Jasmine, would have gotten Ye Ye sidetracked. Even though she’d never spoken a single word, the almost-six-year-old had Ye Ye wrapped around her little finger. And her grandfather
was
a celebrity of sorts—but then so was her Nai Nai. They’d both been recognized a year ago for their contribution to the community for taking in abandoned girls and raising them as their own over the course of a few decades. Linnea was one of those orphaned girls—but she couldn’t love the two old folks more if they were blood related. In her mind, she wasn’t an orphan because she had Nai Nai and Ye Ye, as well as her sisters, and they were a family.

She left those thoughts behind and put her hands on her hips. “Okay, we have two hours before the doors open. Peony, you and Ivy are in charge of that display window. I want you to find a way to display my T-shirts but also add some of the antique items sitting over there next to the wall. Make it look like an old Chinese living room with a flash of urban.”

The two girls came back to get the box of T-shirts, racing against each other to be first to look through the styles. Linnea figured she’d let them work for a little while before she intervened to explain to them the definition of urban.

“Maggi,” Linnea began again, “it’ll be a huge help if you just entertain Poppy while Nai Nai helps me clean up.” Her sister was doing great after her recent surgery by the Shanghai doctor to remove the sac of membranes from her spine, and Linnea was surprised that the operation had given Maggi such a different outlook on her future. Spina bifida could be cruel and her sister
might not ever be able to walk, but at least now she had control over her bladder and no longer had to wear the embarrassing diapers. And since the surgery had done so much to minimize her pain, Maggi was gaining more strength in her lower body and had even learned to lift herself up and could get in and out of her chair by herself. And Linnea couldn’t believe how talented she was with the knitting needles! She was even learning how to embroider and crochet. In her eyes, Maggi was nothing short of amazing.

“Nai Nai, the broom’s back in the storeroom. You can sweep, or I’ll sweep while you polish the glass countertop. As soon as the girls get the display going, I’ll help them get it perfect.”

Nai Nai answered her by immediately going to the storeroom for the broom.

Linnea looked at Lily, her other sister. What could she have her do to feel helpful?

“Lily, I have a box of porcelain teapots and cups over there in the corner. There’s a shelf right in front of the box. Please unwrap everything and set them up. I’ll put them in the right places after you get them all out.”

Lily would probably be even more careful than her sighted sisters, Linnea thought to herself as she watched Ivy lead Lily to the corner where the box of porcelain sat. The empty wall behind the girl caught her attention and she sighed. She’d forgotten she needed to hang one example of all her vintage shirts across the wall for a display. Luckily her Ye Ye would be there shortly. He could help her attach the lines and then clip the shirts up. He could also open the register and get her starter money situated.
He’ll feel important to be handling my money,
she mused. With her hand on her chin, she stared up at the wall, imagining the best way to hang the shirts to get the most attention from shoppers.