Scarlett knocked on Widow Mok's door. Fat as a grub, her neighbor had once been a famed Chinese opera singer, performing screeching ballads, with mincing steps, a jingling headdress, and snowy face paint. And despite her title, she hadn't lost her husband. She'd been the mistress of a Chinatown leader who had kept her in style, and it was said all she had left of her former riches were her fabulous gowns. Nowadays, she wore satin sweat suits and remained vain about her tiny feet, shod in silk slippers embroidered with peonies, the only part of her wardrobe into which she could still fit. Scarlett proposed trading plum wine for a qi pao that now wouldn't have contained one of Widow Mok's arms, a tunic dress that seemed modest until you noticed the tightness of the bodice and the slits up the sides designed to reveal flashes of leg. Scarlett had never owned one—nor had the occasion to wear one herself. "For that?" Widow Mok sniffed. "My dresses were made by the finest tailor in Shanghai." "And this by the finest herbalist." Scarlett unscrewed the bottle of plum wine, which released the fragrance of blossoms set afire. Liberty, strapped to her chest, started to shift, and Scarlett rocked from side to side to keep her asleep. She'd taken the baby with her to gain the sympathies of those she haggled with, but Widow Mok seemed unmoved. "Plum wine helps with digestion, to fortify your qi." Which could help Widow Mok lose weight, Scarlett didn't need to add. She poured two cups, toasting to her health and longevity. The sip burned, and something unfurled in her and the widow, too, like a bright red silk banner rippling in the wind. Widow Mok's eyes glittered. "Is Daisy getting married?" Only Daisy would fit into the qi pao. Only Daisy seemed worthy of a man's attention. Scarlett's skin prickled. She was no beauty and had never staked her ambitions or her future on her appearance, but she'd also never looked so haggard. She resembled a lank-haired, hollow-eyed ghost from the old tales, those who lured travelers to their death. If Boss Yeung could see her now, he'd recoil. During her pregnancy, the shape-shifting, however humiliating, however uncomfortable, had sustained the baby. Now the wreck of her body lacked any nobility, and she felt like an old sow before the slaughter. The qi pao stank of mothballs, the scent of not letting go, the last reminder of Widow Mok's youth. Glamour, grace, and desire. The dress lacked its top frog closure, only its frayed threads left behind, as if it had exploded under high pressure the final time Widow Mok tried it on. Yet it also had nearly invisible stitches, the sort that blinded a dedicated tailor, and embroidery so fine it seemed painted on with an eyelash. A quality unavailable in Chinatown, unavailable most anywhere except the imperial court, and Scarlett knew just who would want such a dress. The landlord's daughter wasn't the only one getting married. Little Fox was also engaged, though her groom remained in Guangzhou, unable to get his fiancé visa or afford the plane ticket. Their wedding had been postponed three times. Her last fiancé, the one who'd jilted her, the one who'd later died in a car accident, not only ran out on her, but left her with a worthless engagement ring. When she tried to sell it, she discovered the diamond was a fake. For this marriage, Little Fox would surely want a fine dress. She didn't have the money for one. If she did, she wouldn't have been living at Evergreen Gardens, and she would have spent her savings on getting her fiancé here. Little Fox welcomed her into the apartment. Though she lacked cash, she still might have something of value she could trade. Looking around, Scarlett noticed a man's suit—its heavy fabric matte and tasteful, its understated cut dignified as a banker—protected in a dry cleaner's clear plastic bag. She could make an even better trade with the suit. Fit for a wedding, it must have belonged to Little Fox's first fiancé. Little Fox had a narrow face and delicate chin, and might have seemed sly but for her broad smile that rendered her feelings transparent. Her eyes grew wide when Scarlett showed her the dress. Little Fox held it against herself, stroking the silk. She must have been imagining herself in the arms of her husband-to-be at her wedding banquet. "It's yours," Scarlett said. "Trade me that old suit." Little Fox wanted Fiancé No. 2 to wear it to their wedding, she said. "I can't. I already promised it to him." "A dress like this, you can't get for such a bargain." Scarlett was sweating, the baby radiating heat like a car engine against her chest. "Bad luck. Start off new. Listen—why do you think your man can't get here?" Little Fox asked, "A ghost?" She bought lottery tickets every week, paid for blessings at the temple, and lit incense daily. "Whose ghost?" Scarlett asked. "Of my first fiancé!" Little Fox buried her face in her hands. Scarlett must have hit upon her deepest fear. Just as Scarlett felt the relief of pulling off another trade, Liberty grunted with the red-faced exertions that heralded a bowel movement. A disgusting but now familiar warmth seeped in the sling against Scarlett's chest. Parenthood plunged you in more shit and piss than raising pigs. Little Fox slipped on the dress, transforming her into a princess that no man ever could have abandoned. She smoothed her hands on the silk and sucked in her soft belly. If she lost a few kilos, the dress would fit perfectly, as if she'd been poured in. Liberty squirmed, trying to escape the sling. The stinking diaper would end the negotiations if Scarlett didn't hurry. Scarlett zipped up the qi pao, which glimmered over Little Fox's curves. She turned Little Fox toward the hand mirror nailed to the wall—too high up and too small to reflect the stain on the hip. "Grow old and white-haired together," Scarlett told her. "A good match of a hundred years." Traditional wedding congratulations that Little Fox must have longed to hear. She handed over the suit. Her fiancé—her dead fiancé—had excellent if expensive tastes. She beamed, confident in the new fiancé she had fallen in love with online, confident as Scarlett never had been and never would be. Scarlett hurried away, her eyes stinging, thinking about Boss Yeung. On a trip to an island off Zhuhai, they'd splashed on the beach and feasted on prawns, pink and plump, sucking garlicky sauce off their fingers. He served her the parts of the crab with the most succulent, easiest-to-reach meat. Afterward, he skipped stones, and she clapped her hands with a girlish delight she had never allowed herself. She didn't know how to swim, but she followed him into the water. She clung to him, breathing into his ear as he breaststroked through the waves. She kicked her legs along at the surface. Here she gave in to weakness, to vulnerability. His back muscles rippled beneath her, as if he were the great sea turtle Ao who held up the sky. One time he'd swum so far with her on his back that the crescent of sand disappeared and only the sapphire sea surrounded them. The depths dropping down, down, down. After a wave splashed into her face, she sputtered. Boss Yeung told her to close her eyes. To shut out her fears. His movements, steady and sure, told her he wouldn't fail her. If he'd been slow to reassure her, in her panic she might have strangled him and dug her knees into his back, drowning them both to stay afloat for a few seconds longer. But he had calmly kicked back toward shore, the sound of his breath the only sound left in the world. She yearned for him now, for his attentions, light and circling, her back arching to meet him. His weight on her—in her. His lips at her neck, his hands at her rib cage, their bodies sweaty. The air heavy with the scent of their lovemaking, the salt of the ocean, and the green of a bamboo grove. Never again. Heading back to her apartment, Scarlett passed by the communal kitchen, where Old Wu called out, "Guniang!" "Sifu!" she replied. She would change Liberty's diaper, then come back to check out the preparations for a communal dinner. Auntie Ng had commandeered a legion of volunteers, and frozen turkeys crowded the counter, uniform and menacing as a fleet of alien spacecraft taking over earth. Three bobbed in the plugged-up sink beside a stove where a pot of boiling water steamed up the kitchen. She startled at the sound of glass shattering. Old Wu had dropped a jar of pasta sauce that spattered red like a crime scene, and Auntie Ng threw him out. He followed Scarlett to her apartment, saying, "She insisted, but she'll never want my help again." After cooking for decades in Chinatown restaurants, he could have prepared a feast, but these days, he spent as little time as possible in the kitchen, eating for free in the many places where he'd trained waiters-turned-cooks. Although she stepped back, hoping he couldn't smell the dirty diaper, he reached for Liberty's head peeping out of the sling. He stroked her head, and the baby rewarded him with a toothless smile. "I'll be right back," she said. "Hold on." He emerged with a pair of silver-sequined shoes for Scarlett. The soles were scuffed, but he knew a cobbler who could do the repairs, for a good price. "Fit for a princess!" Scarlett held the shoes in the palm of her hands, exotic birds about to take flight. "I wish I had an occasion." "We'll find one," he said. Was he trying to ask her out for a date? In the last week, he'd brought her a discarded flower arrangement and a glass bead necklace. He studied the suit she carried. "Seems like you have one already?" Liberty wasn't crying; maybe the diaper could wait a minute longer. Scarlett hurriedly asked if he knew anyone who needed a suit, who might be willing to trade. Not the butcher, not the orderly, not the bus driver. "The only men I know wear uniforms, not suits," he said. "What kind of buyer are you looking for?" Wasn't there a youth organizer who lived upstairs? Maybe he needed a suit, she said, when he met with government officials. "When you ask for money, you need to look poor—not rich!" He cocked his head at Liberty, who copied him. "A suit like this, you might find only once in a lifetime." He didn't need a suit, but she couldn't allow him to protect her. She could never return his affections, and she didn't want to mislead him as Boss Yeung had misled her. He touched the sleeve. "What are you asking for it?" "Two sows, a goat, and a dozen hens," she said lightly, and she excused herself. Back at the apartment, Scarlett discovered that Daisy and her son had gone out. Usually, if one woman left the room, the other sprawled out with her baby, like one of those capsules dropped into water that expands to fifty times its size. No chatter, no breath, no presence, just you and your baby. Daisy's side of the clothesline was empty. No—no. Quicksand pulled at Scarlett and she stumbled to the biscuit tin where she found the birth certificates, and in the corner, Daisy's belongings, folded and stacked, and Didi's favorite rattle, a ball within a ball. She hadn't packed up and left. Maybe the walls had pressed in on her, and she had to get out to breathe. Scarlett shuddered. She fingered the savings that she'd taken the precaution of tucking into her pocket. At Daisy's age, she would have left without question if anyone had put her down the way Scarlett had. The long days would grow longer without another pair of eyes, another pair of hands to help her. She'd known all along, but the full force of it hit her now: if and when Scarlett found a job, what would become of Liberty without Daisy to babysit and without Didi, the playmate she'd known almost since birth? On her own, Daisy might call her parents within the week, maybe within the day, and without her, Scarlett couldn't last much longer in San Francisco. But anyone she sought for help—her mother, Boss Yeung, Mama Fang—would attempt to part her and her daughter. She smoothed the birth certificates flat. That day, after they'd returned from City Hall, they made a silent promise to their children and to each other, but their future together suddenly seemed in jeopardy. Liberty bawled. Scarlett hadn't changed her diaper in time and now it had blown out. Scarlett rinsed her off in the shower, Liberty's screams echoing off the tile; changed her into another outfit, which she fought, thrashing; and scrubbed the shit-stained baby sling while Liberty rode her hip. Her squawks bouncing off the tile made a din louder than a henhouse under siege. Soon after Scarlett finished cleaning up, Daisy returned to the apartment. She didn't say where she'd been. Her face was flushed, her hair windblown. She must have wandered Chinatown or might well have climbed up onto the roof to howl. When Didi fussed, Daisy started building a tower out of bags of rolls, boxes of stuffing, and cans of fruit cocktail to entertain him. It tumbled over, cans rolled in every direction, and Daisy drove the heels of her palms into her eyes, at the end of her patience. When Scarlett touched her shoulder, she whirled around and grabbed the suit's pant leg. "What's this? If we don't have money for a detective, we don't have money for this." Scarlett might have told her but for Daisy's ungrateful tone. She'd been living off of Scarlett for months, and she shouldn't be questioning her. They tugged on the suit, the seams straining, until it flew out of Scarlett's hands and knocked over a bottle, splashing formula all over. Scarlett blotted the snail's trail with a wet wipe, darkening the stain. The smell of wet, oily wool rose up in the stuffy room, the smell of winter and brisk mornings. Daisy reached for the suit. "Let me. There has to be someone—" She'd lived with ayis all her life, and knew only how to issue orders. "You make messes. I clean them up." Scarlett had become a scold like Ma and for the first time, she understood why she'd enraged her mother, who yelled because she felt old and because her flailing arms and shouts might cover up her fear. Because Daisy, willful and impulsive, reminded Scarlett of all her own failures since. — In the hallway, Scarlett fanned the wet spot on the suit, blowing on it while trying to lull Liberty back to sleep. She tucked the sling over the baby's head and paced. Joe Ng bolted out of the apartment he shared with his mother, his jeans sagging so low he tripped on the hem. Auntie Ng stood in the doorway, the fight gone out of her. They'd been arguing ever since he spent savings earmarked for his tuition on a used motorcycle he restored to showroom perfection. Auntie Ng wanted Joe to finish school, to land a desk job in the glass towers where she toiled, cleaning offices in the Financial District. Scarlett followed her back into the apartment. How better to imagine her son in the life she wanted for him than with a new suit? With this suit, he could interview tomorrow or next week, start off in Chinatown at a real estate office or insurance agency. "The suit will inspire him," Scarlett said. Auntie Ng's face, wrinkled with worry, resembled a paper sack crumpled and smoothed out. "The only thing that inspires him is the motorcycle." He parked it on the sidewalk in front of Evergreen Gardens. The apartment was chilly, the window open to air out the stink of polishing cream and motor oil in bottles stacked against the wall. "Get rid of the motorcycle," she said, in a flash of inspiration—the most uneven trade yet, and Scarlett wasn't sure if Auntie Ng would risk the wrath of her son. Auntie Ng sighed, glancing at Liberty, as if longing for the days when she alone satisfied her son's needs. "I have to check on the turkey." "He can never repay what he owes you," Scarlett said. Auntie Ng brushed her fingers on top of the combination television and DVD player. "Take this." To an outside observer, the exchange would seem reasonable, with a slight edge in Scarlett's favor. She'd find many takers for electronics. Or would she? Old Wu had scavenged a slender silver stereo that he'd found in the street, and few would want a television boxy as a fish tank. Auntie Ng's son probably planned to replace it. "We don't have room," Scarlett said. She laid the suit on the bottom bunk. Auntie Ng placed her son's jeans and shirt against the suit. Too big, but he'd fit. "He'll grow into the suit." Scarlett tugged the keys out of her hands. "Or you can get Tailor Hu to hem it." Auntie Ng touched the lapel. "It's a serious color. For serious business." She turned the television on, a cartoon. "Your kids can learn English, by watching." Just as Scarlett had invoked Auntie Ng's son, so too would Auntie Ng appeal to maternal guilt. She was shrewder than Scarlett had supposed. "It's only a matter of time until he gets in an accident," Scarlett said. "He says he's careful." Auntie Ng stroked the suit again. "He can't stop a driver who doesn't see him from running him over." Auntie Ng rubbed her temple. "I should ask him." "Missy wouldn't like it, if he sold it," Scarlett said. His girlfriend, who wore bright lipstick and denim miniskirts that showed off her thighs when she straddled the motorcycle. "With a job like that, he'd never have time for her. Zaogao." How unfortunate. She left before Auntie Ng changed her mind, and headed to the Pearl Pavilion. She'd sworn never to return after she'd inadvertently humiliated herself in front of Manager Kwok during her interview, but the restaurant hosted banquets for Chinatown's rich and powerful—including, Scarlett knew, the wedding reception of her landlord's daughter. She knocked on his door. He was sitting at his desk, paging through a stack of paperwork. The model motorcycle, its curves freshly polished, sat on top of the liquor cabinet. "You again," he said. He was courteous enough not to bring up what happened at their last meeting. She mentioned Old Wu, how he'd escaped kitchen duty back at Evergreen Gardens by dropping the jar of pasta sauce. Manager Kwok grinned. "He learned that from me! It worked a couple times, until he realized what I was doing and kept me on the worst duties." She'd coax him into reminiscing. "What kind?" "Peeling and chopping hundreds of onions. Shredding a mountain of cabbage. Oh! And the slush bucket." "Slush bucket?" "Where you pour grease, leftover drinks, any liquid. It's heavy, it's smelly, and you have to dump it at the very end of the shift, when all you want to do is fall into bed." He laughed. "I learned my lesson." "You can't get anything past Old Wu, can you?" Scarlett asked. "I've stopped trying." She had him affectionately recalling those days, proud of what he'd survived and what he'd become. His mood grew expansive, open to the possibilities that Scarlett wanted to offer him. "You need a motorcycle?" she asked. "You're a door-to-door dealership!" he said. "Not today." "For deliveries. For places the van can't go," she said. "It's free to take a look. Go for a test drive." Manager Kwok followed her up the street to Evergreen Gardens, where the motorcycle crouched like a tiger ready to spring. Its chrome trim gleaming mirror-bright, cared for unlike anything else on this shabby block. He circled the motorcycle, his hands twitching with the desire to touch. He kicked the tires, pointed out nonexistent dents and scratches, and she knew he wanted it but didn't have the money himself. She proposed a trade. The motorcycle, for six hundred dollars off her landlord's wedding banquet bill. "The next couple months must be so busy, with the holidays. Thanksgiving. Christmas. Spring Festival." A hint he could pad the ledger of other banquets to make up the difference. His boss would never notice. He reached for the keys, asking for a test drive, and she knew he'd been sold. — After Manager Kwok and her landlord had agreed on the new price, and after her landlord waived next month's rent, dusk had fallen. Scarlett had to excuse herself and nurse Liberty in the restroom of the Pearl Pavilion. She perched on the toilet of the handicapped stall, her shoulders hunched and knees drawn up, trying not to fall in, not to drop Liberty, not to smell the stench of piss and disinfectant. She'd neglected her daughter in the morning, and then dragged her around all afternoon. Liberty's cheeks were red from the cold, and snot crusted under her nose. Boss Yeung had called her an unfit mother, and she had already fallen short in so many ways. Though she'd paid off the rent for now, the month would speed by, and she'd be back where she started, climbing up only to fall backward like a crab trying to escape a basket. She would never be able to save up enough to fix her papers or to repay the hospital. Even though the labor and delivery had been free, she wanted to reimburse the U.S. government. She'd given back the savings she'd stolen from Ma, times ten, and someday she'd drop off payment at the hospital's billing counter. She didn't want her own daughter to start off in America as a beggar. On the contrary, Liberty had made a priceless gift—cord blood—that flowed through her body, Scarlett's, and someday, or maybe already, a stranger's. — Daisy tracked them down outside the Pearl Pavilion. This time of the day lengthened, its span geologically slow, those long hours to go before sleep. Daisy tucked her son into a sling so that Scarlett could put her daughter into the stroller. The teenager had known Scarlett would be tired from carrying her baby around all afternoon, and it was a relief to free her aching back and shoulders. Daisy handed her a roll slathered with plum sauce, which was surprisingly tasty. Scarlett gave half back to her. An apology, or the start of one. They cut through Portsmouth Square, empty but for a small group of followers of the Celestial Goddess practicing their poses. A video played on a laptop with an oversized screen, in which the Celestial Goddess appeared barefoot, perched on embroidered gold cushions while devotees flocked around her. She had an eerie wandering left eye that seemed to gaze into another dimension, and plump hands that she waved before her, as if conducting an orchestra—as if she were conducting you. Her warm, cajoling manner drew you in until—unless?—you realized her words didn't make any sense. Scarlett moved closer to the screen, and so did Daisy. If Boss Yeung's wife was among them, she wouldn't have known. She'd never seen any pictures of her, but the followers—of one mind, of one heart, of one future—all seemed to resemble one another, with vacant eyes and vacant smiles. Mostly Chinese, although the camera occasionally panned onto a stray German or random American whose presence displayed the global reach of the Celestial Goddess. Scarlett suspected they had been hired; a foreigner demonstrated your sophistication and appeal, whether in a temple or a boardroom. Daisy turned back toward the followers, intently studying them, as if trying to decode a secret message in their poses. A woman tried to hand them a flyer. Scarlett recognized her, their ringleader, the one they called Sister Fan. "You're out here every day," Daisy said. She shushed Didi, who was squirming, tucked against her chest. "Why?" "Everything the Celestial Goddess has done for me, I want for you." Sister Fan was as genial as an electroshock patient. "For me?" Daisy asked.The devotees were spaced out, but Scarlett didn't like Daisy teasing them by feigning interest. "For everyone," Sister Fan said. "Everyone?" Daisy looked around Portsmouth Square. "There's no one here." Scarlett pushed the stroller to lead them away. Daisy shouldn't humiliate someone incapable of defending herself. "They come, they go, they know where to find me," Sister Fan said. "How do you keep going?" Daisy's voice broke, and Scarlett abruptly understood what the teenager wanted to learn: how not to lose hope. She must feel like she was doggy paddling across the ocean, keeping her head above water but unable to get any closer to the father of her child. A view from above might ease Daisy's despair, reminding her of the world beyond the present moment. Scarlett tugged her toward a grim gray slab studded with porthole windows looming on the east side of Portsmouth Square, the tallest building in Chinatown. She led Daisy into the elevator, which groaned and creaked to the top floor that housed a restaurant, a rival of the Pearl Pavilion. They couldn't afford a meal or a snack, but Scarlett crossed the moss-green carpet with speed and purpose, pushing the stroller like an icebreaking ship. If you squinted in the dim bar, you might glimpse the glamour otherwise overpowered by the sweet reek of many years of spilled drinks. By the floor-to-ceiling windows, they pressed their fingers against the cold glass, which was reinforced with chicken wire and streaked with grime. San Francisco as they'd never seen it, high above the rooftops. Daisy went silent, awed. She loosened the sling and turned Didi toward the windows. He reached out his chubby fingers, yearning to touch and to fly. The waiter asked if they'd like a table, but they ignored him. Scarlett picked up her daughter, showing her the view as day slid into night. A spotlight flooded over the blunt nozzle of a tower perched on the hill, and moments later, the double spires of a church lit up. Liberty giggled. When bridge cables started to glow, she craned her neck at Scarlett, as if amazed and utterly convinced her mother had performed a miracle of lights. — In the kitchen, the turkeys had been hacked in half to fit in the oven, and glazed in honey and vinegar, the crispy skin glittering. The spaghetti was boiled, then stir-fried with the canned vegetables into an enormous pan of chow mein; canned fruit cocktail was ladled upon luminous almond jelly, and the tomato sauce was thinned into a hot and sour soup. Blankets were spread across the hallway, like a picnic under the harvest moon for the Mid-Autumn Festival. Old Wu made a nest for the babies with a fluffy comforter, and Scarlett leaned against the wall and slid down into it. She might fall asleep sitting here, lulled by the warmth of the kitchen and the chatter of her neighbors. Despite the labors of Auntie Ng and her assistants, the turkey was dry and tasteless. Chinese didn't usually eat turkey. Big as a peacock, ornamental rather than edible, and mythical as a phoenix, the bird was found nowhere in the villages or in the markets, nowhere in song or memory in her country. The Chinese preferred roast ducks hung in shop windows, the skin lacquered brown, the plump birds dripping grease into metal pans. Every part but the quack consumed: slices of the mahogany skin and the bones boiled into a broth. Her mouth watered. Puffy buns held juicy dark meat so savory you wished you could catch the ducks flying in formation high in the sky. Neighbors brought out their jarred condiments to add flavor to the turkey: red chili, mouth-numbing peppercorn, black bean, plum, and soy sauces. Scarlett spread plum sauce on an American roll, layered dark meat and sprinkled chopped scallions, and served it to Daisy. Delicious, Daisy proclaimed. "It's like a Chinese slider." Scarlett understood the word only because she'd eaten miniature hamburgers, a snack at a fancy hotel bar with Boss Yeung. The sliders had annoyed him. A scam, he said, to replace beef with bun, yet she'd understood their appeal. Nothing tasted as good as the first bite, your teeth sinking into perfection for you and you alone. Nothing signified your wealth and refinement more than dining on toy-sized food. The American way: nothing to linger or labor over, instant gratification gone in an instant. Soon Scarlett was making enough for everyone. "It's good, but I prefer mantou." Old Wu took another bite. "American bread is so sweet. So dry. It's soaking up all my saliva." Joe Ng stormed into the hallway, yelling that his motorcycle had been stolen. His mother pulled him into their apartment, where the fighting continued. The door opened and the suit flew out, trailing empty arms and legs, hit the wall and slid down. He and his mother emerged, glowering at Scarlett. "Cheat! Cheat!" he said. "She's a snake," Auntie Ng hissed. "You could convince a chicken to fly into the pot," Scarlett retorted. "You're no fool." "Where is it?" Joe Ng shouted. "Ask Manager Kwok." Scarlett knew he couldn't get the motorcycle back, not unless he wanted to face the wrath of Manager Kwok's gangster cronies. A vein pulsed on his forehead until Old Wu handed him a plate of food, and he grudgingly began to stuff himself. Someone else ran out for a batch of steamed buns from the bakery around the corner, and Scarlett assembled more sliders. Even better, everyone agreed. Good enough to serve at the Pearl Pavilion, Old Wu said. "Sure to sell out." A joke, yet Scarlett pictured a shiny cart, the steamer tray of buns and the roasted meat, basted in a honey-sweet glaze, for five dollars per sandwich—not in Chinatown, but a few blocks away, in the neighboring nightlife district. Chinese slider, tastier and more unusual than the bacon-wrapped hot dogs Scarlett had seen for sale. She'd scavenge frozen giveaway turkeys no one wanted in Chinatown, and she'd soon sell enough sliders to pay for future rent. Small enough for drunks streaming out of clubs to gobble in a few bites while catching their ride, cheap enough to encourage gluttony, to fill their American hunger, a hunger like nowhere else in the world, born from abundance and prosperity.