A group of bright young things marched arm in arm down the street, laughing and carefree, and Ling was reminded of a dream walk she’d taken a few months ago. In it, she’d suddenly found herself face-to-face with a blond flapper. The girl was clearly asleep, but she also seemed aware of Ling, and Ling had felt both drawn to and afraid of this girl, as if they were long-lost relatives having a chance meeting.
“You shouldn’t be here! Wake up!” Ling had yelled. And then, suddenly, Ling had tumbled down through dream space until she came to rest in a forest where ghostly soldiers shimmered in the spaces between the trees. On their sleeves, they wore a strange symbol: a golden sun of an eye shedding a jagged lightning-bolt tear. Ling often spoke to the dead in dreams, but these men weren’t like any dead she had known.
“What do you want?” she’d asked them, afraid.
“Help us,” they said, and then the sky exploded with light.
Since then, Ling had dreamed of that symbol a few times. She didn’t know what it meant. But she now knew who the blond girl was. Everyone in New York did: the Sweetheart Seer.
Feeling a mixture of envy and resentment, she watched the laughing partygoers walk away, then let herself into her building. Ling stole into her room and deposited Lee Fan’s two dollars into the cigar-box college fund she kept hidden in a drawer under her slips. The two dollars joined the one hundred twenty-five she’d already collected.
In the parlor, Ling’s uncle Eddie was asleep in his favorite chair. One of his Chinese opera records had come to the end on the phonograph. Ling lifted the needle and covered her uncle with a blanket. Her mother was still at a church quilting bee, and her father would be another hour at the restaurant. This meant Ling finally had control of the radio. Soon, the comforting hum of the Philco warming up chased away Ling’s unease. An announcer’s voice burbled through the speakers, growing louder.
“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen of our listening audience. It’s precisely nine o’clock and time for the Pears Soap Hour featuring that fabulous Flapper of Fate, the Sweetheart Seer—Miss Evie O’Neill.…”
“… Miss Evie O’Neill!”
The announcer, a tall man with a thin mustache, lowered his script. Behind the glass of the control booth, an engineer pointed to a quartet of male singers back in the studio, who crooned into their microphone:
“She’s the apple of the Big Apple’s eye.
She’s finer—Diviner—and we know why.
She’s the Sweetheart Seer of W… G… I!”
“Yes, gifted with talents from beyond,” the announcer purred over the soft hum of the quartet. “A Diviner, she calls herself, like those soothsayers of old, but a modern girl, through and through. Who knew that such gifts lived in the heart of Manhattan—and in the heavenly form of a pretty pixie of a girl?”
“Oh, Evie, won’t you tell us true?
What would fate have us do?
Whether watch or hat or band,
You hold our secrets in your hand.
Revealing mysteries pulled from the sky!
You’re the Sweetheart Seer of W… G… I!”
The orchestra rested. Script in hand, Evie stepped up to her microphone and chirped into it: “Hello, everyone. This is Evie O’Neill, the Sweetheart Seer, ready to gaze into the great beyond and tell you your deepest secrets. So I certainly hope you’ve got something pos-i-tute-ly scandalous for me tonight!”
“Why, Miss O’Neill!” the announcer sputtered.
The audience chuckled, covering the sound of Evie and Mr. Forman turning the pages of their scripts.
“Oh, now, don’t you cast a kitten, Mr. Forman,” Evie reassured him in her upbeat tone. “For if anything can clear away the dirt of scandal, it’s Pears soap. Why, no soap on earth is finer for cleaning up a mess than Pears!”
“On that we can agree, Miss O’Neill. If you value your complexion, Pears soap is the only soap you will ever need. It’s—”
“Gee, are you going to talk all night, Mr. Forman? Or can I do a little divining for these fine folks?” Evie teased.
The audience chuckled again, right on cue.