The Girls of Good Fortune

Later, when Celia cannot find Owen, she worries that she has been abandoned. However, she soon finds him in conversation with Matthew, as the two seem to share an intimate rapport. Celia accuses Owen of misleading Lettie. Owen replies that Lettie told Celia several lies, one of which was his supposed wooing of her; this deception was undertaken to get Celia to meet with him. The man behind the deal to remove Celia was Gordon Humphrey; he runs the Dewdrop Inn and several gambling halls. Recalling Humphrey’s publicly racist stances, Celia is outraged to realize that “[d]espite [Humphrey’s] racist diatribes, so long as the immigrants made him money, clearly they were fine by him” (299). Owen admits that with his current endeavor, he is trying to pay off his brother’s debt to Humphrey; he believes that the man’s plan is to give Pearl to an adoptive family. The old man urges Celia to come with him to get something to eat.

The old man leads her to a wagon outside an Italian bakery. Celia objects to stealing, but he says that it is the only way they can eat. However, the Italian owner of the bakery catches Celia and calls the police.

As Celia is put in a jail cell with two other women, she reflects on Lettie’s betrayal. One of the women is collected by her brother, but Celia remains, fearing that she might never see her daughter again.

Celia becomes concerned by the coughing of the other woman in the jail cell and calls the lieutenant for help. He dismisses her concerns, saying that the woman is just a vagrant, and Celia recalls how Georgia Bettencourt once similarly dismissed her “as if Celia’s entire existence held no value. As if she could vanish and not a soul would notice” (313). The lieutenant knows of a hospital that might take the woman. He brings Celia to meet the judge.

A nervous Celia gives the judge a garbled account of what happened to her. Because her story makes no sense and because she is dressed as a man, the judge decides to send her to Brentwood Asylum.

Owen poses as Celia’s husband in order to get her out of jail. Celia pretends that she dressed as a man because she feared that Owen was visiting a mistress and wanted to follow him. He has brought a gown for Celia to change into. The lieutenant releases her.

Matthew meets them and leads Owen and Celia, who is now wearing a dress, to the train yard. He warns them to avoid the patrollers, “what freighthoppers called a ‘bull’” (327). The train begins rolling, and she and Owen run to jump onto one of the freight cars. Celia barely makes it because of her dress.

Later, Celia wakes to discover that her companions in the freight car are a Chinese couple. They are eating bao and willingly share their food with her. Celia tells them that she used to make bao with her father, who was Chinese. “Like me,” she adds (334). She takes a dumpling to Owen and tells him that she understands what it is like to love someone she cannot have.

The trainhoppers are spotted by a “bull,” and Celia follows Owen in jumping out of the train car. The patroller pursues them and shoots Owen in the leg as he tries to escape. Celia helps him and bandages his leg. When she realizes that the patroller has left, she helps Owen to reboard the same freight car. They are only two stops from Portland.

Celia takes Owen to the Dewdrop. One of the customers was a medic in the war and is summoned to help Owen. Harriet, one of the girls, says that Marie left that morning. Celia goes to Lettie’s room and looks in her sketchbook, finding several drawings of a young girl as an infant and a young child. She accuses Lettie of obsessing over Pearl, but Lettie says that she was drawing what she imagines her own daughter must look like. Lettie explains that Humphrey told her that if she helped him to get rid of Celia, Humphrey would take Lettie to see her own daughter. Lettie says that Marie took Pearl somewhere else days ago.

Celia goes to Chinatown, to the place where she once bought opium for Marie years ago. The man at the door says that a white man was with Marie when she entered earlier. He takes her to the tunnels, and in one of the rooms, Celia sees Marie and Pearl. She embraces her daughter, who was sitting on a man’s lap. She confronts the man and discovers that it is Stephen.

Stephen recently returned home to learn from Abigail that Celia’s father died and that Celia gave birth. Now, Stephen tells Celia that he received a letter from his mother in which Georgia claimed that Celia had moved away to marry the man her father chose for her. Stephen has ended his engagement to the other woman. He explains that Abigail told him he could find Celia at the Dewdrop, and when he went there, Marie brought him to meet Pearl. Stephen declares that he loves Celia and wants to stay in the United States with her.

Celia reconciles with Lettie, understanding the woman’s desperate wish to see her daughter. Celia and Stephen decide to confront his parents together.

At the Bettencourt house, Miss Waterstone takes Celia, Stephen, and Pearl to the den. Edwin Bettencourt and Humphrey enter, along with Georgia and Abigail. Stephen challenges Humphrey, who pulls out a gun. Stephen fights with him, and in the struggle, Humphrey is shot and killed. Georgia proposes that they all claim that Humphrey threatened Edwin, who then acted to protect his loved ones. She opens the door “not a mere crack but wide, in plain view of the world” (361).

The narrator of the prologue arranges for her granddaughter to drive her to the cemetery. She is 84 years old and is the last surviving child of Pearl. She married a man who was part Korean. Now, the narrator is visiting the graves of her grandparents, Celia and Stephen Bettencourt, because she wants to share a newspaper article that revisits the Hells Canyon Massacre. This event is now considered the worst massacre of Chinese people by white people in the history of America. The narrator enjoys teaching others about the history of the Chinese people in America. She also loves relating her grandmother Celia’s adventures, which include the woman they call Auntie Marie. The narrator says that stories add spice to life.