The moon was too big the night Mei got the letter.
She unlocked her mailbox and pulled out a stack of coupons, letters, notices. She paged through the pile, reimagining her day, until her eyes landed on the envelope.
She’d seen the envelope before, of course. On the desks of friends, of coworkers, even of managers. The worst was when a woman she’d slept with one too many times showed it to her. She hadn’t spoken to Annie since that night, and couldn't bring herself to watch the trial.
She quietly went inside her building.
Her apartment had never felt like home, a space a bit too small with a bed that folded into the wall. A palette of Jade cigarettes took up one half of the room, the other half being occupied by the small kitchenette. Fashion magazines, comic books, and dirty dresses littered the floor. The only solace of the space was her small balcony. She grabbed a pack of cigarettes off of the palette and walked out onto the enclosure.
The sky wasn’t dark yet, instead a hazy sort of pink mixed with blue. The moon felt like a spotlight from where she stood. She frowned and lit a cigarette, taking a long puff. She found herself wondering where Annie was now. She’d always been vivacious, lively, passionate. The day she showed Mei her letter, she looked scared. In that moment, Mei swore she lost all attraction to her.
She set the cigarette down on the balcony ashtray and held the envelope up with both hands. The sky was still bright enough for her to read what it said.
TO Mei Jiang,
YOU ARE HEREBY COMMANDED to be and appear before the Committee on Un-American Activities of the House of Representatives of the United States, or duly appointed subcommittee thereof, on Friday, February 4, 1949, at 10:00 o’clock a.m. at Room 226, House Office Building, Washington, D.C.
She felt frozen staring at the text. That was a week before they were going to finish filming Canary Lovers. She couldn’t leave in the middle of production. But if she was blacklisted they’d halt production anyways. Or replace her. Even leads were replaceable. She felt a growing lump in her throat.
She picked up her cigarette again and took a puff. What would happen to her advertisements? She had been working as a model for Jade cigarettes for over a year now and was practically the face of some of their recent ad campaigns. She’d actually thought things were changing in the industry after seeing a face like her own on a Hollywood billboard, but now…
The scared look she’d seen on Annie’s face flashed through her mind. That nagging doubt entered her mind, built itself up in her chest. Did Annie… give them her name? She’d kept her affairs with women to a minimum in Hollywood, mostly entangling herself with charming men who had pathetic personalities, and Annie was the only woman she’d been with that she knew had been called in. Communist allegations were enough for her to lose her Hollywood career, but she knew there was nothing to back them up. Even if she was blacklisted here she might be able to find work somewhere. But if they were accusing her of being an invert…
Her mother had always told her she took things too far. That she wanted too much, that she should be happy with what she had, with what she knew was safe. But she had always been proud of Mei too, at least Mei thought. She switched cigarette brands when Mei’s face first started showing up in magazine ads, and, even though she disapproved of Mei moving out to Hollywood on her own, she called everyone in the family to let them know when Mei first scored a minor role in a movie.
But this, the letter that she held in her hands, this was what her mother had been afraid of.
She stared up at the moon for a moment before putting out her cigarette. There was something oppressive about how big it was that night. She was reminded of the sweeping lights from police helicopters that occasionally searched the city and the exposure they scattered across the landscape. She tried to shrug it off, going back into her apartment.
Mei thought about pulling the phone off its hook on the wall, about dialing her mother’s number. She could hear her voice in her head, scolding her for calling so late, saying that nothing could possibly be worth waking her up over. But then Mei would tell her. And then her mother would sound scared. And then she would sound angry because how could Mei let this happen and anger was an easier outlet than fear, then telling her how truly frightened she was for her daughter.
The phone stayed on the hook.
She placed the letter on top of the palette and pulled her bed out of the wall. She lay down, staring at the sky outside her window, now a dark blue. She wished she could see stars, but instead all she could see was that almost-full moon taunting her. She thought of Annie again and wondered if she still found her pretty, would she have watched the trial? She wondered if Annie’s husband stayed with her through the whole ordeal, sat with her and held her hand while the committee screamed at her.
For the first time, Mei wondered why she hadn’t asked one of her handsome and pathetic boyfriends to marry her. She’d never been interested in commitment but now the idea of a man sitting beside her while she had to stand her ground seemed ideal.
She wondered if Tom would say yes if she asked him. He was a decent enough man, and they’d shared almost as many real kisses as screen kisses. She closed her eyes, trying to picture herself walking down the aisle with him, trying to picture him sitting next to her in front of the senators.
The tenseness in her shoulders lessened, the security from someone like him strong even in her imagination. She felt their shoulders pressed against each other, felt their hands tangled together. She squeezed, and her hand was squeezed back. She turned to look at Tom in her mind’s eye and—
All she could see was Annie’s face. It was Annie’s hands tangled in her hands, Annie who sat beside her at the trial. And for the first time since she’d let Annie go, she found herself filled with sadness for her, for their relationship.
She wasn’t the sort to cry. She wasn’t the sort to grieve. She curled up in a ball, trying to ignore how her feelings betrayed her, how her body betrayed her. She wept quietly. She wept and the only person who saw was the moon, rising higher in the sky, a quiet beacon over Hollywood.