Planet Lolita (16 page)

“Please take the masks off,” Dad said. “Everyone,” he added, cutting Leah with a look.

“Small mercies,” the policeman said. First he wiped his brow with his N-95. Then he stuffed it into his coat pocket.

Constable Chu kept her condom on, the better to give me the evil ninja glare.

“Not wearing a mask on the streets of Mong Kok last evening certainly made you easy to identify,” Senior Inspector Kerr said. “That’s now part of our problem.”

“You scared people,” the female officer said.

His frown carved extra wrinkles into his cheeks. “Thank you, Constable. But I’m thinking more of this lass’s face suddenly being so well known, on account of the YouTube.”

“There’s a video as well?” I said.

“It appeared in the middle of the night.”

“They also posted the picture of me on the page I made for Mary,” I said, coming clean.

“We’re aware.”

“It showed our address. I took it down.”

“The posting was up long enough, I’m afraid. They could come calling anytime.”

“They’ve had our address for six weeks,” Mom said.

“Oh?”

“Off my phone.”

“They stole your phone?”

“I lent it to them,” she said in a voice so hushed I wondered if she needed to close her eyes.

“This may be different,” Senior Inspector Kerr said. “The girl your daughter has been trying to contact appears not to be an ordinary sex worker. She might be a favourite of a senior Triad boss. The one time you actually met,” he said to me, “on that beach in the New Territories, did you notice anything different about her?”

“She was the same as the others.”

“No, she wasn’t,” Dad said. “Now that I think about it.”

“
Now
that you think about it?” Mom said.

“Regardless,” the policeman said, “it’s best to keep a wide distance between yourselves and this particular lady.”

Dad said, “Xixi, how is it that neither you nor Gloria noticed someone trailing behind you with a camera last night?”

“Everyone carries a phone in Hong Kong, usually right in front of their faces. And it was dark, and rainy, and I was scared,” I said, admitting it to myself.

“I blame her amah,” Mom said. “Her
former
amah.”

“She made a mistake, aye,” Senior Inspector Kerr said. “Lucky for you, nothing terrible happened because of it.” He went on to
tell us how “his crowd,” on learning from “the family maid” that the girl in the photo, the one identified only as Mary, might have been in the massage parlour involuntarily, and would be swiftly relocated in the aftermath of our visit, had had no choice but to call in a special tactical unit, one specializing in abductions. How “that crowd” had sprung into action and raided 1303 Portland Street earlier today but found nothing incriminating, including any prostitute matching the photograph or answering to the name. And how, in consequence, my circumstance as a “well-meaning but muddled, misguided wee lassie” had deteriorated to such an extent that my security in Hong Kong could no longer be guaranteed. As such, my departure for a safer locale should be imminent, and be preceded by what amounted to temporary incarceration right here on Old Peak Road. “Quite the posh address,” he added for no obvious reason.

“You might have talked to me first,” Mom told him. “I could have advised you not to break down any doors looking for a friend named Mary.”

“Shame about the photos you posted at the outset of this mess,” he said to me. “Makes me wonder if teenagers should be trusted with these fancy toys.”

“Shame,” Constable Chu said.

“You want to arrest my laptop instead?” I said.

“This girl may have your looks,” the senior inspector said to Dad, “but it’s her mother’s spirit, I’ll wager, behind the face.”

“Mom’s a MacInnes of the Isle of Skye,” I said.

“Aye,” he said, very Shrekly. “That she is.”

“Girl is trouble,” Constable Chu said.

“Does she know, like, five words of English?” I said to him, not caring that she was resting her right hand on her gun, ready to draw. But she would probably shoot Gloria first.

“The next time our impudent daughter steps through that door,” Mom said, “it will be to climb into a hired car for the airport.”

“Good enough for me. Now could we have another word with this maid I spoke to on the phone earlier … Gloria Bella, is it?” the policeman said, reading from a notepad. “Nice to meet you, Sarah, or Kwok Xixi.”

Dad, wearing a smile that he found nearly impossible to hold up, like beltless pants at a security gate, escorted me back to the bedroom. For everyone in every room in our posh apartment to hear and keep in mind, I announced, “She is Gloria-in-Excelsis, and she is my Asian mom. Arrest or shoot her, and I’ll go looking for Mary again tonight.”

“That’s my girl,” Dad whispered, though I wasn’t so sure anymore.

“She fucked up massively,” Rachel said later that day, “and put you in real harm. They had to let her go.”

“You don’t understand.”

“Understand what, SeeSaw? She’s not your mom! She’s not a member of our family. Are you going to hang up on me? Fine. Be a sulky
mei mei
about it,” she said. “But the parentals, who are otherwise hopeless, got this one right. Do you know Gloria wouldn’t talk to the police today? Leah said she sat there with her head bowed, all ‘Yes sir,’ and ‘No ma’am,’ like one of those amahs who only pretend to speak English.”

“She talked to them before on the phone.”

“Well, she clammed up in front of Jacob and Leah.”

“Mom scares her. And Miguel …,” I said, wanting Rachel, Mom and Dad, even Senior Inspector Kerr and Constable Chu, to be aware of the sadness and worry she carried around
her
neck,
a crucifix of heavy wood that bowed her head and scraped her skin bloody. But I kept my promises to Gloria and she kept her promises to me.

“Miguel? What about her hoodlum son? Have you checked his profile lately? He’s totally slim shady.”

All of a sudden I felt too sad and small to do more than gather hair for braiding and chewing. Plus the fact that all of it—all of it!—was my fault.

“Poor baby,” Rachel said.

“I think I’ll lie down.”

“Does your neck still hurt, from that bitch stealing your Jesus stick? You keep rubbing the spot.”

“She was Russian.”

“The Chinese lady who runs the massage parlour? That can’t be right.”

“I wanted to switch rooms with Mary,” I said, ignoring her correction. “Just for a night. I thought she could stay here with Manga and Gloria.”

Rachel went quiet, studying me with her Pokémon gaze. This evening I was the one who kept fidgeting, as if I’d recently got a cheek tattoo of Chihiro’s funny face, my eyes pinballing from having smoked marijuana to manage the ink-needle pain.

“I’m a muddled, misguided wee lassie,” I added.

“Who said that?”

“Shrek.”

“Okay …”

“Senior Inspector Kerr,” I said. “And I don’t want that anymore. The room switch thing. I don’t.”

“Glad to hear it.”

“I don’t even want to be on Facebook.”

“A cyber time-out might be smart.”

“Do I really need to leave Hong Kong?”

“You really, really do. And isn’t it already set up?” she asked.

“Monday morning, Thai Airways. Bangkok, me and Dad. God is a restaurant,” I said.

My sister nearly smiled. “The legendary Kwok-MacInnes family holiday. Xixi, during her mystic phase.”

“Mom’s flying to London the day after.”

“That’s for the best. Or not. I’m not convinced any of you are thinking clearly right now.”

I definitely needed to lie down.

“Not much fun at 2201, 26 Old Peak Road, eh?” she said. “I got that address off your Facebook page.”

“They don’t love each other, do they?”

She shrugged.

“Did he do a bad thing when you were around my age?”

She shrugged again, her gaze floating to the wall behind her desk.

“Did you promise not to tell me?”

“I promised myself. I promised to protect you for as long as I could. What a crap job I’ve done.”

“Gloria won’t say a word either,” I said, a mistake.

“Gloria? What’s she have to do with it?”

“She lives in the same apartment as us. She can’t help being part of our lives.”

“Our lives are none of her fucking business. Cooking, cleaning, scooping up after Manga in the park is her business—nothing else. She should have thought about that before agreeing to help sell you into prostitution on Portland Street!”

I exploded. “That’s stupid,” I said. “You’re stupid too. And your boyfriend Greg, he—”

“Why don’t I leave you and the mutt to spoon on the bed,” Rachel said.

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

“Bye-bye for now!”

We both had our mouse arrows aimed at
End Call.
She stared at me, I stared back at her. Five, six, seven seconds went by, like the contests when we were kids, which she always won. Ten, eleven, twelve seconds later, I was feeling good—at least about finally out-staring my big sister.

“First time for everything,” she said, giving up.

“I can keep going forever.”

“I believe it. Look, SeeSaw, there are a few things I need to tell you before you and Cool Kwok flee the ‘infected port.’ To make sure I get them right I’ll go old-school and send emails. Start checking every so often.”

“The parentals are going to take away my computer and phone,” I said. “Any second now.”

“That could happen.” By her expression I knew they’d told her about the plan, or she’d suggested it herself.

“I’ll check emails on Gloria’s laptop,” I said.

“The laptop Mom and Dad bought you but then you gave to her? Sorry,” she said, reading—correctly—the link between the look on my face and the arrow back on
End Call.

“I miss you, Rach. I wish we could be little again. We could have staring contests, and watch cats on YouTube. There’s a hilarious one where the cat does the ‘Thriller’ dance.”

I tried imitating a cat, reared up on its hind legs, imitating Michael Jackson pretending to be a ghoul.

“Cat videos?” she said. “That’s
such
Asian girl stuff.”

As it happened, I’d spent some of the day attempting, typically, to remember who had called me a Hello Kitty last night, and why I wasn’t one. “I made a list of Asian girl things I’ll never do. Want to hear it?”

“I thought you needed to lie down.”

“I’ll bring the computer,” I said. Manga got up from the bed long enough for me to climb onto it, the screen upright on my tummy. “One, I’ll never cover my hand with my mouth when I talk or laugh, like this”—I showed the move, and did the helium giggle, which only a Pikachu doll should be allowed. “Two, I’ll never watch
Project Runway Cambodia
, where teens with pork-bun butts flounce around Phnom Penh as if it’s normal. Three, I won’t take iPhone photos of food and send them to friends. Or selfies,” I added. “Selfies are lame.”

She was smiling now, my beautiful sister, and my loneliness for her was another ache churning my belly. “Most days I wish I was still a little girl too,” she said. “Being grown-up is tougher than it looks.”

“Maybe I’ll stay fifteen forever.”

“Doesn’t work that way, kiddo.”

“Fourteen would be better. Or even thirteen. Before I turned mal-brained and started to bleed. When we still lived in Stanley, and Gloria had a nice view from her room. Remember how I followed cats through the village and into the Tin Hau temple? Mrs. Ma has gone funny in the head,” I said. “She thought I was Mazu. How’s your tattoo?”

“I thought you wanted to sleep.”

I did. I didn’t. Until this moment, I hadn’t realized that loneliness itself could be a physical pain. “Don’t hang up.”

“I won’t.”

“Can you stay until I doze off?”

“Why don’t you close your eyes?”

“
Your
eyes are pure anime. They’re limpid,” I said, a new word.

“Are they?”

“Limpid and strong and amazing. You’re a heroine.”

“Close them, Xixi doll. You need to.”

“It’s all my fault, you know.”

“Shhh.”

“Gloria wouldn’t have …”

“Shhh.”

I did as Rachel asked. A minute later—okay, an hour—I opened them back up to a dark screen, a snoring mutt, and me alone, alone, alone in my cell.

“Should I be coming to Thailand with you and your father?” Mom said. “Is that what you want?”

She had invited herself onto the bed, and cowardly Manga had failed to defend our turf. I’d been resting with my face to the wall when I heard him whimper but then accept being shooed to the floor.

“Are you going to take my laptop?” I said over my shoulder.

“I’m not sure,” she answered, not very Lawyer Leah. Equally out of the ordinary was her smell. Usually she was scented Chanel during the day, various skin crèmes at night, all herbal essence and citrus stem. But this evening—it was still evening, I was fairly certain—Mom smelled of unwashed hair and uncleaned teeth.

“I fell asleep talking to Rachel,” I said.

“She texted me. I just wanted to make sure you’re okay.”

“Not okay, Mom. Obviously.”

“You didn’t have any dinner.”

“I only like Gloria’s cooking.”

Her sigh held a quaver. She had been crying, and would shortly be crying some more.

“Is Sanjay flying to London with you?” I said. “Or Dr. Call-Me-Alex? Maybe you’ve arranged to meet outside Buckingham Palace, near the guards with the fur hats.”

“The things in your head …”

“Valproic acid, 250 milligrams, three times a day.”

“Not what I meant.”

“You don’t have a clue what’s in my head.”

“Or on your Facebook, it turns out.”

Now I couldn’t flip over and face her without betraying my guilt. “You should brush your teeth,” I said.

“The decision, taken together by both your parents, to end our relationship with Gloria wasn’t easy,” she said after a pause. “It was certainly not what I wanted for you, Sarah, or our family. I am not blind or deaf—I know how you feel about her. Neither is my flying to London what I wish to happen. It has to do, believe it or not, with insurance, and a document I signed when I first took the job. That may have been the second-biggest mistake I’ve ever made.”