Tiger Girl (21 page)

Sitan reminded me of my brother, Sam. They both struck me as fundamentally lonely. I thought of Sam working prep, sitting alone in the kitchen of the Palace slicing carrots, dicing bell peppers, all his athleticism concentrated in the smooth, precise chops of his knife. He'd grown used to being the only Cambodian boy in our town. He'd dropped out of wrestling; he hadn't been able to find any new friends in that too-small town. No wonder he wanted to join the army, I thought. All those promises of finding an entire band of brothers. I wished he could meet Sitan, but then I'd have to admit to Ma that I'd lied, that I'd come here to find Uncle. I didn't see how I could arrange one without the other, and I wasn't ready to face Ma's anger.

“You're a really good father, Sitan,” I said.

Sitan put the mop down on the floor and straightened up. He looked me straight in the eye, his face very serious. “You really think that?”

“Yes. I've seen how you talk to your daughter even though she's so small, just like she can understand.”

“I know she can understand!”

“And you're always thinking about her. Always talking about her. You're a very considerate father.”

Sitan seemed to think about that. “Con-si-der-ate. I like that.” He nodded, and the peaceful Buddha smile returned. “Thank you, Nea. I'm going to tattoo that on my arm someday. That's exactly who I want to be.”

Before I knew what was happening, he leaned over quickly and kissed me on the cheek, and then, now that he had my
attention, on the mouth. I had just enough time to taste his lips, the salt of his blood, and feel the soft pulse beneath his flesh, when he pulled away, embarrassed.

Then he picked up the boom box and wheeled the bucket into the kitchen. I finished wiping up the counters and the soda machines and the pastry and donut trays, the beat of his angry music pulsing through the wall like a rapidly beating heart.

That night Uncle took the robbery in stride. “The important thing is you're safe. And Sitan is safe. God be praised. Another miracle.” Then he said a prayer of thanks in the apartment, facing the cross he'd nailed to the wall that afternoon under the framed picture of Angkor Wat. I wondered how Uncle reconciled his vision of a benevolent deity who kept people safe from robbers in a donut shop but didn't protect people from a murderous regime in an entire country. It didn't seem fair or just or commonsensical to me, but it wasn't my faith, it was his, and it seemed to give him the incredible energy he needed for the donut shop and his volunteer work and church and praying. I still couldn't understand how he could sleep so little and do so much.

I felt lazy in comparison. No, that was too mild. I felt, in truth, utterly exhausted.

I sat on the couch in the living room, my back aching, my legs limp, my feet swollen from having stood all day and into the night, but Uncle was pacing excitedly in the apartment, from the window by the kitchen past the couch to the front door and back, praying with his hands in the air. I knew I should try to make something for dinner. There were eggs in the fridge and some leftover takeout and frozen waffles in the freezer, if I remembered correctly. Next thing I knew I'd passed out completely. I only realized I'd fallen asleep the moment I woke up.

Blinking, I tried to remember where I was. In my dream, I had been working in the Palace, which had morphed into a Chinese restaurant that sold donuts decorated with crucifixes made out of red spun sugar. The dining room was huge, all the tables packed with hungry customers, families with crying babies and children who wouldn't sit down but instead ran around the tables dropping small battery-powered toys with wheels, trying to trip me as I carried a full tray above my head. The fire alarm went off and I was suddenly in the kitchen, wielding a tiny red fire extinguisher. Every time I squeezed the nozzle, no foam came out, and the alarm bell rang on and on and on.

Then I realized it was the phone ringing.

The shower was running. It was dark in the apartment, an arc of yellow light spilling from Uncle's room. Uncle was getting ready to go to work again. It must've been time for him to supervise the bakers.

I struggled to my feet, rubbing my eyes. I stumbled toward the phone on the bookshelf against the wall and managed to stub my toe against the bottom shelf.

Yelping, I picked up the phone. “Yow, hello?”

“Is my father there?”

It was Paul.

“Where have you been? We were all worried—”

“I need to speak to my father.”

“Hold your horses. He's in the shower. Where are you?”

There was a pause. “I'm with a friend.”

“You know, Uncle was really disappointed. He had the priest say a special Mass for you—”

“Why? What's the matter?” Paul seemed genuinely alarmed.

“He wanted to thank God for the miracle of your safe return.” Prodigal asshole, I thought, but I did not say it.

“Oh. That.” Paul's voice was relieved. “Can you bang on his door or something? I'm in a hurry.”

You have some nerve, I thought. “I can take a message.”

“You tell him I want to speak to him. Now.”

“You should call during normal business hours—”

Suddenly Uncle was at my elbow. I felt a damp hand on my shoulder and he took the phone from me.

“Ponleu, is it you?” he asked. A silence, then he was nodding and making soft, assenting sounds. “Mmm, mm-hmm. Mmm.” Paul must have been doing most of the talking.

After he hung up, Uncle was overjoyed. “Your brother's coming back tomorrow. He called to let me know. He was concerned that I would be worried. It's very thoughtful of him.”

Thoughtful? I thought. Why didn't he call these two days if he's so thoughtful? But all I said was, “Did he say where he went?”

“He apologized for leaving so quickly. He said he is coming back to help me run the business.”

I could have pointed out that Paul was essentially asking for a job but acting like he was doing Uncle a favor. I didn't know where he got his arrogance from. Was this what a rich boy grew up to be like? Or was this the way a grifter behaved, reeling in his prey?

“You should rest now. You worked so hard. And the robbery. The police. Try to rest.” Uncle was putting on his jacket, getting ready to return to the donut shop. There was a spring to his step. He adjusted the collar of his coat, patted the hair covering his bald spot. He snapped his Nicorette.

“I'm sorry I let the thieves get all our money,” I said forlornly.

“God is good. He is watching out for us.” Uncle smiled and waved as he went out the front door. “He brought your brother home, after all.”

I sat in the dark on the sofa, too tired to get up and turn on a light or the TV or the radio. My body still ached. Sitting alone, listening to the sound of the traffic on the street outside, I felt sorry for myself. I was wishing that Uncle had acted as happy to see me as he had been to find this man who claimed to be his son when I realized Uncle had called Paul “your brother.”

My heart beat faster. Was Uncle just speaking casually, using kinship terms loosely, the way all cousins can be called brothers and sisters, all adults can be a younger person's aunt or uncle? Or did he slip up and reveal how he really saw me, how he thought of me? And was this happiness of his not just reserved for the return of his missing son, but for the coalescing of his broken family, of both me and Paul?

It was hard to say with Uncle.

He was like Ma in this way. She never told me what she was really thinking. She endured, she worked, she grew angry and silent, she grew happy and whistled, but she never shared with me the inner workings of her heart. I was left to observe her moods and try to fit them together like pieces of a puzzle whose final design I could only guess at.

Thinking of my mother, I felt guilty for lying to her, telling her I was visiting my roommate's family, looking for a summer internship. I should have called her again, but I was afraid she'd hear the lies in my voice. She'd see through me and I'd confess everything. What if she insisted I come home immediately? I wasn't ready.

I felt alone and afraid, with no one to tell my fears and thoughts to. Because of the lie, I'd never be able to tell her about the robbery, never tell her how afraid I felt. I'd have to keep this lie between us our whole lives. I hadn't thought of that when I decided to come out here for winter break.

I missed Sam and the twins. Would I ever tell them if I didn't tell Ma? I shook my head. It would be wrong to burden
them with my secrets. Sam was graduating high school this year; this was his last Christmas home, and I'd missed it. The twins were growing up, too. They had taken up cheerleading in an attempt to develop a talent for the pageant circuit. Ma had told me about it in our last conversation before I left: “They are driving me crazy, all this jumping and shouting.” I didn't remind Ma that she'd never allowed Sourdi or me to participate in any sports or after-school activities. She kept us working in the Palace all the time, yet still she had complained about us and the trouble she felt we caused her. “Your sisters, it's all one-two-three-four who you gonna tell she ate.” I didn't tell Ma she was missing a few words there, that the rhyme wasn't about eating at all. Ma had sighed on the phone. “Now you're all grown up. You can find your own work. You don't worry about your mother.” She hadn't said, I miss you, I want you to come home and help me. I knew she did, but it wasn't the kind of thing she'd ever say out loud.

I pulled my knees to my chest and let myself cry. It felt good to sit in the dark on the lumpy sofa and wallow in self-pity. It'd been a long day, a scary day. I cried a little harder, let my tears slide down my cheeks and pool on the edges of my lips. They were warm and salty on the tip of my tongue. I tried sobbing out loud, letting little barking cries emerge from the back of my throat. I sounded a little like a circus seal, and decided to stop. Then my nose started to run, and I had to get up from the sofa and find some Kleenex to blow my nose. I rummaged in the bathroom, my eyes squinting from the bright light, and caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror over the sink. My makeup was running, my eyes were red, my nose looked swollen, snot glistened on my chin. Crying in the dark, I'd imagined myself like a heroine in a novel, like an actress in a TV show, artful
tears catching the light, my quivering lips the portrait of inner pain, but in fact I looked like hell. I looked like a crazy person.

Quickly, I washed my face. I blew my nose. I stopped crying.

No point making things worse, I thought, and I went to bed.

Paul reappeared in the early afternoon. I almost didn't notice him. We were having another boffo day, with even more customers than the day before. We had the customers who'd read about us in the paper and the people who'd heard from Father Juan about the Miracle and random passersby who'd noticed the lines from the street and pulled into the strip mall to see what was up. I told Anita we should put a limit on how much any one customer could buy—that way we could cut out any wannabe scalpers and keep customers enticed.

I was waiting for Sitan to come in the afternoon to take over for Anita when I saw Paul through the front window. He was watching the line of customers, maybe counting them for all I knew, his eyes narrowed as though calculating profits. He looked quite handsome, I realized, now that he wasn't trying to dress like a gang member, and instead had put on a fitted jacket over a button-up shirt and dark gray khaki slacks. Wherever he'd gone, he'd picked up some better clothes and cleaned up at least. I saw several of the women in the line glance at him curiously, wondering who he was. With his high cheekbones, straight nose, narrow eyes, and thick black hair brushed neatly to the side, he could have been a Hong Kong movie star slumming incognito in Southern California. He had that kind of air. I found him arrogant, but I could see how others might think
him merely confident or even charismatic, someone who was used to being looked at.

Then the crowd shifted, and I saw a beautiful Khmer woman standing next to him. She
really
looked like a movie star. She had long, highlighted hair, which she flipped over her shoulder periodically. She was wearing a lot of makeup—bright red lipstick, thick black false eyelashes—and round sunglasses. When she spoke, Paul turned to her with a face like a little boy's—open and attentive and full of love.

I stared, mouth agape, until Anita poked me in the arm. “Earth to Nea, how ya doing there? Ready to ring up this woman's order?”

I blinked and turned; I tried to focus on the customers inside the shop, but they looked so ordinary. Nurses in scrubs, mothers with strollers, some men from the construction team down the street. Everyone looked tired and grumpy and frazzled. After seeing Paul and his girlfriend, I felt as though I'd been blinded by looking at the sun.

They were that glamorous.

I tried to ring up the order at the cash register, but ended up making a mistake and had to void the purchase. When I was finally finished, I looked out the window again but couldn't see Paul or his girlfriend. They'd simply disappeared.

“Did you see them? Paul was right there. With some woman,” I told Anita.

“Tell him to come in. We could use an extra pair of hands or two,” she said. “I can handle things for a few minutes while you go get them.”

I ran outside, but they weren't in line, neither in the part in front of the donut shop nor in the part snaking down the strip mall. I ran into the parking lot, but I didn't see Paul's Mazda either. I didn't see how I could have imagined them;
there was no one in line that looked remotely like the couple I'd seen.

I figured they'd have to come back later. There was no reason to just stand outside the donut shop and not come in. Maybe they were waiting for Uncle to return, I thought.