by Pintip Dunn
She nods, her eyes open as far as they’ll go. “Of course, Kan. Anything you say.”
Chapter 19
My cell phone lies on my desk, mocking me. It is rectangular, slim, and encased in bling-bling gems. I want to hurl it as hard as I can across the room.
Instead, I sweep it up and press the cool surface against my forehead. I have to call Ethan. There’s no way around it. Tomorrow is Sunday, and I won’t see him at Miss Patsy’s before then. I really don’t want to call him on the dreaded next day, the day after we kissed for the first time. I might as well tattoo on my forehead: Eager, much?
But I have no choice. So I tap in the phone number he gave me. He answers on the first ring.
“I was just thinking about you,” he says, his voice low and warm.
“You were?” I gape at the phone. A few seconds later, I regain my senses and plunge ahead. “Now listen, before you say anything, I want you to know I’m not stalking you. I have a reason for calling you, really I do.”
“You don’t need a reason for calling me, Kanchana,” he says. “In fact, I was about to call you myself.”
“Really? You’re not just saying that?”
He pauses, and I flush, thankful we’re not on a video call. “You are just saying that!”
“All right, I am. But not because I didn’t want to. I . . . um, had fun last night.” His voice dips low into my stomach.
“Me, too.” I smile my words and wonder if he can hear it.
“I had fun kissing you. And I, uh, had fun later, too. When we were telling each other bedtime stories.”
I’m still smiling—how can I not smile when I’m talking to Ethan?—but my lips curve one degree less. Did we tell each other bedtime stories? We talked about our pasts at the playground, but I wouldn’t have called our conversation “bedtime stories.”
No matter. I’ve got more pressing concerns. I take a deep breath. “I have a favor to ask. It’s a little strange, so feel free to say no.” I squeeze my eyes shut. “My grandmother wants you to come over for dinner. Tomorrow night.”
He pauses for a moment. “Okay.”
My eyes fly open. “Okay? Aren’t you going to say it’s a little early? I mean, we’re not even dating yet, and we only kissed last night.”
“Well, it’s true we only kissed last night. But I was hoping we were dating.”
Oh. My. God. This boy. I don’t think my lips have ever gotten this big a workout. “You mean it?”
“Absolutely. And if your mom or grandma wants to meet me, I’m happy to have dinner with them.”
I shake my head. It can’t possibly be this easy. “One more thing. My grandmother can’t know we’re dating. We’re just friends from the dance studio.”
“Friends?” He rolls the word in his mouth suspiciously, like it might be poisonous.
“Yeah. You know, friends who go to the park together. And swing under the stars. And climb the jungle gym, and—”
“Kiss under the moonlight?”
I pinch my arm. Nope, I’m definitely not dreaming. “Yeah. That kind of friend.”
“That, I can live with,” he says.
* * *
One day later, I’m pretty sure if I’m living any kind of a dream, it’s a bona fide, wake-up-screaming nightmare.
Khun Yai insists on serving miang kum for an appetizer. Now, I love miang kum. It consists of taking a green leaf called a chaplu, which Khun Yai grows herself in our garden, and filling it with a variety of chopped ingredients, such as lime (with the peel on), shredded coconut, roasted peanuts, dried shrimp, ginger, onion, and chili pepper. The mixture is topped with a tamarind and cane sugar jam, and the entire leaf is popped into your mouth for a delicious, sweet-and-savory bite.
But just because I like it doesn’t mean my friends do. In fact, the first time Khun Yai served this dish to Ash, she whispered to me that it smelled like dead cat.
“Please,” I had begged Khun Yai after Ash left. “Don’t serve this stuff. My friends want nachos and pizza and chicken wings.”
She had wrinkled her brow. “But that is, how you say, trash food. And I know why they call it trash food. Because that’s where it belongs. Why wouldn’t your friends want good, authentic Thai food? It isn’t easy to find, you know.”
I sighed. “They just don’t, Khun Yai. Why don’t you make my friends your egg rolls? They’ll like that, I promise.”
“Fine,” Khun Yai humphed. But that’s what she served my friends from then on, and that’s what they loved. So much that her egg rolls became famous in Foxville, and my mom was constantly asked if Khun Yai would cater retirement parties and birthday celebrations around town.
I wanted her to make egg rolls for Ethan. I hoped and prayed she would make egg rolls for Ethan. But no such luck. An hour before he is due to arrive, the scent of tamarind jam perfumes our house.
“What’s that smell?” Shelly asks, sniffing the air.
I drop my head into my hands. “Don’t ask. And don’t say it smells like a dead cat, either.”
“Oh, I don’t think it smells bad,” she says. “Just different.”
What she doesn’t know is that I’ve been different all my life.
Being with Ethan is showing me that difference is not necessarily a bad thing. And yet . . . I’m not quite sure I’m ready to embrace it, either.
Chapter 20
Shelly is in the kitchen helping Khun Yai, playing the part of the dutiful granddaughter. I can’t help but notice the awkwardness between them. Khun Yai is perfectly kind and courteous but there’s something forced about her words.
A pause that’s an instant too long, movements that are a little too stiff. But whatever’s going on, I don’t have time to dwell on it. Especially since Ethan is coming in fifteen minutes, and I still haven’t changed out of my yoga pants.
I fly into my room. I want to look nice, but at the same time, I need to stay casual, since it’s only dinner at home.
I’ll pair my tight black jeans, the ones with the coated sheen, with an off-the-shoulder turquoise blouse I made last fall. Perfect. Khun Yai doesn’t love the shirt, but I can make sure it stays on my shoulders, not baring too much skin during dinner.
As for Mae? Not only will she not comment, she won’t even be here to notice.
My hands slow as I fumble through my clothes. Mae got called to the hospital half an hour ago, and Khun Yai was not pleased.
“You want me not to go to work because some boy is coming to dinner?” I’d heard my mom ask incredulously through the paper-thin walls.
“It’s not just some boy,” Khun Yai said. “It’s the boy Kanchana likes. Shouldn’t you make sure he’s a proper young man?”
“Kanchana is a very responsible girl. I trust her to choose appropriate company.”
“She needs parental oversight.”
“And you’re doing such a good job of it.” There had been a pause, as though my mom was leaning over and kissing Khun Yai on the cheek. “You always have. I don’t know where we would be without you.”
“I wonder if I’ve made a mistake, coming to stay with you,” Khun Yai said slowly. “It’s allowed you to ignore your own child in favor of your work. If I weren’t here, maybe you would pay her a little more attention.”
“Oh, Mae. You know this is what we Thai mothers do. We have Yais so that the Maes can work. Where do you think Kanchana would be if I didn’t have a job? Did you ever think of that?”
“I don’t fault you, luk lak.” The Thai endearment rolls off Khun Yai’s tongue. She calls me that all the time. I don’t think my mother has said it to me once. “I’d just like you to spend more time with your daughter, that’s all.”
“You spend time with her, Mae. You give her plenty of love. It’s the same thing.”
“It’s not the same, and you know it,” Khun Yai said. “Nothing can ever replace a mother’s love.”
Their voices faded away then, or maybe I’d just fled, no longer wanting to listen.
Remembering their words now, my hands fist around a pair of blue jeans. I know my mom loves me—in her own way. But I also know that when my dad died, she threw herself into her job, working such long and hard hours that she didn’t have time for anything else. Not for me, not for her grief. Certainly not for herself.
That doesn’t mean I don’t wake up sometimes and hear her sob in the night. That doesn’t mean we don’t sit across from each other at breakfast, the silence so heavy it seasons our bowls of jok as surely as the fish sauce or the thin strips of ginger.
I take a deep breath and release it slowly. I put on the black jeans and my turquoise shirt and look for my hairbrush. It’s not on the dresser. Shelly must’ve borrowed it.
I dash across the hall and into the bathroom we share. The brush isn’t on the sink or in the first two drawers I yank open. Sighing, I get on my knees and open the cabinet under the sink. I pick through rolls of toilet paper, extra bottles of shampoo, and a container of cotton buds. And then, my hands close around a calendar. That’s weird. I never keep paper calendars anymore. My life is practically stored on my phone.
I flip the calendar to the correct month. Bright red dots mark the squares of today’s and yesterday’s dates. I wonder if Shelly is keeping track of her menstruation cycle.
Coincidentally, I also started my period yesterday. Could Shelly and I already be on the same cycle? Nah. She just moved in a couple weeks ago. I would think an alignment between our cycles would take a few months at least.
Then, I notice an asterisk with a scribbled note underneath the red dot. I squint and can barely make out: Tampon wrapper in trash.
My breath explodes out of my chest. Wait—what? Did I read that correctly? Is it possible Shelly rifled through the trash can, looking for my tampon wrapper? Dear god, why? Are these notations on the calendar keeping track not of her own period . . . but mine?
No way. No freaking way.
I push the calendar to the back of the cabinet and slam the door closed, stumbling from the bathroom. I . . . need . . . to get out. Need . . . to get away. Need . . . to get . . . air.
But even after I’m back in my room, even after I finally get my breathing under control, I still don’t know what to think.
I take that back. I know exactly what to think. It’s not just my imagination. I’m not jumping to conclusions. Something is definitely not right with Shelly.
And I’m not sure I want to be her friend anymore.
Chapter 21
“And your parents? What do they do?” Khun Yai asks twenty minutes later. She’s been relentless in her questions ever since Ethan rang the doorbell with a bouquet of spring flowers.
Ethan winks at me and assembles another miang kum wrap from the platter on the coffee table. He adds every ingredient that Khun Yai set out—including the dried shrimp and the chili pepper and the raw ginger. If Khun Yai notices, however, it doesn’t ease the arms crossed tightly over her chest.
“My dad’s a plumber. And my mom used to teach dance before she passed away,” he says, popping the leaf bundle into his mouth.
“Oh.” She blinks. Her elbows drop onto the couch, and for the first time since he’s entered our living room, she relaxes her spine. “He is a single father?”
“Yeah. I keep hoping he’ll find someone, but it hasn’t happened yet.”
“How do you manage?” she asks, her voice gentle now. “Who does the cooking?”
“I do. Five nights a week, anyhow. We usually get takeout on the weekends.” He assembles another miang kum and gives her a winning smile. “You’ll have to give me the recipe for this. My dad would love it.”
Khun Yai is staring now, her mouth partially open. I hide my snicker. She isn’t often caught off guard. After a moment, she pushes off the couch, mumbling something about turning the chicken drumsticks in the oven.
I look up to see Shelly smiling at me, one of the secret, knowing grins we’ve exchanged in the past couple weeks. The ones I imagined I would share with a sister or anyone else who had an intimate understanding of my family. But I can’t bring myself to smile back. Not when she’s stealing my clothes. Not when she’s rifling through my trash.
Ethan turns to us and holds out a leaf. “Girls? May I make you a miang kum?”
Damn. Even his pronunciation is correct. I swallow my frustration with Shelly and focus my attention on Ethan. If I wasn’t in like before, I believe I am now. Who would have thought? Me, falling in like with a blond, blue-eyed boy over a plump green chaplu leaf. Wild.
* * *
Later, I walk him to his car, and my heart feels like it’s going to burst out of my chest. The evening couldn’t have gone any better. After Khun Yai relaxed, she actually seemed to have a good time getting to know Ethan better. Hell, even I got to know him better. I learned some new facts about him—his favorite subject in school is physics, and he used to play soccer before devoting himself to dance. More importantly, I learned about the way he talked to Khun Yai with genuine respect. I learned about the sincere interest he showed when he asked about her life in Thailand.
“Be careful what you do, because I’m pretty sure Khun Yai is watching us right now,” I murmur to Ethan.
“How about a dance lesson? Surely she can’t object to that?” He takes my hand and spins me around in a slow circle. I’m a terrible dancer, always have been, but I’m able to turn without tripping over my feet, and I end up right in front of him, pressed against his chest, his eyes and nose and mouth inches from mine.
I swallow hard. There’s a lot for Khun Yai to object to. Letting a boy touch me outside on our front lawn, where—god forbid—any neighbor might peek out and see, for example. But his eyes look into mine. The warmth radiates from his chest. His cinnamon-gum scent wraps around me. And I just can’t say no.
I nod, wordlessly, and he eases us apart. He trails the pads of his fingers up my arm until he catches onto my hand. He places his other hand on my shoulder blade, and I forget how to breathe. There’s just something so intimate about the way he’s holding me. His fingers don’t move, and yet, I feel like he’s caressing me. There’s no other word for it.
“This is called the closed dance position, and I’m going to teach you the basic salsa step,” he says. “It’s an eight-count, where you pause on the four and the eight. Fast, fast, slow. Step back on one, then step in place with your other foot on two. Step forward on three, and then pause. Repeat with the opposite feet. Here, I’ll show you. Just follow my lead.”
He moves forward, pushing against my palm, and then pulls me back with a slight pressure against my shoulder blade. His grip is at once firm and gentle, commanding and . . . hot. With his little touches guiding me, I fall into the dance. My steps may not be exactly right, but they feel good. They feel really good.
“Look into my eyes,” he murmurs. I am perfectly helpless to look anywhere else. “Sway your hips. Follow the natural rhythm of the dance.”
The fire burns in me, beginning in my stomach and radiating out to engulf every limb, every cell. Even my fingertips feel hot. I don’t know why Khun Yai isn’t out here, putting an end to this inferno, but if she’s decided to trust me for once, I’m glad.
We dance for what seems like forever, and then Ethan breaks away from me, panting. “I know I’m supposed to be all competent and professional, but keeping my hands where they belong? It’s killing me.”
My heart thunders, and my blood sings. I want with everything in my being to close the gap between us, but I can’t. The curtain in front of the kitchen window doesn’t twitch, but that doesn’t mean Khun Yai isn’t inside, watching.
He moves back, putting a comfortable but electric foot of space between us. “Right now, Friday night.” He groans. “You sure know how to torture a guy, don’t you? I don’t know how much more I can take.”
I lay my fingers on his arm, even though I know it’s dangerous to touch him. I may spontaneously combust. “What are you talking about? I didn’t torture you Friday night. I don’t know
about you, but that was the best time I’ve ever had at a playground.”
“I’m not talking about the playground.” He steps closer again, and my skin sizzles in response. “I’m talking about later. When we were texting.”
I freeze. We didn’t text after the playground. Am I missing something, or did we have a conversation that I just can’t remember?
“I don’t remember texting you at all,” I say carefully.
His forehead creases. A long moment passes, and then the lines disappear. “Oh, right. We’re not supposed to talk about it. I forgot.”
“No.” I grip his wrist. “I’m not kidding around. I really don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He rakes his gaze over my eyes, my nose, my mouth, searching, searching, searching. I want to give him the right answer. Problem is, I don’t know what the question is.
“What’s going on here, Kan?” he asks softly. “Are you . . . ashamed of what we did?”
Heat floods my face. I can’t see myself, but I’m pretty sure the color’s gone beyond red. Inexplicably, I feel . . . dirty.
“No, I’m not ashamed,” I say between gritted teeth. “Because we haven’t done anything. I never texted you. Give me your phone. Show me what you’re talking about.”
He looks at me for a long time, and then he sighs, leans over, and brushes a kiss across my cheek. “You’re right. I must’ve made a mistake. We didn’t text.”
“Ethan—”
He cuts me off by putting a finger to my lips. “I had a nice time tonight. Can’t we just leave it at that? Thank you for inviting me to dinner.”
I shake my head. My brain is about to explode. I don’t understand what just happened. I want to keep talking about the subject, but I don’t know what else to say. I can’t make him turn his phone over to me. Not when our relationship is so new. Is he confused? Delusional? Was he texting with someone else? Greta Greenley, perhaps, or maybe a former girlfriend?
A dark, insidious thought creeps into my head. Maybe it’s not a former girlfriend at all. Maybe it’s a person much closer to me than that. My phone was missing. Texts appearing, disappearing. Someone’s been messing with my phone. Not just someone—Shelly.