Beauty Rising

by Mark W. Sasse

  “All right. I’ll check them out front.”

  The open front door allowed a beautifully cool breeze to permeate the house. As I reached the screen door, I noticed a girl standing out on the street holding something in her hand and looking at our mail box. I watched her for a moment. She had long black hair, and she was Asian. I watched as she touched her fingers to the letters of the mail box. The front door screeched as I opened it, and she immediately looked up at me and took two steps back like she was ready to run.

  “Can I help you?”

  She just looked and said nothing. And then I noticed who it really was. It was that girl I saw in Hanoi at the ice cream shop or possibly the girl I saw at Returned Sword Lake cuddled on the bench with her lover. It may have been that girl on page 89 in the book by my bed stand or the girl I grabbed a hold of in Thai Nguyen; it was definitely the girl that smiled at my dad under the banana tree. My heart froze in fear. What was she doing here? She started walking away.

  “No, wait,” I said and walked down the porch steps. “Wait. Can I help you?”

  She stopped for a moment then turned around and walked over and stood beside the mail box. I towered two steps above her on the sidewalk which stretched from the porch.

  “Are you Martin Kinney?” she said in excellent English, pointing at the name on the mail box.

  “Yes, well, that Martin Kinney was my father. I’m Martin Kinney Jr.”

  She stood like an angel wearing a white blouse and blue jeans. My heart pounded. It had to be the girl from the book on page 89.

  “I’m sorry,” she said and handed me the plastic card that she had been holding.

  “What?”

  I reached out and took it. It was my old driver’s license.

  “I’m sorry,” she said again.

  “What? How?”

  Then I looked at her face again.

  “It’s you. You’re the one who stole my wallet. I grabbed your arm that day at the festival. It’s you.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said for one last time and then started walking up the street.

  “Do you know how much trouble that caused me?” I said instinctively. I jumped down the two steps onto the road. “I had nothing. I … Hey, come back here. Hey!”

  She continued walking up Home Avenue. I wallowed in my anger for another few moments until I realized that perhaps I just made the biggest mistake of my life. Why would she go completely out of her way to return a stolen license three years from the date of the incident? I also realized that the girl I had been dreaming about for a long time stood on my street in Lyndora, and all I could do is yell at her.

  Slick Martin. Slick.

  I started running after her.

  “Wait. No wait. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get angry. Wait.”

  She continued walking away from me undeterred.

  “Please,” I said.

  She stopped. I caught up to her and stood directly behind her.

  “Thank you. Thank you for bringing back my license. You must have gone well out of your way.”

  I touched her gently on her right arm.

  “Really. Thank you.”

  She turned her face around towards me, and I noticed she was crying.

  “Oh. No. What’s wrong? Don’t cry.”

  She turned away again.

  “Come on. Can we sit on the steps out front and talk? It’s okay. Can we talk?”

  She nodded her head and turned around. We walked back to the house in complete silence. Several lightning bugs flew by and my eyes trailed after them.

  “Let’s sit here,” I said, pointing to the top step right beside the mail box.

  She sat daintily down on my right side. My wide girth wouldn’t quite fit on the remaining portion of the cement step so half of me used the cool grass as an overflow.

  “So,” I said, breaking the silence although I didn’t know how to proceed from there. “It’s a cool evening.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m curious. Why did you bring me back my license?”

  “I don’t know.”

  A lightning bug flew right in front of me. I stood up and stumbled down the small bank cupping my hands trying to catch it.

  “Come here, come here. Got it.”

  I carried the bug over in my cupped hands.

  “Look,” I said lifting up one side of my hand. “Isn’t it beautiful?”

  She looked inside as the lightning bug blinked twice illuminating my palms.

  “Yes.”

  “When I was a boy, I used to spend every summer evening out here catching these things. I put them in jars with holes punched out in the top. I’d let them go before I went to bed. I’d catch them again the next night.”

  “It sounds like a wonderful way to grow up.”

  “Hardly. My dad was always drunk and my Mom, well, she’s a unique one too. I tried to stay out of the house as much as possible.”

  “When you came to Vietnam, you went for your father, didn’t you?”

  I looked at her in disbelief.

  “How would you know that?”

  “My English teacher in Thai Nguyen was a friend of your friend. He saw your license that I had on my key chain and started talking about you.”

  “What? Wait, you mean Jason?”

  “Yes, that was his name. Mr. Jason.”

  “You know him? Is that why you came here?”

  “No, I don’t know him. I told him I found your wallet and that I kept your license as a good luck charm.”

  “Whoa. This is unbelievable. Yeah, Jason saved me. I didn’t have any money and I didn’t know what to do,” I paused trying to grasp the situation. “You met Jason?”

  “I’m sorry,” she said again and turned away from me.

  “No, don’t. That’s all in the past. What did he tell you about my father?”

  “Nothing.”

  “No, really,” I insisted.

  “He told me that you came to Vietnam to bury your father’s ashes. That he had been a soldier in the war.”

  I nodded my head. I had never met this girl before, but I felt like I had been dreaming about her for three years. This was my banana tree moment. I was sure she would leave after tonight and I would never see her again, but for now, for this moment, the girl who smiled at me continued to sit beside me.

  “I was only in Vietnam for three days, but it changed my life. Actually, I should probably thank you.”

  She looked at me in a startled manner. The breeze blew her hair softly to the left. My heart pounded as if I had just walked up a steep hill. I also felt out of breath. Love is the most rigorous type of exercise.

  “Thank me? Why? I stole your wallet.”

  “If you hadn’t stolen my wallet, I never would have experienced Hanoi with Jason and my taxi driver Tan like I did. I never would have experienced their kindness – their generosity. Those three days changed my life. I also wouldn’t be talking with you right now.”

  “How can you thank me?” she said with a hint of disbelief and almost anger. “I would believe you more if you were angry at me.”

  “Believe me, I’m not angry.”

  There was silence for a moment.

  “You must have loved your father to do that for him.”

  I laughed. Oh, the irony.

  “That’s the strange thing. I hated my father. He was mean to me and horrible to live with. But when he was dying, he asked me to do this for him, and I couldn’t refuse. Strangely, by following his wishes, it changed me for the better.”

  There was another awkward pause.

  “So was it?” I asked.

  “Was what?”

  “Was my license lucky for you?” I asked with a smile.

  “It saved my life.”

  “How did it save your life?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “I’ve got nothing to do. Trust me. I have absolutely nothing to do.”


  It wasn’t Tuesday after all.

  “We could go for a walk if you like. I’d love to hear your story.”

  “Okay. I’d like that.”

  “But wait, I don’t even know your name.”

  “I am My Phuong.”

  “My Phuong,” I repeated. “Did you say ‘Phuong’?”

  “No, it’s Phuong. Short, hard tone.”

  “Phuong.”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “Like the flower?”

  “Yes, that’s right. You know about the Phuong flower?” she asked surprised.

  I stood up immediately and held up my finger for her to wait for a minute.

  “Wait right here. Can you wait right here for one minute?”

  She nodded.

  “I mean, if I go in the house and come out in one minute, you’ll still be here?”

  “Yes. I’ll wait.”

  “Promise?”

  “Yes, I promise. I’m not going anywhere,” she said as she smiled at me.

  She smiled at me. That smile ripped through my stomach. I didn’t know what it meant, but there it was. That smile, and it was directed at me. I couldn’t bear leaving her, but I did. I ran into the house, through the kitchen, up the stairs, into my bedroom, and grabbed the Vietnam book from my night stand. I flew down the stairs sounding to myself like a herd of elephants, through the kitchen out the door and I noticed immediately that she was still there. My heart sighed in relief. I went down the steps, across the sidewalk and plopped down beside her. My body crashed into hers as I sat down and she went flying two feet in the opposite direction.

  Gosh, I’m the most awkward person in the world, I thought.

  “Sorry.”

  “Not at all,” she said with her proper English.

  “Here,” I handed her the picture book. “Turn to page 89.”

  Her delicate hands slowly flipped through the pages until she stopped on page 89. Her face lit up immediately.

  “Oh, the Phuong flower,” she said picking up the petals in her hand. “It’s still so beautiful.”

  “It was my only souvenir from Vietnam because I didn’t have any money.”

  Her face turned sour.

  “No, not that, no. I didn’t mean that. I mean, it is the best souvenir I ever could have gotten with all the money in the world.”

  “It’s travelled all this way, and it is still very beautiful,” she said.

  I hesitated to say it, but I had to.

  “Just like you.”

  She looked up at me and smiled again.

  “So you have kept this flower in this book for three years?”

  “Yes. I can’t tell you how many times I got out this book and stared at the flower to remember my time in Vietnam or to remember my dad. Or just to look at the girl on page 89,” I said. I wished I could have erased that last comment.

  “You think she is beautiful?”

  “Yes,” I said. “But not as beautiful as you.”

  I wanted to kick myself for saying that too. I nervously grabbed the book from her.

  “I’ll just put this on the porch, and then we can go for that walk. You can tell me about how lucky my license is.”

  “Okay.”

  I ran to the porch, plopped the book on the swing, and then we started walking down Home Avenue – a large round, red-headed American and a petite Asian. Several neighbors greeted us with ‘Hello’ as they looked curiously on. We walked down to Main and then over to Hansen Avenue. Then we walked down past the bowling alley, up the steps which led to my old alma mater – Butler High School – across the road and within an hour we were sitting in a pavilion at Alameda Park. She told me about Hung who pushed me, and Hoa, and Co Thu. She told me about Mr. Duc’s shave and then the English lessons she gave him. She told me all about the affair, the visit from Mrs. Duc, and how she took the license and plunged it into Mr. Duc’s eye. She told me about how she killed him and how she escaped to Haiphong. She told me about the small room in the container and how she listened to the shortwave radio to hear about her freedom.

  I sat completely shocked at everything she endured.

  “My Phuong, I don’t even know what to say. It’s unbelievable.”

  My life seemed easy compared to hers.

  “I survived,” she said.

  “I’m so sorry My Phuong. How long ago was all of that?”

  “About a year and a half.”

  “What happened since then? How did you end up at my house in Lyndora?”

  She turned away from me and walked over to the edge of the kids’ playground. There was a small, metal merry-go-round that twirled willing victims, the kind that made me sick to my stomach. She sat on the edge of it and gave it one twirl. I watched her go around. She smiled as she went by. She had such a playful, youthful flare. She put her feet down to stop in front of me and stood up.

  “I’m sorry. Am I asking too many questions? You don’t need to tell me anything if you don’t want.”

  “No. I want to. When the freighter arrived in the Port of Los Angeles, we had to remain in the container for about twelve hours. Finally, one of the guys showed up and sneaked us out of the ship through the shipyard and into a van. We were transported to downtown LA and were told we had to work for three years to pay off our passage to America even though I had already paid way more than originally told. There was a group of leaders, Asian and Mexican, and they threatened us with all kinds of things if we gave them trouble or tried to escape. So I worked in a factory in downtown LA for over a year. They kept a close eye on us, and since I didn’t have any papers, I basically just did whatever they said.”

  “Did they mistreat you? Did they hurt you or make you do things you didn’t want?”

  “It was fine, Martin. They didn’t make me do anything I wasn’t used to.”

  “What happened?”

  “The INS raided the place about three months ago. We were put into a detention center until we could be processed. I claimed asylum and eventually when I told them my story, they granted it to me. That was two weeks ago. They gave me my possessions, which were few. Your license was still there. After all this time, I still had your license. My parents had always taught me not to steal, and I know they would have been disappointed with me. So I thought I would go and give it to you as the first step of starting my new life. ”

  My heart raged for this poor girl. I didn’t want to ask her what her plans were next. I couldn’t bear the thought that she would leave.

  We walked back towards Lyndora and just chatted about random things. We stopped at Wendy’s and I bought her a burger. I had a triple. She ate about half of it and gave me the rest. We laughed and smiled. It was the most magical night of my life. We arrived back at Home Avenue and took a seat on that same familiar step. I was still halfway into the grass. The screen door opened.

  “Martin, where the hell have you been? It’s almost eleven o’clock. Who’s out there with you?”

  “Mom, this is My Phuong.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Hello,” My Phuong said to my mother. “Nice to meet you.”

  “Martin, you need to come in now. It’s cold out there.”

  She completely ignored My Phuong’s gesture and just stared at her. I wanted nothing more than for her to go away.

  “Mom, don’t be so rude. She said ‘hello’ to you.”

  My Mom nodded to My Phuong insincerely.

  “Come in now, Martin.”

  “Mom, stop treating me like a child. I’m trying to have a conversation here.”

  “What are you? Are you Oriental?” my Mom said in the most embarrassing of manners.

  “She’s from Vietnam, Mom.”

  “Vietnam! Martin,”

  “Mom, go inside.”

  The screen door slammed.

  “My Phuong, I am so sorry. My mother had no right to treat you like that. But that’s how my mother is
. I’m sorry.”

  “Maybe I should go.”

  “Where? Where will you go?”

  “I’ll find a place.”

  “You mean you have no place to stay?” I asked.

  “No, but don’t worry. I’ll find a place.”

  “No, My Phuong. You can stay here. We have plenty of room.”

  “No, I couldn’t.”

  “Sure you can. There’s an extra bedroom in the basement, and . . . ”

  “No, your mother doesn’t like me.”

  “My mother doesn’t like anyone.”

  “No, Martin I have to go.”

  She stood up and walked down the two steps to the road and then started to leave.

  “My Phuong, please don’t. I mean, if you want to leave . . .if you don’t want to see me again, I understand, but. . .”

  Perhaps there were tears in my eyes. I’m not sure, but I felt my heart breaking. I had been waiting for her for three years and the thought of her leaving tore me up.

  “Oh, Martin. You have been so kind to me already. I just don’t want to cause you any problems with your mother.”

  “But you need a place to stay, don’t you?”

  She looked away from me, and then turned her head back towards me and nodded.

  “I have an idea. Do you trust me?”

  “I trust you more than I’ve trusted anyone in a long time.”

  That made me smile immensely.

  The Real Story of My Phuong

  We walked down Home Avenue onto Main and continued down two blocks until we stood in front of Reverend Fox’s parsonage.

  “Where are we going, Martin?”

  “Here. This is the home of Reverend Fox. I think he could help you.”

  “This is a church. No, Martin. No. I have to go.”

  She started walking the other way.

  “My Phuong, what is it? Where will you go? My Phuong? Please, wait.”

  She stopped.

  “Martin, not the church. I can’t.”

  “What’s the matter? Reverend Fox is really nice. I think he can help you.”

  She looked distressed, but eventually nodded and turned back to me.

  “It’s okay,” I said and we both walked up his sidewalk towards his front door. A light burned dimly in the front room. I walked up the two cinderblock steps and knocked. After a few seconds, the aging Reverend Fox came to the door.