Tiger Girl

by May-lee Chai

  “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 de
velop 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.

  CHAPTER 17

  Sacred Heart

  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.

  Then, as I ran back inside, my terrible thoughts returned. What a coincidence that on our biggest day of sales ever, we should be robbed. And then today, Paul comes to check out business again. What if he were still tied up with criminals in some way, obligated to find new marks for them?

  I shivered. I didn’t want to be robbed again. Especially by family.

  Anita was bagging up another half-dozen donut holes when I sidled up. “We should get security cameras. We should at least put up a sign saying we have hidden security cameras.”

  “It’s natural to be nervous after what you and Sitan went through.”

  “I mean it, Anita. We should be prepared. I don’t trust him.”

  “Sitan?” Anita looked surprised.

  “No! Paul.”

  “Oh, honey. You don’t know him yet.”

  “He was there, now he’s gone. What’s he watching us for? We don’t really know anything about him. He shows up, we get robbed. He shows up again. I’m just sayin’.”

  Anita took a damp rag and wiped it across the counter top while the next group of customers stared at the cases, trying to decide what to order. “All I know is your uncle had a hole in his heart the size of his son. Now he’s a new man. I can see it in his eyes. That’s good news, honey. I’m not going to look this gift horse in the mouth.” She tapped the tattoo on her arm. “The one thing I learned on the knife circuit is not to live in fear. Trust that you’ll be able to adapt to what comes next.” Then she busied herself with the next customer.

  I found Anita’s endorsement of Paul less than ringing, but she clearly wasn’t going to worry about any of my concerns. For the time being, there was nothing I could do. But while she rang up the next order, I took out a Sharpie from the pen drawer by the cash register and wrote on a blank piece of paper: “Smile! Our security cameras are filming you.” I drew an arrow ambiguously pointing up. Then I taped it to the front door.

  By three, Sitan still hadn’t come in for work and Anita had to leave. She had a doctor appointment for the tendonitis in her wrists, she said. I told her that I could man the shop all by myself, no problem, even though deep down I was still a little afraid. After she left, I tried to console myself. Maybe now that business had picked up, Uncle would stop volunteering all over town and come back to work, or else hire somebody else to work in the shop. I tried to look on the upside. If Ma ever found out that I’d come to visit Uncle, she’d worry about whether I’d pitched in and helped or if I had been a layabout. I wouldn’t want her to be ashamed.

  As the sun was setting, the air grew noticeably cooler and a wind picked up, blowing dust and sagebrush and bits of trash across the parking lot. Clouds gathered along the horizon, so that the rays of the setting sun formed waves of deep red and gold, like blood trapped in amber. I looked out the window, up at the roiling sky, and thought it might actually rain. So much for it always being sunny in California. The wind picked up tiny
rocks and threw them against the glass. The change in weather thinned the crowd, so by five, as the sky darkened, I could close on time. I watched the headlights creeping down the street, the traffic slower than usual, everyone inching home, heads down against the wind.

  I was mopping up when the first clap of thunder shook the glass in the windows. The boom was so loud that it sounded like a truck had hit a car somewhere. I peered out the front window, expecting to see twisted metal and headlights careening across the parking lot, but instead there was a flash of lightning revealing the traffic, the parking lot, the palm trees swaying in the wild wind.

  The thunder boomed again, and the rain fell all at once, as if every cloud had a little trapdoor inside, all of which opened simultaneously to release a river of water. The rain pounded onto the asphalt, splashed against the window glass, swept over the cars.

  The phone rang. It was Uncle, calling to see if I was okay. He sounded genuinely worried. I was surprised that rain was such a big deal, but he said there was flooding in the canyon, whatever that meant. He said, “There will be accidents. It’s like a blizzard here when it rains.” He wanted me to stay put until he could get there. He’d be late, he said, but he’d drive me home. I shouldn’t venture on the bus. Not in this weather.

  I looked out into the blurry parking lot, the headlights reflected in the rain pouring down the glass. “I’ll wait. Don’t worry.” He hung up, and I went back to cleaning up the shop.

  Then the power went out. First the lights flickered, and then the freezer made this slow knocking sound, whined, and was suddenly silent. I stood in the middle of the front room, the world outside suddenly darker, too. All the streetlights were out, as well as the Christmas lights at the strip mall. I hadn’t realized how I’d grown used to their blinking in the night air until now that they were gone and I was staring into the dark, the headlights on the street suddenly brighter and slower, unfocused-seeming, like glowing myopic eyes.