Our knees touched. He told me how he missed iced tea and fried okra. “You know, Bojangles has great sweet tea. Have you ever eaten there?”
A surge of desire came over me. The next thing I knew I’d put my fingers on his jaw and leaned in to kiss his mouth. But before my lips met his, he jerked away. His eyes were like darts, artillery barricading the enemy forces.
Up until that moment, I was certain he dreamed to kiss me.
Yet here was his chance and he wasn’t interested. I didn’t know what to say, so I stood up and muttered, “Fine, be that way,” and stormed out of the room.
He ignored me after that. When he saw me walking toward him, he’d rush into the dorm. The rides to our neighborhood to teach consisted of empty stares out the window, at the floor, anywhere but at each other. During staff meetings, when he sang and played his sax with the other musicians in our group, his eyes never met mine. He quit stopping by my dorm room to ask if I wanted to walk through the neighborhoods with him and eat a Vietnamese sandwich or bowl of noodles at one of the outdoor cafés.
Thinking that we still got along so well, Dr. Rogers asked Carson and me to decorate the administration building and paint the front door, hoping that we could give the drab place a makeover. “You can put some of your photos of the camp on the walls,” he told me, making me feel good about my photography.
Dr. Rogers set a time for Carson and me to meet when the admin building would be vacant of staff. Getting there a little early that evening, I turned on the overhead light, anticipating time alone with Carson.
After fifteen minutes passed, I wondered where he was. I waited and waited, twisting my fingers and biting my lip.
When I was about to head over to Carson’s dorm to see what was taking him so long, one of the female Filipino teachers entered the building. With a tight smile she walked over to where I sat. “Sorry to be late. I just got out of another meeting in my dorm.”
I asked what she meant. That’s when she told me that Carson was off the project. “Carson asked me to replace him,” she said innocently.
As she and I hung the bright and happy posters we’d made, I felt far from bright and happy.
“Apparently,” Dr. Rogers told me in private, “Carson doesn’t feel the two of you work well together. I’m sorry, Samantha.”
I couldn’t believe that Carson wanted nothing to do with me and was letting others know that. Tears burned my eyes and I wanted to crawl into a hole.
I hated Carson after that. Actually, I wished I could hate him, but he occupied my heart—a constant reminder that you don’t always get what you want.
Eventually, we did talk to each other again. It was like a waterspout that has been blocked and is slowly freed from congestion—a trickle at a time. I asked to borrow a pen and he lent me one. He needed to know what time we’d been invited to a Laotian family’s billet for a Saturday dinner. I avoided his eyes but replied, “Six.” Seated around the wooden dinner table with the refugee family, Carson and I conversed, acting like we were still the close friends we’d been weeks ago.
But it was not the same. You can’t go back. What’s done is done. Unrequited love is never easy. Time heals all wounds. I kept repeating such clichés to myself, hoping that they, like medicine, would take away the sting.
They didn’t.
thirty-one
When I get to the shop, out front are two police cars with their emergency light bars flashing red and blue. A stream of yellow caution tape is plastered around the vicinity. This is a scene right out of a TV detective show.
During the five-mile drive over, my mind pounded from Mom’s phone call. I’d stumbled out of bed. My digital clock read 12:49 a.m. Realizing the phone was ringing, I grabbed the receiver from the cordless on my bedside table, knocked over the stack of mysteries, and immediately heard Mom’s words: “Someone broke into the store.”
At the shop, I park my Honda beside one of the police cars and survey the situation. The door to Have a Fit has been broken with the force of some tool, and with the help of my criminal knowledge that comes from watching shows like Magnum P.I., I know it was probably a crowbar.
Mom, dressed in a pair of gray sweat pants and a dark blue Virginia is for Lovers T-shirt, stands by the front door. I hear her say to a cop that she’s okay. Even so, my words tumble out as I hug her, “Mom, are you okay?”
She smells of cold cream. I wonder if she was sleeping when she was alerted that the boutique was in trouble. “We have been robbed,” she tells me.
I hate hearing the truth from her lips.
“The people from the security company called. I was in such a deep sleep.”
I don’t want to ask, but I must know. “What’s gone?”
“They took money out of the register—but only fifty dollars was in there.”
I’m relieved and yet frightened in the same breath.
Gripping her arm, I guide her into the boutique. Together, we scan the store in its disarray, and she notes more items that are no longer there.
Two gowns are gone, the black dress I wanted to wear, and some shirts. Whoever did this knocked over a clothes rack and hit the walls with something that put holes in the plaster.
“At least they didn’t set it on fire.” Mom leans against the one wall that is not damaged.
We watch as a gloved officer dusts the cash register with a powder. “I should be able to get some prints off of this,” she tells us.
The policeman who enters next is handsome. He reminds me of Starsky on Starsky and Hutch. “I’m Officer Garner. I’d like to ask you some questions,” he says to Mom and then smiles at me. “Shall we sit down?”
I pull a folding chair from the back room for her as the policeman grabs two more from the tiny cardboard table where Mom and I often sit at lunchtime, sharing a sandwich. We place the chairs near a rack of silk blouses.
Opening a large memo pad, he begins to write. “Now,” he says to us, “what time did you close the store last night?” He glances up at Mom. “It’s Mrs. Bravencourt, correct?”
“Yes, Officer Garner.” She clears her throat. True to form, she has remembered his name. “We closed at seven. Like we usually do.”
Although her tone is cordial, I note that her fingers are clenched into fists.
“And who closed the store?”
“We both did,” I answer. “We always walk out to the parking lot together.”
He scribbles on the pad, balancing it against his thigh. Looking up, he asks, “Does anyone else have a key or work with you?”
Mom shakes her head. Then she says, “Sometimes Natasha works here, but she doesn’t have a key.”
“Who is Natasha?”
“My friend,” I tell him.
He adds to his notes. “And you two are mother and daughter?”
“No, sisters.” I laugh, trying to add some humor to ease Mom of her tenseness.
He smiles. “I should have realized that,” he says.
Mom isn’t smiling.
I’m suddenly ashamed. My mom’s store was robbed and I’m flirting with the policeman.
“Now, did you have a security system?” He looks at me; he really is much too handsome.
Mom says, “Yes, I set it. That’s how you got here.”
“Oh yes, the alarm went off when the door was forced open, and we were called.” He scribbles some more.
“Looks like they struck the walls with a crowbar.” Mom motions toward the wall in front of her. “Knocked the pictures down, too.” She gives a nervous glance toward the officer and then asks, “Who would do something like this?”
“We’ll try our best to find out, ma’am,” he assures as the policewoman checking for fingerprints lets him know her work is done. “Did you get anything?” he asks her as she carries her black bag across the room.
“I was able to lift about three fingerprints,” she tells him before heading outside.
With that, Officer Garner thanks us for answering his questions and, looking at Mom, says, “
You might want to call someone to fix the front door.”
We call a locksmith immediately; Mom complains that he is stealing more than the thief by charging such an enormous fee.
I try to appease her by saying she should be glad that someone is available to repair the door and change the lock in the middle of the night.
My mother merely grunts. She walks over to the pictures, now strewn on the carpet, their glass frames shattered. “Uncle Charlie gave me those.”
I join her to examine the damage. “We can get new frames. The prints look like they haven’t been ruined.” The prints are, in my opinion, nothing more than globs of orange and pink paint, the colors of Dunkin’ Donuts. Mom says they are rare pieces of modern art; I guess I have yet to understand why they are called modern and, more important, why they are called art. “Be careful,” I warn. “There is glass everywhere.”
Stepping over a large triangular slab of glass, she says, “I suppose we should get the broom.”
“Tomorrow,” I tell her. “I’ll clean it up first thing in the morning.”
She acts like she hasn’t heard me at all. Surveying the store once more, she murmurs a few unintelligible words. When the locksmith finishes his job, she says to him, “The evil in our world. Just miserable.”
Standing, he runs callused hands over the knees of his dark blue uniform. “I agree with you completely.” He hands Mom two sets of keys. “There’s a new lock and the door is secured again.” Then he picks up his metal toolbox as Mom writes him a check.
We test the key a few times before the man drives off in his company’s truck. Again Mom muses, “The evil that prevails in this world. People have no business invading others’ lives.”
The word invading sparks memories. I think of how countries are invaded and lives are damaged. I think of the countless stories I heard from the refugees. I search for something calming to say to ease her but can’t come up with a thing.
I stay at Mom’s house. I add sheets to the guest bed, wondering if I will be able to sleep at all. I know that Mom won’t. I hear her toss and turn until dawn fills the guest room window, peeping through the white blinds. Glad that the night is over, I get out of bed to prepare for another day at the boutique.
Mom greets me in the kitchen, dressed for work in a pair of cotton slacks and a black blouse. “I hope they caught whoever broke in.”
I hope so too, of course. But I also know that only on TV does law enforcement work that quickly. In real life, as in love, the good guy does not always win, nor does the girl always get the guy.
She tells me I can wear some of her clothes today since all I have is what I had on yesterday. “There’s a Ralph Lauren shirt in the left of my closet that should fit you,” she says as she makes her way toward the door, the soles of her shoes heavy on the hardwood. Over her shoulder, she says with resolve, “Sam, we will get through this.”
I give a weak smile. “We will. I’ll see you at the shop soon.”
thirty-two
The next night I order takeout from the Chinese restaurant I like and then take a long walk around my neighborhood. Sometimes I find taking a walk a good opportunity to not only get exercise but to pray. Frustration that someone would have the audacity to break into the shop gnaws at my insides. Calm down, I tell myself. You’re going to have a heart attack over it. The words heart attack sear my heart, and I feel tears ready to surface. I walk faster, the tears large and hot against my cheeks. I can’t help but think that if Dad hadn’t had a heart attack, Mom and I would be better off. “God, at least if she’s going to have to be lonely without Dad, please give her cat back to her,” I pray.
Rounding a corner, I see two Asian kids on skateboards, gliding across the pavement. Thinking of Lien, I ask God to change my attitude toward her, ashamed that I’ve been stuck in recalling how she used to be instead of the new woman she is now. She’s still on my mind when I enter my apartment to a ringing phone that interrupts my prayer.
Carson wants to know how I’m doing. At first I want to remind him that I told him not to call me ever again, but instead I tell him that the boutique was robbed.
“Robbed?” He says the word like it’s foreign.
“We’re not sure who did it, but they stole some clothing and money after breaking the lock.”
“Are you all right?” The genuine concern in his voice reminds me of when I sliced my finger with a knife in my dorm’s kitchen and he administered medical attention, wiping away the blood and wrapping the wound in a bandage he rushed to get from our agency’s secretary.
“Yeah, it’s been messy. We feel so violated.”
He insists on driving up here to see me. “I’ll book a hotel room. Let me call Jason and see if he can cover my shift at the station.”
He arrives at the shop at ten forty the next morning and, noting the damaged walls, says he’ll go out and buy plaster and paint.
Mom’s eyes grow wide. She stops chewing the licorice morsel. “Really? You would do that?”
“I came to help out,” he says, tall and grinning. “Where is the nearest store to get the supplies, ma’am?”
Mom looks like she is going to faint from his kindness. She studies him a moment, sort of like she’s in a trance.
“And I’ll need some new frames for those two pictures.” He winks at me, warming my heart. When he called last night, I told him about how much those two blobs of paint on canvas mean to my mother. Earlier today, I cleaned the glass from the carpet with our store’s broom and vacuum cleaner. Then, carefully, I removed the prints from the broken glass and carried the destroyed frames to the dumpster. I was proud that I didn’t even nick myself at all.
Carson takes our measuring tape from the drawer and writes down the dimensions of the pictures. “What color frames would you like?” he asks Mom.
“Silver,” she says without any hesitation.
An hour later he returns with a large container of plaster and a gallon of creamy rose paint. “The paint should match pretty well,” he says, his voice exuding confidence. When he brings in the picture frames from his car, he hands them to Mom, and I watch her unwrap them with delight.
As customers enter the shop, Mom has me wait on them. She’s in the back storage room, placing the gifts from Uncle Charlie into their new homes. I know that there must be a story behind these so-called works of art, but I have never heard it. When she reenters the main part of the shop, her smile is large. “They fit perfectly,” she whispers to me.
“When did Uncle Charlie give those to you?”
“You don’t know?” She sounds disturbed, like something is wrong with me for not knowing, the same kind of reaction a history teacher might give when a child doesn’t know who George Washington is. “Haven’t you heard the story?”
I confess that I have not but get ready for another Uncle Charlie story.
“He got them for me at the state fair.”
“Legally?” I ask with a smile. I know that my uncle was rarely on the right side of the law.
“Yes, Samantha,” Mom says.
“Well, with Uncle Charlie, you never know.”
“They were being sold at a booth for a quarter apiece. I thought they were beautiful.”
I turn my head to try another angle—perhaps now I’ll be able to find the beauty in the blobs. I can’t seem to, so I think to myself that I now know why the expression beauty is in the eye of the beholder was coined.
“I was just a young girl, and he took the time to think about me.”
Suddenly, I get it. Right here in the shop, I now understand. Mom was drawn to her Uncle Charlie—despite his strange antics—because he cared about her. He took her to the fair and bought her something of value. Her own parents didn’t show affection for her, yet this man made her feel cherished.
Morning slips into afternoon, and sunlight shimmers through the front window. We try to act like it’s business as usual as Carson, dressed in a pair of worn jeans and a radio station T-shirt, fills the holes
in the walls, sands them when the plaster dries, and adds a coat of paint. As if we’re used to having a man work closely beside us every day.
At seven, Carson rinses his roller and paintbrush in the bathroom sink. I watch the pinkish white water dissolve into the drain. After drying them, he sets the roller and brush on the card table in the back room.
I leave him to walk over to the front door and lock it for the evening.
Mom counts the money in the register’s drawer, writing numbers on a slip of paper. Since the robbery, she no longer leaves any money in the register overnight.
“Let’s all go out to dinner,” Carson calls out to us.
“What?” I make my way to the back room where the bathroom is.
Carson dries his hands on a paper towel from the metal dispenser. “I’d like to take you and your mom out to dinner.”
“You would?”
“Yes, I would.”
Standing in front of my mother, he asks, “Where would you like to eat tonight?”
She’s speechless; again she looks ready to faint. As Beanie would say, “She’s all kinds of flustered.”
Moistening her lips, she calmly says, “I have stew in my crock pot. I tried a new recipe with chicken and tomatoes. We could go home and eat there.”
Carson smiles demurely. “You can have the stew tomorrow. I’d like to take you out to dinner tonight.”
Before the waiter asks if we want dessert or coffee, Mom says she’s heading home.
Carson sputters, “Now?”
Mom says, “I’ll leave you two alone.”
“I hope we haven’t bored you with our refugee talk.” Carson’s concern is genuine, and I can tell that my mother is enjoying the attention he’s giving her.
Mom and I went to our homes to get ready and arrived at the Peking Gourmet Inn just minutes before Carson’s car entered the parking lot. There was no wait to be seated; it helps that it’s a weeknight and not the weekend when the restaurant is swamped.
Now, Mom places a narrow hand on the linen tablecloth. Her ruby bracelet that Dad gave her glistens under the lanterns that adorn the ceiling of the restaurant. “I’ve enjoyed your refugee conversation,” she says.
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