The Frangipani Hotel: Fiction (18 page)

Mia felt embarrassed. “A motorbike.” She sat down on the edge of the bed.

Tuan knelt next to her and began unwrapping the bandages on her leg. When he saw the wound he was relieved. “It is not big,” he said. “Not bad. Just like a little kiss. But you cannot hide under this, okay?” He waved the gauze pads at her. “If you hide, it will become like mine.” He rolled up a sleeve to show her a cluster of small brown scars around his elbow. Mia was skeptical of this medical advice but said nothing. Tuan sat next to her on the bed. “Now,” he said with a smile, “what is wrong with
this
?” He brushed the wetness on Mia’s cheeks with the back of his hand.

Mia hadn’t realized that she was crying. She wiped the tears away; they stung her fingertips. “I have a boyfriend, Tuan.”

“It is okay. I have a wife.”

“What?!” Mia scooted away from him on the bed, toward the headboard.

“Mia. My Mia. I will explain. Listen to me. I have a wife but we do not have a wedding yet. She lives in my village. My father and mother, and the father and mother of my wife—they are friends. When my wife and I are both little, they make a promise that we will have a wedding someday. Do you understand?”

“An arranged marriage?” Mia was appalled.

He shrugged. “It is business.” He shifted on the bed so that he was next to her again.

“What is she like?” asked Mia.

Tuan chewed his lip while he thought. “She is not tall. Her feet are big. She likes cooking. She kills a fish with a knife so quickly. Not the, the …” He struggled for a second to remember the word. “Not with sharper part. Like this—” Tuan grabbed Mia’s hand and began smacking it with his palm. She presumed that her hand was the fish and that his betrothed spanked it to death with the side of the knife. Tuan was getting excited now; the good part was coming. “Then…
WHA!
” He brought the blade of his hand-knife down on her dead hand-fish. “Head is gone! And
ch ch ch ch ch
,” he took the scales off with little flicks of the wrist, even turning it over to make sure both sides were cleaned. His eyes narrowed for a moment when he saw Mia’s wrecked nails.

“Tell me more,” Mia said, pulling her hand away from him.

“My wife does not know how to swim. She is scared of ghosts. She has hair to … here.” Tuan placed his hand on Mia’s hip to indicate the length and did not remove it when he continued. “She does not speak English but she likes songs from America. When she sings she does not know the words. The drink she likes most is sugarcane juice. When she drives a motorbike it is too fast.” He began unbuckling his pants with his free hand. “She is a good daughter. She loves her mother and her father.”

“Does she love you?”

“Yes,” said Tuan, as he covered Mia’s body with his. “And I am sorry.”

C
HARLIE CALLED THE DAY
before Mia left, asking if he could come over to say goodbye and help her pack, which was kind. Mia hadn’t expected to see him again. All she’d heard from one of their old mutual acquaintances was that he was living in a little place in District 2 now; when Charlie went away he took all his friends with him. However, he had accidentally left behind Broken-Ear Uncle Ho when he moved out, which Mia thought might partially account for his interest in visiting her.

By the time he got there she had already finished packing; of the five suitcases that Mia had arrived with, only two were leaving Vietnam. She had piled up all the items that weren’t coming back with her in the living room like a messy altar—the three discarded suitcases at the bottom, then the laundry
basket with most of her clothes; toothpaste and half-empty shampoo bottles and other toiletries that she would replace in America; cups and plates, forks and frying pans; the expensive coffeemaker; and resting serenely atop it all, Uncle Ho’s head, wearing the motorbike helmet that Mia hadn’t used since Charlie had gone. Her entire collection of high-heeled shoes was littered around the base, all of the soles blackened and scuffed.

Charlie eyed the pile keenly. “Feel free to scavenge,” Mia told him. He must have come straight from class; he had his work satchel with him and his necktie was stuffed into his pocket. They sat on the couch and wondered what to say to each other. Mia chewed on a fingernail absently. Charlie had goose bumps on his forearms because the air-conditioning was cranked all the way up.

“You’re not bringing back much, huh?” he eventually said, breaking the silence. “Just two bags?”

Mia smiled. “And two carry-ons. But they’re very, very small.” Just one coin-sized scar on her leg, and one pea-sized embryo in her uterus.

“That’s good,” Charlie said, rubbing his cold arms.

At the Western clinic the doctor had told her it would look like a little tadpole at this stage, which made Mia think of Tuan’s eyes. She had imagined them growing inside her and burst out laughing, and the doctor had given her a funny look. He was a white-haired British man who had come to Vietnam as a specialist in obscure tropical diseases but been forced to switch fields because of the demand in what he called the “field
of family planning.” Mia found this amusing, too, considering that neither of their plans had worked out as intended. The small pack of white pills he had given her was still unopened; she had wrapped it up in four old receipts and stowed it in her jewelry box, which was now packed inside one of the suitcases.

Charlie studied Mia’s face as if he were trying to memorize it. “Will you miss this place at all?” he asked.

Mia did not answer. She stood up and retrieved Broken-Ear Uncle Ho from the pile of abandoned possessions, holding it tenderly in her arms for a moment before laying it on Charlie’s lap. “I’ll walk with you to your motorbike,” she said.

She didn’t know which one was the father. In her mind the child would have Tuan’s broad nose, his tan skin, his generous lips, and the narrow shape of his eyes, but their color would be the green-blue of Charlie’s and its cheeks would bear the faintest trace of freckles. Its soft hair would curl at the ends and possess all of the ten thousand shades between black and brown. Charlie and Mia left her apartment and walked down the stairs side by side. Their hands grazed once. Perhaps neither of them was the father of her child, Mia thought to herself. Perhaps it was the city itself that had spawned it.

While Charlie was tucking Uncle Ho into his satchel, something tumbled out of the bag and fell onto the sidewalk between his motorbike and the wall of the building.

“Let me get it,” said Mia, reaching behind the rear wheel. She didn’t see the look of panic that crossed Charlie’s face. “I
think I can … Oh!” Her hand had closed around a high heel. When she pulled it out she saw that it was the left shoe of her pair of peach-colored stiletto sandals. There were still indentations worn into the footbed where her toes had once been. “Are you giving these to someone?” Mia asked. “I’m not angry—you can take all of them.”

“No! I mean, that’s not why I … I wasn’t …” Charlie stammered. He was blushing. “It’s not for anyone but me. Look”—he held his satchel open—“I only took one. I slipped it into my bag when you weren’t looking so I wouldn’t … because I still …” His voice broke off when he saw that Mia was beaming at him, and then he smiled, too. They stood facing each other on the sidewalk, smiling like fools, glowing in the sunlight, and for one last time they were a couple again and the chaos of the city that surrounded them didn’t exist.

“Charlie, I’m—”

But Charlie would never know what she meant to tell him, because a familiar, high-pitched feline wail rose up suddenly from the trash cans on the corner. The cat, which hadn’t shown its face in weeks, had returned. Charlie and Mia turned their heads as one of the bins toppled over with a crash and the raggedy tabby crawled out. One of its legs was still gimpy and it looked as if it could barely support its bloated torso. The cat lurched toward them, mewing tremulously and shedding bits of garbage and tufts of its own fur. Mia’s fingers tightened around the shoe in her hand.

“You!” As she uttered the word she hurled her sandal at
the creature as hard as she could. It gave a final yowl as the heel clipped its side and then ran into the street, where it was immediately crushed under the wheels of a passing taxi.

Charlie’s face was horrified. Mia’s was jubilant. Seconds passed. The taxi was long gone—it hadn’t even slowed down when it hit the cat.

“Poor thing,” said Charlie. Mia reached for his hand but he had already stepped into the street, ignoring the traffic that swarmed around him. She followed even though she didn’t need to look.

It wasn’t as grisly as she thought it would be. Only the head had been squashed under the tires, and there was barely any blood.

“Goodbye, little cat,” said Charlie quietly, bending over the carcass. “I’m so sorry.”

But I’m not
, thought Mia.
You brought this upon yourself, ugly thing. What did you want from me?

“God, look how swollen its belly is.”

Did you want food?

“Full of parasites, probably.”

Did you want to be loved?

“No, not parasites,” Charlie said, bringing his face closer. He ran one finger lightly over the curve of the animal’s stomach, but it was Mia who shuddered. “I think it—she—was pregnant.”

T
HOUGH ONE FORTUNATE
consequence of my father’s disappearance was that we became estranged from his family and whatever nuptials they might incur, given the size of Momma’s side there are still at least four weddings to attend each year. Weddings of cousins, weddings of second cousins, weddings of people who are most likely cousins because their last name is Nguyen and they live within a sixty-mile radius. When our family tree was transplanted here from the charred soil of South Vietnam in 1975, it began sprouting with wild abandon; as a result I am now probably related to a third of the greater Houston area by either blood or marriage.

I’m finishing my breakfast and Momma is finishing her dinner when she informs us of another impending union. Cousin Tu is getting married.

“Who’s Cousin Tu?” Tommy asks through a mouthful of cereal. I’m not sure which meal this is for him. Possibly lunch.
The last time I saw my older brother was Tuesday morning, and he was eating cereal then, too.

“Cô Ha’s oldest son.”

“Is he short? Like,
really
short, and kinda fat?”

“I think he goes by ‘Dumpling.’ ”

“Dumpling!” Tommy spews Cheerios. “I know
Dumpling
! I hate that kid!” Momma and I both wait for him to justify his hatred of Dumpling, but Tommy just looks at his watch and then gulps down the rest of his bowl. It’s almost half-past nine. I have no positive or negative feelings toward Dumpling. I remember him as one of the older cousins that I rarely spoke to but would see drinking in corners at weddings and funerals and Lunar New Year parties. He is about five feet by three feet in dimension and styles his hair in a poofy crest that does, in fact, resemble the pinched top of a dumpling.

Momma sticks a toothpick in the corner of her mouth and begins to clear the dishes. Later she will wash them in a bucket of water in the bathroom, squatting barefoot on the floor with her hair piled up in a topknot. Old habits from the motherland die hard. When I was in elementary school and still had friends I never invited them over for meals because I was so embarrassed.

“Who’s he marrying?” I ask.

Momma begins coiling her hair. It should be mostly gray but she dyes it every week. “Skinny girl. Named Duyen or Quyen or Xuyen,” she says through clenched teeth to hold the toothpick in. “The family’s from Hue and I can barely understand their Vietnamese. Superstitious bunch, too—they’re
rushing to have the wedding before one of the great-aunts with liver cancer dies and brings them bad luck.”

I wonder if a family death was responsible for Momma’s ill-fated marriage to my father. She removes the toothpick to tell us the next part. “So the ceremony’s on Saturday morning at eleven. Write it down somewhere before you forget.” The toothpick goes back in again. I never actually see Momma clean her teeth with the things—I think she just likes chewing on them.

Tommy gives her one of his patented squinty stares. “Superstitious or not, they couldn’t plan a wedding in what, three days? Just how long have you known about it?”

Momma looks guilty. She pretends to be busy with the dishes and says under her breath, “A couple weeks.”

“How long?” He’s playing patriarch now.

“Maybe a month,” she finally admits. Tommy sighs loudly.

Momma looks pouty. “I
meant
to tell you earlier but kept forgetting. I only get to see you and Phuong in the evenings, and I’m tired then.” This isn’t entirely true; I see Momma most mornings when I get off work. I don’t say anything; she only cares if Tommy’s there, too.

“Don’t you try playing the pity card, kid. It doesn’t work on me and Phuong. You raised yourself two cold-blooded killers.” What Momma doesn’t know is that he’s only half joking.

“But you’ll be there, right?”

Tommy stands and digs his car keys out of his pocket.