Miaow's face is as closed as a stone. 'Fine,' she says, snipping the word at both ends.
'We'll be going,' Rafferty says. He stands, and his numb legs hold him up. 'Thanks for the tea. Come on, Miaow.'
Miaow says, 'Mia,' but she reluctantly lays the mirrored fragment on the table and follows him to the door.
Mrs. Shin says, 'You're going to be beautiful, Mia.'
'Not as beautiful as Siri,' Miaow says. She's not meeting anyone's eyes.
'You'll be beautiful in a different way.'
'Yeah.'
'What she means to say is thank you,' Rafferty says. 'We're finding our way through a little snag in the growth process. The politeness area of her brain has shrunk.'
Miaow says, 'Poke.'
'Don't tease her,' Mrs. Shin says, opening the door as they slip into their shoes. 'I need her to be in good spirits, no pun intended.'
'I'll do what I can,' Rafferty says.
'I can take care of myself,' Miaow says.
'Yeah, well, don't trip over your lower lip on your way out. Thanks again, Mrs. Shin.'
'You take care of my little Ariel.' Mrs. Shin gives Miaow a fingertip wave, which Miaow acknowledges with a nod that borders on curt. With a quick glance at Rafferty, Mrs. Shin closes the door.
Rafferty and Miaow walk to the elevator in complete silence. He pushes the button, and Miaow slips in between him and the closed doors, facing them with her back to him. They wait without a word until Rafferty says, 'This won't do, Miaow.'
'You told her,' Miaow says.
'I don't know how to break this to you,' Rafferty says as the elevator doors finally slide open, 'but the school knows pretty much everything about us.'
'Omigod,' Miaow says, sounding so American that Rafferty almost does a double take. 'Everything?'
'There were about five thousand forms to fill out just to get you in. And then interviews.' The elevator starts down.
'But suppose Siri finds out.' She's got her fingers knotted together, chest high, just barely not wringing her hands. 'Suppose Andy-' She breaks off and abruptly closes her mouth.
'Who's Andy? That's the second time you've mentioned him.'
Miaow's response is a savage kick to the elevator wall. 'Skip it.'
'Absolutely no problem,' Rafferty says. The two of them ride down in an elevator that feels like a diving bell. They endure an ear-popping silence until the car shudders to a halt and the doors open. 'And whoever Andy is, either he'll like you for who you actually are or he won't. And if he doesn't,' Rafferty says with a sudden surge of heat, 'fuck him.'
Miaow helps the doors slide open with a shove and stalks across the lobby, her shoulders almost as high as her ears. The day gleams painfully bright through the glass doors. They're halfway to the door when she stops and whirls on him.
'I don't have any friends. Not any, not real friends. Everybody looks at me like I'm a black peasant kid. And I am. Siri asked me… she asked me whether I was a scholarship student. Like charity. Like I came down from some farm somewhere, so some rich person could make merit. Like my mother and father raise pigs in the mud and I usually wear rags and have snot on my lip. What am I supposed to say? I don't know who my mother and father are? I used to live in the street? My mother, my stepmother, used to be-'
'That's enough,' Rafferty says. He puts his hands on her shoulders, and she stiffens, so he kneels down until their eyes are level. Her upper lip is shining with sweat, and her eyes are all over the place. 'Nobody loves you more than Rose does,' he says. 'Probably nobody ever will. She'd die for you. Do you know that?'
Miaow grabs a breath, holds it for a moment, and then lets it out in ragged spurts. She finally meets his eyes, and at that instant she starts to cry. She wraps her arms around his neck and presses her hot, wet face against his. 'I just want… I just want to… to be like everybody. I want people to like me. I don't want to get up every morning with my stomach all feeling like it's got ice and glass in it, and have to smile at you and Rose before I go to school, and wish all day I could be back in bed and pull up the covers. I'm not big like you. I'm not brave. I need friends. I want… I want…'
'You are brave,' Rafferty says. 'You're one of the bravest people I've ever met. And you know what? About those kids? They'll like you when they know you better. Look at you, you're younger than they are because you skipped a grade, and you're not real tall yet, so you look even younger. And so maybe they're kind of snobbish, you know? Maybe they think it actually means something that their parents have money. Maybe they've had little tiny lives and all they're comfortable with is stuff that's familiar to them. And you're different. Maybe they're a little afraid of you.' He holds her at arm's length. 'Do you know what I'm saying?'
'I'm not brave,' she says, but she's not crying anymore.
'What you have to do,' he says, 'is remember that you've had four or five lives already, compared to them. They're the babies. You know more about the world right now than they will when they're thirty. Just go to school in the morning, knowing that you understand things about real life, not just school life, that they've never had a hint of. And know that you're big enough to forgive them, without them even knowing you've done it.'
She stands there, all four feet of her, waiting for something Rafferty isn't sure he has to offer. What he says is, 'And play Ariel all the way to the back row, because there isn't another kid in the school who has the magic to do it.'
Miaow sniffs. Her eyes are downturned but flicking back and forth as though she's reading a page, and he knows she's sifting his argument for weak spots. He also knows it's full of them. But if he says anything else, it's just going to get weaker.
She nods and scuffs her right shoe over the marble floor, producing a squeal that bounces off the walls. She does it again. Then she says, 'Let's go.'
Rafferty rises, looks down at the thatch of short yellow hair, and ruffles it. She immediately scrubs her fingers through it to disarrange it her way. He says, 'I love you,' and she reaches up and takes his hand. She slides her feet over the marble until she reaches the door, producing a long, agonizing string of squeals.
Mrs. Shin's apartment house is tucked away off Sukhumvit Soi 11, and there's no traffic on the little street, not even any vehicles except for a couple of motorcycle taxis parked in the building's shade. The drivers are out cold, balanced on their seats with their bare feet on the handlebars, demonstrating the Thai genius for sleeping anywhere. Since Miaow hasn't yanked her hand back, she and Rafferty hold hands as they head for the boulevard to flag a taxi. It's after three, and the buildings and road surfaces have had all day long to absorb heat. It radiates from the walls and sidewalks, wrapping them in a claustrophobic personal climate that's rich in perspiration. There isn't even a whisper of a breeze.
'I like Bangkok best from high up,' Miaow says.
What Rafferty hears is a roundabout acknowledgment that she's grateful to live in their eighth-floor apartment. It's oblique, but that doesn't mean it didn't cost her anything. He gives her hand a little swing. She resists and then gives up and takes exactly one skip. His heart lightens.
On Sukhumvit he signals a cab and opens the door for Miaow. He has his hand in the small of her back as he leans down to tell the driver where to go when he feels Miaow turn to stone. He looks at her and finds her staring across the street. He can see the pulse slamming at the side of her throat.
'Look,' she says.
He follows her eyes and sees a long blue bus lumbering past on the other side of the street and then, as it passes, the only man on the busy sidewalk who is standing still, the man who is looking at them.
Horner's friend, John.
Rafferty throws forty baht at the driver, says, 'Go away.' He steps into traffic with his arm upraised and his palm down. A motorcycle taxi swerves sharply, barely missing him. Before the bike is fully stopped, Rafferty passes the driver a hundred baht, picks Miaow up-not even feeling her weight-and plops her onto the backseat, facing back. He takes her hands and puts them behind her on the grab bar between her and the driver's seat, and says, 'Face this way. If you see anything you shouldn't see, any car or bike that's back there too long, have him take you to Arthit at the Lumphini police station. Got it?'
