'Well, I lied about that. It'll be sore until tomorrow. But it doesn't hurt like before, does it?'
'Oh, no.'
'He did this to her?' Rose asks. It is an accusation.
'John,' Rafferty says. 'The other one. John Bohnert. He's not as dangerous as he thinks he is.'
'Don't you fool yourself,' Rose says.
'He told me something interesting.'
'Hard to believe,' Rose says. Dr. Ratt, Nui, and Pim are watching the two of them, unwilling to interrupt.
'What?' says a new voice, and Rafferty looks around the kitchen door to see Miaow. 'What was that noise?' Miaow gives Pim a glance that takes in the garish makeup and the cheap clothes, then dismisses her. 'And who's this?'
'Her name is Pim,' Rose says, all ice. 'Not 'this.' '
'You're grumpy,' Miaow says, turning back toward her room. 'And he's got bandages on and he's drinking beer. Call me when dinner's ready.'
'Hello,' Pim says, but Miaow keeps walking.
'You were just spoken to,' Rose says to Miaow's back.
'Well,' Dr. Ratt says, 'if no one else is hurt, we should probably be going.'
'Yeah, hello,' Miaow mumbles, without slowing.
'You turn around right now,' Rose says. 'Who are you to be so rude?'
'It's all right,' Pim says.
Miaow stops, wheels around, and impales Rose with a glare. 'Why are you so mean?'
'That's it,' Nui says, grabbing her husband's arm. To Rafferty she says, 'Call us if this gets medical.' She hauls Dr. Ratt toward the door.
'I haven't paid you,' Rafferty says.
'For that? Forget it.' Nui is already opening the door, but the doctor puts a hand on the jamb to keep from being towed out of the room. 'If you get a chance,' he says, 'mention us in one of those magazines you write for.' He nods to Pim. 'Nice to meet you, young lady.'
Pim gives a high wai of respect to the door, which is already swinging shut behind him. She calls out, 'Thank you,' but the closing of the door cuts the phrase in half. To Rafferty she says, eyes shining, 'He's a real doctor.'
'He is,' Rafferty says. 'And he's got manners, too.'
'Oh, blah, blah, blah,' Miaow says. 'Why doesn't everybody just yell at me?'
'Miaow,' Rafferty says, 'I know it's hard, at your age, to believe that there's anything that's not about you, but it's true.'
'Oh?' Miaow says, and her chin juts out in challenge. 'So you're yelling at me because of what? Because of Rose? Or maybe her?' She flips a thumb at Pim. 'Or the guys in the restaurant? Or whoever hurt your stupid arm? Like, what, it's an accident that I'm the one you're yelling at? If someone else was standing here, would you be yelling at them instead of me? Fine. I won't stand here anymore. One of you can stand here and let him yell at you.' She turns and stalks down the hall, and a moment later the door to her room slams.
Rose stands, looking after her as though she'd vanished through a wall. She seems distant enough to be reconsidering her entire life. Rafferty drains his beer and thinks about getting another. Then Rose says to Pim, 'We're not usually like this.'
Pim glances at Rafferty, looking for help, but he's staring into the refrigerator. She says, 'Oh.' She makes fluttering gestures with her fingers, but no words come.
'This is not a good job,' Rose says, her voice flat. 'What you've come to Bangkok to do. It's not good for you.'
'My parents,' Pim says. 'And there are five kids.' She puts a brown hand flat on her bare knee, fingers spread wide, and stares down at it. She swivels on the stool, and her hot pants glitter. 'Everybody needs money,' she finally says.
'I know,' Rose says. Then she says, 'Poke. Get me a beer.'
'Gee,' Rafferty says. 'You're speaking to me.' He pulls a Singha out of the refrigerator and says to Pim, 'Want one?'
She shakes her head. 'I don't drink.'
'See?' Rose says over the hiss and fizz as Rafferty pops the cap. 'You're a good girl. I know it feels like there's nothing else you can do, but you're wrong. You have no idea how wrong you are. You think you'll do it for a while, a few years, and then it'll all be over, but you're wrong. It's never really over. I haven't danced in more than five years, I'm married, I have a husband and a daughter, and it still comes up and kicks me in the teeth.'
'You danced?' Pim says. She blows out a deep breath of admiration. 'You must have made big money. I'll bet you got all-nights, maybe even weeks. I'm not beautiful like you. I usually have to wait until they're drunk before one of them picks me, and then it's a short-time. Nobody ever wants me to stay all night.' She rubs her palms over her thighs as though she's cold. 'I hate going home after, at three or four in the morning with money in my pocket, dressed like this. It frightens me.'
'It should all frighten you,' Rose says, taking the beer from Rafferty. 'You see how disrespectful my daughter just was? That's because she's ashamed of me. My daughter. She could barely look at you because of what you do. And she was a street kid just a few years ago, so it's not like she shits silk. Is that what you want? Someday, after you fuck a thousand drunk men, and defend yourself against the ones who hate women, and avoid getting AIDS, and save your money, and maybe even buy a little house, if you're not like all the other girls who spend the money as fast as it comes and lose it at cards and give it to boyfriends who beat them up. If all that happens, if you live through it and take care of everybody and keep a little money somehow, then your daughter is disgusted with you.'
'Miaow's a kid,' Rafferty says.
'What do you think Pim is?' Rose says, just this side of a snap. 'And don't say 'Oh, that's different,' because it wouldn't have been, not if you hadn't come along. What do you think Miaow would have been doing at- How old are you, eighteen?'
'Sort of,' Pim says.
'What would Miaow have been doing at seventeen or eighteen, do you think?' Rose demands. 'Running for office? Look at her, Poke. She even looks a little like Miaow.'
Rafferty looks at the girl, and Rose is right. They're both small, brown, and shaped by the distinctive gene pool of the northeast, with rounded features, broad nostrils, and the fine, dark, flyaway hair that Miaow used to part and slick down with water. 'A little,' he says.
'Miaow is your daughter?' Pim says. 'She's prettier than I am.'
'It'll change you,' Rose continues, as though no one else has spoken. 'Now you're a good girl, you're a village girl who's never hurt anybody. Two, three years from now, you'll lie, you'll tell men you love them when you can't stand the sight of them. You'll steal their money when they're in the shower, then tiptoe out of the room. You'll tell your friends to look for them outside the club so you can hide when they come in. You'll drink and smoke and take yaa baa and nobody knows what else. You won't be Pim anymore.'
'You haven't changed.'
Rose tilts her head back and drains most of the beer in three or four long swallows. 'I don't even have my own name,' she says. 'Now I'm Rose. Before, in my village, my name was Kwan. I came to Bangkok as Kwan, who bathed in the river under a long cloth and washed my hair in rainstorms with all my clothes on. I kept my voice down to be polite. I was a good daughter and granddaughter. I was embarrassed to be so tall. It took about six months before I turned into this person called Rose, who danced nearly naked every night and gave big smiles to men when what she wanted to do was to kick them in the face. I ate yaa baa like candy, and I smoked'-she looks down at the cigarette in her hand-'about as much as I smoke now. I let one of the men rename me. A man gave me the name Rose-you didn't know that, did you, Poke?' She hasn't turned to face him. 'He said, this man, he said that Kwan was too hard to remember, even though it's a good name and it means 'spirit,' and that the rose was the queen of flowers and I was the queen of Patpong.' She laughs, rough as a cough. 'The queen of Patpong. A kingdom of whores and viruses. Death with a smile. Every dick every night, every guy who wants to go bareback, maybe he's the one who'll give it to you. So you visit the temple and you pray and you say no when they don't want to wear one, and they slap you around until you say yes, and then you go to the temple and pray harder, and you're terrified next time you get tested. Except you learn, when you've been here for a while, that all the tests are negative. Even
