Steven nodded, and Nana gave him a tenth-of-a-second glance.
'I need money,' Nana said. 'Have you got five thousand baht?'
Kwan said, 'I want to know what happened.'
Nana turned away in frustration, giving Kwan a quick view of a jagged cut on her right jaw. 'Some man. He thought I was trying to steal from him, and he went crazy. Just hit me and hit me.'
'Were you?'
Nana said, 'What? What are you asking?'
'Were you stealing?'
Nana glanced up at Steven as though she were considering abandoning Kwan and asking him for the money, but Steven avoided her gaze and stared down at his feet, his face tight with distaste. 'Of course not. I was looking for change. I only had thousand-baht bills, and I was looking in his wallet to see whether he had any five-hundreds so I could swap them.'
'Where was he?'
'What do you care?'
'Up to you,' Kwan said. She took Steven's arm. 'Steven and I are going to dinner.'
'He was in the shower,' Nana said.
'That's what I thought. Did the bar fire you?'
Nana's damaged mouth tightened, and for a moment Kwan thought the girl was going to spit at her. But instead she said, 'Until he's gone.' Her voice was rigid with control, but Kwan could hear the lie. It was going to be difficult for Nana to find a bar that would take her. Nobody wanted customers coming in and making a scene about thieves.
Kwan said, 'I see.' She reached into the back pocket of her jeans and pulled out a fold of money. 'I can give you three thousand,' she said.
'Ask him for the rest.' Nana's eyes were on the money.
'No, I won't. I like him. I want him to keep taking me.' She peeled off two thousands and a pair of five- hundreds and held them out.
Nana made no move to take the money. 'You've got a lot more.'
'Yes,' Kwan said. 'I do.'
'You wouldn't have anything if I hadn't brought you here.' Her voice had risen, and Steven stepped forward.
In English he asked Kwan, 'Is everything all right?'
Kwan said in slow English, 'No problem. She want money.' To Nana she said, 'Are you going to take it or not?'
Nana snatched the bills from her hand. 'Fucking Stork,' she said. 'Give me back my watch.'
Kwan said, 'Your what? Oh, that. It stopped working months ago. I threw it away and bought a good one.' She held up her left wrist to show Nana the genuine Omega that someone-Robert, his name was Robert-had bought her after four days together. 'Look, you can even get it wet.'
Nana leaned in to her. 'You think you're a queen,' she said, her voice strung tight although the words were indistinct through swollen lips. 'But you can end up in the street, too.'
Kwan said, 'I know.' She put the rest of the money back into her pocket and said, 'We go, Steven, okay?' and the two of them left Nana on the sidewalk. As they neared Surawong, as Kwan tried to find some satisfaction in what she had just done, she felt the pressure of eyes on her and looked over to see the big man who'd been searching for Oom. He nodded at her, but she avoided his gaze and snuggled up to… to Steven.
The man who was staring at her-what was his name? The girls he talked to had told her.
So many names.
Howard. His name was Howard.
Chapter 18
'Rose,' Howard announces. 'Your name should be Rose.'
They're curled up, Howard pressed against her back, on the endless bed in his hotel room, which he keeps so cold that Kwan always puts on a shirt before she goes to sleep. They're both fully clothed: This is one of the nights when Howard just buys her out and gives her, as he says, a vacation.
'Cannot say,' Kwan replies. She tries to pronounce it, but it comes out 'Lote.' She pushes her rump against him. 'Good, no good?'
'No good. Terrible. Listen: Rose. Hear it? Now: Lote. Do they sound the same to you?'
'Not when you talking.'
'Okay,' Howard says. 'What's the name of the fat man in the red suit who comes and gives everybody presents?'
Kwan pauses for a moment, assembling the sounds in her head before saying them. She's been working on this one for weeks. 'Santa… Claut. No, no, no. Clauzzzz. Santa Clauzzz.'
'Good. And when does he come? And if you say 'Chritmat,' I'll make you eat raw red meat for dinner.'
'Chrizzzmazzz,' she says very carefully.
'See? You can do it. Rose.'
Her face tense with effort, Kwan says, 'Lozzze.'
'Progress,' he says. 'We're making progress.'
She wants a cigarette, but it seems like too much work to roll over and reach for her purse, and Howard's body is the warmest thing in the room. So she heaves a nicotine-deprived sigh and says, 'Why Lozzze? Why not easy name?'
'Like what?'
'I don't know. I don't know farang name.'
'Vicki,' Howard suggests.
Rose says, 'Wicki.'
'Okay, no good. Tallulah.'
Rose is laughing even before she tries it. 'Tarrurrurru.' She reaches back and slaps his thigh. 'Not real name.'
'Owww. Of course it's a real name. But Rose is better.'
'Lozzze.'
'The middle of your tongue,' Howard says. 'Not the end of your tongue. Just bring the middle of your tongue partway up. Not all the way, not so it touches, just partway. Rrrrrrrrrose.'
'Rrrrrote,' Kwan says. 'Cannot. Why… that name? Why that name good?'
'Hold it,' Howard says.
Kwan says, 'Hold what? I no see it.'
'Oh, great, now you're funny in English.' He gets up, the bed creaking as his weight leaves it, and goes to the coffee table. The room they're in is the one he always brings her to, an enormous, overfurnished space with a king- size bed, two televisions-one on each side of the carved wooden partition that almost divides the room in two-a work desk, and a couch and coffee table. There's a refrigerator full of little drinks at prices that horrified Kwan when Howard read them to her. The room's longest wall is covered with floor-to-ceiling curtains that can be pulled back to reveal Bangkok sparkling all the way to the edge of the earth. The room is much bigger than the two rooms Kwan shares with Fon and her friends.
She's been keeping some of her clothes in the closet for weeks.
Howard leans down and grabs a magazine from the coffee table, its cover shiny and vibrant with color. Rose has leafed through it several times, checking the pictures and puzzling out some of the simpler English words. It's a magazine for farang tourists that pretends to tell them something about Thailand as an excuse to print advertisements for jewelry stores where the stones are artificially colored and Indian tailors whose clothes, Kwan
