There are nine of them in all, and Rose's partner, Peachy, makes ten. With the exception of Peachy, who's wearing enough makeup to sing opera, the women are scrubbed and natural, their hair pulled back simply into ponytails or braids. Fon's hair has been gathered on top of her head and rubber-banded, the hair exploding straight up and then fanning out like a little black volcano. Except for two of them, Fon and Rose, they retain little of the allure they'd once projected onstage in the bars of Patpong. Some of them are so determinedly plain it looks intentional, a way of erasing who they were in the past.
They're sitting on the floor, most of them with their feet tucked politely to one side, each with a cup of tea or one of Miaow's dwindling supply of Cokes. Five or six of them are smoking, as is Rose. Every time Miaow comes into the room, she fans her hand and makes a face. A few of the women blow smoke at her.
A piece of paper is being passed from hand to hand. One of the women scans it and says, 'The Kit-Kat.'
'Good,' Rafferty says, writing it on his own piece of paper. 'That's twenty-seven.'
Fon says, 'What's that upstairs place up near Surawong? Used to be the Baby Bar?'
'The Lap Bar,' Rafferty says. 'We've got it.'
'I'm getting old,' Fon says. 'That's where you and Arthit went to scare my little sister. I've blanked it from my mind. And it was only a few days ago.'
'Poke terrified her,' Arthit says from his chair at the dining-room table, where he's watching the proceedings with a certain amount of bemusement.
'He has that effect on women,' Rose says. She looks at her own list. 'I've got twenty-eight. The Lap Bar makes twenty-nine.'
'The Butterfly,' says one of the other women. 'And Lolita's, ugh. And I think Poke's cute.'
Writing the names of the bars, Rafferty says, 'I think I'm cute, too. I've only got twenty-eight.'
'So I've got one more than you do,' Rose says to him. 'Why don't I read my list, and everybody try to figure out if we're missing any.'
'Sounds like a plan.' Rafferty gets up from the floor, feeling as if every muscle in his body has been hammered by dwarfs. He walks stiffly down the hallway to the kitchen, where Pim and Miaow are tossing paper plates and scraping leftovers into Baggies. 'This is what I like to see,' he says. 'The next generation of womanhood, turning its back on feminism.'
Miaow shows him a white container that holds about an ounce of some kind of chicken with sauce. 'Is this worth keeping?'
'Was it good?'
She shrugs. 'It was okay.'
'Gimme.' He takes it away from her and picks up a used plastic fork.
Miaow says, 'Eeeeewww. Disgusting.'
'We are all one,' Rafferty says, wiggling his eyebrows mysteriously, and Pim laughs. 'You're right,' he says, eating. 'It's just okay. How's your head?'
'If we're all one,' Miaow says, 'you shouldn't have to ask.'
'I guess that means you're all right.' He scrapes up the rest of the chicken, which has turned out to be lobster. 'You were great today,' he says.
'When?'
'On the stage. As Ariel.'
The hand in which Miaow held the food container is still extended, but she's forgotten it. She says, 'Really?'
'Really. You're the best thing in the play, and Mrs. Shin knows it.'
'Siri's good,' Miaow says with a sideways glance at him.
'Miaow. She's awful. She's pretty, but she thinks she's in a silent movie.'
'Are you really acting in a play?' Pim asks.
'Sort of.' Miaow is suddenly very busy wiping her hands on her jeans.
'I always wanted to be a movie star,' Pim says. She blushes a deep red.
'It's only a school play,' Miaow says. She is talking directly to the tabletop. 'Just kids.'
Pim says, 'Still.'
'She's terrific,' Rafferty says. 'You can come with us when we go to see it.'
Miaow straightens slightly, but then she gives Pim a quick look, sees just a normal, everyday, plump teenager in a T-shirt, and her shoulders relax.
'Can I really?' Pim asks. She directs the question to Miaow, not Rafferty.
Miaow says, 'It'll be boring.'
'Oh, no. I've never seen a play.'
Rafferty says to Miaow, 'And you know when else you were terrific today?'
Miaow almost smiles. 'Yes.'
'When you grabbed that guy's balls.'
Pim drops a fork on the floor and stoops to pick it up.
'Street trick,' Miaow says. 'Boo taught me.' Boo is the street kid who took care of Miaow when she was first abandoned on the Bangkok sidewalks.
'He'd have been proud of you.'
'Oh, no,' she says. 'He'd have been a critic. He'd have told me I did it all wrong. He'd have given me lessons.' She takes the empty container out of Rafferty's hand and reaches for the fork. Looking at the fork, she says, 'The man got killed, didn't he?'
'Yes.'
She drops the fork into the container and drops the container into the trash. 'Good.'
'And you know that Mrs. Pongsiri is going to be okay.'
Miaow nods. 'Yes.'
'And you're sure your head doesn't hurt.'
She finally smiles at him. 'Leave me alone.'
'I'm not supposed to. It's my job.'
Pim says, 'What is?'
'Being her dad. Not that she makes it easy.'
Pim says, 'I've noticed.'
Back in the living room, Rose says, 'Volcano Bar,' and two hands go up. She writes the women's names and says, 'Bangkok Strip.' One hand. Rose says, 'Gosh, Nit, you really got around,' and the other women laugh.
Nit, who has chiseled, highly defined hill-tribe features and pale skin that betray her Chinese blood, says, 'If I had a thousand baht for every bar I danced in, I wouldn't be mopping floors.'
'Well, we'd miss you.' Rose looks down at the page. 'So there are only six bars none of us ever worked in.'
'That's kind of sad,' Fon says, and the women laugh again.
Peachy, who's been sitting on the sidelines, says, 'Were some bars better than others?' She's the only woman in the room who's never worked in the sex industry.
'Yes and no,' Nit says. 'They were like the houses we clean, but smokier. Some people are good to work for and some aren't. You know, some of them cheat you-'
'All the bars cheat you,' another woman says.
'But some are worse than others. Some of them steal your drink commissions or say you missed days when you actually showed up, so they can fine you. Some of them want you to go with every man who asks you. They fine you if they think you said no too often.'
Peachy says, 'Oh, my.' She clasps her hands in her lap, a gesture that always makes Rose think Peachy would be happier wearing white lace gloves. 'What about the men?'
'They're the same in every bar,' Fon says. 'They're the same everywhere in the world.'
'Not here,' Rafferty says. 'Arthit and I are princes.'
There's a knock at the door. Arthit gets up, saying to Rafferty, 'Sit. One gun is enough.'
