A Wedding Invitation (27 page)

“I’d never do that.”

“You did, though.”

“When?”

“In PRPC. I read your letter to Mindy one night. The part where you said I wasn’t intelligent.” I suppose that now is just as good a time as any to let Carson know that I’m the type of person to invade one’s privacy.

Carson’s face sinks like a pothole. “No . . .”

I listen as the clock ticks and Milkweed drinks from her bowl.

Carson says, “I’m sorry, Sam.”

I find his eyes, soft and gentle, like he really means what he says. I suppose I need to confess something else to him and what better place to do it than in Dovie’s kitchen? “You know, about Lien . . .”

“Yeah?”

“It was me who told Van and the others that I thought Lien was a thief.”

Carson sighs. “I know, Sam.”

“Did they tell you?”

“You made it clear that you didn’t think much of Lien.”

All my tirades against her parade before me, and I’m ashamed and guilty.

Firmly, Carson says, “She didn’t take that jewelry, Sam.”

“I know you think that.”

“I
know
that. It was a man who did. Not a refugee, but a Filipino. They later caught him trying to steal again from the billets.”

“How do you know this?”

“Filipinos entered the camp and stole from the refugees from time to time.”

I think of how the entrance to the camp was always protected with guards on duty with guns. “Why was Lien’s uncle so certain that she took the jewelry, then? Why was she blamed for everything?”

“She was mischievous. You know that.”

Under my breath, I blurt, “She didn’t stand a chance.”

“You’re right; she was discriminated against because of who her father was.”

“I always wondered why the full-blooded Vietnamese admired us but couldn’t be decent to someone who was half white.”

“People are strange,” Carson says without any trace of animosity. “They have their prejudices.”

“It seems like coming to America is what has helped her family.”

“True,” he says. “Some Amerasians are much better off in this country than they were in their own. And some end up in gangs just like they did back in Vietnam.”

“But Lien is on a good path,” I say with certainty. “And she has Jonathan. He’s a decent guy, isn’t he?”
Please tell me he is.
I want to hear that he is a great match for her. I see Lien’s effervescent smile and know she has always just wanted to belong. Somewhere. “Her family will accept her if she marries an American, won’t they?”

“Oh, yeah, they will.”

With a small meow, Milkweed jumps into my lap, settling into a small bundle, her eyes closing as I stroke her soft fur. “Did you move to Winston because of them?” I ask Carson.

“The Hongs? No, I moved to work at the station. Lien wrote a few times when they lived in Chicago, and I knew that they were unhappy up there. I guess it was about two years ago when I saw them again.”

“You went to Saigon Bistro and there they were?”

“That’s just the way it happened. I went in for a bowl of pho and the past surrounded me.” There is lightness to his voice.

“Were they happy to see you? I mean, was Minh still mad at you for defending Lien?” I recall Minh’s cold stance on the bus when they departed the camp.

“I worried about that, too. But the minute he shook my hand, I knew he’d put that behind him.”

thirty-six

O
n Sunday afternoon in Dovie’s kitchen, the iced tea tastes a little bitter, but perhaps it is due to what I’m hearing. Little is worried about her daughter because, although Liza followed her dream and went to Paris, Little has yet to hear from Liza. The hostel where Liza said she’d be staying has never heard of her. Little will call the U.S. embassy in France on Monday.

Pearl enters the kitchen, ready to make a rhubarb pie, her weekly routine. She massages her fingers, one hand caressing the other.

“Bothering you, Pearl?” asks Beanie.

Pearl fumbles with a sack of flour, unable to open the bag. Beanie reaches over and tears the top portion of the paper for her. Pearl tries to flex her index fingers.

“Why don’t you just sit for a spell?” Beanie motions toward the empty chair to the left of me at the kitchen table.

“I was going to make a few pies.” Opening the pantry door, she reaches up and takes an apron off a hook.

Beanie says, “I was going to give you a little therapy.”

“I could use some.” With the apron balanced over her shoulder, Pearl stiffly makes her way to the table.

Meeting her halfway, Beanie takes her by the hand and pulls out a chair for her to sit in. Then she takes a clear bottle from the cabinet over the sink and plants herself across from the older woman. With care, she removes the cap and pours a white creamy substance into the palm of her hand.

Gently, Beanie rubs the lotion from her palm onto Pearl’s fingers.

“Ahh,” sighs Pearl and closes her eyes for emphasis. “That is remarkable.”

The trust between the two women tells me that this therapy has been done before.

“What is it?” I ask. The contents of the bottle give off a heavy odor of ginger and orange.

“If I told you,” says Beanie, “I’d have to kill you.”

I laugh.

“Ancient Chinese herbs?” The strain in Pearl’s face has lessened.

“Old family recipe,” says Beanie. She takes Pearl’s other hand and repeats the rubbing. “Cures everything from senility to beestings, especially good on stiff joints.”

Pearl nods, her eyes still closed, her head hung against her chest. “I feel my arthritis pain going away.” The apron slips from her shoulder, easing silently onto the tile floor.

Beanie rubs her thumb over Pearl’s knuckles. “Now, you go watch a show or two on TV.”

Pearl’s eyes pop open. “My pies,” she says reluctantly.

“We can have leftover pound cake for dessert tonight.”

Pearl extends her fingers. “I think I could roll out a crust now.”

“Go rest,” Beanie insists. “Go on. Enjoy feeling better.”

After she leaves, Beanie puts the cap back on the potion. “Cures bruises, too,” she tells me.

“Do you get bruises often?” I think of how Mom says she can bump into almost anything and obtain a bruise, her skin is so thin.

“About once a week when I fall.”

As she picks the apron off the floor and hangs it back on its hook, I look at her face to see if she’s joking. “You fall that often?”

“Sometimes more.” She lifts her pant leg to expose a greenish blob on her shin. “Got that a week ago.”

“How?”

“No one’s told you?”

“About what?”

“I have seizures.” She takes the lid off the bottle again and adds some of the lotion to her bruise.

“You do?”

“I’ve been on all kinds of meds. Nothing has really helped.”

I know so little about seizures. “How long have you had them?”

“Epilepsy? All my life.”

I piece together what I know about Beanie. She was married to an abusive man, left him and was homeless for a while. I know her son from her first marriage is currently in jail for drug trafficking. Now she’s on disability, although she’d like to work to make more than her monthly check offers. I look her over. She’s probably only forty-five or so and yet it seems her life experiences have been more daunting than most I know, except for the refugees. “Beanie, you’ve had a rough life,” I say with feeling.

“Wouldn’t know how to handle anything but rough.”

Standing from the table, she refills my tea glass, asking if I want more ice cubes.

“No, thanks. I don’t need any more ice.”

She sets the pitcher of iced tea on the counter and then takes two red onions from the fridge.

“What does Dovie say to do about your dizziness?”

“She prays.” Beanie searches for a knife.

“Do you mind?”

“Mind what?”

“That she prays for you.”

A snort follows. “I would think that if she wants to take the time to ask God to help me, I should be all kinds of grateful.”

I smile.

As she slices the first onion, she says, “She prays for all of us. I hear her talking to God every morning. Some wake to birds singing. I wake to Dovie’s prayers.”

“I know.”

“I have no problems with prayer,” she adds. “I have no problems with God, either. I just don’t like those people who look at me funny. Like I’m not good enough for them because I’m different. You know, don’t nobody want to be judged.”

“You’re unique,” I say.

“Unique.” She rolls the word over in her mouth. “Is that better than different? ’Cause I like the way that sounds.” Adjusting the collar on her oversized shirt, she proudly repeats, “Unique.”

After we eat a dinner of bacon potato stew, oatmeal bread, and tomatoes, Beanie turns the radio on to Carson’s station. She, Dovie, and I clean up the kitchen. At our insistence, Pearl takes her yarn and needles into the den to watch
Jeopardy
.

Carson asks for requests on his show. “This is Carson Brylie, and it’s your turn to tell me what you want to hear.” His voice fills the room like a familiar scent, relaxing all the senses.

He plays “Saturday in the Park” by Chicago. Beanie and Dovie do a few dance moves around the kitchen, dish towels flung over their shoulders. Beanie looks professional, while my aunt as usual doesn’t pay attention to the beat of the music.

“Remember the cha-cha?” says Beanie, but Dovie says she never learned that one.

When that song ends, the station goes to a commercial break. Dovie and Beanie are still dancing, laughter flowing about them.

I’m sweeping the kitchen floor when Carson says, “I want to dedicate a song. This one is an old favorite of mine. It goes out to Samantha Bravencourt.”

My heart freezes as I stop sweeping. Why is he dedicating a song to me? At this point, I don’t know if I should be pleased or annoyed. Then I hear the music for “Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover” and let a smile replace the tension in my face. I sing a few of the words, letting the broom handle act as my microphone.

When the chorus begins, Beanie claims, “Not very romantic, is it? ‘Set yourself free’? ‘Hop on a bus, Gus’?” Her forehead wrinkles as she frowns.

“Oh, sometimes a song can have more to it that makes the heart flutter than meets the eye. Or should I say more than meets the ear?” Dovie gives a nod my way and then begins to dry a glass bowl with her towel. She hums, just like her sister—my mother—hums when she does tasks around the store, a little off-key but with gusto and feeling.

I swallow a few times.

Beanie says, “Sounds like a breakup song to me.” But now there is a smile on her face, as if she has heard Dovie and gathered that there is more than meets her ears.

When the kitchen is “put back into place,” as Dovie says, the two women join Pearl in the den to watch a movie. They ask if I want to join them, but I know my heart is tugging at me to do something else.

I sit on the porch in a wicker chair, drawing my knees up to my chest. The night is cooled by an intense wind, the little butterfly wind chime bouncing on its perch and clanging like a fire alarm. Over that noise, I listen as rain glazes the tree leaves. There are no crickets and bullfrogs singing their songs tonight.

With my arms wrapped around my legs, I close my eyes and immediately see Carson’s face. Actually, I see it in various situations. Like a slideshow, images come to me. Carson with a smile under the trees at the snack shop when he and I sang a silly song together, when I tried to kiss him and he turned away, and today as he told me not to be angry. How can I help but be a little angry? He has kept so much from me.

It is then that I realize the tugging at my heart is an invitation to pray. I should talk to God. As Dovie would say, “It’s time to have a heart to heart.”

In the Philippines I’d sit outside my dorm on a grassy knoll and watch the fields below. Occasionally, I would see a water buffalo or a farmer in a large straw hat harvesting his rice. The bullfrogs would sing and the sky would display an assortment of purple clouds as the day signed off.

I talked to God those evenings. Even though it was hard to find time alone among the refugees and other teachers, this sanctuary behind the dorm building became my respite from the long and sticky days. I wrote in my journal and created my newsletters to send back home. I thought about new ways to reach my students, sensed the anguish they’d faced, and prayed for my classes.