The Wishing Trees (38 page)

“No,” Binh replied. “For you, only fifteen dollars.”

Holly shook her head. “But we’re your first customers, your lucky, lucky customers. I think for us, eight dollars is a better price. A much better price. With that price, more luck will come your way. So much luck that you’ll make dresses for free.”

“Eight dollars!” Binh repeated, feigning shock. “Twelve dollars for you. This my best price. Sure, sure.”

“No, no, no. Nine dollars. That’s my best price. Sure, sure.”

“Ten.”

“Nine.”

As Holly and the seamstress haggled, Mattie saw a boy’s suit and thought of Rupee. “Daddy, can we get something for Rupee?” she asked. “Something special?”

Ian followed her gaze to the suit, wondering how the other orphans would react to such clothes, and why he hadn’t heard back from the orphanage’s director, whom he’d e-mailed three days earlier. “I don’t know, luv,” he finally replied, “if the other blokes at the orphanage would fancy seeing Rupee in a suit. Maybe we could send them some soft blankets instead? Would that be all right?”

“As soft as this?” Mattie asked, again touching the dress.

“Aye, aye, First Mate. As soft as that.”

Mattie grinned and thanked him as Holly and Binh finally agreed on a price of ten dollars. Glad to see Holly smile, and that they were going to buy blankets for the children at Rupee’s orphanage, Mattie stepped forward as Binh pulled a measuring tape from her pocket. Remembering how she had fled from the seamstress in Hong Kong, Mattie stood straight, glancing at her father.

Rather than immediately take Mattie’s measurements, Binh squeezed her arms, touched the contours of her spine, and traced the outline of her collarbones. Mattie felt as if she was in a doctor’s office and looked to Holly, who smiled, placing a hand in front of her mouth as she laughed.

“You strong girl,” Binh said, unwinding her measuring tape, clucking her tongue as she recorded the circumference of Mattie’s neck and waist, as well as the length of her torso, legs, and arms.

Kim returned from the street and handed soft drinks to Georgia, Holly, and Ian. “Be careful my sister no choke you with measuring tape,” she said, smiling.

Binh scowled, replying in Vietnamese, and then adding in English, “Kim good at making dresses, but better at talking. She talk all day and night if I let her. If you let her. Go, Kim. Go outside and get them food.”

Still smiling, Kim turned to Ian and Georgia. “Binh not have many good ideas, but that one of them. You want something to eat? Some grilled chicken or squid?”

“Will this take a while?” Ian asked, gesturing toward Mattie.

“Oh, yes,” Kim replied. “If we measure all of you, it take some time. Especially with Binh measuring you. She make many mistakes, for sure.”

Ian set his drink aside. “I reckon I don’t need to be measured.”

“Yes, you do,” Mattie replied, turning in his direction. “You’re going to get a nice suit, Daddy. That you can wear to dinner tomorrow night.”

“I am?”

“You certainly are,” Georgia answered, stepping to a nearby shelf that held bolts of dark fabric and feeling the material. “A beautiful cashmere suit to wear with all your ladies.”

Ian smiled. “Well, in that case, I suspect we could do with a bit of grub.”

“I go now,” Kim said. “Be back soon with delicious dinner. You make sure that my sister measure you right. Sometimes her eyes and brain not work so good.”

Binh shooed Kim away, said something in Vietnamese, and the twins laughed. Kim left the room. After jotting down a few numbers, Binh walked over to Holly and repeated the process, continuing to cluck her tongue. Holly had watched the sisters with interest, deciding at the last moment that she didn’t want a black dress, but one just like Mattie’s. She hoped to be Mattie’s twin, if only for a night.

It took another twenty minutes to measure Holly, Ian, and Georgia. Halfway through the process, Kim returned with skewers of roasted chicken and squid. She placed the food on wooden plates and served her patrons, making a point to show the steaming morsels to her sister, but offering her none. As Mattie and Holly began to eat, and Georgia stretched out her arm for Binh to measure, Ian motioned for Kim to follow him out into the street.

“You need something?” she asked. “A beer? A scooter? Maybe foot massage?”

He smiled, removing three pieces of sea glass that he had found on the beach earlier that day. The pieces were green and worn smooth by the passage of countless waves. They were about the size of his thumb-nail and looked like precious stones that had been found deep in the earth. He handed the pieces to Kim. “Reckon you could turn these bits of sea glass into three necklaces? Or do you know someone who can?”

Kim placed the sea glass on her palm, moving the pieces around with her forefinger. “What kind of necklace?”

“Something to go with their dresses? Maybe . . . maybe a silver setting on a black leather cord?”

“My friend, she can do this. Make them very beautiful for your ladies. Cost you . . . twenty dollar.”

Ian leaned closer to her. “Let’s have a go at it, shall we? And if you keep it a secret, I’ll give you some extra loot. But they need to be ready tomorrow morning. When we pick up the dresses, you can give them to me.”

“No problem. I go to my friend right now.”

He reached into his day pack and handed her twenty-five dollars. “Please tell your mate to make them special.”

Kim pocketed the money but continued to hold the sea glass. “Your wife, she lucky woman.”

Ian’s smile faded. “Georgia? She’s . . . she’s not my wife.”

“No?”

“No.”

“Well, she still lucky. If you find beautiful thing and give it to her, then I think she lucky. Same, same for girls.”

“Thank you.”

“Okay, you go back inside, so they no wonder where you are, so they no think I am your new girlfriend. See you tomorrow.”

“Good night. Thank you for the food.”

“Good night, Mr. Sea Glass Man.”

Ian watched the Vietnamese woman depart, wondering if all the locals assumed that he and Georgia were married. “Sorry, my luv,” he whispered, looking into the night sky, which shimmered with starlight.

Back inside the dress shop, Binh had finished measuring Georgia and was talking with Mattie about silk blankets. Ian entered the room, leaned against a wall, and listened to his daughter and Holly haggle with Binh over the cost of blankets. Mattie wasn’t a good negotiator, and Holly seemed frustrated when Mattie prematurely agreed on a price. But Mattie was happy, which prompted Ian’s smile to return.

He handed Binh some bills and lifted a skewered squid from a plate. “Thank you,” he said. “We’ll be back tomorrow morning. Before we buzz off for Dalat. Reckon you can get the dresses done?”

Binh rubbed the bills for good luck. “We work on dresses all night, and we sleep tomorrow. This perfect for us. Especially for Kim. Now she can talk all night.”

“Well, have a good chat.”

“You too.”

Farewells were exchanged, and Ian led Georgia and the girls out onto the street. He took a bite of the squid, which was warm and sweet. “Might I show you something?” he asked.

Everyone nodded, and he walked over to a pair of bicycle taxis. After telling the drivers his intentions, Ian and Mattie got into one seat, while Georgia and Holly occupied the other. The drivers pedaled hard, and the contraptions gathered speed, easing into the empty road. Two-hundred-year-old storefronts passed. Streetlamps flickered. Mattie and Holly reached out to each other and clasped hands. One driver smoked a cigarette while his companion spoke to him in Vietnamese.

The bicycle taxis turned down a dirt road, rumbling ahead like a pair of racing tortoises. As the lights of Hoi An faded behind them, the stars strengthened. Coconut trees bordered the road, rising high, their fronds whispering in the wind. Soon the surf could be heard. A beach appeared, gray and massive.

Ian paid the drivers and asked them to wait. Taking Mattie’s hand, he led her forward, toward the sea. Georgia and Holly followed, talking about the beauty of the night, which seemed to increase with each passing step. Layers of stars, as countless as the grains of sand beneath their feet, sparkled in a sky that was filled with too much light to be considered black. A few hundred paces to their right, a group of Vietnamese had gathered around a bonfire and were singing. The bonfire partly illuminated the nearby sea. The singing mingled with the crashing of waves.

“Here’s a beaut of a spot,” Ian said, lying down on the sand twenty feet from the water and seemingly a handbreadth from the sky. “This is what we’d do in the bush,” he added. “When my mates and I were young. Sometimes we’d light a campfire. We called it a bush telly. But it was better to watch the stars in the dark.”

Mattie, Holly, and Georgia also moved to the sand, staring up. At first, no one spoke. The sky twinkled. Occasionally, shooting stars flashed past forgotten constellations, disappearing above the sea. Several satellites—no more than specks of light—drifted, their steel hulls reflecting sunlight from the other side of the world. No moon was present. Nor were any clouds. The sky was alone with its worlds and histories and monuments.

Georgia realized that her ex-husband, despite his role as a museum director, as someone who loved beauty, had never encouraged her to do anything like gaze at stars. “What do you see?” she asked, listening to the waves, watching a satellite.

Holly gathered sand in her hand and let it fall through her fingers. “I think the shooting stars are the best. It’s like . . . an invisible giant is waving a bunch of candles above us. And they’re going out, splash, splash, splash, when they fall into the ocean.”

“How about you, Mattie?” Georgia wondered. “What do you see up there?”

Mattie saw her mother in the stars, saw the beauty and grace and strength of someone who had made her feel free. But she wasn’t sure if she should say as much. She didn’t want to make her father sad. On the other hand, she didn’t want to lie to Georgia either. “I . . . I see my mother,” she finally replied, tears gathering in the hollows below her eyes. She felt guilty that she hadn’t thought about her mother all day. And now, looking at the sky, she feared that she would forget her mother’s voice, her face. Feeling panic rise within her, she reached for her father’s hand. He took her fingers in his, squeezed her flesh, and she knew that his thoughts followed in the footsteps of hers.

“Your mum was beautiful,” he responded, unsure what to say in front of Georgia and Holly. “And you’re right. She was just like this sky. She wasn’t a single star, but a heap of them.”

Mattie blinked, her tears stinging. “All of them.”

“You know what else is beautiful, luv?”

“What?”

“The four of us, lying here next to the South China Sea, looking at this lovely sky. We’re four friends. Four mates, really. And I reckon that’s a beautiful thing too.”

Mattie nodded, squeezing his fingers. “We’re . . . kind of like a family.”

He stiffened, turning toward her. “A family of friends.”

Georgia, who lay on the other side of Mattie, wished that she could see Ian’s face, that he would build a campfire with Holly’s help, and that the girls could throw sticks into it while she rested her head on his chest. Yet she would never encourage him to touch her, no matter that the more time she spent with him, the more she wanted to feel him. “I don’t like the circumstances that brought us together,” she said, her heartbeat quickening. “But I’m glad we’re together. There’s no place I’d rather be right now, no people I’d rather be with.”

“Me too,” Holly said, rising to her knees and moving closer to Mattie.

As Holly reached out for Mattie, Georgia asked herself if she had said too much. Can he sense what I want? Is it awful for me to think about him when Mattie’s so close to tears?

When Ian made no reply, she wondered where his thoughts were wandering. She mused over what he’d said, and the silence that now lingered. Unable to bear such silence, she sat up. “Do you want a fire, Mattie?” she asked. “Like those people down there? Let’s build a fire and tell stories.”

Mattie stood up. Ian moved more slowly, but his eyes found Georgia’s in the darkness, and she thought his gaze might have lingered. Why it lingered, she wasn’t certain, but she didn’t turn from him, and for a moment she felt exposed, as if she were lying naked in a bathtub before him. Something seemed to briefly connect them, to draw them together. Then he turned toward the girls and that something was gone.

THE FOLLOWING DAY, THE FOUR TRAVELERS SAT in the rear of the van, watching the Vietnamese mountains pass. As they neared Dalat, the mountains grew—full of towering evergreens, rivers, waterfalls, and wildlife. The air smelled like pine and sap. The road was empty, the forest unblemished. Georgia, who had explored the mountains outside Seattle, felt as if she was in the Pacific Northwest. She had never seen this side of Vietnam and was glad that they’d decided to travel to Dalat, which had long been a summer destination for wealthy Vietnamese.

They’d stopped twice on the way, and Khan had left crutches with someone he trusted on each occasion. Everyone was saddened by the thought of children needing the crutches. They had met two such children—young boys injured by the same bomb. In a way, the boys were lucky. The bomb had taken only a foot from each. With crutches they would be mobile. They could live their lives. As Khan had explained to them how to use the crutches, Mattie had led Holly into a nearby store, where they pooled their money and bought two fishing poles. The boys could hardly have acted more surprised to receive the gifts.