Fox Girl (30 page)

At my startled cry, quickly stifled, Sookie looked up and twisted her lips into a smile. “Told you Lobetto went crazy when you took off with his stash. He thought I knew where you went.”

“I'm sorry, Sookie, I—” I stammered.

She inhaled, the end of the cigarette crackling orange, then passed it to her mother, who was fidgeting with her hand up.

Duk Hee pinched the stick with shaking fingers and took a drag. “You girls in trouble?” she asked, closing her eyes and holding in the smoke.

“Just want a place to sleep.” Sookie took the cigarette back and nodded her head toward me.

Duk Hee opened her eyes, and for the first time noticed Myu Myu. “Oh, is that? . . .” Her glance flickered to Sookie, then dropped back to the baby. “I heard,” she said as she opened her arms. “Please?”

I unwrapped Myu, but instead of handing her to her grandmother, kept her close to my breast. “She's hungry,” I said. I searched through the baby's wrappings and pulled out the package of rice Kitchen Auntie had prepared. After popping the lid open with my teeth, I placed a pinch of rice and beef in my mouth and chewed. When I felt the mouthful soften, I spit it back out and slipped it into Myu's mouth. While she gummed it, I prepared her next bite.

I fed Myu Myu, swallowing only a small portion for myself, then settled her against my side. She tugged at my shirt, which I lifted for her. She grunted happily as she nuzzled my chest, taking one nipple in her mouth and grabbing at the other with her hands.

“Sick,” Sookie said. “Nothing is in there, right?”

I glanced up. Sookie and Duk Hee, less than a foot away from me, crouched at the side of the cot with their backs against the wall. Quietly, their hooded eyes on me, they had smoked through Sookie's pack of cigarettes, passing each stick back and forth between them. A small pile of ash and butts half-filled one of Duk Hee's plastic tea cups.

“Shut up,” Duk Hee said. “Let them sleep.” Her stomach rumbled and she looked down at it as if in surprise. She gave an embarrassed laugh. “I only get hungry when I smell food,” she explained.

I looked at the tin. All that remained were a few specks of rice stained red with kimchee juice, and a bit of the shredded cabbage. Duk Hee was staring at the kimchee, so I tilted my head toward it. “It's not much, but you can have it, if you want.”

Duk Hee pounced on the box, slurped the spicy vegetables without chewing. When she had finished, she sat back on her haunches and fixed her catlike hunger on Myu Myu. “Maybe later,” she whispered, “I can hold her.”

Sookie stood, leaning over me in the narrow cubicle. Bending her face close to mine, she whispered: “Sleep then. I'll look out for you.”

Feeling Myu Myu's grip on my bared nipple loosening as she slept, I closed my eyes under Sookie's watchful gaze.

 

When I woke, the women and Myu Myu were gone. Lobetto was the one twisting my nipples, gripping them so hard I cried out before I even opened my eyes. Pushing against his hands, I bolted upright and scanned the small space for the baby. “Sookie?” I cried. The pain in my breasts knifed through my grogginess.

“We're alone,” he said, then pushed his nail into my nipples.

“Stop!” I scratched his arms until he snapped away.

“Shit!” Lobetto cursed. He stuck his bleeding hand against his lip and struck out with his other.

“Please,” I gasped. “The baby.” Dazed, I thought for a brief moment that Sookie and Myu Myu might be huddled under the bed. I tipped over to look under the cot.

“You think you can just leave me behind, throw me away like a piece of trash?” Lobetto jerked me back by the hair and flipped me over, pinning my body under his. “Why're you fucking up the plan?”

I tried to buck him off, yelling, “Get off, you
gomshi
oaf!” I spit out a mouthful of blood. Sookie had promised to watch over me, to protect me as I slept. But as soon as I let down my guard, she and Duk Hee took the baby and led Lobetto to me. I tried to think where Sookie would run to, but all I could imagine was her pushing Myu Myu under water, holding her there until I managed to scrape her arms away, her saying: “It's for your own good; you'll thank me later.”

Lobetto cupped the side of my face, as a lover would, then squeezed my cheeks together.

“Where's my money?” he spat. Flecks of spittle hit hot against my face. “Where's the kid?”

“What money?” I said. My cheeks were pressed so tightly against my teeth, they cut and bled with each word.

“Why you gotta be like this? I took you in,” he said, punctuating his words by yanking my head around. “Gave you a place to sleep, food in your stomach, clothes on your back. Those things cost—”

I clawed at his hands, arms, tried to get at his eyes. When he yelped and pulled away, I snarled, “I earned that money!”

“You ‘earned' that money?” Lobetto yelled. “Is that what you said? All you did was lie down and spread your legs. How hard is that?” Prying my thighs apart, he ground his hips into mine. “All you have to do is lie there.” He pulled at the buttons of my pants.

“What're you doing?” I screeched, trying to knock his hands away, to kick him off.

“You need me,” he panted, struggling to pull my shorts off. “I was the one hustling, working the streets, making the deals. Without me, you're nowhere. There's no place for you. Who's the man keeping you down now? Huh? Huh?”

I yanked his hair, lifting his head, trying to look into his face. “Stop it, Lobetto! Stop!” I shouted into his ear: “I know you. I know your face, Lobetto. Look at me!”

When he opened his eyes, I saw that he was crying. He shuddered, frowning into my face, then leapt away from me.

I looked at him, hunched at the foot of the cot, then out the glass door. Bright afternoon light leaked from the sides of the drawn curtain. Through the thin rectangles I glimpsed people walking by. I knew they couldn't see me, and even if they had seen Lobetto trying to rape me, no one would have stopped him. The scene was nothing new. I myself had seen worse things in the tanks. I wondered what Duk Hee saw from her view on the cot.

“Hyun Jin?” Lobetto's voice broke, as it had when he was younger, in school, unsure of the answers. I thought he would apologize, beg for forgiveness. Instead, his voice hardened and he said, “Why do you have to push me like that?”

“What?” I shrieked, kicking him in the shoulder.

He grabbed my foot before I could kick him again, in the head. “Aai! That hurt,” he whined. “You didn't have to do that.” He dropped my leg when he felt it go limp and rubbed his arm.

“Go suck your mama's milk,” I taunted, relieved to see the Lobetto I knew and could handle.

“Where's my kid?” he asked. He sounded tired, almost sad.

“She's not yours!” I scrambled to my knees, fists up, ready to fight. “You didn't want her. Sookie didn't want her. You guys would have killed her, just like you killed my other one!”

Lobetto shook his head. “What are you talking about?” he scowled. “What other one?”

“You don't even remember!” I hissed. “You owe me. You know you owe me. I won't let—”

“You think you can just take her?” Lobetto asked, knocking my hands down. “You think you can just waltz into America with her in your arms? You think you can play Yoon, fuck her over like that?”

I jutted my chin. “Yes.”

The cot creaked as Lobetto got to his feet. He loomed over me, glaring, eyes slit and unwavering.

I flinched, but stared back.

“Fuck it. Take the baby,” he said, his voice quiet, resigned. “And take the money, too. For her.” He knelt in front of me and tapped my jaw closed. “I do love that kid,” he whispered. “Tell her that. Tell her her father loves her. It's important.” When I nodded, still stunned, he added: “And tell her one day I'll come to her. I'll meet her at . . . I don't know—Disneyland.” He flashed a lopsided grin. “Every American kid should visit Tomorrowland, right?”

I think he was quoting another line from his own father's letter.

After Lobetto left, I didn't have the energy to slide from the bed to find my pants. I couldn't even lift a hand over the cot to yank the blanket over my body. I faced the door, fighting the urge to close my eyes, and focused on the narrow strip of light angling past the curtain.

It was only when I heard the door swing open that I scrambled to get up. I thought Lobetto was back, that he had changed his mind or was trying to trick me all along; I needed to be on my feet for the next confrontation. The room tilted around me, twisting my stomach. I bent over, struggling not to vomit.

“What did you do to my place?” Duk Hee complained. When I straightened, exposing the welts on my breasts, the scratches on my legs, she gasped. “What happened to you?”

Myu Myu was perched on Duk Hee's hip. I grabbed her, swayed, and sat on the cot to keep from falling. Myu Myu cried out, upset at the jostling. I nuzzled her neck, which smelled like salt and mildew. “Why did you leave me?” I winced when I heard myself whine; I had tried to yell.

“Lobetto?” Sookie asked.

“You know he was here,” I hissed.

Duk Hee bent forward, lifting her hand as if to caress my face. I leaned toward her, wanting her touch, her comfort. Her palm hovered, a whisper above my birthmark. “Are you hurt?” she asked, dropping her hand.

Sookie snorted. “What do you think?” She pushed Duk Hee onto the cot next to me so she could squeeze past our legs. “We don't have much time now. He might come back,” she said as she checked under the bed, through piles of trash and clothes for my shirt and pants.

Gingerly, my entire body tender, I craned my neck to peer at Sookie. “Are we even now?”

Sookie frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, Lobetto knew I was here.” I stared at her, then threw out: “He came for his daughter.”

Sookie winced. “He told you he's the father?”

“Why didn't you?” I pretended to be nonchalant, but couldn't stop from asking, “How long were you guys . . . ?”

“A long time,” Sookie admitted. She looked to her mother then glanced down, blindly picking at the clothes in her hands. “The first time we were still in primary school; his father bought me for him.”

Duk Hee covered her face with her hands. “I'm sorry,” she groaned. “I am so sorry.”

Sookie shook her head at her mother, then spoke to me. “It was nothing. We got together sometimes, even after his father left, because then we were kind of the same.”

“What? Poor little
gomshis?
Little throwaways?” I scoffed to hide my surprise at their long involvement. I had always thought that Sookie and Lobetto hated each other. “Half in one world, half in another?” I added, remembering something Lobetto had once told me.

“I never meant to hurt you,” Sookie said, kneeling in front of me. “I never meant to keep secrets from you.”

I laughed, a bitter retching sound. “But you have. So many secrets. So many lies.” Myu Myu whimpered and burrowed under my arm.

“I never told Lobetto you were here. I—” Sookie started to say, but I pushed a hand against her mouth.

“Save it,” I growled. “I don't want to hear any excuses, any more stories. I know what you did. I know how you are.”

“Do you?” she asked. “Or do you know only what you think you know?” Sookie looked me in the eye, took my finger in her mouth, and bit.

I figured it was the guilt of betrayal that made Sookie buy the train tickets to Kimpo airport. “That's where I went when I left you,” Sookie said. “I never saw Lobetto at all. I wouldn't.”

I snorted. “That doesn't mean you didn't stop by the corner of Club Alley to spread the word where to find me,” I said.

Sookie threw her hands into the air. “For the last time, I didn't tell anyone anything,” she said. “Least of all Lobetto.”

“I never thought Lobetto could do something like this,” Duk Hee said, staring at my lips, cut and swollen. “I can't believe he would hit a woman. I thought his daddy had had more influence on him than that.”

“Are you joking?” Sookie screamed at her. “Look at me. Didn't you see what he did to me?”

Duk Hee turned away, saying, “Lobetto did that? I thought it must have been Chazu.” She sniffed disdainfully. “Or maybe one of the other boyfriends you stole from me.”

Sookie threw her hands into the air and shouted at me. “Can you believe this old woman!” She marched over to Duk Hee, stepping so close they breathed each other's breaths. “It's your fault I'm the way I am! I was just a little girl. A little girl—” Sookie stopped, her voice becoming shaky and weak. “You should have protected me.”