Lucky Child (16 page)

When I’m not stumped by these weird sayings, I struggle with the sounds. Sometimes I listen with envy as Beth rolls out the words effortlessly, automatically, and with a perfect accent. Her lips move so fast when she speaks that they look like a sock puppet with somebody’s hand controlling her mouth. I, on the other hand, have to sit in speech therapy class day after day to practice saying the sounds “S,” “Th,” “Str,” “L,” “V,” and “O” with exercises that have me blowing air between my teeth, pressing my tongue against the roof of my mouth, and breathing through a straw.
Afterward, my tongue usually feels swollen and too fat for my small mouth. Sometimes my tongue gets so tired, it becomes cranky and grouchy and sputters out sounds that taste like dirty water. But still I make myself practice and repeat the sounds until the phrase “Susan eats snakes” echoes even in my sleep.

Beth and I reach school just as the bell rings.

“One more day, then it’s the weekend!” Beth calls out as she walks off to her class.

“Totally awesome!” I yell back and enter my class.

Around the room, the popular students gather and socialize while the misfits sleep and pretend to look bored. In their corner, the Valley girls jingle their plastic bracelets and balloon out their cheeks like frogs before they pop their chewing gum. At my desk, I sit quietly and try to remember yesterday’s grammar lesson. Early on, I learned that to pass the tests, I just have to memorize the rules even if I don’t understand their usage. Then the day after the tests, the lessons can fly out of my ears like yellow busy bees. When the rules do stay in my head, they zip around and cross-pollinate with all the other lessons in my brain and get all mixed up anyway.

“All right, class, I trust you all did your homework.” The teacher sends everybody to their seats.

The assignment was to take your assigned big word and find other small words in it. One by one, each student walks up to the front and gives a report; I avoid the teacher’s eyes, hoping she won’t call on me.

“All right, Loung,” the teacher nods in my direction. “Your turn.”

“Okay.” I smile, my feet clunking heavily on the floor like they’re stuck in blocks of cement as I approach the board. As I stand in front of the class and write my big word on the blackboard, I am careful to slant the chalk so it doesn’t squeak. When I’m finished, I turn back to the class. My lips are dry and cracked.

“My word is Saturday,” I say in a small voice. My feet want to tap from nervousness but I stop them. “My word is Saturday,” I begin again in a deeper voice. “There’s the word ‘sat,’” I draw a line under
sat.
“There’s also the word ‘day’” I draw two lines under
day
for emphasis.

“And in the middle,” I continue, “is ‘turd.’”

Twenty heads toss back and erupt into laughter. I turn around, my fingers gripping the chalk tightly.

“What?” I ask, confused.

“Loung, do you know what that means?” asks a girl in the front.

“It means cool,” I answer. I have heard the cool kids call each other that.

“Well, no, it doesn’t,” another student answers, her voice cracking. Now even the teacher has her head bent to the desk, her right hand covering her mouth.

“But some kid called me a ‘turd’ the other day,” I protest. At this, the class roars and finally the teacher asks a girl to explain the word to me.

The girl takes a long time to explain what exactly a turd is. She first tells me something about a galloping horse that lifts its tail up.

“You mean it flicks at flies?”

“No. You know,” she persists, “when a horse lifts its tail and stuff comes out.”

“The horse pees?” I crinkle my brows.

“Closer.” She smiles. “All right.” She looks me in the eye. “Rabbit poo, bird droppings, and elephant manure.”

Finally, I get the picture.

“Oh shit!” I exclaim, but quickly cover my mouth with both hands.

When the bell rings again, I walk out of class wishing I were somebody else. As I find my way to the next class, I pretend I am a blond-haired, blue-eyed girl just like Beth. In my fantasies, I am named Jassy after a character I saw in an old black-and-white movie on TV. Right away I like the name because the girl in the movie rides horses and is a tomboy. But the first time I brought up the subject of a name change with Meng, he’d gazed at me as if I were crazy.

“But, Eldest Brother,” I protested, “many other refugee kids have taken American names.” Of the roughly two hundred Cambodians living in Vermont, many now call themselves by their new American names.

“It doesn’t matter what others do. You’re not changing your name,” Meng had said. He can be very final when he wants to be.

What Meng doesn’t know is that in school, my name has already been changed to its American variations of Loung.

“Hey Louie,” a girl name Missy says to me as she greets me. “Don’t you just
love
second-period gym class?”

“Barf me out!” I answer her and head into the locker room to change into my gym shorts and sweatshirt.

Outside, the sun is shining brightly in the sky and giving us an unusually warm day for the end of March. All the snow has melted, leaving the green grass below us cold and soggy. But still, I wish it were forty degrees warmer as I step onto the field, my sneakers soaking up the water like sponges.

“What a gorgeous day to play outside!” the girl next to me exclaims.

“Totally bitchin’,” I grumble under my breath, rubbing the bumps popping out of my skin.

“All right, girls.” The gym teacher blows into her whistle. “Gather around.” We all do as she says. “Missy, you play center forward. Loung, you’re left fullback. Colleen, you’re right wing.” While she split us up into two teams, I stare up at the sky and pray that the nice weather is here to stay. But in Vermont, we can still get snowed on in May.

“All right. Get into positions!” the teacher yells as I stroll to my spot. For the next twenty minutes, I stand around rubbing my thighs to keep them warm and run after the ball if it rolls by. Then suddenly, before I know what’s going on, the ball flies high into my space and without thinking I jump headfirst into it. It hits my head with a loud thud, creating a vibrating shock wave all over my scalp and then bouncing off to the ground where it is pounced on by other players. I lie on my back, my arms and legs spread out on the grass, and squeeze my eyes shut. For a second, I see black spots and my heart leaps with excitement. “You may have amnesia!” my mind whispers. With that, I envision myself waking up and not knowing who I am. I see myself returning to normal life with Meng, Eang, and Maria—but as a new person with no memories of Cambodia. But then swirling stars burst forth into my sight, and as the sun penetrates my closed lids, my face darkens with disappointment.

“Lou, are you hurt bad?” the gym teacher huffs at me.

“Have you ever heard of anybody hurting good?” I snap back in annoyance. The teacher scowls.

“What did you say?” she demands.

“I’m sorry. I mean I’m okay.” I chew on my lips to keep quiet.

The teacher smiles tightly and sends me to sit on the bench. While the game continues, I try to think of another way to erase my memory of Cambodia. In soap operas, it seems that every time a girl hits her head,
drinks too much, gets in a car accident, or merely faints, she gets amnesia. As my butt freezes on the cold bench, I realize that amnesia is a lot harder to get in real life than on TV.

The next period takes me to Mrs. Kay’s English class. I listen to her gentle vioice reading the class announcements out loud and wonder what it would be like to have her read me bedtime stories at home. For the rest of the class, I sit with my face resting in my palm like a heavy coconut that’ll fall down if I don’t support it. When the bell rings to end our class, the students rush out the door like alligators being let out of their cages; I follow behind.

“Loung, can I talk to you for a minute?” Mrs. Kay calls me.

“Sure, Mrs. Kay.” I go and stand next to her desk.

“Loung,” Mrs. Kay begins tentatively. “Loung, I’ve asked you to stay behind because I want to thank you.”

“Thank me?” I’m bewildered.

“Yes. You don’t know this but my son died this last summer. And I’ve had a very hard time with it and you’ve helped me a lot.” She smiles. “All through the year when I feel very sad, I just look at you. You’re always smiling and working hard. I say to myself, ‘This young girl has lost her family, her home, moved to a different country, and she still goes on smiling.’” I stare at Mrs. Kay not knowing what to say. I don’t know how she knows about me. I don’t talk about my past life to anyone. “You’ve helped me to go on …. And Loung, I think that your story is a very important story. If you ever want to write it down, I can help. If you want, you can even talk into a tape recorder and I can help you transcribe it.”

“Thanks, Mrs. Kay. I’ll think about it. And I’m sorry about your son.”

“Anything I can do to help, just ask.”

“Thanks, I will,” I tell Mrs. Kay, even though I have no intention of ever sharing my story with anyone.

After school, I walk Beth back to her house, then stop in for a cookie before going home.

“Loung, you’re late! It’s three-ten!” Eang yells when I open the door.

“Sorry,” I reply meekly knowing their shifts start at three-thirty
P.M.

“All right, food is cooked. You need to finish the laundry. Mop the floor.” And like a tornado, Meng and Eang storm out of the house.

“Okay, okay,” I call out after them, and go over to hug Maria.

“Hi sweetie,” I say. She smiles but then turns back to the TV.

Maria is three years old and already can communicate in three different languages. Between the two of them, Meng and Eang speak Mandarin Chinese, Cantonese, Chiu Chow, Vietnamese, Khmer, and now English. They are pushing me to study French to add another language to our household. At home Meng mostly speaks to us only in Chinese, while Eang doles out her instructions in Khmer. Meng rarely bends his Chinese-only rule, even when I have Ahn McNulty over.

However, I don’t see Meng and Eang enough to fight with them anymore. Both have found better-paying jobs working the evening shifts. For Meng, the extra money means that more funds can be put away to send to our family in Cambodia. This alone made it worth it for him to leave the job he loved as a social worker. Each day I leave for school before they are fully awake and rush home to look after Maria while they prepare to leave for work. By the time they return at midnight, Maria and I are fast asleep in my bed.

After I’ve finished with my chores, I feed and bathe Maria. Then it’s time to tuck her into bed.

“What book tonight?” she asks in English, crawling under the sheets.

With her parents gone, I am the one who, with a flip of the page, turns Maria from a toddler into Snow White, Cinderella, or Sleeping Beauty. When she is not a princess, Maria makes friends with Snoopy and the Peanut gang, follows Froggy as he goes a courting, swings on vines from tree to tree with Curious George, and twirls around with the mysterious Twelve Dancing Princesses.

My closet, once a place to hide from the world, is now a library where I can escape into my books. The shelves that once held a big jewelry box filled with colorful pins and barrettes are now taken up by books of all kinds. Gone is the cold metal chair; in its place, Meng brought me a school chair with a folding table. Eang sewed me a pillow to warm and cushion my buns while I read. On the walls, magazine pictures of sunflowers, California palm trees, banana plants, and Wonder Woman intermix with numerous cartoons of Snoopy, Pooh Bear, Mickey Mouse, and baby pictures of Maria.

“How ’bout if we make up our own stories tonight?”

“Okay,” she agrees, and I climb into bed with her.

“There once was a beautiful princess named Maria. And she was a very smart and clever princess. Then one day she walked into the woods and saw …”

“A giant butterfly!” Maria exclaims. “And the butterfly was very beautiful and had many colors and it flew very fast. Then the princess ran after it, and …”

“And she took out her magic rope and tried to catch it.” Together Maria and I weave a story until the princess catches her butterfly in the end.

As she lies in the crook of my arm, I watch Maria sleep peacefully. In the soft nightlight, her round face is warm and full. Suddenly a fleeting image of Geak comes back to me. I try to imagine Geak’s face when it was as full and round as Maria’s. But without a picture to hold on to, her beautiful face turns to hallowed cheeks and sunken dark eyes. As my nose itches and drips, I fantasize again about killing Pol Pot. I still want him dead. I want to wrap my fingers around his neck, feel my thumbs tighten against his Adam’s apple, and crush it. As hate boils in my body, it suppresses and overwhelms my sadness. In my arms, Maria moves closer against my chest, her breathing regular and deep. For a moment I feel old and maternal, but when I close my eyes the girl returns. When I open my eyes again, Meng and Eang are home. Quietly, they take Maria to their room and leave me to sleep alone in my bed.

In the morning, I’m awakened by other Cambodian voices in the kitchen. As I recede into my closet to read my books, Meng, Eang, and their friends talk about Cambodia. Because Meng’s English is better than most of the other refugees’, they flood our house every weekend asking for his help translating various documents or filling out job applications. Sometimes these refugees only stay for a few hours, and other times they stay for days. The longer they stay, the more they talk about Cambodia, making it very difficult for me to block it out. When I complain about the stream of visitors, Meng’s only reply is that we need to help one another, especially other Cambodians.

The truth is all I care about is becoming an American. Already I wear jeans and baseball caps wherever I go, listen to Loretta Lynn, and watch Crystal Gayle on TV. At school, I even make myself eat boring cafeteria
meat loaf, hamburgers, and shepherd’s pie without making faces. But Meng tells me that until I have my citizen papers, I still am only a legal alien.

“Eldest Brother, why do we have to wait so long before we can be Americans?” I asked Meng one night.