by Amy Valenti
The guard flagged me down, and I walked toward him, crossing a road. “You live here?”
“Um, no,” I said. “My sister does.”
He thought for a minute, before his creased face broke out into a broad smile. “Scarlett, right?”
“Yes,” I said, nodding. “That’s my sister.”
“Ah. You look just like her. But she has red hair.”
“She dyed it,” I said, feeling distinctly bitchy, like I might be outing her. “Her hair is normally like mine.” I pulled at a strand that had worked free from my ponytail and showed it to him.
“Brown.”
“Chestnut.”
His blank stare reminded me that I was in a country where English was not the first language. “Light brown, yes,” I said, nodding. “Can I, uh, go in? Is she in? Do you know?”
“She’s at home,” he said. “You can go.” He walked to the gate and simply pushed it open. I looked between the gate and the fingerprint scanner, and he followed my gaze.
“Oh, it does not work.” He quickly put a finger to his lips. “But don’t tell anybody.”
I laughed, shaking my head. Truthfully, I wasn’t all that surprised. “Thank you,” I said walking past him.
“First building, second floor, unit F.”
“Thanks. Bye.”
“See you later!”
I shook my head to myself, wondering if it was simply because he recognized me that he had let me through, or if he was always so accommodating to strangers.
Taking a deep breath, I knocked on Scarlett’s door. “Coming,” I heard yelled from inside, and when she opened it, hair a ferocious and burning crimson, we locked eyes for whole seconds.
“Maya,” she said, tilting her head to the side. “Oh my God!” She laughed, and then flung open the door so that it banged off the wall and wrapped me up in her arms. She held onto me tight, and though it didn’t come easily at first, I hugged her back with every ounce of strength I had.
“Hey, Scarlett,” I whispered. I blinked out tears from my eyes. “I’ve missed you.”
“Me, too!” she squealed, pulling me into her flat. It was spare, tastefully decorated, but ultimately lacking in furniture. “You couldn’t have come at a better time!”
“Oh yeah?” I asked, putting my purse on the table. “Why?”
“Jimmy’s finally moved out, and I’ve got this place to myself, and I’m taking a holiday. It’s so good of you to come! Did Mum tell you?”
I blinked. “Sorry?”
“I sent a letter to Mum. Actually, I’ve sent loads, but she hasn’t been replying to me. I can’t believe she’s still angry at me.”
I found it difficult to find the words. “Um, Scar, she’s not angry at you. She thinks you are with her?”
“What? Well, I mean, I was. Up until I found out Jimmy had a little local thing on the side.”
“What?” I asked, widening my eyes. “When was this?”
“Just a couple of months ago.”
“The same thing happened to me.”
Scarlett’s entire demeanor softened. “Bradley?”
“Yeah.”
“When?”
“Two weeks ago.”
“Oh, Maya,” she moaned, coming back to me and hugging me again. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be. It’s better.”
“Exactly,” she said, squeezing my arm. “You’ve put on weight.”
“You were never a delicate one.”
“I’m straight as ever,” she said, going to the kitchen and getting a glass of water. She was looking in great shape, and for a moment, I felt a stupid jealousy that she had kept her athletic body. I used to look like her… until I met Bradley.
No, I couldn’t blame him for that. I’d let myself go. I had to take some responsibility somewhere.
“You look really good, Scarlett.” I had wanted to add, ‘even in those grubby sweats and that stretched t-shirt’, but didn’t. I sat down at the table and thanked her for the glass of water.
“Sometimes the food here goes right through you,” she said, making a face.
“Yuck.”
She sat down opposite me. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. I’m sorry to drop by without calling first.”
“Really, it’s no problem.”
“So you’ve been sending Mum letters but she hasn’t been replying?”
“No,” Scarlett said. “I’ve sent her like six or seven now. All to the flat.”
“They’ve moved.”
“What?”
“Yeah, Mum moved in with Robert.”
“So I’ve been sending my letters to the wrong address?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“Oh. I guess that explains it.” She let out a high-pitched snort, and slapped the table.
“Mum’s got a smartphone now. She’s even got all the chat programs loaded.”
“No way!”
“Yeah. Woman of the twenty-first century.”
“Mum always was brave that way.”
“Yeah,” I agreed.
“Like remarrying? That was brave.”
“I think so, too.”
“I mean, after Dad died…”
“Yeah.” We looked at each other for a moment, smiles fading.
“So why are you in Thailand, Maya?”
“I needed to go away. Bradley… he’d been doing it for a long time, I think. He tried to blame it on me, too.”
“So did Jimmy. Said he wasn’t getting enough at home.”
I shook my head. The similarities in our situations were so bizarre. “Bradley said something similar, only he was so poisonous and passive-aggressive. It really hurt.” I felt the threat of being pulled back into that pool of wallowing, and struggled to force myself to smile. “But like I said. It’s probably better this way.”
“Yeah,” Scarlett said through a sigh. “Probably.”
Silence blanketed us then, and we simply sat together and sipped our water, both lost in thought. At one point she reached for my hand and gave it a squeeze. She’d always been the touchy-feely type, and so often in our teenage years boys had mistaken it for flirting. I was the complete opposite. Two years her junior, I had contracted none of that social confidence and playfulness which bubbled to bursting within her. She could make friends with anybody, could attract just about any man she laid eyes on, where as I had always had to work for those things.
“How is work?” she eventually asking, slicing through the quiet.
“I quit, actually.” We looked at each other before we started giggling.
“Damn, girl! You’re on a fucking roll!”
“What are you talking about?”
“Dump your boyfriend, quit your job. Leave your country? You’re about to awaken a whole new side of you.”
“I don’t believe in your hippie stuff.”
“It’s not hippie stuff, Maya. I’m serious. I couldn’t imagine being stuck back home, in shitty gray winters and just… eugh!”
“It’s not that bad.”
“It is when you’ve been out here for a while. Life is so much easier. It’s easier to earn money. I mean I own an online business that helps foreigners resell their furniture and stuff to other foreigners here in Thailand. I mean, isn’t that insane? All their precious wood and expensive, antique shit they bring over from wherever the fuck they’re from, and suddenly they’re like, shit, it doesn’t work out here in this climate! It doesn’t work when they’ve got to move frequently because of their jobs or falling-apart marriages because they did some bar bimbo on the side, or whatever. So I thought one day, why not set myself up as a middle-woman? Simply through commission I make enough money to live well. Back home? I’d be better off on the fucking dole.”
I narrowed my eyes at Scarlett. “You swear so much.”
“Fuck off, like I shouldn’t.”
“How did you and I end up so different?”
“I don’t know, Maya. I don’t know.”
&
nbsp; “Good to hear that you’re doing well for yourself, though. Sounds like a pretty smart move if that middle-man thing is making you money.”
“Jimmy tried to take it with him even though it was my idea.”
“I bet you gave him an earful.”
“Damn right I did. Almost kicked his cheating ass, too. And I could have!”
“I don’t doubt it,” I said, grinning. “Wow. It’s nice to talk to you again. Let’s never not talk for five years again, yeah?”
“It’s been that long?”
“Yeah.”
Scarlett nodded. “Never again. Where are you staying?”
“At a guest house by the, you know, that big shopping center? I can’t remember the name. It’s got a fountain.”
“Oh yeah, I know. Fuck that, come stay with me.”
“You have a spare room?”
“Of course! I’ll get you set up. Go get your shit and come back and you and I can just relax tonight and cook some dinner at home, share a bottle of wine. A joint if you want?”
“No joint for me, but I’ll gladly say yes to the wine.”
“Good.”
“You sure, Scar?”
“Yes, I’m sure! Go on, go get your stuff. Now!”
“Now?” I looked around. “I just got here.”
“Well, it’s nearly noon, and if you don’t get your stuff out of the room by then, you’ll be billed another night.”
Good thinking, I thought. “Alright. Oh, by the way, your guard just let me in.”
“Yeah, he’s like that.”
“Bit useless, isn’t it?”
“Welcome to Southeast Asia.”
“You’re so cynical.”
“I don’t get disappointed. Now go! I’ll wait for you by the gate incase Eric decides he wants to actually do his job.”
“His name is Eric?”
“It is this week. Last week it was Richard.”
“Hah,” I sounded. “How delightfully flexible.”
“Go on. Get your shit!”
“Okay, okay,” I murmured as Scarlett ushered me out of the door. The woman had all the patience of a child.
“Hey,” I said, half out of the door. “Thanks.”
She made a face. “Come on. You’re my little sister.”
“Yeah.” I smiled at her.
I felt really good.
This was going to be a great trip.
*
CHAPTER THREE
The shallow bobs and repetitive lap of water against the junk’s hull were oddly calming. I lay on the cushions on the top deck of the small boat we had rented, complete with a stocked bar, salad buffet, and enough snacks and other goodies to last a month, and put on ten pounds.
“This was a great idea, Scar.”
My sister turned to me, and lowered her sunspecs down the bridge of her narrow nose. “Told you.”
“I’m so glad it’s just you and me, all alone. No other tourists. Private tours are the best. Pricy, though.”
“They are,” Scarlett agreed. “But I never go with the throng. Avoid the tourists like the plague. It’s something you learn if you live here. Sometimes I think every person who lives in Thailand hates the tourists.”
“Well, weren’t you once a tourist?”
Scarlett frowned. “Yeah. I suppose I was.”
“God, this kind of humid heat is somehow welcome. Can you believe that? How strange does that sound?” I wiped sweat from my upper lip, and then dabbed my forehead with the back of my hand. “See! I’m practically dripping. And I like it!”
Scarlett pursed her lips. “It’s alright, I guess. I prefer drier heat, but I suppose if you don’t get to go inside a sauna all that much, the sub-tropics can feel pretty good. Trust me, you wouldn’t want to be going on a hike in this weather. Or walk to work in it.”
“No,” I agreed, making a face at just the thought of so much wet clothing sticking interminably to my body. “What’s this barge we’re going to again?”
“It’s a private restaurant, Maya. I already told you. It’s not really a barge, either. It’s like… a floating platform.”
“Yeah,” I murmured. “It just floats out in the middle of the sea?”
“Well, no, it’s off the coast of a private beach. That’s where the club is. I’ll see if I can swing us an invite to get there.”
“An invite?”
“Yeah. It’s very exclusive. You need to be invited. It’s a club called Club Soria.”
“What does Soria mean?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Apparently, a billionaire recluse who owns it, but I don’t know how much truth there is to that rumor.”
“What?” I blurted, laughing. “You can’t be serious. Is he also a James Bond villain?”
“I am serious, Maya! Never seen him or anything, but those are the rumors.”
“And the floating restaurant?”
“It’s pretty cool. It’s got like this internal swimming pool which is basically just a big hole that leads down to the sea. The water is so clear, you can see right to the bottom. I mean, it’s blue just like a swimming pool. Of course, since it’s close to the beach, it’s not very deep. There’s coral and stuff, too. Tons of fishes. Clown fish, too. They’re so cute. You could swim down and play with them. Some of the fish will eat the dead skin off your feet.”
I laughed at Scarlett’s manic speech, and tried to picture it in my head, a boat that could somehow float with a big chunk of it cut out in its middle. “And it’s private. Like, exclusive?”
“Yes.”
“Have you been before?”
“No, not to the club on the beach. To the restaurant, yes.”
“Well, how did you manage that?”
Scarlett propped herself up on an elbow, and I did the same. Her arm was far thinner than mine. “What do you mean?”
“Like, how did you get access?”
“Oh!” She grinned. “It’s mostly a private getaway for rich and shady business-types in Thailand, strictly for foreigners, and I mostly deal with foreigners at work. One day I met a man through my business, and he told me all about it. He was trying to get rid of some chest of drawers which I guessed was probably an antique, though he didn’t know it.”
“Just like that? He just told you?”
“Well, no.” A sly grin parted her lips. “I agreed to accompany him as his date to some red carpet event in Bangkok. He’s a film director. Some Hollywood blockbuster was being filmed out here. Why he lugged his furniture out here for a six-month shoot I’ll never know.”
“When was this?” I asked, my curiosity piqued. I loved film, and would probably know of the movie if I knew the name.
“Oh, three or four months ago.” Scarlett waved her hand vaguely in the air.
I blinked. “Wait, but weren’t you still with Jimmy?”
“Technically, yes. But things were bad already.”
“He was already, um…”
“I suspected, but had no proof.”
“But did you, you know, with the film director?”
“What? God, no.” Scarlett feigned disgust. “I’m not that easy.”
“Of course.”
“He was only a second unit director, anyway.”
I met my sister’s eyes for a moment before we started giggling together. “Can’t bear slumming it, can you?”
“I never settle for less than the best,” Scarlett said through a snort.
We lay in silence for a moment, the remnants of our laughs just quite grins. My sister was still on her elbow, and my back flat against the cushions. The sky wasn’t completely clear – there were dark rumblings on the horizon – but this was Thailand. It rained every day. Soon those grey clouds would spread inland, shower the land for perhaps just twenty minutes, and then cease until the next day at roughly the same time. It was dependable. Completely dependable.
“Are there sharks out here, Scarlett?”
“No idea. Why?”
“Just wondering,�
�� I said. I shook my head. “Wow, it’s been so long since I just let my mind wander like that.”
“You mean think about sharks?”
“Not specifically. Just… you know. Daydream. I’m thinking about it right now, and I haven’t daydreamed in so long.”
“Never?”
“I don’t know. Maybe every now and then. But I don’t remember really thinking about stuff. Gosh, things were so bad between Bradley and me, and I just couldn’t see it at the time. The atmosphere was so poisonous. We were just being passive-aggressive to each other all the time.”
“That’s how people are, Maya. For some reason we stick our flag into a pile of dog shit and refuse to leave until we’re forced to eat it.”
I wrinkled my nose, not quite understanding the point she was trying to make. “Ew. You’re so vulgar all the time. Haven’t changed a bit.”
“The rules on being a lady are more relaxed out here. It’s freeing.”
I furrowed my brow. I wasn’t sure that being a lady had anything to do with not being vulgar, but I discarded the thought. “Was it like that between you and Jimmy?”
“Oh,” Scarlett sighed, reaching over and patting my arm. “Me and Jimmy weren’t like you and Bradley, I guess. I always knew I’d catch him with someone else one day. That’s just who he is. I mean, he was convenient for a while, like, the first few years, you know? He knew the lay of the land, had access to a bunch of different things, and had connections with Thai people which really helped me as a new foreigner. I learned some Thai from him, too. He’s fluent, you know?”
“But the sparkle faded?”
“It was never really a sparkle. More like a burst of heat or something. A solar flare. I mean, I won’t lie… the sex was great.” She laughed, blushing. “Really great.”
“I don’t want to know!” I cried, feeling my own cheeks grow hot. But not because my sister was telling me about her sex life, but because I was dreading that the question might come up about mine.
“But seriously, Maya, wow. But once that died down, once he got bored… or maybe I got bored. I don’t know. Once that happened, it was all downhill from there. We just… well, ‘we’ just stopped being fun.”
“I don’t even know if I would ever describe my relationship with Bradley as a burst of heat.” I looked over at Scarlett and made what I was sure was a pathetic face.
