Planet Lolita

by Charles Foran

  “You might have talked to me first,” Mom told him. “I could have advised you not to break down any doors looking for a friend named Mary.”

  “Shame about the photos you posted at the outset of this mess,” he said to me. “Makes me wonder if teenagers should be trusted with these fancy toys.”

  “Shame,” Constable Chu said.

  “You want to arrest my laptop instead?” I said.

  “This girl may have your looks,” the senior inspector said to Dad, “but it’s her mother’s spirit, I’ll wager, behind the face.”

  “Mom’s a MacInnes of the Isle of Skye,” I said.

  “Aye,” he said, very Shrekly. “That she is.”

  “Girl is trouble,” Constable Chu said.

  “Does she know, like, five words of English?” I said to him, not caring that she was resting her right hand on her gun, ready to draw. But she would probably shoot Gloria first.

  “The next time our impudent daughter steps through that door,” Mom said, “it will be to climb into a hired car for the airport.”

  “Good enough for me. Now could we have another word with this maid I spoke to on the phone earlier … Gloria Bella, is it?” the policeman said, reading from a notepad. “Nice to meet you, Sarah, or Kwok Xixi.”

  Dad, wearing a smile that he found nearly impossible to hold up, like beltless pants at a security gate, escorted me back to the bedroom. For everyone in every room in our posh apartment to hear and keep in mind, I announced, “She is Gloria-in-Excelsis, and she is my Asian mom. Arrest or shoot her, and I’ll go looking for Mary again tonight.”

  “That’s my girl,” Dad whispered, though I wasn’t so sure anymore.

  “She fucked up massively,” Rachel said later that day, “and put you in real harm. They had to let her go.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “Understand what, SeeSaw? She’s not your mom! She’s not a member of our family. Are you going to hang up on me? Fine. Be a sulky mei mei about it,” she said. “But the parentals, who are otherwise hopeless, got this one right. Do you know Gloria wouldn’t talk to the police today? Leah said she sat there with her head bowed, all ‘Yes sir,’ and ‘No ma’am,’ like one of those amahs who only pretend to speak English.”

  “She talked to them before on the phone.”

  “Well, she clammed up in front of Jacob and Leah.”

  “Mom scares her. And Miguel …,” I said, wanting Rachel, Mom and Dad, even Senior Inspector Kerr and Constable Chu, to be aware of the sadness and worry she carried around her neck, a crucifix of heavy wood that bowed her head and scraped her skin bloody. But I kept my promises to Gloria and she kept her promises to me.

  “Miguel? What about her hoodlum son? Have you checked his profile lately? He’s totally slim shady.”

  All of a sudden I felt too sad and small to do more than gather hair for braiding and chewing. Plus the fact that all of it—all of it!—was my fault.

  “Poor baby,” Rachel said.

  “I think I’ll lie down.”

  “Does your neck still hurt, from that bitch stealing your Jesus stick? You keep rubbing the spot.”

  “She was Russian.”

  “The Chinese lady who runs the massage parlour? That can’t be right.”

  “I wanted to switch rooms with Mary,” I said, ignoring her correction. “Just for a night. I thought she could stay here with Manga and Gloria.”

  Rachel went quiet, studying me with her Pokémon gaze. This evening I was the one who kept fidgeting, as if I’d recently got a cheek tattoo of Chihiro’s funny face, my eyes pinballing from having smoked marijuana to manage the ink-needle pain.

  “I’m a muddled, misguided wee lassie,” I added.

  “Who said that?”

  “Shrek.”

  “Okay …”

  “Senior Inspector Kerr,” I said. “And I don’t want that anymore. The room switch thing. I don’t.”

  “Glad to hear it.”

  “I don’t even want to be on Facebook.”

  “A cyber time-out might be smart.”

  “Do I really need to leave Hong Kong?”

  “You really, really do. And isn’t it already set up?” she asked.

  “Monday morning, Thai Airways. Bangkok, me and Dad. God is a restaurant,” I said.

  My sister nearly smiled. “The legendary Kwok-MacInnes family holiday. Xixi, during her mystic phase.”

  “Mom’s flying to London the day after.”

  “That’s for the best. Or not. I’m not convinced any of you are thinking clearly right now.”

  I definitely needed to lie down.

  “Not much fun at 2201, 26 Old Peak Road, eh?” she said. “I got that address off your Facebook page.”

  “They don’t love each other, do they?”

  She shrugged.

  “Did he do a bad thing when you were around my age?”

  She shrugged again, her gaze floating to the wall behind her desk.

  “Did you promise not to tell me?”

  “I promised myself. I promised to protect you for as long as I could. What a crap job I’ve done.”

  “Gloria won’t say a word either,” I said, a mistake.

  “Gloria? What’s she have to do with it?”

  “She lives in the same apartment as us. She can’t help being part of our lives.”

  “Our lives are none of her fucking business. Cooking, cleaning, scooping up after Manga in the park is her business—nothing else. She should have thought about that before agreeing to help sell you into prostitution on Portland Street!”

  I exploded. “That’s stupid,” I said. “You’re stupid too. And your boyfriend Greg, he—”

  “Why don’t I leave you and the mutt to spoon on the bed,” Rachel said.

  “Fine.”

  “Fine.”

  “Bye-bye for now!”

  We both had our mouse arrows aimed at End Call. She stared at me, I stared back at her. Five, six, seven seconds went by, like the contests when we were kids, which she always won. Ten, eleven, twelve seconds later, I was feeling good—at least about finally out-staring my big sister.

  “First time for everything,” she said, giving up.

  “I can keep going forever.”

  “I believe it. Look, SeeSaw, there are a few things I need to tell you before you and Cool Kwok flee the ‘infected port.’ To make sure I get them right I’ll go old-school and send emails. Start checking every so often.”

  “The parentals are going to take away my computer and phone,” I said. “Any second now.”

  “That could happen.” By her expression I knew they’d told her about the plan, or she’d suggested it herself.

  “I’ll check emails on Gloria’s laptop,” I said.

  “The laptop Mom and Dad bought you but then you gave to her? Sorry,” she said, reading—correctly—the link between the look on my face and the arrow back on End Call.

  “I miss you, Rach. I wish we could be little again. We could have staring contests, and watch cats on YouTube. There’s a hilarious one where the cat does the ‘Thriller’ dance.”

  I tried imitating a cat, reared up on its hind legs, imitating Michael Jackson pretending to be a ghoul.

  “Cat videos?” she said. “That’s such Asian girl stuff.”

  As it happened, I’d spent some of the day attempting, typically, to remember who had called me a Hello Kitty last night, and why I wasn’t one. “I made a list of Asian girl things I’ll never do. Want to hear it?”

  “I thought you needed to lie down.”

  “I’ll bring the computer,” I said. Manga got up from the bed long enough for me to climb onto it, the screen upright on my tummy. “One, I’ll never cover my hand with my mouth when I talk or laugh, like this”—I showed the move, and did the helium giggle, which only a Pikachu doll should be allowed. “Two, I’ll never watch Project Runway Cambodia, where teens with pork-bun butts flounce around Phnom Penh as if it’s normal. Three, I won’t take
iPhone photos of food and send them to friends. Or selfies,” I added. “Selfies are lame.”

  She was smiling now, my beautiful sister, and my loneliness for her was another ache churning my belly. “Most days I wish I was still a little girl too,” she said. “Being grown-up is tougher than it looks.”

  “Maybe I’ll stay fifteen forever.”

  “Doesn’t work that way, kiddo.”

  “Fourteen would be better. Or even thirteen. Before I turned mal-brained and started to bleed. When we still lived in Stanley, and Gloria had a nice view from her room. Remember how I followed cats through the village and into the Tin Hau temple? Mrs. Ma has gone funny in the head,” I said. “She thought I was Mazu. How’s your tattoo?”

  “I thought you wanted to sleep.”

  I did. I didn’t. Until this moment, I hadn’t realized that loneliness itself could be a physical pain. “Don’t hang up.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Can you stay until I doze off?”

  “Why don’t you close your eyes?”

  “Your eyes are pure anime. They’re limpid,” I said, a new word.

  “Are they?”

  “Limpid and strong and amazing. You’re a heroine.”

  “Close them, Xixi doll. You need to.”

  “It’s all my fault, you know.”

  “Shhh.”

  “Gloria wouldn’t have …”

  “Shhh.”

  I did as Rachel asked. A minute later—okay, an hour—I opened them back up to a dark screen, a snoring mutt, and me alone, alone, alone in my cell.

  “Should I be coming to Thailand with you and your father?” Mom said. “Is that what you want?”

  She had invited herself onto the bed, and cowardly Manga had failed to defend our turf. I’d been resting with my face to the wall when I heard him whimper but then accept being shooed to the floor.

  “Are you going to take my laptop?” I said over my shoulder.

  “I’m not sure,” she answered, not very Lawyer Leah. Equally out of the ordinary was her smell. Usually she was scented Chanel during the day, various skin crèmes at night, all herbal essence and citrus stem. But this evening—it was still evening, I was fairly certain—Mom smelled of unwashed hair and uncleaned teeth.

  “I fell asleep talking to Rachel,” I said.

  “She texted me. I just wanted to make sure you’re okay.”

  “Not okay, Mom. Obviously.”

  “You didn’t have any dinner.”

  “I only like Gloria’s cooking.”

  Her sigh held a quaver. She had been crying, and would shortly be crying some more.

  “Is Sanjay flying to London with you?” I said. “Or Dr. Call-Me-Alex? Maybe you’ve arranged to meet outside Buckingham Palace, near the guards with the fur hats.”

  “The things in your head …”

  “Valproic acid, 250 milligrams, three times a day.”

  “Not what I meant.”

  “You don’t have a clue what’s in my head.”

  “Or on your Facebook, it turns out.”

  Now I couldn’t flip over and face her without betraying my guilt. “You should brush your teeth,” I said.

  “The decision, taken together by both your parents, to end our relationship with Gloria wasn’t easy,” she said after a pause. “It was certainly not what I wanted for you, Sarah, or our family. I am not blind or deaf—I know how you feel about her. Neither is my flying to London what I wish to happen. It has to do, believe it or not, with insurance, and a document I signed when I first took the job. That may have been the second-biggest mistake I’ve ever made.”

  I asked about the first.

  “It hasn’t happened yet,” she replied.

  “Okay.”

  “Please look at me.”

  “I’m supposed to be sleeping. Isn’t it late at night now?”

  “Please.”

  I turned to her. She’d covered her mouth with her hand. I pulled it away, saying it was all right, and tried hiding my shock at her appearance. Is this what adult unhappiness looked like? Super-bright, super-fit Leah MacInnes, a woman among the men getting the goddamn job done, would turn fifty on January nineteenth. Happy B-Day, Mom! Suddenly I doubted we’d be together on that date as a family, or even as mother-daughter.

  But I also saw, mirrored in my mother’s glassy irises, a teenage girl betraying in her expression, the hair fallen over her eyes, perhaps her own sour breath, her distinct variety of distress. The hair, I decided, had to go.

  She touched the cavity between my collarbones where I still hadn’t washed since last night. Instead of repeating that I should scrub off the crusted blood, she said, “Do you remember who gave you the cross?”

  “Dad, for my First Communion—I think.”

  “That was another one. This was a gift from Mother Ginger, the woman who ran the shelter I took you to when you were twelve.”

  “Not Dad?”

  “I wanted you to see one of the projects that were keeping me away from Hong Kong for such long periods. Hard, honest work, the kind that never induced a single ethical pause.”

  “You were funnier then,” I said, meaning “happier.”

  “Getting Mother Ginger certified with the Thai authorities, and the international agencies, to give the younger children a chance to find adoption parents, was a very big deal. I was proud to show it to you, show you what could be done for those girls, especially the older, more at-risk ones.”

  Just talking about the job she used to do, the causes she once fought for, lifted her voice. I didn’t mind helping her feel better about herself. “Wasn’t Mother Ginger ancient?” I asked. Though I wanted to picture her in my memory, I kept seeing Mrs. Ma.

  “She died not long after. A peculiar Englishman with no last name is in charge now.”

  “And she gave me this?” I said, forgetting the cross had been stolen.

  “She took a shine to you, the way everybody does. You and your father share that gift, although with very different outcomes. And there was a boy there who liked you even more. We called him Sam. Not his actual, or possibly full, name. He was Cambodian.”

  “Sameth,” I said at once. Another face appeared, this time correct. Sam was a gangly boy with a sweet smile and bright dark eyes, tongue pressed between his teeth while he worked on a drawing. He carried a pad around the compound, and liked to sketch people, along with characters from Thai animation and Japanese manga. I tried to contact him once we returned to Hong Kong, but kids in Thai shelters didn’t have Facebook back then, or much access to computers. I also remembered a conversation between us about shoes. He had owned just one pair. “Why was he there?”

  “His mother ran the kitchen. They lived in a room behind it, but Sam wasn’t allowed to attend the local school. His Thai wasn’t good enough, and he didn’t have the correct papers.”

  “How did we communicate?”

  “In English.”

  “He was amazing at drawing faces. And the only shoes he had were on his feet,” I said. Knock-off Nike, I recalled, HK$100 in a local night market. The same price as a beach hat, or a baseball cap ordered online.

  After chewing her lip for a few seconds—Rachel and I both inherited the habit—Mom explained why she had woken me up. “The shelter is in a village called On Klang, about forty-five minutes by taxi from Chiang Mai. There are several trains out of Bangkok every day,” she said. “Google it in an Internet café under ‘Safe Shelter, On Klang’—though most people still refer to it as Mother Ginger.”

  “Why an Internet café?”

  “Don’t hate me, Sarah, if you can find it in your heart. I’ve never messed up so badly in my life. This city defeats me, over and over.

  I can’t gain any traction here, or feel anything more than a visitor, a foreign ghost. A gweilo, through and through.”

  Wow. She needed more boosting, more affirmation, than I’d thought. I searched for the best words.

  “But I have to believe I’ll be given ano
ther chance to prove myself with you,” she added before I could say anything.

  “And with Gloria?”

  Her puzzlement was genuine. Don’t, Leah! My heart, which had plenty of room for her, slammed its door. It must have shown.

  “What can I say?” she said coldly, lawyerly.

  “Maybe she’ll forgive you, Mom. Or maybe she won’t.” Sliding off the mattress—she could lie on the bed as long as she wanted—I gathered my pillow, comforter, and dog. “And I’m from here too,” I said. “I’m a ninety-ten local girl.”

  “Where are you—?”

  “To sleep in Gloria’s room. I’m going to stay with her until the end.”

  Head bowed by the burden of her own cross, she barely managed a nod.

  Don’t, Xixi, I told myself at the door. She heard you the first time. “She’s my Asian mom,” I said regardless.

  Next morning I returned to my bedroom expecting to find the MacBook gone from my desk. It was there, but I couldn’t get onto Facebook. Access Denied, the screen said. The same was true of FaceTime, Account Suspended, and YouTube. I still had email, and found one from Rachel. She must have guessed the police wouldn’t bother blocking such ancient technology.

  Lawyer Leah is a piece of work, she’d written, and I, for one, can’t quite recall the “happier” Mom from Stanley village days, baking muffins and combing our hair or whatever else she thinks she once did. She’s also mega-guilty about everything, from how she earns her fat paycheque to how she gets men to drool over her Ice Queen routine, to my loud-chick personality and, now, your petit mal. And yes, for all her smarts she can’t figure out why she so resents Gloria, which is smack-me-with-a-fish obvious to the rest of us, or why she has failed to stop Cool Kwok from becoming the a–hole that was his destiny. (Hello, he’s just not that into you anymore!) BUTBUTBUT, Baby Kwok, she aches the way you and I ache, and she bleeds the same as every poor girl, and she has basically no chance to pull it all off—be ruthless Lawyer, Supermom, Wifey-wife, and Still-Sexy Bitch in stilettos. Even Guanyin would have trouble balancing on those six-inch heels. No joking. It’s US vs. THEM and it’s YOU vs. HIM, and Mom is our only sure ally, now and forever. PLEASE quit cutting her with your teen-vicious knife. PLEASE show her the same compassion you’d show Manga the Mutt. I’m not sure she’ll survive otherwise.