The boy snatched it up and smirked. “You liking the money huh? You are a smart boy.” She tapped her temple and reached out to pet his glistening black hair. Her finger rested on the part at the center of his head. She held it there until she could feel warmth come through, and, with it, a strange sense of relief. It made her smile, causing her winter lips to rip. When she dabbed it, she saw blood on her fingertip. The boy’s eyes widened as if frightened. He examined her finger and then stepped back. He dropped his coin.

Huong said, “Take, take, you’re a smart boy, no problem.” She emphasized the o the way the Americans did on TV to accentuate the sounds of ease, a worry-free existence.

He eyed the coin on the ground.

“No problem,” she said again. He bent over and was about to reach for it when a pregnant woman arrived. She stepped out of the play box dragging sawdust with her. The debris landed on Huong’s shoe although she ignored it and smiled to show that she was friendly. She sat still with her hands buried between her knees. She angled her face just slightly toward the sky. Huong had been beautiful all of her life and was used to people looking at her and then approving.

The woman’s expression didn’t soften. She pulled the boy’s head into her belly and said, “I don’t know if you read but there’s a sign.” She surveyed the area as if to determine Huong’s relation to the children at play. There were a handful of white children, one mixed-race child, and a Hispanic child but no Asian kids. “Over there,” she pointed, “there’s a sign that says, ‘No adults allowed unaccompanied by a child.’”

Huong tried to say that her daughter was in the bathroom. She was still formulating the sentence in English in her head when the woman whipped around and carried the boy to the other side of the playground.

At her foot, partly covered in sawdust, the coin winked. She couldn’t tell if it was mocking or nice. She remembered the Vietnamese Prime Minister once saying to her, “Your face should grace our country’s five-hundred-dollar bill.” His eyes were fixed below her neck when he’d said it.

She was in her mid-twenties, still childless though newly married, and because her father was the Prime Minister’s private doctor, the family had been invited to dine with the politician and his wife.

Huong said, “I’d rather be on a coin.”

“But why?” he said, finally looking her in the eye. “Your image would be so much larger and clearer on a bill. Don’t deprive the people. No, not a mere coin.”

“But I’d prefer it. That way I could be loved by all the people of Vietnam, not just the rich, but loved by all.”

The Prime Minister laughed and brushed her hand with his fingers before reaching for his empty drink. “Clever,” he said with his pointing finger only inches from her nose. “You’ve got a clever one,” he declared across the table and held his glass up as a salute to her father. Her husband, the young professor eyed them with pained curiosity. Her father from across the table put four fingers in the air to show his patient that he was keeping count. The Prime Minister ignored his doctor’s orders. He signaled for another drink. He’d always been a reckless man.