Viet said, “But you should see it go.”
She continued, “Plus, it’s winter and I can’t even afford to turn on the heat so I know real American dollars weren’t spent on that thing. Especially, especially when my husband hasn’t been working for a year.”
Viet was uncoiling the cord to plug in the power.
Huong asked, “How much was it?”
Viet had asked Troy for a couple of clean white filters. He had planned on replicating the demonstration for Huong. But he didn’t even have a chance to switch on the Kirby because she erupted the second she heard the price.
Much later that evening, after Huong retired to bed without eating and the girls were tucked away, Viet sat alone in the stillness of the night staring at the soiled dust filters he had forgotten to show her. They were spread out on the kitchen table like a constellation of stars. Each time he moved a filter, the debris would fall off and leave a trail not unlike the gaseous particles of the moon or a planetary ring. Huong had used ugly words before, “useless, good for nothing, unemployed.” But the most hurtful came from Elle, when his fourteen-year-old daughter said in a voice trembling with defeat, “See, I told you, nice guys finish last.”
In his youth, Viet had naively believed that he held the world in his hands. Orion, Pleiades, Pegasus, the winged horse soaring away. He shuffled the stars in different patterns, looking for a map into the world, a direction to follow, the way back to her heart.
SILVER GIRL
On the Fourth of July we glide through the winding roads of Mt. Tam with the top down. Tree tops sway and leaves shimmer like tinsel when the moon hits just right. Over the railing the Pacific Coast is as placid as a lake tonight. Phoebe’s dad takes the curves hard and fast. He pumps even harder when Aretha Franklin goes off on her scat. Her lungs are like the gale winds of the Bay. But still Stan puts the music loud. He’s a jazz musician. He plays trumpet. He’s deaf in one ear from his years next to a speaker.
Phoebe and I are squeezed together in the front bucket seat. We’re bundled up in matching sweaters and blue jeans and scream with the turns of our stomachs. We’re hunched over with the heat high. Our noses nestled against the vents, cheeks touching. We like the hot-cold look of reddened cheeks, chapped lips, the wind through our hair. We like how it feels even better. Phoebe’s dad says we’re complicated women. Already we groove on contradiction. I like being called a woman. My father would call us kids.
My father would say, roll up the windows and turn off the heat. He would say, either-or, why both? My father’s at home tonight. He’s bathing in the blue light of his sitcoms. His bared feet are crossed at the ankles, propped up on the coffee table. He’s rubbing them together when he says, “Sure you don’t want to stay home with us? Michelle is helping mom make pho. Aunt Kim and Sophia are coming over. We can all watch the fireworks on TV.” His two big toes are bruised from cheap shoes, steep hills, the weight of the world on his back.