Afterparties Read online

  SINCE HER DIVORCE, Sothy has worked through her days weighed down by the pressure of supporting her daughters without her ex-husband. Exhaustion grinds away at her bones. Her wrists rattle with carpal tunnel syndrome. And rest is not an option. If anything, it consumes more of her energy. A lull in her day, a moment to reflect, and the resentment comes crashing down over her. It isn’t the cheating she’s mad about, the affair, her daughters’ frivolous stepmother who calls her with misguided attempts at reconciliation. Her attraction to her ex-husband, and his to her, dissolved at a steady rate after her first pregnancy. The same cannot be said of their financial contract. That imploded spectacularly.

  Her daughters have no idea, but when Sothy opened Chuck’s Donuts it was with the help of a generous loan from her ex-husband’s distant uncle, an influential business tycoon based in Phnom Penh with a reputation for funding political corruption. She’d heard wild rumors about this uncle, even here in California—that he was responsible for the imprisonment of the prime minister’s main political opponent, that he’d gained his riches by joining a criminal organization of ex–Khmer Rouge officials, and that he’d arranged, on behalf of powerful and petty Khmer Rouge sympathizers, the murder of Haing S. Ngor. Sothy didn’t know if she wanted to accept the uncle’s money, to be indebted to such dark forces, to commit to a life in which she would always be afraid that hit men disguised as Khmer American gangbangers might gun her and her family down and then cover it up as a simple mugging gone wrong. If even Haing S. Ngor, the Oscar-winning movie star of The Killing Fields, wasn’t safe from this fate, if he couldn’t escape the spite of the powerful, how could Sothy think that her own family would be spared? Then again, what else was Sothy supposed to do, with a GED, a husband who worked as a janitor, and two small children? How else could she and her husband stimulate their dire finances? What skills did she have, other than frying dough?

  Deep down, Sothy has always understood that it was a bad idea to get into business with her ex-husband’s uncle, who, for all she knew, could have bankrolled Pol Pot’s coup. And so, now, seeing the man’s resemblance to her ex-husband, she wonders if he could be some distant gangster cousin. She fears that her past has finally caught up with her.

  FOR SEVERAL DAYS, the man does not visit Chuck’s Donuts. But Sothy’s worries only deepen. They root themselves into her bones. Her daughters’ constant musings about the man only intensify her suspicion that he is a relative of her former uncle-in-law. He has come to take their lives, to torture the money out of them, perhaps to hold her daughters as collateral, investments to sell on the black market. Still, she can’t risk being impulsive, lest she provoke him. And there’s the possibility, of course, that he’s a complete stranger. Surely he would have harmed them by now. Why this performance of waiting? She keeps herself on guard, tells her daughters to be wary of the man, to call for her if he walks through the door.

  Tevy has started writing her philosophy paper, and Kayley is helping her. “On Whether Being Khmer Means You Understand Khmer People,” the paper is tentatively titled. Tevy’s professor requires students to title their essays in the style of On Certainty, as if starting a title with the word On makes it philosophical. She decides to structure her paper as a catalog of assumptions made about the man based on the idea that he is Khmer and that the persons making these assumptions—Tevy and Kayley—are also Khmer. Each assumption will be accompanied by a paragraph discussing the validity of the assumption, which will be determined based on the answers provided by the man, to questions that Tevy and Kayley will ask him directly. Both Tevy and Kayley agree to keep the nature of the paper secret from their mother.

  The sisters spend several nights refining their list of assumptions about the man. “Maybe he also grew up with parents who never liked each other,” Kayley says one night when the downtown appears less bleak, the dust and pollution lending the dark sky a red glow.

  “Well, it’s not like Khmer people marry for love,” Tevy responds.

  Kayley looks out the window for anything worth observing but sees only the empty street, a corner of the old downtown motel, the dull orange of the Little Caesars, which her mother hates because the manager won’t allow her customers to park in his excessively big lot. “It just seems like he’s always looking for someone, you know?” Kayley says. “Maybe he loves someone but that person doesn’t love him back.”

  “Do you remember what Dad said about marriage?” Tevy asks. “He said that, after the camps, people paired up based on their skills. Two people who knew how to cook wouldn’t marry, because that would be, like, a waste. If one person in the marriage cooked, then the other person should know how to sell food. He said marriage is like the show Survivor, where you make alliances in order to live longer. He thought Survivor was actually the most Khmer thing possible, and he would definitely win it, because the genocide was the best training he could’ve got.”

  “What were their skills?” Kayley asks. “Mom’s and Dad’s?”

  “The answer to that question is probably the reason they didn’t work out,” Tevy says.

  “What does this have to do with the man?” Kayley asks.

  And Tevy responds, “Well, if Khmer people marry for skills, as Dad says, maybe it means it’s harder for Khmer people to know how to love. Maybe we’re just bad at it—loving, you know—and maybe that’s the man’s problem.”

  “Have you ever been in love?” Kayley asks.

  “No,” Tevy says, and they stop talking. They can hear their mother cooking in the kitchen, the routine clanging of mixers and trays, a string of sounds that just fails to coalesce into melody.

  Tevy wonders if her mother has ever loved someone romantically, if her mother is even capable of reaching beyond the realm of survival, if her mother has ever been granted any freedom from worry, and if her mother’s present carries the ability to dilate, for even a brief moment, into its own plane of suspended existence, separate from past or future. Kayley, on the other hand, wonders if her mother misses her father, and, if not, whether this means that Kayley’s own feelings of gloom, of isolation, of longing, are less valid than she believes. She wonders if the violent chasm between her parents also exists within her own body, because isn’t she just a mix of all those antithetical genes?

  “Mom should start smoking,” Kayley says.

  And Tevy asks, “Why?”

  “It’d force her to take breaks,” Kayley says. “Every time she wanted to smoke, she’d stop working, go outside, and smoke.”

  “Depends on what would kill her faster,” Tevy says. “Smoking or working too much.”

  Then Kayley asks, softly, “Do you think Dad loves his new wife?”

  Tevy answers, “He better.”

  HERE’S HOW SOTHY AND HER ex-husband were supposed to handle their deal with the uncle: Every month, Sothy would give her then husband 20 percent of Chuck’s Donuts’ profits. Every month, her then husband would wire that money to his uncle. And every month, they would be one step closer to paying off their loan before anyone with ties to criminal activity could bat an eyelash.

  Here’s what actually happened: One day, weeks before she discovered that her husband had conceived two sons with another woman while they were married, Sothy received a call at Chuck’s Donuts. It was a man speaking in Khmer, his accent thick and pure. At first, Sothy hardly understood what he was saying. His sentences were too fluid, his pronunciation too proper. He didn’t truncate his words, the way so many Khmer American immigrants did, and Sothy found herself lulled into a daze by those long-lost syllables. Then she heard what the man’s words actually meant. He was the accountant of her husband’s uncle. He was asking about their loan, whether they had any intention of paying it back. It had been years, and the uncle hadn’t received any payments, the accountant said with menacing regret.

  Sothy later found out—from her husband’s guilt-stricken mistress, of all people—that her husband had used the profits she’d given him, the money intended to pay off their loan, t
o support his second family. In the divorce settlement, Sothy agreed not to collect child support, in exchange for sole ownership of Chuck’s Donuts, for custody of their daughters, and for her ex-husband’s promise to talk to his uncle and to eventually pay off their loan, this time with his own money. He had never intended to cheat his uncle, he proclaimed. He had simply fallen in love with another woman. It was true love. What else could he do? And, of course, he had an obligation to his other children, the sons who bore his name.

  Still, he promised to right this wrong. But how can Sothy trust her ex-husband? Will a man sent by the uncle one day appear at her doorstep, or at Chuck’s Donuts, or in the alley behind Chuck’s Donuts, and right their wrong for them? A promise is a promise, yet, in the end, it is only that.

  AN ENTIRE WEEK HAS PASSED since the man’s last visit. Sothy’s fears have begun to wane. There are too many donuts to make, too many bills to pay. It helped, too, when she called her ex-husband to yell at him.

  “You selfish pig of a man,” she said. “You better be paying your uncle back. You better not put your daughters in danger. You better not be doing the same things you’ve always done—thinking only about yourself and what you want. I can’t even talk to you right now. If your uncle sends someone to collect money from me, I will tell him how disgraceful you are. I will tell him how to find you and then you’ll face the consequences of being who you are, who you’ve always been. Remember, I know you better than anyone.”

  She hung up before he could respond, and even though this call hasn’t gained her any real security, she feels better. She almost wants the man to be a hit man sent by the uncle so that she can direct him straight to her ex-husband. Not that she wants her ex-husband to be killed. But she does want to see him punished.

  The night the man returns, Sothy, Tevy, and Kayley are preparing a catering order for the hospital three blocks over. Sothy needs to deliver a hundred donuts to the hospital before eleven thirty. The gig pays good money, more money than Chuck’s Donuts has made all month. Sothy would rather not leave her daughters alone, but she cannot send them to deliver the donuts. She’ll be gone only an hour. And what can happen? The man never shows up before midnight, anyway.

  Just in case, she decides to close the store during her delivery. “Keep this door locked while I’m gone,” she tells her daughters after loading her car.

  “Why are you so insecure about everything?” Tevy says.

  And Kayley says, “We’re not babies.”

  Sothy looks them in the eyes. “Please, be safe.”

  The door is locked, but the owners’ daughters are clearly inside; you can see them through the illuminated windows, sitting at the counter. So the man stands at the glass door and waits. He stares at the daughters until they notice a shadow in a suit hovering outside.

  The man waves for them to let him enter, and Kayley says to her sister, “Weird—it looks like he’s been in a fight.”

  And Tevy, noticing the man’s messy hair and haunted expression, says, “We need to interview him.” She hesitates just a moment before unlocking the door, cracking it open. Inflamed scratches crisscross his neck. Smudges of dirt mottle his wrinkled white shirt.

  “I need to get inside,” he says gravely. It’s the only thing Tevy has heard him say other than “I’ll have an apple fritter.”

  “Our mom told us not to let anyone in,” Tevy says.

  “I need to get inside,” the man repeats, and who is Tevy to ignore the man’s sense of purpose?

  “Fine,” Tevy says, “but you have to let me interview you for a class assignment.” She looks him over again, considers his bedraggled appearance. “And you still need to buy something.”

  The man nods and Tevy opens the door for him. As he crosses the threshold, dread washes over Kayley as she becomes aware of the fact that she and her sister know nothing at all about the man. All their deliberations concerning his presence have gotten them nowhere, really, and right now the only things Kayley truly knows are: she is a child; her sister is not quite an adult; and they are betraying their mother’s wishes.

  Soon Tevy and Kayley are sitting across from the man in his booth. Scribbled notes and an apple fritter are laid out between them on the table. The man stares out the window, as always, and, as always, the sisters study his face.

  “Should we start?” Tevy asks.

  The man says nothing.

  Tevy tries again. “Can we start?”

  “Yes, we can start,” the man says, still staring out into the dark night.

  THE INTERVIEW BEGINS with the question “You’re Khmer, right?” and then a pause, a consideration. Tevy meant this to be a softball question, a warm-up for her groundbreaking points of investigation, but the man’s silence unnerves her.

  Finally, the man speaks. “I am from Cambodia, but I’m not Cambodian. I’m not Khmer.”

  And Tevy, feeling sick to her stomach, asks, “Wait, what do you mean?” She looks at her notes, but they aren’t any help. She looks at Kayley, but she isn’t any help, either. Her sister is as confused as she is.

  “My family is Chinese,” the man continues. “For several generations, we’ve married Chinese Cambodians.”

  “Okay, so you are Chinese ethnically, and not Khmer ethnically, but you’re still Cambodian, right?” Tevy asks.

  “Only I call myself Chinese,” the man answers.

  “But your family has lived in Cambodia for generations?” Kayley interjects.

  “Yes.”

  “And you and your family survived the Khmer Rouge regime?” Tevy asks.

  Again, the man answers, “Yes.”

  “So do you speak Khmer or Chinese?”

  The man answers, “I speak Khmer.”

  “Do you celebrate Cambodian New Year?”

  Again, the man answers, “Yes.”

  “Do you eat rotten fish?” Kayley asks.

  “Prahok?” the man asks. “Yes, I do.”

  “Do you buy food from the Khmer grocery store or the Chinese one?” Tevy asks.

  The man answers, “Khmer.”

  “What’s the difference between a Chinese family living in Cambodia and a Khmer family living in Cambodia?” Tevy asks. “Aren’t they both still Cambodian? If they both speak Khmer, if they both survived the same experiences, if they both do the same things, wouldn’t that make a Chinese family living in Cambodia somewhat Cambodian?”

  The man doesn’t look at Tevy or Kayley. Throughout the interview, his eyes have searched for something outside. “My father told me that I am Chinese,” the man answers. “He told me that his sons, like all other sons in our family, should marry only Chinese women.”

  “Well, what about being American?” Tevy asks. “Do you consider yourself American?”

  The man answers, “I live in America, and I am Chinese.”

  “So you don’t consider yourself Cambodian at all?” Kayley asks.

  He turns his gaze away from the window. For the first time in their conversation, he considers the sisters who are sitting across from him. “You two don’t look Khmer,” he says. “You look like you have Chinese blood.”

  “How can you tell?” Tevy asks, startled, her cheeks burning.

  The man answers, “It’s in the face.”

  “Well, we are,” Tevy says. “Khmer, I mean.”

  And Kayley says, “Actually, I think Mom said once that her great-grandfather was Chinese.”

  “Shut up,” Tevy says.

  And Kayley responds, “God, I was just saying.”

  The man stops looking at them. “We’re done here. I need to focus.”

  “But I haven’t asked my real questions,” Tevy protests.

  The man says, “One more question.”

  “Why do you never eat the apple fritters you buy?” Kayley blurts out, before Tevy can even glance at her notes.

  “I don’t like donuts,” the man answers.

  The conversation comes to a halt, as Tevy finds this latest answer the most convincing argument th
e man has made for not being Khmer.

  “You can’t be serious,” Kayley says after a moment. “Then why do you buy so many apple fritters?”

  The man doesn’t answer. His eyes straining, he leans even closer to the window’s surface, almost grazing the glass with his nose.

  Tevy looks down at the backs of her hands. She examines the lightness of her brown skin. She remembers how in elementary school she always got so mad at the white kids who misidentified her as Chinese, sometimes even getting into fights with them on the bus. And she remembers her father consoling her in his truck at the bus stop. “I know I joke around a lot,” he said once, his hand on her shoulder. “But you are Khmer, through and through. You should know that.”

  Tevy examines the man’s reflection. His vision of the world disappoints her—the idea that people are limited always to what their fathers tell them. Then Tevy notices her sister reeling in discomfort.

  “No,” Kayley says, hitting the table with her fists. “You have to have a better answer than that. You can’t just come in here almost every night, order an apple fritter, not eat it, and then tell us you don’t like donuts.” Breathing heavily, Kayley leans forward, the edge of the table cutting into her ribs.

  “Kayley,” Tevy says, concerned. “What’s going on with you?”

  “Be quiet!” the man yells abruptly, still staring out the window, violently swinging his arm.

  Shocked into a frozen silence, the sisters don’t know how to respond, and can only watch as the man stands up, clenching his fists, and charges into the center of the seating area. Right then, a woman—probably Khmer, or maybe Chinese Cambodian, or maybe just Chinese—bursts into Chuck’s Donuts and starts striking the man with her purse.

  “So you’re spying on me?” the woman screams.

  She is covered in bruises, the sisters see, her left eye nearly swollen shut. They stay in the booth, pressed against the cold glass of the window.