“Enough, don’t worry about them,” a voice said in cultured Vietnamese.
Before she knew it, the papers were all gathered up, and she was sitting at a table, a vague memory in her mind of steady hands guiding her to the seat and a cup of tea in her hands.
“Drink it slowly,” the lady customer said as she sat down across from her and watched her with kind eyes.
Esme took a sip, finding the jasmine tea lukewarm, grainy, and bitter, as it was the dregs of the pot. It still helped to calm her, though. She swiped at her face with the back of a hand, expecting to feel the wetness of tears, but there was nothing but her own overwarm skin. The lady had caught her before she could break.
“I eat here regularly, and I never saw you before today. It’s probably your first day,” the customer said. From the looks of her, she was twenty years or so older than Esme. With the lightweight scarf around her neck, sunglasses on her head, and fashionable sundress, the lady exuded sophistication, though maybe not wealth.
Esme nodded, feeling numb.
“You just crossed, didn’t you?”
There was no need to clarify what she’d crossed or where she’d been before. Esme simply nodded again. With how the lunch hour had gone, it had to be painfully obvious that she was new to the country.
The lady reached across the table and squeezed Esme’s hand. “It gets better over time. I was a lot like you when I first came.”
Esme almost told her that she was only guaranteed to be here for one summer, but she thought better of it. She didn’t want to explain things and change this woman’s kindness to judgment. And what kind of impression was she making, sitting and drinking tea when she was on the job? She got to her feet, and as she continued wiping tables where she’d left off before, she said, “Thank you, C?. I’m sorry about the papers.”
“My name is Quy?n, but call me Miss Q. That’s what my students call me.”
“You’re a teacher?”
Miss Q held up the papers she’d gathered off the floor. “That’s right. This is my students’ homework.” Then her face brightened, and she said, “You could join my class. I teach English in the evenings. The summer session just started.”
Esme sucked in a surprised breath, and her towel froze in midswipe. Her first reaction was excitement. She would love to go to school again, and it would be so nice not to be embarrassed when she spoke to customers, and—
No, she told herself firmly. Evenings weren’t for school. They were for seducing Kh?i. Besides, it was better to save the money for Jade. That was why she was here, after all. For Jade （and her dad）。 Not Esme. She couldn’t justify it if it was just to make herself happy.
“I don’t need it,” she said finally. “I can manage like this.”
A polite smile touched Miss Q’s lips before she put a ten-dollar bill on the table, packed up her things, and got up. “Good-bye, then. If you change your mind, the adult school is just across the street there.” She pointed out the window at the squat white building on the other side of the busy street and left.
Almost wistfully, Esme watched her dodge her way across the street without using the crosswalk. She didn’t notice the stray sheet of paper on the far side of the room until the lady disappeared into the school.
Esme went to pick up the paper and found it covered with a handwritten essay by a person named Angelika K. She started reading, and kept reading, and stood there like a statue until she’d finished the whole thing. Then she stared out the window at the school.
Was Angelika K. going to school to benefit others? Or was she going just because she wanted to?
CHAPTER SEVEN
Over the following week, a new routine developed for Khai. In the mornings, they had breakfast. Khai ate whatever Esme forced on him, and she gleefully gorged herself on tropical fruit. They went to work, and he picked her up around six in the evening. That was the busiest time at the restaurant, but his mom insisted she had things covered. Khai suspected she just wanted him and Esme to have dinner together.