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Still, Benito was convinced Mai-Nu was the most beautiful woman he had ever known. A long feminine neck, softly molded moon face, alluring oval eyes, pale flesh that glistened with perspiration—she was forever wrestling with her long, thick hair and often she would tie it back in a ponytail as she had that night. Watching her made him feel tumescent, made his body tingle with sexual electricity, even though the few times he had actually seen her naked were so fleeting as to be more illusion than fact. Often he would imagine the two of them together. Just as often he would berate himself for this. It was wrong, it was stupid, it was asqueroso!Yet when night fell, he would hide himself in the corner of his bedroom and watch, the door locked, the lights off, telling his parents that he was doing homework or listening to music.

Mai-Nu mixed a drink, her second by Benito’s count, and padded in the direction of her tiny kitchen. She was out of sight for a few moments, causing Benito alarm, as it always did when she slipped from view. When Mai-Nu returned, she was carrying a plate of leftover pork stew with corn bread topping. The meal had been a gift from Juanita Hernandez. Benito’s mother was always doing that, making far too much food then parceling it out to her neighbors. She had brought over a platter of carne y pollowhen Mai-Nu first arrived as a house-warming gift. Benito had accompanied her and was soon put to work helping Mai-Nu move in.

It wasn’t much of a place, he had noted sadly. The living room was awash in forest-green except for a broad water stain on the wall behind the couch that was gray. Burnt-orange drapes framed the windows and the carpet was once blue but now resembled the water stain. The kitchen wasn’t much better. The walls were painted a sickly pink and the linoleum had the deep yellow hue of urine. Just off the living room was a tiny bathroom—sink, toilet, tub, no shower—and beyond that a tiny bedroom.

There was no yard. The front door opened onto three concrete steps that ended at the sidewalk. The boulevard between the sidewalk and curb was hard-packed dirt and exactly as wide as eight of Benito’s size ten-and-a-half sneakers. Mai-Nu had no garage either, only a strip of broken asphalt next to the house that was too small for her ancient Ford LTD.

“It is only temporary,” Mai-Nu had told Juanita. “My parents came from Laos. My father helped fight for the CIA during the war. They did well after they arrived in America—they owned two restaurants. But they believed in the traditions of their people, so when my parents were killed in a car accident, it was my father’s older brother who inherited their wealth. He was supposed to raise my brother and me. Now that we are both of age, the property should come to us.”

But six months had passed. The property had not come to them and Mai-Nu was still there.

Benito wondered about that while he watched her eat. Mai-Nu did not have a job as far as he knew, unless you would call attending law school a job. Possibly her uncle helped her pay the rent on her house. Or maybe it was her brother—Cheng Song was not much older than Benito, but he had quit school long ago and was now the titular head of the Hmongolian Boy’s Club, a street gang with a reputation for terror. They had met only once. Outside of Mai-Nu’s. She had been shouting at him, telling a smirking Cheng that he was wasting his life, when Benito had arrived home carrying his hockey equipment.

Benito was only a sophomore, yet his booming slapshot had already caught the notice of pro and college scouts alike. Several D-1 schools had indicated that they might offer him a scholarship if he improved his defense and kept his grades up, which Juanita vowed he would do—“¡Si no sacas buenasnotas te mataré!”Cheng hadn’t seemed impressed by the hockey player, but later he told Benito, “You watch out for my sister. Anything happen, you tell me.”

Mai-Nu took the remains of her dinner back to the kitchen. When she returned she mixed a third drink and retrieved her law book. She kept glancing at her watch as if she were expecting a visitor. The phone rang, startling both her and Benito. Mai-Nu went to answer it, slipping out of sight.

There was a mumbling of hellos and then something else. “Yes, Pa Chou,” Mai-Nu said, her voice rising in volume. And then, “No, Uncle.” She was shouting now. “I will not!”

Benito wished he could see her. He moved around his bedroom, hoping to get a better sight angle into Mai-Nu’s house, but failed.

“I know, I know…But I am not Hmong, Pa Chou. I am American…But I am, Uncle. I am an American woman…I will not do what you ask. I will not marry this man…In Laos you are clan leader. In America you are not.”