If I Had Your Face(55)

* * *



—

WHEN I WAS working in Miari, I saw and experienced things that I always assumed would be the rock bottom of my life. I lived and worked among people who were either so evil or so lost that they did not have a single thought in their heads. When I got there, I vowed to get out as fast as I could, and when I did they told me I was a ruthless, toxic bitch, that they couldn’t believe how ungrateful I was to leave them behind when they had done so much for me. They tallied things they actually viewed as favors—“I gave you time off each week to go to the bathhouse,” “I bought you those expensive shoes,” “I helped you decorate your ‘room,’?” “I took you to the doctor when you were sick.”

Speaking of those hoity-toity doctors and pharmacists who run their clinics in districts like Miari and profit off the working girls and their sicknesses—they are no better than the gutter trash who come around selling lubricants and “handmade” dresses to the girls to wear in our glass showrooms that light up red in the night.

They are no better than the managers and the pimps and the politicians and the policemen and the public who vilify only the girls. “This was your choice,” they say. They are gutter trash, every last one of them.



* * *



—

AT THE STATION, they make me wait for hours before taking my statement, to punish me. They do not know how grateful I am to be here rather than drinking in the shop. By the time I am allowed to leave, it is late and there are already a handful of drunk people on the streets, leaning on lampposts at the crosswalks, waiting for the lights to change.

I know I should be hungry, but all I can feel is a headache coming on again. I have to do something before it comes at me full force, which will be in a matter of hours, and then I won’t be able to walk straight. I find a chair outside a convenience store and fish out my phone from the manager’s silky suit jacket.

I have several texts. One is from the manager, who says that I shouldn’t worry because business has not been affected at all. Madam won’t be able to say otherwise because there were so many witnesses who can vouch that it was a busy night.

He also writes that I should not come back to the shop after the police. “Go home and rest,” he texts with a winky emoji and a sweating face emoji.

There are a few texts from the girls—the younger ones who look up to me—asking if I am all right.

I text them all smiley faces. I don’t have the capacity to respond further. And I don’t have much time before the headache will hit. I have to find a pharmacy.

I start composing a new text message.

“Hi, it’s me,” I type. It is to Bruce.

    I know I probably won’t have a chance to say this to you in person because you don’t want to talk to me.

I know I made a huge mistake, going to the restaurant the way I did. I understand that now.

I missed you. And I wanted to see what kind of girl you would spend the rest of your life with. I wanted to see your family too. It was just pure curiosity on my part. I had no ill intentions toward you, I swear.

I know this will be hard for you to believe, but that is really all I wanted to do. I just wanted to see you having dinner with the girl you are going to marry.

I wasn’t going to talk to you there. It was just the closest I could come to something like that—to being somewhere like that with you. And I didn’t make a scene, did I? If I wanted to, I could have.

You were so good to me that it hurt me to hear you were getting married. And you didn’t even tell me directly because you didn’t think it was necessary. Perhaps I should have continued to act as if nothing was different. But I have feelings. You should know that.

Everyone is so angry with me, and I’m going to take on a suicidal amount of debt at the shop because of what happened. I had some idea of what the consequences would be but I still went to see you and her. That is how much I was in love with you. You do know that, right?

I just want to say that I am sorry. I know I will never see you again. I hope you can forgive me.





* * *



—

MY HEADACHE HAS arrived with a vengeance and it is unfurling throughout my body. I am shaking as I finish composing the text and press send. I am kneading my temples as hard as I can, but it does not make a dent in the pain. People walking by look at me in alarm because I am lurching back and forth in this chair. I stand up and look around for a pharmacy, even though I know that five, six painkillers will not be enough to help and the doctor warned me about taking any more than three at a time. “That kind of dosage is for people who have just given birth,” he warned. What about people who will never be able to give birth? I wanted to ask.

I find a pharmacy and I stumble in and ask for the strongest dose of painkillers they can give me. As I reach into the suit pocket for the cash, I feel my phone buzzing and I draw it out.

It is a text from Bruce.

All right, it says. Now fuck off.



* * *



—

ALMOST WEEPING with relief, I hand over cash and walk out of the pharmacy without waiting for the change.

As the door closes behind me, I hear the pharmacist call, “Are you sure you are okay, miss?” His gentle voice falls like a patter of rain. I raise my hand and nod as I pry the pills from the thick packaging.