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stepped down into the interior courtyard and walked quickly away into the city.
     
    Maya walked blindly at first, striking out through the streets of Chinatown without a fixed destination in mind, taking refuge in flight, in movement, in putting distance between herself and the restaurant. Even as she fled she berated herself, her voice the scolding chatter of Senora Mercedes, the words furious and familiar:
    Meu deus, Maya, grow up, stop crying! You are not a little girl anymore, so stop acting like a child. What did you expect? What did you think was going to happen? If not with Chang, then with another. And there will be another. Men in this world, they just want one thing, and we women have to learn to make them pay for it. There is our power, so stop crying already!
    Digging her fingers under her sunglasses, she squeezed the tears away, rubbed her eyes angrily, kept striding along the pavement, crossed the street with a sparse crowd of students on some kind of bar crawl, and then turned left for no reason other than that the avenue was well lit.
    Think, she told herself, think . What to do? Chang would ensure that Mrs. Peng fired her. No more job at the restaurant meant that there was no more daily income. Would Senora Mercedes find another job for her? Not guaranteed. And what would happen if she couldn’t find work? What would her value be then? Would Senora Mercedes finally make good on her threat to call Immigration?
    Each time she passed the open door of a bar she walked through a cloud of music. All-night restaurants were brilliantly lit with sterile white light that bleached the pavement, large photographs of the dishes served within posted in the windows. Neon signs advertised electronic boutiques, fashion stores, shrines and parlors. Everywhere people were moving, eyes focused straight ahead, slicing past each other like knives thrown through the dark. Maya finally could take it no more, and stepped into a doorway and sank down to hug her knees.
    Her numbness had thawed past fear and shock into disgust. Disgust at herself, at how her hands still trembled, at how tight her stomach was, how dry her mouth. Was this how a city girl reacted when a guy tried to kiss her? Paula, her only other friend from Brazil, had told her that on her fifth night in the city she had been forced to make out with five guys at a party in one of their bedrooms, and had barely managed to escape before they had pushed it even further. Another friend, Cynthia, older and lean and bitter with hooded eyes like a cobra, had told her about life growing up in foster homes, and the men who were charged with ‘taking care of her’.
    The cold was seeping through her rage. Fatigue was making it hard to think straight. This was the moment when a brilliant idea was supposed to hit her, solve all her problems—but none did. All she could think of was how she would now have to pay Senora Mercedes from her private store of money while she looked for another job, but the thought of giving away the few hundred dollars she had fought so hard to save up made her want to start crying all over again.
    Despair and fury forced her to her feet once more, grimacing in pain, and she began to walk again. She felt stiff now, the cold having leached into her bones. Looking around, she saw that she was on the northern border of Chinatown; the wrong direction from everything. Close, actually, to where Paula worked. With no better place to go and suddenly needing—hoping—for advice, warmth from a friend, she headed towards her bar.
    A staircase led down from the street to the Blue Note’s entrance. She nodded nervously to the bouncer, but the man was busy laughing at some comment his friend had just made and simply waved her in. Stepping inside, Maya felt the warmth wash over her, the air thick with candle incense and the dusty smell of the red velvet drapes that hung over the walls. A guy was playing piano in the back, but it was a slow night. It was dark,