Tiger Girl Read Online Free PDF Page A

to put my backpack inside. Finally Uncle spoke. “I was so surprised. You look so much like her when she was young.” He wiped his face on the back of his hand. We both pretended it was just sweat he was wiping away. “You look just like my wife. When she was young, I mean. Before the war.”
    The woman I’d met had her face divided in two by a long purple scar, one half dark from the scar tissue, the other too light. Auntie had tried to blend the two halves together with makeup, but I could always tell. I’d once seen a picture of Auntie, my mother, from before the war, before Pol Pot took over, before the minefields took their toll. She’d looked young and beautiful and happy. Nothing like the woman I’d known. She’d also looked glamorous, her permed hair floating in perfect waves about her face, the studio lighting making her skin glow. I looked nothing like this woman either.
    â€œThank you,” I said politely, and waited. Uncle didn’t say anything more. He opened the passenger-side door for me and then walked around to the driver’s side. And I thought, So this is how it’s going to be. We’re going to continue to lie to each other.
    On the drive into town, Uncle seemed more at ease. He rolled down the windows and let the wind and golden sunshine blow around us.
    â€œSo you’re a college girl now,” he exclaimed. “I’m very proud of you. A good example for your brother and sisters.”
    â€œSam’s not going to college. He wants to enlist in the Army,” I said. “And the twins want to be Miss Nebraska. They want to run for prom queen. Together.”
    â€œThere’s still time for them. You can become a doctor and show them—”
    Suddenly, he was Mister Gung Ho for Education? If he hadn’t helped to arrange Sourdi’s marriage—at fifteen, while she was still in high school—she might have been able to go to college. Maybe she would’ve been the doctor. She always liked science more than I did. She liked the fact that she could observe things quietly. I was the noisy one who liked to talk in class all the time.
    My heart started racing, the way it’d been doing recently, and I tried to remember what the counselor had said about breathing in through the nose, out through the mouth, calmly, while counting, until I could breathe normally again.
    I tried to keep my anger at bay. I hadn’t come here for a fight. Not straight away, at least.
    Sunlight glinted off the hood of the blue Toyota, and I squinted, shading my eyes with my hand. Palm trees and oleander shrubs rushed by on both sides of the highway.
    One hundred, ninety-six, ninety-two, eighty-eight . . .
    â€œCan we listen to the radio?” I asked.
    â€œCertainly. Yes.” He turned on the radio, and the dulcet tones of Christian Muzak filled the car.
    I closed my eyes to concentrate, sensing a panic attack coming on. Somehow I hadn’t imagined that Uncle had become religious.
    â€œDo you mind if we stop at the pâtisserie first? I need to check on business.”
    â€œI’m here to help,” I said, forcing my voice to sound flat, calm, nothing like I felt inside. I didn’t want him to hear the roaring yet. I didn’t want the first things I said to him to be embarrassing. “I need to earn some money.”
    â€œFor school,” he said, nodding.
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œAh,” he said, pleased, as though I’d answered a question he hadn’t asked aloud. Apparently I’d answered correctly.
    Eventually Uncle pulled up to a small donut shop in a strip mall next to a nail salon, a photocopy place, a video rental store, and an Asian grocery with Thai, Khmer, Chinese, and Vietnamese writing on the handmade signs in the window. Uncle’s shop had a yellow plastic sign on the red roof with the words “Happy Donuts #3” in large, friendly letters. I recognized Uncle’s