Free The Interpreter by Suki Kim

then takes a long look around the bar. It is a typical beach-town dive, with a jukebox and a pool table. Against the wall is a laminated poster of a buxom blonde holding up a can of Budweiser. A few stools away from her are a couple of older men whose eyes are fixed on the sports updates on the TV screen suspended from the ceiling.
    “So did you find what you were looking for?” Bob pretends to be nonchalant, but Suzy can tell that he is curious. She is not sure what to say. Is it really Grace he is taking her to be? What had Grace been looking for? She is tempted to tell him that he’s got the wrong girl, but it seems too late now, and Bob looks too earnest. So, instead, Suzy drops her gaze at the plate of fish before her.
    “Thought you went back to the city. Twice in one week in this lousy weather—whatever it is, lady, you’ve gotta find it fast, so you don’t get that pretty head of yours wet again.” He pours more coffee into her mug, although she does not want a refill. Suzy runs her fingers through her wet hair, realizing only now that she left her umbrella on the train. Perhaps it is not Grace he takes her to be, but another Asian girl who had wandered in one rainy afternoon. Perhaps Grace was right after all, white men can’t tell one Asian girl from another. The fish is good. They all taste the same once fried like this. She did not realize she was hungry. She left the apartment in a hurry this morning, barely time for coffee, definitely no breakfast. The alarm did not go off again, and she woke up panicking, certain that she had missed her 8:25 train. It wasn’t until she wiped the sweat off her face and took a sip of cold water and glanced at the clock again that she
realized she had more than an hour to kill. So she lay there recalling the strange phone rings and the bouquet of irises that had come accompanied by a drill or a hissing noise, which she failed to identify, which grew louder and louder until she could not stand it anymore and finally bolted out of bed, only to realize that the deadly shrill had, in fact, been the alarm chiming seven.
    “See, nothing like a good piece of fish on a day like this!”
    Bob is dying for her to say something, anything, so that he can say to his regulars, “That girl over there, she’s from the city, after something, she won’t say what,” or “See that Asian girl? She wanted cod poached until I told her, no, miss, we won’t have that here, not in Montauk, not at Bob McSwiggin’s place!” But all Suzy is capable of is another vague smile, a nice-girl smile so that he knows there is nothing personal as to why she won’t let him in on what she’s looking for. It would not take much to give him the one-line answer, a simple acknowledgment: “Yes, the fish’s good; yes, I’m glad you talked me into it; yes, nothing like a plate of fried fish on such a dreary afternoon.” But even that she cannot manage, for she is suddenly dying to get out of here. It is as if her parents know that she has arrived, that she is here to see them, and that not a day goes by when she does not wonder who shot them, who wanted them dead, who knew exactly how to pierce their hearts.
    The numbers on the TV screen flip with a dizzying speed: Knicks 88 Bulls 70 Lakers 102 Spurs 99 Giants 21 Saints 10. The coffee is tepid now and tastes somewhat less burnt.
    “Did I leave an umbrella here last time?” Suzy ventures cautiously, hoping the question might bring light to when Grace, if it was indeed Grace, was here. Something inside Suzy cannot resist. Become Grace for a moment. Embrace Grace’s trace, which might lead to Grace.
    “Beats me. I keep whatever people forget in that bin.” Bob
points to the plastic crate by the entrance. “You were here when, on Friday? Should still be there, but if you don’t see it, just take any umbrella you find.”
    Suzy walks over and makes a pretense of looking through the crate before picking out the only umbrella among the torn jackets,