Free The Merit Birds by Kelley Powell Page A

the Buddha’s breastbone inside. During the November full moon there’s the That Luang festival. I’ll take you there.”
    For a second she worried that she had said too much, insinuating that they would still be together in November. It was just April, after all. But then she saw Cam’s massive grin.
    â€œPeople come from all over the country for the festival,” she continued. “In the morning thousands of people pray together. You can barely even see the stupa because of all the people. Women wear their best sins and bring alms for the monks and nuns — bananas, kip , sticky rice. People push their way through the crowd, selling little birds, like finches or plovers, in homemade cages. You can buy them and let them go. It builds your merit.”
    He reached across the table and touched her hand. Her immediate reaction was to pull it away, but they would be okay here. Judging by the other couples in the restaurant, it wouldn’t be that out of the ordinary. Besides, she was beginning to care less about what other people thought. They sat like that for a while, happy and quiet, until the rest of their meal arrived. Nok looked around the restaurant as their waiter laid out baskets of sticky rice, spicy bowls of laap , an overflowing plate of mint, dill, and other leaves picked from the forest or tiny streams, and enormous, steaming bowls of noodle soup. For a second she wondered if she should eat her sticky rice with her hand, rolling it in a ball in her right hand the way Lao people always do. Do they use cutlery in a place like this? She couldn’t imagine how you would eat sticky rice any other way. It would just stick all over a spoon. She was surprised by her insecure thoughts. She decided she wasn’t going to change how she had always eaten just because a lot of foreigners happened to be around. She smiled when she saw Cam reach into the basket of rice with his hand. But before she could do the same, her smile vanished.
    She looked up to see the falang who had mistaken her for a prostitute peering down from the restaurant’s second-storey balcony. She could never forget those empty, ice-blue eyes. She pretended she didn’t see him, but could tell from her peripheral vision that he wasn’t taking his eyes off her. She couldn’t concentrate on what Cam was saying.
    â€œWe have to go,” she stood up too abruptly, knocking over her cup of lemon-grass tea.
    â€œWhy? We just got here,” Cam said gently, grabbing for napkins before the burning tea crept across the table and onto his lap.
    The foreigner grinned with intent as he met Nok’s eyes from the balcony overlooking the restaurant’s first floor.
    â€œJust come on!” she grabbed Cam’s hand. He looked shocked, but she clenched his hand firmly and led him through tightly spaced tables toward the door. Sweaty backpackers with dreadlocks and dusty clothes, or wealthy Lao women in expensive, shiny sins looked up with curiosity from their tables.
    â€œNok, we have to pay.”
    By this time the foreigner had come down the polished, wooden stairs and stood right behind her. She grabbed on to Cam’s arm and pretended not to notice him. He followed them through the noisy restaurant. The pumping dance music paused briefly before the next song began.
    â€œI knew it,” he leaned over and whispered, breathy and heavy, in her ear. He reeked of rice whiskey. He glanced at Cam with glazed, bloodshot eyes and leaned in closer to Nok. “I knew you were a whore the minute I saw you.”
    â€œCam!” Nok screamed and pushed him outside into the heavy humidity of the night. The restaurant door swung shut behind her, leaving the drunken foreigner inside. She raced down Settathirath Road and didn’t stop until she was gasping for air. Cam caught up to her.
    â€œWho the hell was that?”
    â€œI have to go home now.” She was ashamed beyond words.
    â€œWho was that