Fox Girl by Nora Okja Keller

Author:Nora Okja Keller
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2010-03-01T05:00:00+00:00

9

“I can’t believe your father would send you out into the street with nothing,” Lobetto said. He put his arm around me and clucked in sympathy. “I remember when we were little, how he would give you everything. You were so spoiled.”

“You were the spoiled one.” Irritated, I shrugged his arm from my shoulder. “Always flashing your money in my daddy’s store, buying stuff for your friends.” I turned on him, wanting to make him hurt like I hurt. “Well, where are your friends now?”

Lobetto cocked his head, eyeing me from under his bangs. “Guess I’m like you, Hyun Jin,” he said. “I’ve got nobody.”

My stomach felt sour. I looked up, a last glance at Sookie’s apartment.

“That’s why you called for me, isn’t it? You’ve got nowhere else to go?” He started walking, dragging his feet in the dirt. The sun hadn’t yet struggled above the horizon; the dust he kicked up, the air, the streets, our skin, everything was tinged gray in the pallid light.

I jogged to catch up. “What do you mean, nowhere to go?” I demanded, acting cocky to cover my fear. “You have an apartment. We’re going there now.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Think you’re going to live there, too?”

I felt my face grow hot.

“Go home to daddy,” urged Lobetto. “He’ll take you back.”

I narrowed my eyes, stuck out my chin. “Well, I won’t take him back.”

“Easy words,” said Lobetto, “but you couldn’t make it out here. You don’t have what it takes.”

“What?” I snapped, letting words fly from my mouth without thought. “I wouldn’t be able to pass out flyers as good as you? Or run cigarettes up to the Monkey House fast enough?” When Lobetto sped up, refusing to look at me, I sucked in a breath and rushed forward. “Wait, I didn’t mean . . .”

He whirled, pushed his nose into mine. “You don’t know what I’ve had to do,” he hissed, spittle flecking my face. “You don’t know what you’d have to do.”

“Doesn’t matter,” I said, moving back a few steps. “I can do anything you can do. I was the best student in school.”

Lobetto shook his head. “Give up, Hyun Jin. This isn’t school. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I know about honeymoon. What’s the big deal?” I said, repeating what Sookie told me. “You close your eyes and the real you flies away.”

“You think it’s that easy?” Lobetto challenged.

“I know it is,” I shot back. “Sookie taught me.”

“Sookie?” Lobetto scowled. “What’d you do? Watch her with Chazu? Join them?”

I blanched, remembering Sookie pinned under Chazu’s dark bulk, his hips pumping into hers, their mocking laughter as he called out to me.

“Fine.” Lobetto spat as if tasting something bitter. “I’ll set something up at my place. Tonight.”

“Tonight?” I yelped. I almost confessed that I was merely parroting things I had heard. I almost backed down. But I thought how Lobetto would gloat, how he would taunt my big talk. I squared my shoulders and followed him home.

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