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done something remarkable. “I think football is the most important American game, right?”
“Well, maybe. But I don't take it as seriously as they want me to. Mostly I just like to run.”
“You very fast.”
“Who wouldn't be? You notice the size of some of those meats chasing me?”
Sundara's hand went to cover her smile. “You all look big in those funny suits!”
“Yeah, well, those gays fiel big, too, when they land on you. Someday I'll probably get clobbered.”
“Oh,” she breathed, I hope not.” Then she glanced away. She had no business making it sound as if it mattered so much to her. Even if it did. She cleared her throat and folded her hands in her lap. “What you want me to tell you about my country?”
A slow smile spread over his face, a smile that made her go warm all over.
“Right,” he said. “This ir supposed to be business, isn't it? Well … let's see …” He opened his notebook, flipped through the pages to some jotted questions. “Okay … what was it like, living in the middle of a war?”
“Oohh … Hard to say. I cannot remember my country without a war. But when I'm small in Phnom Penh, it seem far away. The grown-up keep talking how something bad gonna happen, but I don't pay any attention. By the end, though, no one can ignore. My school close down because of the bombing just when I supposed to take my examination for the lycée, and—”
“Lycée?”
“Oh, that French. It mean like a high school. Anyway, I study so hard for the test. In my country, you not pass this, no more school for you unless you are a high-up person and your father can pay for private school. My father cannot pay, but he want me to get a good education, so I study hard. Then they shoot the rockets and I don't get to take my test! I get so mad! After that is the long vacation. But all the road into Phnom Penh are blocked so we cannot go down to the sea at Ream. Cannot go anywhere. Cannot even go to the cinema. Just stay home and listen to my mother complaining how the food cost more every time she go to the market. It's like crazy inflation, you know?”
“But you never really saw any fighting?”
She smiled grimly. “Only in our house.” She touched her fingers to her lips. “But I shouldn't tell about that.” She took a small bite of her sandwich. Surprising, the way the words were pouring out. English words. This American boy had done nothing but smile at her encouragingly and here she was, putting into English things she'd never spoken of before in any language.
“Why shouldn't you talk about it?” Jonathan persisted.
She frowned. “Not right to tell our family trouble …” He seemed to be waiting for her to go on. She hesitated, then recklessly plunged ahead. “Just that everybody get so cranky, you know? My father a teacher at another lycée, so he home all the time. This the hot season. Everybody kind of pick on each other … I'm sorry now. I feel bad when I think how I talk to them.”
Jonathan smiled. “Somehow it's hard for me to picture you as a rotten kid.”
“It is true. My mother say I'm sassy.” She tilted her head. “I'm a different person now, though. Like I already die and now I am reborn.”
Jonathan gave her a startled look. She flushed.
Perhaps this was the danger, she thought, in talking to Americans. You constantly risked stepping over some invisible boundary, saying something they'd find odd. As she turned away, she noticed a group of boys lounging around the picnic tables, gawking at them.
“They think it funny, you talking to me.”
Jonathan turned. “Oh, that's just a bunch of guys from the team. They like to give me a hard time.”
Most of them were much bigger than Jonathan, Sundara noticed. Wider. They looked mean, with their tight T-shirts and muscles.
“Hey, McKinnon” one yelled. “We vote nine!”
Jonathan tried to wave them off.
“What does that mean?” Sundara asked. “‘We vote nine’?”
He shook his head. “Nothing. It's stupid.”
“Please? I want to know.”
“Oh, it's just this dumb thing they're into