Sightseeing Read Online Free Page A

plate.
    â€œWho’s the joker?” he asks Lizzie, gnawing on my squid. “Friend of yours?”
    â€œHunter,” Lizzie says. “Please.”
    â€œHey,” he says, looking at me, taking another piece of squid from my entrée. “What’s with the tie? And what’s with the pig, man?”
    I smile, put on a hand on Clint Eastwood’s head.
    â€œHey you,” he says. “I’m talking to you. Speak English? Talk American?”
    He tears off a piece of squid with his front teeth. I can’t stop staring at his powdered nose, the bulge of his hairy, sun-burned chest. I’m hoping he chokes.
    â€œYou’ve really outdone yourself this time, baby,” he says to Lizzie now. “But that’s what I love about you. Your unpredictability. Your wicked sense of humor. Didn’t know you went for mute tards with pet pigs.”
    â€œJesus.”
    â€œOh, Lizzie,” he says, feigning tenderness, reaching out to take one of her hands. “I’ve missed you so much. I hate it when you just leave like that. I’ve been worried sick about you. I’m sorry about last night, okay baby? Okay? I’m really sorry. But it was just a misunderstanding, you know? Jerry and Billyboy over there can testify to my innocence. You know how Thai girls get when we’re around.”
    â€œWe can talk about this later, Hunter.”
    â€œYes,” I interject. “I think you should talk to her later.”
    He just stares at me with that stupid white nose jutting out between his eyes. For a second, I think Hunter might throw the squid at me. But then he just pops the rest into his mouth, turns to Lizzie, and says with his mouth full:
    â€œYou fucked this joker, didn’t you?”
    I look over at Lizzie. She’s staring at the table, tapping her fingers lightly against the wood. It seems she’s about to cry. I stand up, throw a few hundred bahts on the table. Clint Eastwood follows my lead, rises clumsily to his feet.
    â€œIt was a pleasure meeting you, Miss Elizabeth,” I say, smiling. I want to take her hand and run back to the motel so we can curl up together on the beach, watch the constellations. But Lizzie just keeps on staring at the top of that table.
    I walk with Clint Eastwood back to the motel. We’re the only ones on the beach. Night is upon us now. In the distance, I can see squidding boats perched on the horizon, searchlights luring their catch to the surface. Clint Eastwood races ahead, foraging for food in the sand, and I’m thinking with what I suppose is grief about all the American girls I’ve ever loved. Girls with names like Pamela, Angela, Stephanie, Joy. And now Lizzie.
    One of the girls sent me a postcard of Miami once. A row of palm trees and a pink condo. “Hi Sweetie,” it said. “I just wanted to say hi and to thank you for showing me a good time when I was over there. I’m in South Beach now, it’s Spring Break, and let me tell you it’s not half as beautiful as it is where you are. If you ever make it out to the U S of A, look me up okay?” which was nice of her, but she never told me where to look her up and there was no return address on thepostcard. I’d taken that girl to see phosphorescence in one of the Island’s bays and when she told me it was the most miraculous thing she’d ever seen, I told her I loved her—but the girl just giggled and ran into the sea, that phosphorescent blue streaking like a comet’s tail behind her. Every time they do that, I swear I’ll never love another, and I’m thinking about Lizzie and Hunter sitting at the restaurant now, and how this is really the last time I’ll let myself love one of her kind.
    Halfway down the beach, I find Surachai sitting in a mango tree. He’s hidden behind a thicket of leaves, straddling one of the branches, leaning back against the trunk.
    When we were kids, Surachai and I used