Brilliant by Denise Roig

journalistic principles. And then there was the incident in the roundabout: “Who would be crazy enough to give anyone the finger here?” he told anyone who’d listen. But no one did and Steve spent that week out in Al Ain and now they were looking to leave.
    Steve and I had a thing once. Not a huge thing compared to some of our friends. Maureen had a mini-breakdown when their golf pro went back to his wife in New Zealand and Annie ate her way to a size 16 while her husband went ape shit over his Lebanese secretary a few years back. Yet here we are — calmer, wiser, menopausal — still friends downing lattes every Sunday morning.
    Steve and I do talk sometimes, so I knew he and Ronni were thinking of going home. He’d called a few days before from the golf course as I was cruising Al Wahda Mall, no specific purchase in mind.
    â€œYou always were a good listener,” he said after we’d chatted a bit. I was standing outside Victoria’s Secret. Inside I could see a local woman and two younger women, daughters probably. A trio of
abayas
. The mother held up something lacy and skimpy and the younger girl,
shayla
slipping, doubled over laughing.
    Steve told me about Ronni’s crying jags, Brice’s mood jumps. Everything that wasn’t quite right before his incarceration got amped up after, he said. “Hey, what’d you think of Obama’s latest caper? Universal health care, what a crock. We’re going to end up like Canada. That’s one thing I dread about going back. Those guys are in the White House now.”
    â€œBut, hey, no more Brits,” I offered.
    â€œBrilliant,” he said and we laughed.
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    The ladies, they go home now, taking needles and puzzles. They try so hard, smile so big. Sometimes I want to say, Relax! We fine.
    They come: Sondra and Beth and Ronni — funny name for girl! — every Tuesday in morning time. The embassy give us hot room upstairs from bedrooms and we see ladies turn pink and sweat. Poor them. “How do you stand it?” Ronni ask me today. She tie her hair up in elastic. I hate to say, but she look better with it regular. She has pretty hair, pretty eyes. But mostly her heart.
    â€œOkay, Loissa, what shall we do today?” She always say that, her teeth white shiny. I think she is maybe forty, no grey. Sometime I will ask her. I like her, she like me. I think other girls little jealous, but she is nice to every single Filipina (maybe in the world?) so no one fuss.
    She teach me crochet. I already know, but I want Ronni be proud, so I act like I know not even one thing, how hook goes, how you hold little baseball of yarn. “Like this!” she say, and she show and I do. “Quick study!” she say and looks like maybe cry. I joke, I laugh. I tell her, we okay really and we thank you so much. Maybe Ronni already sad and we make her more sadder.
    Lunch they go. While crochet, my stomach hurt from empty. Fish and rice, all time fish and rice. We like pork, tofu, plantains, melon, too, but only fish and rice. We have fish sometimes on tip of bad. Smelly. “No money!” Embassy men say and shrug, fat Filipinos with passports. They can come and go, go and come. In shelter we are 300 Filipinas. All run from bad employer. But now no place to run. Now no passport, no visa, no money, no home.
    I go back to bed after lunch. Only place that is mine. I be here so long, I graduate to bottom bunk! Honour, says Carmela. But she giggle. Sure, honour live in room with eight bunkbed. New girls sleep on roof on blanket. Head to head, toe to toe. Too many blanket. Too many crying Filipina. Embassy say nothing. Our country need this country. No fuss, just quiet, quiet. Embassy keep us Filipina. We are safe, but we are lost.
    I nap, dream of my house. Fish in dream too, pretty funny. No escape the fish! Me and little Manny, and Rodriguez and Mom, everyone at table. I try cook fish, but nothing happen. Big fish,