Sold by Patricia McCormick

been drinking. She greets the man by name and wraps her arms around his thick waist. Then the two of them go to her room.
    Later, when they are finished, she comes to my room. “Stay away from him, you understand?”
    I understand that this wealthy man is one of her regulars. But I will not agree to what she asks. I will do what I have to do to get out of here. I shrug.
    “Stay away from the ones that are mine, you hear me?” she says.
    I used to fear Shilpa, but I look her in the eye. “No,” I say. “Not if it means a few extra rupees toward what I owe Mumtaz.”
    She spits. “You stupid hill girl,” she says. “You actually believe what she’s told you?”
    I do. I have to believe.

MONSTER
    A new girl arrived today. I know because I heard her sobs through the door of the locked-in room as I passed by on my way to the kitchen.
    Mumtaz is a monster, I tell myself. Only a monster could do what she does to innocent girls.
    But I wonder. If the crying of a young girl is the same to me as the bleating of the horns in the street below, what have I become?

PASSING THE TIME
    Some days, the time between when I awake and the time when the customers arrive is so long and dull and tedious, that I can only lie in bed and watch the spinning of the palm frond machine.
    These are the days when I understand Shilpa and the way she loves her liquor.
    And so when the street boy comes today, I do not pretend I cannot see him. I look at his caddy and point to the bottle he has brought for Shilpa.
    He shakes his head. “This is bad stuff,” he says in my language. “Once you start it, you cannot stop.”
    “What do you care?” I say.
    He looks down, fiddles with his wire caddy for a bit, then looks back at me, his dark brown eyes as wide and unblinking as Tali’s. Then he takes a cup of tea from the caddy and holds it out to me. ‘Take this instead,” he says.
    I shake my head.
    He turns to go, then stops. “I can bring you other things,” he says. “I can bring you sweet cakes.”
    I sigh and try to remember the time when a sweet cake was enough to make me happy. I turn my face to the wall. He leaves without making a sound, but I can tell from the aroma that fills the room that once again he has left me a cup of tea.

SUSPICION
    Shilpa passes by my room with her gold-watch customer, and I try to remember what it was she said the other day when she warned me to stay away from him.
    When I told her I would do whatever I could to pay my debt to Mumtaz, she said that I was stupid. Her words come back to me: “You actually believe what she tells you?”
    I wonder. What can she mean?
    Shilpa is Mumtaz’s spy. She is the one who guards the door to her counting room. She is the one who seems to know Mumtaz’s secrets.
    I have seen Mumtaz’s record book; I know how she cheated me. But I wonder. Does Shilpa know something I don’t?

A COCA-COLA
    The street boy is at my door again today. He is holding a bottle of Coca-Cola.
    “For you,” he says.
    I am curious about this drink. The people who drink it on TV are happy when its tiny fireworks go off in their mouths.
    “I have no money,” I say to him.
    “It’s okay,” he says.
    I regard him with some suspicion. “Why are you giving this to me?”
    He shrugs.
    'And why do you give me tea without asking for anything in return?”
    He kicks one bare foot against the other. “We are both alone in this city,” he says. “Isn’t that reason enough?”
    He doesn’t wait for my answer. He removes the cap, and the bottle hisses at us like an angry snake. I shy away from it until it has finished its hissing. Then I take the bottle from him and bring it to my mouth. Little bubbles—so tiny they cannot be seen—sneak out from the bottle and tickle my nose. I think I will sneeze, but nothing happens. I take a sip. It is true! A dozen tiny fireworks go off on my tongue. I cannot help but smile.
    The street boy is smiling, too.
    Then Shilpa calls out to him from down the hall.