The Honk and Holler Opening Soon by Billie Letts

kinder than in the city of Houston where it is easy to find problems.
    I cannot send more money to you now because the cost of my transfer was very great, but in my next letter, I hope to send you the rest of the money for your passage.
    Nguyet, I think of you every minute of every day and at night, as I sleep, I smell the sweetness of your hair and feel the smoothness of your skin on my fingers. My love for you . . . anh yêu em mãi mãi.
    Yêu em,
    Bui
    *
    After he sealed the letter inside the envelope, Bui ran his hands across his eyes. He had slept poorly the night before, listening to strange sounds, waking to dark shapes and shadows not yet familiar to him. Now he had little energy left, but enough for what he had yet to do.
    He picked up his sack, then crossed the hall to a pair of heavy wooden doors. After taking off his shoes and placing them side by side against the wall, he slid the doors apart and stepped between them.
    Though this was the second time Bui had stood inside the great room, he was just as transfixed by its beauty and tranquillity as the first time. The stained-glass windows, softly lit by streetlights outside the church, shimmered in shades of green and amber, and the pews, stretching to both sides of the room, smelled of dark, rich wood.
    Against the far wall, a raised platform held four elegant high-back chairs, a pulpit carved with intricate designs and an upright white piano.
    Bui bowed at the door, then started down the aisle, moving slowly and with reverence, for he knew he was in a sacred place. At the front of the room, he stopped before a long, narrow table covered with red velvet cloth. Candles stood at each end in tall silver holders between vases of delicate purple flowers.
    He put his sack on the floor, then carefully removed the Buddha he had brought from Houston and placed it in the center of the table. With matches from his pocket, he lit the candles.
    When he stepped back and clasped his hands before him, he bowed, first to his Buddha of stone . . . then to a carving on the wall—the statue of a man, hands and feet nailed to a wooden cross.
    Then Bui Khanh knelt to pray.
    *
    Caney switched off the Honk sign just before seven. He hadn’t had a customer for more than two hours, so he was shutting down early tonight.
    The tracks of Bui’s car, the last to pull out, were barely visible now, filled in with another half inch of the snow still coming down.
    Vena came from the back with the dog, then slid the box onto a chair. “I’m going to take off, Caney.” She turned up the collar on her jacket and buttoned it at the neck.
    “Hate to see you out in this weather,” Caney said.
    “I’ll be all right.”
    “It’s freezing out there now.”
    “Yeah, but I don’t have far to go.”
    “You know, I was just thinking . . .” Caney felt his mouth go dry. “Maybe . . . well, no reason you can’t stay here tonight,” he said, lowering his eyes like a shy teenager.
    But there was nothing shy about Vena’s response.
    “Oh, is that how it is? I can work here if I sleep with the owner.
    Part of my job description, right?”
    “No, I . . . I didn’t mean . . .” Caney licked at lips so dry he could feel their heat. “That’s not what I meant.”
    “Then what did you mean?”
    “See, I have a couch, there’s a couch in my room . . . and, well, I just wanted you to know . . .” He was rushing now, trying to get it all out, trying to make her understand. “I thought about the couch and you’re welcome to it, some extra blankets and a couple of pillows, so you could—”
    “No, thank you,” she said, but the “thank you” sounded less than sincere.
    “Well, I just wanted you to know.”
    A silence settled between them then, holding them in place until, moments later, headlights swept across the window.
    “Now who the hell is that?” Caney said as a vehicle pulled to a stop, too far back on the darkened lot for them to make it out in the blowing snow. “Is someone