I’m watching an infomercial for spray-on hair for baldies and picking a scab on my knee when I hear the elevator stop on our floor. I run to the dining room and pull the Yellow Pages out of the shoe cabinet. The doorbell rings.

“Don’t answer it,” my mother screams in Cantonese.

I like opening the door, but she only speaks Cantonese when she’s totally stressed out so I guess I’d better not. The pages of the phonebook slide back and forth under my feet as I peep through the spyhole at Henry Shum, who has come all the way from Tai Koo Shing and is standing a bit too close, so he’s just a giant nose. The TV audience is clapping. I hop down and patter to the kitchen, breathing in the sweet scent of chopped onions.

My mother’s teetering on her highest heels and pouring macaroni and cheese into a Pyrex dish, scraping the globs with a wooden spoon. Her face is colorful and plastic, and her earrings wink against her long hair that looks blacker and straighter than normal. She’s been acting weird lately. She eats salad by itself as a meal, and when she’s on the phone she laughs in this low voice, like mm hm hmm. She clacks over to the sink, her butt quivering beneath her dress that’s dark pink and glossy, like lipstick. The doorbell rings again.

“Crap,” she says, dunking the pan into the foamy water. Blobs of gray scum flick out and cling to her hair. She smoothes her skirt and yells, “Just a sec!”

“Why can’t I meet him?” I ask, scratching a mosquito bite on the back of my leg with my big toe.

The oven rack makes silvery sounds as she slides the dish onto it. “Because,” she says, banging the door shut, “he could still turn out to be an ass-hat.” She presses the back of her hand to her forehead and looks at it.

“But you said he’s great.”

She gives herself a hard glance in the shiny black glass of the microwave.

“Everyone’s great on the internet, sweetie. That’s what it’s for.” She sniffs her armpits.

“You have soap in your hair,” I tell her. “Where’s he taking you?”

“French food,” she says, combing her hair with her fingers.

I follow her to the dining room. She clicks over to the shoe cupboard and starts moving things from her everyday purse to her clutch. I feel like she hasn’t looked at me all week. After my father left, we lay in bed for days, staring into each other’s eyes.

“Davy!” she calls.

Our new maid comes out of the hallway wearing yellow rubber gloves and clutching a blue sponge. She lives behind the kitchen, in the room that used to be the laundry room. She’s small for an adult and stands very straight with her chin pushed down. She has a long ponytail, and big eyes peeking out from under her bangs.

“When you’re finished, go to Movieland and rent some Japanese cartoons for Lily,” my mom says, holding out a red hundred note and the membership card.

Davy takes them and slips them in the back pocket of her jeans. One finger of her glove gets trapped in her pocket and stretches very long before snapping back. She picks the phonebook up off the floor and puts it back in the cabinet.

My mom tucks her clutch purse under her arm. She checks the face of her watch, which she keeps turned to the inside of her wrist. “The macaroni will be ready at eight. Make a salad, and put sliced pears on it.”

Davy nods. She points with her chin to the door. “He outside, ma’am?”

My mother grins at Davy like they’re friends. “Will you take a look?” she says behind her hand. “I’m too nervous.”

Davy smiles at me shyly and walks over to the door. I notice her toes are jumbly and spread. She goes up on tiptoe to peek through the spyhole, and turns to face my mom. “Good,” she says. “Tall.”

“Does he have three heads?” my mom whispers. “Is he a hundred years old?”

Davy giggles, padding back to the hallway, her ponytail swishing from side to side.

“Take a bath, and don’t make trouble,” my mother says in Cantonese, getting the keys from the big seashell and looping them over her finger. She opens the door narrowly, and squeezes through. “Sorry,” I hear her say as she pulls it shut behind her.

The lock turns from outside. I get the phonebook from the cabinet and push it against the door, stepping up just in time to see the elevator doors close. I go to the kitchen and pick up the handset of the entryphone to make the picture come up on the screen. It shows the sidewalk outside our building from above the lobby door. My mom comes walking out and Henry follows. She turns to say something to him, her eyes surprised and shimmery. I hang up the receiver and run to the living room.

On TV, the spokesmodel is interviewing a man who got married because of his fake spray hair. I stand on the sofa and slide the window open. We live on five, but this is actually the fourth floor. They don’t call it four because the Chinese word sounds almost exactly like the word for death. I see my mother and Henry crossing the road diagonally to a dark blue car parked in front of one of the furniture shops. A paper cup skips after them and the sidewalk trees crumple in the wind. My mother’s bright dress flutters like a pink flame, and she glances up at the window with her long hair wrapped across her mouth. I can’t see Henry’s face, just his pencil-gray suit and the way he fits his hand to her back and pushes her toward his car. I picture them clinking glasses of wine over plates heaped with croissants and french fries.

I watch my mother sink into the blue car, pulling her long white legs inside, the evening sun flashing in her window as Henry swings the door shut and struts around to the other side, but I don’t watch them drive away. I turn around to catch the end of the hair commercial. I’m dying to see how they actually spray it on.

I chew, pushing the lazy susan back and forth. The dark gray glass turns smoothly on the metal ring. One side is piled with snack foods in shiny packaging, pinched by Little Twin Stars clips. Davy sits sideways in my mother’s chair, her arm resting on the table.

“Aren’t you having dinner?” I ask her.

“I’m already eat.” She has a cute way of talking, skipping words, and poking her tongue through her teeth when she says the letters t and n and d. “Indonesian food.” She pronounces it in the nation food.

I swing my legs under the table. “Why? Don’t you like macaroni?”

She shakes her head very fast, as if she’s scared.

“Indonesian food tastes better?” I try to say it the way she did.

She nods, upward.

“That’s where you live?”

“Yah.”

“What part?”

“Solo. I like because”—she makes a fanning motion—“nighttime not hot.”

“It’s cool at night?”

“Cool. Nice. I’m sleep good.”

“I’ve been to Bali twice,” I say.

She gets up and comes around to refill my glass. “I’m not yet go to Bali,” she says and goes and sits back down. I can see a faint picture of the dining room in the window behind her.

“I first time Hong Kong,” she says.

“Do you think you’ll like living here?”

“I’m already very like it.”

“Will you be homesick?”

She nods. My fork tinks the plate and the air-conditioner makes a chugging sound.

“You like my country?” Davy asks.

“It’s my favorite vacation place. I love the big swimming pools, and the ice that looks like Christmas lights.”

She opens her eyes very wide. “Apa, si?”

“The ice dessert that’s different colors?”

“Es campur. Nice for children. My daughter,” she says, “she very like es campur.”

“You have a daughter? How old is she?”

She thinks for a moment. “Eight.”

“I’m nine!”

“Yah. I’m already ask your mother. What her job?”

“She’s an art director at a place called Ogilvy and Mather.”

Davy’s face turns serious. “I like art,” she says quietly.

“What’s your daughter’s name?”

“Mega.” She points to the window. “Cloud.”

“That’s pretty.”

“I have photo,” she says. “You want?”

I nod, bouncing my knees together under the table. She jumps up and goes off to get it. I eat the pears off the salad. Davy comes back carrying a carved wooden frame that must have taken up half her suitcase. She stands it on the table. The picture’s stuck at the very back, so you have to peep in like you’re looking into the window of a house.

A girl and a boy are holding hands and smiling from ear to ear. They have white teeth and white shirts and smart red neckties. The girl’s hair is pulled back with a sparkly headband. She has enormous eyes, and dimples drilled into her cheeks. The boy is taller, with bony knees and glued-down church hair.

I point. “Who’s that?”

“Rafik. So naughty boy.” She chuckles and starts clearing the table.

“Mega’s so pretty,” I say.

“She very good in sport and play guitar.”

“I wish you’d brought her with you. I’ve always wanted a sister.”

Davy tips her head to the side. She takes my dishes to the kitchen and returns with some mango halves on a plate. Instead of bringing me a teaspoon, she’s cut criss-cross designs and turned the skins inside out to make porcupines. She sets them in front of me and disappears into the hall. I pick up a slab and start to slurp off the cubes. The juice runs down my chin. I hear the squeak of the faucet, and the tub filling. She comes back and stands next to me, looking at the photo.

“So does Mega live with her dad?”

“Mm-mm.” She twirls the lazy susan until the box of Kleenex is in front of me.

“Who does she live with?”

Davy points to a woman’s dress and some frizzy hair at the side of the photo. “Farah,” she says. She goes and sits in my mother’s chair and stares at the tablecloth.

I pull out a handful of tissues and blot my face. “Is Farah your sister?”

She looks up. “Rafik’s mommy. She work here Hong Kong seven year. I’m—” she makes a motion like she’s patting two invisible children who are getting taller.

“Oh, uh-huh.”

“Now me.” She nods.

“Your turn? For seven years? You won’t see Mega in all that time?”

“My contract two year. I go Indonesia, come back, two year again.”

“But then—why don’t you take turns doing two years each? Wouldn’t that be easier?”

“Not good to children, always change-change. Better long time.”

“And when seven years is up, do you have to switch places again?”

“We stay home, open for business.” She leans back, looking pleased.

“Is Farah your best friend?”

She smiles and shrugs. She looks at the front door as if she’s expecting someone to come in.

“You must miss them. Do you have Skype?”

“Sky?”

“You know, talking on the computer?”

“Ah, Sky-pee. I’m not have this one.”

“You can use ours. My mom won’t care.”

“Farah not have computer.”

“Oh, right.” Now I feel kind of bad for suggesting it. “I’m sorry.”

“OK,” she says. “Air mail OK.” She gets up and hurries off to check the bathwater. I put down the last mango skin. The sticky juice has reached my elbows. I dab them with the wadded Kleenex.

“Yah!” Davy calls.

I go down the hall to the bathroom, where she’s stirring the water with her hand. I take off my clothes and get in. She squirts shower gel onto a body puff and sets it on the side of the tub, scoops up my clothes and goes away. I switch on the shower radio and listen to a show called Non-stop Korean Love Ballad. I practice holding my breath underwater. I finally manage to pick off my scab. The skin underneath is pink satin. As I’m soaping my arm with the puff, Davy comes back carrying my folded pajamas and underpants. Her hair’s wet and combed, and she’s changed into tracksuit bottoms and a t-shirt with ice-cream-colored elephants playing in a band.

“Do you want to watch cartoons with me later?” I ask her.

“I’m”—she sets the things on top of the dirty clothes basket and waves her arms around—“my suitcase.”

“Oh, OK.”

She leaves. I dip the puff in the bathwater and soap my other arm.

In the middle of the night, I stumble to my mother’s room. There’s no air-conditioner sound. I feel her bedspread and it’s all smooth. I turn on the lamp. She’s not here. I crawl across her bed to the window. The windows of the building opposite are dark. Normally you can look right into the bedrooms and living rooms and see people walking around and TVs flickering. I stand on the bed and lean against the glass, looking down into the street below. Greenish lights are on in the furniture shops, and the perfect living rooms and bedrooms look bright and empty. The world seems big and spooky, and like there’s no one in it. I stand there for a while, waiting for a car to drive by or someone to come strolling along.

I wake up with the sun in my eyes. I turn away from the window and she’s here, asleep in her pink dress. Her eyeballs are moving beneath the lids and she smells like smoke, and something bready. Normally she’s naked, with headphones on and the cord wrapped around her neck, smelling of cucumber face cream. Her hand is up by her cheek and there’s an ink stamp on the back of it. Her face looks strange and white in the sunshine. On her neck by her ear, the blueness of her pulse is a flashing light.