A minute later we’re off, after Lena asks a few of the performers, already warming up onstage, to confirm the location of Dana’s home. One of them speaks proficient English, and we have no problem following her directions to the opposite end of Nana Plaza and over to a side street, where the yellow house turns out to be a crumbling, faded high-rise the color of dirty buttermilk. It’s covered in graffiti, and although I can’t read the wording, the house still looks charming in a gritty way. We walk through the throngs of peddlers at the building’s exterior, enter a dingy corridor, and push our way back to the elevator shaft.
“Are we sure we want to do this?” I ask Lena as she pulls open the creaky metal accordion grate that separates the elevator from the hallway. The tiles that decorate the floors of each, once probably cheerful, are covered with years of accumulated filth.
“Are you kidding? We’ve come so far.” She steps into the elevator and presses the button marked 6.
“I just mean the elevator.” I take a cautious step into the creaking beast after her, trying not to dwell on how frayed the suspension cable must be.
“Oh.” Lena laughs. “Right. Too late now.” The platform starts moving upward almost before she can close the door behind us, and I watch the floors pass by one by one, the elevator grating against its gears all the while. The stairs and ceiling bear thick cracks, insinuating that the building might collapse at any minute. I recall an article in the in-flight magazine that cited building regulations for cities like this one, regulations put in place to prevent buildings in certain areas from being built over four stories high. I wonder nervously if this building is illegal. Buildings collapse all over Asia all the time. I try not to think about it. It’s Bangkok. Bangkok is more developed than, say, Bangalore. Isn’t it? I wonder if I’m getting my cities straight. My thoughts converge in a haze, and my palms turn sweaty as the elevator screeches to a halt.
Lena pushes open the door, and more black sediment attaches itself to her palms. She brushes them casually on her jeans, and I feel another flush of admiration. Lena is remarkable in so many ways: she’s bold, fearless, and street-smart; I’m sure she doesn’t even recognize all her strengths. I follow her down the sixth-floor hallway, even dimmer than the hallway on the first floor owing to a burned-out bulb—its cord dangles frayed and helpless from a patch of crumbling concrete in the ceiling. Footsteps echo upstairs and dust peppers our heads as we walk. When it touches Lena’s hair, it disappears into her white halo. I’m sure on me it looks more akin to dandruff.
“I think this is it,” Lena says, glancing at her palm. Sing Lee, a dancer at the bar, drew a map of the building’s interior, holding her pen in a firm hand while her red-lacquered nails dug lightly into Lena’s forearm to keep it steady as she wrote. There’s a small, narrow corridor off the main hallway on this floor. It leads to a plain brown door with a brightly colored sign on red paper tacked to its surface, with a word scrawled across its front in Thai. I imagine it means something like “Welcome,” and I say as much to Lena.
“Fingers crossed it doesn’t say ‘Keep out,’” she shoots back. I suspect she’s only half joking. I reach out to press the black doorbell just within the metal grate that stretches across the shabby door, and Lena gives me a reassuring smile. “I’m sure Dana’s great,” she tells me.
“How are you so sure?” I ask.
“Charlie’s parents are awful,” she replies. “Well, his dad, anyway—his mom’s just sort of a mess. Any enemy of theirs is a friend of ours.” I make a mental note to ask her more about that later—I never met Charlie’s parents, and it was more difficult than anything to get Charlie to open up about them. All I ever knew was that he and his dad didn’t get along; but when I saw his dad from afar at the memorial, he seemed engaged and charming. Odd, actually, how he was smiling and greeting people like it was a receiving line at a wedding and not a funeral. I’m thinking this as the door swings open and a young girl, or ladyboy—I’m not sure which term is correct—smiles up at us. She’s wearing a tight black pleather skirt and glittery stilettos that must be at least six inches high.
“Dana?” Lena asks, sounding shy for the first time since I’ve known her. The girl shakes her head and leans back into the room behind her, yelling out a few words in Thai. A few seconds later, another girl approaches, also Thai.
“I’m Dana,” she says in perfect English, twirling a long strand of hair in one finger. It’s so reddish purple it’s almost magenta; but it looks pretty, contrasted against the smooth brown of her skin.
“Dana Price,” Lena repeats, disbelieving.
“The one and only,” Dana replies.
Lena looks confused, and for the first time I wonder what the trajectory is with this black sheep half brother-sister. I can tell Lena was expecting a Westerner, someone white like Charlie. I hadn’t thought that far ahead, but now I’m wondering about this supposed brother of Charlie’s who’s clearly half Thai and wound up back in Thailand after years in elite boarding schools, presumably, like Charlie. Many questions are whirling through my mind.
“We’re friends of Charlie’s,” Lena tells her, raising her chin just slightly. Dana counters with a level gaze. “We have a couple of questions, if you’re free.”
“You’re the girlfriends.” Dana’s voice is flat, unfriendly.