Beauty Rising by Mark W Sasse Page A

features. It was that girl that popped into my sights on every street corner, at the ice cream shop, and in dad’s dreams. It was most likely the same girl that sat on the rock in the banana tree grove looking down at my father. This girl, too, had a smile on her face. I stared at her for several minutes and then pressed the Phuong flower petal directly against her and closed the book firmly. I placed it on the night stand and lay back down in bed. I would be back at work in the morning.
    I settled back into Lyndora life. Mom and I lived civilly, not completely unlike before; though without dad, the house had lost a lot of its edge. I continued unloading coffee makers, particle board furniture, and electronics from the eighteen wheelers which rolled into the loading dock on a daily basis. On Tuesdays, I bowled with my gang and continued to eat those spicy tacos. Sunday afternoons were filled with NASCAR.
    I ran into Reverend Fox over in Butler about six weeks later. We chatted briefly, and I told him an abbreviated version of my Vietnam trip. I told him my mission was accomplished, and I thanked him again for his help. In nearly every way, my life went back to normal. I thought less and less about dad as time went on, and I guess I could have said the same thing about my trip to Vietnam. I did from time to time skim through the pictures of the Vietnam picture book, and I always stopped to rub my fingers up and down on the red flower of page 89.
    Three years passed from the date of my dad’s death. Lyndora and I continued as usual sauntering slowly towards twilight unaware of what stood just beyond the horizon. I never could have anticipated what I was to find in front of my house on Home Avenue in Lyndora one late spring evening. Perhaps I was not the same person after all.

Part II

    I am My Phuong .

Point of Contact

    He stood as wide as a bus – a target too easy to spot and easier still to nail. I had been pickpocketing for several years, and foreigners were the easiest and typically most rewarding prey. On festival days, I always wore my all white ao dai which made me seem more dainty and lady-like. I was always told I had an innocent looking face, which I also exploited as an important asset.
    This one stood tall and wide, and completely out of his element. Hung walked beside me as usual. He had a very intense look on his face. The crowd pressed thick on this overcast day that was pleasantly cool. We walked deliberately, wading through the festival goers toward the target. We pressed and pushed. He wore jeans which made everything that much easier. Hung now walked directly behind the tall, red-headed foreigner or tay as we called him. I walked just behind him to his right watching the varied movements of his backside as he jaunted through the throngs. Hung glanced quickly and nodded; then I counted to three. Exactly on the three-count, Hung put two hands on the giant’s back and violently pushed him forward. He nearly toppled an old lady in front of him. A split second after the push, my hand, which had been placed on his behind at the count of two, quickly slid in and out of his back pocket clasping the wallet. I quickly slid the wallet up the left slit of my ao dai and into my underwear. I then pushed past him to the right while Hung split past him to the left. Someone grabbed my left wrist and squeezed. The large foreigner pulled me hard toward himself as the festival goers continued proceeding intermittently and haphazardly like stalled rush hour traffic. I glanced at my captor and looked directly into the face of the large red-headed beast. Foreigners, at times, seemed more like specimens than humans. He had scraggly red hair on his face and arms with round ruddy cheeks.
    “Where is my wallet?” he yelled at me.
    Hung got away, but I had the goods. I stared at him pleading mercy with my eyes. Would he notice my innocent face and my beautiful ao dai ? How could I be a thief? I tried to wriggle free, but he had