"She stood out, not because she was Eurasian on an English-speaking tour, but because of her crotch-tight shorts, her atypical long legs, her fluid walk.
She felt uncomfortable in the elegant setting where gardeners of uncertain age, young and limber, old and gnarled, knelt to cut grass with long-bladed scissors along royal paths where she strode in homemade sandals. It was not considered appropriate for a girl of her status to enter the royal compound. Today she had an excuse.
She saw the workers surge upwards in a wave, standing to take a step forward, bending to remove weeds with their fingers, standing again to reach the next patch of lawn. They did not look up. She knew the feeling, rising to go forward in life, feeling a hand around her ankle to pull her back. She shuddered at the realization that they worked in the sunshine, she in the shadows. They were trapped. She was not...."
from Thai Bride, Cats & Other Tales
Copyright © 1999 by Marilyn Schoefer Wagner Table of Contents
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