The Queen of Tears Read Free

sister.”
    “When is Darian coming in?”
    Soong thought about her youngest child with a mixture of fear, lack of comprehension, and pride. Darian was her American child. Why she, like her older daughter, gave her child a name she could not pronounce correctly, she would never understand. Darian was flying in from U.C. Berkeley the following week. “Next Tuesday.”
    “She can stay with me and save money.”
    “She’ll stay in the hotel like me.”
    “Figures,” Donny said in English.
    Soong sighed. Donny seemed always wanting to take any action by her as a slight against him. And some of this, she knew, was warranted. They didn’t talk for the next fifteen minutes. Soong peppered the time with light coughs until Donny finally threw his cigarette out. Right before they got off of the freeway, she saw a tiny thread hanging from the sleeve of her blouse, and refused, with all of her will power, to pull it.
    When they reached Waikiki, Soong was excited to see how it had changed since her last visit. Waikiki was a lot bigger than she remembered, but also more quiet. She had heard business was bad, and as they passed the lightly populated sidewalks, she believed it. Despite the white beaches, luxurious hotels, and palm trees growing out of the sidewalks, the allure of Hawaii was fading. The fact that the Asian economy was crashing hurt Hawaii even more. There were a few tourists walking the streets, though. Most wore bathing suits and absurdly red tans that screamed “skin cancer” to Soong as they passed vendors selling T-shirts. Others sipped on sodas or licked ice cream cones as they pointed at, but did not enter, the surrounding shops. Some were white, most were Asians, and all did not look like they were buying merchandise. She hoped her older daughter’s shop wasn’t losing too much money. She knew she’d have to be the one to bail her out. “Is business in Waikiki as bad as I’d heard?” she asked.
    Donny sighed. “Worse.”
    The streets of Waikiki were indeed emptier than she’d remembered them. But it looked more modern. The sight that struck her most was the traffic lights. The rectangular boxes with the three lights were no longer simply stuck on the tops of poles, but now most of the traffic lights were attached to shiny brown metal structures suspended over Kalakaua Avenue. The state was obviously sinking money into renovation. Soong laughed to herself. Hawaii was finally caught in the paradox it relied on for survival. Its main industry, tourism, depended on the natural beauty of the state. The fact that it was a state of the U.S., a capitalistic nation, demanded that it spend the money it’d made from tourism on destroying its natural beauty with big buildings, golf courses, and modernization. Hawaii was beginning to devour itself. Soong quickly calculated her assets in her head and wondered if she had enough to keep her children away from the feeding frenzy.
    “Which hotel was it again, Mother?”
    Soong sighed. She’d told him the name at least a half a dozen times over the phone. She looked down at her sleeve and yanked the loose thread off.
    -2-
    Won Ju Akana looked up at the movie poster hanging in the very middle of the largest white wall in her living room. A black lacquer frame bordered the colorful print. In the middle of the old poster, a beautiful, bird-like young Korean woman embraced a chubby, round-faced Korean soldier. The soldier looked, in an overly dramatic manner, like he was determined to leave. The woman, dressed in the traditional green Korean wedding dress, held two fistfuls of beige warmonger material, not letting the man walk away. Won Ju examined the angular, flawless face. The eyes were closed hard. But there was just enough in the face to suggest that the woman would eventually let the soldier go. It was funny because her hands suggested quite the opposite. It was a beautiful piece of melodrama captured for eternity. It was like poetry.
    This woman had been one of the