Kopter
American passport control terrifies me.
I guess it must be the combination of my brown skin, dark hair and dead eyes that always gets me pulled over for 'random' searches. You try looking anything but dead after a nineteen hour flight, it's harder than it looks.
When I finally got to see the light of day, or night as it turned out to be, an hour and a half had already passed since the plane had landed. I looked down at my phone to see seventeen missed calls. No prizes for guessing who those were from.
I walked over to the small crowd still milling around the baggage claim carousel. There were only three bags left, spinning round and round like a sad merry-go-round. I hoisted my black wheelie bag into the air, narrowly missing a disgruntled looking pilot, and began walking across the speckled grey plastic floor towards the exit.
On the other side of a red velvet rope I could see my uncle as he anxiously searched for me on his tippy toes. I caught his eye and waved enthusiastically.
"Nok!" I yelled as I ran over to him, my bag clipping my heels. I could see the wave of relief rush over him as I pulled up beside him.
"Sawadee Krup-" I began. He pulled me into a tight embrace while I was mid-bow, causing me to headbut him firmly in the stomach, temporarily winding him.
Once he'd regained his breath and waved away my fifteenth apology, he straightened up and clasped my shoulders firmly on either side.
"I've been pulling my hair out with worry, I thought I was gonna have to get a new identity to escape your mother!" He joked, but his eyes gave away how serious he was.
He moved his hands upwards and cupped my face in his palms. This felt a little awkward considering I was almost twenty centimetres taller than him now. He looked just like a male version of Mom, small with beady brown eyes and glossy, curly brown hair tinged with grey.
"Let me get a good look at you, look how tall you are!" He exclaimed, scanning every inch of my face like it might disappear at any moment.
"Uhh, thanks?" I mumbled through squished cheeks.
After much squabbling, I let him take my bag from me and resigned to follow behind him as he led us to the parking lot, speaking animatedly of his apartment in Manhattan.
"-And your room has its own bath too," He grunted, hoisting my bag into the boot of his silver Porsche. "I've stocked it with all sorts of smelling salts. I wasn't sure which you'd like so I got you one of every."
He turned to me, red and out of breath but smiling nonetheless. "We're going to have so much fun this year! Just us boys."
I smiled weakly back. Nok had this uncanny ability to act as though the last time we had seen each other was a few days ago, not almost six years ago on my twelfth birthday. But I must admit, he was making me feel a little less nervous.
"Let's get you home," he said, slamming the car trunk. "I bet you're dying for a nap and a shower."
---
Nok's apartment was everything you would dream of from the upper east side. Everything looked like a cliche of a wealthy person's home, from the abstract, paint-splash modern art pieces hanging on the walls, to the sweeping views of Central Park down below. I walked over to the window and pressed my face onto the cold glass, admiring the view below. What seemed like a thousand twinkling lights danced as cars and people alike went about their night time business.
Nok wheeled my bag in behind him and shut the door, ignoring my open mouthed awe of the view of New York down below. "It's already two AM so I imagine you'll just wanna shower and go to bed." He remarked, placing his keys on a large, ornate bronze key with hooks. "Your room's down the hall, third door on the left. Just shout if you need anything."
I thanked him and he winked. "We're going to have so much fun together!"
I wheeled my bag down the corridor and entered my room. It was just like the rest of the house, modern, stylish and just a little bit too clean. I placed my bag in the center of the dark, mahogany polished floors and began to unpack my neatly folded clothes onto the crisp, white linen sheets of my four-poster bed.
I wandered over to the closet and began filing away some of my belongings. Inside, there was already a crisply ironed uniform. I took it out and examined it. You could tell it was a private school uniform, the logo practically screamed 'rob me, I'm filthy rich!'
In fine gold stitching the name 'Trinity Academy' glowed like a beacon of wealth on the pitch black fabric. I hastily placed it back on its hanger and shoved the rest of my belongings in there for good measure.
I laid back on my bed and stared out the window, admiring the twinkling lights again. This must have been the view my dad grew up with. Or rather, the one he occasionally saw from time to time if he had a cleaning night-shift in a particularly tall building that day. From what Mom had told me of his past, I doubt he lived in a penthouse like Nok's.
I was only two when he passed away. I never got to ask him all the questions I desperately wanted the answers to now. There's nothing I could wish for more than to sit him down and just talk for hours on end.I'd ask him how he'd met my Mom and how they fell in love. Ask him what it was like having to fight tooth and nail to be with her despite her family's disapproval.
I've heard my Mom's version of events approximately two thousand and thirty seven times, but I never got to see it through his eyes.
I caught my faint reflection staring back at me from the spotless glass. I looked like him, apparently. I've seen photos and I can see the resemblance, in a way, but it's vague. I certainly look more like him than I do my Mom. Her sharp features were sculpted perfectly and symmetrically from marble, whilst I inherited more of my father's slightly asymmetric charm. A face that was sculpted with clay by an artist who was a little too happy behind the pottery wheel.
I turned to face the white ceiling above me, closed my eyes and felt my eyelids grow heavy from the exhaustion of the journey. I know I should sleep, first day of school and all only a few hours away, but my heart wouldn't stop racing. It took eighteen long years to finally get here, and I want to soak in every second of it.
---
My alarm clock went off at exactly seven AM and I seriously contemplated throwing it onto the street below and watching it shatter into a hundred little pieces before sliding back under my warm sheets.
My entire body creaked as I hauled myself out of bed and into the shower. As I blindly made my way to my closet, I heard Nok call for me.
"Kopter? Come quick for breakfast, I have news from your mother!"
"That can't be good," I muttered to myself as I sleepily buttoned up my shirt and reached for my belt.
Nok was already sitting at the granite breakfast counter, bagel in hand. He noticed me standing groggily in the doorway and beckoned me over. "Your Mother's gotten you a job," he announced as he poured me a glass of orange juice.
"A job?" I half mumbled as I reached for the toast on the counter. Clearly Nok had given up on Thai breakfasts and given into the carb-heavy American dream.
"Mmmhmmm," he confirmed. "In one of our shops here. It's a cafe just round the corner from here, it's from the 'Koon Chai Cafe' branch. You'll work there after school."
I gave him a puzzled expression. "Your mother chose the name, not me." He replied.
"No, it's not that." I mumbled, lazily buttering my toast. "Why, in the name of all things holy, has she gotten me a job? It's not like we're strapped for cash."
Nok shrugged. "Apparently it's to keep you grounded and out of trouble,"
"What?!" I exclaimed. I immediately regretted raising my voice as I now felt the splitting headache that sleep-deprivation had gifted me. "I'm a straight A student who's never had a detention in his life," I continued, in a lower voice. "If she tries to make me any more grounded I might as well paint myself green and become 'one' with the grass."
Nok tried to look disapproving of my slander of his sister's idea, but he couldn't quite hide the smile forming at the corners of his mouth.
Keen to escape before getting caught in a reluctant twenty minute lecture on the importance of staying humble, I stuffed the last of my toast in my mouth, grabbed an apple and made my way to the front door.
---
I pulled my scarf tighter around my neck as a particularly chilling gust of wind bit at my exposed ankles and neck. New York's September was certainly nothing like Bangkok's September, no mosquito would be seen dead in this kind of weather.
It was only a fifteen minute walk to school, one of the many perks of staying with Nok instead of renting somewhere in the city.
The school gates of Trinity Academy were outrageously fancy. Every black iron bar was engraved with some meaningless latin to prove its prestige and the gate itself stood over ten meters tall. Students were already milling around the school, or getting out of their chauffeur driven Bentleys. Every single one of them screamed young money in a way I'd never seen before. I mean sure, the schools I attended back in Bangkok were pretty fancy too, but they were mainly international schools with a huge mix of people from all different backgrounds. This was different.
Channel, Dior, Louis Vuitton and Gucci covered every non uniformed inch of their bodies. Handbags, sunglasses and jewellery that would've cost the same amount as a term's tuition glinted in the autumn sun. These people were a different breed of wealth.
Somewhere in the distance a bell rang and students began filling the halls. I looked anxiously down at the crumpled up sheet I'd printed off the night before. 'Lafayette Reception Hall' was apparently where I needed to be, trust a school like this to choose historical names for their classrooms instead of the far too simplistic numerical or alphabetical systems most schools used.
Once I entered the cavernous entrance hall, it became apparent that walking wasn't going to cut it if I wanted to get there before graduation. I began to run and read the names of each room plaque as I sprinted past.
That might be why I didn't see him standing there.