Excerpt of Thai Twist: A Cultural Romance by D.R. Ransdell

" Our driver lurched to avoid the tuk-tuk, sending me careening into my sister. The Thai golf cart scooted over, allowing our taxi to jet forward into the night.

“See?” I asked my sister as I removed my elbow from her ear. “This is a mistake. If we jump out now, we only have to walk a few miles to get back to Bangkok International.”

Rachel smiled without making eye contact. As we flew down the six-lane motorway, she orientated herself by watching road signs. “Gina, back home you complain that all the drivers are too slow.”

“In Tucson half the drivers are snow birds. They value life,” I said.

“Here the townspeople are Buddhist. They value life too.”

“Not the drivers.” I peered at the ID card taped to the glove compartment, but the name had so many syllables that I couldn’t read them as we bounced along.

I wiped sweat off the back of my neck. At ten at night, the air was so hot I could drink the humidity. I could hardly wait to feel the heat of the scorching day that was sure to follow.

“Stupid contest!” I continued. “I only entered because I was bored.”

Rachel braced herself against the front passenger seat in anticipation of the driver’s next abrupt lane change. “See how well it worked, Gina? You’re not bored now!”

No, I was too busy wondering if our speedmobile had any brakes.

I cursed myself for entering the contest in the first place. I’d won the Midwest Envy Contest by guessing January 13th as the night of Tucson’s final winter frost. I assumed the prize would be something useful such as an MP3 player, but foreign travel?

“You go Loyalty Hotel?” shouted the driver, taking his eyes completely off the road while he turned around to address us. His eyes were slightly cross-eyed.

“Royalty,” Rachel shouted back.

“As what I say, Loyalty!” He gripped the wheel with both hands as he slid through a yellow light.

“Did you hear that?” Rachel whispered. “He can’t pronounce the R.”

“You likey capital city,” shouted the driver. “Thely thely nice.”

“You see?” Rachel continued sotto voce. “Vs are hard too. It’s so interesting linguistically.”

I did not want a language lesson. Thai was a nightmare, a tonal language with reverse word order, particles at the ends of words, and curly-cues instead of Latin script. Who needed that much trouble? Besides, nobody learned Thai for a three-week trip. Except for my sister.

Rachel leaned into the wind of the open window as a dog in the back of a pickup. “Remember Sammy’s aunt? Same thing. I bet Janjira can’t say an R for the life of her.”

Sammy was a ten-year-old of Thai origin who lived down the street. I’d stopped babysitting for him when I started college, but he still took violin lessons from Rachel. When his mother heard we were going to Thailand, the woman was more excited than I was. The week before our flight, Mrs. Tamarin had invited Rachel and me to dinner. We’d nearly gotten through the chicken curry when the old auntie entered the dining area dressed in a white nightgown with blue roses. So far she’d spent the evening in her bedroom watching TV. We were so surprised to see her heading slowly and deliberately to the table that we quit talking and stared.

The woman stopped before me and clasped my hand around a small velvet pouch. “Go Thailand,” she said. “Take lothel!”

“Wow!” Rachel said, dropping one of her chopsticks. With a ping it bounced off the table and onto the floor.

“I don’t believe it,” said Mrs. Tamarin.

“Gina, you’re magic,” said her husband.

“Auntie really likes you!” cried Sammy.

I was astonished myself. “I’m not sure I understand,” I told the others.

“Go Thailand! Take lothel!” the woman repeated. Then she calmly left the rom.

Sammy rushed over and stood behind my shoulder. “Let’s see what it is!” Carefully I opened the strings of the velvet bag. Inside was a two-inch stone elephant that was dark purple with black specks.

“What am I supposed to do with this?” I asked the Tamarins.

“I’ll go ask Auntie!” Sammy cried.

Minutes later he bounded back into the room and shoved a photo in my hand. A handsome young man grinned from underneath a wide hat.

“There’s definitely a family resemblance,” Mr. Tamarin said. “He could be a brother.”

“Lothel, brother,” Rachel said. “Of course. Did she ever talk about siblings?”

“No,” said Mrs. Tamarin, “but Janjira never had much contact with Thailand after she left.”

I took the photo and turned it over. On the back were some squiggles of Thai script, graceful swirls that meant nothing to me.

“His name is Khun Somchai,” Sammy said. “He’s an engineer. He makes bridges.”

Sammy patted Rachel’s arm. “You’ll find him, won’t you?”

Rachel tried to hide her surprise at the request. “We’ll try, but it might be difficult.”

“So is the violin, but you always tell me to keep practicing.”

“Do I?” Rachel grinned. “But Thailand is a big place. Where should we look?”

Sammy pointed to the last set of squiggles. “Krum Krep.”

“Krum Krep,” Rachel repeated. “If we have a chance to go there, we’ll look for him.”

After Sammy was sent to bed, the rest of us discussed travel destinations. When Rachel and I stood to leave, my sister started to hand the photo back to Mrs. Tamarin, but I snatched it up.

“Let’s hang onto the picture. If we happen to go to whatever town that is, we can keep our eyes open.”

Rachel and the Tamarins stared at me.

I pointed to the elephant. “If Janjira hasn’t spoken for so long, the statue must mean something special to her.”

“I’m afraid you’d be looking for a monk in a Buddhist temple!” joked Mr. Tamarin.

“I know it sounds crazy,” I said. “But I’ve got to tell Sammy that we tried.”