Ann didn’t know how to say waitress in Korean, so she mimed writing in an order pad.

“Oh, that’s good job.” Number 19’s voice sounded sad, as if she knew that her job-cleaning naked bodies in black underwear-was anything but good.

Ann attempted to correct the masseuse-she must have thought she was secretary or something-but Number 19 was already calling out into the open spa, “Nine-teen, nineteen.” Their session was officially over.

Ann returned to the locker room to retrieve her clothes. The dressing room had a couple of hair dryers but the vanity area was so crowded that Ann opted to just comb her wet hair and let it air dry.

When she went into the waiting room, the desk clerk and manager, a Korean woman with immaculate skin and oversized glasses, explained the spa’s tip policy. “Twenty dollars in envelope, and you put in here,” she said, pointing to a locked wooden box. “Make sure number is on the envelope.”

Ann did what she was told, but felt uneasy. Why had Number 19 hesitated before explaining when she had come to this country? Her arrival or stay may not have been through legal channels, Ann figured. And the silence in the massage room-it didn’t seem to exist to promote relaxation, but to snuff out secrets. Would Number 19 get her twenty dollars? Ann wondered. She walked out the doors toward a driving range where golfers were hitting balls into a large green net, two stories high. Ann had learned to play golf when she was a teenager from one of her mother’s boyfriends. “Never know when you’ll need to know the game,” he had told her. She watched the golfers for a few minutes, debating whether she should go back into the spa and make sure Number 19 received her tip. But she decided against it. Who was she, anyway? She was an outsider. She didn’t understand the spa’s ways.

That night Ann tossed and turned in her sleep. She had a nightmare and woke up gasping for air as if someone was trying to keep her from breathing.