Joyce, Part 1

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Joyce
by Asiansmoker

Author's note: Most of the events that occurred in this story are true, the 
names have been changed to protect the innocent and guilty.

Part 1

     My name is Michelle. I first met Joyce Chow at her home on the first day
we visited the Chow's. My husband and I are volunteer workers for an
organization that teaches ESL, or english as a second language. Mr. Chow was
our student. He and his daughter Joyce moved here from China six months ago.
Mr. Chow attends a city college and is in the physics program there. His
written english isn't bad, but his spoken english needs serious improvement.

    His lovely daughter Joyce attends David Brown elementary school, she's in
grade five. She's by far the tallest of her class, she's even taller than I
am, and I'm five foot three. She turned eleven during my story, but when I
first met her, she was still ten years old, but looks much older. We invited
them one time to our place for a pot luck, and everyone who met her there,
including me, says she looks fifteen or sixteen years old at least. She's
actually one of the most attractive girls I have ever met, and before your
mind goes into the gutter; no, I am not interested in women, only men,
specifically my husband. We are happily married. There; I said it. Now I can
continue on.

    I don't know what persuaded me to do what I did with Joyce, but...perhaps
I better explain the story from the very beginning.

    Our volunteer organization gave us the Chow's name and we contacted them
over the phone. Because my husband and I are both chinese speaking as well,
we were able to communicate over the phone with Mr. Chow in two different
languages (the other being english, but I assume you guessed that already.)

    We were invited to their place on a Wednesday evening, where we'd begin
our ESL studies with Mr. Chow. Early on, Joyce didn't seem too interested in
the study (She was in grade five, she spoke english quite well, but her
vocabulary was minimal. Since she spent five days a week in school, this
study wasn't helping her much), so my husband decided to teach english to Mr.
Chow alone, while I babysat Joyce. Joyce's mom was still in China, finishing
her studies over there. She expected to join her family here by the middle of
next year.

    Mr. Chow (Stanley) and my husband (Peter) went to their kitchen to do the
study, while Joyce and I sat in the living room. I noticed there was a
television there and a video cassette recorder, and saw some children's
video's in a bookshelf to the right of the television. I assumed Joyce wanted
to watch a video, but instead she went to the other end of the living room
and signed on to her computer, so I accompanied her there. The table where
the computer rested on was messy, CD rom's everywhere, newspapers (both in
english and chinese), file folders, and underneath one of the newspapers was
a pack of Benson & Hedges cigarettes and a lighter beside it.  I deduced that
her dad was a smoker, but a voice inside of me told me to pester Joyce about
it.

   "Not only are you tall, Joyce, but you are so mature too. Look!" I said
and pointed to the pack of Benson and Hedges  "I didn't know you smoked too!"
I said, not knowing why I said it. Joyce turned to me and laughed.

   "No! It's not me, miss Michelle. It's my deddy's." Joyce said. I love the
way she pronounced the word 'daddy'.

   "I didn't think it was yours, and please just call me Michelle. Does your
daddy smoke much?" I asked.

   "No...only little, sometimes." Joyce said and continued to login her
computer. We didn't discuss that pack of cigarettes for the rest of our time
there.

   It was decided between all of us that we'd meet to teach english twice a
week over the next six months, so we met the Chow's in their home every
Monday and Wednesday evening at seven o'clock. It's odd that for the next two
times we met, there was that same pack of cigarettes there, on the computer
table, but it was in a different place each of the times we went to their
place. I knew it was the same pack because the same phone number was written
on the pack. What I did notice, when no one was looking, was that there were
less and less cigarettes in that pack each day I looked inside. I gathered
her father smoked at most one or two cigarettes a day. I did not bring up
this issue with Joyce at all, but my mind came up with an evil plan. I don't
know why I did this, but on the sunday night prior to attending their home, I
bought a pack of the same brand of cigarettes and brought it with me to their
home.

    No! It wasn't for my sake, but for Joyce's. I wasn't planning to get her
to smoke. Actually I didn't know what I was going to do with the pack I
bought! Maybe I'd just leave it in my purse and dispose of it the next day.
I really didn't know! A part of me wanted to see if Joyce was curious to
smoke, and then decide for herself if she liked it. So the next day, Monday,
while we were at the Chow's home, I waited for Joyce to make a trip to the
washroom. When she did, I got the courage and put that pack of cigarettes at
the bottom of her school bag. I had also opened up the pack beforehand and
removed three cigarettes from it, so that's she'd think it was a open pack
from her father's that accidentally fell in. I was hoping she would take an
interest in smoking when she found the pack in her bag, or at least make her
laugh when she found it, thinking one of her father's packs fell in by
accident, but what happened next was something unexpected.

End of part 1

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