by Frances Cha
The grandfather still comes around every few months, but I always make sure my roommate, Miho, isn’t at home when he does. All he asks is that I do a little show removing my clothes and then stay naked during our time together so that he can touch me and look at me. He doesn’t even want to have sex or a blow job. He’s too old to take that kind of excitement, he says, adding that he doesn’t want to die on top of me. I don’t know if that’s out of consideration for me, or to save face for his family. It’s nice to have him look at me so fondly and call me “art,” without me having to do anything.
He doesn’t know, though, that I’ve started racking up debts again because of my recent touch-up surgeries. They’re just small ones here and there but they add up. I’ve decided not to tell him. He thinks I am going to school to become a teacher. He is so proud of how he has changed my life, and often, his eyes water when he looks at me. He loves the story that he saved me.
* * *
—
WHEN NAMI FIRST came into that place I worked in Miari, I tried to tell her not to take money from the pimps. That money was never the casual gift they always made it seem. But she had already started and like the rest of us, she couldn’t stop.
She was just a kid, one of the youngest at that joint, and she looked even younger because of her dumpling cheeks and buck teeth. I think she was thirteen or fourteen when she first showed up. She wasn’t attractive at all back then, just a chubby kid with no breasts whatsoever. But men would choose her again and again because of her age, if nothing else.
I don’t know why I took a liking to her. I usually don’t like the girls I work with, but Nami was so homely and so young that it was hard not to feel for her. It bothered me, the fact that she sat with no smile on her face and she would just stare at us, the girls and the men. And I could tell that the men who chose her were the types who wanted to punish her for looking like that.
* * *
—
WE BOTH LOOK so different now, Nami and I. Sometimes she says she wishes she had a photo of us from those days. “Are you joking? Why would you want any evidence?” I say, appalled. I would kill someone and rot in jail before I’d let them see what I looked like pre-surgery.
Now that I’ve been working for a few years in Gangnam, where everything is so chic and subtle and the goal of every surgery is to look as natural as possible, I cringe to see some of her recent choices. Her breasts, for example, are cartoonish, jutting out like grapefruits on her otherwise boyish body. The entire effect makes people ogle openly or look away in embarrassment, especially when she has that hangdog expression on her face, her mouth slightly open as she stares at everyone around her.
“I want them to think I’m stupid,” she said to me once. “No expectations is nice. It gives you a lot of time to think.”
Well, you’ve certainly got everyone convinced, I wanted to tell her.
My roommate, Miho, joins us around 10 P.M. Our rooms were originally one bigger office-tel with one side the “office” and the other side the living quarters, connected with an adjoining door that was locked so that they could turn it into two small, separate apartments. Before Miho, a creepy thirty-something man used to live next door, and at night, I would hear his whimpers when he jerked off. I was relieved when he moved out and Miho moved in a few weeks later. I invited her over to drink a few times and she invited me over to see the paintings she was working on. I personally do not care for her style of art—the world is depressing enough already. There is no need to add more freakish misery. Meanwhile, Miho thinks all my regimens are a waste of time and money. But there was something to be said for staving off loneliness, and to have someone there to respond to. So after a few months of getting to know each other, we asked the building to unlock the connecting door between our apartments.
Nami is very intimidated by Miho, because Miho lived in America until recently and she has a real job at a university being an artist. Somehow, she gets paid to fuck around with paint and wood and clay all day. Most of the time, though, she seems to be just staring at the wall.
When Miho arrives, she sinks into a chair at our table with a big sigh and starts drumming her fingers on the table. They are truly disturbing—blisters all over with splotches of paint that has dried inside old cuts. And the state of her nails!—I don’t think she has ever had a gel manicure in her life. I shudder and Nami gapes at her.
“I’m so hungry,” says Miho. “Did you order any more food?” She twists her long ponytail around her wrist like a rope.
“When’s the last time you ate?” I ask. Miho will forget about food when she is working. I get jealous because it is so hard for me to diet but she doesn’t even spend a thought on her weight and remains impossibly slender.
“I think I ate this morning. And then I had, like, a pitcher of coffee every hour.”
I push some of the leftover fish cakes on my plate toward her and wave at the pocha owner, who comes rushing over from the counter.
“Hi, can we get an order of kimchijeon? And what else do you want?” I ask.
“Whatever you think is the best thing on the menu,” Miho tells the owner, who scratches his head. But she has already turned back to me and he hurries to the kitchen.
“Hanbin’s on his way too but it’s going to take at least an hour with the traffic. Don’t say anything about his mother, okay?” Miho’s tone prickles with warning. She is so sensitive when it comes to her boyfriend.
“Of course I won’t,” I say witheringly. “You think I’m crazy?”
“How have you been, Nami?” Miho turns to Nami and looks at her kindly. This is the third or fourth time they’ve met, and after every time, Miho tells me that Nami seems much too young to be having so much surgery. “Won’t she regret it later, when she’s older?”
For someone who grew up in an orphanage herself, Miho can be so naïve. As if there’s a chance Nami is thinking about the future! She hasn’t seen her parents since she ran away at twelve. She lives one night at a time. Anyone with half a day of real life experience would be able to see that in a heartbeat. But Miho also thinks working in a room salon is something I do because I want to make a lot of money. She could never imagine the type of place Nami and I started in. Even though Nami has also moved out of Miari and into a third-tier room salon, she will continue to work until either she kills herself or they throw her away like a used dishrag.
It still amazes me—the naïveté of the women of this country. Especially the wives. What, exactly, do they think their men do between the hours of 8 P.M. and midnight every weeknight? Who do they think keeps these tens of thousands of room salons flush with money? And even the ones that do know—they pretend to be blind to the fact that their husbands pick out a different girl to fuck every week. They pretend so deeply that they actually forget.
I glare at Miho, who is looking so concerned. She will definitely be one of those clueless bats when she gets married.
“Miho’s boyfriend is a real chaebol,” I say to Nami.
Her eyes widen a little in alarm, and then they lapse back into glaze. She doesn’t even ask which company his family owns.
“Why do you think he likes you?” I ask Miho. I am genuinely curious. Miho is pretty but not to the level of perfection you can achieve with surgery, and she has no family or money. But for some reason this boy from one of this country’s richest families is dating her. It’s a mystery.
“Why, what do you mean by that?” she says. But she smiles to let me know that she is not actually offended.
“I don’t know, sometimes I think I know men, and then I think I can’t understand them at all,” I say.
“Oh, by the way, I told him you are my friend from middle school and that you’re a flight attendant,” says Miho, looking apologetic. “Can you just say you don’t want to talk about work? I don’t want you to have to lie too much.”
“
Why a flight attendant? That’s very specific.” Although, of course, one couldn’t possibly introduce me as a room salon girl. Miho is the only person who knows, apart from the girls I work with and the men who pay for me.
“Well, you have these weird hours and you’re so pretty…” She trails off. “I couldn’t really think of anything else that entails that kind of thing. But now that I think about it, it’s kind of an elaborate lie.” Miho looks distressed. “I mean, what if he asks you about your flight routes and favorite countries?” she says, working herself up. “He’s so well-traveled.”
I shrug. “I’m okay with flight attendant,” I say. “I’ll just change the subject if I don’t know the answer to something he asks.” There was a time after I left Miari but before I joined Ajax that I briefly toyed with the idea of really becoming a flight attendant. I even enrolled in one of those flight attendant academies at Gangnam Station for two weeks, learning “how to bend the knees, not the hips” and all that crap. But then I found out how much their salaries are—even the ones who go to Middle Eastern airlines and make double the domestic salaries—and I quit immediately. Then I started working at Ajax because, well, that’s all I know how to do, really—gaze at men adoringly and drink their liquor.
“Why don’t you say that you quit and you’re now trying to become an actress?” Nami says and then shuts her mouth quickly, like she did something wrong.
Miho claps her hands. “That’s perfect! Why didn’t I think of that?” She beams and looks at Nami.
“How about you, Nami, what do you do again?” she asks.
“Oh, that’s what I’m trying to do,” Nami says and giggles, without missing a beat. “We’re both desperate actresses!” I look at her. It’s true, she’s quicker than she lets on.
“Whatever you want, Miho,” I say, rolling my eyes.
“Well, I don’t want you to be uncomfortable, you know? So yeah, that would be great—you’re trying to become an actress.”
“Okay,” I say. “I don’t care.”
* * *
—
WHEN HANBIN FINALLY ARRIVES, it’s almost midnight and every table is full. People are not drunk yet, but they are shouting at each other happily.
He’s good-looking all right, and much taller than I imagined, and built solidly, with a tan face and clean-cut hair. His clothes are expensive and stylish but not too stylish—a patterned blue Paul Smith shirt, dark jeans, and caramel-colored leather sneakers. I especially like the firm leanness of his body. Miho perks up immediately when she sees him, while Nami slumps even more over her shot glass. I keep my smile cool and distant.
“Hello,” I say.
“Hi,” he says. “You know, I’m very excited. It’s the first time I’m meeting Miho’s friends, even after all this time.” The owner brings a plastic stool and Hanbin gives it a small kick before sitting down on it. “This is some place,” he says, looking around. His energy and upbeat attitude seem incongruous with everyone else in this bar, who all look as if life has beaten them hard this week.
We make quick introductions—just names, nothing else, and he orders another round of soju.
“What did you work on today?” he asks Miho. He listens, engrossed, as she tells him about how she has spent all day painting glass.
I like how engaged he is in her story. I can’t remember the last time a man asked me about my day and then actually paid attention to the answer, forget finding it interesting. Nami is also watching the two of them out of the corner of her eye, and I can tell she is hanging on avidly—not to their words, but to how their bodies pivot toward each other as they talk.
“You know, my mom has a really good friend who is an artist and has a glassblowing studio in Paju,” he says to Miho. “I’ve been before—you would really love it. Why don’t we go next week and you can meet him and see his work? He’s so anxious to impress Mom, he’ll be happy to show you around,” he says.
“But what would your mother say?” she says, looking dismayed. “I wouldn’t want her to think I’m trying to take advantage of your family in any way.”
“It’s fine, I’ll just ask her assistant to arrange everything. It’ll be my thing. She knows I really liked it last time I was there.”
“Maybe,” says Miho in a worried voice. She yawns and the dark circles under her eyes turn darker as she rubs them.
“Look, you’re hungry,” says Hanbin. “You haven’t eaten anything, huh? I can tell.” He turns around and motions to the owner, who comes running over. “Hurry up on the food please,” he says loudly. The owner bows and runs back to the kitchen and returns shortly with the kimchijeon, which Hanbin cuts up for Miho with his chopsticks. Nami is rapt now, sucking on a dark red lollipop as she keeps staring.
“You don’t do things in moderation. You just shut down when you don’t eat like this. You can’t work if your body shuts down.” His voice is chiding and tender as he places more food on her plate. It’s clear that he likes taking this role with her.
He turns and says to me, “Don’t you think? She’s like that Snickers commercial.”
“I’m just jealous she can diet without even noticing she’s hungry,” I say flippantly, although I’m perfectly serious. He laughs and picks up his phone, texting for a minute.
“Sung and Woojin want to go to karaoke,” he says to Miho. “They’re near here so I’m telling them to meet us at Champion.”
Miho nods, still eating with dainty, ferocious bites.
“You guys are coming too, right?” Hanbin says to Nami and me, and we nod. This means free drinking. Little does he know what his bill will be, I think, but he’s the type to hand over his credit card without even looking. And Miho doesn’t even drink that much. What a waste.
* * *
—
AT KARAOKE, Hanbin’s friends join us and things get fun real fast. They are both yoohaksaeng—rich kids who studied in America for high school and college. I like yoohaksaeng because they tend to be more experimental with sexual positions because they’ve watched a lot of American porn. It is apparently very ridiculous and intense but often focuses on women’s pleasure, which is measured by how loud she moans.
Nami is acting silly—she’s taken off her sweater and her white short-sleeved blouse is showing the tops of her breasts, which bounce and squeeze together when she laughs. Of course, the boys like that a lot and they are deliberately choosing fast dance songs to try to get her to dance. They keep ordering more drinks.
Miho is already sleeping in the corner, cheeks rosy red from her two drinks. I think this is probably why Nami was able to loosen up. She grabs the karaoke mic and enters the hottest girl group song of the year—she’s of course memorized the whole routine and she breaks into the dance as she sings. It’s funny how her eyes are gleaming as she bounces up and down. She does not look like this when she’s singing this song at work, I’m sure.
Around 3 A.M., I want to go home and sleep. Hanbin is also sleeping on a chair, so I wave goodbye to Nami and the boys and drag Miho into a cab. I sleep until noon the next day and wake up with a headache.
* * *
—
THE WORKWEEK PASSES by in a haze. I don’t know why, but lately I keep getting crippling hangovers, which I never had a problem with before. And Bruce has not been by yet this week. Perhaps it is because of his upcoming engagement. Perhaps he is sick of me.
Don’t get me wrong. I have no delusions about Bruce particularly. I dated clients before who were richer or nicer than he is and I am not an idiot.
Yes, he has asked for me every time he’s been here. Sometimes, depending on his mood, he’ll give me considerable sums of money “to go buy something pretty.”
But he doesn’t give me money out of an especial fondness for me. He doesn’t smile at me over candlelight dinners or anything, and mostly we are too drunk by the time we reach a hotel room s
o we just watch TV in bed and fall asleep together. I think that’s what I like the most about him—that I feel comfortable enough to sleep with his arm draped over me.
* * *
—
I WAS HOPING for a few easy nights, but it’s my luck to get a string of insane drinkers this week—the type that keep making us girls drink too, instead of just getting shitfaced themselves and having us pour. It isn’t only me—some of the other girls are throwing up by 10 P.M. on one especially bad night. The customer who keeps making everyone drink isn’t even the one who is paying or getting taken out, which always pisses me off. If you’re not the one spending the money or being sucked up to, you need to shut up and be wallpaper. I almost say something cutting when this ugly, skinny guy who is obviously just a tagalong keeps trying to make me drink.
“Why waste the expensive stuff on me?” I say, trying to laugh. He ignores me and says, “Drink! Drink! Drink! Drink!” with feverish eyes.
I rearrange my mouth into a smile before taking the shot with a long sigh for his benefit.
* * *
—
WHEN NAMI TEXTS me about drinking the following Saturday, I reply that I don’t want to go out because of my headache, but she can come over if she wants.
“Is Miho unni there?” she texts.
“No.”
“Is she coming back anytime soon?”
“She left pretty late this morning, so probably not,” I write back, a little annoyed.