The Last Story of Mina Lee

by Nancy Jooyoun Kim

  “Is the owner here tonight?” Margot asked the same waitress from last week.

  “Mr. Park? No, not today.” Her face was unpowdered and pink around the cheeks and nose from the heat of the food. In her opaque black tights and sensible ballet shoes, she strode toward the kitchen in the back.

  So many customers. All look almost same, the restaurant owner had said about her mother. He had grinned with those Paul-Bunyan-statue teeth, cold and clinical.

  The myulchi bokkeum, chewy and sticky stir-fried anchovies—tiny eyes, gills broken, bodies twisted in death throes that had disgusted her growing up—were now satisfyingly briny and sweet in Margot’s mouth. It was like a bite of the sea but candied, pure luxury.

  Miguel sampled the myulchi bokkeum himself. One of the tiny fish slipped out of his chopsticks’ grip onto the table.

  “How was work?” Margot asked.

  He picked up the fallen myulchi with his fingers, placing it in his mouth. “Oh, it was fine. Met everyone on my team.” He sipped from his glass of water. “Nothing much to do today. Got my laptop, all my supplies and everything. So many pens.” He opened his eyes wide. “I’ve never seen so many different types of pens. Rollerball. Gel. Classic ballpoint...”

  “A little different from working at a nonprofit?”

  The waitress delivered two earthenware pots of soondubu jjigae that boiled and bubbled at their table.

  “Excuse me,” Margot said.

  “Yes?” The waitress lowered her head.

  “Do you...happen to know how I can get in touch with Mrs. Baek? She used to work here—until earlier this year.”

  The waitress paused, inhaling deeply. She glanced around the restaurant.

  “I tried going to her store at the swap meet today,” Margot said. “It was completely gone. She—”

  “No, I don’t have any information,” the waitress interrupted with a tight-lipped smile. “I’m sorry.” She turned away with her tray in hand.

  Margot resisted the urge to call after her. Maybe she should try asking one of the other waitresses? Biting back her frustration, she turned to the food. Through steam from red pepper, onions, and fish broth, they cracked an egg on top of their jjigaes. Margot picked at more banchan—seasoned spinach and soybean sprouts—waiting for the soup to settle down.

  How this jjigae must’ve provided the perfect comfort on a cold Korean night. She had never been to Korea herself, never had enough money to travel on her own, but through the vigor and brashness of this comfort food, she could imagine the brutality of a winter, or even a history and culture itself, that needed this kind of balm. She needed this right now.

  Where was Mrs. Baek? Margot could go to church again this Sunday, but could she wait almost a week until then? And what if Mrs. Baek wasn’t there either? Then what? Shimmering like a school of the tiniest fish, she was slipping through the net.

  “Have you decided what to do about Calabasas or Mrs. Kim?”

  She sighed. “I feel like I’ve hit a dead end with that. Unless I’m willing to just go to her and ask her outright about her husband, there’s nothing much I can gain, especially now that Mrs. Baek is gone.” She dipped her spoon into the soup, mixing the ingredients—the clams, mussels, and shrimp, zucchini and onion.

  Margot felt a light tap on her shoulder and turned to see the waitress, who leaned forward and asked, “Could I talk to you? Outside?” Bowing her head slightly, she gestured toward the door. Margot followed her out.

  The fog of their breath rose from their faces as if smoking cigarettes together on break. The waitress hugged the empty tray like a shield, pressing the round surface to her chest. Margot jammed her hands into her pockets. Lint rolled at her fingers.

  “You’re looking for Mrs. Baek?”

  “Yes.” Margot’s chest again was a dark mortar, the pestle grinding.

  “Everything okay?” Mascara clumped the waitress’s lashes into sharp ends. Cigarette butts littered the somber parking lot, which glittered with specks of broken glass.

  “No.” Margot shook her head. “My mom—she’s dead.”

  “What?”

  “My mother is dead. She died about two weeks ago. And... I wanted to ask Mrs. Baek some questions about her. They were friends for a long time. She might be able to answer some questions about my mother.”

  The waitress touched Margot’s arm involuntarily as if both offering comfort and steadying herself.

  “I went to Mrs. Baek’s store today and she wasn’t there. She sold her store, I guess. She left. Do you have her number or address? Some way to contact her?”

  The waitress squeezed the tray to her chest again and shook her head. “I don’t know if I can give that to you. I’m sorry.”

  “Why not?” Margot asked.

  “When she quit, she also... She told me to never tell anyone where she lives.”

  “Why? My mother was her friend for a really long time. I don’t think it’d be a problem if—”

  “Yes, but...” She slid the tiny cross around her necklace.

  “But what? It doesn’t make sense. I don’t have any problems with Mrs. Baek. I saw her yesterday even, at my mother’s church. We’re fine. I just need to ask her some questions.” Margot’s voice grew hoarse. On the verge of tears, she said, “She’s the only person I have left right now. I don’t have any family. No one else can help me.”

  The waitress closed her eyes and frowned.

  “I don’t have anybody to help me,” Margot said. “Please.”

  She opened her eyes and met Margot’s gaze. “Do you know why Mrs. Baek left?” The waitress pointed toward the ground, meaning the restaurant.

  “She said she couldn’t be on her feet all the time,” Margot said.

  “She quit when Mr. Park bought the restaurant.”

  “Wait, who’s Mr. Park?”

  “Mr. Park bought the restaurant to be closer to her,” the waitress explained.

  Mr. Park must be the owner Margot had spoken to the other night. His eyes lingering on Margot’s face too long.

  “I think maybe they had a few dates or something, but she was not interested in him. And he bought this restaurant to be closer to her, you see? He was already retired for a while.”

  “Oh, shit.” Margot covered her mouth.

  The waitress glanced at her watch. “I have to go.”

  “Wait.” Margot touched the waitress’s elbow. “So he’s been following her, or...stalking her?”

  She nodded. “She had to move, too. She told me not to tell anyone anything about where she lives now. When you came here last time, Mr. Park was here so I couldn’t say anything in front of him.”

  “Do you know where she lives? I promise that I won’t tell anyone. I would never tell Mr. Park or anyone else. I would never put her in danger like that.”

  “I—”

  “I really need her help.”

  “I will write it down for you before you leave, okay?” Her eyes were full of fear. “Don’t tell her I told you, okay, about Mr. Park? Don’t tell anyone, okay?” She squeezed Margot’s arm before she reentered the restaurant.

  Hard breaths billowed fog. Streetlights glowed off the glass of parked vehicles in the lot.

  Margot returned to the table to find Miguel slumped in his seat, texting someone on his phone. He had finished most of his jjigae.

  “Sorry about that,” she said, sliding herself onto the bench. “God.”

  “Something wrong?”

  Margot planted her forehead in her palm. “Mr. Park, the owner of this place?” she whispered. “He’s been stalking Mrs. Baek. That’s probably why she left the store. Maybe he found her there?”

  “Oh my God. Shit.”

  “I know, I know. I knew something was off about him.”

  “I hope she’s okay.”

  “Me, too.
The waitress is supposed to give me her address. She’s writing it down.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to her place—tonight.”

  “What if she’s already gone?”

  “I have to find out what she knows about Mr. Kim. She’s the only one who knows. I know it. I just know.”

  The waitress slipped a small folded piece of paper on the table in front of Margot.

  Her jjigae had gone lukewarm, but she didn’t care about eating anymore. She had to find Mrs. Baek before it was too late.

  Mina

  Fall 1987

  WITH THE SUN hanging low, a dusky and molten landscape of clouds striated and stretched thin, and the dark silhouettes of palm trees backlit, Mina and Mr. Kim, on their second date, drove west in his station wagon down Olympic Boulevard, one of the longest streets in the city. It was lined with stores, restaurants, and shopping plazas through Koreatown but rapidly dwindled down to a residential area with mostly single-family homes around its intersection with Crenshaw Boulevard.

  Staring out the window, Mina marveled at how much her life had changed in the past several months since moving to America, how large and strange the world now seemed in this foreign place of warm weather and cold surfaces—cars, speed, metal, and glass between people. She missed Korea and its quiet alleyways, snow melting into clear water, the mustard-colored leaves of gingko trees, undulating stone shingles on roofs, despite coups, military rule, wars, a border that was not a scar but an open wound.

  And how could she remove the memory of the physical beauty from the memory of her losses, the tremendousness of that pain? Absence was always present. Thunder, bombs dropping. Now she had only this dull ugliness, this dull drone—the charmless buildings, the boring roads, the battered buses, drooping palm trees gone brown—spectacularly lit.

  “Are you cold?” Mr. Kim adjusted the temperature with the dial.

  “A little. I’m okay.”

  “Let me know if you want me to turn the heat up some more.”

  “Okay.”

  “How was your day today?”

  Earlier, Mina had slipped into his car, afraid that someone might see her from the store. She had been at work all day, distracted, ringing up items twice or giving the incorrect change. She had been unable to sleep the night before.

  “It was fine,” she said. “Yours? I didn’t see you at all.”

  “I took the day off.” He cleared his throat. “I wasn’t feeling so well this morning.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, totally fine. Just some stomach problems I sometimes have.” He sighed. “Been really busy at the store.”

  “Yeah, seems that way.”

  “I guess, that’s a good thing. More customers, maybe more money.”

  “Or maybe just more work.”

  He laughed. “Yeah, pretty much. One of these days, I’m going to own my own place.”

  “What kind of place?”

  “Grocery store. I’m a grocery man.”

  She smiled. “You make it sound like that’s your destiny.”

  “Why not? I mean, what else? The only thing I like better than food is books. But what am I going to do, sell Bibles? What kind of books do people buy in Koreatown?”

  “There’s a bookstore near the market.”

  “Have you ever been in there?”

  “Sure.” She thought of the Spanish textbook she had bought a couple weeks ago.

  “It’s Bibles and English and Spanish books. And maybe some other stuff, but no one has time to read anymore. All we do is work... But everyone has to eat.”

  “I hope so,” she joked.

  “The grocery store is the future.”

  “The grocery store is now.” She cracked up, covering her mouth with her hand.

  “I’ve been saving, but probably in a few years I’ll start a store somewhere else, maybe in the Valley, so I’m not...”

  “Directly competing with the boss,” Mina finished.

  He grinned. “Exactly.”

  Driving down Olympic Boulevard toward a wide sky of hot bright streaks of citrus pink, he turned down a residential street with small but well-maintained homes and green lawns with rose bushes still in bloom, shapely ornamental shrubs, trees pruned into pleasing forms, arms stretched open. He appeared to be taking in the surroundings and admiring the houses until they hit Pico Boulevard, where they turned right to continue west, the farthest she had been from Koreatown since that day in July when she had landed at LAX.

  “So where are we going?” she asked.

  “The beach.”

  “The beach? What is there to do at night?”

  “Oh, restaurants, games, rides, all kinds of things. You haven’t been yet?”

  “Nope.”

  “How long have you been here again?” he asked.

  “Few months.”

  “Well, you don’t have a car. I’m only surprised you haven’t been with one of your friends.”

  She thought of Mrs. Shin, her kids, her business. “Everyone’s too busy.”

  “Do you like the beach?”

  “Yes.” She remembered sitting with her husband on the smooth hot sand at Naksan Beach, watching their daughter play in the waves, who seemed so tiny then in her shell pink swimsuit and floppy white hat. A much-needed weekend trip, a relief from the oppressive heat of the city. Mina loved the smell of the ocean. But she remembered also feeling guilty for wanting, for whatever reason, despite how much she loved them, to be alone. “I love the beach,” she said. “You?”

  “One of my favorite places.” He smiled. “Reminds me of my childhood.”

  After parking on the side of a palm tree–lined road, already lit by the hollow glow of streetlamps, she opened the heavy car door to the surprise of a teeth-chattering wind that whipped her hair everywhere. She wrapped her sweater around her body. Despite the cold, the sharp salt and seaweed in the air cleared her heart and her head. Here she could forget LA’s soot-colored sky like the aftermath of a constant fire, a perpetual burning. Here she might breathe again.

  “Do you want my jacket?” he asked, walking by her side.

  “No, that’s okay. I’ll get used to it.”

  “Are you sure?”

  She nodded. Approaching the water, she read a high arch over a wide driveway lit up with words she didn’t quite understand—Santa Monica, Yacht Harbor, Sport Fishing Boating, Cafés—a beacon in a darkening sky. She recognized fishing and boating and cafés, but what was yacht? Was it a name?

  “I thought we could just grab something on the pier,” he said. “Something easy. Hot dog? Hamburger?”

  “Sure.” Seagulls chirped overhead.

  “And then we could walk around, check out the Ferris wheel?”

  “Um, I’m scared of heights.” She smiled, embarrassed.

  “You are?”

  “Yeah. I don’t want to fall.”

  “You should try this, though. It’s going to be beautiful.”

  Down the walkway to the pier in a bustle of all ages and races, she thought about the first and last time she had been on a Ferris wheel when her daughter was four or five years old. Mina had closed her eyes the entire time. All she could imagine was them plummeting down from that wheel into the crowd below. The screams and the crash. She hated the creaking sounds that the seats made lurching in the wind. She swore to herself that she would never go up there again. She would stand back and watch on the ground where she belonged.

  “What do you feel like eating?” he asked.

  “Oh, anything.”

  “There’s a pretty good place right here, off to the side. It’s not fancy or anything, but they’ve got hamburgers and hot dogs.”

  She had tried American food a handful of times in Korea but never enjoyed the flavors—the
taste of dry beef, bread, and cheese, the odd mealy tomato, the flappy lettuce. But tonight, she felt a little adventurous, ready to plunge into something different—American food in where else? America. She had already enjoyed Mexican food from a taco truck parked a few blocks away from the market; she craved the bright salsas, the lime squeezed on meat, the soft, moist tortillas.

  “What do you think you’d like?” he asked as they stood before the menu board of a simple and low rectangular building, weather-beaten on the pier.

  “What do you recommend?”

  “Really anything. I think I’ll get a cheeseburger.”

  “I’ll have the same.”

  He stepped toward the counter while she stood there watching him—the flex of his arms as he reached to pull his wallet out of his back pocket, the way his thick black hair faded into his neck. The smooth lines of his back, his waist. When he turned around, she couldn’t help but smile, still looking at him.

  “Busy night,” she said. “So many people out.”

  “Yeah, people love this place.”

  “Do you come here a lot?”

  “I used to come here all the time, but now I come every now and then. Sometimes I just walk on the pier. I like to see the ocean. It always clears my head. We’ll have to come when it’s light out sometime—that’s nice, too, but different.”

  Behind the counter, a woman called their number. After thanking her, he picked up the tray with two cheeseburgers, a pile of fries, and two cans of Coke. From an empty table by the window, they could watch the water as the sun slipped below the horizon.

  “Sorry, I forgot to ask what you wanted to drink. I got you a Coke, but I could get you something else.”

  She popped the can open and sipped. “It’s good.”

  She wasn’t sure how to eat her cheeseburger, so she picked at it with her fingers, tearing off pieces to put in her mouth and enjoying the taste of the lettuce and tomato, the greasy meat and cheese between the bread. She watched him dip his head to the burger, ripping with his teeth and chewing. American food seemed so barbaric. Where were the chopsticks?