The Last Story of Mina Lee

by Nancy Jooyoun Kim

  She took a bite, mimicking Mr. Kim, and covered her mouth with her hand as she chewed the massive amount of food. She tried hard not to laugh at herself.

  “Are you okay?”

  She motioned with her finger that she needed a minute. After she had swallowed the food, she asked, “How do Americans eat like this?”

  “Is it good? Is everything okay?”

  “Yes, it’s all delicious, but...messy.” She grinned.

  “You’ll get used to it. I try not to eat it too much. Not the healthiest, but I do love french fries.” He grabbed a couple, gesturing for her to try.

  She dipped one in the tiny cup of ketchup and popped it in her mouth.

  “I can get used to this,” she said.

  “Ha, I know. I gotta be careful.” He patted his stomach.

  “You don’t have anything to worry about. You’re so thin.”

  He laughed. “You think so?”

  “Yes.”

  “Skinny?”

  “No, not skinny. Just right.” She blushed, looking down at her cheeseburger and taking another bite. Eager to change the subject, she asked, “So you went to the beach a lot growing up?”

  “Yes, I did. I grew up in the south, Busan.”

  “Oh, that’s supposed to be nice. Never been.”

  “It is. I think about it a lot.” His eyes locked into hers. She looked away, pretending not to notice. “I guess this isn’t a bad place to be, though.” He stared out the window, admiring the carnival lights.

  “No, it’s not.” She wanted to reassure him, to reassure them both.

  “Lots of work,” he said.

  “Yeah.” Her gaze rested on the salt and pepper shakers, the fries.

  “Are you not sure about being here, in America?” he asked.

  “I haven’t figured it out yet.”

  “Well, something I learned is you don’t have to know where you are going to, you know, enjoy yourself a little, have a good time.”

  Tears filled her eyes. She picked up one of the last fries and placed it in her mouth, chewing slowly.

  After finishing the food, Mr. Kim threw away their trash. A blast of mist and wind struck them as they ducked out of the café onto the worn boards of the pier. The rough surface pressed through the soles of her shoes to her feet, still throbbing after the day at work.

  “Here, take my jacket.” He took off his windbreaker.

  “No, that’s okay. You’ll catch a cold.”

  “Please take it.” He held it out to her, insisting. She reached for it, but instead he helped her put it on from behind. She slid her arms through the large jacket and zipped it around her body. The warmth engulfed her.

  He suppressed a smile. “You look funny in that,” he said.

  “Thanks.”

  “No, I mean, you look cute.”

  She couldn’t help but chuckle, wanting to hit him playfully on the arm. But she felt conscious of how close they stood together, how he could reach out his hand and grab hers as they walked past the carnival games, the wild pulsing lights, the stuffed neon animals. How his fingers would feel between hers.

  He stopped in front of a tent with basketball hoops. “Should we play a game?”

  “Oh, I’m no good.”

  “Here, let’s try this one. I’m Magic Johnson.” He pretended to dribble and mimed a sloppy jump shot.

  She laughed. “I’m terrible, it’ll just be a waste of money.”

  “Let’s try.” At a red-and-white-striped booth, he purchased a handful of tokens. After handing them to the vendor, they threw the ball wildly, missing each time. Mina screamed when she almost shot her ball into another person’s hoop. Finally after several rounds, both Mr. Kim and Mina scored, one after the other. They jumped up and down, high-fiving like children, victorious and giddy.

  They each won a small white teddy bear, holding a red heart between its paws.

  “I’ll give you mine, if you give me yours?” he asked.

  “Why should I? I like mine better.”

  “They’re the same.”

  “No, they’re not. Mine is more symmetrical.”

  “Okay, fine. Yours is more symmetrical.” He pouted playfully.

  “I’m just kidding. Give me yours.” She took his bear and placed hers in his hand. For a second, they held them together, admiring their silly faces—the bulbous snout and half-moon ears, the saccharine heart.

  “Thank you very much,” he said in English.

  “You’re welcome very much.” She couldn’t help but laugh.

  Through the maze of people, mostly younger than them, her self-consciousness twinged. She squeezed the bear in her hand. Was she cheating on her husband? In their fifteen-year marriage, there had been only a handful of times when she had come close to even thinking about another man. Nothing had actually happened. She had met an attractive new coworker, or she would pass someone on the street, and she would imagine what it would be like to be with that person—a dinner, an embrace, a kiss. It flashed in her mind like a projection on a movie screen. When she thought about these moments, she hated herself. But why should she? Hadn’t her husband ever thought about someone else—a pair of legs passing, a pretty smile? How was it possible, human, to not imagine the possibilities?

  She panted, breath quick and shallow, questions seated on her chest. Her mind, like a fine fishing net, strangled the details around her, the sounds: a shriek of laughter, children screaming, a man singing in a Spanish baritone, the thumping bass of a boom box.

  “What do you think?”

  Without her realizing it, they had reached the Ferris wheel line.

  “Wanna try?” He raised his dark brows. His eyes, however, appeared sympathetic, ready to be turned down.

  As she lifted her face toward the sky, the questions unseated themselves; her brain was less of a tangle. The wheel seemed gentle, a spider’s web made from steel and light. “Okay.”

  “Are you sure? You don’t have to if you don’t want to.” He smiled.

  “I think I’ll be all right.”

  As he walked toward the ticket booth, she waited, watching him, still holding the bear. Black beady eyes. Red heart. Thinking of her daughter’s stuffed animals, she hugged the bear to her chest. She could almost cry. She didn’t want to think about her anymore. But if she stopped thinking about her, would that be a betrayal? How could she manage to love and honor people without those feelings tearing her apart? How could she continue to hold on to them without it destroying every bit of her, shredding every possibility and hope she might dare to have?

  He returned with the tickets. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes. I’m fine.”

  They walked to wait at the end of the line. “Are you cold still?”

  “A little.”

  “I wish I had more layers to pull off,” he said.

  “Ha, that’s okay.”

  “Wait here. I’ll get us something to warm up.”

  The crowd, bodies like bees in a hive, swallowed him. A mass, strange faces and limbs.

  An explosion blasted inside her mind. Her knees almost buckled as she clung to that rope inside her brain. She had been holding her mother’s hand, and suddenly she was not. She was lost. Frightened, she had cried out at the people, rushing by her to get out. She had fallen to the ground, smoky and sulfurous, the earth’s shards stabbing her, had been almost trampled except that a man, a stranger, had helped her, had picked her up and placed her on top of his shoulders even though blood ran fresh from his scalp.

  Mr. Kim returned with two Styrofoam cups, startling her out of the memory. “Have you had hot chocolate?”

  “No, never,” she said, relieved he was back.

  “I think you’ll like it.”

  She blew on the drink before sipping. “Mmm, that’s good.” She wante
d to gulp it all down, but it was too hot.

  “I guess you have a sweet tooth.”

  “Didn’t realize it until now.” She’d always liked chocolate but had never had it melted into a drink before, a comfort. She leaned her head back, entranced by the Ferris wheel, the swaying cars, the lights dancing, winking at the world.

  “You’re going to be cold up there,” she said. “You don’t want your jacket back?”

  “I’ll be okay.”

  As they walked up the line, the attendant said, “You have to throw away those drinks.”

  She took a final sip before he placed their two cups in a trashcan nearby. “I was hoping we could hold on to those.”

  “Me, too.”

  As she climbed on, the entire car rocked as if they could flip over and she squealed sitting down.

  “Don’t worry,” he said, grabbing her hand gently. She squeezed his hand back as they rose higher and higher into the black sky. The crowd below them receded, shrank in size. Shivering, she sat the closest to him that she ever had, the side of her hip pressed against his.

  “I’m going to close my eyes,” she said.

  “Okay. Don’t worry.”

  While the wheel rotated, gliding up and over and down and under, she squeezed his hand harder, eyes closed. Her heart thumped against the wall of her chest. Teeth chattering, they huddled together closer. He reached his arm around her shoulders. The cars creaked gently around them.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Yes, just keeping my eyes closed.” She laughed. “I know it’s childish.”

  “Don’t worry. It’s a big step for you. Be happy that you made it this far.”

  “You mean...”

  “On the Ferris wheel. You didn’t have to get on, but you did.”

  His breath was close to her ear, her neck. She turned her head toward him, and he touched his lips against hers. She kissed him, tasting chocolate, the salt in the air around them. She became nothing but a body, far away and light, built for flying.

  And when he lifted his face from hers, she opened her eyes to the contrasts of the world below—bright and sparkling, deep and dark, everywhere, magnificently, breathtakingly around her.

  Margot

  Fall 2014

  LAMPLIGHTS GLOWED STEADY and unflinching while television screens flickered behind gauzy curtains, closed windows. A chorus of dogs behind fences and walls accompanied the howls of sirens. Sweet corn masa toasted on a griddle somewhere. Regardless of temperature or season, there was always something burning in Los Angeles—a bacon-wrapped hot dog, a roach of weed, short ribs sizzling, the rubber of tires in the heat, an entire neighborhood crackling with sparks in July, an entire forest on fire. You’d never forget the flames.

  Sitting in her car, parked beside a strip of dying lawn with succulents and cacti in battered ceramic pots, Margot gathered herself, breathing through her mouth. Twenty minutes earlier, the waitress at Hanok House had slipped her this address near MacArthur Park. It was still only Monday.

  Through the open courtyard, Margot ascended the first flight of stairs to Mrs. Baek’s apartment. Unit 211. Her knuckles rapped on the door. The pads of her fingers lingered on the smooth gray surface as if touching an animal.

  A shadow filled the muted light of the fisheye on the door.

  “Who is it?” Mrs. Baek asked, gruff and harsh.

  “It’s Mina’s daughter, Margot.”

  The door creaked open to reveal a brass chain bisecting Mrs. Baek’s face—pale and ghostly without makeup, hair wrapped in a salmon-colored towel. She squinted and asked, “What are you doing here?”

  “Could I talk to you?”

  “It’s late. How’d you get my address?”

  “I...googled you.”

  She sighed, unlatching the chain. “I was just about to put on a sheet mask.”

  The cramped living room smelled of a used bookstore—a dust-covered breakdown of paper and ink—and thick cucumber cold cream. Stacks of books and newspapers on the coffee table resembled a fragile skyline that could topple to the ground. A fire hazard.

  Margot sank into the velvet of an old hunter green couch—a vintage curbside piece that had been cleaned and now animated a space that resembled more of an office or a storage closet. On the flat-screen television between the living and dining areas, the Korean news had been muted.

  In a gray dove-colored robe over a pink sleeping gown, frayed hem kissing her bony knees, Mrs. Baek crossed her arms beneath her chest, remote control in hand. Without her armor of makeup—the red lipstick, the eyebrows penciled into the slivers of a moon—she resembled a tropical bird plucked of its feathers.

  “I wanted to ask you some questions,” Margot said.

  Mrs. Baek crossed her arms. “About?”

  The claustrophobia of the room closed in on Margot. What was she thinking coming here? But she thought of what she was searching for and steeled herself.

  “Mr. Kim and my mother,” Margot said.

  Mrs. Baek tightened the towel wrap on her head.

  “I went to the swap meet today,” Margot continued. “Your store was gone.”

  Mrs. Baek planted a dining chair in front of Margot and sat down. “I’m done.”

  “With work?”

  “For now.” She bit into a hangnail. “Did you see any customers there?”

  “No.”

  “I’ve been losing money for a while.”

  Business was slow again today. Even all the Korean businesses downtown are closing.

  The waitress expected Margot to refrain from mentioning Mr. Park, but she wanted to know if Mrs. Baek was safe. Even if her business had been doing poorly, it seemed odd that Mrs. Baek would close down her store right before the holidays—the most lucrative time of the year.

  “Any other reason why? Seems like you closed things down pretty quickly.”

  “I’ve been...planning this for a while.”

  “What will you do now?”

  “I’m not sure. I’ll survive. Don’t worry about me.”

  “Will you go back to Hanok House?” Margot asked, knowing the answer but hoping that she could provoke some response.

  “No, not there. Never again.” Mrs. Baek adjusted the knot on her robe’s belt.

  Margot examined a stack of books on the coffee table, novels that she had read in high school and college herself. Difficult books. Beautiful books. George Eliot. Edith Wharton. Pages on pages like teeth once white, now yellowed. How a book was kind of like a mouth. Did stories keep us alive or kill us with false expectations? It depended on who wrote them perhaps.

  “You read these?” Margot asked, noticing Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles, one of her favorites, in a pile. A pang of sorrow filled her as she thought of that story, and its end. “My mom never read.”

  “She hated reading.” Mrs. Baek leaned back in her chair. “Believe it or not, I majored in English. Like you.”

  Those words, like you, wrung something in Margot’s chest. How much had her mother talked about Margot? Had she been proud of her?

  Mrs. Baek planted her hands on her knees, ready to stand. “It’s getting late,” she said. “My sheet mask is calling.”

  “Could I ask you about Mr. Kim?”

  “I don’t know that much, to be honest.” Her voice trembled. “Like I said, she didn’t tell me about him until after he died.”

  “Was he my father?” Margot’s heart thumped inside of her chest.

  Mrs. Baek widened her eyes in shock.

  “I found his obituary at our apartment. There’s a picture of him. He looks like me.”

  Biting down on her lip, Mrs. Baek remained silent.

  “It doesn’t make sense that they would be together otherwise. I visited his house in Calabasas, you know? He had this beautiful house, a beau
tiful life. His wife is stunning. He was living in an entirely different world. How could they have met? What would they have in common except for the past?”

  Mrs. Baek inhaled deeply, staring down at her lap.

  Margot leaned back, hands on the velvet couch again. “He owned some supermarkets. I remember my mother said that my father worked at the same supermarket as her when she first came to America. Why else would he—what else would the connection be between them? Or maybe they were just friends from back then? But every time I look at his picture—” Her voice shook. “I swear—”

  “It’s him,” Mrs. Baek interrupted, brows furrowed. “You’re right. He was your father, Margot.”

  “Why didn’t anyone tell me?” Her heart broke. She needed air.

  Mrs. Baek shook her head in response.

  “Why didn’t anyone tell me?” Margot shouted—angry at her mother, Mrs. Baek, the world. Crying, she rose to her feet.

  “Because your mother thought there was no reason for you to know. He was dying. There was no reason to tell him about you as well. What would be the point?” Mrs. Baek tightened the towel around her head. “She made that decision.”

  “But it’s not fair. I would’ve rather known. I wouldn’t care that he was dying.”

  “Maybe she just didn’t want to tell him,” she responded fiercely. “It’s a tough thing to find out when you’re sick. He had cancer. She was trying to protect you both.” She burst into tears and sobbed. “She was trying to protect you. She was trying to protect everyone.” She wiped her nose on the sleeve of her gray robe.

  Margot plopped down again on the couch. Mrs. Baek stood and left the room, returning with a box of tissues that she handed to Margot.

  “I still don’t understand.” Margot blew her nose. “And now—what? What do I do with all this information? It’s useless to me now. They’re both dead.”

  Mrs. Baek sat next to Margot, held her hand. “The past is...” She winced, her eyes fixed on the carpet. “Sometimes, it’s better to forget. You have still so much ahead of you, okay? You have to... We have to move on, okay?”