She tapped her palm against the back of the chair opposite me; my sneakered feet were hooked on the bottom rung. “Could I . . . ?”
At first I thought she was inviting me to join her group for cake. I lowered my feet from the rungs of the chair—I even offered to walk it over to their table. Then I saw the expressions that flashed on the girls’ faces: the pinching of the eyebrows, the curling of the lips. It was almost too quick to catch.
I returned to my golf game.
When the girls weren’t looking, I continued to sneak glances their way. They set about opening the cake. It was a group effort: one freed it from its box, another pried off an envelope taped to the side and plucked out candles and a matchstick. Together they poked the candles into the cake and lit them. Then they sang “Happy Birthday,” but with Korean lyrics. When the candles were blown out, the girls did not cut the cake. Instead they each reached for a silver fork and speared it directly into their mouths.
“Delish!”
“Ya, it’s way too sweet. Didn’t we decide on cheesecake?”
“Ya, you know how far that cheesecake place is? Next time you go get it.”
“Ya, it’s not sweet, it’s stale. They totally sold me yesterday’s leftovers.”
Their chatter and chyap-chyaps filled the air. I envied their intimacy, their back-and-forth volley containing years’ worth of inside jokes. As I watched them eat, I wondered whether I would have been part of a group like this, had my grandfather not sent me away.
But I knew the answer to that. Hannah’s stories—the ones she’d let slip when she was angry with me for misbehaving—had made it clear to me. Had Re Myungsun not sent me away, I would have ended up in an orphanage. Then serving drinks at a bar, or clinging to the outer gates of the military base, calling out “Yoo-hoo!” in broken English to the passing soldiers.
Suddenly my cell phone rang; it was Emo. “Where are you?” she shouted into the phone. I told her. “Good! I’m on an errand nearby. I’ll come join you.” She clicked off before I could say good-bye.
When Emo breezed in, her sturdy heels clipping behind her, she frowned. She looked me up and down. “Why are you dressed like that?”
“Job meeting,” I explained.
“Why didn’t you tell me!” she cried. “I thought you were just hanging out at the PC bang all day.” Thankfully, the girls next to us were too busy eating cake to pay attention to Emo’s outburst. She studied me again. “How did it go?”
“Not so good. The lady not liking me,” I said, trying to mask my disappointment.
Emo pinched the fabric of my suit. “It’s worn,” she said. But it was good-quality wool and a designer name at that—I knew because only part of the label had been cut away when I’d bought it at Filene’s Basement. “And your face,” she went on. “It’s raw.”
“Raw?” I repeated. Maybe I had misinterpreted the word. I stared down at my half-empty water bottle.
“Why would they give a job to someone who looks like she just rolled out of bed?” It was a rhetorical question, so I didn’t answer it. “Gaja,” she said. Let’s go.
Emo pulled in to the parking lot of Sinnara Department Store. “You need new clothes,” she informed me. When we entered, my sneakers squeaked conspicuously on the marbled floors. Then the salespeople were immediately on top of us. They shouted and shrieked; they held up blouses and sweaters and skirts at us. It was a frenzy—and Emo just grabbed, grabbed, grabbed. She steered us to the cash wrap before I could even try anything on. Emo waved away first my protests, then my offers to pay. As she lay down her credit card, I was too afraid to look at the register total.
Next it was on to the makeup counter, Emo once again refusing to take no for an answer. The saleswoman yelped as she took in my features. “Her skin is so pale! I’m so jealous. She probably doesn’t need this, but . . .” She applied a cream to my face, and as she waited for my skin to absorb it, she turned again to Emo. “Client, this is the best whitening cream on the market. I can give you a sample if you’d like to try—”
“I already have it,” Emo snapped.
The woman mixed different pastes and creams and spread them across my face. She showered me with a continual stream of compliments—my eyes were so big that she was skipping the eyeliner. My lashes were so thick that I could do without the fake extensions. My face—she held up a fist—was this tiny! (I didn’t see how that one was a compliment.) There were huge gaps in my Korean; the language of praise was one of them. The words felt strange. They rang hollow in my ears.
The saleswoman applied the final stroke to my face. “Older Sister, you look so pretty!” She called me Older Sister even though she looked at least ten years older than me.
“Emo, what you think?”
She nodded with approval. “You did a not-bad job on my niece,” she told the woman.
“Oh, you’re her emo! I was wondering . . .” the woman said. “She must take more after her father’s side.”
Emo squared her shoulders as the woman’s eyes glided up and down her. What had struck me more than anything about Emo’s face was that it exuded warmth. Before that point I had no reason to evaluate her for her prettiness. But now I found myself seeing my aunt through this woman’s scrutinizing gaze.
Emo’s face was a wide, flat, square plane, like a griddle pan. Foundation coated her skin like pancake batter. Her eyebrows were tattooed in blue-black ink, forming a harsh arc above her crescent-moon eyes, with eyelids sewn into double creases. (It didn’t look natural—Emo must have had work done.) The effect was that Emo looked a little too alert, as if she were taking in everything around her a little too greedily. Her bob, curled into a tight middle-aged-lady perm, was tinted—no doubt at the behest of her hairdresser—with a reddish orange dye. She was short and compact—Eunice would have described Emo as “hobbitlike” (though Eunice Oh was built not unlike a Tolkien hobbit herself).
Then the mirror was turned to me. Impenetrable foundation caked my face. My lips were painted an unnatural shade of pink. I knew that Sang would not have approved. He hated when Mary or Hannah left the house wearing makeup. What’s wrong what God give you? he’d demand. You not suppose to cover up! Once he told Mary she looked like a bar hostess. And of course Beth hated makeup, too—she’d once likened it to modern-day bound feet. Emo nodded with approval. Then, to me, “You see! You didn’t make the most of your potential. If your Emo looked like you, I’d be married by now.”
I don’t know what I would have thought just one day ago if the same face were staring back at me. But I was so far from New York and everyone now. As I stared, familiarizing myself with this new face, I let the praise from Emo and the saleswoman wash over me.
* * *
When we returned home, Emo made me parade my new clothes. She clapped with glee as I modeled one outfit after the other—“You look just like Ahn Jaeni!” she said, referring to some celebrity—and I couldn’t help but think she derived a little vicarious pleasure at watching me fit into clothes she herself could not (dared not?) wear. She ordered me to wash off my face and reapply the makeup so I could practice over and over, just as Big Uncle had made me repeat peeling pears that morning. “I hope you were paying attention when the woman did your makeup,” she said. “From now on, you have to look your best each time you leave the house.” Not wanting to disappoint Emo, I did as she said.
The new routine was uncomfortable at first. I had to rise an hour earlier and fix my face at the vanity table with unwavering concentration. I had to fight the urge to yank my hair up into a ponytail, even when it would stick to the back of my neck. I had to soften my New Yorker gait, because I could not move freely in my new clothes—my skirts would ride up and my pantyhose would dribble down.
Walking all day in my new shoes was difficult. The hard patent leather was unforgiving; it cut into my Achilles tendon and squished my feet into a narrow toe box. The heels ma
de my arches ache. And there was no room in my purse to stash a change of shoes. After a few stops of standing on the crowded subway, the balls of my feet would begin to throb. My eyes continually scanned for an empty seat. But I could never seem to compete with the other young and middle-aged women who rushed for it when I found one.
Maybe I should just have given up the act.
But self-affirmation has an intoxicating quality. As the days passed, I could feel the world regarding me differently. Confidence radiates from within! Beth would tell Devon (and me) at the breakfast table. But for me it was the opposite post-makeover; the reactions of the people around me generated my inner confidence. I felt men’s eyes follow me as I walked down the street, and I saw women young and old frown at me with a hint of jealousy. I was getting high off the fumes of my newfound beauty. I began to understand how girls like Jessica Bae got “gassed in the head,” as we said back home.
But still the layer of foundation coating my face felt tap-tap-hae.
Each day I improved on my appearance, just as I worked on my Korean. Whenever my sentences threatened to revert back to their old syntax, I’d force my mind to reverse their order. I spoke all Korean, all the time. I learned that the Korean of Flushing was a holdover from the sixties and seventies; I had to replace each antiquated word or phrase in my existing vocabulary with its modern-day equivalent (outhouse restroom; apothecary pharmacy). Emo and Big Uncle were impressed with the rapid improvement to my language.
Sang had been right: Here was nothing like Flushing. How freeing it was! I did not have to go bow, bow, bow with each Korean face I passed. Here I was completely anonymous; no one knew my history.
In those early days, my thoughts involuntarily, invariably wandered back to Brooklyn. I’d do side-by-side comparisons between my old life there and my new one here. If I hadn’t done what I’d done with Ed, I’d still be walking Devon to school, sitting with Beth in her office, still laughing about her articles with Nina at Gino’s. But would I have spent my nights sitting across from Ed at the kitchen table?
No good had come of indulging my feelings for Ed.
But I’d come to Seoul to start anew. I was successfully doing as the Romans did, and for the first time since I’d arrived I felt I was falling into the rhythms of my new home. New York was becoming a distant memory. I nailed my next interview, for a job teaching adult conversational English. And it was there, at Zenith Academy, that I met Changhoon.
Chapter 16
Don’t Throw Me Away and Leave Me
Teaching can be a pretty thankless job. You never think to give credit to your teachers until you’ve had to stand in front of a classroom and do it yourself. On my first day, my legs shook, my fingers were unsteady as I wrote my name across the dry-erase board, and the simplest of facts slipped my mind under the spotlight of a dozen blinking sets of eyes. In those first few weeks I’d continually scan the room, afraid to land on any one pupil’s face. No matter how many hours you spend doing lesson planning, you can never predict on the spot what direction the class will take. My energy would be shot after only a two-hour class. I’d run downstairs to Rice Dynasty and order two rolls of kimbap, which I’d swallow without chewing, the disks of rice-stuffed seaweed bulging in my throat on their way down. Then it was back upstairs to do it all over again.
The experience gave me a newfound respect for Ed. (I was less impressed with Beth, because she only taught seminars of two to five students, which she often held in her office.)
Public speaking did not come naturally to me—it’s a skill that requires confidence and approachability. Ed possessed both, and I think this is where his Brooklyn accent worked in his favor. It lent him an air of authority, yet it also spoke of his humble roots (as opposed to the better-than-thou polished tones that Beth—and Sam Surati, for that matter—could not shake from her speech). I always imagined Ed as the kind of teacher whose good opinion you wanted to earn, with the implicit understanding that he was also someone you did not want to piss off.
Nina had it, too. She could command a room—or at least a tableful of her friends—and keep them engaged with what would otherwise have been a mundane anecdote. She was a natural saleswoman; she’d hit all her marks, had the crowd laughing along in all the right places.
There were always two friendly faces I searched for during each lesson. One belonged to Monica, another staff member at Zenith. She was taking my class at the behest of Principal Yoo, who told her she needed to work on her conversational English. Monica was a sweet, agreeable girl who sat ramrod straight at her desk—eyes alert, pink pencil scribbling furiously as I spoke. Her English was not strong, but she knew the most arcane rules of English grammar and had a memory that captured everything, like the strips of packing tape, weighed down by batteries, that dangled from the ceiling at the back of Food.
Unfortunately, Monica came as a pair with a haughty girl named Rachel. They were best friends from Ewha Womans University, where they’d both majored in business management. Rachel, who had the full checklist of prized beauty features, carried herself like she knew it; the sense of entitlement that came with that checklist made me ache with irritation. I could only imagine how it must have felt for Monica, who had to live in her shadow.
The second face smiling up at me each night belonged to a student who went by the English name Chandler. (He, along with the rest of my students, had named themselves after characters from the TV show Friends.) He had what was called “windblown hair”—a tousled, side-parted style favored by most of the young men I saw on the subway. Chandler came to class each evening in a slim-fitting black business suit and a crisp white dress shirt, carrying a patent-leather briefcase. He had the same lanky frame as the guys at church who played volleyball, but the tallest of them still capped out at five-ten. Chandler was easily six feet.
When Chandler first learned I was from New York, his whole face turned grave. “I feel so sympathy your whole country tragedy,” he said. After a sufficient moment of silence had passed, he added, “But also jealous! ‘Big pimpin’ up in NYC.’ I am Jay-Z big fan.” I recognized the line immediately—I’d once walked in on George rapping it to himself in front of the bathroom mirror.
Chandler possessed an impressive range of vocabulary. (He knew terms like “ROI,” “defibrillator,” and even “hotboxing.”) Unfortunately, this knowledge was coupled with no grasp of connotation. As a result, his diction was an awkward pastiche of the Wall Street Journal, Hot 97, and Clueless.
Monica spoke the same way. (Rachel not so much—she favored simple, unadorned prose and took few linguistic risks.) Monica asked endless questions about English grammar, seeking rules governing irregular forms. More often than not, I’d have to shrug and say, rather stupidly, “I don’t know why, it just is.” English is a punishing language for foreigners—it has been tainted by so many outside influences that the one constant is that every rule has an exception.
Each week the students submitted their vocabulary log notebooks, and the first time I flipped through Chandler’s, it felt eerily like stumbling around inside his mind. Each entry, in precise mechanical pencil print, had been cross-referenced three times: first giving its unwieldy English definition from the dictionary, then a slightly shorter translation into Korean, and finally its one-word Korean distillation. There was a column showing its phonetic pronunciation and another listing its part of speech, and the last contained three sample sentences using the English word or phrase. Take, for example, his entry for the slang word “whipped,” which I had taught them:
When wife whips at husband, we say she gives him hard time.
I am so low self-esteem because my girlfriend say I am hideous. I whipped.
Our army friend Yongsu, because he do whatever Mom say, we say he is whipped.
And so on.
Taped to the notebook’s back pages were cutouts of newspaper articles in Korean and English, annual GDP tables from the World
Bank, and a curiously named “Development of Myself Schedule”—a chart with a list of goals on one end and dates on the other. At the bottom of the chart were the culminating letters: CEO. I had a feeling that if Sang were peering down at these pages, he would have approved.
I had brought my grading home with me one night and was staring into Chandler’s notebook at the kitchen table when I felt Emo peering over me. “That student looks diligent,” she said. “Who is it?”
“A boy named Chandler,” I said.
“Let me see that.” She took the notebook from me. She was looking at the inside cover, where his business card was taped. “Kang, Changhoon. He’s a sales analyst for Sinnara Bank.” Emo pursed her lips. “How tall did you say he was?”
“Emo!”
“What? I’m just trying to look out for you. Maybe our pretty Jane will snag his attention.” Emo spoke with the gusto of the mothers from church scheming to marry off their sons and daughters. They’d run down the laundry list of desirable traits: academic pedigree, career pedigree, eugenics. In the end, though, it always came down to what families they were from.
“You don’t know him, even,” I pointed out to Emo.
Emo tapped her finger on Chandler’s business card. “It doesn’t hurt to keep your eye on him.”
* * *
Emo and I were now on different schedules, and we overlapped for only a sliver of the mornings. She worked a pretty standard eight to six at her late father’s office (from what I gathered, she was something of a glorified office manager), returning straight home to cook the evening meal for Big Uncle and herself. I taught in the afternoons and evenings, and when I came home at night, Emo was always waiting for me with a plate of food, eager for me to fill her in on all that had transpired during the course of my day.
And, as promised, Emo told me stories. There were stories of her childhood in Busan. Stories of her school days. And stories about my mother. At first I could hardly stop myself—my questions came pouring out in an endless stream. What did my mother look like? “She was beautiful!” So she had natural double-folded eyelids? “No . . . but she had the pretty kind that folded inward.” (But I had thought that having the double fold was what Koreans considered pretty.) Was she tall? “Yes, so tall! Well . . . maybe not as tall as you.” What was her favorite subject in school? “She was good at everything.” But did she like one more than the other? Emo frowned. “You know, I’m not so sure. . . .” The more I pressed on, the more she was at a loss for answers.
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