Re Jane

by Patricia Park

  “And now it’s yours. Your mother . . .” Emo was suddenly spirited away to somewhere else—a faraway look bloomed over her face.

  “Emo, what is it?”

  She shook her head and chuckled. “I’m just remembering a prank your mother pulled on the school bully.”

  My mother? Based on Emo’s stories, I thought Sang had been the prankster. But apparently a boy in Sang’s year—known as Dongho the Terrible—had terrorized every kid in the school. “Stealing their marbles, their pocket money, you name it,” Emo said. “He was jealous because your American Uncle always did better than him on exams. So one day Dongho lied and told the teacher your uncle had cheated. American Uncle was devastated. You know how much of a stickler your uncle is about that sort of thing.

  “That was the last straw. Your mother hatched a plan. She saved up all her pocket money for three months to buy a jar of honey. Do you know how expensive honey was back in those days? When I saw the jar sticking out of her backpack at school, she said, ‘Oh, that’s nothing for you to worry about, Younghee-ah.’

  “It was school assembly day. Right before Principal Suh was about to speak, we suddenly heard a huge squelchy sound, like a fart. Then another. It was coming from Dongho! He turned bright red. Principal Suh was furious. After that, Dongho the Terrible became Farty Dongho. No one could take him seriously, not even the teachers. And your uncle’s honor was restored.” Emo let out a peal of laughter. “I knew that Big Sister was the one who’d coated Dongho’s seat in that honey. If she took the credit for the prank, she would’ve been the most popular girl at school. Not even Big Brother Number Two knows about it! But that’s the kind of person Big Sister was. Quiet and polite, but ooh . . . if you messed with her or one of her friends . . .” Emo took my hand, squeezed it. “I see her in you, too.”

  Emo’s story was like a parting gift. I started blinking, rapidly. “Emo, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.”

  “Laugh and cry!” She placed a gentle finger on my mother’s photo. “Each time I stare at her picture, thoughts of the past come rushing back to me. I can’t stop them. I think that’s why I had to put it away, out of sight. If I stare at it too much, I’m afraid I’ll just . . .”

  She swallowed, quieting whatever swell of tears threatened to rise up. I swallowed, too. We were both determined not to cry. We stood together like that, each of us fighting back the sobs that threatened to surge. She and I were so alike. The waves passed; calm was restored.

  Then Emo wrapped a fierce, fleshy arm around my shoulders. With her other hand, she held her phone out at arm’s length, aiming its lens at us. “Say ‘watermelon’!” she commanded. Soobak! We opened our mouths wide. Emo snapped a photo of the two of us: she lifting herself on her tippy-toes, me crouching down. Each of us going a little out of our way to meet the other in the middle.

  I touched down in New York at the very same hour of the very same day as my departure from Korea. It was, as Eunice might have said, very Narnian. It was, as Beth might have said, like “time regained.”

  PART III

  Queens

  Homeward bound

  I wish I was.

  —Simon & Garfunkel, “Homeward Bound” (music and lyrics by Paul Simon)

  Chapter 23

  Time Regained

  Jane. Jane! JANE!”

  The cry cut through the general din of JFK—of rumbling suitcases and passengers rushing into the arms of loved ones and security-checkpoint bleeps.

  Rushing toward me, wearing his standard work clothes—wrinkleproof cotton-poly blend shirt, breast pocket crammed, I knew, with its usual worn-out Bic pens and receipt slips used for scrap paper—was a familiar face, a face I had not seen in more than a year.

  My uncle, Sang. Not Ed Farley.

  I struggled to mask my disappointment. Not because I wasn’t grateful. Only because I’d spent the entire flight picturing Ed instead.

  There was no rational reason for me to have expected Ed to come. And yet, with his last cry of an e-mail, I was buoyed with the hope that, just maybe, he’d be waiting for me on the other side of the gate.

  Nor had I expected my uncle to come. He knew that the engagement had been called off—thankfully, Emo had been the one to break the news. He also knew I had a place to stay lined up in the city; Eunice had a friend from MIT who rented out a second bedroom like an ad hoc B&B. “Uncle! How did you know I was—” I corrected myself. “What an inconvenience for you come getting me here.”

  He harrumphed. “Your Korean getting better. At least you not waste time over there.” It took me a moment to realize we were each speaking in our weaker language. It took another moment to realize that my uncle had just offered a rare compliment. “Aunt making maeuntang,” he continued. It was a spicy fish stew, one of Hannah’s specialties. “You come home dinner first.”

  In the crowds I caught a glimpse of a blond head—Ed?

  “What you looking for?” Sang barked.

  I’d been mistaken; it wasn’t him. “Nothing,” I said, my tongue settling into English. No one.

  My uncle gave me a stern look. “Why you bring so much suitcase? Hurry-hurry.” Much of what I’d brought back home were the things Sang had sent me in the mail. Taking the luggage from me, he turned on his heel and strode off toward the exit.

  I took a last glance through the crowds—still no Ed—before hurry-hurrying after my uncle.

  * * *

  We pulled up to 718 Gates Street. It’s funny how you think you’ve known a place your whole life but when you return after an absence, you move tentatively through a now-unfamiliar space. The air, redolent of toasted barley and drying slivers of ginger and warm blankets. The utter quiet, interspersed with the occasional putt-putts and groans of the buses floating down Northern Boulevard. The stickiness of the linoleum tiles under the soles of your feet. This house had once felt so cramped, so tap-tap-hae. And now it did and did not feel like home.

  I stood in the doorway of the kitchen, where Hannah and Mary bustled about. “Where’s your nunchi?” I heard Hannah say sharply. But she was addressing Mary and not me. When she looked at me, she said, “You came.” But her words did not sound unkind. “Now go tell your uncle and George that dinner’s ready.”

  We took our seats around the card table. The water glass felt thick and tall in my hand. The glasses at Emo’s had always been thin and squat. I sat back in my chair—its metal legs scratching against the linoleum—and listened to the waves of conversation that flowed across the table. My ears kept anticipating the back-and-forths of Emo and Big Uncle’s speech. Emo, with her girlish, joking tone, and mostly “Seoul standard” cadence, a good counterpoint to Big Uncle’s forceful words and unwavering Busan accent. But I was now realizing how differently Sang and Hannah spoke—their Korean tainted by decades of “overseas” life. Their cadences rose and fell in the same rhythms as American New York English, their language a pastiche of all of their adopted homes.

  Even our conversational fodder that night felt different from those earlier dinners. It had always seemed as if the picking and prodding was directed at me. But tonight Hannah was scolding George, who was already on his second bowl of rice, to slow down for goodness’ sake. When Mary snickered, Hannah immediately snapped that she was hardly one to talk—Mary just swallowed without chewing. I noticed then that the air was no longer punctuated with Mary’s chyap-chyap-ing. I was filled with an inexplicable wistfulness. I had once been at the center of those conversations—conversations that at the time had felt like attacks. But sometimes you only see what you want to see.

  Then Sang turned to me. “So now you decide you not living there no more.”

  I readied myself for the ensuing barrage of criticism. Why you not follow through your engagement? Why you giving up so easy? How could I explain to him that Changhoon and I did not speak the same language after all? That Seoul, much as I’d wanted it to, had nev
er felt like home? I braced myself for a fight.

  Mary picked up where her father had left the conversation dangling. “So . . . I guess things didn’t work out with you and that FOB you were supposed to marry,” she said.

  “They’re not FOBs if they’re still in Korea,” I said. “We’re the FOBs.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  I could feel Hannah’s eyes reading my face. I tensed up anew. But she said, “You know what everyone says about gyopos like you? They’re too sunjinhae for their own good when they show up in Korea. You know that word, Jane-ah? It means being naïve, like an innocent babo. Those Koreans from Korea”—she shook her head—“we’re a completely different breed from them.”

  I had fully expected my aunt to rail at me for my irresponsibility. But she hadn’t. Hannah had had the nunchi to spare my feelings.

  * * *

  After the meal the phone rang. My heart jumped—Ed Farley. I just knew. Mary rushed to answer it. She handed the receiver to me. “It’s for you.”

  I took the receiver from her, bracing myself for the boom of Ed’s voice. Would he sound the same as he had the first time, when I’d answered his Village Voice ad—a little clipped, a little gravelly? Or would the soft, gentle tones he came to use with me over time wind their way back to me like a familiar refrain?

  “Way to pull a runaway bride, Jane Re.”

  “Nina?”

  I immediately cringed. Whatever disappointment I’d felt by finding it was not Ed was replaced by embarrassment, thinking about that e-mail I’d sent her from Seoul. In which I’d rambled unabashedly about everything: Changhoon. Ed. With that letter I had ignored everything they’d taught us in Career Services: Never leave a paper trail. But at the time it had felt liberating, like a delicious release. Now I just felt like a babo.

  “Your e-mail was very . . . dramatic,” Nina went on. “I swear there’s, like, a movie or something about your life.” She let out a laugh, a booming laugh. But it wasn’t one of judgment; it was a good-natured one.

  I couldn’t stop myself from laughing, too. “There totally is.”

  “Before we call it water under the bridge, I just want to say . . .” She paused, started again. “Look, I’m sorry, too. I shouldn’t have backed you into a corner like that, when I was there. I just couldn’t stand to see you keep it all bottled up. It felt so . . .”

  Tap-tap-hae. I mentally filled in the word for her.

  “Anyway, if I knew, I wouldn’t have acted like such an asshole.”

  “I acted like an asshole, too.”

  Nina and I quickly resumed our natural rapport. The familiarity of our bond came rushing back to me, just like the smells and sounds of 718 Gates Street wove their way into my consciousness. She told me about her job as a real-estate broker, handling mostly rentals on the Upper East Side. I told her about my upcoming second interview at a real-estate developer’s office, to which she said, “Look at that. We’re both kinda in the same industry.” She asked whether I was disappointed not to be working on Wall Street, as I’d once planned.

  “Maybe two years ago I would’ve been,” I said. “But sometimes plans change.”

  “Yeah, I guess there’s no guarantee you would’ve gotten one of those finance jobs anyway,” she said. “The economy’s total crap. It wasn’t anything like when we started college. You kind of feel lucky to have a job at all.”

  Just before we were about to hang up, Nina said, “So . . . what are you going to do about Ed Farley?”

  The swell of disappointment returned. “Hunt him down. Profess my undying love. Face rejection, maybe.”

  “Well, according to the Peterses, they definitely got divorced,” Nina said. “If you say you’re still in love with him, you better get cracking.”

  * * *

  It was quite late, after the dishes, the fruit, the yujacha tea. When my uncle suggested I just stay home instead of venturing into the city to Eunice’s friend’s place, I secretly felt relieved. Back in our old bedroom, I asked Mary if I could borrow her laptop. I didn’t want to check my e-mail on the family computer in the living room, in case anyone peered over my shoulder. “Fine,” she said, handing it to me. Sitting up in my old twin-size bed, my back against the wall, I flipped open the computer. But when I logged into my e-mail, there was no word from Ed.

  I returned the laptop to Mary and got ready for bed. I lay there under the covers, until the sounds of traffic from Northern died away, Mary’s snores tapered off, the floorboards beneath the linoleum tiles settled down, and finally I was lulled to sleep.

  Chapter 24

  A Reunion

  Nina was not the only one with whom I made, or attempted to make, peace. I worked up the courage to call the Mazer-Farleys—now, I supposed, just the Mazers. Beth answered the phone.

  “Hi, Beth. It’s Jane Re.”

  “Hello, Jane.” I could hear the shift in her voice, from friendly to guarded.

  “. . .” That was as far as I had rehearsed. I knew that this wasn’t some situation you could right by sending over a box of fruit. And yet some small part of me had hoped that Beth’s old self would take over the conversation, flooding it with her usual ebullience. Of course it didn’t.

  “How is your . . . work?” I asked.

  “It’s fine.” Beth’s response was clipped.

  “I feel like I have a lot of explaining to do.” The words came out in flustered heaps, like the books and papers piled up every which way in Beth’s office. “I don’t know if you got my— I’m sorry for sending such an overwhelming e-mail. But I’d love to take you out for coff—I mean, tea. Could we talk things over? In person?”

  It felt so insincere to blurt out an “I’m sorry” over the phone.

  “There’s really nothing to talk about,” she said. I recognized her tone of voice—it was light, airy; the one she used when she was faking it. It was the same voice Emo would sometimes put on. “I do appreciate your message. Good-bye, Ja—”

  “Wait!” I cried. “Is . . . Devon there?”

  Instantly she took up her guarded tone of voice again. “Devon is not available to talk. Have a good day, Jane.” And with that, she hung up.

  As I stared at the phone, I saw how much I had relied on Beth’s friendliness as a given. Only in its absence did I realize I’d taken it for granted.

  * * *

  The next time I tried calling, I picked a time when I was sure Beth would be at school and not home. When Devon came on the line, she said, “Didn’t you get the message? From my mom? I’m not available to talk.”

  “Devon, I’m sorry—” I started, but the line was already dead.

  * * *

  Ed had been away at a conference. When he returned, he apologized for the delay in responding, and invited me over for dinner at his apartment in Rego Park. Because all our communication happened via e-mail, I could not pick up on either tone or intention. He made no reference to the message I’d sent in Korea. Was he open to reconciliation, or did he merely feel obligated to get together? For all I knew, he wanted to chew me out in the privacy of his own home. You think you can just come waltzing back into my life? After what you put me through?

  “Dinner at his place? You know what that means. Don’t forget to shave your legs,” Nina had said when I told her. And while I wasn’t a complete babo—yes, of course I had hoped the invitation meant Ed wanted to rekindle something—still, a lot could have changed in the course of a year and a season.

  It’s a little hard to dress for something when you don’t know whether or not it’s a date. I decided on jeans and a nice top instead of a skirt. I debated hair up or hair down, then decided on down. I did not wear makeup. Since my return home, I saved makeup for special occasions only, and most days I went out with a bare face. And I wanted Ed to remember me as I had been.

  * * *

  Ed lived in one of those large
, nondescript apartment complexes just off the hustle-bustle of Queens Boulevard. The reddish-brown brick exterior matched the reddish-brown of the thick paint on the walls of the sunken lobby. The elevator, inconvenienced, groaned on the way up to his floor. The bottle of wine in my hands was slick with nervous sweat.

  I pressed the black buzzer of his apartment door. My ears expected the honeyed electronic chimes of its Seoul counterparts; instead it let out an unwelcome err! The door swung open, and there was Ed.

  There was a slight blip between the picture of Ed Farley I had carried in my mind for more than a year and the Ed Farley before me now. Gone were the boyish flops of dark blond hair; now he wore his hair short, which made his whole head shine blonder. His broad shoulders, his lean muscles were the same, but instead of his usual plain white T-shirt he was wearing a button-down. His once-baggy light-rinse jeans were fitted and dark-rinse, a style favored by all the twenty-something guys on the subways. I traced the once-familiar contours of his face—high cheekbones, strong jaw. When my eyes met his, I realized that Ed had also been taking me in, figuring out what had changed, and what had not. I don’t think I imagined the cloud lifting from his eyes as they turned a brilliant blue.

  We stood like that in the doorway—for seconds, for minutes, I couldn’t say for sure. Finally I held out the bottle of wine. “I brought . . . this.”

  Those were my first words to Ed after more than a year’s absence? Nina would tell me I had no game.

  “You shouldn’t have.” Ed took the bottle from me, his fingertips gently brushing mine. His same soft touch.

  I was overcome with a familiar sensation, as Ed led me in and I followed him down a dark, narrow hallway. It opened to a square living room with carpeted floors. The walls were plain and white and bare, whereas the walls in Brooklyn had been covered in artwork and pictures. None of Ed’s handmade furniture had made it to his new home—the living room had a black leather couch and a glass coffee table, opposite a large flat-screen television. (The Mazer-Farley home had an old model relegated to the laundry room.) I don’t know what I was expecting—but my heart sank a bit, noting how little resemblance Ed’s new home bore to the Thorn Street brownstone.