Re Jane

by Patricia Park

  Sang did not see me at first, but I saw him, lit by the dim glow of candlelight. He had set up a makeshift table at the front and was hunched over the change box. The cash register was sealed shut and abandoned. Beside him flashlights and batteries, candles and condoms were corralled in a basket on the checkout counter for easier access. He looked . . . serene. He doled out these supplies in small, gentle exchanges. Hannah stood at his side, handing each person a free pint of ice cream from a shopping cart. Hwan was nowhere in sight.

  Where was their panic? Where was my uncle’s metal bat? Sang was smiling. Hannah, too. My eyes darted to the refrigerated section, teeming with dairy items. My brain computed the tens of thousands of dollars of merchandise that would spoil overnight.

  I grabbed a shopping cart. I swept in milk, cheese, yogurt, eggs on top. Ran the cart to the back, to the walk-in box, where the insulation would keep the items refrigerated, even with the power shut off. I stood in front of the door. Muscle memory told me to grip the handle and yank it open with all my might—but that was the old door. Instead a gentle click popped it open, and I pushed the cart inside. Then I ran to the front of the store again.

  As I began filling up a second cart, Sang looked up and met my eyes. I expected his to cloud over in anger. But he looked at me, then gave a single nod. A nod of gratitude. I nodded back.

  When I was done with the dairy products, I moved on to the most perishable fruits. Gently I eased pints of strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries into the cart. I surveyed the other fruit, the most expensive: the Asian pears. They could weather this, so I let them be.

  After I finished packing the walk-in box to capacity, I returned to the front, where Sang was joined by Mr. Hwang of Daedong Fish Market and Mrs. Kim of Kumgang Mountain Dry Cleaning and Mr. Lee of Chosun Dynasty Auto Body, who had all come in to lend a hand. I bowed to them; when I looked up, their eyes were soft with smiles. “Lucky you, to have such a good niece,” they said to Sang.

  I was even more surprised to hear his response. “I know,” he said quietly.

  When the last customer left the store, my uncle took the contents of the change box and locked them in the safe in the basement, while Mr. Hwang and Mr. Lee stood watch by the front doors. When Sang returned, he pressed a box of fruit each on Mr. Hwang and Mrs. Kim and Mr. Lee. He ordered Hannah to walk Mrs. Kim home, but Mr. Hwang offered to drive everybody. We saw them off. Then it was just Sang and me.

  The silence between us was thick, the darkness palpable. Then, almost too softly for me to hear, Sang spoke. “I not know.”

  “About what?”

  He hesitated a beat. “About your mother.” Then he took up a broom and began making curt, efficient sweeps across the floor.

  Reader, I forgave him on the spot. And he forgave me. Maybe he couldn’t understand it, but he acknowledged how much that revelation about my parents had meant to me. And that was the last time we talked about my mother—or my father, for that matter.

  I reached for the mop and followed my uncle with broad, swirling strokes across the floor. I thought of the painstaking effort we’d taken in laying down each of those floor tiles. The hairline cracks were still there, visible even in the thin wisps of moonlight.

  Sang stopped sweeping. “This yours, if you want,” he said plainly. When I didn’t immediately answer, he said, “The store. Uncle thinking long time. We do this together.”

  A not-so-long time ago, I would have read the worst in my uncle’s offer. That’s so presumptuous of you. Stop forcing me to keep working here. But I didn’t see it that way anymore.

  “Thank you, Uncle. That’s so generous of you,” I said. “But I need to do my own thing.”

  The moonlight struck his cheekbones at the severest angle. I braced myself for Sang’s reaction. No doubt he would have felt put out—insulted, even. But it was too dark to make out the expression in his eyes.

  To my surprise he said, “Okay. You do own thing.”

  He swept and I polished the floors of the store. Our relationship would always be flawed, but it still worked, in its own jerry-rigged way. It was guided by a logic that was neither purely Korean nor purely American, perhaps a bastardized blend of both. But it was ours—it was New York. It took not a natural disaster but a Con Ed one to bring the two of us together.

  When we were done cleaning, he asked, “You gonna come home?”

  I nodded. “Yeah. My roommate’s gonna worry.”

  “Okay,” he said. “I give you ride your home.” He instructed me to pack some food to take to Nina. When I returned to the front of the store, he handed me a six-pack of beer.

  “Wow, thank you, Uncle.”

  “Don’t be selfish,” he ordered. “You suppose to share. Drink while still cold.”

  On the walk to the car, I did not mention my breakup with Ed. We did not talk about the weather, my work, or how I’d navigated my way from work to Food in the blackout—not even why I’d decided to return. My uncle and I communicated in the bare minimum of prose, our language reduced to the lowest common denominator.

  On the passenger seat, there was a receipt with something scribbled on the back: “Juan Kim (718) 555-9876.”

  “Who’s Juan Kim?” I asked my uncle.

  Sang’s tone grew instantly impatient. “How long you working Food you still not know Juan?”

  Oh. Hwan.

  “He Korean from Argentina,” my uncle explained. “Just like you Korean from America.”

  This explained why his Korean, though far better than mine, was always shrouded in hesitation. I wondered if it was also why he looked at me frankly, unwaveringly, when most Koreans didn’t make much eye contact.

  “All this week Juan not show up. Uncle calling, calling that number, nobody pick up. Today again he not show.” He tapped the side of his head. “Always Uncle think something not right with Juan. Maybe happen because of immigration. Lot of people, they get broken after. Never they be the same.”

  “When did Juan come to Ameri—” I started to ask when my uncle interrupted me.

  “You know that lady?”

  He pointed to a woman whose back was to us, shuffling along Northern Boulevard. One arm was up in the air, trying to flag down a taxi. Yet when a battered sedan—a gypsy cab—slowed down in front of her, she instantly lowered her arm and faced forward, pretending she hadn’t seen it. But she wasn’t going to find any yellow cabs in this part of Queens. Over one shoulder was draped a cloth tote bag. A WNYC tote bag. After the car in front drove away, she stopped in her tracks and looked behind her—her stricken face gazing not at us but at the forlorn road. It was definitely Beth.

  Immediately I scrunched lower in my seat.

  “What’s wrong you?” my uncle said, slowing down and pulling over to the curb. He honked. Beth jumped with fright and, as if on instinct, waved her hand at us to go away.

  But Sang did not drive off. He opened the window—my window—and called out over me, to Beth. “You needing ride?”

  When Beth recognized our faces, relief flooded her features; but then, when her eyes caught mine, she tightened.

  Sang repeated the offer, and she mumbled, “If it’s . . . not an inconvenience . . . I’d really appreciate it.” She reached for the backseat door handle.

  “No!” Sang shouted through the window.

  Beth, alarmed, froze. “I’m sorry, I don’t have to—”

  He ignored her and jerked his head at me. “Nunchi-do umnya?”

  That was my cue to yangbo my seat to Beth. When I stepped out of the car to move to the back, Beth lifted her arm (trembling with hesitation? with exhaustion?) and touched my shoulder. Then, just as quickly, she pulled away.

  When Beth stepped inside, the car suddenly felt very small. She had that effect; her presence was all-consuming. From the backseat I could smell her oily, sweaty scalp. I expected, too, for her words to take over
. But instead her voice came out in an enervated warble. “Dropped off Devon at Ed’s school. Got on the subway, and it stalled. For hours. We had to. . . . climb through the tunnel.”

  I waited for more of Beth’s words, which were never in short supply. I saw roadblocks ahead, the miles of potential spiraling conflict—not conversation—between her and Sang, between her and me. Shut it down, Jane. Shut it down.

  My uncle gestured for me to give Beth some water—he kept a jug of Poland Spring in the backseat. I poured some into a plastic cup and passed it up to her. “I take you home first,” he said to Beth. “You live Thorn and Henry Street, right?”

  I remembered it was Sang who had retrieved my things from the house when I was in Korea.

  “Good memory,” Beth said, revived from the warm water. “But Jane”—she turned around to face me—“lives in Astoria, right? We’ll drop her off first, and then you can hop back on the BQE.”

  “I take you first,” he said. “Is okay, we not be inconvenienced.”

  “No, no. I insist.” Her tone was so firm that it made my uncle demur.

  We lapsed into silence for maybe half a minute; my uncle was never one for chitchat. When customers at the store would say things, he’d nod wordlessly at them with crescent-moon eyes, a smile forced across his face. If words were required, he’d pull from his repertoire of stock phrases: So sorry. No problem. Thank you very much. Having nice day. For the sales vendors and union reps, he reserved his more choice vocabulary: Is your fault delivery late! You say nine case one case free, but now you trying cheat me?

  But he looked over at Beth and said, “I use to owning fruit-and-vegetable, not far you. So terrible back then, Smith Street!”

  I expected Beth to bristle. Beth, the biggest cheerleader for Brooklyn, took the slightest remark about her adopted borough as a personal affront. But I was surprised by her reaction. “Even now you still have to be careful,” she said. “I don’t let my daughter walk down Smith Street alone at night. I can only imagine what things must’ve been like back then.”

  “So, Beth,” my uncle began. “How is . . . guh Chinese girl?” I braced myself for Beth’s indignant reaction—My Chinese girl? How dare you!—but it never came.

  “My daughter, Devon? She’s doing . . . good, not great. You know. Teenagers.”

  Sang shook his head knowingly. “But she must be very smart, too. Chinese people . . .” He paused. In that pause I feared all the possible things that would spill out of his mouth: Chinese people so cheap. Chinese people not having bathroom. Chinese people like next Mexicans. Sang went on. “Chinese people,” he repeated, “they know how to using this.” He tapped his temple.

  I breathed a sigh of relief but braced myself for Beth’s retort. I take issue with your comment. You’re a culturally insensitive boor. Beth would lecture him on his sweeping generalizations, his outdated theories of eugenics. She’d quote Stanley Obuheim, Sam Surati, or her own work, to bolster her arguments.

  Instead she turned toward Sang, her left cheek lifted by a grin. “You’re right, she’s very smart.” Beth tapped her own head. “She goes to Hunter. Thanks to Jane’s help.”

  “Eh?” went my uncle.

  “Jane helped Devon study for the exam. Your niece is a very bright young woman. You’re a lucky man, Sang.”

  I was utterly floored. This woman had no reason to praise me. The last time we saw each other, she’d rightly chased me out of her house.

  My uncle waved his hand. “She only okay. She not like Einshtein.”

  “Well, there’s only one Einshtein—I mean, Einstein.” They shared a laugh.

  It was a little surreal: My uncle and Beth, chattering on like old friends? Never would I ever have imagined them sharing anything—not even the physical space of a car. I watched the trees lining the highway speed by and thought about just how far we’d come to reach this point.

  Beth turned around in her seat to face me. “Jane, I never had the chance to say thank you.”

  I shrugged. “It was my uncle who spotted you first.”

  “No, I mean . . . for talking, with Devon.”

  I should have been thanking her. For welcoming me into her home. For showing me a world beyond Flushing. I shrugged again, this time in shyness.

  After a little lull, I said, “Beth, I want to say I’m so sorry. What I did, with Ed, it was—”

  Beth’s eyes darted up at me through the rearview mirror; shooting me nunchi. “I was sorry to hear it ended, Jane.” Her eyes now glanced over at Sang. I could tell he was pretending not to listen.

  “It was for the best,” I managed to say.

  But my uncle had heard it all. I should have feared his judgment—in the tight confines of his car, no less—but I couldn’t keep apologizing to him for who I was.

  Then he spoke. “Our Jane not so everyday. But people not always recognize. Should be grateful.”

  Should be grateful. I don’t think I ever had a clearer picture of my uncle before that moment. I could have read his words as I should be grateful. Just as I’d spent a lifetime taking each of his rough-hewn words as insults. But perhaps they were simply veiled praises and he lacked the language to make them smooth and polished. I felt one word: jung. That warmhearted sensation, rushing over me.

  Beth nodded. “Someday someone deserving will.”

  We turned off the BQE and continued down Thirty-first Street. Sang and Beth talked on. About Brooklyn. Queens. Baseball, even. Beth commented on the metal bat rolling on the floor by her feet. Sang confessed to being “number one Mets fan” (a fact my uncle never once shared with me). From my perch in the backseat, I found the counterpoint between the two—Sang’s blunt, awkward speech, Beth’s overabundance of eloquent words—creating a surprising harmony. They still managed to thread their way across that divide.

  We pulled up to 917 Helen Street. Nina was perched on an aluminum chair on the porch, fanning herself with a newspaper. When she saw me, she brightened. Sang and Beth waved good-bye before setting off, and I bounded up the steps to our house.

  We toasted with Sang’s beers. Later we ventured over to the bars, where pints flowed in a free stream—all of us celebrating the fact that it was only a blackout. The general tenor of the night was relief, followed by revelry. We all knew it could have been worse—a lot, lot worse. Eventually Nina and I returned to our porch. We talked about our days. We talked about work. We talked about how we each found our way during the blackout. Somewhere, in the distance far behind us, the Manhattan skyline was extinguished, cast in its own violet shadows. The rest of New York glowed in the moonlight.

  It was good to be home.

  Epilogue

  Commuters give the city its tidal restlessness, natives give it solidity and continuity, but the settlers give it passion.

  —E. B. White, “Here Is New York”

  Queens was never supposed to be the plan. I had spent so much of my earlier life riding the 7 away from Flushing. I’d stare out the train windows at the city skyline, imagining the life that awaited me there. But even the best-laid plans get rerouted. So here I am, standing on the platform at Queensboro Plaza (wearing a gold-lamé dress, thanks to Eunice Oh), waiting to board the Flushing-bound 7. We’re right at the base of the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge, and from the elevated platform you can see the interlaced roads—westbound, eastbound—just as the subway tracks dip up and down, each making way for the other. The Con Edison smokestacks stand tall and proud at the foot of the East River. And though you can’t see it from up here, beside the power plant is a bright green baseball field, and I know at this time of day it is filled with picnicking families and men playing soccer. The 7 pulls in, and I step aboard; the train car lets forth its usual creaks and groans with the weight of all us passengers.

  Then the train sets off. The city falls away behind us. Flushing blooms ahead.

  I never did get that Wall
Street job, but I am a CEO, of sorts. Nina and I run our own property-management business, which we officially started not long after the blackout but probably unofficially formed the night of the boeuf bourguignon dinner. The job is exactly that—we help landlords manage their properties. It’s an extension of what we’ve already been doing all these years with Nina’s great-uncle’s house. I do the financials and act as the liaison between the owner and the tenants. I’m indebted to my early years at Food, which proved to be a good training ground for the now-endless calls and e-mails about late fees, bounced checks, puckering floor tiles, and plumbing problems. (Sometimes, when fielding complaints from the most persnickety of tenants, I think of Mrs. O’Gall shaking a head of iceberg at us. God rest her soul.) Nina drums up new business for us—all those happy-hour connections she made in our early twenties are now paying off—and is also the literal handyman of our operation. The buildings we manage are superless, so Nina is dispatched to the apartment units—tool belt and box in hand. We’d like to think we’re younger, nimbler, as well as more tech-savvy (thanks to the influence of our friends in the neighborhood) than our competitors. Being a handy(wo)man is a decidedly unglamorous job, but Nina derives a certain high from it. It always seemed to me that Nina and Eunice shared a fascination with the inner workings of things. I often wondered if it was a trait passed down from their fathers—Mr. Scagliano being an electrician and Dr. Oh a cardiologist. What if Nina had had the same opportunities as Eunice, or vice versa? Maybe Nina would’ve been the one who’d headed off to MIT, poring over the digital and electrical innards of a computer. Or Eunice poised over how-to manuals, studying wiring and plumbing diagrams.

  It’s a little uncanny how our neighborhood has taken off. There is an inherent humility in the Queens identity—saying that’s where you were from was something you uttered with a disclaimer. Watching these transplants now proudly embrace their adopted borough . . . I can’t help but feel it’s a little like a negation of everything I come from. Although Nina thinks I should accept this renaissance for what it is (after all, she’s witnessed it with her home borough, now overrun with “Beth types”). And she assures me Queens is still plenty scruffy.