The Fold

by An Na

  “Are you sure it’s going to work?” Joyce asked.

  Gina shrugged. “Arlene said it should be a snap.”

  Joyce spontaneously reached over and embraced Gina in a hug. Tears sprang to Joyce’s eyes. It was so good to have Gina back.

  Gina patted Joyce’s back. “Sam told me he talked to you.”

  Joyce pulled back and grinned at her friend. “I thought you only did the Godzilla imitation for me.”

  Gina lowered her eyes and tried not to smile. “Yeah, well, he’s kind of special.”

  Joyce pumped her arms in the air. “I knew it!”

  Gina rolled her eyes. “Okay, okay. Let’s focus. We only have a half hour before church, and someone isn’t even dressed.”

  Joyce glanced down at her pajamas. “We better get moving. Let me get my scissors.” Joyce ran over to her bureau and began rummaging through the stuff that always magically collected there.

  A sharp knock at the door was followed by Helen’s head poking in. “Can I just get my clothes for church?”

  Joyce waved her in. “Sure.”

  Helen stepped inside and headed over to the closet. Joyce pushed aside papers and keys and ponytail holders. “Helen, have you seen my scissors anywhere?”

  “There’s a pair inside my orange book bag,” Helen said, pointing to her tropical bags in the corner.

  “Thanks,” Joyce said and started to cross the room to fetch the scissors. As she was passing Helen, Joyce gave her an imploring look and quickly cut her eyes to Gina, who was still sitting on the floor, assembling all the brushes and makeup for Joyce’s makeover. It was important to Joyce that she clear the air with Gina. For as long as Joyce had been Gina’s friend, they had shared everything with each other. She wanted Gina and Helen to know that Joyce trusted Gina completely.

  Helen pressed her lips together for a moment and then threw her hands up in the air. Joyce mouthed silently, Thank you.

  Helen nodded and pulled a dress and some shoes from the closet. Joyce found the scissors and brought them over to Gina. Before Helen left the room, she stood at the door for a moment. Joyce glanced up and saw the line of pain etched into her sister’s forehead. Helen slowly turned away from the two best friends and left the room, closing the door behind her.

  “I have to tell you something, Gina,” Joyce said.

  Gina raised up the piece of tape and held it near Joyce’s eyes. “In a minute,” Gina said. “Let’s just do the hard part first and then we can talk while we work on your makeup.”

  “Okay,” Joyce sighed and held still as Gina brought the tape closer.

  “Darn,” Gina said and lowered the crescent-moon-shaped piece of tape. “I have to cut it some more.”

  After several more tries and with tape stuck to every part of their hands, Gina carefully applied a thin sliver of tape to Joyce’s right eyelid.

  “Okay,” Joyce said. “Dr. Reiner used his tweezers and kind of lifted part of my eyelid skin.”

  Gina grabbed her tweezers and zeroed in on Joyce’s eyes.

  “Whoa, cowboy,” Joyce said and leaned back. “I still want my vision after you’re done.”

  Gina raised one eyebrow and cleared her throat, the tweezers still raised in the air. Joyce slowly leaned forward. Gina gently grasped a bit of Joyce’s upper eyelid skin and pulled it up.

  “Is it working?” Joyce asked nervously, trying hard not to blink.

  Gina stared at Joyce’s eyes. “Hold on one second.” Gina positioned the tweezers at the outer edge of Joyce’s eyes and pinched some skin.

  “Ow, ow, ow, owwwww!” Joyce’s voice grew louder in proportion to the pain.

  Gina’s eyes were crossed in concentration. “I almost have it. There.” Gina took a deep breath and sat back.

  Joyce reached up to the very edge of her eye, trying to massage the pinching pain away.

  “Stop, Joyce,” Gina said. “You’ll ruin it.”

  Joyce lowered her hand. “That hurt.”

  Gina ignored her comment and went right on cutting the next sliver of tape for the other eye. Joyce dug through Gina’s pile of makeup for a compact to check her eyelid.

  “Wow!” Joyce exclaimed as she checked the fold in the mirror. “It looks perfect!”

  Gina mumbled as she cut, “You always doubt me.”

  Joyce lowered the mirror. “No, I don’t.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  Joyce opened her mouth to disagree again but then stopped. What was she fighting about? Gina was here, despite the way Joyce had acted on the beach, despite the fact that Joyce had not called all week to apologize. Gina was here to rescue Joyce. There was no question about it. Joyce reached over and touched Gina’s elbow. Gina was here for Joyce.

  “Sorry,” Joyce said.

  “It’s okay,” Gina said, her head still lowered in concentration as she carefully cut. “Ready for the next one?”

  Joyce nodded.

  Gina held up the tape. “Okay, you have to turn off the waterworks.”

  Joyce smiled and blinked back the tears.

  “Better,” Gina said and smiled.

  After the second eyelid was taped back, Gina quickly worked on Joyce’s makeup. As she was lightly dusting Joyce with some powder to set the eye shadow, Joyce tried to broach the subject of Helen.

  “Hey, Gina,” Joyce said, “I have to tell you something.”

  Gina flicked the brush across Joyce’s forehead and then sat back.

  “I have to tell you something, too,” Gina said.

  “Helen—”

  “Sam—”

  They both stopped.

  “You go. I want to hear all about Sam,” Joyce said.

  Gina fiddled with her brush. “When Sam and I first started hanging out, he told me how he kind of had this crush on you.”

  “What?” Joyce exclaimed. “But he likes you.”

  Gina nodded. “That only happened after we had hung out this week and then I did the Godzilla line.”

  Joyce grinned. “You broke him with the Godzilla line. Man, I can’t wait to tell that to your kids.”

  “Shut up.” Gina laughed and threw the brush at Joyce. “It wasn’t like that.” Gina grew serious. “I didn’t mean for him to stop liking you, but it wasn’t as if you liked him that way and I needed someone to talk to who could understand. He was so nice about everything. I don’t know. Everything started to change after I took him to the department store to get him some lip balm.”

  “Yeah,” Joyce said. “He mentioned how impressed he was with your knowledge.”

  “Really?” Gina perked up. “What else did he say about me?”

  Joyce wanted to stop time for a moment. To catch that shy happy smile on Gina’s face. To savor the feeling of closeness. To memorize every passing second because next summer, after senior year, they weren’t going to have all the time in the world to talk. They might even be clear across the country from each other.

  “Joyce?”

  Joyce blinked and turned to Gina. “He just said he thought you were wonderful.”

  Gina beamed. “He’s pretty cool, too. Did he tell you about his skin?”

  “Yeah,” Joyce said.

  “It’s almost over,” Gina said. “I had no idea the side effects could be so bad.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Like that day on the beach,” Gina said. “He’s not supposed to be in the sun for too long, but he wanted to finish up the project, and he got this killer headache afterwards.”

  “Didn’t help that I was a bitch, either,” Joyce muttered.

  Gina didn’t disagree. “Anyway, the side effects are mostly over now that he’s tapering off of the medication.” Gina opened up her lip gloss case and stared down at the little squares of various shades of red as she added, “His skin will clear up just in time for him to dump me when I get those nasty metal braces.”

  Joyce leaned forward. “You’re getting braces?”

  Gina shrugged. “Yeah. It’s about time, and I don’t want
to have them forever in college, which would be the kiss of death, right?” Gina glanced up, her face held tightly in place. “I finally have enough money saved up.”

  “I thought you wanted braces,” Joyce said.

  Gina stared up at the ceiling. “I do, I do, but I hate the thought of how ugly they are.” Gina pointed at Joyce. “You said it yourself about Lynn, remember? How ugly her metal braces made her look.”

  “Yeah, but Lynn doesn’t even look like you and—”

  Gina shook her head. “They’re going to look awful. I don’t even know what colors to coordinate with gunmetal gray.” Gina threw up her hands. “Seriously, what matches with ugly?” Gina waited a beat. “More ugly,” she said and pointed a finger at herself.

  “Gina, no. That’s not true. You are not going to look ugly.”

  “Well, it doesn’t matter. My teeth will get straight, and maybe my bucks will finally get into line,” Gina said. “I just hope Sam sticks around, but knowing my luck, he’ll take one look at my jaws of death and run the other direction.”

  Joyce patted Gina’s back, trying to think of something to make her feel better, something to rescue her from her fate.

  Someone knocked at the door. Joyce turned around as Andy poked his head in. “Uhmma says it’s time to go.”

  “Okay,” Joyce said.

  Andy started to pull his head back and then stopped. “Black goes with everything,” he said and quickly shut the door.

  “Your lips,” Gina said and held out her lip gloss brush.

  Joyce turned back to Gina and let her apply the mauve color to her lips.

  “What were you saying about Helen?” Gina asked.

  “It’s a long story. I’ll tell you later.”

  “Okay,” Gina said and leaned back to inspect her handiwork. “You look beautiful.”

  Joyce smiled without reaching for the compact to check Gina’s work. “Thank you.”

  Gina and Joyce raced up the stairs leading from the parking lot to the church courtyard. A large group of people milled outside as they waited for their turn to enter the main hall. Gina and Joyce got into line and then immediately leaned out to see past the bodies.

  “I don’t see him anywhere,” Gina said, craning her head.

  “It’s no use. How are we supposed to find him in this crowd?” Joyce said, gnawing in frustration at the webbing of skin on her hand.

  “Joyce, stop chewing on your skin,” Gomo said, coming up behind them along with the rest of Joyce’s family.

  Joyce reluctantly pulled her hand away from her face and greeted Gomo with a kiss. “On-young-ha-say-yo, Gomo. You look very nice today. That blouse goes well with your lipstick.”

  Gina turned around and waved. “Hi, Gomo.”

  Gomo did her best to smile back. “You two are looking especially pretty for church today. I like that both of you are wearing dresses instead of those pants for once.”

  “Thank you, Gomo,” Joyce and Gina chirped.

  Suddenly, Gina gripped Joyce’s forearm. Out of the corner of her lips, Gina muttered, “Far right corner of the courtyard. White shirt, gray slacks, killer tan.”

  Joyce’s eyes jumped at Gina’s instructions. John Ford Kang was standing with his father near some bushes in the corner. His father was deep in conversation with another older gentleman while John stood there awkwardly, his hands fiddling with his striped tie.

  Joyce tried not to crane her head as she peered over someone standing in front of her. John gazed in her direction just as Joyce jumped a little to get a better look at him.

  “Ahhh,” Joyce said and crouched down low. She didn’t want him to think she was that desperate to see him.

  “Joyce, stand up,” Gomo instructed.

  Joyce stood up straighter but put a hunch into her posture. “I think he saw me,” Joyce whispered to Gina.

  “Ohhhh, someone else spotted him, too,” Gina reported.

  Joyce had to peek again. She angled herself directly behind another man and then stole a quick glance. Lisa Yim was walking up to John’s group. Lisa linked arms with the gentleman talking to John’s father and talked animatedly to John.

  Joyce slouched forward. “I have no chance with Lisa Yim around.”

  “What do you mean?” Gina asked, watching them.

  “She told me that John likes her.”

  “No, he does not,” Gina stated.

  “Look at her. She’s gorgeous. How do you know he doesn’t like her?” Joyce wondered.

  “Because I heard that he turned Lisa down when she asked him out.”

  Joyce gasped. “Are you sure?”

  “Positive.”

  “Who’s your source?”

  Gina pointed at herself.

  Joyce’s eyes widened in disbelief.

  “I work at a department store. A lot of people walk through there. I can’t help it if I happen to overhear conversations about a certain high school student having the nerve to turn down a certain college student, while I’m crouched strategically in a nook behind all the gift bags, which are free after a purchase worth more than nineteen ninety-nine.”

  Joyce shook her head. “Sam was right. You are dangerous.”

  “What did Sam say?”

  Joyce started to answer when she felt a tap on her shoulder.

  “Hi, Joyce.”

  Joyce recognized the voice as though it were the sound of her beating heart. Instantly. There was a sudden hush of voices. Joyce slowly turned around. She felt like she was underwater, trying to move quickly only to find her limbs pushing against all that weight. The crowd of faces around her stretched and elongated, blending into the background as one face crystallized in front of her. John Ford Kang. Joyce blinked. He was still there.

  “Hey,” she said weakly and focused on making sure her knees wouldn’t buckle.

  “Hey. Can I stand in line with you?”

  “Uh, sure,” Joyce said. Gina ribbed her in the side. “Oh, this is my friend Gina.”

  John reached over and shook Gina’s hand. “Hey, I remember you from AP Art History.”

  “Yeah, that’s right.” Gina’s cheeks bunched up and she beamed out her best teeth-baring smile. It didn’t take much to win over Gina.

  John turned back to Joyce. “You didn’t stay for the barbecue after the volleyball game.”

  “Oh, right. I had to work that night,” Joyce squeaked.

  “But not as much now, right? Especially with that new waitress,” John said.

  Joyce stared at him. Had he been by the restaurant again?

  The line started to move forward. As they stepped toward the entrance to the church, Gina poked Joyce in the side and pointed her chin in someone’s direction. Joyce glanced over to find Lisa Yim standing near the entrance, squinting in her direction. Her eyes narrowed into focused lasers on Joyce and her family as John walked beside them. Just as they entered the church, Joyce saw Lisa rushing off into the fellowship hall, her cell phone pressed firmly to her ear as her entourage of girlfriends swarmed around her.

  John sat with his father a few rows down from them. Joyce tried not to stare at the back of his head the whole time, but after a minute of counting light fixtures, Joyce let her eyes wander back over. It just killed her the way his hair curled at the edges like that. Must be from all the seawater, Joyce reasoned.

  At the end of the sermon, as Joyce tried to nonchalantly take her time getting out of her row, Gomo took her hand and led her past the line of people waiting to shake the pastor’s hand and out into the courtyard.

  “Joyce,” Gomo said, “I did not have time to tell you earlier, but the surgery is next week.”

  “Next week? I thought it was next month.”

  “Dr. Rie-ne-or’s office called and said they could fit you in sooner.”

  “But next week, my friend is having a show.” Joyce groaned and threw back her head, her eyes shut tight against the thought of trying to explain to Gina and Sam.

  “I have already made the appointment,” Go
mo said. “I am sure your friend will understand.”

  Joyce nodded and turned to leave.

  “The handsome boy is over in the fellowship hall with his father,” Gomo said and walked away.

  Joyce wandered into the fellowship hall, where Uhmma and some of the other mothers were setting out the food. John was with his father getting coffee. Joyce stood in the doorway, wondering if she should go over and talk to him. Would it be obvious that Joyce was following him around? Where was Gina? Joyce checked the crowd. No Gina or Sam. Joyce was on her own this time, but she could handle this. She could face John Ford Kang because she was ready. Joyce flipped her hair off her shoulders. Check. She ran her finger along the edge of her lips to erase any lipstick smudges. Check. She gingerly reached up to check her eyes. Sticky tape. Joyce quickly turned around and bolted from the room. As she ran for the bathroom, her gaze firmly on the ground, she reached up to her upper eyelids again. Her eyelids had fallen.

  Joyce made it into the bathroom without anyone stopping her. Three stalls were full, so she headed to the farthest stall to wait them out. Two toilets flushed almost at the same time. Joyce could hear the water running as the women chatted and washed their hands. Just before they were about to leave, the third toilet flushed and the sound of sharp metal heel taps echoed through the bathroom.

  “Hi, Lisa,” one voice called out.

  Shushed conversation slipped back and forth. Then suddenly a voice rang out in alarm,“Helen Kim. Gay!”

  “Shhhh!”

  The women switched to Korean, but continued to whisper urgently as they headed out the door. Joyce sat completely frozen. Had she really heard what she thought she had heard? Shoot. Joyce slammed the side of her head with the heel of her hand. Why hadn’t she checked their shoes? Who were those women that Lisa had been talking to? Joyce recalled Lisa saying how Su Yon’s mother and Lisa’s mother had grown up in the same village. Joyce knew Lisa was kind of superficial, but to be so vicious and cruel—that overinflated weasel of a gossip. Joyce wanted to pop those balloons she called breasts and watch them leak and sag to Lisa’s knees. Joyce slammed her fist into the stall door and stepped out.

  This was going to kill Helen. Joyce had to warn her. News like this spread quicker than a virus. As Joyce quickly turned to leave, her reflection in the mirror caught her eyes. Joyce groaned. She forgot she had to reattach her eyelids. It would take forever without Gina to help her. Joyce stepped closer to the mirror. She couldn’t face John without the folds. And if she didn’t make her impression today, Lisa Yim would just swoop right in. What should she do? She didn’t have enough time. Joyce started at herself and exhaled slowly. There was only one true answer. Joyce pulled the tape off her skin.