This kind of relationship is foreign to me. Sandra never got me aroused when we weren’t together. She never sent me dirty pictures or texts and the few times I did, she freaked out and called me a pervert. I still can’t believe I dated her as long as I did. What the hell is wrong with me? Previous girlfriends were in-person girlfriends. We got aroused, we had sex. Easy. This? This is not so easy.
The shower lasts only a few minutes, and when I’m done, I take a deep breath, get dressed, and grab my suits from the closet. I’ll be in Mumbai two weeks, so I’ll need five suits and extra shirts, plus some casual clothing and running gear, and, while I’m there, I’ll go to my usual tailor to get more suits made. I buy suits from tailors here in South Korea because they’re used to tailoring for Koreans, but I also love the textiles in India. Cori always laughs and asks if I’m going to “Hugo Patel” while I’m in Mumbai, but she never argues that they’re not some of the nicest suits she’s ever seen.
Once I have everything laid out, I call Laura back. She answers wearing significantly more clothing than before. Her hair is still pulled back in a ponytail, but she has on a pink, long-sleeved shirt and dark gray casual pants.
“Hey, Lee. Almost all packed?” She narrows her eyes at the screen on her side. “Did you shower?”
“Yes. No comment.”
“Okay.” She raises her eyebrows at me, and I laugh. Caught. “I’m going to eat soon. I’m starving.”
My doorbell rings, and I glance at the clock. It’s still a few hours before my car comes to get me so this must be Cori. “Hold on, Laura.” I pick up my iPhone while walking to the door, and, scrolling through my apps, I find a text from Cori saying she’ll be up with Evie in ten minutes. Fuck. I forgot I asked them to come by before I left. Another text from Sandra is below Cori’s. The sixth or seventh one this week? I don’t know. I lost count. I don’t even open and read it, just delete before opening the door.
“Hi, Lee.” Evie comes bounding into my apartment with Cori right behind her. Today, Evie’s wearing purple from head to toe, including a plastic, purple tiara and a purple feather boa around her neck.
“Cori, um, can you come back in like an hour? I’m talking to Laura on FaceTime.”
“Laura’s on FaceTime right now?” I nod at her. “Great! I can’t wait to meet her.”
Oh shit. I don’t want to waste a single moment of my call with Laura. We’ve already been interrupted by her mother and my stupid body. Now Cori is going to butt in.
“Hi. Who are you?” Evie’s high-pitched little girl voice is coming from my bedroom, and I try to shuffle past Cori to intervene, but Cori pulls on my shirt to slow me down.
“Hi, I’m Laura. You must be Evie.” When I reach my bedroom, Evie is lying on the bed on her stomach, her chin propped on her hands, talking to Laura. “I love your outfit. Is purple your favorite color?”
“It is today. Are you Lee’s new girlfriend?”
Oh god, I’m mortified, but Laura’s light laugh tinkles through the room to me, and Cori clutches her hand to her chest.
“Wait,” Cori whispers, smiling and grasping my arm.
“You’re sweet, Evie,” Laura continues. “Does Lee talk about me?”
“All the time. He says you’re beautiful, and nice, and like soccer. Do you really like soccer?” Evie is indignant. How dare a girl like soccer. But I’m concentrating on the fact that even Evie noticed I’m head over heels for this woman.
“I do. Soccer is a fun sport, Evie. And you can play on a team with lots of other boys or girls and meet lots of new people. I bet you’d like it.”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t look like fun to me.”
Cori releases my arm, but I’m transfixed watching Evie talk to Laura. I slowly enter the room and get in range of the camera behind Evie. I wave and Laura smiles at me.
“What kind of sports do you like?” Laura asks.
“Um, skipping? Oh. Riding my scooter.”
“You can ride a scooter already?”
Cori sits down next to Evie, and I continue packing my bag. “She has one of those razor scooters, and we ride them up and down the paths by the river. Hi, I’m Cori.”
“Hi. It’s nice to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you.” I glance up to see Laura’s genuine smile. I was wondering what it would be like for these two to meet.
“Likewise. Anyway, sorry to interrupt your call, but we decided to stop by earlier than we said we would because I’m going to take Evie to the playground and then out for lunch after. We wanted to come say goodbye to Lee beforehand.”
“Lee is going away again.” Evie nods enthusiastically at Laura. “He and my daddy travel all over.”
“I know. Lee is a very busy man.” Laura nods back at Evie, picks up the iPad on her end, and walks to the kitchen. “I need to make dinner. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Not at all,” Cori says. “What time is it there?”
“I’m thirteen hours behind you. 8:30pm.” Laura opens her fridge and pulls out plastic container. “Oh good. I forgot I had leftover stew.” She pops it in the microwave and turns back to the camera.
“You eat pretty late,” Cori says.
“Yeah, I like to go to the gym after work and eat when I come home. Late dinners are pretty common in New York, though.”
“This one is in bed by 8:30 every night.” Cori pats Evie on the head, and Evie adjusts her tiara.
“When I have kids, this habit will be a thing of the past, I’m sure.” This stops me. We’ve talked about a lot of things so far, but nothing so hot-button as the desire to get married and have kids. Those are topics I didn’t want to talk about until I’m with Laura in person again. I peek over Cori’s shoulder and Laura raises her eyebrows at me again.
“Lots of things change when you have kids,” Cori interrupts, glancing back at me. “Are you from New York, Laura?”
“No, I’m from Connecticut. You?”
“Chris and I are originally from Chicago. We’ve been in Seoul now for seven years. I was newly pregnant when we met Lee.”
“Does Evie go to school there? I’ve always wondered what it’s like for expat kids in a foreign country.” Laura’s stew is cooked, and she transfers it to a bowl, gets a beer from her fridge, and goes back to her table.
“There’s an international kindergarten school here she attends.”
“I love it.” Evie chimes in. “We have circle time, and we paint, and I was in charge of the weather station yesterday.”
“You were?” Laura exclaims, putting her spoon down and giving Evie her full attention. “What was the weather like there yesterday?”
“Partly cloudy and it was windy. I moved the hand on the weather station. It was my job.”
I cover my mouth so I don’t laugh. My job is writing briefs, taking depositions, reading up on current regulations, and dealing with high-ranking executives. Evie’s job is to look out the window and check the weather, and it is a big, huge, gigantic deal. I’ll never forget when she was “the line leader” at school. She didn’t stop talking about it for days.
“Being in charge of the weather station sounds like a important job. You should be proud.”
“I am.” Evie jumps off the bed and the iPad falls over causing both Laura and Cori to laugh. I zip up my bag, done with packing for now. I’ll pack my kit before I go.
“Sorry about that.” Cori rights the iPad. “Well, it’s a beautiful day in Seoul, and Evie and I should get going. It was nice talking to you, Laura.”
“Same here.”
“Laura,” I say, butting in. “Give me a second with Cori so I can give her instructions on what I need done around here while I’m gone.”
“Okay. I’ll eat.”
I mute the iPad, put it back on the dresser, and usher both girls out of the bedroom.
“Cori?” My heart is beating like I’ve run a marathon. I hadn’t thought about what would happen if Laura and Cori met. It seemed so far away. “What do you think?”
; I scan back through every dinner or outing we’ve had the past few weeks, and I’ve gone on way too much about Laura. But some of that is Cori’s fault because she’s been quizzing me for details relentlessly.
“She seems sweet and beautiful and smart, Lee,” she says, squeezing my arm. “I can’t wait to meet her in person.” She folds her arms across her chest and thinks. “You know Sandra hated my guts and I hated hers. Wouldn’t it be nice for you to have a girlfriend who was friends with your friends?”
“I wouldn’t know. It’s never happened before.” That’s the honest truth. Every woman I’ve dated has been at odds with all of my friends. In hindsight, I have a horrible track record with relationships.
“See? Don’t you worry your pretty little head over it.” She reaches out to pinch my cheek, and I smack her hand away and laugh.
“Get out.” I run forward to tickle Evie. “You too. Get out and enjoy the day.”
“Same old, same old?” Cori waves her hand at my apartment.
“Yes. Water the plants, take in the mail, and eat from my fridge. Please.”
I escort both of them to the door and hug Evie goodbye before joining Laura again in my bedroom.
“Sorry, Laura,” I say, un-muting her and sitting down on the bed with the iPad on my knees. “I hope that wasn’t too unexpected.”
“No, no. Evie is adorable, and Cori seems very nice.” Laura’s done with her dinner and has moved to her bedroom with her beer. “They’re obviously really important to you.”
“Cori is…” I stop and look out the window, the ghost of Cori’s almost-pinch grazing my cheek. “Cori is the sister I never had. She and I have the kind of relationship I should have had with Nari but never did.”
“You really don’t get along with your sister? It’s that severe?”
“Yeah. I didn’t want to sound like I hate her or something, because I don’t. But she’s not a nice person and has never treated me well. Much like my mother unfortunately.” I cringe hearing the words come out of my mouth. I sound traitorous. Every Korean son is supposed to love his mother.
“Well, as you can probably guess, I don’t have the best relationship with my mother. I think she hates me a little for having freedom when I was living in the South and she was stuck at home with my father. Not that I was happy or sane then, but she didn’t know that because we didn’t talk for several years. And I came back to New York five years ago to help take care of her because she was recovering from a nervous breakdown.” She pinches the bridge of her nose, closing her eyes and sighing. “And my father hated me, too, so… Families are complicated, Lee. I get it.”
“Why do you think your father hated you?”
“Many reasons.”
“Like what?” I hate prying.
“Besides what I’ve told you already? He ignored me most of my youth. Never once came to a track and field event or a concert, though he went to all of David’s so it’s not like he could blame it on his work schedule. He didn’t even want to attend my graduation but I know my mom forced him. He hated me until the day he died. A week before he passed, he told me he was disappointed in me, that I would never accomplish anything or marry or have a family because who would want me.” Laura air-quotes the last statement, and my insides boil with rage. She shrugs her shoulders and drinks her beer. “I swear I was a pretty good kid. My grades weren’t the best, but it’s not like I got in trouble all the time or anything.”
She shrugs her shoulders again, nonchalantly, but it must hurt regardless.
“My mother would make me sit on my knees if I got in trouble,” I confess, unable to believe the words are coming out of my mouth, “or hold a heavy book over my head for thirty minutes if I got less than an A in any class.” I’ve never complained about the punishments I got as a kid. They were normal to all the Korean kids in my circle though completely foreign to anyone else. “I once had to hold the book for forty-five minutes because I closed a door too loudly while she was praying. I was a little shit of a kid, constantly breaking things or getting into trouble, and my mother hated it. Told me how much shame I brought on the family. My dad eventually turned me around, but my mother never forgot it.”
“Yikes, Lee. Your mom sounds harsh.”
I nod at her though I hate myself for it.
“But don’t worry,” Laura says, waving at the camera, “I would rather date or marry a guy who doesn’t like his mother than one who loves his mother to death.”
“Why is that?” I ask, propping my head on my pillow and settling in for a long conversation. This is something I love about Laura. She has a definitive opinion on just about everything, whether they are rational or not.
“Because a man who loves his mother will want a wife who is exactly like her, and that woman will never live up to her. He’ll always say things like, ‘My mother didn’t cook stew like that,’ or ‘My mother raised four kids and never needed a babysitter, why do you need one?’ or other such similar things. No matter how hard his wife tries, she’ll never be as good.” She raises her shoulders and takes a sip of beer. “A man who dislikes his mother goes out of his way to choose a mate who is the exact opposite and revels in the fact she does everything different. Now that is a happy relationship. There are men in between these two extremes but these examples are for the sake of this argument.”
Wait. This sounds too familiar.
“Lee? Did I just severely offend you?”
My mind is wiped clean, scoured to a gleaming shine by Laura’s argument. I have been dating my mother my entire life. Laura’s been dating her brother, and I’ve been dating my mother. That is downright weird.
“No. My eyes are suddenly wide open.”
“Lee, we’re a pair, you and I.” She points to her head, to me, and back again, highlighting this strange connection we have from so far away. And to think I almost didn’t meet her at all. How can someone who was a stranger only a few weeks ago be so important to me now?
Snap out of it.
“You’re my girlfriend, Laura,” I blurt into the silence between us. Jesus, I couldn’t say that less abrupt? I couldn’t ask her? Where’s my romantic side? It’s lying next to me on the bed in a fit of laughter and hysterics. “I was thinking about what Evie said, and I don’t want to date anyone else but you.” That’s better.
Laura sits silent and still for a moment, blinking her eyes, before a smile finally forms.
“That’s the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me.” I let out a held breath. I was afraid I had jumped on the train from an overpass too soon and gotten squashed. “I don’t want to date anyone else either. I hope this means you’ll come visit me soon?”
“Yes.” I pull out my iPhone and open the Calendar. “I’m in Mumbai for two weeks and there’s the possibility I’m in Shanghai or Tokyo for two weeks after… Let me see, that puts me at mid-May? That’s so far away. I’m sorry. This is a really busy time of year for work and…”
“It’s okay, Lee,” she says with a sigh. “I’m sure I’ll live. It’s just crazy how I already miss you. It doesn’t seem real somehow?”
“I know. There’s really no chance you could come here?”
She shakes her head. “Not now. Though she clearly doesn’t deserve it, I’m worried about my mom. She’s been seeing this guy Richard for a long time, the longest of all the boyfriends. I think she’s more attached to him than I originally thought.” She fidgets with her ponytail and twists it around. I know this gesture already. She’s unsure of herself. “My boss, of all people, had an idea the other day that may work out. I need to talk to my mom and my aunt. I can’t up and leave town not knowing they’re secure.”
“Can I help?” I’d give anything to free her of this situation.
She shakes her head at me. “I’d love for you to help, but you saw my mom. It’s a touchy thing. I’m an independent girl, Lee. I’ll figure it out for myself.”
“Okay, Laura. Look, in the meantime, we have this.” I gesture at the iPad and my iPh
one. “Texting and photos and FaceTime. I mean, there’s a reason why they call it FaceTime, right?”
“Right. I love being able to see you.”
“Me too. We’ll make this work. I want it to work.” I want it to work with all my heart. I want to keep Laura until I can see her and hold her in my arms.
“I want that, too.” Her smile is miles wide, and, shit, I’m already in love.
Chapter
Thirteen
=
Laura
I ignore my mother all Saturday morning and then she leaves to go back to Connecticut by herself without even saying goodbye to me. Fine. I get that she’s angry and disappointed in me because I’m dating Lee. I’m not sure why except for the fact that our relationship is long distance, but I don’t want to discuss it today. She’ll give me some excuse like, “He’s too old,” or “He’s not old enough,” or “He’s Korean,” or “He’s a lawyer,” or any other one of her “concerns” about the men I date. Rene wasn’t good enough for our family either because he was a foreigner. “All French men are pigs,” she said. This discussion can sit for a while and cool down. “Well, at least he has good taste.” Ugh. She’s ridiculous.
I’ve never been to India, but the country is on my must-travel-to list, right after “All of East Asia.” I’m not sure why I was drawn to East Asia first, but when I traveled in Thailand, Japan, and Singapore, I was the most at home I have ever been. I felt a very significant connection to the people and food of the places I visited, and they kept me from completely drowning in my grief.
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