Face Time

by S. J. Pajonas

  She leans over to my ear as everyone falls silent again. “Did your mother just call me a ‘gold digger,’ Lee? I’m pretty certain I heard the word ‘gold,’ and she doesn’t seem pleased at all.”

  “She’s only after you for your money, Lee. You should get rid of her and go back to Sandra. She’ll be at the wake later. It would make your father happy.”

  “Mom, stop it,” Jin interrupts, his voice hard. Mimi has her fingers pressed to her lips, her eyes widened. Kade and Leland both turn off their iPhones to watch the fight brewing.

  Laura glances around the table, confused, but, of course, no one is going to translate for her. We’re all shocked and ashamed of what’s coming out of Mom’s mouth right now.

  I pull the car keys out of my pocket, my hands shaking with rage, and give them to Laura. “Laura, would you mind waiting in the car?”

  She hesitates for a moment but takes them. “Sure. I guess you have some family matters to speak about. I’m going to go charge my iPhone for the afternoon.” Laura smiles at Chase. “You’ll be my buddy later? Keep me company?”

  “Okay,” he responds with a genuine smile that lights up his face. I love three year olds. They’re so easily charmed and sweet, and it’s moments like this when I miss Evie and Cori. I wish they were here. Cori’s Korean is excellent, and she’d back me up in a fight against my mom.

  Laura takes the keys and walks away from the table with all the poise and confidence of someone who knows she’s a good person. Any other woman upon hearing my mother call her a “gold digger” would have dissolved into tears. If she can continue to handle my family like this, I’m going to marry her.

  Fourteen-year old Kade openly watches her go and whispers across the table to Leland, “I’d like to be her buddy.”

  “Kade,” Mimi snaps at him. “Eyes on your iPhone.”

  “Good job, Uncle Lee,” Kade whispers, nodding at me. Jesus. I remember being that age. Horny as hell. I’m going to be fighting men of all ages for Laura.

  “Mom,” I say, standing up, “you can continue speaking to me in Korean, but I won’t answer or listen unless you switch to English. Laura is not after me for my money. That’s the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. And don’t bring up what Dad would have wanted. I talked to him all the time. He would have wanted me to be happy and in love.” I grab my jacket from the chair and pull a hundred dollars from my wallet which I hand to Daniel.

  I stop next to my mother on the way out, but she refuses to look at me. “And I swear if you tell Sandra I want to get back together with her, or any other lies about me or Laura, I will never come back to Seattle. I’m tired of this.”

  I won’t let her control me any longer.

  (>’o’)> ♥ <(‘o’<)

  I get in the car, and Laura is typing away on her iPhone, the car turned on with the heat blasting on her legs. I let all the air release from my body, and closing my eyes, I press back into the leather seat. I knew this trip wouldn’t be easy, but I hoped it would go better than this. I can’t believe I just issued my mother an ultimatum, an ultimatum I’ll have to keep if I want to have any self-respect for the rest of my life.

  “Are you texting someone?” I ask.

  “Yeah, Justin. He says hi.” She holds up her iPhone.

  Justin Taylor

  Fuck his mom.

  He obviously loves you so she doesn’t matter.

  Bring him back to NYC with you soon. I had a great time the other night.

  And tell him I said hi.

  “Tell him I said hi and he’s good with advice.” She taps away and turns off her iPhone, setting it aside to charge.

  “I’m sorry, Lee. I’m beginning to wish I hadn’t come. Maybe it would have been better for you to deal with this and then come back to New York…” Her speech pattern, usually so upbeat and quick, grinds to a halt, and she turns to stare out the window for a moment. “You didn’t have to tell them today.”

  “We have nothing to hide, Laura.”

  “No, we don’t. But the timing could have been better.” She turns to face me. “I thought maybe I could stay in your mother’s good graces for a bit.”

  “Laura…” I squeeze her hand and pull on it to bring her closer to me. I want to explain that there will never be good graces from my mother, and it’s not Laura’s fault. It’s mine.

  “But it’s okay, Lee,” she interrupts me. “If it doesn’t matter to you that your mom doesn’t like me, then it doesn’t matter to me. Remember what I said about boys and their mothers?”

  Laura would rather not compete with my mother.

  “She has Jin and Nari, and I’ve always been the son she didn’t want and caused her nothing but trouble.” Tears burn right behind my eyes, and if I let go now, I may never make it through the afternoon.

  “Oh, Lee.” She sighs and squeezes my hand in both of hers. “You’re sweet, handsome, successful, and a good son and friend. You’ve been really good to me too, and I haven’t even known you that long. If she can’t see any of that then you don’t need her. Mother or not.”

  I nod my head, using the last strength I have to hold my tears.

  “Now, I can make things easier on everyone and go back to the hotel, if you like. I’ll drop you off at the funeral home and drive downtown…”

  “No. No, don’t leave me, okay?” Just the thought of going through the afternoon without her makes the tears come right back. “I can’t make it through this day without you, even if you’re in the other room.”

  “Don’t cry, Lee.” Laura’s warm hand wipes away the tears from my cheek. I suck in a deep breath and stop them before I delve into the land of no-return. “I’ll stay, of course. I just wanted to offer. This day is not about me, and I’m sad I’ve become the center of attention.” She reaches into her purse and pulls out a tissue, handing it over to me. “Besides, it sounds like Sandra will be there this afternoon?”

  I blow my nose and nod. “Yes. Damn, Laura, you understood more of that conversation than I thought.”

  “I’m a good listener, and I haven’t mentioned this, but I have a bit of a photographic memory which is why I learn languages so fast. I heard the word gold and assumed ‘gold digger’ since you just declared I was going to live with you, and the word ‘money,’” she says, tapping on her chin. “I heard Sandra’s name and ‘father happy.’”

  “Yes, Sandra will be there and, no, getting back together with her will not make my father happy. My dad wanted me to be with you.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, I sent him a bunch of photos and told him all about you.”

  She smiles, one of those sweet and happy smiles I love. “I had no idea. Well, then, don’t worry about it. I can handle Sandra. I’ll just flash my guns and send her running.” She flexes her biceps, and I’m betrayed by my own body that gets a hard-on watching her, knowing she’s fit and strong but soft and sexy, too. This is going to be a long day.

  Chapter

  Thirty-Five

  =

  Laura

  My afternoon at the funeral home drones on and on. Chase is a sweet kid and stays by my side all day, playing on my iPhone and talking incessantly about Rescue Bots, which I knew nothing of but am now fully versed in including which characters change into which rescue vehicles, et cetera, et cetera. The weather clears between 3:00 and 4:00pm so I take him out back to the garden and let him run around. Nari comes out and stands next to me, smiling at Chase.

  “They should figure out how to bottle kids’ energy and sell it to everyone else,” she says, rubbing the corners of her eyes.

  “Oooh. Now that would make a great dystopian novel. I need to write that down.” I mime patting my pockets and Nari laughs. Good. I was hoping to be the comic relief today if at all possible. “I was just telling Lee yesterday I’d like the ability to erase memories at will. That’s a story that’s already been done.”

  “I’d like to erase today, if I could, especially lunch.” Nari nods, her chin-length hair, sh
orter in back than in front, bounces along with her head. “I’m sorry about my mother. She’s a righteous old bitch, very set in her ways.”

  “Well, she doesn’t know me, so I won’t be too bothered by it.”

  “That’s the right attitude to have. Lee stood up for you after you went to the car. He’s a good one to have on your side.”

  My neck breaks out in a blush imagining Lee defending my honor. I press my cold hand to my clavicle to cool it down.

  “Can I talk to you for a moment? Before we go back inside?” Nari asks.

  I rearrange the collar of my coat to cover my blush while remembering all the conversations Lee and I had about this woman, his older sister who never gave him an ounce of love. What I’ve heard is at odds with the person I’ve come to know today.

  “Sure.”

  Chase zooms by us, and we both lunge out and tickle him as he runs by. His high-pitched laughter echoes in the small garden. I wonder what Nari is about to confess, and my heart is beating so fast I might up and die. At least I’m in the right place for it.

  “I think you’re perfect for Lee, and I wanted to tell you that…”

  I turn and face her, my mouth open and eyes wide.

  “And I’m wondering if you’ll do me favor?”

  I laugh. “I guess it’s going to depend on the favor.”

  “Fair enough.” She takes a huge breath, and folds her arms across her chest. “Sorry about what I’m about to dump on you, but I know I’ve been a horrible sister to Lee. Last year, Danny threatened to leave me if I didn’t get help. I was a miserable person, clinically depressed for years and drinking heavily in secret. I went to AA and got sober, got a therapist and happy pills, and turned things around. I stopped seeing all of the people that made me worse, including Sandra and the others in our crowd. And it’s one of the things I have to do, apologize to all the people I’ve hurt…”

  She sighs and smiles at Chase climbing over the back of a bench. I wince as he does a death-defying leap and lands on his knees, but he jumps up and keeps going. He’s distracting me from the growing ache in my chest. This family is a lot more complicated than mine, and I thought mine was bad.

  “It’s hard to bring this up to Lee because he doesn’t know. None of the family knew. I mean, I was a bitch for years but no one knew how depressed I was. I would silently get drunk at family gatherings and then abuse Danny as soon as we got in the car. I kept it from all of them, especially my mom, especially my recovery. If she knew I was taking anti-depressants and seeing a therapist, she’d disown me. I’m sad I never got the chance to apologize to Dad.”

  Nari starts crying, and I hesitate a moment before hugging her. My embrace is awkward at first, because I don’t know this woman at all, but something in her told her to trust me. She softens as I pat her back, and I let her squeeze me, as an extension of Lee. When she pulls away, I get a tissue out of my bag and give it to her. I’m providing tissues to the whole Park clan today.

  “Would you mind telling Lee? I’m sorry I exploded all of this on you, but you just seem like… like someone I can talk to.”

  On our first date, Lee said almost the same thing, that he and I clicked, and I was easy to talk to. Maybe Lee and Nari are not so different after all, just a little twist in the brain chemistry that’s kept her from bonding with her brother all these years. I don’t know if an explanation and an apology is going to fix their problems and erase a history of past wrongs, but it’s a step in the right direction.

  “Sure, Nari. I’ll see what I can do.”

  (>’o’)> ♥ <(‘o’<)

  Between 4:00 and 6:00pm, we have another break, so Lee takes me to get a slice of pizza and then coffee at a local cafe. While we’re standing and drinking from our hot cups near the window, several people approach Lee, express their condolences and stare openly at me. Each time, Lee introduces me as his girlfriend, and we shake hands and smile before the other person either nods and leaves or asks, “I thought you were back together with Sandra?” To which he replies, “No. Absolutely not.”

  The whole situation is uncomfortable for me. None of these people look at me and think I belong, either in northern Seattle or next to Lee. If we stay together, this is the kind of treatment we’ll get for the rest of our lives. Normally I wouldn’t care, but the questions and stares bother Lee. His smile is gone, and his jaw is rigid. He slips his arm around my waist and kisses me on the temple but doesn’t say anything, just stares out the window until our coffee grows cold.

  Is he freaked out by me too? We fell in love so fast, and I already know I love him completely. I wonder if he’s regretting this.

  Back at the car, we stand together for a moment in the misting rain, Lee frozen with the keys in his hand before he lashes out and kicks the front tire with a lion-like roar.

  “I never want to come back here again! I hate this place. I hate these people. It’s like I can’t have a real life outside of their narrow view of ‘How Lee Park Is Supposed to Live.’” He turns back to me, rage pouring from him so intense it’s almost scary, but it’s not because of me, so I stand my ground. “There are lots of reasons I left this place, Laura, and that…” He jabs his finger at the cafe. “Is one of many.”

  Okay, he is not freaked out by me or regretting this new relationship. He is pissed off at everyone else.

  “Lee,” I say, gently, but he’s fuming so mightily, he doesn’t hear me. “Lee!” I shout and step up to him. “You never have to come back here if you don’t want to. Never.”

  “But…”

  “No. You stand by your principles, Lee. If you want to see your family, let them come to you. My father never once came to see me.” My voice breaks, and he softens, the rage melting away. “I always went to him, even when he was abusive to me. I will not make that mistake again. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. Just go and never come back. What would you be missing?”

  “My nephews growing up?”

  “Fly them to Korea. I’m sure they’ll love it. FaceTime with them every week. They have iPhones, for fuck’s sake.”

  He laughs. That’s better.

  “Look at how our relationship worked, and we could only see each other, couldn’t touch…” I get a little closer and snake my arm around his waist. “Couldn’t wipe each other’s tears. Couldn’t hug. Couldn’t kiss.” Tipping my face up to him, I nod my head and urge him to give me a kiss. He leans over, crushing me to his chest with both arms, and takes one of those dominant kisses that makes my knees weak, so hungry it tries to eat away the crap day we’ve both had.

  He pulls back, and I gulp a huge breath of air deep into my lungs. I think my lips will be red for a few hours. Lee rests his forehead against mine until a car door slams two slots over and startles us.

  “I want you to be happy,” I whisper into his ear. “Don’t let your mom pressure you into staying or coming back when you don’t want to.”

  “Just two more hours of this and then I’m taking you back to the hotel. We’ll get under the covers, be warm and dry together, and I just want to sleep…”

  “Just sleep it all away…”

  “Yeah. Laura, I love you. I’m so glad you’re here with me.”

  “I’d do anything for you, Lee. You just ask and I’ll be there.”

  He nods his head and tries to focus on me, though he’s detached, far away. “I know what I want.” He pulls back from my face and smiles at me. He has a secret. “Tomorrow, I need to go shopping before we go to the house for dinner.”

  “Okay.” I smile at him. “Alone?”

  “Yes.” He laughs, and I relax my shoulders, unclench my jaw. “It’s the surprise I was thinking of in New York.”

  I narrow my eyes at him. “Get in the car before you ruin it.”

  (>’o’)> ♥ <(‘o’<)

  I’m chatting with Nari about yoga when Sandra enters the funeral home. It’s a Korean tradition for only the sons to stand by their parent in this situation, so we both see little of L
ee or Jin all day. Daniel offered to take Chase home around 5:00pm, to feed him and put him to bed, but it leaves me friendless in a sea of unfamiliar Korean faces. I’m grateful for Nari taking an interest in me. I like Mimi, too, but she seems popular, and someone is always waiting to talk with her.

  Nari’s face tightens, what little age lines she has around her eyes smoothing flat, and she squeezes my upper arm. “Sandra is here.” She lets go and looks at my bare bicep. “Maybe I should lift weights.”

  I heft a small smile at her. Hey, if I can empower more women to exercise by showing off my arms, I don’t care how badly I offend Lee’s mom.

  “I’ll point you in the direction of some good books,” I lean in and whisper before turning around.

  My heart plummets to my stomach. Sandra is possibly the most gorgeous woman I have ever seen. Perfect height. Perfect, long, jet-black hair that flips a little along her shoulders. Perfect thin face with barely a wrinkle, rounded pink lips, and a dazzling white smile. The heads of most of the men turn and watch her remove her coat and hand it to an older, graying man who must be her father. She’s wearing a black wrap suit jacket and matching black pencil skirt and heels. She’s far and away better dressed than everyone else here. The outfit alone must have cost a fortune, not even mentioning the diamonds she’s wearing. I can see why Lee and Sandra were the power couple. Lee is always smartly dressed, his suits tailored perfectly. I wet my lips and swallow to keep the afternoon’s coffee in my stomach where it belongs.

  I note with the barest amount of satisfaction that I’m in much better shape than she is. She may be thin, but her legs lack the definition of muscles. And I’m stylish in my quirky way. My dress fits me well and the bracelets Lee gave me tinkle when I move. It’s not a lot but it’s something.