by Frances Cha
“I make it a point to ask every man—just because I want to know for sure. And they all say that they like long, wavy hair. I really think it’s because of Cho Sehee from that movie My Dove. She was so beautiful in it, you know? And her hair is completely natural, did you know that? She hasn’t dyed it or permed it in ten years because of her contract with Shampureen.”
Kyuri prattles on with her eyes closed while I gather her hair in small strips and pin them to her head. I start curling the sections on the left side first, inside out.
“The older girls have to try so hard with their hairstyles. It’s really tragic, getting old. I look at our madam and she is just the ugliest creature I have ever seen. I think I would kill myself if I looked that ugly. But you know what? I think we must be the only room salon with an ugly madam. It really makes Ajax stand out. And I think it makes us girls look prettier too, because she is so horrifying.”
She shudders.
“Sometimes I just can’t stop thinking about how ugly she is. I mean, why doesn’t she just get surgery? Why? I really don’t understand ugly people. Especially if they have money. Are they stupid?” She studies herself in the mirror, tilting her head to the side until I right it again. “Are they perverted?”
* * *
—
AT HOME, the only time I ever hang out with Sujin is on Sundays, which are my only days off. During the weekdays, I go to work at 10:30 A.M. and come home exhausted at 11 P.M. So on Sundays, we lounge around the apartment and eat banana chips and ramen and watch TV on the computer. Sujin’s favorite program is this variety show called Extreme to Extreme, where they feature several severely deformed (or sometimes just really ugly) people every week and have the public phone in their votes on who should win free plastic surgery from the best doctors in the country. She loves watching the final makeover, when the chosen step out from behind a curtain while their families—who have not seen them in months while they recover from surgery—scream and cry and fall to their knees when they see how unrecognizably beautiful the winner has become. It is very dramatic. The MCs cry a lot.
Usually she watches it over and over but today she is too excited to stay still.
“Kyuri was actually so nice about it when she finally came around. She said that she would talk to the place where she sells her bags, and they would be willing to lend me money for the surgery. She says that’s actually their main line of business—lending money to room salon girls! And then when I am better and everything is fixed, I can find work through her.”
Sujin trembles with excitement as I pat her arm. “I can’t wait,” she says. “I am only going to eat ramen until I pay back that loan so fast that there won’t be time for any interest to grow.”
She looks giddy. “Wouldn’t it be wonderful to go to sleep at night and wake up rich every day? But I won’t spend it. Oh no. I will stay poor at heart. And that is what will keep me rich.”
What will you buy me? I write. She laughs and pats my head.
“For ineogongju,” she says, “her heart’s desire.” She walks over to the mirror and touches her chin with her fingertips. “Just make sure you know what it is by then.”
* * *
—
ON THE DAY of Sujin’s surgeries, Kyuri comes to the salon early so that she can take Sujin in to the hospital and talk to Dr. Shim before he operates. I am going to leave work at 5 P.M. today to be there when Sujin wakes up from the anesthesia.
Thank you for introducing her to such a magician, I write. She is going to be beautiful.
Kyuri’s face goes blank, but soon she smiles and says she likes the idea that she helped add more beauty to the world. “Isn’t it so generous of him to fit her in like that for just a tiny premium? He’s usually so busy that you can’t schedule a surgery for months.” I nod. At the consultation, Dr. Shim told Sujin that restitching her eyes will not be a problem, and she needs to get both double jaw surgery and square jaw surgery, desperately. He’ll cut both the upper and lower jaws and relocate them, then shave down both sides so that she will no longer have such a masculine-looking jawline. He also recommended cheekbone reduction and some light chin liposuction. The surgeries will take a total of five to six hours and she will stay in the hospital for four days.
He was less forthcoming about how long it will take for her to look completely natural again. “Probably more than six months” was the most specific answer anyone gave us. Everyone’s recovery time varies wildly, they said. But a girl at the salon whose cousin got it done told me it took over a year for her to look normal. Her cousin still couldn’t feel her chin and had a hard time chewing, she said, but she had gotten a job in sales at a top-tier conglomerate.
When I finish curling Kyuri’s hair, I fluff the curls and then squeeze some of my most expensive shine serum into my hands. I rub them together and comb them lightly through her hair. It smells lovely, like peppermint and roses.
When I tap her on the shoulder to let her know I’m done, Kyuri sits up straight. Her lashes flutter as she gazes at herself with her “mirror expression,” sucking in her cheeks. She looks breathtaking, with her cascade of waves and carefully made-up face. Next to her, I look even more faded, with my ordinary face and my ordinary hair, which Manager Kwon is constantly harping at me to style more dramatically.
“Thank you, Ara,” she says, her face breaking into a slow, appreciative smile. She catches my eye in the mirror. “I love it. What a goddess!” We laugh together, but my laugh is soundless.
* * *
—
IN THE HOSPITAL, all I can do is hold Sujin’s hand while she weeps silently, just her eyelashes and nose and lips visible in her bandaged head.
* * *
—
WHEN I GET home that night, I find a sheet of paper on the table. It is her will. We had read many news stories about patients who died from flecks of jaw bone getting lodged in arteries, causing them to choke to death on blood filling up in their throats while they slept. I made her stop after the first few articles, but secretly, I read them all.
* * *
—
I LEAVE EVERYTHING I own to my roommate, Park Ara, it says.
* * *
—
IN THE ORIGINAL STORY, the little mermaid endures unspeakable pain to gain her human legs. The Sea Witch warns her that her new feet will feel as if she is walking on whetted blades, but she will be able to dance like no human has ever danced before. And so she drinks the witch’s potion, which slices through her body like a sword.
What I want to say, though, is that she danced divinely with her beautiful legs, even through the pain of a thousand knives. She was able to walk and run and stay close to her beloved prince, and even when things didn’t work out with him, that wasn’t the point.
And in the end, after she said goodbye to her prince and flung herself into the sea, expecting to disintegrate into sea foam, she was carried away by the children of light and air.
* * *
—
ISN’T THAT a beautiful story?
Kyuri
Around 10 P.M., a girl who was not one of us entered our room at the room salon. She was small and expensively dressed, in a flowing bird-patterned silk dress and high heels edged with mink. I’d seen that exact dress in the latest issue of Women’s Love and Luxury and it had been the same price as a year’s rent. She stood there, dainty and scornful.
There were five of us girls sitting around the table, one for each of the men, and she stood in the doorway and stared in turn at each of us, her eyes alight with intense interest. Most of the men did not seem to register her entry—they were drinking and talking loudly—but us room salon girls, we froze. The other girls then looked away immediately, heads down, but I stopped myself and stared back at her.
She was quietly scrutinizing everything in the room—the dark marble walls, the long table la
den with bottles and glasses and crystal plates of fruit, the light emanating from the bathroom in the corner, the karaoke machine, which had been switched off midsong because Bruce had received an important work call and couldn’t be bothered to step outside. The fact that she was not escorted by one of the waiters meant someone had told her exactly which room to come to—which was not an easy feat given our deliberately confusing underground maze of hallways.
“Ji, over here!” Bruce, my partner, turned to see what I was looking at and called to her while giving my inner thigh a rough pinch under the table. “You came!”
The girl called Ji walked slowly toward us and sat down where Bruce had indicated. Up close, I could see that her face was devoid of surgery—her eyes were single-lidded and her nose was flat. I would not have been caught dead walking around with a face like that. But clearly, from the way she walked and held her head, she came from the kind of money that didn’t need any.
“Hey, you,” she said to Bruce. “Are you drunk? Why did you tell me to come here?” She sounded upset to be called to such a setting, but I knew that the opposite was true—she was delighted to see for herself what the inside of a room salon looked like. On their rare visits, women usually gape like fish, judging us. You can tell they are thinking, “I would never compromise my morals for money. You probably only do this to buy handbags.”
I’m not sure who’s worse, them or the men. Just kidding, the men are always worse.
A half-empty bottle of whiskey sat in front of me on the table. As always, Bruce had booked the largest room and had ordered the priciest bottles we had on the menu but tonight he and his friends were taking longer than most parties to drink it. Bruce was a recent big catch for our room salon—not only was his family famous (his father owned a stem-cell clinic in Cheongdamdong) but he had started his own gaming company—and Madam was thrilled that he’d been here every week for going on two months now. “All because of you, Kyuri,” she’d said to me a few nights ago, her toad-like face breaking into a smile. I smiled back. I happen to know that ours is the closest room salon to his office.
“Of course I’m not drunk,” Bruce snapped at the girl. “I called you because Miae’s not talking to me.”
This was the first I had heard of a Miae, but why would I have heard of her?
“You had another fight?” she said. Shivering, she pulled a sand-colored cardigan out of her bag and put it on. That gesture in itself was another affront. Madam keeps the room cold and comfortable for men wearing suits, while we’re in minidresses trying to hide our goosebumps.
“You need to talk to her, wake her up so she understands how the real world works.” Bruce took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes, something he does when he’s frustrated. Without his glasses, he looks like a lost little kid and the name Bruce seems ludicrous. I started calling him that after he told me he reached 3-dan in tae kwon do before he turned fifteen. We were at a hotel and I was teasing him about his skinny arms. I was too tired for sex that night, and had hoped he would get annoyed if I teased him.
I don’t know at what age men become assholes—boyhood, teenage years? When they start earning some real money? It depends on their fathers, and their fathers’ fathers, probably. Their grandfathers are usually the biggest assholes of all, if mine are any indication. Men these days are actually much better than previous generations—the ones who used to bring mistresses into the house and make their wives feed and care for their bastard children. I’ve just heard too many stories in my own family tree to have had any illusions to begin with, even before I started working in a room salon. If they don’t die early, stranding you with kids and colossal childcare expenses, they fuck you over in other ways that are entirely boring.
The only gentlemen I ever see are in those dramas on TV. Those men are kind. They protect you and cry and stand up to their families for you, although I wouldn’t want them to give up a family fortune of course. A poor man cannot help me when he cannot help himself. I know, because I was in love with a poor man once. He could not pay to spend time with me and I could not afford to spend time with him.
“You fight more than any couple I know,” said the girl. “At this point, you need to break it off or propose.” She was looking me up and down as she spoke.
Bitch, I thought, resisting the urge to tug at the hem of my dress.
“I know,” Bruce said, reaching for the bottle. I let him pour himself another shot without offering to pour it for him. If Madam had seen me, she would have said something. “It’s what every fight is really about these days. I’m not ready, I’m only thirty-three. None of our friends are married. Even the girls. Although what they’re going to do is beyond me.” He frowned. “Except you, Ji, of course,” he added hastily. “You obviously have nothing to worry about.”
The girl made a face. “I’m so sick of my family setting me up on these blind dates, trying to get me married. What century do they think this is?”
His expression turned solemn as he weighed her problem. I rolled my eyes but fortunately no one saw me.
“My grandmother has already picked a date for my wedding,” she continued. “Next September fifth or something. They just need a groom. She says she needs a lot of time to figure out which hotel I’m getting married in because she doesn’t want to offend the owners of whatever hotel she doesn’t choose.”
I took out my compact and went back to retouching my face. How funny, the wild variety of shit some people are worrying about in life. In the past, I would have been fidgeting, ashamed and uncomfortable, while she stared at me. Now, I just wanted to slap her face. And Bruce’s too, for good measure, for calling her here.
“Anyways, I think it’s a good sign that you are actually this affected by Miae and that you’re cut up about her,” she said. Then she began talking rapidly in English, using wide hand gestures. It’s a thing English speakers do, I’ve noticed. Their hands flail wildly and their heads move a lot when they talk. They look ridiculous.
“Bruce, what the hell?” The other men had all turned their heads sharply when they heard her speaking English. It was when they realized a girl from the outside world was among them.
“What the fuck?” said the plump, sweaty guy who’d been sitting on the other side of me. Earlier, I’d heard him bragging to Sejeong, the girl he’d picked, that he was a “top company lawyer.” Sejeong hadn’t been able to stop laughing at him and he’d blushed like a teenager.
His rotund face was now hostile as he looked from Bruce to the girl and back to Bruce.
“Guys, this is my friend Jihee, you met her before at Miae’s birthday party, remember?” Bruce beamed, slurring his words. They all stared back at him. She probably knew a good third of their sisters and wives and co-workers. Probably their parents too.
The girl retreated further into her seat, looking as innocent as she could. She didn’t want to leave, it was clear.
There was a silence, one that none of us girls cared to tide over. It was bad of Bruce to break the unspoken rule, but the guys couldn’t stay angry at him. For one thing, he was too drunk to care, and more important, he was paying for the whole night, as he always did. The bill was probably equivalent to half of their monthly paychecks. So the men turned back to their girls, though they were much more restrained now.
If it had been like most other nights, I would have gotten up and left for another room, as I tend to have regulars asking for me at the same time and I rotate room to room. But Bruce is an exception and it was a slow Tuesday. Besides, I was hungry and no one had touched the plates of anju. Although it was against the salon’s policy and I’d never done it before, I took a slice of dragon fruit and started eating. The flesh was silky but almost tasteless.
“So how did this fight actually start?” the girl asked.
“Miae wanted to have dinner tonight with her brother’s new girlfriend,” said Bruce. “I’ve been working so
hard for this IPO I’ve been sleeping on my desk every night, and there’s no way I’m going to sit down with some country girl her idiot brother is dating at his no-name university. I don’t give a shit.”
He nursed his whiskey and brooded. He ignored me completely, as if he hadn’t fucked me over a chair two nights ago.
“She takes that kind of thing as you not caring about her family, you know. You should be careful.”
He snorted. “Do you know that her brother actually asks me for pocket money?” He jerked his head in disgust. “And of course he’s going to come to me for a job, when we don’t hire anyone who’s not from the top three schools. Or at least from KAIST. Or someone with parents that have direct power to help us.”
“What does her dad do again? I think I heard once but I forgot.”
“He’s just some lawyer with his own tiny firm in some neighborhood I’ve never heard of that barely counts as Seoul.”
He looked upset.
“Why don’t you just break it off, then?” the girl said, impatient now. “She’s become my friend too, and I’m saying this for her. Don’t waste her time if she is going to have to meet someone new. It’s going to take her another year to meet someone, maybe a year of dating to talk about marriage, then another few months to marriage and then another year to have kids. And she’s thirty already!”
“Yeah, I know,” he said gloomily. “So I agreed to have our parents meet. For dinner. And I’m freaking out right now. Life as I know it will end on March first. Independence Movement Day. Seven P.M. Even all the siblings are coming.” His face was tragic.
“What?” she and I said at the same time. And then both Bruce and the girl looked at me, Bruce amused and the girl with a withering stare.
“A sangyeonrae?” she went on. “That’s more final than a proposal.”
