by Frances Cha
“Excuse me, sorry to interrupt,” he said with a slight accent, looking both cute and confident. “I have to tell you that you are very beautiful.”
Ruby didn’t look up from her food and kept eating slowly, not saying anything.
“Can I ask if you live in this neighborhood? I live and work around the corner,” he said, pointing to the window at a building that he clearly thought we should know.
His smile began to falter when neither of us responded.
“Okay, well, have a good dinner,” he said, almost sullen now, and headed for the exit. As he opened the door, I distinctly heard the word “bitch” muttered under his breath.
“So ridiculous!” I said lightly to Ruby.
“Maybe I can have him killed,” she said, her eyes slitted.
I laughed, then stopped when she glared at me.
“Next time this happens, take a photo of the guy,” she said. “How dare he think he can just walk up and talk to me?” She clenched her jaw and continued to eat, eyes flashing wildly now.
I nodded and murmured agreement. I was still learning what to say and how to react around her.
* * *
—
RUBY DID TELL me, a few months later, after the gallery had opened and the other girls had quit and we’d had to find replacements who were not Korean, that my behavior was now passing muster.
We were drinking at a bar in K-Town, waiting for Hanbin and one of his friends to join us. Ruby had wordlessly handed me a real-looking fake ID with my gallery staff photo earlier that evening and I was still heady from the rush of finally ordering my first real drink at a New York bar. It was such a different world from Korea, where alcohol flowed freely for underage drinkers with only the most halfhearted of pretenses to uphold any restrictions.
“You know, I like that you’re a quick study,” she said suddenly, smiling a crooked smile.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
She waved an airy hand over my outfit. I was wearing a black cashmere sweater and a long, tight leather skirt that I’d bought at a thrift store in Brooklyn. I’d heard that designers donated their unsold samples from last season there, and I’d sift through the racks for hours, searching for designer pieces with tags still attached.
“Remember when you’d wear pink fake suede?” she said with a peal of laughter.
I blushed and pretended to slap her lightly on the arm. “So what? Lots of designers use pink every season! Stop being such a boring New Yorker.”
“And you’re so easy to tease!” She choked with more amusement. Then Hanbin came in with another good-looking, well-dressed boy from Columbia and we were fortunately diverted. But afterward, her mirth would come back to me and I would sit up in bed abruptly in the middle of the night, my cheeks aflame.
* * *
—
BACK THEN, Hanbin constituted the third of our trio, trailing behind us while Ruby and I would walk a few steps ahead. He was a quiet but attentive boyfriend to Ruby, always driving us places, getting us into clubs with lines, arranging front-row tickets to plays and exhibitions and fashion shows that Ruby wanted to see. The two of them never displayed any affection publicly and never took any photos together, which I thought was strange. Only once did I see them embrace, and that was late one night when I was leaving her apartment after the three of us had been watching a movie. I looked behind me as the door closed and Ruby was laying her head against Hanbin’s chest as he put his arms around her. They looked so peaceful and complete and so utterly content that I stood transfixed until the door slowly shut. I never saw them touch again.
Every time I had a show—part of my scholarship requirement was that I had to exhibit as much as I could—Ruby and Hanbin both came and stayed a long time, which meant a great deal to me. They even came for the freshman show, in which I was only exhibiting two pieces. Ruby never said much—just posed questions about other students’ work—but Hanbin was surprisingly interested in my process. He would always ask, “How long did this one take you?” and “What was the inspiration for this piece?” He looked sweetly unsure about what was appropriate to ask and I would have to resist the urge to reach up and touch the small wrinkles that formed on his forehead.
Sometimes, and I lived for these moments, Ruby would be late or she would text and cancel altogether when Hanbin and I would already be waiting for her. He would frown and sigh a little—he was unfailingly disappointed when she stood him up, even as often as it was—but then he would turn to me and say with a shrug, “So, do you still want to get something to eat?” And my heart would rise and I would nod a little too enthusiastically, and later in secret writhe with self-loathing.
“We don’t have an artistic bone in our entire family, even my gallerist mother,” he said to me once when he and Ruby came over to my studio to see renderings of my final project.
I was showing him some sketches, which I was planning to turn into a series.
“I really love what you’re doing with this one,” he said reverently, holding up a rough sketch of a girl in a well, looking upward with her hands outstretched. It had been buried under a pile of other sketches and he had gone through them all. “This is quite incredible.”
“It’s all very morbid,” I mumbled, embarrassed. I’d forgotten that sketch was in the pile, and the girl’s eyes had turned out so differently from what I had envisioned in my head. It had been a class assignment on family that I had never turned in.
“But that’s why we like you,” said Ruby, from the corner where she had been studying one of my sculptures of blind children. “That’s why I like you,” she said. “I think you can see things very clearly that others can’t because they are so easily distracted.”
I had no idea what she was talking about, but I smiled so as not to dispel such heightened notions of me.
* * *
—
IN THE WINTER, it was a thing among the rich Korean kids to book a hotel suite for the night and drink there, even though all of them lived in beautiful apartments. One time, we drove to Boston because Ruby wanted to. “I’m so bored here,” she said, and collected her brother Mu-cheon, who went to Columbia with Hanbin and lived uptown, and a few other friends from boarding school. And off we went to stay at the Corycian Hotel on Boylston Street, with plans of shopping and clubbing.
Ruby insisted on driving herself in her red Maserati and Hanbin sat up front while Mu-cheon and I sat in the back. He was passed out because he was hungover from the night before, and I sat quietly, staring out the window at the snow-covered trees whizzing by.
I had been trying not to think about the scene I had witnessed the week before. I had been walking out of the library, wondering why Ruby had not contacted me for over a week, when I saw her and another Korean SVA girl—Jenny—getting out of a taxi with oversize shopping bags. They were laughing as they grappled with the bags and the driver had to get out of his car to help them. I could see from the logos on the bags that it had been a Fifth Avenue day. A few weeks before that, she had left me out of dinner at her house with several other study-abroad friends. I had found out about it when I overheard two girls raving about the private chef she had hired.
Only stopping twice, Ruby drove all the way to a little restaurant in Boston’s Koreatown, where we ate dinner and started drinking; the owner knew Hanbin and didn’t bother us for ID. The place got louder and louder as it became packed with drunk students. There were six of us to start with, but soon more people started coming as everyone began calling and getting calls from their friends in Boston.
Around 1 A.M. we ordered more soju for takeout, and with plastic pails in hand, we left. Ruby drove slowly and jerkily.
Back at the hotel, someone put on some music and we continued drinking. Our suite number had been given out at the restaurant and people started arriving in groups of two and three, all carrying more drinks.
Some had booked rooms on our floor, so we started wandering in and out of them, drinks in hand, whispering and laughing in the hallways. I didn’t know any of the newcomers but we were all giddy and drunk. I listened to their banter and smiled and drank some more. In the corner Mu-cheon started nuzzling some Wellesley girl.
I don’t know what time it was—3 or 4 A.M.—when I went to lie down on the bed in one of the suites. My head was hurting and my body felt like it was buoyed on waves, rising and sinking. I heard murmurs and music outside but was relieved to just close my eyes.
The door opened and shut and a hand brushed against my forehead. It was Hanbin, looming over me. “My head hurts,” I said. “Do you have any Tylenol?”
He shook his head.
“Then can you just press my temples a little? Like this.” I put my fingers on my own temples where they were pulsing.
He had big hands and he clumsily tried to do what I’d shown him, but soon just started stroking my hair.
I rolled my body a little closer to his and he leaned down and somehow, suddenly, he was kissing me.
It was over so quickly but I loved it terribly, the feel of his broad, strong body against mine. His shoulders were so wide and appealing and his mouth was warm. He got up abruptly, looked down at me for a second, and then left. We have never talked about it since, but I remember everything.
* * *
—
WHEN RUBY KILLED herself two months later, I could not talk to anyone. I stopped going to classes. I could not leave my room. I did not know how to live.
I wish she could have told me more about her family, about the grief that her father caused her on a daily basis, the demons she inherited. She had alluded to these things, but I had not asked for more, and I knew that that was how I had failed her, by not asking for more details, by not telling her repeatedly about how her life was so spectacular compared to mine. I assumed she knew that, I assumed that she felt lucky compared with me, that that was why she kept me around as a friend. I should have told her more stories of my own sorrows.
I then proceeded to betray her in the worst possible way, by loving and taking Hanbin, and I know that in the next life, I will pay. But for now, I can’t help it, I cannot stop going down this path, even though I know the wreckage that it will leave of my heart. All of this—Hanbin, my job, my frenzied productivity—is very temporary, I know. All I can offer her is proof she haunts me still, every day.
Ara
Every night before I go to sleep, I call in to SwitchBox to hear Crown’s message of the day, hoping to hear Taein. Technically, one-fifth of the messages of the day should be recorded by Taein, since Crown has five members and at the SwitchBox launch press conference—to which Taein wore those limited-edition Louis Vuitton Bronze Splatter High-Tops that then sold out across the world in twenty-four hours—they did promise that a different member would record a message every day. But in reality, only about a tenth of the messages of the day are by Taein, which makes sense because he is the most popular and therefore the busiest, with his solo contracts for two new reality TV shows and all those endorsements he films by himself as well.
Bestie ends up recording the most messages. He is the most annoying member of the group because not only is he the least popular but he doesn’t seem to understand that he’s the least popular. He always talks like every girl in the country is fawning over him, when honestly, all they want to do is see and hear Taein, and also maybe JB, while Bestie is just filler. Why Bestie doesn’t understand this is beyond me—he keeps monopolizing precious time in interviews and talk shows. I can’t help complaining about Bestie on the Taein fan boards, but then I get bombarded with comments to shut up about Bestie on a Taein fan board. Everyone on the board hates Bestie for being such a mooch and a copycat. It’s true, in the last three red-carpet events, Bestie wore a black tattoo choker and a gold link bracelet, which is what Taein wore to the latest X-Men movie premiere, where he arm-wrestled Hugh Jackman and Hugh Jackman let him win.
My favorite message on SwitchBox so far has been the one where Taein talked about what he does when he is lonely on the road.
“I don’t think a lot of people realize this because our lives look so glamorous from the outside, but usually we just spend all day and night at the concert halls rehearsing and then we come back to our hotel and each of us goes into our room and we stay there alone watching TV until we go to sleep,” he said in his deep, magnetic voice. “It’s a little embarrassing, but I’ve been watching so many period dramas in my hotel room that I’ve been dreaming about them. Bestie caught me talking to myself in a period-piece accent the other day!”
I love hearing his voice on my phone. And I love that it doesn’t matter that I can’t say anything back.
* * *
—
AT WORK, I am having trouble with the girls—the assistants who are supposed to do the prepping and washing and sweeping and even some blow-drying if I am busy with another client. They are meant to be as unremarkable as background music, which is why the salon has them all dress the same, in uniforms mimicking schoolgirl outfits of white button-down shirts and short red plaid skirts.
The problem started when the new girl came. There are always new girls coming and going—they are saucy and bored and mumble at the ground whenever they are addressed. But this one, Cherry, she came with a malicious glint in her eye. And she was assigned to me.
Even before Cherry, I would do a lot more of the grunt work than the other stylists because I cannot call out orders and am forced to physically find the girls and touch them on the shoulder to gesture what I want done. So if I can’t find them right away, I end up just doing whatever needs to be done myself. Which is fine most of the time but there are always days when several clients arrive in a row and fume when I can’t attend to them immediately. It is always in these moments that Cherry disappears altogether and I am at my wit’s end, trying to pull other people’s assistants for just a few minutes, and then the other stylists complain to Manager Kwon afterward, even though they are so sugary nice to me in person.
Monday was particularly trying. I had one of my most important clients—the KBC producer—come in for a blowout at the same time as my oldest client, Mrs. Oh, who wanted a color and a perm. Mrs. Oh always tips at least thirty thousand won, which is unheard of at my salon, while I am always hoping the KBC producer will get me into a Music Pop taping, or even, in my wildest hopes, backstage at one of the end-of-year music award shows. Cherry was nowhere to be found and I was running back and forth between chairs, trying to blow-dry while mixing the dyes, and I dripped some cold dye on the back of the KBC producer’s neck, which I wiped off quickly enough, but she winced.
It is hard to scold someone in writing.
Where were you earlier? I wrote on my notepad at the end of the night, when Cherry was sweeping the floors. On the page, my words did not convey any of the fury I was feeling.
“What do you mean?” said Cherry, the picture of innocence. “I was working.” She threw the other girls a look that was almost an eye roll.
I couldn’t find you for 20 minutes! I underlined “20 minutes” three times.
“I was probably doing an errand for you,” she said. “I was around the whole time, you can ask the other girls.” She looked at them again and the girls nodded vehemently. She has them wrapped around her finger, the little witch.
* * *
—
I WOULD HAVE the salon fire her, except that I already asked Manager Kwon to replace an assistant just three months ago. That one wasn’t a bad egg, just dim-witted and prone to accidents. After the third time she spilled hot coffee on a customer, I requested a switch. Manager Kwon was understanding, but I know he won’t like it if I do it again, especially since Cherry takes great care to be alert and respectful around him. I can’t have the salon thinking I am difficult to work with, when it would be almost impos
sible for me to find another job like this. The only reason they took me in here is because Sujin badgered the owner for months about giving me a try, and then I worked without pay for three months in gratitude for giving me a chance. If I’d had any inkling, I would have just stuck with the other girl.
The thing is, I remember how I used to be even worse than Cherry when I was young, back when I had my voice and my confidence. My friends and I, we terrorized the streets and knew no fear of money or the future. I know how she thinks. And that’s the problem. Because I know there isn’t anything that can change her except time and inevitable misfortune. Those girls I used to roam with, they all live with despair now, I can tell you that. I just hope that whatever calamity she has coming her way, it strikes sooner, rather than later.
* * *
—
WHAT’S NOT BEEN helping my mood this week is the rumor that Taein is dating Candy, the lead singer of Charming. Of course, there are ludicrous rumors every month about who Taein is dating, but for the past two years the paparazzi photos have consistently showed some no-name Japanese model whom all the fans tolerate because the body language clearly shows that she is the one who is following him around rather than him being more into her. Besides, she is weird looking, with eyes that are too far apart and lips puffier than a blowfish’s.
