29 Dates

by Melissa de la Cruz

  “Are you sure you’re just not being picky?” Euni teased. “What happened to the one with the restaurateur parents?”

  “Oh, I remember that one. He was cute!” Min said. “If you didn’t like him, you should’ve set him up with me. A nationally beloved songstress and the heir to Korea’s top restaurants—we’d be an amazing power couple.”

  “I don’t know, Min. He was kind of full of himself and kept checking out his reflection. But that’s something you guys have in common, so maybe it would work out!” Jisu laughed.

  “What does the guy you’re seeing tonight look like?” Euni reached for Jisu’s phone. “Isn’t there a photo that comes with the résumé?”

  “Wait, the date is tonight?” Min asked. “I got us those tickets to this week’s Music Bank taping. You guys said you were coming with me!” She rolled her eyes and let out a dramatic, heavy sigh.

  Jisu and Euni exchanged a guilty glance. They had promised. And unlike the poorly attended open mics and overcrowded celebrity meet-and-greets that Min usually dragged her friends to, Music Bank was actually an exciting show that Euni and Jisu looked forward to. Many of their favorite pop stars would be performing back-to-back. Jisu always watched it on TV, but the thought of being at the studio, right there with her favorite artists, filled her with excitement.

  “Oh, yeah, that’s right. Jisu, can’t you just reschedule?” Euni tapped Jisu’s phone and enlarged the attached headshot. “Or cancel?” Euni frowned. “He’s not that cute anyway.”

  Jisu grabbed her phone back and looked at the picture on the screen. She wished for a reaction—her heart beating faster, a tiny stomach flip, anything. But her body remained static. There was nothing. He wasn’t not cute. He just looked like every other squeaky-clean, accomplished, coiffed son of a well-off family.

  Sorry, Ms. Moon. I need to reschedule. I have hagwon until late in the evening today.

  Jisu hit Send and felt a wave of relief. She had spent the whole summer going on dead-end dates and had wasted last weekend studying for a test she would’ve never aced. One night of fun couldn’t hurt.

  * * *

  When Jisu stepped out of the elevator and into her family’s apartment, she was relieved to see that all the lights were out. She carefully removed her shoes in the foyer and slid into her house slippers. From the top floor of their apartment in Daechi-dong, Jisu could see the rest of the Gangnam neighborhood below her. A stream of traffic lit up the Dongbu Expressway. The red-and-white lights of buses, trucks and cars ambled alongside the shimmering waters of the Tancheon.

  It was way too late to say that she was coming home from hagwon. She had texted out a full, elaborate lie five different ways before simply letting her parents know she was seeing a late movie with her friends. That was all it took for them to believe her.

  Jisu’s ears were still ringing from the concert, which only exaggerated the complete silence surrounding her. Every creak of the wooden floor loudly announced her presence. She held her breath, crept into the living room and peeked at the white leather couch to make sure her father hadn’t fallen asleep there while waiting for her to come home. She exhaled quietly. He wasn’t there, slouched on one side like he was sometimes. As she made her way into the kitchen, she imagined her mother seated at one of the high stools with her arms crossed atop the cold marble island top. Don’t be awake. Please don’t be awake. But there was no night-light left on, and neither parent was waiting for her. Thank god.

  Jisu grabbed a sheet mask from the fridge and scurried to her room. Finally. After placing her phone and camera on her nightstand and changing into pajamas, she crawled into her bed and sprawled her limbs out, as if to stretch and rid her body of the entire weight of the day.

  Her phone vibrated. It was a text from Min.

  Jisu!! Did you get home safe?

  Usually Euni was the one who checked to make sure everyone safely returned home.

  Also don’t forget to send me the photos from tonight!

  Jisu smiled. Of course. Min really just wanted the photos. Jisu sat up, ripped open the sheet mask package and then aligned the mask on her face so that she could properly see and breath out of the eye and nose cutouts. The refreshing smell of cucumber and aloe almost immediately put Jisu at ease. The mask was nice and cold and would reduce any puffiness in her features, eliminating evidence of how late she’d stayed out. She caught her reflection in the mirror and laughed. Looking like a wide-eyed and extremely innocent killer from Friday the 13th was never not hilarious.

  She lay down again so that the sheet mask wouldn’t slide off her face. Holding her camera directly over her head, Jisu scrolled through her photos. Min dancing, Euni laughing. All the shots of Min were perfectly posed, but somehow still looked candid. How many selfies did it take for her to figure out her best angles? Euni, the stay-home-and-watch-a-movie type, looked like she’d had fun, too. And of course there were the shameless selfies. The three of them cheesing hard, having a good time. Why did having a fun night with friends have to feel so illicit? What was the point of killing yourself to have a “happy, successful life”—whatever that meant—if you couldn’t relax once in a while?

  And who got to define what a “happy and successful” future looked like?

  There was no greater failure than being a senior at Daewon High School and not knowing your five-year plan.

  Jisu’s eyelids grew heavy. She took off her sheet mask, pressed the cold cucumber and aloe goo into her skin and fell fast asleep.

  * * *

  When Jisu stepped into the kitchen the next morning and found her parents seated at the dining table with stern looks on their faces, every drop of euphoria from the night before evaporated into thin air. Her limbs grew heavy, and making her way to the table felt like dragging a ton of bricks. She was caught. Of course they knew. How could she have thought for a second that she’d get away with it? Jisu seated herself at the table and braced for impact.

  “I hope the Music Bank concert was fun, because that is the last one you will be going to,” Mrs. Kim said as she dipped a spoon into her cup and stirred the tea. Straight to the point. As always. Had Jisu’s parents had her followed? It honestly wouldn’t be surprising if they had.

  “Min wants to be a silly pop star, so at least it makes sense for her to go.” Mrs. Kim turned to her husband, talking to him as if their daughter wasn’t sitting right in front of them. “I’m surprised Euni went. Usually she is good about these things. Her mother will not be happy to hear about this.”

  Jisu gritted her teeth. She could take her mother’s endless jansori, but she couldn’t stand it when she dared to talk about her friends.

  “Oh, so now you’re upset?” Mrs. Kim stared at Jisu, whose clenched jaw was probably telegraphing “attitude problem” to her mother. “Now that you’ve been caught ignoring your responsibilities and coming home late, but not when you barely passed your first exam of the school year?” Jisu’s exam was still in her backpack, which she’d had with her all night. Her mother must have called Mrs. Han.

  “Umma, please. I wasn’t happy with my score either,” Jisu protested. She looked down at her folded hands. “But it wasn’t that low of a score. I am really trying. I’ll do better on the next one. I’m sorry I can’t be perfect.”

  “Perfect?” Her mother sighed. “No one is asking you to be perfect. It would be more than enough for you to score higher than your class average. But apparently even that is too much to ask.”

  Her father placed a hand on her mother’s shoulder as if putting a brake on his wife’s anger. Jisu’s father was the calm, rational one between the two of them. These were the roles they played: Mrs. Kim as the mother whose standards were as high as her emotions were strong, Mr. Kim as the father whose disappointment was quiet, but just as devastating, and of course Jisu as the disappointing daughter.

  “And the seon that you missed...” Mrs. Kim sighed agai
n. “A lot of time and energy goes into preparing these meetings. When you blow one off, it’s disrespectful to Ms. Moon. It’s disrespectful to your date. It’s disrespectful to us.”

  Jisu’s chest tightened, and all of a sudden it felt hard to breathe. Her arms tensed as if they were wrapped up in a straitjacket. Doing well in school, getting into a good college... Jisu could understand why her parents put pressure on her with academics. But orchestrating her love life was taking their obsessive parenting to the next level. She wanted to scream, but frustration paralyzed her. She could only muster a few words.

  “Umma, I spent the whole summer going to every single seon. I only asked to reschedule yesterday’s.” Jisu dared to look at her mother. “What if I don’t want to meet anyone through some arranged matchmaker?”

  “You want a perfect romance to fall into your lap?”

  “Isn’t that what happened with you and Appa? That’s literally the story of how you guys met,” Jisu shot back.

  She was right. Her mother had been walking across campus when she was knocked over by a group of students protesting the bloody outcome of the Gwangju Uprising. The protest was led by none other than Mr. Kim. Jisu’s mother had just checked out an armful of books on the Medici family for her research on the birth of entrepreneurship in art, and they were strewn about on the ground. By the time Jisu’s father picked up each one, he’d gathered enough courage to ask her on a date.

  But that was a long time ago. Mrs. Kim was no longer an art-history scholar, and Mr. Kim’s protesting days were long behind him. Jisu wondered if her parents ever remembered their past selves. She saw glimpses when her mother would take her to the latest gallery opening and actually observe and talk to her about the art instead of eyeing each person who entered the space. But those were only glimpses; her parents were entirely different people now.

  Mrs. Kim furrowed her brows and placed her hands on her temples. “Finding a partner today holds the same kind of importance as finding a job. Do you think meeting someone who comes from a good family and has a great education just like you is as easy as bumping into them on the street?” Mrs. Kim cupped Jisu’s face in her hands. “Jisu-ya, listen to me. Nothing happens if you sit around and wait. Nothing will work until you do. Every decision you make now affects your future. With school, even with the seons.”

  “Jisu, we are supporting you in every way we can,” Mr. Kim chimed in, making his best diplomatic effort. He was always the olive branch between Jisu and her mother. Jisu knew in her heart that her parents wanted her to be happy. She knew that her own optimism and faith in the world were things her parents loved about her, but they worried that she would be hurt by what they saw as her naivete. Still, at the end of the day, both her parents were going to be supportive of whatever she wanted to do with her life...so long as she was first accepted by the best college she could get into. This logic probably had its roots in her mother and father having studied in not-so-lucrative fields—art history and philosophy respectively—but having done so at Seoul National University, the top school in South Korea. The reputation of their alma mater had helped them as they’d both made their way to become head analysts at the Han Group, one of the most reputable conglomerates in the country.

  Mr. Kim looked at his daughter with sympathy, as if he too felt the very growing pains he was putting his daughter through. “If your grades aren’t improving and you’re skipping out on your seons—you can see how we might get upset. We’re just asking you to try.”

  “But I am trying!” Jisu cried. “I’m doing my best!”

  “Exactly,” Mrs. Kim snapped. “Your best at Daewon is not good enough, which is why your Appa and I are sending you to Wick-Helmering High School in San Francisco.”

  Jisu stared at her mother in disbelief. Surely she had to be joking. An empty threat to scare her. But her mother’s perfectly unwrinkled porcelain face remained stoic.

  “San Francisco? America? Why?”

  Mr. Kim slid a folder across the dining table. The logo on the front showed a roaring tiger perched above the letters WHHS, all outlined in gold.

  “What is this?” Jisu asked, genuinely confused.

  “After the start of the semester last March, your father and I looked into applying for you to potentially attend a school in the States,” Mrs. Kim explained.

  “We know and understand how tough it is to stand out at a competitive school like Daewon.” Mr. Kim looked at his daughter with kind, encouraging eyes but didn’t help to dilute Jisu’s confusion. “It isn’t too late for you to spend your final year at a somewhat easier but still highly reputable school in the States.”

  “When we received your midsemester review in May, we went ahead with the application. And it’s a good thing we did, given your scores at the end of the term,” Mrs. Kim said.

  “My scores weren’t that bad last semester,” Jisu said. But she quickly saw the bigger picture, the grand scheme her parents had been cooking up. And the forms. Her parents had made her fill out a bunch of paperwork, citing that it wouldn’t hurt to get the process started if she got accepted to a university in the States, as she hoped.

  Her scores truly hadn’t been so bad last term. They were barely above her class average, which was an issue. At any other high school in Seoul, her scores would be great, but at Daewon, where only the best were admitted, she was struggling to stand out as a promising college candidate. And Jisu had always been interested in going to a university abroad, particularly in the States, so if she were to transfer out of Daewon she might as well make the early jump overseas.

  This explained the high volume of seons that Mrs. Kim had made Jisu attend. Ms. Moon really had been working overtime in setting her up on as many dates as possible during the few weeks of summer break in July and August. Clearly it had been a last-ditch attempt to pair her up with someone before her pending school year abroad.

  “Why didn’t you tell me any of this?” The thumping in Jisu’s chest seemed to grow louder. Her head throbbed, as if someone had hit her with a large steel hammer. How could her parents betray her like this?

  “Jisu, we don’t want you to leave Seoul.” Mrs. Kim placed a hand on her daughter’s. “We didn’t want it so much that we kept holding off in case you might be able to pull yourself up. But I don’t think we have much of a choice now, and this is the last window of opportunity to make the transfer to Wick.”

  Mr. Kim opened the brochure like a salesman would to a potential customer. “Their academic year doesn’t start until September, so you’ll arrive just in time for the first day of school and the change won’t feel so abrupt.”

  “I don’t know how this could feel anything but abrupt, Appa.” Jisu crossed her arms. She felt so dizzy that she could pass out.

  Being grounded, no allowance, having her phone taken away—Jisu was willing to endure any of those punishments. But being exiled halfway around the world by her own parents was so unnecessarily harsh. Jisu placed a hand on the school brochure. It didn’t disappear into thin air. This wasn’t a bad dream. It was really happening. She tried to keep a straight face, but her eyes started to well up.

  “Don’t cry,” Mrs. Kim said. “Your face will get red and swollen. You don’t want to look like a mess walking through the airport.”

  “What?” Jisu pulled her hand away. She let the hot tears fall down her face. When exactly was the first day of school at Wick? How soon were her parents going to kick her out of the country?

  “Jisu-ya, this is painful for us, too.” Mrs. Kim sighed. “But your Appa and I are doing it for you.”

  For you. Each time her parents said those two words, Jisu’s guilt doubled. It weighed on her shoulders and sank to the bottom of her stomach. The burden of expectation was already too much to bear, but now she had to carry it across the ocean to San Francisco. Sisyphus had nothing on Jisu. Or was it Prometheus? Ugh. At least with the last-minute continent move, Jis
u wouldn’t have to take the classics exam next week.

  Mr. Kim ushered his daughter out of her seat. “I was able to get you on a flight this afternoon, so get your things together.”

  “Appa, please don’t do this,” Jisu begged. “I’m sorry! I’ll do better, I promise. What about my friends? I can’t even say goodbye?”

  “Jisu-ya, calm down. You’ll see them during winter break.” Mrs. Kim stood and smoothed the wrinkles from her tweed skirt. “Until then, you can think fondly about all the fun you had with them last night.”

  Jisu dragged herself to her room, each step feeling infinitely heavier than the last. On her desk was the Korean-to-English dictionary she used at school. Like her friends at Daewon, she was fluent in English, so she wasn’t worried about being able to communicate at her new school so much as she was upset about leaving everything she knew.

  A long slip of paper was tucked inside the book.

  ICN to SFO. Her boarding pass.

  This was actually happening.

  Jisu had always wanted to visit sunny California, but not like this.

  JULY 7, SUMMER BREAK

  DATE NO. 1

  NAME: Cha Myungbo aka Boz

  * * *

  INTERESTS:

  Mathematics, Basketball, Horror Movies

  * * *

  Parent Occupations:

  Online Games CEO; Tourism director

  * * *

  BOZ: It’s actually Myungbo, but you can call me Boz.

  Jisu: Boz? I haven’t heard that one before—is there any special meaning behind it?

  BOZ: No, I just like the way it sounds.