by Rissa Brahm
She looked down again at her cell phone for a bit of light, a frame of reference. And again, the taunting urgent text from her long lost piece of shit brother—Dad in hospital, can’t be there. Go. 911.
The longer she looked at the message, the more enraged, embittered, and sick to her stomach she got. A growl formed in her throat, but she held it back. She was surrounded by real life, other passengers with other problems, and the real outside world ahead of her too, reminding her how little and insignificant she was.
She glanced to her left. The woman across from her was nursing a tiny baby; it soothed her, the angelic infant’s suckling, no wrongs in the world. She didn’t want to poison the atmosphere for that little piece of bliss with her radiating hate toward far-off Dane.
But damn him. Her big brother, her protective older brother, who had taken her parents to the cleaners by gambling away their hard-earned money when he was supposed to be earning a college degree. Not only had he not graduated and not fulfilled the Asian-American male’s dream their parents had held for their one son, but less important to her dad, Dane had stolen Jana’s teen years, her college years, her innocence, her education, and her dream. Because when she’d applied junior year of high school to MMU and got in, her parents had had no funds for their daughter to go. They’d over-leveraged their home and their business. For Dane. Even if she’d gotten a scholarship, college was out. Her parents needed her.
And of course, she’d sacrifice her education to help at the family restaurant. Of course she would. There was no question.
So by day, at the sweet and innocent age of eighteen, it was high school AP classes for no reason at all at that point, then straight home to man the restaurant.
With a strong head for numbers, it took only weeks for Jana to realize that she’d have to work there for twenty years to dig her parents out of the hole her brother had dug. Forget earning enough for school, forget her future, and forget her girlhood dream of becoming a nurse, of helping people—other than her parents, that is. Forget about a life of her own. She was doomed to live in the hamster wheel.
A far off siren brought her back to her bus ride. She shifted her gaze from her phone to the view of the Hudson River out her side window, which mellowed her nerves for a moment until the rushing scene riled up her stomach. Eyes straight ahead again, her head swarmed with memories. The hundreds of bus rides along the Hudson she and Amber had taken, sharing earbuds, listening to chick bands telling them they were strong, fearless, invincible. Then they’d get to the club where they’d fearlessly strip off their clothes and their pride for wads of dirty, wrinkled dollar bills.
Amber had been her ticket out of the family’s hole-in-the-wall Korean restaurant and into the club scene. She remembered the night Amber had come in to eat at Korean Soul—per her folks, the best authentic Korean food in northern Jersey. Right. Anyway, Amber, her high school’s token “whore,” the girl who stripped, paid her bill with large, crisp bills. As if possessed, Jana had to ask how could she make that kind of money? Sincere money. Exponential money.
Amber answered. And the very next night, Amber took Jana to meet the manager at The Wet Spot, an hour and a half south by bus. The rest was history—wadded, green, maddening history.
Glancing back down at her phone with disgust, she daydreamed of acquiring superpowers, powers of remote electrocution that she could send through the ether to her brother. Dane Park was three thousand miles away in California, “unable to get there.”
Fuck him.
As she tapped her brother’s number on her phone screen, she sent a mental apology to the peaceful nursing baby across the aisle.
*
He pulled up to her luxury apartment building, put the limo in park, got out, and went around the back to open her car door.
He pulled the door open and stood back to give her room to slip out. He was just glad to be ending his night and hoped he’d never have to see this woman again. Ten times the fare or not, he was officially done with her.
But no high heel hit the travertine drive. No movement at all, in fact. Only the sound of low, raspy humming…in waves.
“Ms. Carlson, we’re here.”
A crescendo of moaning was her reply.
Unbelievable. The level of drama with this woman. So being a billionaire was a pass to do whatever the hell she wanted? Goddamn her kind. It was not worth it. And it almost never had been.
Moving to peer into his back seat, he was somewhat prepared for what he’d find. After all, this crazy lady would have to top months of disgusting indiscretions in his limo, no doubt. He just wasn’t prepared for what he’d do about it. His response would have to be well thought out, fast. He had a business to protect, and he couldn’t afford a retribution lawsuit from a disgruntled, rejected, and bitter psycho like Jocelyn Carlson. Bruja Rena! She could bury him and all he’d worked for with a simple wave of her goddamn cursed high-flying broomstick.
His eyes met hers and he did well to ignore her hardened cherry nipples topping her creamy round breasts jostling up and down with her body’s rhythmic rise and fall as she rode her own fingers. He wasn’t blind.
But he was sick to his stomach. Kneeling there, facing him, she seemed ready to explode by the escalation of her moans. He glared at her, a continued streamline of control shooting from his eyes, meant to tell her all she needed to know, what he was, and who he was.
And also, who he wasn’t.
He wasn’t a male whore for sale, goddamn her. Not in her wildest fucking dreams.
“Please get your clothes on and leave my limo,” he ordered, his tone low, unwavering. Then he took two steps back, the door still open.
But she only heaved harder, arching her back, her moans morphing into loud sporadic grunts as she seemed to be reaching her self-imposed climax.
The doorman of the residential skyscraper opened the lobby doors to allow an older couple their exit, and hearing the sounds coming from the back seat of the limo, rushed out toward Antonio, the man’s eyes worried and questioning. The older couple only looked at one another and, seemingly offended beyond belief, scurried off down the sidewalk.
Glad for the witnesses, for his own liability and to help demonstrate the woman’s insanity, Antonio acknowledged the doorman with a straight-lipped nod, a stoic surrendered expression for the record. The doorman stopped in his tracks between his golden-handled bank of doors and Antonio’s limo as if he now understood who and what the source of the noise was inside the vehicle and assuredly wanted nothing to do with it.
Jocelyn Carlson’s onslaught continued, and Antonio realized that he might very well have been the only man on Earth who gave this woman not even an iota of his attention, other than the standard professional service he provided to all his clients. And that apparently drove her mad.
As her hips thrust in his direction, faster and faster, she closed her eyes, maybe imagining him approaching her, reciprocating, fulfilling her delusional fantasy, but her frantic pumping received no reaction from Antonio. His eyes just kept her eyes locked in his sights, waiting for the melodramatic display to end and for her to remove herself from his limousine.
When she reached her release, her frenetic bucking rippled through her naked body. Then she folded over and kneeled back, only her face still looking up at Antonio. A glow came over her; a look of deep satisfaction spread across her heavily made-up face. It told him, clear as the moonlight reflected in the shining black enamel of the vehicle, that if he wouldn’t indulge her, if he wouldn’t give her what she wanted, then she would give it to herself, and he could damn well clean up her mess afterward.
But he met her look with a string of calm and calculated words. “If you’re done now.” He took another step back and swept his hand out to show her the way.
In a rage, she gave a performance fit for a spoiled princess. She pulled her dress up and over her bosom, snatched up her purse from the seat next to her, and stepped out.
“You have no clue—no fucking idea!—of
what you’re saying no to. I’ll see you Saturday night. Ten PM sharp!” Then her harshness turned to fucked-up flirty, as she brushed his cheek with her still-moistened index finger and grabbed his chauffeur cap with her other hand. Popping it on her head with an air of flippant superiority, she winked at him and walked away.
He sighed over the loss of his cap, but relief filled his chest. “Ms. Carlson, you won’t see me Saturday night. Or any other.” He let silence fill the rest of his meaning. Nothing more was needed. He was done.
But the woman continued into the building, the doorman almost scared to look at the horrid creature. “Ten PM!” she shouted without looking back, giving only a dismissive wave over her shoulder.
Moving to close the car door, he noticed next to her puddle of pleasure another gift she’d left him. Her used black thong panties acting as a rubber band around a large wad of green bills, there just to mock him. She’d usually stuff and hide her discarded lace undergarments in his limo. This was the first he’d seen a more functional purpose for the nasty things.
He took the item in his right hand and tossed it to the doorman who caught it with sharp, one-handed reflexes above his shoulder.
“Keep it,” Antonio called. “It’s all yours.”
He didn’t need that woman’s filthy money. He’d find another way. Any other way.
CHAPTER 3
The ringing stopped when a young child answered. “Dad! It’s some lady named Jan or something!” A quick mental flash of Ashley, the child she had left at the ER, came and went, and a dull ache stayed in its stead.
Then a woman’s voice replaced the girl’s on the phone. “Jana?”
“Alexa. Hello.” A heavy silence filled the connection.
“Um…so Dane is in the middle of something b—”
“It’s fine, when is he getting out here?”
Jana’s sister-in-law cleared her throat. “He…um…your mom is with your father right now. Have you spoken to her? If you haven’t, she’ll answer the hospital room phone, room 403. She’s had trouble with her cell in the hosp—”
“I already spoke to her, Alexa. When will Dane be here?”
“Um, I’m, uh…not sure his schedule, he’ll have to text or call you.” Thicker silence.
“Thanks, Alexa, have him do that. Just…you have him do that.” Her shaking fingertip pressed ‘end.’
The baby across from Jana stayed asleep during the very short call. She guessed she was glad Alexa had answered and not Dane, for the baby’s sake, at least.
But really, would she have had the balls to tell him what a fucker he was, to put his selfish ass in its place? She’d humped poles and grinded laps for almost a decade, but still she turned into a sheepish mess when it came to her father or brother. It was pathetic. Even without speaking to Dane in years, he had a power over her. She still cared about what he thought. But why?
She’d only been eighteen when he’d disowned her. So much for a big brother’s protective nature. Still in high school, having never kissed a boy, let alone gotten undressed for one. It didn’t matter. When Dane had found out through friends who’d ventured to the Newark clubs that she was dancing, he swore her off.
“A whore. My sister is a whore,” he’d told her. Those words echoed in her head. But so did his ever-so-selfless promise to keep her “career” a secret from their parents. “For Mom and Dad’s sake, for their pride, and for the health of their hearts,” her brother had said. That was Dane, noble, honorable. And where was Dane now that their father’s heart was actually sick and failing?
That righteous cocksucker. And how could Alexa be so damn blind?
Whatever. Nobody deserved to feel the blood-boiling hate that streamed through Jana’s veins, and the more she thought about it, the higher her blood pressure got. And Dane just wasn’t worth it.
She looked at the tiny baby in the mother’s arms. A smile from the mother calmed Jana, lessening the disdain overtaking her, leaving her with the smallest hint of peace.
And when she looked to the front, the Fort Lee Bus Station was in view.
*
He was as white as the hospital sheets, the sterile walls, and the reflective floor tiles. Jana had seen her father fire-red angry. And she’d seen him golden proud, too—of his son or of his restaurant or of his board position on the Business Community’s Charity Club. But Jana had never seen Chang Park so drained of color as he was now.
And the raw, flaming incision running up the middle of his chest made her entire body shiver.
Jana’s eyes welled. She glanced swiftly from side to side as she wiped them dry to be sure she wasn’t caught. Be strong, for Christ’s sakes. Jana, be strong.
Her mother was asleep in the corner, her feet dangling inches above the floor in a chair that looked as comfortable as a bus stop bench.
And her father…how long had he been back from surgery? Jana picked up the chart at the end of the bed. Quadruple bypass, 17:00, only five hours ago. He probably hadn’t been conscious yet. She read on. “My God.” Her words escaped in a hush, the exhale of her prior gasp.
How had he made it all these years? Four coronary arteries had each been hovering at eighty percent blockage. She felt lightheaded and dizzy. She crumbled into the nearest chair which rolled along the smooth tile floor.
It hit the bed lightly.
Her father stirred. She spun the seat and then rolled the rest of the way to be face to face with her dad at the head of the bed. She put her hand on his.
“Dad, I got here as soon as I could, as soon as I found out.”
“Yes, Ja-Na. I know,” he whispered, his chapped lips formed a straight line, and with a stoic nod and a weak blink of his eyes he said, “You’re at your job’s mercy. It’s okay…I’m sure you tried.”
Amazing. Fucking unbelievable. No confusion or disorientation after the surgery, no questions concerning his physical state, fresh with transplanted arteries in his damn chest, but so ingrained in him was his dogma.
After flinching from what she should have expected from the old hard-ass, whom she couldn’t help but love and try to please even still, Jana looked away from her father to regain her composure. She saw her mother’s eyes were open then. And, as usual, her mother kept silent.
Jana returned her attention to her father, but he had already dozed off again.
Her mother feigned a smile, but her eyes were tired and maybe a bit helpless. She said in Korean, “He’s been in and out like that for the last hour.” Jin slowly stood up from the chair hidden in the corner of the icy hospital room and went to Jana.
Each of Jin’s ashen hands held Jana’s shoulders lightly while she placed a light kiss on her cheek. She whispered, “I tried so hard to reach you. And so did Dae Han, but you are here now, at least.”
Yes, of course. The dutiful son tried. And her mother’s use of her brother’s Korean name almost made her laugh out loud. ‘Greatness and Devotion.’ What a complete crock of shit.
“Dane, Ma. He goes by Dane now. Remember, he tossed his Korean name to the curb like he did his family.” She couldn’t help herself. But she stopped there, her mother’s eyes gauging Jana with an evil glower.
“Ja-Na, or Jana? Why you so hard on your brother when you do same with your Korean name? Not very nice.”
Not…nice? Her heart pounded hot anger through her veins. And like she was going to correct everyone she met as to the correct pronunciation of her name? Jesus. “Wrong syll-A-ble, buddy.” No. But she upheld the most important aspects of her Asian culture––as a dutiful daughter always putting family first. And…where the hell was Dane?
It didn’t matter. She didn’t want to wake her father by ranting about all the hypocritical family crap slung at her, including how truly not nice her brother was to her, to her parents, so she stood up and led her mother out of the room.
The monitors’ incessant noises, albeit familiar and usually even comforting to her, were far too disconcerting anyway being all wired up to her wilted, weakened
, ghost of a father. She needed to tell her mother how serious things were with her dad. His diseased heart was the only important matter now, the Parks’ highest priority.
*
In the gleaming white hallway outside the hospital room, her mother smiled like a porcelain doll at each nurse that walked past. God, her mother was clueless.
And it hit her. Jana could spell it all out for her mom, but her mother wouldn’t have a fighting chance in hell of doing anything about her father’s health. Knowing her father, and…well, knowing her mother, for that matter. Dad doing what mom says? Yeah, right!
God, between the assertive nature of Jana’s maternal Korean grandmother and the Latino fire in Jana’s maternal grandfather, she couldn’t quite understand how Jin Park possessed so little spark of her own, no spark at all, actually. She played only the dutiful woman, the cooking, feeding, abiding woman. Maybe it was just the power of Jana’s father and the countless years of losing the fight. But come to think of it, Jana hadn’t ever heard her mother argue with her father, not even after bedtime as a child when sneaking from her room to watch more TV from the stairwell.
Arguments with Chang Park just didn’t happen.
“Dad’s heart, his health, is really poor, Ma. It’s bad. He not only nearly died today, but seeing the surgery details, he’s still in real danger. He’ll have to drastically change his life—a new diet, no more cigarettes, no more stress, and lots more rest. That means no more restaurant, Mom. He’s gotta be done with it.”
“You so melodramatic, Ja-Na,” her mother said.
Melodramatic? How could the woman be in such denial? God, how would her mother cope, or function at all even, without her father if he died? Because he still could die. The man was in no way out of the danger zone.
Jana wished she had a damn sibling who gave a shit, to be there to help her burn up the comfy-cozy insanity blanket her parents wrapped themselves in.
“Good evening, ladies. I’m Dr. Andrew Brighton.”
Standing in front of Jana and Jin was a baby-faced cardiologist, so said the tag on his white coat. He looked not more than twenty-three. With his kind, bright blue-gray eyes through thick-rimmed glasses, he held out his hand in introduction. This one was far too young to have had more than two years, three tops, in the unit, but Jana was as open-minded as they came, so she decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. After all, her father had made it out of surgery okay.
