Loathe at First Sight

by Suzanne Park

  Dedication

  For my family

  (Mom and Dad, sorry again for all the cussing)

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Praise for Loathe at First Sight

  Also by Suzanne Park

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Chapter One

  The group of developers gaped as I barged into the almost-empty conference room. The wrong conference room. With beads of sweat on my forehead and upper lip, I panted, “Is. This. Tolkien. Room?”

  “Wrong place. This is the George R. R. Martin room.” A thin guy with mouselike, pointy facial features shrugged as he bit into his sandwich.

  “We booked this! It’s ours!” His lunchmate, a thirtyish-year-old man with an eastern European accent, glared at me as he stabbed his pasta and forked it into his mouth.

  The other two Asian guys in the room looked at me, then whispered to each other in Cantonese and laughed. Whatever they said, I knew it wasn’t She seems very smart and cool—we should cut her some slack and be really nice to her.

  I couldn’t figure out where I needed to be, and the meeting started over five minutes ago. I slammed the door shut and kept hustling down the hallway. Sorry! No time to apologize. Could I get fired for extreme lateness?

  After a couple of left turns, I found myself on a dark and cavernous part of the floor. I tried to read the name on a door of a nearby meeting room, but squinting and leaning in didn’t help me make out the letters. Instinct led me to flip a light switch, which turned out to be the emergency lighting panel override for the entire area. All our quality assurance team, who happily played and tested games in the dark even on the sunniest of days, screamed as the artificial lights blinded them, like vampires being stricken by sunlight burns.

  So many pasty-white, hairy forearms shot in the air, temporarily protecting these men’s eyes from death by fluorescence. So much cursing! So much yelling! As the QA guys adjusted to the light situation, over a hundred pairs of dilated eyes scanned the room for someone to fixate on and persecute. With my feet frozen to the floor like a tree rooted near the light switch, I stood in shock by all the pandemonium I’d caused.

  Finally, one of them walked up to me, shot me a look condemning me to a death by a million paper cuts, and turned the light back off with a swift palm strike. I had no doubt that these QA vampire guys would be—no pun intended—out for my blood after that incident.

  With nothing left to lose, I asked, “Can someone please point me to the Tolkien room?”

  “It’s the corner one,” a cubicle dweller grumbled, pulling his noise-canceling headphones from around his neck and placing them on his ears.

  My cheeks burned as I headed back to the reasonably lit section of the floor. I double-checked the name etched on the conference room glass before entering. TOLKIEN. Thank god. After my whirlwind of panic, I took in a deep breath. Chin up, Melody, you’re just as smart and capable as everyone in there. The door, slightly ajar, creaked as I pushed it open. I grabbed the nearest seat, and after hunkering down into the chair with a relieved exhale, my left armrest clanked to the floor.

  Ian MacKenzie, the game studio’s CEO, looked at the armrest, and then glared at me. The other ten guys in the room gave me icy stares too. Ian’s inset, cold blue eyes locked with mine.

  “Who are you?” he barked.

  “I . . . I’m Melody Joo, the new production assistant.” I couldn’t hold his stare, so I looked down at his shoes. Brand-new pair of white Toms. To match his gleaming white, gritted teeth.

  Someone’s chair squeaked while we waited for Ian, the company’s messiah, to say something. He turned his cold eyes away from me and gazed at the whiteboard scribble. Holy hell. What an intense stare.

  I had only been at this game company a little over two weeks, but I could tell that most people had a visceral reaction to Ian. A handful of people loved him, but most of the staff didn’t. The company’s board of directors had hand selected him for his role because of his gaming industry pedigree. I spent most of my first day at work researching him online: he had been an executive creative director at Shazam! Game Studios and had one hit triple-A title under his belt. He was the creative mind behind Undead vs. Undead vs. Undead, the fastest-growing console game in the last decade, unexpectedly popular in Canada. Yes, Canada. Somehow his third-generation Irish brain figured out what would make Canadians become addicted to this type of shooter game.

  Ian had left Shazam! just days before a Korean Canadian family in Calgary sued the company on the grounds that the game was so addictive that their sleep-deprived son ended up with urinary tract disability because he frequently held his pee for eighteen hours a day. The parents filed a lawsuit against Shazam! for millions of dollars. Some industry conspiracy theorists believed that Ian had hidden subliminal messages in the game to intensify gaming addiction, but no one could prove it. When asked if any of the allegations were true in a recent interview by a famous gaming journalist, Ian replied, “What can I say? Gamers can’t get enough of my genius.” Assuming everything I read online about this lawsuit was accurate, Ian seemed like a total asshole.

  I couldn’t say too much about Ian’s lucky career success because getting my production assistant job had been a stroke of luck, which never usually happened for me. The board wanted more “entrepreneurial-minded” women at Seventeen Studios, and I fit the profile.

  The company offered decent pay, and trying out a new career path in video games was on my professional bucket list. And to be honest, my ten-year high school reunion would be here before I knew it and I wanted to impress everyone. For the first time in my entire life, I was in the right place at the right time, and I carpe diem’ed that shit.

  “Damn it!” Ian slammed the dry-erase marker on the conference table. “We need a new name for our studio. I don’t like ‘Seventeen Studios.’ It’s so . . . pedestrian. Let’s start throwing some ideas out there.” Ian repeatedly capped and uncapped the whiteboard marker in his hand. Click. Snap. Click. Snap.

  “I thought this was a product brainstorm, not a studio-naming exercise,” said a female voice from the other side of the room. It was Kat Campbell, one of the senior designers at the company. I silently sided with her on this one. The name of the meeting in our calendar was “NEW PRODUCT BRAINSTORM” in shouty all-caps.

  Ian said to Kat, “This meeting is whatever I decide it should be. Any other questions?”

  Nope, no other questions. This meeting was now a studio-name brainstorm.

  And thirty minutes later, all the ideas we had collectively come up with were up on the whiteboard, and they were terrible.

  A lanky, freckly guy said, “How about ‘Hemlock Studios’? It’s funny because of its toxicity.”

&n
bsp; Ian’s head shook with disappointment.

  Another freckle-covered bearded dude wearing a tattered Pokémon shirt asked, “How about ‘Catastrophic,’ with two Ks instead of Cs?”

  Ian made a finger-down-throat vomiting gesture. “How about ‘Epicenter Games’?”

  As he gushed about how brilliant the name was, I googled it. “Um, it looks like there’s a gaming studio in the Bay Area that already has that name,” I squeaked.

  “Okay, so who cares if that name is taken?” Ian’s stare-glare made my arm hairs quiver in fear.

  Kat chimed in. “I’m sure their lawyers would. It’s probably trademarked.”

  Ian’s icy glare shifted to Kat. “What if we made ours different, instead of ‘Epicenter’ we called ours ‘EpicEnter’? That wordplay takes our company’s meaning to a whole other mind-blowing new level.” He made a head-exploding gesture with his hands.

  Changing the syllable emphasis didn’t matter. We would have the same name as another US gaming company, and that violated trademark law.

  Ian asked me, “Hey, noob, why are you frowning?”

  I stammered, “Th-th-there could be a trademark infringement issue, and—”

  He cut me off before I finished talking. “Here’s the problem with people like you . . .” he began. Excuse me, people like you?

  “Looking up legal jurisdiction during a brainstorm is stifling and narrow-minded,” he argued. “You’re artificially constraining my creativity and vision! We can’t elevate this company to a higher level if every genius idea gets shut down. Honestly, I should fire you for this negative attitude of yours, but I can’t, because you’re one of the few GIRLS here other than HER.” He pointed at Kat and then went back to glaring at me.

  I assumed my days in the cutthroat advertising industry had prepped me for a male-dominated work environment. This place? It might even be worse.

  Ian barked at us, “Does anyone else like the name ‘EpicEnter’?”

  When no one answered, Ian threw his marker down. “I can’t believe this. Never mind! This meeting is adjourned.” He flung the door open with such force that the door handle dented the lime-green wall. I had just witnessed my first forty-five-year-old man tantrum.

  Ian MacKenzie, our company’s visionary, our fearless leader, had just stormed out like a sulky toddler.

  Pokémon-shirt guy muttered, “Well, at least it’s Booze Day Tuesday. If anyone needs me, I’ll be at the beer cart.” He slung his computer bag on his shoulder and left the room.

  Yes. At least we had that.

  Welcome to the gaming industry, Melody Joo.

  Chapter Two

  The battering rain made crossing the 520 bridge a nearly impossible task. Even on the highest setting, my windshield wipers couldn’t seem to keep up with the buckets of water dumped from the sky. I had lived in Seattle for a couple of years, and while the rain and dreary weather got me down at first, I didn’t really mind it anymore. I grew up in Nashville, but went to college in the Midwest and stayed there for nearly seven years. My slight Chicago snobbery had worn off (or was washed away) and I loved my life here. With its outdoor beauty, amazing restaurants, and laid-back lifestyle, this city had grown on me.

  As I pulled into my gated, rain-free garage, my phone buzzed.

  Oh no.

  Mom.

  Damn. I hadn’t called her in two weeks. I braced myself for the imminent onslaught of Korean mom guilt. Bullets of sweat sprouted on my forehead as I tried to cram my Nissan Sentra into the only parking spot available in my apartment building’s garage: a compact parking spot between an Escalade and a Honda Odyssey. I pulled in and backed out about fifty times. WHY did these fools park so close to the lines? Well, because they parked their fucking enormous cars in compact spots, that was why. None of my doors could open wide enough for a person to get out, so I had to climb out my passenger-side window.

  While I shimmied out and banged my head on the metal window frame, Mom texted, Melody why you nOT CALL US? YOU WORKING TOO HARD YOU CANNOT FIND TIME FOR US. OR TO FIND HUSBAND.

  For years, my mom and dad had pressed me so hard about getting married. I was only twenty-seven, for god’s sake! I had plenty of time to settle into a good career and could still wait on marriage. But to them, twenty-seven was too old to “play around” because I wasn’t, in their words, “a springing chicken anymore.”

  Mom texted again. Never mind don’t boTHER CALL US WE are fINE!!!!!

  My mom was like a really old teakettle on high heat: when in her low-boil stage, I needed to make contact before she became too hot to handle—because then the deafening screeches would annoy the hell out of everyone within earshot.

  I unlocked my apartment and unloaded my computer bag and purse next to my shoe rack. As usual, it was dinner-for-one that night. I threw a lasagna brick in the microwave and poured myself a glass of cheap white wine. I liked my quiet nights in with my Lean Cuisines and Bagel Bites. And Chef Boyardee’s Beefaroni was so bomb. And cheap!

  After I’d eaten a few bites of delicious microwave fare, I called my parents’ home phone. Mom picked up after the third ring.

  “You calling too late. We are tired,” she said.

  “Mom, I just got your text about five minutes ago.”

  “Yes, I text five minute ago but I waiting for you calling many days.”

  I sighed. “I’m sorry. I had back-to-back meetings today and I haven’t had time to do anything except work, eat late dinners, and go to sleep. I was planning to call you this weekend.” Okay, so that was a lie. I had no plans to call her. My girlfriends and I were heading to Portland on Friday night for a tax-free shopping jaunt, but maybe my white lie would make her feel better.

  “I thought you go to Portland this weekend. You mention it in Instant-gram photo post and I like it with heart picture.”

  Damn it.

  Another lie? “I was going to call you on the drive down there.”

  A few seconds passed. Would she hang up on me? She’d hung up on me before for calling her to wish her a happy birthday a day too early. It wouldn’t surprise me.

  Instead, she said, “Your dad is here and want to talk to you.”

  “Melody? It’s Dad.” I tried to stifle a laugh. Thanks for clarifying you were my dad, Dad.

  “You upset Mom. She very worry when you not call.”

  I sighed again after taking a bite of lasagna. “Yeah, I know, I know. I should have called. Things got superbusy at work. I promise, I’ll be better at checking in with you guys more often.”

  He said, with a hint of disappointment in his voice, “When I was twenty-one, I came to United States with no family or friend. Not much money. And I still have time to write letter and call my home in Korea.”

  Ouch. They threw down the Korean-Immigrant-American-Dream card. I had no doubt in my mind that they’d had a harder life than I did.

  Apology time again. “I’m sorry, Dad. Can you put Mom back on the line?”

  “Mom? I thought she go to grocery store. Call us this weekend.”

  Click.

  What had just happened? They had nothing urgent going on in their lives and probably decided to call me out of sheer boredom. Well, at least this time our conversation didn’t escalate into yelling, or silent treatments, or hurtful commentary about how I had no future because I wasn’t married. You know, our run-of-the-mill Korean parent-daughter exchanges.

  My phone buzzed.

  Mom: DID DAD HE TELL YOU WE GO TO ITALY? I WENT TO STORE TO BUY hiM CARNATION instant breakfast for our trip.

  They were going to Italy? What? I had wanted to go to Italy since I was ten years old and found out that Chef Boyardee was Italian. I had never been, but now my parents were traveling there. Without me.

  I texted back. When are you going?

  Tomorrow. We gone for a month.

  Well thanks for inviting me.

  No immediate reply. I texted again. Do you want me to do anything for you when you are gone?

  She wrote ba
ck. Find boyfriend.

  Did she think her haranguing about dating would help conjure up a guy who’d bend down on one knee and tell me he would love me till death do us part? None of my past boyfriends—okay, there were only three—passed the parent test. Mom and Dad had Mensa and Navy SEAL–level criteria. Gareth Hinman wasn’t ambitious enough (back in eighth grade, mind you). Patrick Garcia in high school was too chubby (“that mean he too lazy”). Jimmy Han from college was premed and Korean but turned out to be gay. My parents knew this, yet still asked every once in a while if he was available. Basically, aside from Jimmy, no one would be good enough for my mom and dad.

  Mom called me just as I polished off my glass of wine. “You sure you don’t want to meet Philip Kwon? He graduate Yale and is tax lawyer in Seattle.”

  Her voice sounded distant even though she was shouting.

  I asked, “Uh, Mom, am I on speakerphone?”

  I heard shuffling, and a bunch of beeping, and then the airy background sound disappeared. My mom continued. “Philip Kwon need a wife. He very nice, serious man. He lost lot of hair on head but he have very nice, expensive house. He is also very quiet, but maybe he like your too-loud voice.”

  All the Korean guys she picked out for blind dates had excelled academically and reaped financial rewards as a result, but her curated selection of men were usually incompatible with my personality. Every single time I carried the entire conversation and eventually we’d disagree about something major, like he didn’t own a TV, or he hated cup-of-noodle ramen. Every. Single. Time. I had a long, heated argument with an accountant about Rolos. I loved them. He couldn’t stand soft caramel. WTF.

  Financially speaking, I didn’t need a rich guy. I had made a decent salary as a copywriter and had nearly finished paying off my student loan debt. I gave myself an A in frugality and budget management, too. If I had listened to my parents and become a miserable corporate tax lawyer, I would have worked eighty-hour weeks and never seen daylight. My vitamin D deficiency would be even worse than it already was.

  My mom said, “If you marry Philip Kwon, you have big house for big family. You can marry and have many boy children.”