Free Food for Millionaires

by Min Jin Lee

  Hugh winked at Unu. “Is she still obsessing about the seventeenth hole?” He pointed at her with his thumb, his remaining fingers making a loose fist. “She’s quite competitive, this one.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” Unu said.

  Casey flicked her napkin at him.

  “Did you know that Casey is my cousin’s best friend?” Unu asked without taking his eyes off her.

  Casey smiled. That’s what Ella must’ve told him—that Casey was her best friend.

  “Oh? You didn’t tell me, Casey Cat.” Hugh faced her. Another charming smile.

  “You didn’t ask,” Casey replied, wincing a little at the nickname. “Besides, we Koreans all know each other. There aren’t that many of us, you know.”

  Hugh raised his hand. “The white guy has an ethnic joke.”

  “Shoot,” Casey said.

  “Why did God invent WASPs?”

  “Dunno,” she answered.

  “Somebody has to pay retail.”

  Casey raised her wineglass at him. “Well done.”

  Unu, the male Texan, didn’t get it.

  “By the way, thank you, Hugh, for paying my gambling debts,” Casey said.

  “I wish someone would pay mine,” Unu said.

  They all laughed; then Hugh headed to the john.

  Casey watched Unu eat his steak. He’d coated the meat with a blanket of black pepper.

  “Steak au poivre?” She wrinkled her nose.

  “Needs go-chu-jang.” He said this like a dare, waiting to see what she’d say.

  It was a test of sorts, but Casey didn’t flinch. “Tabasco would work nicely, too.” She’d never met a Korean who added the chili pepper paste to steak, but on reflection it didn’t sound so awful.

  She didn’t know for certain if he was attractive to her. He wasn’t at all like Ted, who was traditionally handsome. Ted could have been cast in a Korean soap opera. He also had a brute quality that women liked. In contrast, Unu had a kind face, and she liked the way he looked at her with a kind of wonder and privacy. His eyes were so focused and attentive. Unu seemed fully engaged with what she was saying. She felt almost pretty near him, and she liked seeing his face, how familiar it looked to her. Especially around the brow and eyes, he resembled Ella exactly. With him there, she felt less lonely in the room. As though she had an ally. It wasn’t just because he was Korean. When she spent any time with Ella and Ted, even when Ted wasn’t being a jerk, she felt separate from them, as if they were members of some improved world, where every pot had a lid.

  Earlier tonight, while she’d dressed for dinner, she’d had a hard time remembering what Unu’s face looked like—whether his face was wide or narrow or if his nose was rounded or straight. As she listened to him talk a bit about his work, she tried to memorize his features, the way his hair fell across his tanned forehead and how when he smiled he looked joyful. She envied him all of a sudden, wanting that smile without restraint. His eyebrows were inky, and she touched her own—they were so sparse in contrast. Korean guys had always made her feel so rejected, even more so than whites (there were just so many more white guys wherever she was), but tonight there was a wonderful Korean guy talking to her, and she could barely concentrate. Then she had to admit it: He was attractive. She wanted to kiss him.

  He told her that he gambled. A lot. This revelation surprised Unu himself. He rarely told anyone this, fearing rebuke, but Casey didn’t seem judgmental like other girls. She didn’t behave like a woman casting about for a husband, clutching a laundry list of desirable male characteristics. The prospective groom questionnaire was familiar to him: education, family background, job, earning potential, and so on. But being divorced had freed him from that racket. Unu didn’t intend to get married again. He was done with romance and the idea of forever. Perhaps he told her about his Friday night gambling binges to see her reaction.

  “I’ve never gambled in a real place,” was all she said.

  Casey was neither enthused nor deterred by his blackjack habit. What did it matter? It would take no effort to tell herself that any possible romantic notions between the two of them were all in her head. No Korean guy had ever asked her out. It wouldn’t start now. Besides, he was a client, and he was Ella’s cousin. There was something incestuous about the idea of dating him. But she wanted him to like her. As a friend. Casey had friends and acquaintances, but there were very few people she wanted to see when she had her few hours off between two jobs and classes. Because of Ella, she’d given up Delia. To her credit, Delia had understood. Perhaps Unu would fill in Delia’s time slot. Drinks now and then before her classes. No one had replaced Jay.

  She could have known more people more intimately, but as a young adult in the latter half of her twenties, it was harder to make friends who made a specific kind of connection, or perhaps it was just harder to try again and to be as innocent as you once were or needed to be. But she hadn’t given up on herself so much. Somewhere, Casey had gotten this idea that she could make a person want her as a friend. Not that she could attract just anyone—no, that wasn’t it, exactly—but if someone gave her a little time, whether it was five minutes or an hour, basically anything more than a glance or a brief appraisal, Casey believed that she could draw a person to her. It was the simplest thing in the world for her because she did it by doing one thing perfectly: She paid attention, the kind of attention that almost didn’t exist anymore. This was her gift. So few people did this for each other. Giving someone your attention—with the greatest amount of care she could muster in whatever allotted time period—was far more precious than any kind of commodity. Years ago, Virginia had exclaimed, “Do you know what that’s like, Casey? To have you shine your floodlights on me? It’s terrifying and more compelling than I want to admit. My shrink does that sometimes. And he doesn’t love me the way you love me.” Then she’d burst into tears, and Casey had understood that it was something she had been doing to express her love. Jay had said when she was moving out that he didn’t think he could live without her attention. But with men, somehow, after Jay, it was as if she’d turned around the sign on the shop door to CLOSED, and in the past year and a half, there’d been no reason to turn it back.

  “Do you want to have a smoke?” he asked.

  “How did you know?” Casey laughed.

  “You muttered to yourself how you needed a ciggie in the seventeenth hole.”

  “I did?”

  “Yes.” He laughed at her. “You also muttered a few exquisite French phrases. In English, that is.”

  “Ah. Take the girl out of Queens, but you can’t take Queens out of the girl.” Casey didn’t bother to apologize. She didn’t give a shit.

  They left the table, and no one seemed to notice except for the brokers, who waggled their eyebrows a bit. When she thought no one but Hugh was looking, she gave him the finger.

  On the wraparound deck, they could hear the buzz of cicadas. Unu pointed to a small reddish green lizard attached to a window. Casey jumped back a bit. She knew pigeons, squirrels, and rats. That was wildlife as far as her experiences went.

  “Look at it,” he said. “C’mon.”

  Casey tried not to appear afraid.

  “Won’t hurt you, darlin’.” Unu’s Texas twang came out.

  Casey moved closer to study it more carefully. “It’s beautiful. Funny. It’s an amazing, amazing color. That color would only exist in nature and be as sublime as it is. I always think that about flowers—you know? How in a flower, a color is perfect, but that same color matched in a fabric or paint can look garish. Do you know what I mean?”

  “I’m going to kiss you,” he said, making a face with only a thin trace of doubt.

  “What?”

  “Yeah.” Unu nodded. “I think you like me.”

  She shook her head. “Uh-uh.” She didn’t know what to say.

  “That’s not my name,” he said, looking at once offended and amused.

  Casey burst out laughing.

  Unu leaned i
n and kissed her, and when it was done, Casey pulled back and opened her eyes. “What was that?”

  “They don’t kiss in New York? Folks in Dallas do it. You Yankees are just a bunch of talkers.”

  “Shut up.” She laughed.

  “Can I call you in New York? Take you to dinner?”

  “What?” She was surprised by the question, the directness of it.

  “You heard me.” He frowned. “You can say no if you want. Or you can take the bet.” He shrugged, his expression detached. He was nervous, but he wasn’t going to show it.

  “Let’s go back inside. I want coffee,” she said, pleased but confused.

  He followed behind her, and they sat down. He didn’t ask again.

  Unu went to the bathroom, and while he was away, she wrote down her number on a torn corner of the menu card, folding it under the table into a square the size of a quarter.

  After the meal ended, they got up from their seats and he shook her hand, taking the paper from her palm. At this, he said nothing, but he smiled.

  “Good night,” she said.

  “’Night, pretty girl.”

  Casey returned to her room and tucked herself in, feeling light, girlish. The phone rang, and when she picked it up, there was a click. She hung up, not having guessed that it had been Hugh who’d called to check her whereabouts.

  6 LANGUAGE

  ELLA DIDN’T KNOW WHAT DAVID GREENE would say when she finally phoned, but he sounded so happy to hear from her that she forgot herself and wondered why she’d hesitated as long as she had. Also, it was David and not the school operator who had picked up his own phone on the first ring. For her, this seemed like a sign. Right after hello, he asked if she had her hands full with a six-month-old. Ella looked around the tidy apartment. The baby-sitter, Laurie, had taken Irene to the park, insisting that the baby needed fresh air. On nearly everything, Ella deferred to Laurie, who was intelligent and kind and had two decades of unimpeachable references. Now and then, Ella had to pump her breasts and freeze her milk so Laurie could give Irene her bottles when they were not together. The renovations for the town house were going well, and the cleaning lady came by twice a week to do the laundry and housework. Ella didn’t have enough to do, frankly, and she felt worthless.

  “Tell me everything. Tell me how you are,” David said.

  “Everything is good,” she answered.

  “It’s so wonderful to hear your voice, Ella,” he said. His ears felt hot.

  Then came the surprise from her end. Ella heard herself asking David if he had any work for her. Maybe in September. Didn’t he do his hiring in June? It was just a crazy thought anyway.

  The idea of her coming back overwhelmed David. It filled him with panic and joy. He said nothing, though, trying to keep calm.

  But his silence made her feel foolish. She shouldn’t have asked, Ella thought. Would David think she was an awful mother to want an office job when Ted made pots of money? She wanted to see David’s face—his wide-set eyes the color of charcoal glowing blue, the bear-colored curls, and his reticent smile that hid his lower teeth, tiny ivory piano keys. She didn’t want him to think badly of her. His refraining from saying anything made her feel just awful. It doesn’t matter—she told herself—Ted didn’t want her to go back to work anyway. Yet Ella wished she didn’t want to see him so badly all of a sudden. If she were sitting in his office on that apple green leather sofa, and she could see his face, then she’d know what he was thinking. She hated it when he was quiet. To put her out of her misery, all he had to say was there was nothing at the school. Then she wouldn’t hope. She’d get off the phone, sulk privately, and try to get on with being a stay-at-home mother with a full-time sitter and a housecleaner and a husband who was never home while nearly every woman she’d meet who wasn’t in her situation exactly would view her as redundant. At the last HBS dinner party, a woman who was the chief financial officer of a telecom company in New Jersey, also an attractive mother of three, said to Ella, “Oh, you don’t work?” and Ella could read the thought bubble above her closely cropped black hair: “Oh, you don’t matter.” The woman fled from her thereafter as if she were afraid that Ella might buttonhole her for even a minute longer. If David had a position for her, Ella would take it.

  “What kind of work did you have in mind, Ella?” David asked, sounding so patient and earnest that if it were possible, Ella would’ve crawled into his voice to hide.

  “Well, I could do anything, I suppose. I don’t expect to have my old job back. I’m, you know, rusty. And. . .” She paused. She had called to say hello. The job question had just popped out of her mouth. He must think she was stupid.

  “Uhm, I don’t know, David. I’d be happy to work reception at St. Christopher’s.” Ella shrugged. She might as well have mentioned working as ambassador to Pluto. Marie Calder, who’d worked as the school operator and receptionist for twenty-nine years, joked herself that she’d have to be carried out by the boys of the upper school when it was time for her to go. Thinking of Marie, Ella could almost hear the morning line of uniformed kindergartners marching across the cream-colored lobby, their well-shined shoes clicking noisily against the black-and-white marbled floors. It was so quiet in the apartment. Too quiet.

  “Can you come by tomorrow so we can have a better chat?” David asked. His voice was tentative, fearful that she’d say no. “Sadly, I have to get off the phone because I just promised Mother that I’d drop by in a few minutes.”

  “Oh, of course. I mean. Uhm. . . I’m sorry. Good-bye.”

  “No, no. Please. I don’t want you to rush off. It’s just that she’s a bit blue lately.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that. Is she. . . is she all right?”

  “She’s having chemo at Mount Sinai.”

  “Oh.”

  “Liver cancer. . .” David nodded, his jaw firm.

  “Oh God, I’m so sorry. My question was so intrusive. Forgive me. I didn’t know.”

  “No, no, no, Ella. Not at all. I’m so pleased you called. Tomorrow? Can you come? Please?”

  “Yes. Yes, absolutely. I’d love to,” she said.

  “Morning? Anytime before noon. Yes?” David found himself nodding encouragingly at the phone. He so wanted to talk to her again.

  “Yes, yes. You should go.” Ella released him, then hung up the phone herself, feeling flush and scared at once. She realized that she felt happy at the thought of seeing him for certain. That every morning she had looked forward to going to work because she would see him there. It had been so long since she had anticipated seeing somebody in this way.

  She stood at his door, her fist at her mouth, uncertain if she could knock. She pulled back her shoulders a little. The brass plaque on his door read, DAVID J. GREENE, DIRECTOR OF DEVELOPMENT. Tall and thin, with a thoughtful slouch of his head and an inward curve of his shoulders. He listened with his eyes and face and, naturally, with his handsome ears that lay close to his head, leaning in with his heart toward the speaker. David was thirty-five years old, ten years her senior, and the only child of a prominent New York pediatrician and a devout Roman Catholic mother. He gave off a kind of light when he talked, never gossiping or swearing. When he laughed, he did it with his entire self, and you felt you were the wittiest person in the room. The only disagreeable thing Ella had ever heard David repeat was how poorly his deceased father had viewed development as a career choice: “A man makes donations, David. Does not ask for them. A grown man should not be working for his former elementary school.” His father did not use contractions, David said. That was that.

  David wasn’t married yet, and as far as she knew, he didn’t have a girlfriend. Mrs. Fitzsimmons, the headmaster’s wife, used to tease that the young Mr. Greene (everyone was young to Mrs. Fitzsimmons) was infatuated with the beautiful Korean assistant director, but Ella tried not to mind her careless jokes.

  But there were moments. Once, when she was sitting next to him on the sofa in his office, reading out loud a capital
campaign letter to the class of 1972, he brushed the loose hair away from her face before she had a chance to tuck it behind her ear, and when she lifted her face in his direction, for a flash it looked as if he were moving to kiss her; and terrified that he might, and not knowing what she’d do if he did, Ella dropped the letter on the rug and bent to pick it up. The moment was lost, and when she straightened up, David had already adjusted himself to a relaxed stance, arms folded to his chest, and he’d smiled at her warmly. It was all in her imagination, she told herself later. But she wondered what it would have been like to be kissed by David. He had a lovely mouth. Not all men did, she thought.

  She had only been with Ted. Casey said that was an amazing fact, almost impossible to behold. Before Ted, she’d let a few boys kiss her, cuddle her a little, and she’d liked the affection, but she had no real experience of men to compare with. Casey said if you hadn’t had an orgasm with a man, then you were really a virgin in her book. Ella had never had an orgasm. Ted tried many things, and sometimes she thought she felt something, but often she felt as though she wanted to feel something just so Ted wouldn’t feel he’d failed. Casey told her that she should try smoking a joint; that might help. Ella couldn’t possibly. Besides, where did you get pot? Also, lately he hadn’t wanted to make love, and she couldn’t imagine telling him that she wanted to do that. What would she say? Or do? How did you ask your husband to make love to you? All these thoughts just made her feel embarrassed. Ted worked a lot lately, and she hadn’t felt romantic in a very long while; but wasn’t that normal after you’d had a baby? She’d heard a joke on television the other night: What’s the best way to stop having sex? Get married. Ha, ha.

  What would David make of how she looked? Ella had yet to lose her baby weight. She was about thirty pounds over her normal weight. Casey said she looked pretty, but Casey was being kind most likely. For Mother’s Day, Ted had bought her a Steiff hippopotamus toy and membership at an exclusive gym around the corner from their apartment. “You have such a great figure, Ella. You just have to get back in shape. You know, for health reasons,” he said. But he didn’t want to touch her lately. Even when he kissed her good night when she went to sleep, it felt chaste, as if she were his child. Also, Ella was nursing, and she was hungry and sleepy all the time. She drank quarts of water because her mouth felt dry, and she craved chocolate bars and cake. Ted didn’t like her to eat so many sweets, so she tried to throw away the candy wrappers and cheesecake boxes after she ate them. Laurie didn’t think all that refined sugar in the mother’s diet was a good idea for the baby, either.