by Min Jin Lee
She ended the letter just like that, and at that moment, Virginia’s grandiloquent writing peeved her intensely. But maybe Casey was just mad at the messenger. Jay was gone.
The train stopped. She had missed Ella’s house by two stations. She got out of the car, crossed to the other side, and boarded the train heading back to Manhattan to correct her mistake. Not five minutes later, she got off at Ella’s station and walked to her house.
Casey was still holding the letter in her left hand and her second cigarette since lighting up at the station in her right, when Ella—who must’ve been waiting by the door—opened on Casey’s first ring. Ella wore her gold-wire-framed spectacles that made her look like a pretty undergraduate; her dark hair was gathered in a topknot with a banana clip left over from her high school days, and a yellow burp cloth was draped over her left shoulder. Irene was latched on to Ella’s dark pancake-size nipple. Somehow, in spite of the black jogging pants and white T-shirt with wet spots across her breasts, Ella managed to look lovely. A kind of striking prettiness had bloomed in her face again, and Casey hadn’t noticed that it had been gone so long until she recognized its return.
“Your boob is showing,” Casey said. She embraced her, being careful not to lean into Irene’s happy round head. “When are we going to stop that?” She made a face. “Isn’t she kinda old for that?”
“I’m sort of weaning her, but. . .” Ella shrugged. Irene was a year and four months, and though she could have stopped, it made Ella sad to think of it ending.
“Oh, I’m sorry, Ella. Why do I always have to stick my foot in it?” Casey was aware that she’d made a suggestion for which she had absolutely no standing.
“No. No. You’re right. Irene is already drinking cow’s milk during the day from a cup, and there’s no reason. . .”
The coffee table was set up with a pot of tea, scones, and sandwiches, two teacups on a floral-design tray. “Wow. That’s so nice.” She went to her favorite spot in the walnut-paneled living room. Dr. Shim had decorated it like an English hunting lodge, except with antique Korean chests along the walls. Casey sat on the wing chair upholstered in green corduroy.
Irene had fallen asleep, and Casey took her in her arms so Ella could adjust herself. She snapped the flap of her nursing brassiere over her breast and pulled down her shirt. She scooped Irene back into her arms, then set her down to sleep on the porta-crib set up in the middle of the living room.
“He was here this morning,” Ella said.
“And? How is Mr. Sex, Lies, and Videotape?”
“Irene didn’t cry this time when he held her. She can say ‘mama,’ but not ‘dada’ yet. He didn’t like that.”
“And how is he?” The idea of him holding Irene bothered Casey.
“He seems great. He’s happy,” she said flatly.
Ted had looked handsome and fit when he’d come by. She had already filed her divorce papers, and now he seemed set to start his new life with Delia. He was in love. She could tell. With plenty of bonus cash in the bank, Ted was planning to look for a position after the security camera stories died down to a murmur. The grainy film had caught perhaps two minutes of him and Delia having sex: a redheaded woman—her neck arched, hair flowing, white blouse open—straddling a tall Asian man seated in a desk chair. On the actual tape, Ted’s face wasn’t even visible, but both he and Delia were asked to resign.
That morning, Ted told Ella that he was considering opening his own shop doing some program trading, which he knew nothing about, or starting up a venture capital fund, which he knew a lot about. His ability to attract capital was still good, and his reputation as a banker remained irreproachable. His faithful friends from HBS assured him that the stories would pass and soon there’d be hearty backslapping complete with attaboys. He asked if she was still seeing Lorraine, her psychologist, and Ella had told him she was. Since Tina’s wedding, she had been seeing the therapist once a week on Thursdays after work.
“Are you doing okay?” Casey asked. “I mean, you know, with Ted visiting all of a sudden?”
“Uh-huh,” Ella said calmly. “I’m happy for Ted. It’s better this way. I think I can explain it to Irene that we married too young. And you know, I really like my work. Mr. Fitzsimmons is great, and David thinks I can definitely have my old development job back in the fall when the girl who took my place leaves in August.”
“How fantastic,” Casey said. She could hardly concentrate. “Do you think you’ll move back to the city soon?” Ella had been living there for eight months now.
“I’ve been thinking about it more and more. I think I want the house.”
“Good for you,” Casey said. “I say you fleece the bastard.”
“What are you holding in your hand?” Ella asked.
Casey looked at her left hand. It was the letter. “Oh my.” Casey stared at the boy’s face on the card, his crimson mouth pulsing. “Jay is getting married. How about that?”
“Oh, Casey. I’m. . . sorry. That can’t be easy.”
“I left him, right?” Casey said, blinking back her own tears. She missed him suddenly. So much—their first kiss at the movies, how he had looked at her with wonder beneath Blair Arch, the time he’d bought her the golf clubs—the pride shining in his happy eyes.
“Love doesn’t end,” Ella said.
Casey nodded. “I’m okay. Unu is terrific.” Her friend was suffering far more than she was. It seemed unfair to bring up Jay now.
“How’s his job search?”
Casey shrugged. “Get this.” She tried to change the subject. “Virginia thinks she’s pregnant! What is it with you Brearley girls? Getting knocked up so young. What’s the rush?”
Ella let Casey divert her, wondering if she loved Unu in the same way that she loved Jay Currie. Ella had never loved anyone like Ted. She didn’t believe that you could love anyone as much as your first. Whenever she felt angry about Ted, she contented herself with the belief that what Ted felt for Delia was somehow less than what they had. There had to be something for having been first.
Ella appeared distracted.
“And guess who the father is?” Casey tried to make light of it.
“The mural painter?” Ella couldn’t remember the guy’s name.
“No, no. Not Paolo. Someone new. He’s a businessman from Milan! Crazy, huh?” Casey looked over the letter again, trying to find the references to Gio. A rich guy, something with textiles.
Ella shook her head in confusion. Irene woke up with a short cry. Ella jumped up to get her. She patted her baby’s back.
“Perspective,” Ella said. It had come out sounding more smug than she’d intended.
“Huh?” Casey looked at her.
“Babies. They give perspective. She’ll see, I guess.” Ella cooed at her daughter. “What’s important.”
Casey stared at Irene’s flour-sack body stretched across her mother’s left shoulder. Ella’s comment was probably true, but it annoyed her. The length of the baby’s spine was scrunched, and her small bottom rested on Ella’s left forearm. But Irene hadn’t changed Ted, Casey wanted to argue, or had she? Had Irene’s birth made Ted fall in love with Delia? Sabine’s husband, Isaac, once said that when a child was born, his birth signaled that you were dying. Grim. So instead of choosing his child and what her life required, had Ted chosen himself—his life and his pleasure? With Ted, it was never easy for Casey to be fair, to be compassionate. But she could think exactly like him, and it scared her.
“Would you like to hold her?” Ella asked.
“Yes, please.” Casey reached out her arms. She was still holding Virginia’s letter with her left hand. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, look.” She shoved the letter into her bag, then folded Irene into her arms. Ella smiled at her kindly, and in her tender expression, Jay’s mother, Mary Ellen, came to mind: her clear patrician voice, her long-suffering genteel poverty, the endless supply of compassion. Both Ella and Mary Ellen had been left by their husbands. Why did men leave? Maybe if that k
ind of humiliation didn’t make a woman furious, it made her sympathetic. Casey hoped that with all his work and earnings, Jay would alleviate his mother’s disappointments. She hoped Mary Ellen would finish her biography of Dickinson and it would win a big prize instead of the volume being carted off to the dusty stacks. Why did Ted have money and choices, and Mary Ellen have to work for a dozen more years for the prospect of a librarian’s meager pension? It was hard not to be cynical about Keiko—Jay’s fiancée. Her family money and connections would help Jay in the world. He was marrying up. And why not? At school, he used to talk obsessively about who had family money and who didn’t. It didn’t surprise Casey that he’d found a girl who had a college gymnasium–giving kind of bankroll, but she couldn’t help being saddened by it. Maybe Keiko’s money hadn’t mattered. But she knew it had. Jay had cared about the golf courses, the fancy skiing trips, and the country houses. All of it—he had always noticed all of it. Before he would earn his own, he’d use hers. Was it possible to resist the desires of your heart? Casey couldn’t possibly have helped him socially or financially. Then she finally got it: On separate occasions, he’d felt no compunction about forcing himself on her mother and father, almost bullying them into an introduction, not just because he was angry with her for hiding him from them, but because they weren’t important. They were nothing socially. And if her parents were nothing, she was nothing, too. But how could she be angry with him? That’s just who he was. She was also someone who’d needed helping herself. On that score, she understood.
Casey kissed her goddaughter—her eyes dark as olives. A delicious scent of biscuits and toast came from her hair. That Ted could leave her made sense then. How did a person take up this kind of responsibility, anyway? To care for this beauty and perfection with fragrant black hair in tiny pink clips? Just holding her filled Casey with a sense of the child’s needs. She didn’t want to make her cry or to drop her, and she wasn’t sure how to comfort the tiny person. In her sleepy little face, there was no similarity with either Ted or Ella. Dr. Shim had claimed that Irene looked a great deal like his own sister, an aunt of Ella’s who had died young.
Her arms empty yet feeling content, Ella let out a sigh. She stretched her back, wiggling her shoulders, cracking her neck to and fro. She floated her long arms upward, then returned to sitting, her straight back in line with the plush sofa. The way Casey looked at Irene with love and pleasure made her feel cared for somehow. It was a precious gift when another person loved your child. You yourself felt loved.
Casey glanced up. Her friend’s posture was erect, her smile stoic. To her surprise, she felt a kind of repulsion. How odd it was that she’d felt more love for Ella when she’d overdosed on the codeine. She’d seemed more human then. I’m being unfair, she thought. Ella was just trying to get through it, be tough for her child—Ella, the girl who’d never had a mother and was now one herself. And though Casey respected that, Ella’s stance felt superior and untrue. She’d never once called Ted a bastard when he was truly that. Then at that moment, Casey felt everyone’s brokenheartedness, including her own, and she agreed with Ella: Love did not end. How could it? But Jay was marrying someone else. That was reality, too.
Irene had fallen back to sleep. She breathed so quietly that Casey leaned her ear against the baby’s flowery breath. She wished to make it up to her goddaughter somehow for her father’s departure. Would Ted be a good divorced father? Would he be around? In the past four years, Casey had come to understand that Ella was like a poor person in a rich person’s disguise. Until a child is fully grown, parents should not die, Casey thought indignantly, and they should not go away. But her own parents—what about them? Her mother and father were alive, and they had stuck around to do their duty. No one was satisfied. Ted had split. Ella’s mother was dead. Jay was marrying a rich girl.
Casey’s heart weighed like a thousand pounds.
Ella got up to head to the kitchen. She’d bought several salmon steaks that morning, and her father had called to say he was working late. The two of them could cook dinner together and share a bottle of wine.
“Can you stay for dinner?” Ella asked.
“No,” Casey answered right away. Why had she said that when she’d planned on staying for dinner all along? But she couldn’t manage to be there much longer. “I have to get back home,” she sputtered.
“But you just got here,” Ella said, her eyes full of disappointment. She’d been so looking forward to seeing her and having a long visit.
“I can stay a little longer, but I should get back. I need to get started on the corporate finance project.” Casey had already finished the project the day before. “I just wanted to check in with you today, and of course see your little one. And you both look great.” She tried to sound upbeat.
“Oh,” Ella said. She did understand. “Well, yes. You must be incredibly busy with school.”
Casey nodded emphatically, not wishing to lie anymore. She picked up a scone and broke off a large piece. She slathered it with clotted cream. Ella poured her some tea.
Ella talked some more about Ted and how she was happy for him after all, and Casey listened to it. Ella wasn’t lying so much as she wasn’t telling the truth about how she felt as a woman. Casey remembered what it was to see Jay with those girls. And she’d believed him when he’d said they didn’t mean much to him. Ella’s husband had fallen in love with Delia and planned to marry her. He had lied to her repeatedly. Ted was an asshole, and Ella was a fool. Casey didn’t want to sit there and listen to the pious fluff. Not much later, she took the train back home.
Back in the city, she found Unu at his desk, reading his new issue of Foreign Affairs.
“What happened to pool night with George?”
Unu shook his head. “Back’s been hurting today, so I stayed in.” Casey appeared crestfallen. “Hey, I thought you’d be eating with Ella.. . . What’s going on with you? Is everything all right?”
“I’m hungry.” She went to the kitchen. Nothing looked appealing in the refrigerator or the cupboard. The tedium of fixing another pasta or rice dinner made her want to scream. “Can we order in?” she shouted as she dug in a drawer in search of a take-out menu.
Unu turned around to the kitchen in surprise. Ever since he’d lost his job, she hadn’t wanted to order in or go out to dinner. Casey stood by the wall phone and studied the menu.
“Do you have any cash in the house?” she asked.
“Yeah. Get what you want, babe,” Unu said, and pulled out his wallet. He had seventy-two dollars on him.
Casey had already picked up the phone and was ordering. He counted four entrées, soup, rice, fried noodles, and a vegetable. Who would eat all that? he wondered.
Unu closed his magazine and set it aside on the coffee table. He turned on the television to the Mets game. When she hung up the phone, Casey came over and sat beside him.
“What was the total?” Unu asked, laughing. He was amused by her getting all that food.
“Dunno,” she said, staring at the screen. She liked the Mets okay.
It was the middle of the eighth inning with the Mets pitcher on the mound. The pitcher walked the second player in a row. Casey yelled at the television, “Why do those assholes make so much money? They’re not paid millions to lose, dammit.”
Unu kissed her cheek, thinking she was funny.
Casey grew still. “They must have something, though,” she said sadly. She felt defeated again by life. What was the point of being clever and hardworking and not knowing what to do?
Unu could see her disappointment. “No, no, Casey, you’re right. They’re not paid to walk the other team.” It was better when she was trash talking. Casey could be so easily discouraged. Unu cupped his mouth and yelled at the television, “C’mon, you losers. Start playing some ball!” She wasn’t cheered up, though, and he put his arm around her shoulder.
The doorman buzzed them. The order had arrived in less than twenty minutes. The order was ninety-seven dolla
rs.
“Sorry, babe.” He pulled out a credit card from his wallet, but the deliveryman wasn’t authorized to take them.
“You want to take back something, mister?” the deliveryman asked. “Up to you.”
Casey knew she’d ordered too much. She could’ve easily given back two of the cheaper entrées. Unu had said he had cash.
The deliveryman said, “You can call the restaurant and they take number, okay?”
Casey stared at the two bags of food. It was so much, but she wanted all of it—the beef, chicken, seafood combination, the tofu.
“Okay.” Casey marched to the phone, dialed the restaurant, and gave her credit card number over the phone. She’d been making such great progress paying it down in the past ten months or so and being disciplined with her spending. The woman from the restaurant asked to speak to the deliveryman. After he got off the phone, he put down the bags on the floor near the door and prepared to leave. Casey handed him ten bucks from her wallet for a tip.
“Thank you, missus,” he said, and left.
Casey was not a big eater. Most of the food would get put in the fridge or thrown away. Unu went to clear the dining table where they ate normally, but Casey picked up both bags and took them to the coffee table instead.
“Do you want dishes?” he asked, and she said no. She pulled out a pair of disposable chopsticks from the shopping bag and snapped its legs apart.
They ate watching the game.
13 PASSPORT
