Free Food for Millionaires

by Min Jin Lee

  Douglas came closer, raising his hands gently as if he were asking for permission. He touched her cheeks first, then her nose as gently as possible. Leah kept herself from flinching at his touch. It hurt so much.

  “I think you broke it,” Douglas declared. He stepped back two paces, then studied her face again, trying to remember the shape of her nose. “But I don’t think it’s misaligned. Maybe just a hairline fracture. You could still be on television.”

  Leah stifled a laugh because it would cause pain. She touched her nose again lightly. There was a tiny bit of swelling on the bridge.

  “Joseph was cooking. . .” Her eyes crinkled in confusion.

  “You fainted and fell facefirst onto the table. Joseph carried you here. He called me. Now it’s time for you to sing.”

  Joseph smiled. He had always disliked the elder’s joking, but he appreciated how it lightened things for others. He could see how the doctor relaxed his wife, let her talk.

  Douglas motioned to Joseph and asked him for a few cubes of ice wrapped in a dish towel. Joseph went to the kitchen.

  “How old are you?”

  “Forty-three.”

  “When was your last period?”

  “I don’t remember. I don’t get it every month,” she said, unable to look him in the eye. These were things she didn’t discuss with anyone. She’d gotten her period at fourteen, later than most, she found out later, and her periods didn’t come every month as they did with other girls. Sometimes she got them every two months and they lasted for ten days or more. Except for when she was pregnant, she hadn’t seen a gynecologist. There had never been any real problems as far as she could tell. Tina was always telling her to get tests, but where was there time for those things? It also cost so much money.

  “Maybe several weeks ago?” Leah tried to recall, but it wasn’t clear. More than two months ago.

  “So you’re not pregnant,” Douglas said calmly.

  “Oh no,” Leah said, dismissing the impossible.

  Joseph walked in carrying a large bundle of ice. Douglas removed all but three pieces of ice in the towel. He showed Leah how to hold it against her face.

  “So you’re not a father again.” Douglas smiled at Joseph, thinking that the man was far too serious for his own good.

  “I had a vasectomy after Tina was born. The doctors said Leah shouldn’t get pregnant again. I didn’t want her to take drugs.”

  Douglas nodded vigorously, having lost his wife in childbirth. “It is one of the most effective methods of birth control. Probably ninety-nine percent.” That a man of his generation and background had cared enough about his wife to have such a surgery was quite remarkable. But he felt a shot of envy toward Joseph for having an attractive wife. It made Douglas wonder where his desire for sex had gone—it was as if that part of him had gone to sleep.

  “I want you to see an internist. For some simple tests. And you should see an ENT for your nose. He won’t do anything, probably not even X-ray unless you’re going to sue your husband for cooking for you. Do you have health insurance?”

  Leah shook her head no.

  “We can pay. We have money to pay doctors,” Joseph said.

  Douglas nodded. “Yes, of course.” He would make the calls tomorrow.

  Leah looked at the men helplessly, not knowing how to fight this.

  Douglas had to leave. He promised to call her the next day.

  The following week, Leah went to the ENT because his office was three blocks from the store. The nose was broken, the doctor said. There was minimal swelling on the bridge. A bright blue spot was her only bruise. There was nothing to do, he said. The internist couldn’t see her till the following week, but Leah thought she might cancel the appointment because she had been feeling much better. She tried to eat more regularly, preferring to eat more bagels and rice rather than the expensive roast beef sandwiches Joseph bought for her lunch from the corner deli. On Sunday, the blue spot was smaller, and she decided to go to church. It had been too long since she had been in God’s house. Leah had been praying unceasingly for forgiveness. No matter what she did, she had come to believe that He would be merciful to her. For God was good.

  Leah walked into the choir practice room quietly and sat in her assigned chair. The choir director had not yet arrived. At her arrival, the choir members gasped and greeted her warmly. Kyung-ah shrieked with happiness. She hugged her.

  “I tried to visit. But your bear of a husband said you needed to sleep,” Kyung-ah whined, stroking Leah’s hair. “Uh-muh, what happened? What’s that?” She pointed to the blue shadow on the bridge of Leah’s nose.

  “I fainted and fell on the table. It’s broken.”

  Looks of worry flashed across the choir members’ faces.

  “No, just a little line break, the doctor said. I’m fine. Not serious. I can still sing.” Leah smiled to reassure them. Then she thanked them for the ficus tree they had sent her while she was away.

  The members looked at the doorway. Charles had come in. Leah’s stomach clenched. He saw her, the crowd gathering round her chair. Kyung-ah smiled at him, then turned away, catching herself. Charles, his mouth slightly agape as if he meant to say something, went to the front of the room. He put down his bag on his desk and removed his jacket.

  He tried to compose himself. She was here. Despite everything, a part of him was pulling at him, wanting to take her by the hand, walk out, and never return. They could be happy. But she’d said it was a mistake. She hadn’t tried to reach him. Even after the call, he had waited for her to change her mind, but no. She had not come back even to church. Never called him at home. He checked now to see her again. Several people were talking to her still. There was a pale bruise on her nose. Had he hit her? Maybe she couldn’t leave the old man. Charles grimaced. He had been thinking about quitting this job, just taking on more voice work. His father would’ve happily sent him more money if he’d explain that he wanted to work on his song cycle commission. That choir directing was a waste of his time. After all, the world premiere was less than two months away. But there was a new reason to stay. For a little while longer, anyway. Kyung-ah had come to him last week after practice. And yesterday she had come by the house. There was something delicious about her abandon. And it had been too long since he had been with a woman in a real way. Making love was much better when meetings were frequent. And she wanted something regular, too. But interestingly, she didn’t want to be his mother, wife, or girlfriend. “We’re not friends,” she’d said, laughing. Kyung-ah was not interested in romance. She was in heat, no different from a bitch, she’d said herself. Yesterday, she hadn’t even wanted to have a cup of coffee with him. She’d left his house at five o’clock to finish up her bookkeeping and to lock up the store. He’d meet her again tonight after rehearsal if she could get away.

  Charles handed the choir secretary, Mrs. Noh, the new score for next week.

  “I thought on Sunday, we’d try this arrangement of ‘How Great Thou Art.’ There will be two duets—a male and female pair.”

  The Kim brothers were very pleased when their names were announced.

  “Deaconess Cho, you have returned to us,” Charles said, his voice flat.

  Leah nodded, her jaws clamped down.

  “And how are you feeling?”

  The choir members looked at her kindly, waiting for her reply.

  “I. . . can sing,” she said.

  “Good. You and Mrs. Shim will do the duet together,” Charles said to her quickly, then faced Mrs. Shim, a young mother of two and a mezzo-soprano.

  Kyung-ah whispered, “I did two solos this month already since you were gone.” She giggled, remembering how Charles had held her by the waist possessively before she’d left his house yesterday. Men were ridiculous, but they were good for a few things.

  Mrs. Shim turned to Leah and smiled shyly at her. They’d never sung together as a pair.

  Charles asked the accompanist to play today’s first selection. The rehearsa
l began.

  After services ended, Leah grabbed a cup of tea and followed the choir to the room for next week’s rehearsal. She hadn’t anticipated singing in a duet next week. Last night, she had not slept well thinking of all the possible things she would say to the professor. How were they supposed to work together after what had happened? She had pledged to God to be a good choir member, to practice more, and to always be careful around him. It had been a careless and foolish indulgence to have romantic feelings for him. That night had been a sin for which she would always be guilty. The memory of it made her want to die. But she had reasoned that suicide was a greater sin. She had to live to take care of Joseph. But it was so confusing. God would want her to respect her superiors, and the professor was her superior. God must have wanted her to be under the professor’s instruction, and Leah intended to obey his teaching. In her shameful heart, though, she’d imagined being alone with him again, talking about music and his life. After he had called her house, she had found his phone number through information and had picked up the phone numerous times when she was home by herself. But she had envisioned him hanging up angrily at her. You said it was a mistake, he would say. You made a mockery of our love. He could have said all those things, and he would have been right. What Leah had felt for him, she had never felt before for another human being. But she had never intended to be an adulteress. What God had made—her sacred marriage bonds to Joseph—she could not possibly break. Her love for the professor would be her sacrifice for God. She would place it on the altar of her heart. Christ, the one without sin, gave up everything, including the communion with his Father, for her sake, for her sins. Forsaking the girlish feelings she had for the professor seemed paltry indeed. Last night, Leah justified herself with these thoughts as she lay awake in her bed, dreaming of the sound of the professor’s voice. I will give him up, she’d told herself, and I will serve God by singing faithfully to Him alone.

  When the rehearsal for the choir ended, everyone left except for the Kim brothers, Mrs. Shim, the professor, and her. He hardly looked her way except for when it was to give her an instruction. Leah wondered where the feelings between them had gone. Perhaps she had imagined all of it. She gathered her music when they’d finished the duets’ rehearsal. Everyone said good night to the professor, and he did not give her even a quick glance. There was this heavy push inside her chest. God was with her in this. Somehow, this was what she deserved. What God would want for her. She was a married woman, and her husband was a good man.

  In the parking lot, Leah waved good-bye at the Kim brothers, two large men who had little to say for themselves and smiled uneasily at women, and at Mrs. Shim, who was sweet and wouldn’t stop bowing. Leah got into the car, knowing that the professor was still inside the church building. She belted herself into her seat and turned on the ignition. You must not go inside, she told herself. She drove home slowly, wiping her face at the intersections along the way.

  12 LINING

  IT’S DAMN, DAMN HOT,” Kyung-ah muttered to Leah, tugging at her white sateen collar. “I hate this polyester crap.” The reversible V-neck shifted askew over the sky blue choir robe. The soprano was also tired of Elder Ahn, who droned on with her prayer. “Jesus did not have that much to say.”

  A few of the basses and tenors seated behind Kyung-ah snickered. Leah patted Kyung-ah on the thigh as if she were calming a fidgety child. She was hot, too. This morning, she had put on her good blue dress—a summer-weight wool with sleeves that reached to her elbows—that should’ve been cool enough for the end of July, but the pale blue lining she’d sewn in herself stuck to her clammy back. Parched and uncomfortable, she forced herself to pay attention to Elder Ahn’s long petition to their Father in heaven.

  Elder Ahn’s beseeching grew louder and faster, and in her watery Kyung-sang-do accent, she panted to her dear Ah-buh-jee in heaven. One of the tenors clocked her at twelve minutes forty-three seconds on his gold Rolex Perpetual. The service was only half over, and the choir had to remain seated in their white partitioned pews, their black-haired heads bobbing just above the wainscoted church walls. The choir was only a few feet away from the lectern. The sermon was up next. Though it was only seventy degrees outside, in the sanctuary it felt like eighty-five. The air conditioner hadn’t worked all summer. Naturally, jokes had been made about how this must be a foretaste of hell. The Kim brothers pulled on their neckties. Their duet with Deaconess Cho and Mrs. Shim was already sung. They were dreaming of cold beer. There was no amen in sight.

  The strong morning sun streamed in through the tall windows—wide blocks of light fried the unlucky parishioners seated beneath them. Elder Ahn was now praying for those named in the prayer request cards dropped in the offering plate the previous week. The seventy-four-year-old female elder who’d sold boiled corn on the streets of Seoul for three decades to send her children to school, but now lived in her own fully-paid-for brick house near Corona Boulevard, paid careful attention to each ailing parishioner needing a communal prayer, not failing to embellish the specific ailment with words of urgency. It was the least she could do, she felt, for her fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. “Have mercy on Deaconess Sohn, who has been suffering with agonizing arthritis pain in her hands and legs. Have mercy on her, dear Father in heaven. . . oh, my Lord, my God, have mercy on your daughter.” The chubby alto, his hair darkened with Grecian Formula, seated beside Kyung-ah tried to amuse her by counting the requests thus far: twelve.

  Kyung-ah was now making a rapid spooling gesture with her hands, not entirely hidden in the wide blue sleeves of her robe. But nothing would disturb Elder Ahn, who was reaching an ecstatic pitch. Tears flowed. Several congregants were evidently moved by her passion. Only twelve women were installed as elders in the congregation numbering five hundred; each gave one prayer per year. This was not a privilege Elder Ahn took lightly. Both her daughters and her one son, none of whom attended the Woodside services regularly, had come today at their mother’s request. Kyung-ah widened her eyes and pinched Leah jokingly. Thankfully, Kyung-ah and Leah were sandwiched in the middle of the three rows, so the congregation could not see Kyung-ah’s antics. Leah’s father used to say whenever her brothers teased the pious grandmothers of their church, “One day, you too will be very old, and only God will matter.” Leah glanced reprovingly at her friend, yet this had no effect. Kyung-ah smiled prettily and fanned herself with the program.

  Charles sat with the congregation in the first row, on the seat nearest the aisle. He looked particularly attractive today, Kyung-ah thought: well shaven, the white linen shirt and dark cotton pants coolly refreshing compared with the others wearing dark suits and cheap ties. Kyung-ah raised her sable-colored eyebrows at him suggestively. After the evening rehearsal, she was supposed to meet him at an Italian restaurant on Mulberry Street. No one they knew would spot them there. In making their plans for tonight, he’d asked her to sleep over, and she’d said casually, “We’ll see.” But yesterday she’d gone to Macy’s and purchased a three-hundred-dollar Natori peignoir set in champagne-colored lace. Her husband thought she was staying at her sister’s.

  At last, Elder Ahn cradled her head with her knotty brown fingers. She was rapturous—her grief consoled—certain that her prayers were heard by God. She stepped down from the lectern, grasping her gray metal cane that had been leaning beside her all that time. On cue, Miss Chun, the summer organist, played the beginning bars of “When Morning Gilds the Skies.”

  Leah stood up with the choir, air filled her lungs, and she opened her mouth to praise God with her song. The first two lines of the hymn were gorgeous. The rise of the music almost lifted her bodily. This was why she had gotten dressed that morning, though she had felt the pull of her bed, the weight of her shame at having to face the professor again, the leaden lump of sin in her chest. What else was music but a miracle? What she could never say in speech, she could sing in verse, expressing the depth of her passion for her Maker. She’d never be capable of praying like Elder
Ahn or be as eloquent as Reverend Lim, the best preacher of the ministry staff. “My heart a-waking cries, May Jesus Christ be praised! A-like at work and prayer, To Jesus I repair; May Jesus Christ be praised!” Leah closed her eyes, her head lilting with the tune. But a thrust of nausea clutched her stomach violently. Liquid gushed out of her, drenching her L’eggs panty hose. Had she peed? Her ankles were dark red, as were the edges of her robe. A large puddle of blood spread across the floor. The blood had reached even Kyung-ah’s shoes and those of Miss Oh, who sat next to her. Leah gasped, then fell down. Kyung-ah shrieked out loud, “Call an ambulance!” Charles bolted out of the sanctuary to get to the church office phone.

  Once they were at Elmhurst General Hospital, the doctors and nurses deferred to Douglas as a matter of professional courtesy. Douglas told the staff that he was Leah’s brother, and they didn’t question him. Joseph held Leah’s dry, lifeless palm while Douglas filled out the paperwork. Joseph answered Douglas’s questions when the doctor didn’t know the answers. He handed Douglas a credit card that he had used perhaps twice in his life. He signed whatever Douglas told him to. How should he contact Casey? Douglas asked. Joseph didn’t know. When the doctors took Leah away and directed Joseph to the waiting area, Douglas phoned his daughter and asked her to find Casey. Leah had had a spontaneous miscarriage.

  It was Sabine who finally gave Ella the Kearn Davis number. Casey was surprised to hear Ella’s voice on the phone and stunned to hear the news.

  “Oh, thank you so much for calling. I. . . I don’t know what to say. Oh, my God. What should I do?” Casey mumbled to herself. She had a research project due in a few hours, but she had to leave. Offer decisions came out in two weeks. How would she get out now?

  “Your parents need you there now,” Ella said sternly, surprised that Casey didn’t immediately offer to go.

  Casey felt the reproach. Did Ella really think that she wouldn’t go right away? What did Unu say to her? After thanking Ella, Casey got off the phone, saying, “Take care,” with the precise intonation she’d use to indicate that the conversation between them was over. She called a car service and requested a driver to take her to Elmhurst General Hospital.