Like Wind Against Rock: A Novel

by Nancy Kim

  “You knew that I hooked up with him later, at the end of the year,” she says. “You knew it then, and you never said anything. You knew that’s why I was so upset that night. I wasn’t upset for you. It was because I thought he liked me.”

  I shake my head and try to leave, but she won’t let go of my wrist, won’t stop talking. I always suspected it, but I was never actually sure.

  “We’ve never talked about that,” she says. “It just sat there between us, and I always felt bad about it.”

  “It doesn’t matter. It was a long time ago. I really don’t care. Not then and not now.”

  She breathes out sharply through her nose and drops my wrist. “That’s exactly what I mean. You make everyone else put themselves out there, but you play your cards close to the vest. Is that what you’re afraid of with this guy? Having to take an emotional risk? To actually be open enough to be in a real relationship?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Or is it that you don’t want to be like me?”

  “You’ve had too much to drink.”

  “You’re being dishonest. You know what I’m talking about. You just want me to say it so you can deny everything and make me look like the bad guy, the petty friend who is always bringing up the past. You won’t even try to meet me halfway, will you? No wonder Louis left you.”

  That’s hitting below the belt. I can forgive her for messing around with Jim from high school and for insulting me, but even I have my limits. I grab my purse and toss a twenty on the table, which more than covers my margarita and share of the chips.

  “Listen, I didn’t mean that . . .”

  But I’m not in the mood for half-assed apologies.

  The tears start only after I leave the El Toreador parking lot, when I am safely on the road and driving away from the explosion that just shattered what I thought was a friendship. I wipe them away as quickly as they come, determined not to let Janine’s words get the better of me.

  I am thankful that Ahma is not home. I pull my carcass into the house, head up the stairs, and flop onto my bed. I try not to think about what’s just happened, but Janine’s words repeat themselves. Suddenly, I want to speak with Louis. I dial his number, but he is not there. I leave a message: “Hi, Louis. It’s me. Just wanted to check in and see how you were doing. Hope you’re doing well. Talk to you soon.”

  I feel alone and abandoned. I want to talk to somebody, anybody. Anybody, that is, but Ahma. The last thing I want to hear is the sound of the key turning in the lock in the front door.

  I hear her footsteps, the sound of shoes being removed.

  “Alice?”

  I hold my breath. Of course she knows I’m home. My car is in the driveway. This is her house. I have no right to privacy here. I should come out, let her see my reddened face and my puffy eyes. Instead, I pretend to be asleep. I hear Ahma puttering around in the kitchen, emptying out the dishwasher, which I neglected to do. I crawl underneath the covers, still fully dressed, and turn out the lights.

  CHAPTER NINE

  To my surprise, Rick calls me Tuesday, a couple of days after our coffee date, as I am driving to Restin. The conversation is brief, since we are both on the freeway. After dispensing with the necessary formalities, he asks, “Do you want to go to the zoo this weekend?”

  “The zoo?”

  “Yeah, I haven’t been in years, and I thought it might be fun.”

  We make plans to meet in front of the gorilla cage at 2:00 p.m. on Saturday, and then I quickly hang up because I need to pay attention to driving in this stop-and-go traffic. With my hands free, my mind can wander. Why the zoo? Why late afternoon instead of brunch or dinner? Why the gorilla cage? I have the urge to talk to Janine—she would certainly have some interesting theories—but I am no longer on speaking terms with her. Remembering my falling out with my former best friend dampens the thrill of receiving my first “callback.” But still I wonder—why another afternoon date? Am I not good enough for a real date—am I not a “dinner and a movie” kind of gal? And why oh why the gorilla cage instead of the cuddly pandas, the regal lions, or the beautiful and elegant flamingos?

  The Restin Public Library has been on a spending spree because some rich woman died and left it a million dollars. I had assumed that she was the wife of a real estate developer or an investment banker, but during our lunch break, Bertha informs me that the rich woman was a maid who used to bring her daughter to the library so that she could get the education she wasn’t receiving in the Santa Ana public schools. This woman cleaned the houses of wealthy people in Restin but somehow managed to save a million bucks to donate to the library!

  “Why didn’t she leave the money to her daughter?” I wonder aloud.

  “She didn’t need to, I guess. Her daughter got a free ride to Harvard and became a heart surgeon. I heard she lives in Newport Beach.” Bertha laughs. “I guess all those afternoons at the library was time well spent.” She takes another sip of Diet Coke and shoves a handful of chips into her mouth. “Kind of makes you feel like a slacker, huh?”

  I know that by “you” she actually means “us,” but I can’t help feeling insulted, and with good reason. Out there, house cleaners are leaving million-dollar donations to public institutions. Out there, daughters of house cleaners are getting full scholarships to Harvard and becoming surgeons. In here, a library staffer is struggling to lose weight while munching on junk food and soda. In here, a college-educated woman, a former math prodigy, raised in a two-parent household in a good school district and therefore lacking any excuses, is barely cobbling together a living while sleeping in her childhood bedroom, waiting for her divorce to become final, and mooching off her mother.

  “Is Mr. Park in today?” I ask. It’s only been a few days, and I don’t expect him to have translated much. Still, maybe he can tell me what the notebook is, even if he can’t tell me everything it says. I don’t want to be pushy, but I hope he’ll mention it when he sees me.

  “You mean Sam? Yeah, he’s around. He’s been busy all morning with emergencies. He’s probably in the courtyard, de-stressing with tai chi.”

  I still can’t get used to calling Mr. Park by his first name. It seems against the laws of nature, even though I know that Mr. Park wouldn’t be offended—at least I don’t think so. I find it hard to believe that any Korean man of my parents’ generation doesn’t harbor a teeny bit of disdain for the lack of manners and sheer ignorance of the Korean American youth—even those of us who are not exactly youthful anymore.

  In the courtyard, I find Mr. Park standing on one leg, the other leg bent into a triangle with his foot pressed against the inner part of the standing leg. His hands are clasped, palms together, and his eyes are closed. I have the strange sensation that I am spying on him. I don’t want to interrupt. I’ll ask him about the notebook later. He probably hasn’t had a chance to work on it yet anyway.

  I hurriedly turn around and leave the courtyard area. Everyone knows that Mr. Park does tai chi, but he seemed to be doing something else. He seemed to be praying.

  Religion was a topic that always made me feel uncomfortable growing up. My mother took me to church when I was younger, but I always had the feeling it was more for the socializing than the enlightening. I never understood a word of the sermons and found the whole experience a little scary, to tell the truth. The reverend made little moaning sounds, like he was crying, and sometimes he would burst out wailing. Other members of the congregation would join him in making the same kind of awful crying and wailing noises. One time, a group of people got up and made some sort of communal confession of their sins—I couldn’t understand what they were saying, but I got the general idea that they were coming clean to God about something, or else asking him for something that they really, really wanted. Then they all started wailing and moaning and crying—it was like a scene out of The Exorcist. Afterward, when I asked my mom what all that was about, she gave a little laugh and said, “That’s just how Koreans pray.”
One of the sinners was Mrs. Choi, a friend of my mom’s. She came over the following week with a large half-filled box of peaches—my mom and her friends were always buying jumbo boxes of something and sharing the excess—and she seemed perfectly normal.

  It wasn’t just the drama at church that got to me. It was also the drama before church. My father flat-out stated that he didn’t believe in Jesus Christ. Whenever he said this, my mother would say, “Ohmana, Ohmana, Ohmana,” which is the Korean equivalent of “Oh my God!” This was the only time my parents ever argued. My mom would hurl threats at him on behalf of our heavenly creator, things like, “Bad luck will fall on us because of your stubborn lack of faith!” and “Your dental practice will be in danger if you have no blessings from God!” My father would yell back, “Just because you go to church doesn’t mean that you are better than everyone else!” My mother would snap at me to get my shoes on, and we would make the forty-minute drive to the church in Cerritos. The only good thing about church was that after service, they served salty tripe soup with kimchi and soft, chewy glazed doughnuts.

  Funny enough, my father never allowed me to stay home from church. Maybe he wanted to preserve the one day a week when he had the whole house to himself. But he wasn’t a nonbeliever. He believed in Buddha and reincarnation and the sayings of Confucius. In a way, he believed in Christ too—he believed that Christ was Buddha was Muhammad was the will of the people. “Everyone needs to believe in God,” he said. “Your mother thinks I don’t believe in God, but I do. I probably believe in God more than she does.” I’m still not sure what he meant by that.

  Ahma doesn’t go to church anymore. She stopped going when I was in high school. I wonder what happened to Mrs. Choi. She and my mother are no longer friends.

  Usually I’m in Restin all day on Thursdays, but this week I have to leave early to drive down to Long Beach. Harry Gee is on vacation for the next two weeks, and I need to make sure that the bills are paid and payroll is met in his absence. I still haven’t had a chance to talk to Mr. Park—he was in another meeting when I stopped by his office today—so now I have to wait until next Tuesday. It’s only been a week, and he’s probably been so busy he hasn’t had time to start translating my father’s notebook. He warned me that it would take some time, so I have to be patient. My phone rings as soon as I get in my car. Janine’s name shows up on the screen. I let it go to voice mail.

  Friday is a slow day at work, and I leave Randolph Johnson’s office early. I’ve received a few emails from potential setmeups but haven’t bothered responding to them. Instead, I spend the evening deep-conditioning my hair and giving myself a manicure.

  Finally it is Saturday afternoon, and I am standing in front of the gorilla enclosure at 1:55 p.m. Children swarm around me while moms and dads wearing baseball caps and shorts carry giant pretzels and juice boxes. I feel adrift and self-conscious—not as conspicuous as, say, sitting alone at a bar, but misplaced nonetheless, as though I took a wrong turn on the freeway and ended up here, instead of the South Coast Plaza. Where are my children? Why don’t I have a chubby-cheeked daughter carrying a churro, or a freckle-faced son darting around to get a better glimpse of the gorillas? Why don’t I have a baseball-cap-wearing husband with skinny legs? How did I end up here alone?

  And then I see Rick, trotting around the corner, exactly on time, for it’s now precisely 2:00 p.m. He is wearing jeans and a cotton T-shirt that shows off nicely (but not overly) muscled arms.

  “Didn’t mean to keep you waiting,” he says, and I burst into tears.

  My sudden outburst attracts curious stares, and I am so mortified that I consider climbing over the fence separating us from the gorillas and letting them finish me off. Instead, I let Rick lead me over to a quiet spot under a leafy tree and wipe the tears streaming down my cheeks. He doesn’t say anything, which compels me to explain.

  “My father died,” I say. His eyes widen. “No, not today—a few months ago, in April. I was just remembering coming here with him.” Maybe it’s the truth. Maybe, instead of a family to take to the zoo, all I want is someone to take me to the zoo. Maybe I just want to eat churros and look at gorillas and have someone else drive for once.

  “Do you want to go home?” he asks.

  I shake my head.

  “Do you want to see the lions?”

  That is exactly what I want.

  I have been to this zoo about twenty times, but the last time was about ten years ago. We manage to catch up with a free guided tour and learn all sorts of interesting animal trivia. Did you know that the polar bear’s fur is not really white? It only looks white because it reflects the surrounding snow. Did you know a rhino’s horn is made of the same material as human hair? Did you know that owls have asymmetric ears so that they can hear noises in the sky as well as on the ground? Macaws mate for life, the guide tells us, and I purposely avoid Rick’s eyes. Giraffes’ tongues are purplish black to protect against sunburn.

  “All these adaptations have a purpose,” the zoo guide informs us.

  Four giraffes are gathered on a dirt platform, next to a two-foot-deep ditch and surrounded by a four-foot-high wall.

  “Can’t the giraffes simply step over the barrier?” Rick asks.

  The guide nods. “Yes. It’s not the wall that contains them. The ditch is a psychological barrier. The giraffes don’t like to step down, so even though they could easily climb into the ditch and over the fence, they don’t because they can’t see what’s down below. Once one of our giraffes got spooked by a red balloon and escaped. Her fear of the balloon was greater than her fear of falling. It took a while to get her back where she belonged.”

  I look carefully at the giraffes. I guess even psychological barriers have their limitations.

  We walk over to the marabou stork, which might just be the ugliest creature in the zoo. It has a scabby head with a shriveled air sac that resembles what I imagine an old man’s testicles look like. The guide explains that the carrion-eating bird’s head is bald so that it can stick it into dead animals without collecting too much bacteria. I glance over at Rick.

  “Hungry?” he asks with a grin.

  In fact, I am. It’s nearly six o’clock. We decide that rather than eating at Nairobi Village, the zoo’s only decent restaurant, we are both in the mood for sushi. Since we drove separately, Rick walks me to my car, and there is an awkward moment, at least in my mind, where I wonder if he is going to kiss me. Instead, he says, “See you in a few minutes,” and I get in the car feeling a little foolish. Do I want him to kiss me? Do I like him? I think so. Besides being gorgeous, he’s kind and patient. He didn’t freak out when I started crying. He didn’t try to cut our date short when I told him about my dad. It might have been too much for some guys, especially for a second date. I guess I am waiting to see how he feels about me before I decide how I feel about him. Whether and how much I like him depends on whether and how much he likes me.

  I pull into the parking lot of Zen Sushi, guessing that I have arrived before Rick. I sit in my car for a few minutes, figuring it’s better to wait in my car than in a crowded restaurant. I see a black Aston Martin Roadster pull into a parking space, and I am surprised when Rick steps out of it. Watching him as a stranger would—which I basically am—I notice again his handsome features and his confident stride. I duck down into my seat as he walks past me in the parking lot. How is it possible that I am going in to meet that man? How is it possible that he is walking to meet me?

  I check my lipstick in the rearview mirror. Why oh why couldn’t he own a Honda Accord? Or a Toyota Camry? Even an Audi would be better than an Aston Martin! I thought the date had been going well, but he probably asked me to dinner only because he was hungry, not because we were “progressing.” I check my wallet to make sure that I have enough money to pay for my half of the bill.

  I walk into the restaurant feeling sweaty and scruffy. Why didn’t I suggest a diner or maybe just feign illness and go home? I see Rick waiting by the hostess sta
nd and marvel that he somehow looks appropriate wearing the same clothes that he wore to the zoo, while I feel like I need to go home, shower, and start all over again.

  “Hi,” he says. “I don’t know how I beat you. I thought I saw your car in the parking lot.”

  I hope he didn’t see me ducking underneath the window.

  “It looks crowded,” I say, changing the subject.

  “She said it would only be a few minutes.”

  The sole bench is occupied by a quartet of twentysomething hipsters, so Rick and I stand in the busy waiting area until the hostess calls us. True to her word, our table is ready before I have a chance to get too anxious. She leads us to the far end of the sushi bar, and we sit at the only two vacant stools at the counter. Rick likes all of my favorites and orders them in Japanese. We share a large Kirin, and I notice that he doesn’t drink too much of it or try to get me drunk. I am just starting to forget how sweaty and underdressed I feel when I catch sight of Janine. She and her date are being led to a table on the other side of the room.

  “What’s the matter?” Rick asks, and he turns his head to look.

  “Don’t,” I hiss and turn back to the chef, who is sternly placing another plate of yellowtail in front of us. “I thought I saw someone I knew.”

  Rick looks at me curiously but doesn’t ask any questions.

  I’m surprised to see Janine, but I’m even more surprised to see her date. He looks an awful lot like Ahma’s hairy-bear dude, Stephen. But that wouldn’t be possible. Would it?

  “Is everything okay?”

  “Fine, fine.” I take another sip of beer. “I just saw an old high school friend of mine. In fact, she was my best friend until about a week ago. We got into a horrible argument.”

  “What about?”

  “About you. Not about you personally, but about you in the abstract. It was more about dating and men and . . . honestly, I can’t even remember what it was about because it wasn’t really about that. It was about how she feels about me.”