The bar’s a dive, but when the side door’s open it’s almost like a house party or a cookout. Last time we were here, Ivy and I started drinking at noon, and I loved how that felt. Like we were hiding in plain sight. Something in the mutuality of saying “fuck it” to the rest of the day made everyone behave appallingly.
She called the bar Tinder Live for its hookup potential, and it’s true. You can feel it. The vibe in a word? Ravenous. It reliably runs a special of Pabst Blue Ribbon with tequila shots from brands that have labels that look like Photoshop disasters. There’s one called Luxxx, which I’m pretty sure isn’t certifiably a thing unless that thing is personal lubricant.
I gaze vaguely into the space. Glazing over everyone’s eyes. Trying not to betray how desperate I am to recognize anyone. The guy to my right bumps me, not even turning around to check if he cares. He’s got this reedy voice, Hawaiian shirt opened to his midriff. “I don’t know,” he says through his retro pornstache. “Aren’t cargo pants strictly for botched-surgery Chads?”
The boy with the bowl cut next to him nods. He’s wearing cargo pants. I watch as he discreetly pulls down his shirt while listening. Tag yourself; he’s me.
There’s a spidery jitteriness in my heart. I can’t believe what happened. Fuck June. How fucking dare she.
I take another swallow of my drink to blot out the intolerable discomfort of reality.
Truth is, part of me wishes I could un-know all of this. June hit that nail on the head. I don’t want to deal. And if I hadn’t opened the envelope, I would be eating pad Thai she paid for, watching TV with her. I would feel moderately but not sincerely bad about being a mooch. I’d do her dishes. Everything would be otherwise fine.
Maybe I did know, though. On some level. June has never been this accommodating to me. Or nice. I’ve been cooking and cleaning, but old June would’ve conscripted me into all sorts of other menial tasks. I haven’t massaged her shoulders, lotioned her heels, or walked ten paces behind her holding her bag.
The Cure plays at a volume so loud, I have to squint in an attempt to dampen the noise.
I make a beeline for the smoke-filled patio, carrying my drink past the split vinyl booths, the old-school video games, and the line for the bathroom on the right, which has snaked in the narrow hallway. I try not to meet anyone’s eyes. Everyone else’s need to be seen is embarrassing to me because I so badly need the same.
Despite the chill, it smells human outside. Sour. My phone lights up in my hand. I’m here. You?
Instead of responding, I finish my drink, pulse racing. I check my reflection. I could still leave, I think. As long as he doesn’t come to search for me, I could dip out the side entrance. Even if he calls my name, I could ignore it. It’s loud enough. I slide an ice cube in my mouth and take a deep breath.
I exhale with my eyes closed, breath cool as I sigh.
I imagine myself as an entirely different person. Someone new. Someone strong. Someone whole.
chapter 20
I return to the main bar, flitting through the crowd, excitement unraveling down my spine. I shrug off my coat and then extract my arms from the lumpy sweatshirt, throw it over my head as my skin prickles to gooseflesh. Everything off except the black silk camisole.
I swing my eyes left, then right, enjoying the smearing in my vision. Now, I tell myself, I’m fascinated by everyone.
Next to a girl with glasses pulling on a vape, I see him. He smiles easily.
I make my way over, smiling stupidly at the ground, tilting my head up at the very last minute.
“Graduated, applied to design school, grew my hair long, moved to New York, met up with you,” I tell him as a greeting. I’m giddy with relief that he’s not in costume. “That’s what I’ve been up to in the last ten years.”
Patrick smiles wide and opens his arms for a hug. I sense an unlatching in my chest as I fall into them. It feels like fate that he picked up immediately when I called.
“It’s good to see you.” I sigh into his cashmere-clad sternum, my disguise of someone carefree and confident slipping ever so slightly.
“You too,” he says from above. He holds me longer than I’d expected him to. I leech everything I can out of the hug. Bleed it.
I pull away and look up. His cheekbones are positively architectural. His teeth, impossibly white. His sweater is a heathered gray that brings out his creamy skin. “Hi,” I say, attempting to be a normal, appropriate adult person. “So, we live in New York.”
“We sure do,” he says, taking me in. Then he laughs, looking around. “And of all the places in New York, we’ve chosen to be here. On literal Halloween.”
“It’s the worst.” I smile back at him. “I love it.”
His eyes alight from mine, and I wonder for a split second if he sees someone he knows. But instead of turning away, he touches my shoulder gently to let the person pass. “Do you want a drink?”
We’re standing right in front of the bar. “Vodka soda,” I whisper into his neck. His wallet is slender and expensive.
When he hands me a glass, I take a sip and notice it isn’t the kerosene I’ve been drinking. We toast each other.
Then he grabs my hand with his free one and guides me to a quieter part of the bar. My palm throbs when he lets go.
He rummages in his pocket and pulls out a single-dose pack of antacid and offers it to me. “Pepcid gang,” he says. A beat. “Don’t you get redface when you drink?”
I shake my head.
“Outlier,” he says, downing it.
“Is that a thing?”
“Yeah,” he says. “A lot of East Asians can’t break down the toxins in alcohol. It’s us and Ashkenazi Jews that won that particular genetic lottery.”
I’m embarrassed what I don’t know about us.
“It’s good to see you, Jayne,” he says, and my cheeks flush for altogether different reasons. I love hearing Patrick say my name. And that he knows how it’s spelled. And that every time he speaks, he leans in close to be heard. “I honestly wasn’t sure you were going to text back. I’m fucking horrible at texting.”
He shakes his head.
“How long have you lived here?”
“Almost a year,” he says. “But I’ve been visiting since forever.”
“Two and a half for me.”
“Right, you’re at school.”
“And you went to Yale,” I tell him, sidestepping the inevitable question of where I go. “I can’t believe I didn’t hear it from the church ladies.”
“I don’t think art school counts,” he says, chuckling.
I smile into my drink. He’s right.
“Where do you go?”
“Not Yale.” I say it in a disgustingly goofy way. “June went to Columbia, though. Full ride.”
“It’s so nice that you’re both here.”
“Yeah, totally.”
“We should all hang out sometime, get food.”
“Yeah, totally.” I feel instantly clumsy and inarticulate.
He watches me in a way I remember from when I was a kid. With intensity. Almost as if he’s recording me with his eyes. It’s the opposite of everyone in my life who is constantly looking past me. I don’t have to vie for his attention. It’s mine to lose.
“What about Kirsten?”
“Kiki’s in London,” he says of his sister. She had a blunt bob when we were younger. It made her seem sophisticated. “Or she was. She’s in the Peace Corps now. Panama.”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah.” He smiles the good-natured smile of a younger kid with an impressive older sibling.
“But you, creative director. That’s awesome.”
He runs his hand through his hair. “Yeah.” He clears his throat, nodding a few times.
“Is it fucked up that I have no idea what that means?”
He laughs. “No.” He shakes off the cocktail stirrer from his drink and, absent a place to put it, shoves it in his pocket. It’s exactly what I would do. “Most
creative directors are carpetbagging dilettantes who think they’re brands. Generally, I’m overpaid to answer questions about a company’s point of view. Or I guess I’ve been overpaid a couple of times. I only just got out of school.”
“How does that work? Do you work at an agency or…?”
I studied up from his website but couldn’t tell. Flash sites make me crazy.
“I’m freelance,” he says. “Which means I’m either panicking about starvation or I have a weird amount of money sitting in my checking account.”
“So, you work for yourself?”
He nods. “For now.”
I can’t believe he’s only twenty-four.
I search for clues as to whether this means he’s homeless. Nails: clean. Clothes: freshly laundered. His hair: not only washed but fiddled with long enough that a light, a mirror, and some privacy were required. Then again, I’ve heard of a girl who used her SoHo house membership to scam dates and roomies for the night. See also: Jeremy.
“That’s amazing.”
“We’ll see,” he admits. “Mostly, I have a truly despicable advantage…” Patrick glances around and leans in. “I don’t pay rent.”
“You’re squatting?”
“Yes,” he deadpans.
When my eyes widen, he shakes his head, smiling. “My mom went to NYU in the nineties and kept her apartment downtown.”
I take a half step back. “Where downtown?”
“East Village.”
“Fuck you.”
He laughs. “See.”
“So, it’s rent-controlled?”
“No.” Then he cringes.
I love that I feel completely comfortable grilling him like this. “God, she owns it, doesn’t she?” I steel myself against the tidal jealousy.
“She does.”
“My dude…” I jerk my head back from him.
“I know.” He looks a little like the gnashed-teeth emoji. “I’ve told no one. I feel like if fucking Bane came to my apartment in the middle of the night and killed me just to level the playing field it would be fair.”
“So it’s not that amazing that you work for yourself.”
“Way less amazing.”
“Fuck.” I shake my head, cutting my eyes at him. “Wait, are y’all rich?”
He pauses. “I was going to say we’re comfortable, but that’s literally…”
I finish his sentence. “What every rich kid says. Wow. I’m torn between admiration and rage. You’re so lucky.”
“That’s what I’m saying,” he says. “It’s not fair. It’s not a testament to anything that I can afford to be freelance.”
“Maybe you’re talented.”
“I’m okay,” he says. “But I don’t not know that a huge reason I even have a career is that my crew from art school blew up. I shot Danny Song for a GQ cover when I was twenty-one because he requested me.”
I feel special. Like he’s confiding in me because of our history.
We smile at each other.
Someone’s put on Lil Peep, so all the white girls treat the bar to shouted karaoke.
“You picked the place,” he reminds me.
I search the bar around me, hoping for a more acoustically amenable area just as a booth frees up. I grab his arm and lead. We slide in facing each other across the table.
A lanky Black dude up-nods as soon as we’re seated. “Just the two of you?” he hollers. He and his friend have matching septum piercings, and they’re both wearing bleach-spattered sweatshirts.
I nod helplessly, but just before they can squeeze in with us, Patrick slides next to me. “Executive decision,” he whispers in my ear. “Is this okay?” he asks. “We could also stand if I’m crowding you.”
I smile. “This is good.”
The boys sit opposite us and start making out athletically. We grin into our glasses.
He slings his arm around the back of our seat. My ears heat up.
“So, you were saying,” I remind him. “About work.” I don’t ask what Danny Song smells like, even though Danny Song was my celebrity husband before he became the Internet’s boyfriend. I couldn’t even tell if I wanted to be with him or be him. Just that when I fantasized about him bowing deep to my mom, greeting her in the honorific when they met, I’d feel warmth spread in my chest. All the horrible, shameful mistakes I’d made with other boys would be wiped clean. I know it’s somehow defective that I’ve never dated anyone Korean before. Asian even. But marrying someone like Danny Song would fix all that. Marrying Patrick, too, for that matter. I’m flustered at the thought.
“Um, as I was saying”—he clears his throat; his thigh is pressed against mine—“I don’t know. I have all these ideals that are probably going to bite me in the ass. Everything’s so fucked. Billionaires don’t pay taxes. Idiot racists rule the world. I’m trying not to work for evil people, even peripherally. I’ll probably starve, but I’m okay for now.” He glances down at his hands.
I clear my throat. Stare at the ring of wet on the black tabletop. Sincerity always throws me.
“What about you?” he asks finally.
“What about me?” I croak, shrinking a little under his gaze. “I didn’t know there was going to be a speech portion.”
I wish he’d turn his eyes down a little.
“But what are you studying? New York’s incredible for creative people. What do you want to do once you’re all good and learned up?”
“Well…”
The truth is, I know all the socialist talking points, but if anyone threatened to pay me enough for a cute apartment and a forever sofa, I might happily be stuck on marketing calls all day for a company specializing in murdering honeybees.
“Well, I wasn’t done talking about you,” I demur. “The job suits you.”
“How’d you figure?”
“You’ve always been into details,” I say, wondering if he agrees. “Keenly observant.”
At least that’s how it felt. Back then. When four years really did feel like such a long time. I was still in grade school when he started high school. I somehow felt invisible and conspicuously ungainly at the same time. I had awful hair and awful skin. Chipmunk cheeks with an explosion of pimples sprinkling my chin.
This was before I knew how to be seen. How to hide, too.
chapter 21
It’s not that I had a crush on Patrick at the outset, just that I noticed and appreciated the way he moved through space. Unlike other boys at church who constantly horsed around with a basketball and lunged into you as part of the game, Patrick mostly read graphic novels. He had this smoldering intensity. Like, he had everything he needed right there, right then, all by himself with his book. He wasn’t like the guys at school, either, where the popular ones seemed to glitter with erratic menace. I couldn’t tell if Patrick was popular in his other life, his real life, his non-church life, during the week, but he seemed quietly confident. He would rarely look away when I caught his eye. If anything, he’d lean into it. I always looked away first. I wasn’t ever sure whether he was mocking me.
“You see quiet things,” I practically whisper.
“You do too,” he says. “At least you did then.”
“I’ve changed a lot though.” I finish my vodka, hoping to make it true.
“Yeah,” he says evenly. “I see that.”
“All right.” I show him my empty cup. “My round. What are you having?”
“No way, Baek Ji-young. Your money’s no good here. I’m older. I’ll always be older. It’s on me.”
“Ew.” I laugh. “I am not calling you oppa.”
“Ew,” he says back. “Then don’t.”
When he leaves, I check my phone. June hasn’t texted or called.
“I like your hair,” I tell him when he returns.
He runs his hands through it. “I mostly still wear a hat, but I thought I’d make the effort.”
I gather my hands so I don’t reach out and touch it. It’s killing me not to. It’s somet
hing I’ve been aching to do since he arrived. Since before, if I’m honest. Patrick hat watch was personal church tradition.
“This is going to sound psychotic,” he says, studying me again. “But you feel so familiar even though I barely know you.”
I untuck my hair from my ears so that it hides the side of my face closest to him. I feel exposed that he finds me unchanged even though he makes it sound like a good thing.
“I know what you mean,” I tell him, not knowing what he means at all.
At several points during the evening, I have to remind myself to listen and not just stare at his lips. In the booth across from us, there’s a revolving cast of characters, but I barely notice their comings and goings.
It occurs to me, too many drinks later, that I should have eaten dinner. I’m not good at drinking. I know I’m talking way too much and I’m desperate to pee.
“Okay then,” says Patrick. “Bathroom break. And you’re not talking too much.”
“Oh.” I laugh, rising to my feet. I hadn’t known I’d said it out loud.
We squeeze out of the booth. The floor underfoot feels spongy. And my left haunch tingles with pins and needles. I place my hand on his shoulder to steady myself. I know I’m closing my eyes longer than I should, but it feels exquisite. I’m exhausted.
“Whoa, okay,” he says, assessing me. “How are you doing?”
I focus on the central Patrick of the three in front of me, which pulse along to my heartbeat. “Seems wasted.” The sibilance of my words slide way longer than I’d intended them to.
He grins.
“Don’t make fun of me,” I plead.
“I would never,” he says, offering me his arm. “So, we’re going to deploy the buddy system on this, Baek Ji-young. We’re going to pee, optimally not together, and then we’re going to get you a coffee and possibly an entire loaf of bread and then pour you into a cab.”
“I haven’t eaten bread since eighth grade,” I tell him.
He escorts me away from our booth toward the bathrooms. This is nowhere close to the dazzling seduction I’d had in my mind when I first texted.
“And I’m not shy anymore, you know,” I blurt. “I’m… I’m gregarious and effervescent.”
Yolk Page 12
