Twenty-Eight
The problem with heroic self-denial is that after the feeling of nobility wears off, you’re stuck back in your regular life.
But now you’re sad.
Jihoon doesn’t contact me. I expected that and tell myself it’s what I wanted. The problem is that although I thought he would eventually fade into memory, he hasn’t. My brain knows I did the smart thing, but my body seems to disagree. I almost physically crave his company, and it takes all my willpower to not watch the several million online clips of him on repeat.
Life isn’t doing much to distract me. I have no travel itineraries to plan for friends, and work is somehow both hectic and tedious. Dad calls regularly to bestow advice on how to talk to Richard so I can get ahead. I spend a lot of time making affirmative noises into the phone so I don’t snap and tell him his experience helping people navigate adoptions and divorces isn’t quite the same as dealing with the suited sharks at Yesterly and Havings. I try to talk to him about his health, but he cuts me off each time. Eventually, I give up because I’m not eager to talk about it either.
Phoebe, surprisingly, has been in touch with me. After I told her what happened with Jihoon, she told me she was around if I wanted to talk.
I didn’t want to talk.
Well, I want to talk a little bit, and I can’t talk to Hana. Once she got past her initial shock, Hana had refused to talk about Jihoon at all, citing friendship rule number seven.
“Which one is that?” I’d asked. Our friendship rules covered issues such as not leaving each other at a bar, no matter how hot someone was, to total honesty when asked for an opinion on clothing choices. I thought we had six.
“It’s like that amendment Americans have about not saying something that will get you in trouble. They’re always pleading it in crime shows.”
“Friendships don’t have a fifth to plead.”
“This one does as of now because you’ll get upset if I say you’re being a total ass about this entire situation and you should grow up and expand your world to give Jihoon and your life outside that awful law firm a chance.” She takes a deep breath, having let that all out in a single burst.
“I feel the whole keeping it to yourself thing was more of a hypothetical exercise.”
“Sorry.” She wraps her arms around her knees. “Sorry. It’s that he’s a mess, and you’re also a mess but also being utterly asinine about this and…”
I hold my hand up to stop her before she runs on again. “You were right, friendship rule seven.”
We’d avoided the topic after that, but what she said about Jihoon stung. Despite my better judgment—and honestly, where is that getting me these days?—I tune into one of StarLune’s video updates. It’s Kit, and beside him is Jihoon. A tight feeling binds my throat when I see him. He looks tired, barefaced, with his hair hidden under a hat and a mask cupping his chin. I watch for a few minutes as the two tease each other about a burned meal.
Jihoon looks like he’s been gutted, and the concerned comments in the chat tell me I’m not the only one who noticed that he looks dull and his eyes don’t smile. There must be more going on in his life since there’s no way I could have done that to him. He told me how busy he was going to be. No doubt it’s exhaustion. I can’t feel guilty about doing the right thing.
Phoebe meets me in a derelict parking lot that’s been transformed into a hidden pop-up patio complete with sand and beach umbrellas. The Beach Boys play softly on the speakers as we drink radlers out of mason jars.
Phoebe kicks off her sandals and digs her toes, blue polish chipped, into the sand. “Almost like being at the beach.”
A car beeps its horn as it passes on Dundas Street. “Almost,” I say, looking at the chain-link fence that surrounds the lot.
“My new place gets hot at night, so it’s nice to be out.” She leans her head back, the setting sun lighting up her bleached hair with bright streaks of orange and gold. “Worth it to have my own space, though.”
I take a sip of the radler. They’ve used grapefruit juice, so it’s not too sweet. “Don’t you wish you could settle down in one place? It must be tiring to keep moving.”
She slips on her gigantic sunglasses, which sit on top of her tiny nose and make it look like a button. “Not for me. The same routine is stifling.”
“Thanks a lot.”
Phoebe’s eyes are hidden, but her face moves to look at the couple holding hands to our left. “Why do you think it’s a judgment? I don’t live my life at you.”
“It seems that way.”
Off come the sunglasses, but when she looks at me, I wish she’d kept them on. “Why?”
I’ve already said too much. We may share history, but this Phoebe—the woman in front of me and not the one I’ve created in my mind—is a stranger. “Never mind.”
“Talk to me, Ari. Please.”
I glare at her. “Why do you want the big talk now?”
“Do you want me to apologize for being myself?”
“How about being sorry you left us so you could do it?”
In the silence that follows, the Beach Boys give way to some surf rock band. Phoebe looks at her drink. “I told you before why I did. I don’t know how long you want to stay mad or what you gain from it. We nearly lost Dad.” She doesn’t elaborate after that.
I hate that she makes sense because I have a good seventeen years of sour resentment clinging to me like a sweaty sports bra. What do I gain from this low-level warfare? Nothing except that I can tell myself Phoebe is a flake and her decisions are flaky and thus nothing to make me question my own life. But Phoebe enjoying herself doing my exact opposite makes me wonder if I have the same choices open to me, even now.
She lets that sit for a moment, then leans back in her chair, making it creak alarmingly. “I regret quitting school. I was jealous when you got your degree.”
“Jealous of me?”
Phoebe rolls her eyes. “You don’t even know how proud Mom and Dad are of you. ‘Ari’s about to graduate. Ari’s top in her class. Ari has a fancy-pants job. Ari’s life is going so well.’” She says this in a singsong voice that’s half-mocking and half-dejected.
“Is that why you never called?”
“Probably. I don’t have a good answer.” She makes a face. “That sounds bad. I’m not a good person, shit.”
We drink our overpriced juice-beer.
“I want to talk about other things,” I say.
She looks relieved. “Done.”
I cast around for a neutral question. “Where were you before Montreal?”
“Peru, working in a hotel near Machu Picchu for a few months,” she says like it’s no big deal.
I feel almost shy when I ask her, “Can you tell me about it?”
“You really want to know?”
“I love hearing about people’s travels,” I say honestly. “I’ve never been anywhere.”
“No?”
“Work.”
Phoebe’s expression is understanding. “One day we can go somewhere together.” She gulps down her radler as this casual offer makes my eyes fly up to her face to see if she’s serious. She is. “Okay, tell me when you get bored.”
I don’t get bored at all. For the next two hours, Phoebe regales me with travel triumphs and mishaps. Missing a flight in LA and meeting a movie star in the bar. Learning how to make espresso from a man who insisted he learned it in Sicily from a Mafia consigliere. She’s amusing and wry and makes me laugh so hard my stomach hurts. Then my heart hurts a bit because I could have had this years ago.
She signals the server for the bill. “You know, you could go to Korea. On vacation.”
I kick at the sand under my feet. “That ship has sailed.”
“I only met Jihoon for a bit, but he seems like a good guy. He’d hear you out, especially if you made an effort to see him.”
“The problem is there’s nothing to hear out. It was the right decision.”
Phoebe drags a finger through the condensation on her glass. “You don’t have a single regret?”
“Of course not,” I lie.
She looks at me skeptically. “I had a therapist do a thought exercise with me once. Do you want to hear it?”
First I need to get over my sister mentioning a therapist so casually, which is not something she learned to do in the Hui family home. “I don’t know.”
“Will it hurt to hear?” she asks with exasperation.
“It might,” I say.
She smiles. “Yeah, you’re right. You should listen, though.”
I wave for her to go ahead. Behind her, the server swings the gate open to let in a group of women dressed in tiaras and Hawaiian shirts.
Phoebe takes a drink before she speaks. “I had to make a choice, and the therapist told me to think of the worst thing that could happen. In your example, let’s say you reach out to Jihoon. What’s the worst that could happen?”
“He rejects me.” That bursts out before I can even be embarrassed.
“What happens after that?”
No need to think about this either. “He’s out of my life forever.” She stares at me, and I stare back before I finally ask, “What’s your point?”
“Jesus, this is like pulling teeth.” Phoebe runs a hand through her hair. “I’ll spell it out. Is that different from your here and now?”
I don’t like where this is going, but I shake my head. “No.”
“Then you’re already living your worst-case scenario.” She stands and grabs her bag. “You’ve nothing left to lose. Think about it.”
Phoebe’s words pick their way across my mind as I head home. I’m not living my worst-case scenario. A real worst-case scenario is being left in a desert with no water. A squandered romantic opportunity is almost commonplace. It’s why there are so many missed connections sections in local newspapers and online. There’s no such thing as one true love, and I am 100 percent not living my worst scenario.
I’m not.
Hana is on the couch when I get home, her head bent so far back she looks like she’s auditioning for a part in The Exorcist: Demon Death Redux. “Leftovers in the fridge,” she mumbles.
I take a good look at her. “How was your mom?”
“Brutal. It’s killing me. She won’t listen.”
Hana had been summoned to the Choi household for another interrogation about her role in the Jihoon incident, which had apparently devolved into her mother’s usual nagging about Hana’s life.
Tears of frustration leak out from the corners of her eyes. She’s been seeing a therapist—secretly, because Mama Choi would dissolve into self-accusations of how she’s a terrible mother if she knew—but it’s hard to go against your parents. Especially when whatever is done is supposedly done out of love.
“What was it tonight?” I ask.
“Everything. Even this work trip I need to take to Korea in a couple weeks is a chance for her to try to control me. She gave me a nonnegotiable list of what I need to bring back and people I need to see.”
I repress the slap of emotion I get when Hana mentions her Korea trip. It’s happened a few times, and I don’t dwell on it long enough to tell if it’s envy or remorse. Although she’s going to Busan and not Seoul, I haven’t had the courage to ask if she’s going to see Jihoon. His watch is tucked in the back of my sock drawer. I haven’t looked at it since he left.
Tonight isn’t about my heartache, though, but Hana’s. I remember what her therapist had told her to do. “Did you set your boundaries?”
“I told her the other day I didn’t want her talking about what I eat or how I look.”
“That’s good,” I encourage her.
“Technically, it worked. She didn’t say a word about my appearance.” She reaches down and fishes around in her bag. “Instead she very generously bought me some new clothes.”
I snatch it out of the air when she tosses it over. “Is it a necktie?”
Hana closes her eyes. “Good guess but no. They are pants.”
The two of us have similar body types, solidly on the curvier side. These pants might fit up to my knee. I check the tag. They’re an extra small. “Wow, this is some Machiavellian-level mind play.”
“I’ll donate them to a children’s charity,” she says.
I sit beside Hana and nudge her in the side. “I know you don’t like my football coach mottos, but you’ll appreciate this one.”
She turns to me, one eyebrow raised. “Yeah?”
I nod and lean in. “Fuck it.”
This is not witty or classy, but she laughs, and it’s enough to get the smile back in her eyes. That’s enough for me right now. After she goes to bed, I hide those nasty leggings in my room so Hana won’t see them in the morning.
Take that, Mama Choi.