Twenty-Nine
“So.”
“So,” I parrot back. It’s a week later, and Alex and I are at a bar after work to prepare for my upcoming initial meeting with Hyphen’s in-house legal. Brittany has already told me several times how jealous she is that I’m getting the fun little local clients while she has to spend her time with boring old companies negotiating multimillion-dollar deals. Sometimes she didn’t get home for dinner, and Kenny was getting so mad about having takeout all the time.
I do my best to be collegial, but it’s difficult, especially when I see her coming back with Meredith, both holding coffee from the same place. Brittany is gathering support among the partners, and I need to find a solution. Dad’s constant harping on the theme of career advancement doesn’t help.
Alex straightens his lapels and puts his hands flat on the table as the visual indicator that he’s about to say something important.
“Mr. Choi.”
“What about him?” I look at the menu to avoid his gaze.
“Are you dating?”
I can’t prevent the slight jerk that shakes the menu and focus on the description for the panko-crusted cauliflower bites. “I don’t see how that’s any of your business,” I say.
“As the man who spent the greater part of a week and most of his sleeping hours trying to hide your existence from the media and a very smart and resourceful fan base, I beg to differ.”
Touché. “We’re not talking anymore.”
His face softens. “Sorry.”
“There was no way it would work, and I don’t want to discuss it.”
“Understood.” He puts down his menu. “On the professional side, Hyphen distributes StarLune. I need to know if you can handle it.”
I sit back in the chair and glare at him, offended he thinks I can’t keep it together. “I can stay professional. We barely knew each other.” I can’t help choking over the last because it’s true but also false.
“Right.” He gives me a disbelieving look. “Have you looked through the information I sent?”
I nod, grateful to be on safer ground. “Interesting industry.”
“You don’t sound convinced.”
I turn the menu over. “Most of it is manufactured music.”
“You lived with Min of StarLune and can say that.” Alex sounds disgusted.
“He wasn’t Min when I knew him,” I snap, angry to have Jihoon come up again. Work at least used to be my safe zone. “And I said most.”
“Do you think great actors are artists? Dancers?”
“Yes.”
“Then you agree that, say, Dame Judi Dench is an artist.”
“Normally I would say yes, but I’m downgrading my answer to perhaps because I’m suspicious of the point you’re going to make.”
“Does Judi Dench write her own parts? Do dancers create their own choreography for Swan Lake?”
“You are trying to say I am culturally ignorant and should have some respect.”
“I wouldn’t phrase it exactly like that, but close.” He shakes his head. “You’ve got some preconceptions that I strongly encourage you to reassess. This is a multibillion dollar industry.”
That’s something to think about but… “That’s the business side. It’s the rest that’s strange. They audition and get trained and live in group housing like they’re in boot camp before some corporate suit sticks them in a band.”
“You think the music is more valid if they meet organically.”
“Yes.”
“Like a symphony does? Or does the first chair violinist also not count as an artist?”
“What about the variety shows where they dress up and whack each other on the ass, like, a lot?”
“Fine,” he concedes after a long moment. “Those are bizarre to me, too.”
I keep going, pulling on knowledge gathered from my StarLune binge. “Plus, they do the same dance every time for each song.”
“The choreography is part of the song, and it’s not like a dancer changes their moves for each performance of The Nutcracker.” He stares off into the distance as if trying to figure out what to say. “It’s limiting to think of it that way. These are multimedia experiences that combine music, style, dance, and performance. It’s a different concept than you’re used to, but that doesn’t make it absurd or lesser.”
I pause as the drinks get delivered. “You’re being surprisingly severe about this.”
He wipes a spill off the table. “You’ve hit one of my sore spots. I spend an inordinate amount of time trying to convince people that bands like StarLune count as legitimate even though they top global charts. It’s like people see Asian faces and refuse to believe there’s any creativity or artistic merit involved.”
“Fine.” I try to keep my voice disinterested despite feeling a little attacked. “Now, can we get on to business?”
“This is business.”
“Other business,” I say. “Tell me what’s going on with Hyphen.”
“Ari.”
“I’ll keep an open mind,” I promise.
“Good, because I want you to come to Seoul.”
“Seoul?” I put my drink down and wonder if I heard him right. Jihoon lives there, my brain eagerly reminds me. I could see him. Or I could have, had I not dumped him as he was leaving the country. Work is definitely not a safe zone anymore.
“Yes, and soon. Desiree was supposed to come with me, but she’s going on early maternity leave.”
I frown. “Isn’t this a conflict of interest?”
He shakes his head. “You’re not in a relationship with Mr. Choi, and no one but us knows it might have been different.”
“Right,” I say, trying to ignore the emptiness in my chest I’ve accepted as permanent when it flares into a precise pain.
“Newlight wants to get to know me while we finalize the North American plans for one of their debut groups. Are you in?”
I twirl a straw around my fingers. I don’t usually take vacation time, so Alex’s offer provides the chance to travel without feeling as if I’m slacking. In fact, it’s a potential career enhancer since I can work closely with Hyphen, and it shows they value me.
These are two good reasons for wanting to go that have absolutely nothing to do with the opportunity of being in the same city as Jihoon.
However, I don’t make quick decisions, even though I’m yearning to go, and I need to check with the partner in charge. “Let me get back to you.”
“You don’t need to see Mr. Choi while we’re there. We won’t be working directly with StarLune.”
I shift uncomfortably on the vinyl seat. “I wasn’t thinking about that.”
“If you say so.” He gives me a long look, but I steer the conversation back to Hyphen, and that’s what we talk about the rest of the night.
The next day at the office is colored by fantasies of what I can do if I go to Seoul, combined with worry about being out of the office for a week, even if it’s on business. I have a feeling, almost like dread, that if I leave, something will go wrong.
I look up from my screen and notice my water glass is empty. Better get something to drink before I start to shrivel.
The kitchen at Yesterly and Havings is all chrome and glass, a high-design contrast to the country club elegance that fills the rest of the office. A small hall leads from the open seating to a recessed snack area custom-made to catch the loud and unwary.
Or the uncaring like Brittany, whose voice drifts out as I step unseen into the space.
“I don’t understand,” she says. “I’ve tried to make it clear so she knows it’s okay to be Chinese, that it’s the same as being like us. I don’t see color, anyway.”
“You’re trying, and that’s what’s important.” This is Meredith speaking.
“I’m doing my best, but it’s so hard to tell what she’s thinking.” Brittany sounds miserable. “I know she’s jealous because Richard asked me to join the Beaconsmith meetings.”
“You were asked because you deserve it,” says Meredith with righteous indignation. “You work hard. Like I told you the other day at lunch, if she worked as hard, she’d get those accounts as well.”
“She got upset with me when we met because she thinks I said her name wrong, but people get my name wrong all the time. It doesn’t bother me.”
“Brittany.” Meredith’s voice is as warm as a talk show therapist about to lay down some life lessons. “You can’t let people make you feel bad for being a strong, competent woman and a fantastic lawyer. Don’t drop to their level.”
“You’re right,” says Brittany. “When they go low, we go high.”
“Exactly,” approves Meredith.
At this moment, vision narrowed to a tunnel, I weigh several options.
Option: Make myself known and use this as a teachable moment to create a more tolerant world.
Analysis: I am not capable of this.
Option: Walk in there, look them both right in the eye to watch them squirm, then leave.
Analysis: I might seem like this kind of person, but it’s aspirational.
Option: Leave and forget I heard anything to save Brittany and Meredith embarrassment.
Analysis: Most likely course of action.
“I mean, I don’t want her to feel bad,” says Brittany. “It must be hard when you’re obviously the diversity hire and the rest of us got here because we put in the work.”
“We’re impressed with how fast you’re learning, and it’s because you try,” soothes Meredith. “Your mother is very proud of you, Brittany. You’re a good fit with us.”
I turn around so fast, I nearly stumble on my own feet. I’m taking option three, but it’s not to save them embarrassment. It’s to prevent my own.
In my office, I lower myself in the leather chair. The room smells expensively good from the subtle air freshener they pump through the office to negate any indication of human occupation. I don’t realize I’m shaking until a sharp pang shoots through my jaw from how hard I’m clenching my teeth.
I reach for my phone and then pull back because I can’t talk about this, not to anyone.
There are two kinds of shameful experiences. The first category is normal but mortifying, like falling down the stairs when you’re trying to make an entrance or saying something inane. They fade with each retelling and eventually get reworked until they become cringey but hilarious anecdotes that happened to a fictional past you. They lose the ability to cause any more indignity.
The second category causes damage. They’re hailstorms where the ice takes up space so deep in your very bones that it’s impossible to melt. These are the unwelcome eye-openers, when you’re forced to face something you could damn well do without. If the first is falling down the stairs, the second is getting shoved from behind by the person you trust most in the world. Those never stop bleeding, and telling those stories, if you can, only rips them raw again. Usually you don’t.
You end up eventually owning the first kind. The second owns you.
If anyone should be uncomfortable here, it’s those two women and not me. Yet I’m the one who’s been cut down and made smaller because at some point my ancestors came from Asia and not England. I don’t even speak the language: Phoebe always called us dim sum Chinese. Despite the fact that I know jack about the motherland, I’m not allowed to be Canadian, only Chinese Canadian. My doubled descriptor seems like it halves my belonging, making me a permanent outsider. I don’t even know how to fight the Brittanys and Merediths without somehow feeling that I’m selling out a heritage I’ve never even related to.
Even though the Brittanys have a head start, I’d believed Dad when he insisted hard work would get me where I wanted to be. For the first time, I see he was too optimistic. Or Brittany really is the better lawyer, a better fit. How would I ever know if the problem is my talent or me? Although I’ve been paddling like mad in the Yesterly and Havings lake, all these conversations have been happening underneath that I’m not involved in. Hana had once warned me to watch out for this, but I’d ignored her. I was different. It didn’t apply to me.
I rub around my eyes, careful to not make my upset visible by smearing my mascara. At least it clarifies one of my decisions. I text Alex because I can’t be sure my voice won’t shake. Send me the flight information.
I was going to be the best damn lawyer at Yesterly and Havings. Now I’m not sure that’s even what I want, so I might as well get a trip out of it.
There’s no way I’m bringing a souvenir back for Brytaghnghie, though.