Thirty-Seven
Hana sips her coffee as I stretch my shoulders, in pain from carrying about twenty shopping bags. I’m sitting with my back to the window because across the street is a huge billboard featuring StarLune dressed in jeans and white T-shirts. Jihoon has followed me around this entire morning, a ghostly presence that pops up on drink bottles, skin care, portable face fans, and digital advertising screens. Name any item at random and somewhere in the city, there’s a StarLune branded version or a StarLune ad for it. After the first seven or eight sightings, I’d become somewhat inured, but I draw the line at having his billboard in my face while I chug an iced matcha latte.
“I need to buy some luggage,” I say, nudging a bag with my foot.
She stirs her caramel drink. “Leave your old clothes here.”
“I can’t…” I trail off because I could. After dressing for the Yesterly and Havings ecosystem for years, it was pleasant to be able to contemplate buying a hot-pink shirt. I didn’t because it was ugly, but for so long, I’d simply not thought it was an option.
I like having options. Why had I let myself get so constricted? Phoebe might not have a lot in her bank account, but at least she’s had experiences. All I have is the memory of my billable hours.
“We’d better get going,” Hana says, waving to a black car on the street. We haul the bags over, and Yeong leaps out to help us load them into the trunk. They almost fill the back of the SUV.
“He says it looks like we had a successful trip,” Hana translates.
I already have my eyes closed. Shopping was exhausting. “Online from now on.” Or I think that’s what comes out, because I’m already falling asleep.
Hana shakes me awake when we arrive at Jeebie’s, its glass storefront lit with a pinkish glow. Walking into the salon is like entering an alternate world where very different standards of beauty apply and the norm is so far to the right of the bell curve, it’s off the graph. Dazzling people mill around. Perfectly applied eye makeup abounds. Hair is every color of the rainbow. Even Hana stops dead in the doorway to take it in.
Once we recover, we get our bearings, and Hana approaches the front desk, which is at least ten feet long but only a foot wide and made of some resinous polymer that shifts under the light like mercury. I expect the receptionist to be aloof and judgmental, but she gives us a wide smile and a bow as she greets us.
“They have an English-speaking stylist for you,” Hana says as a woman in a white robe leads us upstairs.
“This place looks very expensive,” I say, watching a guy with bone structure made of razors sleeping in a chair as a man bleaches his hair.
“Jihoon’s paying. He has an account here.”
Of course he does. A woman comes out with cotton-candy-pink hair tied into a high twisted braid that reminds me of a style I’d see on the Whos of Whoville. She’s dressed in matching pink, with pink lips and eye makeup, and looks confidently incredible. I have a momentary daydream of walking into Yesterly and Havings with that bubblegum look. Would Richard pretend not to notice, too well-bred to comment on my appearance, or would I be sent home to change like a rebellious high schooler?
“I’m Nayeon,” the stylist says before leading me to a chair in a small room. She sits me down and leans on the counter, head to the side like an intelligent bird. “What can I do for you today?”
“I’m not sure,” I say honestly.
She purses her lips. “We can work with that,” she reassures me. “Is this for an event, or do you want a change?”
“I have an event tonight, but I also want a change.” I wrinkle my nose. “Sorry. I’m not helping.”
Nayeon laughs. “It’s hair and makeup. It can seem like a huge deal, but it’s not. It’s transient, a way to play. You can wash your face later. You can grow out your hair or wear a hat.”
I never thought of that before. Slowly, I nod. “I want to look like me,” I say. “But…different. A bit different.”
“Sure.” She walks around me, her face assessing as she runs her hands through my hair. “To confirm, no blue hair?”
“No.”
“Green?”
“I would prefer not.”
“Got it.” She winks at me. “You want to watch me work, or you want to do the classic makeover surprise reveal?”
“Surprise.” My answer astonishes me.
She swings the chair around. “You got it.”
Nayeon talks to me as she works, chatting about living in New York, where she went to college at Parsons before working as a stylist for some K-pop bands. “The schedule was too much,” she says. “I had no life. It was even harder for the idols.”
“How so?”
Nayeon lifts my hair with both hands. “Too much scrutiny, and they have to be cautious of every single thing. One step out of line and it could be the end of your career or even your band. The pressure is enormous.” She starts snipping again. “What’s the event tonight? Do you want to be super glam?”
“It’s the StarLune concert.” There’s no harm telling her. I bet all the stylists here are sworn to secrecy, and I’m on Jihoon’s tab anyway.
Her eyebrows raise. “Lucky. You’ll need staying power because those shows are intense. Who’s your bias?”
I know what this is now—my favorite in the band. Might as well be honest. “Min.”
“I like X, so it’s good we don’t have to fight,” she says. “We want Min to see you from the stage so he can fall in love and run away with you, and that’s not going to happen if you’ve got mascara running down your face.”
Nayeon is careful about asking me for input—do I want curls, light lipstick or dark, how much hair trimming will I allow?—and ends with a shoulder massage that almost has me purring.
She does a final dusting on my face and steps back with a big smile. “Tell me what you think.”
She swings me around at the same time as a beat drops on the speakers as if to herald the new and improved Ariadne Hui.
Nayeon is a magician. My hair is down but has more presence, if you can say that about hair. I stayed clear of bangs ever since the school photographer kept calling me China Doll on my grade eight picture day, but I now sport a thick line of bangs that frame my face and make my eyes pop. I love it. She takes a mirror and shows me how she’s cut layers to form the back into a pointy shape.
Then there’s the face. I look nothing like my usual professional made-up self, which is designed to make me less memorable, not more. My cheeks are faintly flushed, and my lips look like ripe summer cherries. My skin is creamy, if slightly freckled, glass. Nayeon explains how to recreate the look, and I barely listen as I turn my head from side to side to watch my hair settle. Despite the high gloss on my lips, not a strand sticks to them. Nayeon grins and grabs a tube out of a drawer that she holds up. “Lip varnish,” she says before tucking it into my bag with a wink.
“Very nice.” Hana comes in with a big grin, and my painted mouth falls open. Her hair is shorter, a bob that comes under her ears, and her look is sultry. She looks like she can go croon some jazz hits while lying on a piano in a red satin dress. “Worth spending Hoonie’s money.”
“I’ll pay him back.”
She snorts. “As if he’ll let us.”
We thank Nayeon, who is beaming with pride at her work, and head down to the reception area. I strut with a little more swing than usual and am self-aware enough to be embarrassed even as I toss my hair. After all, lawyers aren’t sex kittens. Strong, confident women aren’t sex kittens. Then I pass a guy so ethereal he glows, and when he does a double take, eyes wide in appreciation, I preen a bit.
I decide I can be all those things if I want.
Yeong is waiting, and he gives us a bow.
“He says we looks lovely,” Hana translates after he speaks.
We get in, me shaking my hair because it feels so light and smooth, and I reach into my bag, already red in the face at what I’m about to do. “Can you ask if Yeong is free to drop something off?”
She eyes the box. “A present?” She speaks to Yeong and nods. “No problem, he says.”
I pass over a little box, tied with a ribbon. “It’s for Jihoon. Can Yeong bring it to him? I’m not even sure where he is right now.”
Yeong hides a smile, and he takes it as Hana dies with curiosity beside me. I don’t know why I bought him a pair of earrings—I know the stylists usually pick out a selection for them to wear—and they’re only simple hoops but with a design of little watch faces etched on the thick metal. I thought of him when I saw them.
Hana doesn’t say anything about it.
Tired but looking phenomenal, we stumble back to the condo and dump our bags on the floor before grabbing some fancy water from the fridge and collapsing on the couch. I look at my haul with satisfaction. It’ll take me time to sort through my new clothes, which have green and red and blue among my beloved but now strikingly cut black, and even longer to get used to wearing them.
I can’t deny it was a very illuminating day, even without the museums.
Hana wriggles her toes in the thick rug and checks the time. “Two hours until we need to go. You know what you’re going to wear tonight?”
Not at all, so that’s the cue to drag everything to my room, where I stop dead at the sight of a box on the bed. “Hana?” I call.
She comes in as I pick up the long box, which is swathed and knotted in an emerald velvet that catches the light in a complex pattern. Hana dances with impatience as I pick it open with my nails to reveal a plain black box. Inside, tissue paper dotted with silver teacups is carefully folded over. I push it aside to reveal something black.
Hana’s eyes bug out as I pull out a blazer. “That’s a Harhawk.”
I don’t recognize the brand. I shake it out, and Hana gasps. It’s exactly the kind I would wear to work except this sucker is turbocharged. The wool, which gleams with a subtle woven black-on-black pattern, is soft under my fingertips, and the lining is a lovely pale blue silk patterned with more teacups.
“Try it on,” Hana insists. She’s got the green velvet wrapped around her throat like a scarf.
I pull it on over the shirt I’m wearing, and it fits as if it’s been custom-made. Hana fusses over me, exclaiming over the hidden details. There are soft cuffs inside the sleeves so I can push them up, and pockets line the inside of the jacket in a row. Inside one is a small box I toss on the bed. An inside button at the back means I can cinch it for a tighter fit, and when Hana tests it, the blazer doesn’t wrinkle at all around the waist. Then we find out it has a detachable bottom panel to turn it into a long jacket with a belt and another to make it flare at the hips in what Hana calls a peplum. She stands back with her hands on her waist.
“That thing is a work of art,” she says. “You know that Harhawk’s waiting list is as long as one for a Birkin bag? They have to decide to sell to you.”
“A brand for the rich and famous.” Celebrities.
She flicks me on the arm. “Plus people they think deserve them. The brand is a social cooperative. Profits go to help girls get educations and fund microloans for women entrepreneurs.”
She sees my confusion. “Jihoon is one of their global ambassadors. The members support gender and sexual diversity acceptance, too. Daehyun gave a song to an LGBTQ charity under a different name because Newlight wouldn’t let him do it officially, but everyone knew. StarLune keeps all their lyrics gender-neutral. Didn’t you notice?”
“The lyrics are mostly in Korean.”
“They wear dresses.”
“I thought that was a stylist thing.”
She closes her eyes. “I cannot believe you.”
I can’t believe me either, to be honest. My internet research was appallingly selective, and I don’t want to dwell on why I was more interested in the footage of them getting mobbed by screaming fans than the stories about their charitable work.
Hana grabs the box I found in the pocket. “Open it, open it.”
I obey and nearly drop the box on the floor. It’s a pair of earrings. Thin chains with diamonds that might be a lot of carats dangle from thin gold hoops. They’re so pretty, Hana sucks in her breath beside me, and we both reach in to touch the gems with tentative fingers.
“I can’t accept these,” I say automatically.
“The hell you can’t. Give them to me if you don’t want them.”
I clutch the box to my chest. “It’s too much.”
Hana grabs my hands to lift one of the hoops and holds it up to her ear, checking out her reflection. “You know Jihoon bought my parents’ mortgage out for them, right?”
I blink. “Seriously?”
“Mom was so pissed.” Hana grins. “Said he was showing off. Then she burst into tears and said he was the best nephew ever.”
“They’re family, though.”
“Buying gifts is his love language,” she says. “He wants you to know he cares. When I visited him in Seoul last time, he wouldn’t let me pay for a thing. I had to sneak out to get him a bottle of whiskey as a host gift.”
“I don’t know if I like that.”
“Because you can’t reciprocate?”
“In part.” The silver earrings I got him now look so cheap, I feel embarrassed.
She perches on the edge of the bed like a wise owl. “Because you’ve been raised to be an independent and modern woman who doesn’t need a man to get by, who can’t be bought by material goods, like a bribe, and who can make her own way in the world, thank you very much.”
I frown, fingers petting the soft green fabric I took from Hana. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“Would you feel bad accepting flowers from someone?”
“No.”
She taps my earrings. “Look at it as scale. For Jihoon, these are the equivalent of flowers.”
“I don’t think that’s entirely true.”
“Relationships are not an exercise in absolute equality,” she says in exasperation. “From each according to their ability and to each according to their need.”
“That was Marx’s description of communism.”
“It’s perfectly applicable. Also you need those earrings.”
I vacillate because Jihoon’s gifts are wildly overgenerous but also really fucking awesome.
“How did he know the jacket would fit?” I wonder, looking in the mirror.
“I told him,” Hana says unrepentantly. “We’re the same size, so I can borrow that dream of a blazer. Win-win.”
“You’re unreal.”
She laughs and tugs it off me. “Now let me try.”
If I tuck it in the closet with the rest of my new clothes, well. It is a nice jacket.