Forty-Six
There are recurring proverbs in cultures around the world that indicate a certain universal nature to specific parts of the human experience.
It never rains but it pours.
Bad things never walk alone.
Poor luck comes in threes.
All roundabout ways of saying when life sucks, it sucks hard.
A few months ago, if you had asked me to write a personal profile, it would have said I’m a lawyer with a strong work ethic and not much else. It wouldn’t have touched on the fact that I am also apparently appalling at self-reflection—although looking back, the terseness of that mock profile makes it abundantly clear—and ghastly when it comes to handling a breakup with finesse.
Apparently I’m also a masochist. Instead of trying to climb out of this funk, I lie on the couch with my greasy bangs hanging limp on my forehead and watch all StarLune’s videos, eyes glued to Jihoon. Then, for fun, I torture myself with their latest online chats. Kit and Daehyun eat some gimbap, and Xin shows about half a million people a loophole in some video game. It’s all very normal guy stuff played out in front of a huge audience with long pauses to stare at the screen and respond to fan comments. I sit through all of them in the hopes of seeing Jihoon. Or hearing his name.
Tragic, but at least there are no witnesses to my shame.
A new video was posted last night, and it’s subtitled, so I debate between heating up a box of frozen simulated chick’n nuggets, which is all the cooking I can handle, or watching it. My laptop takes the decision out of my hands through the miracle of auto-play. Looks like the nuggets will have to wait twenty-eight minutes and seven seconds.
It’s Sangjun, whom I never met properly but is now as familiar to me as my own family from the amount I’ve seen him through various media. He looks drained, dark eyes peeking over a white face mask he eventually tugs under his chin. I sip from the can of warm, flat Diet Coke balanced on my chest beside my laptop and listen to a man I don’t know speak in a language I don’t understand.
When the door opens behind him, he seems honestly shocked to see Jihoon. I am, too, so much so that I jolt upright and topple the can on my lap. Ignoring the pop soaking my sweatpants, I bring the screen closer as my heart beats hard enough to drown out what they’re saying. Like Sangjun, Jihoon’s eyes are a bit puffy and ringed with purple. He’s bundled in an oversize blue jacket with the hood pulled up so far, it almost comes down to his eyebrows, and his hands are tucked in the front pockets.
The chat to the left goes even faster than before with little star and moon emojis and miss you oppa! My eyes toggle between the subtitles, the chat, and watching Jihoon before I give up and admit I’m going to watch the damn thing at least three times to focus on each one.
At least there’s not a lot to parse out because it’s banal. Jihoon says he was in the Newlight building doing some work and wanted to say hi to Starrys. The two men stare at the screen, frowning occasionally at the comments and briefly triggering my regret that Jihoon’s band members have been pulled into our mess. Then Jihoon’s mouth gives a sad twist, quick enough to miss had I not been staring unblinkingly. He gives a little wave and says he’s off to the studio. Having mastered the subtitles and feasted my eyes on what little of Jihoon I can see, I replay for the comments.
I should not have done this. Most of them are about how much they love StarLune in a variety of languages, but occasionally someone will write in English.
Is that woman still bothering you, oppa? You deserve better.
She should be in jail.
Love us first, Jihoon.
I’m glad you’re okay, Min. She was a bad person.
Then I see the comment that made Jihoon react. Min oppa, you look sad. Don’t be sad. You deserve happiness.
I go back to the video and notice something I missed because I was looking at his face. Jihoon makes the tiniest gesture with his hand before he goes, touching his thumb and his pinkie together. It’s the same one we decided on, the silent I’m thinking about you.
I slam down the cover of my laptop. That’s enough for today.
After two more days, trial and error shows me the exact formula for responding with the least amount of effort to keep the people in my life off my case. This gives me plenty of time to lie on the couch and think big thoughts, which include but are not limited to:
My career, which is in tatters and I should attend to posthaste.
My reputation, now trashed by Newlight. At least the gossip is dying down, helped by the firm Alex hired that specializes in restoring online reputations.
New apartments I should be viewing and don’t want to.
Jihoon, who hung me out to dry.
Climate change, an enormous problem I contribute to by existing.
My online shopping, which I should chill on because no one needs seven pairs of sweatpants and consumerism leads directly to the point above. Also I don’t have a job to pay for it.
Dad, who is after me daily about Yesterly and Havings and has offered to intercede with Richard.
Phoebe, because I don’t want to fight with her.
All this means I don’t do a damn thing, even when Ines emails how much she loved the music proposal I sent before my entire life went down the drain. I toss my phone down, unable to summon the motivation to reply, let alone reply enthusiastically.
I’m busy not thinking about any of these issues when there’s a knock at the door. Since it might be the delivery of another outfit designed for the sloth life, I force myself off the couch, where my body has stretched an indent in the leather cushions, and check the peephole.
Phoebe stares right back. “Open the door, Ari. I know you’re in there. I can smell the pizza boxes.”
When I do, she shoulders past before I even say hello, leaving me to close and lock the door behind her. Phoebe puts her bag of groceries on the counter and surveys the surroundings, gaze picking out the half-empty takeout containers, balled-up socks, and open laptop, then lingering on the empty bottles of wine. I have no defense. It looks bad, the portrait of a woman who has 100 percent lost the plot.
Because it is in fact the apartment of a woman who has at least 96 percent lost the plot.
“How did you get through security?” I finally ask.
“I have my ways,” she says. “It smells like a raccoon’s ass in here.”
“How would you know? Been hanging with a lot of raccoons?”
She doesn’t dignify my feeble retort with a reply, instead marching to the kitchen, where she pulls out a bowl and a fork and then opens the container of precut fruit she brought. The sweet smell of pineapple spills out, and the corner of her mouth turns up when she hears my stomach grumble.
“Here.” She shoves the bowl over, and I take a bite, my salivary glands aching with the first taste of freshness I’ve had in days. While I eat, she rummages under the sink for a garbage bag, fills it with trash before she even leaves the kitchen, and then grabs another to tackle the living room.
I want to talk to her but can’t find a way over the wall of our fight. You don’t bleed, ever. You don’t know yourself at all. A rich tide of unwarranted bitterness rises in me toward Jihoon. It’s his fault I’m here, unsteady and confused, instead of powering my way to a corner office. Lousy Jihoon came into my life with his lousy heart-over-head ideas and damn it.
I watch Phoebe work and try to excavate the words stuck in my throat, that I’m sorry. Are they the hardest words to say? Better or worse than saying you’re important to me?
Better or worse than saying I love you?
“Spit it out. You’re giving me a headache.” Phoebe cracks a pizza box in half to fit it in the bag.
“Spit what out?” I can’t help falling into my old defensive pattern.
“Ari.” Phoebe doesn’t look up as she moves around the living room, as if I’m a wary animal she doesn’t want to antagonize with eye contact. “Say it.”
At Yesterly and Havings, I had to hold my bow carefully and calculate the impact and the meaning of each word before releasing it. Now the words tumble out inelegantly, like a child emptying a box of blocks onto the floor.
“I’m sorry for what I said, Phoebe. I’m sorry I wanted to hold on to my anger more than I wanted to be a good sister. I should have reached out instead of blaming you for doing the same thing as me.”
Her eyes have widened with every word. “That wasn’t what I expected.”
I’m panting from the effort of getting all that out. “What’d you think I was going to say?”
“That I’m a failure who doesn’t know what she’s talking about.” When she looks at me, her eyes glimmer. “I know you and Dad think there’s something wrong with me because I have no savings. No home. No ambition to be the best.”
I want to protest that I don’t think that at all, but she’d know it was a lie. Instead, I say, “It’s different from how I live.”
“That doesn’t make it bad. You were partly right the other day. I might be scared to settle down, but what you don’t get is that I wouldn’t change my life at all. I love moving around and meeting new people. It’s how I am, and it might not be what Dad wants or what you respect, but it’s my life. Not yours and not his.”
I feel worse. I let my envy—because now it’s clear what it was—block me from the joy she has in living how she wants. I could have been part of that, too. I could have visited her. I could have widened my horizons, but I wasted all that time. All those experiences. All that life.
Phoebe doesn’t move from the living room, where she works the edge of the garbage bag between her fingers, the plastic stretching thin and almost splitting.
She doesn’t look up. “You like being the good girl, with all the praise and the head pats.” Her smile twists as she drops the garbage bag to the ground. We both ignore the boxes that spill out. “You needed me as a foil. Can’t have a good girl unless there’s a bad one.”
I’m a horrible person, because she’s right again. She’s kicking me when I’m down, but I deserve it, and this needs to be said. I let myself think she was a mess to make myself feel better. I’m so arrogant.
You don’t bleed, ever. You don’t know yourself at all.
This is why. Because it hurts when you have to dig deep.
“I don’t know what to do,” I say. “I don’t how to break this habit.”
“Ari admitting she doesn’t know how to do something?”
That’s it. The tears come hot and hard, spilling from the dam I stuff all my feelings behind. “I’m sorry.” It’s all I can say because every emotion has come to those two words, over and over.
“You know,” she says conversationally, “I’m the one in therapy, but you should be there beside me. You’ve got some issues.”
“I want to fix this.”
She holds up her hand. “Let’s unpack this ‘fixing’ idea. You’re important and part of my life, but I am about me. You are about you.” She kicks the garbage bag aside to walk across the room before grabbing my arms so I have no choice but to look up at her. “It’s not about fixing because it’s not broken. We’re two people with some baggage that we’ll work through because we love each other.”
She must see my confusion because she smiles, and this time, it’s gentle. “We’ll be there for each other. Don’t judge me. It’s all I ever wanted from you, and you’ve never given it to me. I don’t think I gave it to you either.”
I take a deep breath. My skin is raw. My throat is dry. “That’s it?”
“I mean, it’ll probably be a bit bumpy at first, but yeah. We move forward from here. We be here for each other.”
“I’m sorry I was a hostile jerk.”
“I’m sorry I snitched on you to Mom and Dad to take the pressure off me for failing gym when you tried to change the B to an A on your report card in grade four.”
“I knew it. I knew that was you!” My forgery had been perfect. I’d been grounded for a month, three weeks for getting the B in the first place and then a week for the lying.
She puts her arm around me. “You know I love you.”
“Ditto.”
“Ari, jeez, c’mon.”
I touch my head to hers and take a deep breath. “I love you, too.”
“Good.” She claps her hands together. “Now it’s time to talk about you.”
“I’d rather not.”
“I know, but Hana got my number from that Alex guy and texted me,” she says. “Says you’re a mess.”
“Thanks.”
“Not like I couldn’t see that for myself,” she continues. “Dude sure did a number on you.”
“Aren’t you on Jihoon’s side?” There’s the bitter me coming out again, and I wince. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“I think you did, but you’re clearly out of practice, so I’ll let it pass. For the record, I didn’t say he was a blameless angel, only that you could have stayed to talk it out instead of taking off.” She settles into the high stool beside me. “Now it looks like you’re not even mad.”
I fork up more pineapple. “How can I be mad he put the needs of the collective over me?”
“Because this is not Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and he is not Spock?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Wrath of Khan? When Spock…” She sighs. “Never mind. The point is he didn’t have to make that choice.”
“He felt he did. Isn’t it the same thing?” I shake my head. “I know he was under a lot of pressure.”
“You can be angry about it.”
“It’s just…” I push the pineapple away. “Even if he didn’t know they were going to say I was some sort of deluded fan, he also didn’t want to tell the truth.”
“You’re sad because he broke your trust.”
I drop my head. “I guess. Not to mention Dad’s furious with me. Worse, he’s disappointed.”
“Oh no. Hold up. Let’s tackle that one. It’s okay if people are disappointed. It’s more about them than you.”
“I guess,” I say uncertainly.
“I know you’ve internalized some shit about needing to be stable or responsible, but Mom and Dad aren’t made of glass. You don’t need to structure your life around them.”
“Dad’s invested in me being a lawyer. It means a lot to him.”
“Who’s more invested in your life? You or him?”
I know the correct answer is me, but I don’t know if it’s the honest one.
Phoebe puts her elbows on the counter. “Look, your life is not Dad’s life. You can’t keep trying to fulfill what he couldn’t.”
I frown. “What do you mean?”
“All this big law stuff.”
“Dad didn’t want to be in a law firm. He wanted his own business.” That’s what he always told us, that he wanted the freedom of doing his own thing.
“He didn’t have a choice. You think it’s bad now? How many Bay Street firms do you think were hiring Chinese lawyers back then?”
“That doesn’t mean he got rejected.”
She looks uncomfortable. “I may have overheard him talking to Mom when we were younger. He didn’t come out and say it, but it was clear what happened.”
“You might have misinterpreted.”
“Possibly, but can you look at your firm and tell me I’m wrong?”
She’s not but… “I’m not sure what you’re trying to say. If anything, this makes me feel worse.”
“No, no.” She shakes her head so hard, her hair flies out. “That’s the exact opposite of the point I’m making. Again, it’s got nothing to do with you. This is a Dad thing.”
“What do I do, then? About this whole mess?”
She lets me change the subject. “I can’t tell you that,” she says. “I do know nothing will happen if you sit here in this dirty apartment feeling sorry for yourself. That’s not the Ari I know. Now get off your duff. I’m not doing all this cleaning by myself.”
The fresh apartment sparks a need for change, which means it’s time to make some plans. The day after Phoebe’s visit, I go to High Park and climb a small fence to reach my favorite picnic bench beside Grenadier Pond. It’s warm, so I can sit in the wan autumn sunlight to assess my choices.
I spread my notebook to a fresh page and jot down a list of options for my future life.
Yesterly and Havings
Ines
Travel
Back to school
Live off the land as a hermit
Other (please specify)
I leave the notebook to walk a few steps in a personal cleansing ritual, then come back and look at my list again.
Time for inspiration. I go to my StarLune playlist and click on “Two of Swords.” I have a complicated set of thoughts about Jihoon, but this song reflects exactly what I’m going through. How does he manage to distill my tangled mess of thoughts into a melody? I suppose it comes with the territory of being an award-winning songwriter.
When I open my eyes, I let myself feel before I think. A big black line goes through Yesterly and Havings. Another goes through school and then hermit life. I shove the book away and pace to the pond’s edge. Making those lines filled me with so much energy, I need to burn some off. I don’t need to go back to Yesterly and Havings. Richard and Brittany can be out of my life completely.
I don’t owe them anything, and I don’t owe Dad my career.
This begs the question of who I am if I’m not a lawyer, but this isn’t a dystopian future where citizens need to tattoo their profession on their foreheads. It can be an ongoing question for future Ari. Back at the table, I pick up my notebook, idly doodling a series of dashes as I consider my options. They look like little negatives, all the things I’m excising from my life. Removing. Deleting. I very deliberately add a thin vertical line to the center of each dash. I don’t have to only remove. I can add and grow.
I can make those negatives positives.
I want to start my life for real, and it’s fine if I figure it out as I go.