“Come here.” He reaches for me.
With a finger upward, I remind him of the security camera.
“I don’t care. Come here.”
I resist for a half second and then cave because it’s been a long morning and I need this. I press my cheek against his hard chest and listen to his heart for a beat of five and then ten. “I need to get coffee,” I mumble against his shirtfront.
“I need to go back to my desk.”
His cell phone rings. Neither of us moves. It rings again.
“I have to go.” He sounds reluctant.
“Me, too.” I take one deep breath and step back.
He clenches his jaw. I press my lips together tight.
His hands fist and then he bounds up the stairs, taking them two at a time, his speed saying that if he doesn’t leave now, he’ll never go. When I can’t hear his footsteps anymore, I run the errand. Two Americanos, iced. Two sugar packets. I get back to the office and deliver the drinks.
“Where’s yours?” asks Chaeyoung.
“Drank it before I got here.”
“Hmmph.”
It’s the last thing anyone says to me all day.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Wansu and I share a completely silent dinner of braised chicken, buttered brussels sprouts, kimchi, and chicken broth dressed with fresh scallions. I’m sure it’s delicious, as all Mrs. Ji’s dishes are, but my appetite is nonexistent these days.
“Are you unwell?” Wansu asks.
I shake my head. “Not hungry. I had a big lunch,” I lie. I didn’t eat anything.
“Is there a particular dish you would like Mrs. Ji to make for you?”
I force a brussels sprout into my mouth. I manage to eat enough that Wansu doesn’t comment again. After dinner, she retires to watch melodramas with Choi Yusuk and I call Ellen from my bedroom.
“How are you!” She greets me with a smile and a wave. “I miss you!”
“You should come back.” I stare at her pretty face. Sometimes I think about my life pre-Seoul, when I knew only Ellen as my mother. Ignorance really was bliss.
“Oh no, honey, is it the language thing again? It will come to you.”
“No. I mean, yes, it’s that, but it’s everything. I keep thinking I made a mistake.”
She makes a clucking noise. “You can do it, honey. I believe in you.”
“Thanks.” I make a face to let her know I’m not really grateful for this encouragement.
Ellen laughs. “Is this about the blind date?”
“You know about this?” I drop onto the sofa in shock.
“Yes, of course. Wansu asked me what you liked in a man.”
Yujun is what I like in a man. Dimpled, charming, the kind to hold your hand at the river and dry your tears with a silk tie while also kissing you deep enough that you feel it in your toes.
“Wansu?”
“Yes. We keep in touch regularly. I downloaded KakaoTalk for her.” Ellen sounds so pleased.
“You and Wansu.”
“Don’t act so surprised. We’re your mothers. Why wouldn’t we stay in contact? We’ve communicated regularly for years.”
Is she referring to the monthly reports she sent to Wansu without me knowing? “You stopped those when I turned twenty-five.”
“Yes, but that’s in the past.” She waves her hand as if her and Wansu’s secrets are as insubstantial as air.
“I wish you would have told me that you were talking.”
“Why?”
I try not to allow my irritation to show on my face but it leaks out in my tone. “Because this is about me.”
Ellen clucks her tongue. “Not everything involves you. Yes, you’re our daughter and you take up a lot of conversation time, but sometimes we discuss other things. I asked her for skin-care recommendations. She wondered if I could send her wool socks that the nuns knit up in eastern Iowa. We’re trying to get to know each other, be friends. This is about her feelings of guilt and my feelings of inferiority. I could never get pregnant. Pat left me. She raised a child not her own.” Heavy stuff. “Sometimes Wansu will talk about her job and her love life.”
“Her love life?” My voice rises an octave.
“Honey, it’s hard for Wansu. Her husband has been in this state for three years. He did not have a DNR and his son has never expressed any desire to let him go. She’s lonely. You shouldn’t tell her I said that, though.”
This new information floors me, and I don’t know how to respond. Ellen either doesn’t notice or takes pity on me.
“Did I tell you that I’m learning how to cook vegan food? Barbara—you remember Barbara from when Pat worked at the brokerage house? She came to the funeral. Anyway, Barbara is coming over with her daughter. Her daughter is your age or close to it. She’s twenty-seven. She left her husband, who was seeing a church lobbyist behind her back. Can you believe it? Sarah, that’s her name, moved back in with her mom because the house was a gift from his parents and apparently he gets to keep it because it was from his parents? I’m not really sure how all that works anymore. These laws change so fast. I’m rambling. Tell me about the young man.”
It’s only because I have years of practice that I’m still with Ellen after this freight train of topics. “He’s a lawyer.”
“That’s very promising.”
“He hates kids,” I lie. I do not need Ellen and Wansu ganging up on me over this blind-date thing.
“I don’t believe you. Wansu would not choose someone who didn’t like kids. She wants grandchildren, you know.”
I press a hand against my tummy. “Grandchildren?” I squeak.
“Maybe not from this man, but someday from someone.”
“I don’t even know if I want kids.”
Ellen falls silent for a moment.
“That’s your right,” she finally says. “No one needs to have children.”
“Right.” I suck in a deep breath. I want to be honest here. I don’t want to hide. “And if I did want to have a relationship right now, it wouldn’t be with this stranger. I have feelings for Yujun.”
“Yes. I know. You were in quite a state after the board meeting.”
I blush. After word got out Choi Wansu, staunch advocate of adoption rights and single motherhood, had abandoned a child that was then adopted by a foreigner, IF Group’s future looked perilous. There was a demonstration in front of the building in Yongsan. Bomi had an egg thrown at her head. Wansu called an emergency meeting of the board of directors, introduced me, and said that she was formally recognizing me as her daughter. Yujun and I lost our minds for a second, panicked, and nearly had sex in an IF Group bathroom. I sort of wish we had. It was the last time Yujun and I were alone before Wansu shipped him overseas for six weeks.