If I Had Your Face(16)
I run my fingers over a high-necked cobalt sheath in admiration. Whose taste is this? Certainly not Kyuri’s. She doesn’t offer an explanation though, and I don’t ask.
“I think this one is perfect,” she says, holding up an olive silk dress with cap sleeves and a chiffon belt. “It’s got color and sleeves.”
I take it from her and hold it up in the mirror, and I have to admit, the dress looks beautiful. I read the price tag and shudder. “No way, what if I spill something on this?”
She wrinkles her perfect, upturned nose. “That’s okay—this is really important! I want you to marry Im Ga-yoon’s son and introduce me to celebrities all the time.”
She doesn’t see the horror on my face as she gives me the dress on the hanger.
“Just try it on while I go wash my face. I have to start getting ready for my skin appointment,” she says and heads for her bathroom.
I laugh because I know that she will put on a full face of makeup just to have the nurses at the dermatologist’s wash it all off for her facials and treatments. Meanwhile, she shudders at my freckles and general lack of skin care, for refusing to implement her ten-step regimen twice a day. Sujin loves to compare the latest face masks and serums with her—Kyuri has what seems like a hundred bottles and jars on her vanity—but I barely remember to wash my face before going to sleep.
Slipping out of my pajamas, I try on the dress and am buttoning up the back when she returns, her face damp and shiny, and helps me fasten it. “Don’t you love it?” she asks before sitting at her vanity. “It looks amazing on you,” she says with approval, looking at me through the mirror over her collection of vials and face masks of all shapes and sizes. She pulls her hair back with a fluffy band and starts her ritual by applying drops of serum on her skin with her fingertips. Then she takes out a small syringe and pumps a honey-colored fluid over her face.
“What’s that?” I ask. I am always fascinated by how much time she spends on skin care.
“Ampoule with stem-cell extract,” she says matter-of-factly. “My skin is so dry this morning because I drank so much yesterday. This ampoule is just to tide me over until I get the full treatment at the clinic. You know, you should go with me this morning, so that you’ll look your best for his mom. I can probably squeeze you in because I’m such a favorite customer.”
I’m tempted, because Kyuri’s skin gleams like pure glass right now, but the thought of lying still on a spa table flares my anxiety. I shake my head. She sighs at the look on my face and then starts applying tiny dots of eye cream with her fourth finger.
“So this is why you’ve been so jittery,” she says. “You know, I was going to make you drink this weekend to cheer up. It’s been so depressing around here because of your nervous energy, you know that? Now, what about this Bottega to go with the dress?” She pulls out an intricately woven bag from her closet and pushes it into my hands.
* * *
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HANBIN’S MOTHER, or Im Ga-yoon, as the rest of the country knows her, was one of “the Triumvirate” of the 1970s—three Miss Koreas turned actresses that starred in most of the movies, dramas, and commercials during that decade. She was the oldest of the three and the most prolific, with an iconic role as a nun turned femme fatale in the hit series My Name Is Star. They used to say that you couldn’t spot a car on the road in the entire country when My Name Is Star was on. After a brief but damaging affair with her younger costar, she disappeared from the public eye for a few years until it came out that she had secretly married the younger son of the KS Group, a second-tier conglomerate that manufactured water tanks and heaters. And a decade after that, she opened an art gallery near Gyeongbokgung Palace and reinvented herself as the first dealer to bridge the celebrity world and the art world in Korea. Celebrities flocked to her to decorate their homes, and it’s been conjectured that she’s made more money than her father-in-law.
All these things I found out by reading obsessively about Hanbin’s family online and in the gossip pages of women’s magazines. The titles of the articles ranged from “Im Ga-yoon and Husband Snap Up Land on Jeju Island” to “Is Im Ga-yoon’s Gallery Inflating Prices to Celebrities?” and “KS Group Whistle-Blower’s Accusations: Will Im Ga-yoon’s Brother-in-Law Go to Jail?” Usually they were accompanied by paparazzi shots of Im Ga-yoon in snowy furs and sunglasses emerging from a car outside her gallery.
I’ve met her a few times now. The first time was in New York, at Hanbin’s graduation from Columbia. Since returning to Korea, Hanbin has ambushed her twice, once by taking me to the airport to greet her on the way back from a gallery sales trip to Hong Kong, the second, arranging for the three of us to have lunch for his birthday at his favorite restaurant at the Reign Hotel. The first time, the only things she said to me were “Oh, hello” and “Goodbye,” answering Hanbin’s questions in the car with monosyllables. The second time, at the lunch, she asked me gentle questions about my family, questions that showed she knew all about me already and I shouldn’t attempt to gentrify myself. “So, how old were you when you last saw your parents?” “And your uncle, he ran a…taxi restaurant?” (with a shudder). And the kicker, “It’s just so wonderful how there are so many opportunities these days for people like you, isn’t it? Our country has become such an encouraging place.”