If I Had Your Face(25)

I make sure the floors are mopped and the mirrors and counters spotless before getting my coat and keys. Cherry comes running with rags in hand as I start turning off the lights in the back.

“I’m done with the bathrooms and the rec rooms and the closets,” she says, panting. “Do you need to check them?”

I shake my head and gesture for her to get her things and stand by the front door, waiting until she comes out to turn off the last light and lock the double door carefully.

“Well, that was pretty fast,” Cherry says cheerfully, all smiles now, and she turns toward the stairs. That is when I reach out and yank her by her ponytail so hard that she falls on her back.

“What the fuck?” she screams in shock, and she is still screaming when I kick her hard in the stomach. Earlier, I’d changed into my boots with metal tips. As she writhes on the ground, I reach again and pull her up by her ponytail and then drag her over to the bathroom in the hallway. She is heavier than she looks, but no matter. Flipping the toilet seat up, I smash her face into the bowl. I’m happy to see that it’s quite dirty. She is thrashing ferociously now, but she’s still in pain from the fall and the kick so she’s no match for me. She chokes bubbles into the toilet water and seems to swallow a good amount before I’m satisfied. My friends and I, we used to pull this toilet bowl trick a lot when I was in middle school.

I give her ponytail a final yank and shove her to the floor of the bathroom. Hunching over her, I fish her phone out of her pocket, then throw it into the toilet, the water splattering on her hair. Then I take off her shoes and leave with them, slamming the door shut behind me. After I’ve walked a few blocks, I fling them into an alley, one after the other, as far as I can throw.



* * *



—

BACK AT HOME, Sujin is waiting for me with my favorite green tea cake from the bakery near her work. She’s still wearing a dark brown scarf wrapped around the lower half of her face, even when I protest that she should take it off when she’s home with me, but she has vowed to live behind a mask until all her swelling goes down.

“Sweetie, I’m so sorry about Taein,” she says, her voice muffled through the scarf as she gives me a big hug and steps back to survey my face.

“Wait, why do you look so excited?” she says suspiciously, and I shrug, opening the kitchen drawer for two forks. I will my body to stop trembling.

“I was going to save this as a birthday present, but I figured you need some cheering up so…” She opens her bag and takes out a small white envelope. Inside, there is a ticket to the final Seoul show of the Crown World Tour.

“I got it through one of my customers who works for that ticketing company! It was apparently so hard to get, but she’s been a regular of mine for years and she only charged me a ten percent premium, which was really nice of her. Although, with this scandal, do you think people are going to start refunding tickets?” Sujin chatters on as she opens the refrigerator, taking out two beers.

I stare at the ticket and stare some more because it is too improbable to be believed. I finger the thick green paper incredulously. And then I start to cry.

Sujin lurches, spilling her beer, and automatically reaches over to rub my shoulders. “What’s wrong, Ara? What’s wrong?” she asks in a panic as I sit there with tears dropping onto my hands and the precious ticket. “What is the matter? You can tell me,” she soothes, the way she always has, ever since we were children.





Kyuri


My young friend Nami and I are drinking again. I’m avoiding Sujin, who I know will be home soon and knocking on my door.

We are sitting at my favorite pocha, where the fish cakes in the fish cake soup are just the right marriage of chewy and salty, and the owner always brings us free plates of food to go with our soju because he has a crush on me. Last weekend, he sat and drank a round with us and then had some fried chicken delivered from another store because I said I was craving gochujang wings. He’s one of those shrinking, gawky types that knows he doesn’t have a chance in hell with me, which is the only way I like them.

Nami and I—we drink together at least every other weekend. Getting drunk by ourselves is completely different from getting drunk when we are working. When the two of us are drinking, it’s “game over” from the beginning. Nobody else can keep up, although sometimes men try to join us, but they give up when we drink shot after shot while ignoring them. We see enough men at work, Nami and I. They need to leave us alone on the weekends. We wear baggy sweatshirts and baseball caps pulled down low and no lipstick, just eyeliner, but still they come talk to us. “You’re too pretty to drink by yourselves,” they say. “Can we join you?” And then when we ignore them, they turn nasty. “What the fuck,” they say, real manly, muttering under their breath as they slink away. “Stuck-up cunts.”

Nami is the only girl I still talk to from my red-light-district days. None of the other girls at Ajax know that I used to work in Miari, and if they knew, many of them would likely never talk to me again. It’s ridiculous—we are all doing some variation of the same work, even if you’re one of the “prettiest 10 percent” and don’t actually sleep with the clients. But they’d judge me all the same. It’s basic human nature, this need to look down on someone to feel better about yourself. There is no point in getting upset about it.