If I Had Your Face(48)

“Ah, I see,” he says, running his fingers through his hair. “New friends from Seoul.”

“Happy New Year,” says Sujin, not contradicting him. She had met him several times in our past life.

“Happy New Year,” he says.

Bowing again, I make the first move to walk past him and into the shed, and the girls follow. As I pick my old bike and search for others that Sujin and Miho can ride, I look up, and he is still standing at the end of the path, looking back at us before he catches my eye. He waves and I turn away, pretending not to see him.



* * *



—

WHEN I WAS in school, I used to live for glimpses of Jun. Those were the years I helped my mother in the Big House after school, so that I could go sit on his chair and sometimes even his bed when my mother wasn’t looking. If my life was a drama, he would have fallen in love with me and battled his parents for a happy ending with the housekeeper’s daughter.

But here we are, my friends and I, streaming into town on rusty, creaking bikes, going to peek at a lonely old man who has failed at love, who has a son and already thinks in terms of concessions.

All for a joke, of course.

I would care if I hadn’t already stopped caring about anything years ago, the day I lost my voice.



* * *



—

IT TAKES US almost twenty minutes to get to town because Miho is precarious on a bike, plus she keeps stopping to stare at the trees even though Sujin and I yell at her that it’s cold and to please take a photo on her phone and stare at it later. “But the colors don’t show up properly in a photo,” she protests.

The bakery is on the same street as the Moon hair salon, but the girls insist on heading to the salon first. There are no cars because everyone is still eating and making merry at home with their families.

“We won’t go in or anything,” Miho says between pants as she pedals harder. “So stop worrying so much, Ara! I just want to have an image of what he looks like.”

Sujin only laughs and sticks her tongue out in my general direction.

It seems to me that it is particularly cruel of Miho to insist on this when her boyfriend, Hanbin, is not only Mr. Handsome and Rich but also our age and childless. If I didn’t know her, I would think that she wants to see Moon just to make fun of me. But she is so genuinely curious about so many things that I have to believe her. She will often strike up conversations with strangers on the subway, to their surprise and distrust, and comes away baffled by their hostility. “In New York, you can talk to anyone about anything at any time and have a conversation so long you’ll fall a little bit in love with that person, and then never see them again,” she told me. It now feels strange to her that in Korea, if you try to strike up a conversation with someone you have not been introduced to, people look at you as they would at a large rat, but if even the flimsiest of introductions is made by the most peripheral of acquaintances, they fuss over you like a long-lost sibling.

We pull up with our bikes across the street from the salon, which is as small as I remember it—just three fake leather swivel seats in a glass box of a store, with a sign outside that reads MOON HAIR & STYLE in English and OPEN on the door. The only reason I even agreed to get on this bike was because I had been so sure it would be closed for the holiday. Who is getting haircuts today anyway? Isn’t it bad luck to cut your hair on New Year’s?

He is inside sweeping, his back toward us. Hair is all over the floor. I remember cleaning those floors for him, trying to do it as quickly as I could so that the next customer could sit down. During that summer I was working here, when the salon had only been open for a few months, there had been long waits for a haircut by Mr. Moon, especially after he gave the grocery store owner a drastic haircut that miraculously transformed her face, and subsequently her personality. He never bothered with his own hair, which is still shaggy and wild, and now even from across the street I can see that it is unwashed and graying.

“He seems to need a haircut,” says Sujin. “Maybe you could go in there and give him one.”

Miho starts giggling. I make a face and take out my notepad and am fishing for my pen when I hear Sujin say, “Uh-oh.”

When I look up, Mr. Moon is standing on the doorstep with the door open, waving at us to come toward him. His usually expressionless face looks keen.

“He means us, right?” says Sujin, looking around to check.

“Look how excited he is to see you!” whispers Miho.

Stifling more giggles, Miho hops off her bike and starts rolling it across the street, and Sujin does the same. Furious, I follow them.

“It’s been a long time,” he says slowly, his gaze on me. “Are you home for the holiday? These must be your friends.” He nods to Sujin and Miho.

“Happy New Year!” says Sujin, bowing. “Ara used to give me all the hair dye you gave her when she worked here. I went to school with her.”

“Ah, that friend,” says Mr. Moon with recognition. “She asked for violet coating once, I think.”

“That’s right!” says Sujin. “It was summer break.”

“I like the pink,” says Mr. Moon, nodding toward me. “That must have taken a long time.” I give him a weak smile.

“Ara works in a really big salon in Gangnam now,” says Sujin.