If I Had Your Face(59)

“Do you see the swan’s head?” Ruby called to me. “Where are we, czarist Russia?”

She was referring to the faucet on the deep soaking tub, from which a slender gilded swan’s neck and head emerged, water meant to spout from its beak. I secretly thought it quite lovely, and had run my fingers along the curved neck.

When I walked back to where Ruby was, she was on the phone ordering more room service. “What do you want?” she asked me, covering the mouthpiece.

When I shrugged helplessly, she rolled her eyes again. “Can you send up some grilled scallops—on a bed of mixed greens. Fresh, not frozen. Balsamic sauce on the side? And actually, can you send someone to pick up an Italian sandwich from that sandwich place on the corner—the famous one? I forget the name.”

Slamming down the phone, she grinned. “Seafood for me. Sandwich for you. I’m going to write down the time and the temperature of the food when it gets here. This is real work, you know. Presidents don’t wait for shit when they’re staying here.”

“What is going on?” I asked. This was unusual spending, even for her. A presidential suite on a weekday afternoon for no apparent reason?

“Oh, our company just bought this hotel,” said Ruby, waving her hand around. “I read it in the news, because no one ever tells me anything, so I called Korea and asked them to arrange a stay immediately. And then when I got here, I asked for this suite!” She laughed. “They’re going to kill me when they find out, but they won’t dare tell my father. They’re just going to have to figure out a solution.”

I stared at her wide-eyed. “But what if they do tell your father and he’s furious? Isn’t this going to be, like, tens of thousands of dollars or something? Hundreds of thousands?” I really had no idea.

“I kind of hope they tell him,” said Ruby. “At least he’ll know that I am following the company news.” And she continued spooning strawberry shortcake into her mouth.

Do you wonder, then, that I can’t paint anything other than Ruby? That scene in the suite, I can see as clearly as if it were before me now. I painted it two months ago, as a tea party on a lily pad on a lake, a swan spouting tea into her teacup, with peonies and rubies in her hair. Hundreds of fish heads bobbing on the surface of the lake, turned in her direction.

When she told me that Hanbin was coming over after class, I excused myself to go work on my final project. I did not want to see him impressed by Ruby, what she could command at will. I did not want to think that they would be sleeping together on the bed like a cloud.

But now, I think perhaps that’s precisely why he likes me—I am a welcome change because with me he can play the role of the provider. There is a limit to how much Korean men are willing to endure female money, especially if they are wealthy themselves.



* * *



—

AFTER THE EEL, I am thinking Hanbin is going to suggest a movie or heading to a hotel room, but he says he is tired and he’ll take me home. It must have really been a bad day at work—perhaps another guest yelled at him for being slow with the luggage.

He drops me off in front of my office-tel, and I wave goodbye to his retreating Porsche and walk forlornly up to the apartment. Usually, I am the one who is fending off advances, saying I am too tired for sex today, and no, you cannot see my work or my room.

Inside, I mope about some more, touching the spines of books I have been meaning to start for ages, rummaging through the kitchen cupboards to see if there is any ramen left, staring at my colorless face in the bathroom mirror.

Finally, I start working again in my room—beginning a sketch on a small letter-size sheet of paper. A sea of thrashing eels, above it, floating, a four-poster bed, from which I am looking down. This time it is not Ruby, it is me, and I am naked. I erase lightly and coax one of the eels to become a slender tree. I start adding tiny starlike flowers onto the branches.

I shouldn’t be going into such detail with pencil—this is a stupid little sketch—but I can’t help myself. I used to do this a lot—sketch out the entire idea first before re-creating it as a larger painting or a sculpture—but I don’t usually do it anymore. It vexes me, but relieves me too, working in minutiae, in pencil, thinking about oils. The flowers should be a dusty pink—or would coral work better? Should there be a butterfly or two? Should they turn back into eels and come into the bed?

I do not realize how much time has passed when I look up and see that Kyuri has come in and she is standing in my doorway staring at me. Her head is hanging to one side the way it does when she is just drunk enough to say the most outrageous things, but not drunk enough to go to sleep anytime soon. I sigh. This probably means I won’t get more work done—it’s just as well.

“You know what I think when I look at you?” says Kyuri, tilting her head abruptly to the opposite side. I can practically see the fumes of alcohol wafting off her.

“What?” I say. “And hello to you.”

“I wish I had a talent that had decided my vocation for me,” she says. She sounds aggrieved. “So that there never was a choice. Of doing anything else.” What she is implying is that I am lucky and she is not.

“Art doesn’t feed you,” I say, indignantly. “So many people who are a million times more talented than I am can’t get a job, or they can’t sell their paintings. After this fellowship, who knows what I’m going to do?”