If I Had Your Face(62)

They don’t, of course, and my legs are shaking like a dog’s.

I wonder if I will not survive this moment, if I will combust instead. But I want to see the girl’s face, to see what it is about her that attracted him to her. I crawl back up to my seat and rewind—there must be a close shot of her in the front seat before they moved to the back. And, yes, here it is, the door opening and a girl getting in. The girl is Nami. Kyuri’s friend. The prepubescent idiot with giant breasts. The one who I am quite certain is an escort of some kind as well.

I watch as they ride in silence and then Hanbin parks and they both get out of their front seats and get into the backseat, and then the scene I was just watching unfolds again. They have not said a word to each other, so it is clear that this has happened before—probably many times. It must have started that time when I called him to come drink with us. I had gone home with Kyuri and I had not realized that they had stayed out longer.

I lie on the bed for a long time, unseeing in the dark, and then go back to my computer and watch some more. Then I have to go back to my bed again.

Over the next few days I go through every single recording on the card. My heart splinters every time I hear his voice. I learn from his phone conversations that he is being set up on seon with the daughter of the Ilsun Group, and the wedding date may as well be set.

The seon is to be next month, when she returns home from a culinary program in Paris.



* * *



—

IN A WAY, I think I am now experiencing true freedom for the first time in my life. That is the way to think of this—that this is karma, and also absolution.



* * *



—

I HAD BEEN drowning slowly in my guilt, for coveting him when he was Ruby’s, for going to him and daring to show him my heart. I had been inhabiting a world not meant for me.



* * *



—

HE WAS ALWAYS offering things. I shrank from accepting because I thought that was the way to show my love for him, to show that I loved him beyond material things and the world he represented, the connections that could launch a career in the time it took to sneeze.

I had not wanted to burden him in any way, and I agonized over how my decisions would look to his family, of whether one fellowship would look more respectable than another.

I never allowed him to see my work because the only work I have been able to create has been of Ruby.



* * *



—

I RELISH the thought of him attending my exhibition, only to find Ruby at every turn—her face, her body, her hatreds and desires, her apathy and disdain, her cherished treasures.



* * *



—

BUT BEFORE he sees her in my work, I will suck everything I can from him. I will be wild and unleashed. I will now take from him what I can. I have not heard Kyuri’s philosophies on men all this time for nothing.



* * *



—

I WILL ASK him to buy me jewelry.

I will ask him to buy out my exhibition, so that I can land another from the press on that alone.

I will leak to the women’s magazines—the thick bibles of paparazzi photos of the rich and famous—that he is my boyfriend.

I will build myself up so high in such a short time that when he leaves me, I will become a lightning storm, a nuclear apocalypse.



* * *



—

I WILL NOT come out of this with nothing.





Wonna


The baby is tapping again. When she does this my heart lurches and I stop in the middle of whatever I am doing and I put my hands on my belly to feel her.

I do not know what this is—it only started earlier this week. I cannot tell if this is what they call “kicking” or if she has the hiccups.

Whatever it is, I am so grateful that a gush of hope springs deep inside me and it is everything I can do to not break down completely in public. I want to share this with someone—anyone. I want to clutch the lady who is sitting next to me on the subway and tell her. I want her to know a little world is erupting inside of me. My baby is trying to talk to me. She is trying to live.



* * *



—

FOR THE PAST three months, I have been playing a little game with myself. I call it a game but it is more a series of negotiations. With whom, I do not know, because I do not believe in God.

The game goes like this. If my baby lives for another week, I will do this. Or I will give another thing up. Last week, I promised to never smoke a cigarette again even after I give birth—although I do not like to think that far ahead for fear that I will be punished for doing so. I don’t even smoke that much but I was running out of stuff to relinquish. The previous week, I promised I would never take fat pills again, even if I feel sick looking at my reflection. And the week before that, I vowed to never drink again to the point of blacking out.

I almost told my husband about this game but I caught myself in time. He would not think it exemplary or empowered or motherly, which is how it makes me feel.

During my last visit, the doctor told me now that I have crossed into the second trimester, the odds of a miscarriage are only 2, perhaps 3 percent, so I shouldn’t worry so much anymore. I told her that to the 2 percent, the experience is 100 percent and I still know something will go wrong with the pregnancy, I just don’t know when. She looked at me strangely and I regretted speaking. She has a face like a stone tower.