If I Had Your Face(70)

I cannot imagine feeling that way. I cannot imagine having a child and you have to watch out for him or her and every moment of every day will be devoted to the child with no life of your own. I wonder how that transition happens and what it feels like when that instinct kicks in.

One of my customers said to me once that the problem with a lot of my generation in this country is that we do not live for tomorrow. He was a professor of sociology and had been quizzing the assistants about their life choices, which obviously made them uncomfortable. They would not be working at a salon if they could answer such questions positively, I wanted to say. But of course he and everyone else knew that already, and he was simply being cruel by bringing it up. “You have to grow up with parents whose lives become better as time goes by, so you learn that you must invest effort for life to improve. But if you grow up around people whose situations become worse as time goes on, then you think that you have to just live for today. And when I ask young people, What about the future? What will you do when tomorrow comes and you have spent everything already? they say they will just die. And that is why Korea has the highest suicide rate in the world.”

He said this in a lecturing way, as if to chide everyone who worked in the salon.

I wanted to ask if his own children were brilliant and filial and successful, because no one is actually like that.

Sometimes, it is a good thing that I cannot speak.



* * *



—

KYURI TEXTS ME around dinnertime.

“Our manager says there’s a chance Taein will come to Ajax tonight! Madam is not going to be here because she’s getting her annual health checkup tomorrow so she has to fast and not drink starting 5 P.M. today. This is perfect. Any chance you can get off work and come here by 9 or so? His manager is definitely coming with someone from Taein’s company and I am betting that it’s really him. And even if it isn’t, you can meet his manager at least.”

I stare and stare at this text and I can’t breathe and I have to sit down and the assistants scatter like roaches when they see my face. Perhaps Cherry told them things about me after all.

It is finally here. The time that I get to meet Taein. I have fantasized about this a thousand times, and each time, he is taken with me and wants to talk to me alone and he takes me to his apartment, where we listen to music all night lying on the floor of his room, like he did in that reality show My Lonely Room. I bolt up from my chair and stare at the mirror. I have to go. I know that Kyuri would never have texted me if this was not a real opportunity.

I must transform myself, that is immediately clear. I will have to borrow something to wear from one of the girls. I run through all of their dresses in my head. I once saw Miho wearing some kind of dark green dress that I loved. I will have to ask her about it right now.

I hurry to the front desk and ask how many clients I have left today, and fortunately they tell me it is only two. Mrs. Park Mi-soon and Mr. Lim Myung-sang. I type on my phone that I have an emergency and have to go home, and ask Miss Kim if she can call and ask if they would prefer to reschedule or to just go with whoever is available. Mrs. Park is scheduled for her perm, which she gets only once every three months, but this cannot be helped. And Mr. Lim is just his regular monthly haircut. Miss Kim nods and asks what’s wrong, but I shake my head and fly to the locker room, where I change into my regular clothes. As I leave, I catch Miss Kim’s eye and motion for her to text me, and she nods and waves me off.



* * *



—

WHEN I GET back to the office-tel, nobody is home and Miho is not answering my text about the dress. I punch in the numbers for the lock to Miho and Kyuri’s apartment, and once I’m in I rifle through their closets.

I find the green dress not in Miho’s closet but in Kyuri’s, and I write in to the group chat. “Borrowing dark green dress from Kyuri’s closet, whoever’s it is!! Thanks!! Makeup and shoes too!!”

Kyuri’s tools do not make Kyuri’s face, however, and I emerge from her room looking a bit too pale and wide-eyed for my liking. Eyeliner was never my strong point. At least my hair will look perfect. After putting on the dress, which is a bit tight on me, I curl my hair into waves. Unfortunately, Kyuri’s shoes are all too big for me so I have to wear my own, and the only remotely passable ones are some nude heels I bought a few summers ago that hurt my toes. The forecasts all say that there is a chance of showers in the evening, and I take an umbrella because I don’t want to ruin the dress.

By the time I catch a cab, it is already past 9 P.M., and I am almost crying with anxiety as we sit in traffic for nearly ten minutes. Kyuri texts me to say that Taein just arrived. She says she’ll come up to get me when I arrive.

My heart is bursting as the cab finally pulls up and I see Kyuri waving at me by an entrance where several men in suits are loitering.

“You came!” she squeals, and I can smell the alcohol on her breath. She’s drunk already and giggling as she squeezes my hand. We teeter down the stairs together. “So, he’s here with his two friends and his manager and then the CEO of his agency is coming later too. And Sujin! Sujin is in another room right now but she’ll be coming in soon!”

We walk down a dark hallway where girls and waiters are going in and out of rooms. As doors open and close we hear snippets of laughter or low voices or singing. Finally Kyuri stops and opens the door and pushes me in gently.