Re Jane (31 page)

“Why you waste time on going-nowhere company?” Sang was saying. “Better you just work at Food!”

That man talks to you like he doesn't have an ounce of respect for you.
Ed's voice railed against the rising chaos of the family. I dropped my chopsticks against my bowl with a loud, deliberate clatter. Everyone looked up.

“You think I came all the way here just to get lectured by you people?”

Sang looked at me with darkened eyes. “‘You people'?”

This would have been my cue to lower my eyes and murmur,
Nothing, Uncle. Sorry, Uncle
. Instead I said, “Whatever, Uncle.” I could've been Devon.

“Where you learn talk like that?” Sang said. “You picking up bad habits from outside. Like you getting a bad family education.” He waited a beat, as if he were giving me another chance to come to my senses and apologize.

I said, “It's always from the ‘outside,' isn't it? Like ‘outside' is full of contagious diseases.”

Sang shook his head. “Ever since you coming back home from Korea, you acting funny. You know that? Like you some kind of big shot.”

“
You
act like a big shot,” I said. “But you know what? You don't know anything. Everything you taught me about Korea was
wrong.
”

I had hit a nerve. Sang's eyes went completely black. “Everybody,
naga
!” he shouted. The rest of the family scrambled out of the kitchen, but not before George rushed a chopstickload of rice into his mouth first.

Then it was just Sang and me sitting opposite each other at that rickety fold-up card table.

“Who you think you are?” he said. It was a rhetorical question, so I didn't answer it. “You go over there—to
hof,
to karaoke, you buy fancy hand phone and fancy handbag”—he pointed through the doorway to the living-room couch, where I'd left my Sinnara purse, a gift from Emo—“and now you knowing everything. But you don't know
nothing
about Korean. Only fifty percent, if you lucky!”

Fifty percent. Half.
“That's real rich,” I said, echoing Ed's words from earlier. “You know what else you were wrong about? My
mother.
She was never thrown away and left behind by some GI.”

“What you talking about?” His eyes didn't even flicker.

I told. How my mother had not been some foolish GI lover. How my father had not been a GI at all, but a volunteer in the
Peace Corps.
And—here was the real clincher—that my father hadn't up and left her, but they'd actually fallen in love and stayed together. As I spoke, Sang just listened, neither confirming nor denying.

“Do you have any idea how this changes everything for me?” I said. I thought of the schoolyard torments. The sinking feeling overwhelming me each night as I lay in bed at Gates Street—that ineffable longing that tugged inside my heart. The rise of shame whenever Flushing cast its collective eye on me. “And yet
you
kept this from me my whole life. I could've been proud
of my mother. Of myself. Instead all I felt was ashamed.”

Then, finally, Sang had words of his own. “GI Corps, Peace Corps, What Corps, why I care? Still she disobeying when Father say no!”

There was something about how he uttered that line—perhaps it was the slip into “Father” instead of “your grandfather”—that made me think of that old photo of Sang: even as a child he'd been forced to play the responsible role. Perhaps he felt that my mother had rebelled where he could not. I started to give way.

But just like that, Sang added, “Why you so proud your mother? She have no
nunchi.
”

My mother had no
nunchi.
Same as he thought
I
had no
nunchi
and Emo thought my father had none.

I swallowed. Hard. “I feel like you can't”—I tried to steady my warbling voice—“just love me
for
—”

It was no use. I was losing control. I pressed my hand to my heart, but still it went
pwah!
I could not stop myself from splitting in two.

My uncle flinched from the deluge. He hated tears.

When at last my cries tapered off, Sang said, in a flat, unfeeling voice, “How I'm suppose to control what you feeling? Your feelings
your
feelings.”

“Ed
said
you'd say that!”

Shit, shit,
shit.

“Ed?” I could see the name slowly registering in his head. “Ed . . . you talking about your old lady boss husband? That stupid
babo
?” he said. “That kind of man, he only want easy thing, like fruit about to falling off tree.”

“Are you calling me low-hanging fruit?”

Sang did not answer.

“Ever think
you're
the reason I am?”

Then Sang went
chuh!
and shook his head. “So that man teach you nothing but putting the blame on other people?” He stabbed his temple. “You like bearbrain. Nothing going through! What kind of relation you are?”

I didn't answer. His eyes flashed black, like oil spills. “You move back home right now. From now on, you not gonna see him, you not gonna talk to him. You stop everything. Now!”

How stupid I'd been to defend Sang in front of Ed. Stupid! Ed was right. He'd been right all along.

“You can't just order me around however you want and expect me to come running home. Why? So I can be your errand boy at Food?”

“What's wrong Food? You hating coming home that much?” Sang muttered.

“I'm not your daughter!” I shouted. “I wish you'd just leave me alone!”

It was a petulant thing to say; the kind of words that slip out in the heat of an argument. I waited for him to shout back,
So ungrateful! You know how lucky you are?

But instead Sang's voice grew soft. Almost gentle. “You right, Jane-ah. Uncle not your father,” he said. “That what you want, I leave you alone.”

There was a dullness to the words, a dullness that matched his eyes, whose angry sheen was quickly fading into a flat, matte brown.

In my heart I knew it: This fight felt different from all our other fights. The dismissiveness reflecting back in Sang's eyes told me he was done with me, that I was no longer his concern. It was what I wanted. And yet I still felt a hollow thud deep in the cavity of my chest.

My uncle and I had broken apart once before, but in the midst of 9/11, Korea, and my grandfather's death we found a way to patch things up again.

If not broke, why you gotta fix?
But maybe it was the other way around: What's fixed will always remain broken. Like the door to the walk-in box, the floor tiles at Food. And there were only so many cracks—cracks swelling to fissures, fissures buckling into rifts—that our relationship could endure.

It would take a natural disaster to put us back together again.

W
inter was shedding the last of its chill, and soon it was spring. Ed and I had just finished another of his epic dinners: roasted lamb chops with braised leeks and merguez sausage. Over coffee and slices of a chocolate pecorino torte, Ed said, “I've been doing some thinking. And I think . . . we should have The Talk.”

I sat up in my chair. The Talk. Was Ed going to ask me to marry him? We'd only been together—this time around—for a few months. But we loved each other. Maybe it wasn't too soon. Was it?

“Jane, I'd love for you to move in,” he said. He looked up at me, gauging my response. When I didn't answer immediately, he went on. “Do you really want to keep shuttling between two apartments? And you have to admit, Jane—my place is a lot nicer than yours.”
Not
that
much nicer,
I thought. It was still Queens.

“What's Devon think about it?” I said. “I'm sure she'll just love that.”

“Devon's not a child anymore,” Ed said. “She's going to have to accept that you're part of my life now.”

“And what about Nina?”

“What
about
Nina?” Ed said. “She can find another roommate.”

“I feel like I'd be ditching her.”

“Not if you give her enough notice,” he said impatiently. “Look, if you're worried about rent, you wouldn't have to—”

“It's not about that.”

I think Ed expected me to jump at his invitation. But I honestly didn't know what to think. Whatever swells of gratitude I felt at his generosity were tamped down by an unexpected ambivalence. Shouldn't he have proposed to me first? I couldn't shake Sang's comment about the easy, low-hanging fruit.

“Don't you want to be together?” Ed speared his torte with a fork.

I, too, lifted my fork, then lowered it. As usual, I'd stuffed myself at dinner—it was hard not to indulge in such good food. “Of course. I love you, Ed.”

“Then what's this really about?” His tone was a little testy. “I'm offering you my
home.
”

“I know that, Ed. It's a very generous offer.”

On paper it seemed to make sense. I was over at Ed's apartment all the time. And people my age were starting to do that—couple off and move in together. But the thing was, I was just starting out on my new life. Was I ready to put an end to that? I already felt I wasn't seeing much of Nina anymore. When I told Ed that, he relented. There was a shift in his tone, and his voice grew gentle. “Sometimes friends drift apart, sometimes they drift back. You can't fight the course of these things. It just is what it is.”

“I don't
want
us to drift apart.” Even as I said it, I knew I sounded childish.

“It's not a good or a bad thing, Jane. I've seen it at least a thousand times. I'm sure one day it'll all make sense.”

I mulled over Ed's words. “Yeah, but I should still see what she's up to this weekend,” I said. “Maybe we should do a girls' night out and catch up.”

“Here's what we'll do.” Ed began ticking things off on his fingers. “We'll invite her over for dinner here on Saturday. Eat some good food, drink some wine. It'll be a nice and relaxing evening. You guys can catch up. I like Nina—she's a good kid.”

I almost said,
We're, like, the same age,
but stopped myself. Sometimes the contrast in the way Ed and I spoke caught me by surprise. I wondered if it sounded as apparent to him as well. But instead of asking, I took a forkful of the torte. A silkiness coated my tongue. His dessert was indeed an unexpected combination—the sharpness of the cheese, the bittersweetness of the chocolate. Ed had been right: The contrasts were what made it all the more delicious.

“Maybe I'll make a boeuf bourguignon,” Ed said, taking another bite.

“I've never had it,” I admitted. Actually, I'd never even heard of it.

Ed took a deep breath, as if he were about to launch into an explanation. But then he squared his shoulders and said, “It's, like, a drunken beef stew.”

* * *

But when I invited Nina over for dinner at Ed's on Saturday, she said she had “a thing.”

“What thing?” I asked her. One of her clients was having a housewarming on Saturday. “You mean that guy you have the hots for?” I said. “What's-his-name, Mikhail Gorbachev?”

Nina rolled her eyes. “Mikhail
Gorokhov.
”

Mikhail whose last name I could never keep straight worked for a small hedge fund in midtown. Last month Nina had found him a one-bedroom in an elevator doorman building in Murray Hill. She was first struck by (her words) his Superman-ish features—black hair, blue eyes, and “high-rise cheekbones.” But it was his organizational skills, and his love of spreadsheets, that had been the real clincher for her. Nina hadn't been this excited about any of the guys she'd dated since Joey Cammareri.

“Why didn't you ask me to go?” I said.

She shrugged. “I figured . . . you know, you and Ed were doing your
own
thing.”

“Please. We're not sutured at the hip.” Nina loved when I bumbled idiomatic expressions. Sometimes I conflated a Korean proverb with an English one. I did it half on purpose, hamming it up for her to get a laugh.

“But what about dinner?”

“We could do both. The party's not going to start till late, right? And it'd be good for Ed and me to get out of the house for a change.”

Nina wrinkled her nose. “You think this is Ed's sort of thing?”

“I'm sure he'd love it.”

I actually didn't know if that was the truth, but in that moment I didn't feel like admitting it to her.

“Yeah, no. I'm sure it'll be cool,” she said. “But we need to get there
no later
than eleven.” Nina had elaborate theories on prime arrival times.

“Totally.”

* * *

“Go to one of Nina's parties? In
Murray Hill
? Forget it,” Ed said over the phone that afternoon. “We invited
her
to dinner. If she wants to bail, fine. But she's not going to hijack our
plans.”

“So, um . . . I kind of already said we'd go.”

“Jane.”

“I'm sorry! I just . . . got caught up in the moment. I thought it'd be fun. Go out, meet new people for once.”

“I'll tell you exactly what to expect,” Ed said. “A bunch of i-banker kids fresh off their year-end bonuses, bragging about steak houses and strip clubs. They're all drinking Maker's Mark from red Solo cups and getting
totally
hammered
.
” He uttered that last bit in a mocking tone I didn't appreciate. “You're telling me
that
sounds like a good time, when we could just relax at home, enjoy a fantastic meal, and save ourselves the bother?”

Sometimes when Ed spoke like this—I'd once jokingly referred to it as “being teacherly”—I didn't know what to make of it. It was one of Ed's qualities that first drew me in over those late-night heroes. This is not to say that it was condescending; instead he spoke with the weight of personal experience. More often than not, I was able to free-ride on the shorthand of his authority. From an efficiency standpoint alone, it was a good thing; there was no need to reinvent the wheel.

But at times I wondered whether I relied too heavily on Ed's account of things, rather than seeing for myself.

I explained about Nina and Mikhail. “I can't just let her go alone,” I said. “Why don't the three of us do dinner? Then after that
I'll
just go with Nina to her thing.”
And you can save yourself the bother.

I could sense a note of suspicion in his tone. “Is that what you'd rather do?”

“I'd
rather
we all go together. But I'm not going to force you.”

Ed was silent on the other end of the line. I wondered where his thoughts traveled to—back to his own mid-twenties life? To house parties in Murray Hill, or their equivalent?

Finally he spoke. “Fine, we'll go. But if a single Jell-O shot makes an appearance, you and I are out of there.”

* * *

But dinner Saturday night ended up being at our place in Astoria instead of at Ed's. His new oven had blown out; despite Ed's best tinkering, the pilot light failed to engage, and the electrician wouldn't come until Monday. When Ed arrived at our apartment with grocery bags from all over—his brow slick with sweat—he had an air of tension about him.

Nina and I greeted him at the door and relieved him of his bags. As we unpacked the groceries, he rummaged through the cupboards. “So, Ed, what're you making again?” Nina asked.

“Boeuf bour— Beef stew,” he said, peering inside a cabinet.

“It's a little hot for stew, don't you think?”

He rifled through. “Where's your thyme?”

Nina and I looked at each other. “We don't have any,” I said. “We've got garlic powder?” She held out plastic spice shakers. “And oregano.”

Ed shook his head. “Don't you girls ever cook?”

“I
cook,
”
Nina said defensively. “Just not your fancy stuff.” She ate the same three meals every day: granola and yogurt for breakfast, a salad for lunch, and pasta for dinner. Every Sunday night she cooked a batch of bolognese sauce and chopped up her vegetables for the week. When I wasn't with Ed, I ate cornflakes for breakfast, turkey and mustard for lunch, and rice and kimchi for dinner.

“I swear . . .” he muttered to himself.

He waved away Nina's and my offers to help. Back at his apartment, our division of labor was simple: Ed cooked, I did the dishes. I heard the sounds of his bustling about in our kitchen—punctuated by the occasional grousing and opening and slamming shut of drawers.

Nina and I sat at our sawhorse table, each of us catching up on some work. Nina had landed her first big assignment: she was representing the sale of a building, a mixed-use property on the Lower East Side. The seller was a guy from Bay Ridge about our age, someone Nina had met at a happy hour a few months back. He'd inherited the building from his late father and was eager to unload it as quickly as possible. The problem was, this guy was completely at a loss about everything from building repairs to finding tenants, and Nina had to pick up the slack in order to ensure a sale—any sale.

“I'm just supposed to line up the buyer. But in the meantime, David's expecting me to manage the whole property, too,” she said. She showed me some quotes she'd gotten from property-management companies, as well as estimated costs for some minor repairs.

“
You
could just do all this,” I pointed out. “Then you wouldn't have to outsource any of the repairs.” Indeed—over the course of the past few months, Nina had been able to fix more and more of the little things plaguing our apartment as well as the other two units, relying far less on calling a plumber or an outside handyman.

I looked over the statements and sketched some calculations on a napkin. “Let's say you charged him like five percent per unit a month to do the maintenance. You'd still make a decent cut, and you'd be saving him around twenty percent. Plus, it'd make things easier for him, because he'd only have to deal with
you.
”

Nina looked over my work. “Jane, you're a genius. I love when you dork out on your numbers.”

I shrugged. “It's all there. Just pointing out the obvious.”

Ed called from the kitchen, “You ladies have a meat thermometer?”

“No!” we shouted back in unison. The air was filled with the smell of seared meat and sautéed vegetables.

“I'm starving,” Nina said. Then she glanced up at the clock. “It's almost nine-thirty! What's
taking
him so long?”

Beth had once said the same thing about Ed's elaborate renovation plans.
I swear, we would've moved in much sooner if Ed hadn't insisted on everything being “just so.” It took forever for him to pick out the wood and get the finish just right.
Yet it was something they had in common; Ed cooked the way Beth spoke—with countless digressions and an unrelenting quest for perfection. It was funny: Ed, despite having grown up doing blue-collar work, moved about the kitchen in an unhurried, languid fashion. Sang once had a worker who moved like Ed. By the end of the day, that worker was fired.

“Ed sometimes goes a little
obuh
—I mean, overboard,” I said, getting up from the table. “I'll tell him to hurry up.”

Perhaps it was because of our rather rudimentary kitchen or the fact that I'd rushed Ed and he'd had to abandon a few key steps, but dinner was a disaster. The stew was supposed to simmer for at least two hours; instead it boiled for thirty minutes. It tasted more like a pot of cooked wine than anything else, and the beef was tough and gamy. The bread was a little raw and yeasty. Ed's meals did not seem to translate outside his own kitchen.

“This
shouldn't
be your first introduction to boeuf bourguignon,” Ed said as we took our seats around our table—warped and scratched and streaked with paint primer.

“Hey, better late than never,” Nina said graciously as she poured wine into juice glasses. But she snuck another look at the clock; it was after ten.

“Well, in all fairness, I didn't have a lot to work with.” Ed held up his glass. “Girls: seriously?”

“What? So we don't own wineglasses,” Nina said, less graciously this time. “At least
our
stove was working.” She slapped her hands together. “Anyway, let's get this show on the road.”

* * *

To make up for lost time, we ended up taking a cab into the city. Which turned out to be a horrible idea, as westbound traffic on the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge was at a standstill; it was, after all, Saturday night, and all of us B&T people were jamming our way into Manhattan.