Chapter 17 Competency Porn #2
“Well, Tae? He’s been working on Starlight’s office renovations. At first, I just asked him to look at the plans and estimates
to make sure I wasn’t getting screwed. But now, he’s finding suppliers and basically overseeing it all. You saw how good the
makeup room looked during the Demo Day. I would’ve been up shit creek if Tae hadn’t shown up to pick up the pieces that lousy
GC left behind when he quit. And the work he’s doing is stunning.” What a mess the whole thing would have been if Tae hadn’t
taken over. “Thank God.” She sighed.
Rachel and Sonia exchanged a look that Julia could not miss. Since when did the two of them create a wordless language based
solely on eye contact? Julia was feeling annoyed and left out, to be frank. “Okay, what now? What was that look for?”
“Competency porn,” they said in unison
Julia raised an eyebrow. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Oh, is it your first time? Did Tae just pop your competency porn cherry?” Rachel asked.
“Tae is good at everything. You can count on him for anything. Don’t make that face. He may not make a million dollars, but
the man can get shit done,” Sonia said.
“And that is hot,” Rachel said.
“Competency porn,” they repeated together.
“Those shoulders . . .”
“And he’s got the ab thing going on . . .”
“Okay, okay, I get it.” Julia took the hair tie around her wrist and wrapped her hair up into a bun. It was getting hot.
“One thing is for sure. Date number three does not stand a chance,” Sonia said.
Julia thought about what her friends were saying. Julia was attracted to Tae, yes. And if she could pick one person to spend time with, it would be him. But there was just so much going on for the both of them. It could never work.
Right?
Just like her fears for Starlight, what if she went for it and it failed?
One thing was for sure: it was a risk Julia wasn’t sure she was willing to take yet.
“Halmoni, you’re supposed to tie the gown over here on the side,” Julia said, as she bent to help her grandma close the flimsy
piece of worn-out material before the entire nurses’ station got a glimpse of her breasts in all their glory.
“It doesn’t matter, Julia. The tie would offer some modesty if my boobs were still where they were supposed to be. Now that
they’re down by my waist, this thing will fly open when I sit down anyways.”
Julia just shook her head at her grandma and laughed. She wasn’t wrong.
She was glad to have some levity in an otherwise-terrifying moment. Halmoni was way more composed than Julia was, and it was
her body.
They sat in the waiting area of the radiology department next to a couple other very nervous-looking women. Turns out when
they found something, it was something irregular in her first scan. Which, ironically, was supposed to be the last mammogram Halmoni would ever
be recommended to take at her age. So now they were back for a full 3-D scan. And apparently, since the hospital only had
one 3-D mammogram machine, appointments were hard to come by. Julia had to remember to send Jisoo some more product to thank
her for getting them this appointment sooner than later.
“Yul Min Song?”
“Yes, over here,” Julia answered.
The tech looked between Julia and her grandmother. “I’m here to interpret,” Julia explained. Julia didn’t technically speak Korean, but she spoke Halmoni, and for some reason, that always seemed to help.
“Oh, okay, great. Well, we’re going to do a 3-D scan of her right breast today. We’ll have the doctor look at the results
immediately, and she’ll determine whether the next step of an ultrasound will be required. If so, Ms. Song will have that
done today as well. It could take up to a couple of hours, depending.”
Julia swallowed back her fear of the worst-case scenario and nodded. “Grandma, they’re going to take a 3-D scan of your right
breast.”
“Okay, I understand,” her grandmother said.
See? Sometimes interpreting just meant the exact same words being said by someone you trust in a way that isn’t intimidating.
“It will all be okay. And when the doctor talks to you about it, I’ll be there,” Julia said.
“I’ll let you know if I need you,” her grandmother responded. She stood up from the chair and followed the technician to the
exam room. She looked so small and in this moment, quite frail. Tears welled in Julia’s eyes. “You wait here.”
“No, I’m going in with you,” Julia insisted.
“Julia, wait here. This is my body. I get to decide how I want the news,” she said.
Julia hated her grandmother going into a cold exam room with a huge machine all alone. She hated it, but she had to respect
it. So she nodded and sat back down.
And she waited.
The news couldn’t be good. It had been over an hour. Halmoni had chosen to wait in the exam room. She was avoiding Julia,
she knew it.
Which meant it was bad.
Julia couldn’t handle this. Her grandmother was everything to her. She still had a whole life to live. Julia hadn’t even given her any grandchildren to hold in her arms. Julia had failed her so many times over.
The door of the exam room opened, and Julia jumped out of her spiraling thoughts and onto her feet.
Her grandmother was out of the gown and back into her clothes. She didn’t even look at Julia as she followed the nurse toward
the exit.
“The doctor will be in touch,” the nurse said.
Halmoni nodded her head once and kept walking.
“Halmoni, wait,” Julia called after her. She reached out and gently grabbed her arm. “What happened? What did the doctor say?”
“Julia, let’s go eat kimchi-jjigae. I’m hungry.”
Kimchi-jjigae? That’s all that was on her grandmother’s mind?
“Halmoni, are you okay?” Julia asked.
“Yes, I’m fine. Everything is fine.”
“Are you sure? What did they say?”
“They said it’s fine.”
“And you’re sure you understood everything they told you?” Julia wasn’t sure how to get the answers without pressing. But
her grandmother was being so stingy with her words.
“There were some longer words that I didn’t understand, but I don’t think they mattered. All I cared about was when the doctor
said she was done and that I could go. If it was bad, she would have asked me to stay longer, no?”
They got to Julia’s car, and she helped her grandmother get into the front seat. Before she closed the door, Halmoni reached
out her hand and cupped Julia’s cheek. Her expression the most somber Julia had ever seen her.
“It’ll all be okay, Julia. Don’t worry. Everything in life happens according to plan.”
Julia could do without the cryptic words of wisdom. Was this good news or bad news? She let out a sigh and nodded her head. She had to believe her grandmother would tell them all that was going on when she was ready. Maybe she’d call on Jisoo one more time to look over the results with them.
Julia closed the door, and as she rounded the car to get to the driver’s seat, she stopped, took a deep breath to hold it
together, and got behind the wheel to take them home.
Julia opened her messages and found the one person who she thought could make her feel better.
Tell me everything is going to be ok she typed.
Everything is going to be ok Tae typed back.
But you don’t even know what I’m talking about
That’s ok. I still believe that somehow, some way, it will be
Promise?
Promise
And with that, Julia shut off her phone and cried, letting it all out where no one else could see. She didn’t know if they
were tears of fear or relief. But she let them fall. And eventually she fell asleep believing that it would all be okay.