Chapter 38
I’d always believed that the point of a story depends on when it ends. If “The Tale of Chunhyang” concluded when the evil magistrate imprisoned her, that would be one way to say that evil won out. If it ended when Chunhyang was freed by Mongryong, then it would mean that love triumphed.
Despite my cynicism, the Korean love story had made an impact on me, too.
I considered myself a person who dictated the terms of her own life, and yet I was passive right now.
I’d been waiting for Minjae to return to East End and vanquish evil Kent, free Channing, and live happily ever after.
I had hoped that he—or even my grandfather before he’d died—would save us.
I tried to push past that expectation now.
Minjae and my grandfather were gone. There was no one left to fight Kent but us.
Ames was right about Kent winning. He was determined to destroy Channing. If he couldn’t have her for himself, that was one way my cousin’s life might have gone. One ending to the story. There was more than one way to hold Channing captive. Kent had found a way to separate Channing and Minjae.
What kind of story would that be? The one circulating around town was that Kent was the hero.
The popular man in service to the people by working for the mayor.
The man who had saved a woman who had little means to make a living for herself not because she wasn’t talented but because she just couldn’t apply herself to living in the real world, who had lost her mother as a child, whose father was destitute and an alcoholic.
How fortunate that Kent found her suitable for a wife.
Not “lovable”—they didn’t talk about love.
It was shelter. As if he were her protector.
I had to laugh. And cry. And live knowing I’d let Harabeoji and Channing down.
If Channing complied, Kent said he would drop the charges and a wedding date would be set.
He didn’t care if she didn’t love him. He wanted her to belong to him as his legal wife, as if she were his possession.
I knew my cousin well though. She’d never agree.
Channing would go to prison for years rather than capitulate to Kent.
Everyone would believe she was guilty because the justice system would brand her that way.
Here’s another ending to the story: The afternoon Paul drove Channing and me back to his apartment above the garage, I left them and headed back to Middle Street.
There were more cooler days than sweltering ones.
The weather was brisk on that Wednesday after Labor Day.
The change in the air made me feel more alert and determined.
I pushed thoughts of Harabeoji’s death out of my mind and told myself to do what he’d want me to do.
Believe in yourself, he would have said to me.
I’d assumed Ames would be at the East End Courier’s office.
It was closed. Ames didn’t reply to numerous texts and calls from me asking her to meet.
I was about to give up when I remembered how Paul had pointed to the row of windows above the café when we’d sat at Bike and Basket, so I took a chance and looked for her name next to a row of electronic doorbells nearby.
Apartment 2C had an “A. Y.” name tag, so I rang that one.
In seconds I heard the door unlatch. The lobby was cluttered with boxes.
Ames took a while to open her door and backed up when she saw me.
She was dressed like Channing in sweatpants and a T-shirt. Her feet were bare.
“I thought you were a food delivery service for someone in the building,” she said. “I was all set to direct you to the correct apartment.”
“That’s nice of you to help,” I said, and added quickly, “Remember you told me once about trying to get the Korean families in town to talk about what happened back in 2005. You believed your parents, who told you that Channing’s dad stole money; it was the reason they didn’t let you play with her anymore.
There’s more to that story. It’s just the tip of the iceberg. ”
She filled her cheeks with air and then let it out in a pop before inviting me in. I took off my sandals and left them by the door inside. Despite my feelings about East End now and not being interested in living here anymore, I found myself admiring Ames’s apartment.
There was a cooktop and a farm kitchen sink, a long wooden table with a marble slab on a portion of it, a tall gallery of windows from which you could look down on Bike and Basket, a warm maple-brown slick hardwood floor throughout, a large antique brass post bed with cream bedding, and a clump of pink and green pillows covering it.
On the extra-long beige couch was a fluffy purple throw blanket.
A square card table with folding chairs were the only items that looked as if they weren’t planned for this space.
On the table were two closed laptops, a printer, and a spread of issues of the East End Courier.
Against a wall, a rolling clothes rack held up a handful of dresses like the one she’d worn the first night at her grandparents’ cookout, shirts, and pants. A capsule wardrobe, tidy and neat.
Not having a lot of clothes as a kid made me a bit of a hoarder.
It calmed me to open my closet and see a row of skirts, just in case.
If I didn’t get a chance to go the laundromat that week, then I had plenty to wear.
When I was young, I remembered having to put on the same shirt and pants I’d worn the day before or watching my mother stay up late to wash a dress by hand for herself.
“I’m always at my grandparents’ house,” she said, watching me look around. “So I hardly eat here.”
“I think it’s great,” I said now about her apartment. “I wish mine was this big.”
“Everything outside New York City is palatial,” she said.
I looked down at people walking along the sidewalk. I decided on the most basic question. “How did the Korean families go in on a project like the beach development? Like how were they organized?”
Ames relaxed. I could tell she was someone who liked to share what she knew.
If journalism didn’t work out, she could go into teaching.
Older kids probably. High school. She had an edge that teenagers respected.
She explained that the Korean Association had a system called gye, in which every family paid a determined amount into an account and then one family would get to take that money for themselves each month.
Started years ago, the gye was a line of credit set up when Korean families in East End didn’t qualify for credit from a local bank.
“Or, let’s be honest,” Ames said. “Some could and some couldn’t.
This system allowed those who were better off to guarantee loans for those who couldn’t, and it was also a way to bond the group, in a collective effort.
It was not a lot of money; my grandfather told me it started as a thousand dollars a month—a lot for some to have saved—but then you would have five thousand dollars rather than just one thousand for buying a new car without taking out an interest-bearing loan or fixing your house or even toward buying a house. ”
She explained that she’d found articles about the original attempt to expand the beach club the year my aunt died with Korean families in town, and nothing had materialized from it.
And then ten years later, a large hotel chain in Boston came in and built out the beach club.
Recently, the mayor was trying to increase the area to allow for more hotels to come into the coastal district.
She went back to her laptop and opened a file. “Your uncle is standing next to the Leeward board members.” Ames pointed to a photograph of my uncle, a middle-aged Mrs. Ku, two other Korean people, and two white men.
“They missed a deadline because of your aunt’s sudden death.
There were a lot of misunderstandings; it was confusing, but it’s all in the past,” she said.
“It’s crazy to think that they used cash still.
A bank check would have worked, but no, they had cash.
There were fees for bank checks, you see.
Koreans never want to spend more than they have to. ” She rolled her eyes.
“My parents never had anything like a gye in any place where we lived. Let me get this straight: This gye could have helped people save to invest in a project like this?”
“Exactly. To have enough for this kind of investment, the majority had to scrimp and save, like my parents. Channing’s family had enough. Mrs. Ku had enough. They owned property in town and stuff,” Ames answered.
“What did the police find when they investigated?” I asked. “Channing told me her father called the police when he couldn’t find the bag with the money in it.”
“There was one report that said Albert Shin reported a missing bag.” Ames opened a folder on her computer screen, glanced at it, and then closed it.
“A plain black canvas duffle.” She tapped her fingers on the tabletop.
“Pretty nondescript. Like a million out there. Easy for something so ordinary to disappear. Why did your uncle choose that? Why not a briefcase or a leather bag with his monogram on it like all other bankers and lawyers? Seems suspicious to me.”
“It was a lot of cash, Ames. Maybe it didn’t fit in his usual bag,” I said. “The police report failed to include an important detail. There was yellow paint on that black bag. There’s a lot more they could have missed.”
She scowled at that but then replied, “It must not have been important, or maybe Albert didn’t tell them about it.”
“Really? You think? Channing said it was a big streak of yellow.” I didn’t tell her I’d had that bag in my very hands. I had to focus on what could be done, not on regrets.
“There was a list of people the police interviewed. No one had anything to say because who would steal it? It was their money. All those families wanted the development to succeed. Why would they ruin it for themselves?” Ames said.
I explained my uncle’s reaction when the money went missing. “He couldn’t accept that the bag was gone. He was so angry and not himself those days. He never recovered. No one believed him. That hurt him the most.”
“Where did it go then?” Ames replied flatly.
Ignoring her cynicism, I said, “So you saw the list of people the police interviewed, but what did people say in those interviews? Did anyone see anything? Could someone have taken it? There was an ambulance called to take my aunt’s body to the hospital to confirm her death.
Could it have been a nurse or another medical person?
What about the driver or whoever else was around that day? ”
“Convenient to cast blame on other people doing their jobs.”
“That’s not what I’m doing.”
“You want it to be someone else, so that you don’t have to accept that it was your uncle.”
“No, maybe it’s easier to believe it’s him so you don’t have to search further. The police chief back then and certainly the one now doesn’t care what happens to a bunch of Asians. And my mother is right about not living in a town with so many Koreans. All they do is gossip.”
Ames walked to the door of her apartment and held it open. “Time to leave,” she said with a tight-lipped smile.
I stayed where I was by the table. “I’m sorry. I don’t agree with my mother. What if someone did steal that bag? Don’t you want the truth?” Ames’s expression didn’t change, so I added, “What about your feature?”
“There won’t be one. The newspaper is closing.”
Maybe it really was time for me to give up. Clearly, Ames didn’t care about the past because she was dealing with the present. I flipped through the newspapers laid out near her laptop.
“Paul said something about that. What’ll happen to your job?” I asked.
“It’s hardly a job when they print shit like that last piece. It’s like they want to use my name so they can pretend it’s real journalism,” she said.
“I read it,” I said. “Not what I expected, honestly, but they should have given you more space.”
“My editor cut it to pieces. I should have his job,” she said. “So is that all?” She still had her door open and was waiting for me to leave.
“Couldn’t people in East End chip in to buy it, or maybe it can be a website only?” I suggested.
“We still have to pay journalists and editors and copy editors and designers,” she said.
“Okay, if it’s not this paper, maybe another paper would be interested in your article. Maybe a paper in Boston.”
“Doubt it. Zoning is a local issue. Anyway, my piece is dead if the paper is dead. Kent says he’ll keep trying to help the local businesses. He’s the only one looking out for us here.”
“If Kent is so tied into all the politics here, why can’t he save the newspaper? I’d think the mayor and everyone would want it to exist for fluff pieces like you wrote. And you should be the editor.”
Ames shook her head in disbelief. “You think I should ask Kent to save the paper?”
If Kent was as heroic as Ames was saying he was—which turned my stomach—I had to follow her logic through. “If he wants what’s best for East End the way you claim, then why wouldn’t he? This town needs a newspaper. Hasn’t that thought occurred to you?” I asked.