Chapter Twenty-Two
Twenty-Two
Sitting across a table from Kim Min-sun, it’s hard to ignore the intensity of her beauty.
The newest face of Dior is all angles and precision.
She speaks with careful forethought and taps shell-pink nails against her full lips when she’s weighing how to best put something into words.
It’s easy to see how she managed to get offers from eight luxury brands in only the past two months.
There isn’t another face like hers out there, anywhere.
But then a smile will crash across her features, and the dramatically playful Kim family dimples appear. It’s startling, in those moments, how much she looks like her brother.
“Alexander is six years older,” she says. “He’s always been a caretaker. He would rather die than give the impression he can’t handle something.”
She says all this like these qualities explain everything.
Which, I guess, they do. They explain why he feels responsible for the way she was brought up, why he can sometimes be an overprotective drag, and why, on Valentine’s Day this year, he stormed into a nightclub, pulled his sister’s drugged and unconscious body from a VIP room, and sat on a bathroom floor with her in his arms until she was able to stand on her own feet and leave with him.
They explain, too, why he let the press beat him into hiding this past weekend, after a British tabloid posted photos of him escorting a cloaked woman out of the notorious club Jupiter. With Jupiter under scrutiny for being the site of a string of alleged sex crimes, the photos quickly went viral.
“He would rather let the world think that he’d committed a crime than tell the world what happened to me,” she says. “I wasn’t ready to talk about it, but there is no way I’m going to let this destroy the best person I know.”
I watch Sunny read the draft of the article, and then her focus tracks to the beginning, and she starts again, slower now.
A three-hour conversation has been distilled down to this: eight thousand words detailing what happened that night at Jupiter, what she remembers, what Alec has told her, what he did for her, and even my connection to their family dating back twenty years—to be emailed out tonight to whoever wins the bidding war.
Sunny insists I get paid for my work. I insisted the money be donated to sexual assault survivor funds.
Yael reminded me that I’m unemployed, and we settled on donating half.
Yael is currently fielding calls in my bedroom from the final contenders: the New Yorker, Vanity Fair, The Atlantic, GQ.
Sunny finishes reading and sets my laptop down, her eyes shining. “You did such a good job, Gigi. I can’t believe you did that so fast.”
I can’t, either. “I guess I was motivated. I really need the world to fall over itself to apologize to Alec.”
“Well,” she says, “and to you.”
“I care a lot less about that.”
Sunny smiles at me, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “I’ve never heard him sound lovesick before.”
“He called me all weekend,” I tell her. “I left the phone he gave me here because I thought he left. I was a mess, too. Everything’s a mess.”
“I really hope you two can work it out.” She studies my face. “He needs this in his life. He has such good friends, but I want him to have a person. A you person.”
I nod, swallowing down the nauseating wave of worry, longing, and regret. “I hope he calls as soon as he lands. Is it going to worry him that you’re here in LA?”
Yael comes in before Sunny can answer, and it’s so disorienting to see her smiling that I can’t look away. She catches my stare and dials it up. “Yes, Georgia, I have teeth.”
“I figured they were sharp and retractable.”
This makes her laugh, and the sound is unexpectedly playful.
“Here. This is your contact at Vanity Fair.” She hands me a piece of paper with several lines of her predictably tidy handwriting.
“They’re waiting up for the story. It’ll run online at 9 a.m. Eastern and an extended piece can make it into the June issue if you get it to them by noon tomorrow.
They’ll handle copyedits but will call you if there’s anything more substantial. ”
I have no idea how they’re managing that, but I’m not about to ask. I look at my phone. It’s just after 8 p.m. Even if Alec left midday, it will still be several hours before he lands in London. There isn’t any point waiting up for him.
I open my email. Type in the name Yael handed me, along with a brief message, and hit send.
Yael rocks back on her heels and pats her flat stomach. “I’m starving.”
Sunny stands, stretching. And then she walks over to Yael, puts her arms around her, and stretches to kiss her chin, answering one of the thousand questions I’ve had today. “Then let’s grab some dinner,” she says. “Gigi, you wanna come?”
It feels crazy to turn down the opportunity to have dinner with my childhood best friend and the newly grinning, formerly surly assistant-bodyguard I’ve been dodging for the past two weeks, but no matter how hard they work to convince me to join them, I fear that with this article sent off, my adrenaline will immediately drain and I will actually pass out into my plate.
There are many good eats to be found in London, but Mexican food is usually not one of them, so I give them directions to my favorite local taco joint and see them off.
When the door closes, I fall back against it, staring down the short hallway to the bedrooms, debating whether I should feed myself or just go right back to bed.
My stomach growls, making the decision for me.
When I finally reheat the leftovers I’d stowed back in the fridge, I can’t get them in my face fast enough. I am famished.
Teeth brushed, with Alec’s dress shirt and my favorite underwear on for pajamas, I’m sitting in front of the television trying to process the insanity of this weekend, and as soon as I am able to calm my mind for the first time in days, I realize…
I don’t know how I’m going to handle being away from Alec.
The thought loops in my mind every few minutes: You squandered two whole days.
And now I have no idea when I’ll see him next.
I know it’s useless because he’s on a plane over the Atlantic, but I text him anyway.
I miss you.
I put the Batphone down, but it immediately vibrates on the couch next to me. Startled, I pick it up. Alec has replied.
God, I miss you, too.
A delighted laugh breaks free. Right. It had never occurred to me to text him earlier, that some people actually spring for the Wi-Fi on planes. I didn’t know you called me this weekend.
Yes, outside your apartment this morning I realized you had no idea that I’d been calling, and calling.…
Are you almost home?
Not really. Hours away still.
How’s the flight?
More importantly, how are you?
I’m better. I listened to your voicemail.
And? he asks.
My heart feels ten sizes too big for my body. A heart this big could pump an ocean of blood. AND I really wish I’d taken the Batphone to my parents’ place.
Well, I think you know I agree.
That last phone call really messed me up.
I know. I can’t tell you how sorry I am.
I close my eyes, fighting these omnipresent tears. Finally, I get them under control. I wish you hadn’t left this morning.
What do you wish I’d done instead? he replies.
I bite back my smile as I type. I wish I’d invited you in.
I told you if I came in, I wouldn’t want to leave.
If you came in now, I wouldn’t LET you leave.
I nearly jump out of my own skin when the doorbell rings barely two seconds after I’ve hit send. For a fraction of a second, I consider putting pants on but… awareness comes at me sideways, making me unsteady as I stand and walk to the door.
With a shaking hand, I pull it open to find Alec, clean-shaven, hair combed off his forehead, in a gray button-down shirt and dress pants and holding a wilted bouquet of flowers.
“I’ve been carrying these around for a few hours,” he explains.
“Sunny wouldn’t let me come over sooner, and you wouldn’t come out for dinner. ”
I make a muffled sound of shock from behind the hand I’ve clapped over my mouth. He’s been here this whole time. Of course. Alec wouldn’t leave for London if Sunny was headed to LA. Sunny wouldn’t come to LA if Alec was headed to London.
And Yael would never leave either of them hanging like that.
Can you imagine if our planes actually crossed paths midair? He would never stop lecturing me.
“You were never on the plane!”
“I— Whoa,” he says, immediately distracted by my outfit. “What are you—”
I hurtle myself into his arms, knocking the flowers to the ground and making him take a few steadying steps backward to catch me. He’s here. I squeeze him so tight, eyes closed, sacrificing every wish I might get from here on out in gratitude for having him here on my doorstep.
His arms go all the way around me, holding me tight, and he lets out the quietest groan into my neck.
He feels so good against me I can’t breathe.
Everything inside seems to gather at the center of my chest and then explode outward in a pulse of relief and longing so that I feel my heartbeat as ten pulses in my fingers, ten pulses in my toes.
He is solid and warm. He smells like soap and the soft citrus of his shaving cream.
His laugh vibrates against my face where I’m pressed to his neck.
I never would have been able to get over him.
“Gigi,” he says, his voice a deep vibration, “look at me.”
I can’t. I press my lips to his neck, his jaw, and then kiss like a madwoman all over his face.
Alec laughs at the onslaught, carrying me inside like I’m a rag doll hanging from his shoulders, and shuts the door behind us. Reaching down, he adjusts his grip around my waist and lifts me up, carrying me to my bedroom.