7 #2
The students left at five o’clock, and an hour later, Mido still wasn’t able to leave.
She had been working without a break, and the phones had been ringing nonstop, it seemed, once word got out about the college admissions counseling.
Mido buzzed around the building, tidying up the offices.
After straightening up each one, she’d turn out the lights and lock the door.
All the tutors were still working in the testing room, reviewing scores: Each student would get a diagnostic report and a class assignment for the following week.
She had to phone Tek and let him know that she’d be late, and when she got to the main office to make the call, she saw him sitting there, chatting with Yun and Lion.
“I was just about to come find you,” Yun said, getting up. “Tek just got here. We were surprised, too.”
Mido’s face grew flushed.
“Hey, stranger.” Tek rushed up to embrace her. “Yun and I were having a reunion, and I just met her husband.” Tek turned to Lion. “Mate, how did you get that name?”
“I used to carry a stuffed lion around as a little kid. Talk to it, take it to school, and I couldn’t be separated from it, so my big brother Ray called me Lion’s friend, and eventually, I just became Lion. My real name is James, but no one calls me that. Even my parents call me Lion.”
Mido laughed. “I never heard that story.” She turned to Tek. “How did you get here?”
“The most expensive taxi ride in the world. I thought I was going to rent a car, and then I realized that I didn’t have it in me to brave the roads of Orange County in the dark,” he said.
“I’m ashamed to admit this as a dude, but I have no sense of direction, and I wasn’t even sure about my license working here. ”
Mido smiled, wondering how to ask Peter to give them a lift back.
“We could take you two,” Yun offered. “Tek’s hotel is closer to us anyway.”
“Oh, okay. Just let me tell Peter.”
“Tell me what?” Peter asked, walking into the office. He waved goodbye to the other tutors who were leaving.
“I’m Tek. Mido’s fiancé.”
Mido looked at him, puzzled. “What?” They were not engaged.
“Peter Son. Math tutor,” he said, a slightly confused look on his face.
“I’m going to drive them to Tek’s hotel,” Lion said to Peter. “You and DH want to come to dinner with us? Yun and I are going to get food. I’m sure these two want to have time alone.”
Peter nodded curtly. “I’ll get DH and follow your car, then,” he said.
In the hotel room, Tek kissed her, and Mido folded herself into his warmth.
“Why did you say you’re my fiancé?”
“Because I am, more or less, no?” Tek said. “Do you know how long that bloody flight was?” He smiled. “Every minute was worth it, though. I’m so glad to see you.”
He started to remove her clothes, and she wriggled a bit, not feeling ready to make love.
“Aren’t you hungry?” she asked.
“I ate lunch late. My schedule’s off. I’m sorry—you must be hungry.” Tek stopped unbuttoning her shirt.
They became shy then, and Mido bit her lip.
“I’m fine,” she said, and began undressing. “I want to shower first. Is that okay?”
“Of course. Why don’t I order us some dinner?”
Mido headed to the bathroom and closed the door.
As soon as they got home, Lion, Peter, and DH said hello to Ginny, then ran off to the garage like kids. They wanted to try out a song that had been giving them trouble.
“Thirty minutes. Tops,” Lion promised.
Yun didn’t mind. Dinner could wait. It was a relief when Lion was working on his music. Though he counseled anxious students and parents with great patience, he was intolerant of self-pity.
Lion was kindhearted and self-controlled, and in the presence of wives who complained about their husbands, Yun didn’t know what to say. Among women, sometimes it was good manners to commiserate, but Lion didn’t give her sufficient material to file any complaints.
In the four years she’d known him, she’d observed that what made the most dramatic change in Lion’s mood was his music.
Whether practicing or performing, Lion could transform from levelheaded to rapturous—eyes closed, body fluid in sync with the melody.
Seeing him so joyous, Yun wished he could play music and do little else.
Once she had suggested this to him, and he’d pointed to a stack of the envelopes that arrived with regularity in the red-painted mailbox beside their doorbell.
“Bills,” he said. “That’s my job, too.”
They owed money: a mortgage on their home in Sorrento, Yun’s student loans, two car loans, homeowner’s and car insurance, real estate taxes, rent on two hagwon locations. They also needed to pay dozens of employees on time.
From the kitchen, Yun could hear the guitar and keyboard. They were playing “Flower Girl,” a song Lion had written years before—one of her favorites.
Ginny had already eaten dinner with the housekeeper, and now she helped to set the table.
She was twelve years old but physically smaller than her classmates.
The week before, Yun had cut her hair in a pageboy style with the bangs Ginny preferred, and while it suited her pretty face, it also made her look even younger.
Yun was concerned that Ginny wasn’t growing as much as the other girls, so she made her favorite dishes—gimbap and hearty Korean stews—while being careful to refrain from commenting on the child’s eating.
At the hagwon, mothers of girls talked often of eating disorders, and Yun didn’t know what to do because she was neither the mother nor a family friend.
Technically Yun was the guardian, but unlike a homestay guardian—a surrogate parent who was paid to house and feed an overseas student—she was more like a host to a houseguest who happened to be a child.
It was an odd arrangement, because there was no formal end date, and Yun didn’t have the heart to find one. Ginny wasn’t any trouble.
Always, Ginny did her best, not wanting to disappoint anyone or need anything.
Yun had heard mothers joke that their husbands could be so irresponsible it felt like having an additional child; she felt as if she were living with two sober adults rather than a husband and a child.
“Ginny, do you want to eat with us? I know you had something, but there’s chicken and ribs from Johnson’s.” Yun pointed at the boxes of takeout. “I was also going to fix a salad.”
Ginny shook her head.
“I’m okay. I’m going to finish my homework.”
“It’s Saturday night. Do you want to watch some television before going to bed?”
Ginny brightened a little.
“I saw the bag of videos,” she said hopefully.
Yun smiled. “We have to wait till Sunday. My mother’s coming over. I will not allow you to study on Sunday. We are going to watch until our vision goes blurry.” Yun laughed.
Ginny smiled. Growing up, she had not watched dramas with her family.
Her mother didn’t like them. At the homestay guardian’s house, she’d never been allowed to watch any since she was supposed to be doing homework.
More than anything else in her life in America, Ginny loved to watch rented drama videos with Yun and her mother, Nari.
“Then I’ll finish up all my weekend homework. I only have two more worksheets left.”
“You always finish,” Yun said. “Would you like to phone your parents tonight? They’re expecting a call soon, right?”
Ginny had been waiting until she had Yun’s permission. In the den, Ginny picked up the phone and dialed. On the first ring, her father picked up.
“Our daughter, have you eaten?”
“Yes, Appa.” Ginny closed her eyes and tried to picture her father’s morning unshaven face. When she was little, she’d jump into her parents’ bed, and his morning beard would scratch her, and she’d burrow herself into her mother’s sweet-scented embrace.
In the morning, while he shaved, Ginny would sit on the bath stool to watch him, waiting patiently until he’d dab shaving cream on her nose.
Now that they were living at Grandmother’s house, she imagined that he’d have to shave in front of the tiny framed mirror in the green-tiled bathroom, which had a red plastic washtub and a corded showerhead instead of a bathtub.
“How was school this week?” he asked.
“One hundred on my social studies test and a one hundred on my science test.”
“Our great, praiseworthy daughter,” he said. “Appa wishes he could have breakfast with you.”
“Is that Ginny?” Her mother came on the line.
“Umma, hello. How is your health? How is Granny? How is my little brother?”
“Everyone is well. Grandma is making breakfast, and Jiho is good. He’s been studying a lot, too.”
Beneath the friendly conversation, there were things that none of them would mention for fear of causing worry.