10 #2
Instead, Mido locked the front entrance to the hagwon. She led him to the teachers’ lounge and closed the door.
He understood and began to kiss her. She removed his clothes, then her own. After they made love, Mido said, “I don’t want to get married, either.”
“Oh?” Peter looked hurt. “Why?”
“Why what?” He had not even blinked before asking for her reasoning.
“Why don’t you want to get married? To me.”
Mido wouldn’t say. It didn’t seem fair for her to have to go first, when she still didn’t want to ask him his reasoning. Her pride wouldn’t allow it.
“I think we can’t tell anyone about this. I don’t know how long this can last.”
“I don’t understand.” Peter was upset.
“And I’d like it if we could always be kind to each other. I think we would be anyway,” she said. They were dressed now, and she opened the lounge door. He followed her to their offices.
“Are you against marriage?” he asked.
“No. But if you don’t want to marry me, I don’t want to marry you.
I just don’t know what this means, though.
I suppose we can be together for now. Is this a fling?
” she asked, realizing that just asking this made her seem commonplace.
A sophisticated person would probably just keep the questions hanging in the air rather than saying them out loud. She didn’t feel cool or free.
“I hope it’s not a fling,” he said. “I made the confession. I said it was day one yesterday. Isn’t that the right way to go about this?”
“I can’t believe we’re talking about this. Let’s just, you know, see how it goes,” Mido said, feeling mortified.
“It’s not what you think. I hesitated as long as I could because I knew that I’d be serious about you. Everyone will expect us to get married if you wanted that, and I would look like an asshole for being against it.”
“You’re a musician. A rolling stone that gathers no moss, right?” Even to her own ears, she sounded bitter, and Mido wanted to take it back.
“If we got married, then my mother and all three of my uncles would want us to go back to Korea and live there. I can’t do that.
I can’t live in that world. My oldest uncle works for the company, another is a judge, and the youngest is a prosecutor.
My mother’s family is always in the news because of the size of their business, and my father’s family—they have a little less power but they’re more well known, so after the divorce, he went to live in Hong Kong just to be left alone.
I don’t want to live under that level of scrutiny.
Here I’m just a struggling musician with a side hustle. ”
“You’ve thought this through,” she said, fumbling in her dress pocket for her hair tie. The more they talked about this, the more she felt no less conservative than the most ordinary woman at church.
“I suppose they wouldn’t approve of my family and me,” she said, putting her hair up in a ponytail. Immediately she regretted having blurted this out. It was always better just to be quiet, she thought.
“Except for the college part, my mother and my uncles would think you’re fantastic. I don’t want you to think they’re snobs. They’re very understanding, but they care a lot about education. It’s everything to them.”
Mido didn’t know what to say. Was he doubting her ability to go back to school? If so, he wouldn’t be the only one. Perhaps others might figure that she was too old to return. If she started part-time, it would take longer than three years, and she couldn’t finish before turning thirty.
“Besides, you’re going to go back to school anyway. I shouldn’t have brought this up.”
“Wait, I might not. I might be too old to go back.” Giving her age as the reason struck her as dismal and sober, without the radiant glow of sacrifice.
She collected her thoughts. “I mean, it’s not clear to me that I need to get my degree.
For what I do, so far, lacking a degree hasn’t held me back.
And I don’t think you’re better than me because you have a college degree. ”
“Hey, I didn’t say that.”
“Right.” When he’d said his family might judge her poorly for not having finished school, it stung more than she’d thought it would.
Clearly he’d considered her CV in relation to his family back in Korea.
She knew she could always go back to college, and it hadn’t occurred to her that her not having finished college might be seen as something negative in her personal life.
Since her high school students had such extraordinary outcomes, none of the parents at the hagwon ever brought up her lack of a degree. Mido felt sick in a way that she hadn’t last night, when everything about their nascent love had been good, thrilling, and possible.
Tek had insisted on her finishing school, but he’d never said that his parents would look down on her if she didn’t. Was that why he kept on saying that he’d pay for it? It had been a given for Tek that she’d finish college. Mido pursed her lips tightly.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
“No, not at all,” she said in English, tinged with her Australian accent, which had been fading in America. “You’re just telling me how it is. For people like them. I mean, for people who care about that.”
“Hey, I don’t care about that. You’re brilliant, and I know how smart you are.”
“Let me go order lunch. It’s my job. It’s too late for us to pick something up anyway,” she said. There was a binder of menus inside her desk drawer.
In her mind, Mido listed all the reasons she’d had to stop going to school and what she had done with her time.
By reading test guides and studying textbooks, without any formal training, Mido had learned to get perfect scores on college entrance exams, fill out college applications, then coach nervous and resentful high school students in a way that got them admirable results and also made the process worthwhile and interesting.
In the time she’d lived in California, Mido had taken everything she’d ever learned in and out of school and figured out how to administer a hagwon, tutor, and counsel applicants.
With money she earned, she had sent DH to law school and was helping Bo get his PhD.
It seemed particularly cruel to have strangers think less of her when getting a degree and becoming better educated was what she’d enabled countless others to do.
It would be pathetic to defend her life, so Mido was unwilling to say any of these things to Peter.
“I’m fine, Peter. We’re in agreement. All good.”
She excused herself and went to open the main doors.
One by one, tutors arrived, then students and parents with appointments. The two lovers acted no differently than before. At the end of the day, Peter drove her back to his house, and she stayed with him until it was late, and then he drove her home.