4 #2
“Yes, I have a fucking job, and yes, I make a good salary, and yes, I am grateful to be employed. However, I’m pretty sure that I will never make partner at this firm.
I have the right to have big fucking dreams just like the White guys whose deals I manage, contracts I negotiate and draft, and—fuck, fuck, fuck. ”
“How do you know you won’t make partner? That’s not for a while, right?” Mido asked.
“I asked. I asked if I had a shot. The bastard wouldn’t even answer. He said, ‘Hard to say.’ Fuck, fuckers.”
Peter walked over to DH and mussed up his hair.
“I’m sorry, kid,” he said in Korean. Although they had always been in the same grade, Peter was almost a year older.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” DH laid his head on the back of the armchair.
Mido looked at Peter, who frowned. Neither knew what to say.
“You want to quit? I’m sure you can get another job,” Mido asked, wondering if he would.
“I’m going to start looking tomorrow,” DH said. He looked at Mido. “You think our lives would have been different if we never left?”
“Where?” Mido asked. “We lived in a lot of places.”
“We were born in the States. What would have happened if we stayed in the States and didn’t move around so much?”
Peter handed DH a bottle of beer. “I’ve lived in Seoul, London, Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut, and now California. I like it here. I like my life. I don’t want to go back.”
“Maybe I should be you, then,” DH said. “I’ll marry a nice Korean girl and return to the motherland. If I were you, I’d go back and live in Korea and join the business.”
“What?” Mido said.
“Kidding,” DH said.
Peter turned down the flame on the boiling water.
“Be my guest. My mother has always liked you,” Peter said. “I am never doing that.”
“How about this? Is it possible that had we stayed in Korea and not gone to Andover and Yale, I might have made partner at a firm and that you would have been appreciated for being a great songwriter? It’s harder here for Asian guys—to make it in business and entertainment.”
Peter considered this. “I get what you’re saying.”
“I work for five White guys, I do so much of their work, and they would make me do more if it were possible. Sometimes I catch their mistakes. I know I’m a really good lawyer.”
“You’re not wrong,” Peter said, “but I’m just not that political.
I can’t make everything about race because it’s too depressing.
I know you worked your ass off, but would it have made you feel better if the partner told you that you had a shot when you really don’t?
The economy is weird. Law firm structures aren’t sustainable.
You said so yourself. The law firm has to be pyramid shaped with more associates forming the base.
Isn’t that what you told me? There can’t be that many partners, right?
That’s not to say they’re not assholes or that racism is not an issue. ”
When DH opened his mouth to protest, Peter said, “Koh, hold up, man. I’m on your side. It’s just that we can’t prove anything. I don’t know if it’s about race or greed. It’s probably about money.”
“Nope.”
“Can you wait them out?” Mido asked.
“Doubtful.”
“Why?”
“Too top-heavy,” DH said. “And I think they don’t think I’m partner material.
I can’t prove it. It’s just so different than when I was playing soccer.
Things were so much clearer. I was an MVP on my team.
My teammates voted me captain. The only thing that is clear is that my work must be fucking fantastic because all the partners want me to be staffed on their deals. ”
Peter sat down at the dining table.
“I’m sorry, man. I’m sure you know a lot more about this than we do.”
“I’m going to get another job.”
Mido sat down opposite Peter. “Great. Where?”
“I’m going to start looking in Korea. I know a headhunter who’s scouting for American lawyers in a massive firm based in Seoul.”
“Seriously?” Peter widened his eyes.
“Well, I’m going to look.”
“Can you practice there?” Mido asked.
“I can’t practice Korean law, but I can practice American law. There are two Korean firms who want to grow their US legal teams. Maybe I can make partner there. I’ll need to bring in business, but maybe I can get more business in Korea than I would here.”
“Wow,” Mido said, never having thought that DH would be the one to return.
“The partner thing will come. I don’t know anyone more competitive than you,” Peter said.
After DH drove back to his apartment, Mido and Peter cleaned up the kitchen.
“Would it have been better for me, too?” Mido asked.
“To be in Korea? No,” Peter said. “Korea can be tough on women. Ask my mother.”
Mido poured herself a glass of water. Peter’s mother was coming to visit in a few weeks, and she was nervous about meeting her for the first time.
“I wonder if it would have been easier for me elsewhere. I mean, it’s not bad here. It’s really good in lots of ways.” She didn’t want to complain.
“You mean Sydney or Seoul?” Peter handed her a pot to dry. “School is cheaper in both places, and you would have finished your degree. You probably would never have worked in a hagwon. You might have married that guy Tek.”
Mido shook her head. Tek was working at a new firm.
He’d sent her an announcement about his new office, and she wrote him a note congratulating him.
He wrote back. He hadn’t yet married, he said, claiming work had taken over everything.
Still preparing to become a barrister, he said.
Yun told her that he must be still thinking of her since he’d written back right away.
“Can DH get a legal job with a Korean firm based in Seoul?”
“Yeah, he could get hired, but I think he’s right. He’ll have to bring in business to make partner.”
“How would he get business?”
“I can ask my mother. Do you want me to ask?”
“I don’t want DH to go back.”
“Same,” Peter said.
“But I never want him to feel slighted,” she said.
“Even if he makes partner in Korea, they’ll pay less than here, I think,” Peter said.
“I think he would make a good partner. Not that I know what makes a partner good,” Mido admitted, laughing.
“I mean, he’s always working on big deals, and he works round the clock.
In our family, it was always Bo who was the smart one out of the three of us, and DH was the athlete, so it’s funny to me that he went to all those Ivy League schools and became a corporate lawyer so young.
I wonder if it’s because DH was our mother’s favorite. ”
“Your brother is a disciplined athlete. You have no idea how much work he can endure. Yes, he’s smart, but more than that, he has incredible habits and self-control.
Even tonight, he had half a bottle of beer.
He got mad, but he also ate his dinner and returned to the office.
He’s planning something. Man, I could never put up with those people. ”
Peter wiped down the counter with a clean cloth.
“I should get home,” Mido said.
He picked up his car keys.