The Comeback, page 16
“You’re kidding.”
“It was extreme and unusual, but it happened. Most Starrys are supportive and respectful, but a very rare number of people get obsessed in a bad way.”
“That’s unbelievable.”
Hana pops her head up with a mischievous grin. “Eomma nearly had an aneurysm when StarLune made it big and she couldn’t brag to her church group. Especially since Mrs. Park’s son kept getting promoted at his firm.”
I want to laugh—I can visualize Mrs. Choi’s impotent fury—but I don’t want Hana to think she’s off the hook. “That’s all well and good, but this is me. I can keep a secret. I keep secrets for a living.”
“I know, but it’s been ingrained in me that we never talk about Jihoon outside the family.” She looks down and picks at her nails. I automatically swat her hand away. “Then he asked me to hold off so he could tell you himself.”
“Apparently he was going to tonight.”
She sighs. “He said you made him feel free and like himself. He didn’t have to pretend or worry about you wanting Min and getting Jihoon. He didn’t want to give that up.”
That warms me but not enough. “Except he was pretending the whole time. It was all about him and how he felt. What he wanted. Relationships are built on trust and reciprocity, but I was left in the dark.”
Hana plucks her lower lip and looks at the ceiling. “The beginning of a relationship is a period of learning,” she reasons. “It’s when you find out they like raisins in their butter tarts or iron their underwear.”
“First, who irons their underwear? Second, this is hardly the same level as finding out they wear dress socks and boxers around the house. Although that’s a deal breaker.”
“Right, right,” she assures me. “I would have told you if he did that.”
“Good to know you would have told me something.”
She flinches, but I don’t take pleasure in twisting the knife. I feel…tired.
“I’m not taking sides,” she says softly. “I only want to help you understand why he did it.”
I circle back to the main issue, which comes down to two words. “He lied.”
“A lie of omission, not commission. He never denied he was in StarLune.”
This is stretching it so far it riles me up again. “Why would I ask him that? Do you think I go around assuming everyone is a celebrity in hiding?” Another thought occurs to me. “You don’t even like K-pop. You hardly ever play it.”
She rolls her eyes. “Right, I’m going against the treaty every proud Korean signs that says we can only listen to trot and idol bands.”
“Sorry,” I mutter.
Hana nudges me. “Hey, at least now you don’t have to worry about dealing with an ex,” she says. “Since there wasn’t one.”
I give her a look. “Huge bonus.”
There’s a long silence. “How do you feel about him now?” she asks.
“I don’t know.” I grab some of my hair and start braiding and re-braiding. “Confused. Is the guy I met Min or Jihoon?”
She stands. “Only one way to find out. Get to know all of him.”
“Easy for you to say.” Do I even want to date a rock star? No, of course not. I should date another lawyer, a steady person who understands me and who isn’t leaving the country in days.
“It’s icky that you’re into my cousin.” She grins. “Whatever, half the world is as well.”
I flip her off, and she snickers.
“Give him another chance,” she says.
“Why?”
She looks at me. “Because you want to.”
Maybe I do. Maybe that’s enough.
Maybe it isn’t.
Alex says he’ll send staff to get our belongings, but I hate the thought of someone going through my underwear drawer. “I’m going shopping, and you’re paying for it,” I tell Alex.
He rubs his eyes until they redden and tear up. “Like that’s the biggest problem I’ve had today. Make sure you keep the receipts. I can’t deal with Finance getting on my case on top of all this.”
“I can come with you,” Hana offers.
I glare at her. “You can sit here and think about what you’ve done.”
She hunches down. “Okay.”
Once safe inside my room, I splash water on my face and sit on the bed to enjoy the silence. I’m not in there five minutes before a knock sounds at the door.
“Ari?”
It’s Jihoon. The mature thing to do would be to open the door, invite him in, and have a civil follow-up discussion.
As if I can do that. I wait until he’s gone, then grab my purse and run down the empty hall for the door.
The condo is close to Yorkville, and I head east to the shops. Sitting in a café window is a woman with dyed hair and a brilliant, carefree smile that reminds me of Phoebe. What if people find out my name and go after my family? What if the stress causes Dad’s heart to fail again? My entire body goes shivery, and I stop dead on the sidewalk and bite the inside of my cheek. I should tell them on the down low. Or at least Phoebe, to keep an eye on Dad.
Triangle breathing. I take deep, desperate breaths right there as muttering people walk around me with impatient steps. What do I do?
I come back to it later when I’m more in control, that’s what. I force one foot in front of the other until I move on autopilot, ducking into my usual stores and getting pajamas, underwear, and some casual clothes. It’s Friday, so I don’t need a fresh outfit for work tomorrow, but it might be a few days at the condo. I grab three shirts and a suit. Alex’s treat.
As I collect my new belongings, my usual logicality seeps back. I’m letting the doomsday attitude of Alex and the others affect me. Nothing is going to happen. No one cares that some singer was in Toronto staying with his cousin, and it’ll be a nonstory in a day. Everyone is in crisis overdrive and exaggerating the importance of what’s happening because they’re stressed.
I head over to the Manulife Centre, where I pick at a damp taco and scroll through my phone. Hana knows better than to text me when I’m mad. She must have told Jihoon, because I have no messages apart from Alex asking me to come by his room when I get back.
Then I put the phone down. The lack of messages from Jihoon could be because he’s decided whatever might have happened between us isn’t worth the trouble.
That I don’t know how to feel about any of this makes me overheated in my skin. I know how I want to feel—furious, betrayed, all those juicy and satisfyingly self-righteous emotions, but at the same time…I can’t, not completely. Would I have told me? I want to say yes, but as Jihoon pointed out, knowing you need to say something and getting the words out are two very different beasts.
The same applies to Hana. I poke idly at the disintegrating taco. We might be best friends, but this is family we’re talking about. She couldn’t predict the future, and she wasn’t wrong when she thought a guy brooding around the house wouldn’t be my type. This is Jihoon’s fault, I decide. He had to mess it all up by being so likable.
“Ari?”
I know that voice. I whip around.
Twenty-Two
Phoebe stands beside me, her head tilted to the side. “What are you doing here?” she asks.
I gesture to my taco, trying to be normal. I’d thought about texting her a few times since I left her at the record bar, but I didn’t know what to say. “Eating.”
She eyes the mess on the tray. “That looks unappetizing.”
I shove it away. “It is.”
“I’m picking up some overpriced snacks as a farewell hostess gift.” She shakes a brown shopping bag at me so I can hear the clang of glass jars.
“Leaving already?” I mean to say it like a normal person, but it comes out spiteful.
To her credit, Phoebe doesn’t bite. “No, I found a short-term rental. I like to have my own place. Same neighborhood.” She waits for a minute, but I’m so drained, I can’t think of a good response. Her eyes narrow. “What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“Stay here. Watch my bag.” She dumps it on the chair beside me and disappears to a café. I sort through her purchases in listless curiosity. Phoebe was always good at choosing gifts—when I was a kid, she got me a stuffed cat I loved so much, I brought it to university with me—and this proves it. She’s bought a selection of lovely sauces and pastas to match, as well as a little jar of what looks like marinated cheese. A crispy loaf of ciabatta is wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine. I want to eat it all because my taco hadn’t satisfied anything beyond bare physical sustenance.
“Here.” She puts a monstrously puffy pastry in front of me, dusted with glittery powdered sugar and filled with greenish cream. I lean down to sniff and sneeze after snorting up the icing sugar.
Phoebe rolls her eyes. “It’s food, not cocaine.”
“Shut up. What did you get?”
She displays two croissants proudly.
“Almond and cheese?”
Phoebe runs her hand through her shaggy hair before she layers the two pastries together and bites in. I make a face.
“Almond and cheese make a classic combination,” she says with a shower of crumbs. “Don’t try to derail me. There’s something going on. Is it work?”
“Weirdly not.”
“That Jihoon guy?”
I run my finger around the edge of the cream puff and lick it off. Pistachio. “What makes you say that?”
“It looked like there was something between the two of you, and you take after Dad.”
“What’s that mean, I take after Dad?”
She peels her croissant layers apart. “Do you enjoy thinking about, discussing, or in any fundamental way acknowledging feelings?”
“I have feelings.”
“I know you do. Want to talk about them?”
“No.” At my response, Phoebe raises her eyebrows, and I glare at her. “You sashayed out of my life, and suddenly you have a right to know my innermost thoughts?”
She flushes and looks down. “Sorry.”
We sit in a heavy silence, both of us staring at the table. Inside my head is a snarled yarn ball. I want to be mad at Phoebe. I want to be mad at Jihoon and Hana. I can even see that anger, a twisted dark red strand woven through this big mess.
I’m so tired of being angry. I’m tired of my sister not being in my life. Tonight has battered me down enough that I don’t have the energy to avoid this conversation anymore. I’m on a roll with awkward talks anyway, right? Might as well keep going.
It takes me a few tries to get the words out. “Why do you never email? Call me?”
Phoebe breathes out hard enough to send her crumbs flying into my lap. “It’s hard.”
“What’s so hard about picking up the phone?”
She rips the corner off one of her croissants. “You tell me.”
I clamp my lips shut.
Phoebe continues, “You’re always so upset with me when I try. You make a big deal about how busy you are and…” She pauses before giving a little what-the-hell shrug. “It hurts, okay? It hurts that you and Dad insist on thinking I’m some screwup because I don’t want what you want.”
“You’re older than me.”
Phoebe eyes me in astonishment. “So?”
“You left when I was thirteen! Mom told me you dropped out. You didn’t even tell me yourself.”
“I was only twenty. I was scared. Dad was so mad, you have no idea. Like, furious. He made it clear that I would be a bad influence.”
It takes a minute for me to find the words. “Dad told you to stay away from me?”
She frowns. “Not really.”
“Then kind of.”
“He made it clear you were on a different path in life. Dad’s a short-term, narrowly focused workaholic, but he’s not cruel like that. It was my choice because I thought it was best.”
“I can’t believe you didn’t talk to me. Me, the person this affected most.” I also can’t believe we’re having this talk in a food court, but now that we’ve started this discussion, I don’t know if I can stop. The red string tightens enough to squeeze the rest of the ball and force out my words.
“I couldn’t.” Phoebe sounds sad. “By the time I realized how dense I was being, you didn’t want to talk. You were always at school or working, and we were at different points in our lives. It got harder and harder. We grew too far apart.”
“Yeah.” She’s right.
“I missed you.” Her voice is so quiet, I barely hear it.
I missed you, too. Agitated, I want to get up and go, the same way I did at Longplay, the same way she did when we had coffee. It’s easier, and I can focus on what I’ve told myself matters most. Work, which has always been straightforward, with rules I understand. Work, which is usually controllable and generally predictable.
“I want to have a sister again,” she says. “I want to be a sister.”
The red yarn snaps under the pressure, and the breath I draw in is so jerky, it hurts. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Then let’s not for a bit, at least about this.” Phoebe pulls back but not in a bad way.
“Okay.” I take the reprieve gratefully. There’s a lot to think through, and I can’t right now. My mind hasn’t led me to the best places lately, leaving me tentative about everything I thought was a certainty.
“We can talk instead about why you’re here when you’d usually be in the office.”
I’m too tired to lie and about three minutes away from complete collapse. “It’s Jihoon.”
She nods. “He’s going back to Korea for StarLune?”
My mouth drops open. Phoebe watches me with concern.
“How did you know that’s who he was?” I ask.
“After watching that video a few more times, I kind of got into them. Did some research and found out Min’s real name is Choi Jihoon, and without the makeup, he looked like the same Jihoon who came to dinner and was spotted in your neighborhood today.”
Little shocks zing over me. “You didn’t think to text me?”
“I decided you would have told me if you wanted me to know.”
“I didn’t find out until a couple hours ago.”
She laughs but stops when she sees my face. “Oh, you’re serious. Then at dinner…”
“I thought he was Hana’s cousin and no more.”
“Dang.” She pinches her lip. “What happened?”
I spill the whole sordid tale, and Phoebe’s eyes don’t leave my face. A long silence swirls in the wake of my words until she gropes around for my Coke and takes a sip.
“I’m not sure what to say,” she admits. “What’s your plan?”
“You’re looking at it.”
“Eating in a food court forever seems unsustainable.”
“Not much can happen since he’s going back to Korea.”
“Video calls exist. Planes exist.” She sees my expression. “Can we get some perspective? It’s not like he’s gone off to some unknown land while you pine away standing on a boulder overlooking the ocean.”
All those things might exist, but I don’t know if Jihoon wants them. This tentative reconciliation with Phoebe is too new for me to admit this, so instead I say, “He’s an idol in Korea, and I’m a lawyer in Toronto.”
“Poor Ari,” she says, but the tone is kind. “Ari with her whole life mapped out so perfectly. Never having to take a detour. Always knowing where the next stop is. What will you do now that there’s another road to take?”
I swing my foot out to poke her leg. “There’s no other path.”
“Not if you don’t see it.” She gets up. “I’m due to drop this off. Will you be okay?”
I’m busy frowning at the table, so it takes the words a minute to register, but I nod. “I think so.”
“You can call me, Ari. Whenever you want.” She grabs her bag. “I’m going to be here a while.”
“Thanks. Hey, can you keep this to yourself?” I don’t want this story spread to our parents before I’m ready.
“Will do, capitaine.” She gives me a rakish salute.
I watch her go and almost see the thread dragging behind her. This time the ball in my chest feels loose. I feel better, and although there’s more to be said between us, I only have so much brain space, and this Jihoon thing is time sensitive.
What does it mean to be an idol, anyway? It’s an entire world that’s unfamiliar to me. I gather my taco and cream puff remains in their wrappings and toss them into the compost bin with a newfound sense of resolution. I need to do some research to know exactly what I’m dealing with. An uninformed decision is a trash decision, for all of Jihoon’s heart-over-head preaching.
I text Alex to make sure he’s alone because I don’t want to talk to Hana and Jihoon until I get myself sorted out. He lets me into his proxy command center when I arrive, his expression tired but satisfied.
“Here’s where we are,” Alex says, waving me to the cognac-leather Eames lounger as he spins on his executive chair. “It’s looking good.”
“Is there a horde outside my apartment building?”
“Yes.”
“That’s good?” We need to synchronize definitions.
“Sure is, because they’re singing and not rioting.” Alex rolls his neck until his vertebrae pop. “It’s supposed to rain, so that will help thin the crowd overnight.”
“Then I can go back home.”
“About that.” His face gets a serious look that means I’m not going to like whatever he’s about to say. “Not for two weeks at least. A month is better.”
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
Alex rubs his nose. “StarLune has some die-hard fans who will make connections between Mr. Choi and the young, attractive Asian women in the building.”
“Alex. You truly thought about those words, decided they were the exact ones you wanted, and let them leave your mouth?”
“Three for three.” He’s unrepentant. “Again, optics. There are some vicious gossip blogs looking to make a story out of this, true or not. People can be nasty as hell.”
