Park Avenue, page 21
“That’s the American way of thought.” His scowl reminded Jia of Sora. “I’m disappointed that you don’t know better.”
“Okay,” Jia said. “I think I’m going to go.”
“If they do not accept this offer by nine o’clock this evening,” Seven said louder, “then I will rescind it. When the time comes, they will be entitled to nothing. If they wish to retain any of their rights to Mirae, they will do the right thing, for all of us.” He stood and walked toward Jia, his gait slow. Purposeful. Though he was the same height as Jia in her three-inch heels, she felt as though he were looming over her. She fought the urge to take a step back.
“Everyone took great trouble to be here this morning,” Seven continued. “I know you were in Seoul less than thirty-six hours ago. I flew commercial overnight from across the Atlantic.” He turned toward Zain, who still stood beside the conference table, his expression aloof. Belying the swirl of emotions beneath it. “And, at my specific request, Mr. Tawfik left his engagement holiday early so he could help me deliver this offer.”
All the sound in the room seemed to muffle as if Jia had stuffed her head into the collar of a thick sweater. She looked at Zain again and despised him for the sympathy in his face. The hint of protectiveness. How dare he play that card? As if the prospect of trapping her heart under his foot hadn’t dawned on him until now.
As if he hadn’t known exactly what he was doing when he acquiesced to Seven’s request.
“You should congratulate Mr. Tawfik,” Seven continued blithely. Then he aimed a wide smile at her, as if it were the barrel of a gun.
Zain wasn’t the pin at all. This was. And Seven Park had waited until its explosion would cause the most damage.
Jia hated herself in that moment. Hated how much she wanted to fall to the floor and cry. To let Zain crush her beneath his Italian shoe and succumb to all the pressure and the pain, all the anxiety and the fear and the exhaustion, and cry until there was nothing left of her for anyone to pity. Until she’d vanished into oblivion.
Zain was engaged. Six months after ending their five-year relationship, he’d found someone else to build a life with. It didn’t even matter who it was. He’d fully moved on, and Jia was still here, her heart aching and her mind trapped in a vortex. She wanted to walk away. But Seven Park was blocking the path. Jia tried to change direction, one of her ankles wobbling. She caught herself and closed her eyes, forcing herself to stand tall.
The double doors burst open. Sora and Suzy Park stormed into the conference room like a pair of Korean Avengers, dressed to the nines.
“Bangawo, Park Chilsoo,” Suzy said, her eyes wild.
Seven swiveled toward his daughters. “You are late.”
“No, we aren’t,” Sora replied coldly. “We’re not here for you. We’re here for her.”
Suzy looked at Jia. “Come on, Columbia. Get your shit. Let’s go.”
Jia’s hands balled into fists. If the backstabbing Park twins could get it together to face their father for her, the least she could do was make their efforts worthwhile. Jia remembered the way Sora had first looked at her. Like a pulae. She sent the mirror of that image to Seven. “This was a profound mistake, Park Chilsoo-shi.” Then she made her way around the opposite side of the table toward the door.
“Song Jihae,” Seven said with another merciless grin, “be sure to tell your clients that this is the last chance they have to protect their inheritance. If they don’t agree to my terms by this evening, there will be nothing left for them.”
“I’ll make it easy for you, Appa,” Sora said in an equally deadly voice. “We don’t need until tonight. Even if Minsoo and Suzy agree to your terms, it won’t matter. I won’t sign off on it. I won’t settle for less than everything.”
Suzy helped Jia into her coat.
“Ms. Song was right,” Sora continued. “This was a profound mistake.”
“That’s the last time you fuck with us, Dad,” Suzy said. “When you look back on this moment, it will be with nothing but regret for everything you lost, which is a whole lot more than money.” Then she looped her arm through Jia’s, and the three of them left the conference room together.
Not once did Jia look back at Zain.
A steady drumbeat echoed in her ears as they walked out of CHM. Jia glanced sidelong at Suzy, who still held fast to Jia’s arm, her delight evident in the way her curls bounced with each stride.
“Darius?” Jia asked under her breath.
Suzy shook her head. “Sora.”
Jia’s features registered her shock, though she kept silent.
Suzy pulled her closer, until their shoulders were touching. “Remember? I said I would do anything if she would forgive me. She said she might consider it if I came with her today. Couldn’t convince Marky though, the little chickenshit.” She rolled her eyes. “Besides, it’s high time we stood up to our dad, face-to-face. He needed to see that.”
“I recognized Zain’s name from your file,” Sora announced without turning around. “I hope he steps on Legos with his bare feet for the rest of his life.”
Jia stared at the back of Sora Park-Vandeveld’s haughty head.
And marveled for just an instant.
IN TERRORUM
We have reached an impasse, dear reader. For this author can no longer remain a casual witness to these happenings. Perhaps it is because I have been afforded the luxury of hindsight. Perhaps it is because these circumstances have become too personal in nature.
Perhaps it is because I am angry.
Naturally, it is rewarding to hear about the happenings of that morning in the conference room at CHM. A moment in time when good appears to triumph over evil and our charming heroine learns she is worth fighting for.
But, as I mentioned earlier, we often delight in spectacle at the expense of another person’s suffering. I do not relish suffering of any kind, despite what one may think. And it is all too easy to dismiss the pain of a lost love as the pain of a diminished person—the sorrow of a pathetic soul—rather than what it truly is.
Loss and grief are the price for living and loving. And when grief comes to take its pound of flesh, we fight back, for we do not wish to suffer. When instead we should hand over our payment, gladly.
A man like Seven Park may never know the satisfaction of paying for his losses, for the losses he holds most dear are nothing but numbers on a page, not the anguish of a broken connection or the cold solace of memory.
Maybe he should have stopped while he was ahead. Maybe he never should have claimed that he did everything for his family. That he truly did love the mother of his children. If he did love her, then he never would have tried to destroy her. He never would have sought to cause pain to any of them.
For that, perhaps he will learn a lesson of his own. Or maybe he will merely see that life is as it has always been for men like him.
Kill or be killed.
BODEGA NIGHTS
T Minus 17 Days
Today would go down as one of the most interesting days in Jia’s life.
A series of full-circle moments, in more ways than one.
She’d begun the day feeling like an empowered—albeit nervous—attorney at the CHM offices, ready to do battle in her finest armor. In an instant, she’d nearly been reduced to a mewling mess. Only to be rescued by the most unlikely of saviors, who, days before, had been mortal enemies.
The three of them had gone their separate ways after the encounter at CHM, but the adrenaline had remained with Jia through her solo lunch at one of her favorite vegetarian restaurants in Koreatown.
Jia knew how Sora felt about men who wronged women. How important it was to win. But why would Sora have asked Suzy for help, especially after what had transpired that night at the noraebang in Seoul?
Was it possible that Suzy actually had managed to crack through Sora’s icy exterior?
Jia often thought demanding forgiveness from someone was an act of selfishness. An injured party being forced to reconcile with their tormentor, regardless of their true feelings, all to honor some higher moral calling. She’d heard people argue that forgiveness was an act of unburdening, but she didn’t buy it. Especially when she thought of Zain.
Maybe it was selfish of her, but she had no intention of forgiving him for what he’d done today. Especially if forgiving him meant unlearning one of her life’s greatest lessons: Loving someone unconditionally was an act of idiocy. No one in the world should be allowed to do or say whatever they wanted to someone and then expect forgiveness.
After lunch, Jia had begun making her way back to her office when she’d received a series of panicked text messages from her mother. Both her parents had prior commitments later that night. Commitments they couldn’t break. Their nighttime employee’s wife had just gone into labor, which meant no one was available to manage the bodega that evening.
Could Jia help?
With a single question, she was ten years old again, trying to hide from her classmates while they bought gum from her parents as she swept the bodega floor. Immediately, Jia’s mood had soured. She’d stifled a dozen retorts. Wondered if her mother had even thought to ask Jason or James. The next second, guilt had washed over her.
She always had this reaction when her parents asked her to help at the bodega. It was irrational. Jia knew it. She’d spent entire sessions with Gail discussing how much she abhorred setting foot inside her family’s bodega, much less being forced to work there.
Everything the bodega represented—all the good and all the bad—knotted her emotions into a tangled web that she’d only begun to take apart.
But she hadn’t protested when her mother asked, despite her strong desire to do so. She’d agreed to manage the space until 10 p.m., despite her severe jet lag and the fact that she was traveling at 2 a.m. that night on a borrowed private jet to the Cayman Islands with Darius, posing as a couple on a supposed holiday.
Jia couldn’t shake a lingering sense of foreboding. Probably because of how she’d begun the day at a career pinnacle only to end it right back where she started.
She almost laughed at herself that evening when she caught her reflection in the bodega’s curved mirror positioned to prevent shoplifting. Jia was sitting on the same rickety stool with uneven legs, behind the same worn register with sticky keys, at the same cracked Formica counter where she’d first met Lexi Niarchos and her Birkin.
Jia looked at the faded wall clock. The one her father had gotten for free when a local school had given away used items prior to a much-needed renovation. 9:18 p.m. Less than an hour before her mother planned to relieve her.
She glanced around the small bodega. A feeling of begrudging fondness—one strongly attached to memory—washed over her. Everything about this place was familiar to Jia, from its damaged floor tiles to its fluorescent lighting, down to the scents of produce and plastic and the musty smell of corrugated cardboard boxes. Too familiar. That same light near the refrigerated section that still flickered on occasion, even though Jia had said she would send an electrician to fix it six months ago. Her father had refused, and a weary Jia had let the matter go.
Why wouldn’t they just take some money to fix the place up a little bit? Her parents were happy to have her help with things like Umma’s teeth or Appa’s knee surgery or Halmunni’s copays or working random nights at the bodega, but they frowned whenever she offered them money for things they arbitrarily deemed unnecessary or wasteful, only to continue complaining every chance they got.
Sometimes it felt like she couldn’t win with them.
She hated being here. Every time she set foot inside the small, cramped space with its familiar smells and the ringing bell over the door and the never-ending list of things that needed to be done, hate boiled through her blood.
The bodega represented everything Jia had failed to deliver so far. She wasn’t financially secure enough to tell her family to sell it. Not yet. Her parents needed its income to support themselves and provide care for Jia’s ailing grandmother. Her mom and dad would never agree to put Halmunni in a home. Like most older Korean immigrants, it wasn’t an option for them.
Her entire life, her parents had cared for Halmunni and Harabugi. Though they would never admit it, it was often at great cost to Umma and Appa’s comfort. More than anything, Jia wanted to give her parents the retirement her harabugi had never had. Harabugi had worked every day until he died. He’d loved to talk with Jia about all the places he wanted to go. Far-off destinations he’d read about in books. Pictures he’d seen on the internet or amid their shared love of history, with all its lessons. Places and things he’d never had the chance to see.
When Jia made senior partner, she would have enough to tell her parents to sell the bodega. She could comfortably provide for them and for herself without any worries.
But until that day, her parents would have to work in this tiny, disheveled room, serving people who didn’t see them, their reflections forever distorted in a curved mirror.
Jia wanted bigger and better things for herself and her family. Proving that she could honor her grandfather’s final request had become her sole focus in life, especially after the hazy future she’d dreamed about with Zain had been doused by cold reality.
Jia Song didn’t need anyone to make her dreams come true. She would do it herself.
She could almost see it, as if the finish line were within reach. She fought back a wave of desperation. Like her soul was stretching out a metaphorical limb, fighting for every inch.
The bell above the door dinged, and Jia was startled from her reverie.
Umma hurried into the bodega, tearing off her coat as she walked. “Did you eat?” she said in Korean without pausing.
“Not yet,” Jia replied in English as she hopped off the stool to take her mother’s coat. “I had a big lunch.”
Umma reached into her large bag and pulled out two containers. “I brought some of Halmunni’s kimbap. Eat.” She plopped the Tupperware onto the counter along with two sets of wooden chopsticks.
Jia stifled a sigh. “I should probably go. I don’t really have time to eat.” She moved to gather her things, but her mother blocked her, her eagle eyes sharp.
“Why do you look sick?” Umma demanded. “So thin.” She tsked. “And your skin looks horrible. Are you not washing your face?”
“Last time I was too fat, this time I’m too thin. I’ll just wait for the next time.” She forced a grin. “Maybe then I’ll finally be perfect.”
“You need to eat.” Umma popped open one of the containers.
“Umma, I really don’t have time.”
“I’m early. Just eat, and then you can go.”
“I have to catch a plane at two.”
“That’s many hours from now. Eat.” Umma arched one of her microbladed brows, a gift from Jia last Christmas.
“Not two in the afternoon. Two at night.”
Her mother snorted in the tradition of Korean ummas everywhere, long and dry, almost like an extended scoff. “What kind of flight is at two in the morning? Go later. You need to eat and get some rest.”
“I will. As soon as this case is over.” Jia attempted to grab her tote bag and her Moncler puffer coat.
“Umma is worried about you.” Her mother frowned. “Please travel later and get some rest. You’ve been working so hard. I’m sure your boss will understand that you need to sleep.”
“Not likely.”
“You work too hard.”
“I have to if I’m going to make partner.”
Confusion tugged at her mother’s brows. “I thought you just made partner.”
Jia closed her eyes and counted to ten in her head while shrugging into her coat. “It’s the next kind of partner. Don’t worry about it.” She tucked her tote under her arm. “I’ll see you later.” She turned to walk toward the door.
“Yah, Song Jihae!” Umma yelled in that same way she always had, with her voice pitched to the ceiling. It never failed to halt Jia in her tracks. “I told you to eat. Are you really not going to listen to your umma?”
Jia swallowed. Then she pivoted and snatched the wooden chopsticks from the counter. Before another word was spoken, she crammed two pieces of kimbap into her mouth to prevent herself from starting an argument with her mother. One she had neither the time nor the patience to have at this moment.
Temporarily mollified, Jia’s mother broke apart the other pair of wooden chopsticks and began to eat as well. “I saw Ara’s mom today.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“She told me Ara got engaged last month.”
Relentless, as usual. “Good for her,” Jia said around her mouthful of rice. “Did she also make junior partner?”
“She said Ara was really happy. She asked if you were happy.” Umma paused to open a can of cold grape Sac Sac for Jia. It had been one of her favorite drinks as a child. The tiny bits of real grape had delighted her. “I told her I wasn’t sure.”
“Tell Ara’s mom I don’t have time to worry about being happy. Once I’m done with my work, then I can worry about that shit.”
Umma’s voice dropped. “All the work you’re doing, Jihae-ya. It doesn’t matter what kind of success you have if you aren’t happy. If you don’t have peace inside yourself.”
“Jesus,” Jia whispered. “I have great friends and a great job, and all my family members are close by and in relatively good health. I’m fine.”
“Those are all things outside you. I am not worried about those things. I am worried about what is going on inside you.” Umma used her chopsticks to point at Jia’s heart.
Jia put down her own chopsticks. No matter how hard she tried, her mother would never understand her. Never truly hear what she had to say or see the world through her eyes. “Look, Umma.” Her expression softened. “I know you’re worried about me. But I’m really fine. I just need to rest. I’ll do that as soon as I’m finished with this client.”
“There is always a client. And then another and another.”
“And I’m glad!” Jia raised her hands in the air. “You’d rather I not have any clients?”
