Face Time (7 page)

“Speaking of which, I’m off to Europe this week. Italy. So if you could spend time with my girls, I’d appreciate it.”

“Of course. Let me get some sleep, and then we can go out Wednesday or Thursday. I need to be in the office Monday and Tuesday anyway.” I keep normal hours at the office a few days per week when I’m in Seoul to catch up on paperwork, file documents, and speak with my bosses about what’s next on the agenda. I’ve been working my regions for the past few years, and I have the hang of them. I cover, with a team of three others, Asia and India. Chris works in and out of Europe and Russia. Our traveling paths almost never cross. We were lucky to meet in the office.

“I have to debrief with Min-Yung because I’m off to India again in two weeks.” I stretch and yawn, my body confused about where I am and the time. Evie rests her head on Cori’s arm. 20:00 is close to her bedtime.

“Min-Yung was saying Sandra’s been calling every day.”

“What? She hasn’t contacted me in three weeks. Not since the last email she sent suggesting we break up for good.”

“Well, you know Min-Yung likes her. They’re gossiping behind your back,” Chris says, nodding his head.

Min-Yung is an admin assistant I share with Chris, and she’s familiar with Sandra and my entire family, but Min-Yung is not good about minding her own business. I close my eyes and think. On one hand, I could tell Min-Yung to stop talking to Sandra, or I could let them be. It’s not like Sandra is bothering me which is what I want right now.

“We should pay and go home.” Chris waves for the check and, just then, my phone buzzes. For a moment, I’m confused. Everyone I text is right here with me, excepting Sandra. Dread causes my hand to slowly grab my phone.

Laura Merchant

It’s early morning Sunday here. I think you’re in Seoul now. I hope you had a good flight.

I unlock my phone and stare at her text. The one previous to it was,
“I like it sweet,”
and I smile remembering her laugh.

“That’s her, isn’t it?” Cori stops putting on Evie’s coat and tries to lean over to peek at my phone, but I snap the screen to my chest. Mine.

“Yeah, hold on a second.” I remove myself from the table, grab my coat, and leave money with Chris. “I’ll drive you guys home with me. Just give me a minute.” Outside, I move to the right of the door and think before texting back.

I had decided back in New York that I liked her, but this is new territory for me. If I don’t text her back, she probably will give up.

And I don’t want that.

Lee Park

I’m in Seoul and had a good flight. I’m so glad to hear from you.

Really? I spent all of yesterday wondering if Friday night was a dream, wondering if I really had met him. Did we kiss on the corner of Third and Broadway? I thought I imagined it, and then marveled at how good my imagination is. It was torture waiting to text him. I knew he was on a plane, and I didn’t want to seem desperate.

Rolling over in bed so I’m on my side, I concentrate hard on his words. He’s glad to hear from me. I doubt he’d write that if he didn’t mean it. Lawyers think about every word.

Laura Merchant

:) I calculated how long you’d be on the flight and hoped I caught you before bed.

Lee Park

You did. I just finished dinner and am about to head home.

I hesitate with my thumbs poised over the keyboard. It’s been a long time since I put myself out there, and it’s even stranger to be doing it over text to someone seven thousand miles away.

Laura Merchant

Lee, thank you so much for dinner Friday. I really enjoyed talking to you. And you’re a great kisser too :)

There’s only a few seconds wait until I see him writing back.
 

Lee Park

I want the chance to do that again.

Laura Merchant

Me too. What are you doing now?

Lee Park

I’m about to drive Cori, Chris, and Evie home. Sleep.

What are your plans for today?

Hmmm, good question, Lee. It’s early but the sun is already bathing the street outside my window in gold, and my mother is shuffling around in the kitchen making breakfast. But I snuggle down into my comforter. I don’t want to face my mom yet. She didn’t even ask about my date yesterday, and then she spent the entire afternoon and evening with Aunt Sally. I’ll stay in here and pretend to be asleep.

Laura Merchant

I think I’ll eat breakfast and read. Then go for a run. No other plans. An easy Sunday.

Lee Park

I need about a year’s worth of sleep and I need to go to the office tomorrow.

Laura Merchant

I hope you sleep well.

Lee Park

Thanks. Hey, I have an idea. Are you busy on Monday night?

What is he up to? And, of course, I’m not busy on Monday night except to go to the gym.

Laura Merchant

My only plan was to go to the gym.

Lee Park

FaceTime with me. Your Monday night is my Tuesday morning and I don’t plan on going in till noon.

When we exchanged contact information and started texting, I hoped we’d keep in touch this way, but I tried to prepare myself for all possible outcomes. He just went through a long-distance relationship with his ex. If that didn’t work out, maybe this won’t either.

On a Monday night, I worry about my mom being home. What do I do about her? Will she think it’s strange if I’m in my bedroom talking to my iPad? She doesn’t understand technology and can barely work the iPhone I bought for her. It took her a whole month to figure out how to text, and she still doesn’t know she can access email on it. I’m going to hope she won’t notice and will mind her own business. She spends most evenings in her bedroom or out with Richard anyway. But the hard part will be telling Lee about her. I can’t hide the fact she lives with me if we’re FaceTime dating.

FaceTime dating someone in Seoul. That sounds super pathetic. But, dammit, I don’t have any prospects here in New York. I burnt through every romantic connection in the last five years, and all the men I dated in my twenties have moved on. I’m thirty-two years old, been single for over two years, and my mother is living with me while she goes through her midlife crisis, or her attempt to date every wealthy, available man over the age of fifty in the city, or whatever the hell she’s doing. It’s not like I’m getting any younger. Is it better to have an online relationship with Lee than to be alone? I won’t know until I try.

Laura Merchant

I’d love to.
 

(>’o’)> ♥ <(‘o’<)

“Humor a pregnant lady and tell me every last detail of the kiss,” Theresa says, taking a sip of water and stretching her legs. I persuaded her to come out and walk with me because it’s one of those beautiful, sunny, clear days that makes you love Manhattan and everything about it. I was sure a walk along the West Side Highway would be good for both of us. Theresa’s belly has grown in the last month and exercise helps her aching hips. Her husband, Mike, is working the brunch crowd at his family’s restaurant today. She was eager to get out.

“It was fantastic. Confident but not aggressive. He just pulled me to him and went for it.” I reflexively touch my lips and smile. “His hands were warm, and I heard him moan halfway through. It was hot.”

Theresa sighs. “It sounds blissful.” She closes her green eyes and inhales. I tug on her arm and pull her closer to me as a young man zooms by on a bike.

“It was, but maybe it’s only because I haven’t been kissed in a long time?” I take my iPhone out of my zippered pocket and look at the date, March 25th. “It’s been… two and a half years since I’ve been kissed. A little longer since I’ve had sex.”

“Ugh, that’s too long.”

“Do you know what that does to a person like me?”

“I can only imagine, sweetie,” she says. A strong breeze whips up the Hudson River, and she tucks her short, curly red hair behind her ears. Theresa squints into the bright sunlight. “I should have worn more sunscreen. I’m going to burn, I know it.”

We walk silently for a block or two, and I relive the memory of my first kiss with Lee in my head again.

“So, what are you going to do, Laura?”

“What do you mean?”

“Are you going to talk to him? See him again? What? I haven’t seen you smile this much over a guy since Rene.”

I direct her over to an empty bench along the side of the bike path and help her sit down.
 

“I don’t know.” I sit down next to her and adjust my ponytail to pull my hair farther up off my neck. “I’ve tried everything, Theresa. I’ve dated friends, friends of friends, coworkers, strangers…”

“Yeah, Rene was a bad idea.” She sighs and eyes me before wiping sweat from her eyebrows. “You were so desperate and needy with him.”

“Thanks for that.” My shoulders start to rise, my head drawing down like a turtle into its shell.

“You ran after him and ruined a good nine months of your life…”

“Okay, thanks. I remember.” Closing my eyes, I try to imagine myself someplace else.

“Desperate. Desperate. Desperate.” She punctuates with a knock on the bench between us each time. “And, of course, you remember how you told me to remind you of all of this the next time you dated?”

“Yeah, yeah. I remember.” Damn. Theresa has a brain like a steel trap. She remembers every stupid and insecure thing I said during that relationship.

I open my eyes, and she smiles at me before laughing. “Laura, I swear to god. I told you when this day came you would hate me for saying those things to you.”

“I don’t hate you, of course. I asked for the reminder.” I distinctly remember crying into her shoulder two and a half years ago and begging her to help me never make the same mistake again.

She nods and turns towards me on the bench. “It’s not what I really think, though. I hate all of that YOLO shit on the internet, but you only get one life. So what if he lives on the other side of the world…” Theresa sweeps her hand out over the Hudson River.

“Korea’s in the other direction, Magellan.”

She laughs again, and her happiness infects me too. This is why we’re good friends, and I’m determined to keep her close to me even with a baby on the way. I don’t want her to drift. Theresa and my other friend, Justin, are the only New York friends I have left.

“How did you ever find him attractive? He’s so not your type.”

“I know,” I exclaim, throwing my hands up. “Asian men? Totally not me.” I focus on a group of twenty-something Chinese boys walking by. “I wonder what he looks like without any clothes on. Maybe really smooth…”

“Little in the way of body hair…”

“Mmmm. Yes.” I take a deep breath and imagine, but it’s torture. Oh well. Not gonna stop me.

“I just want you to be happy, Laura. You haven’t been happy since you moved back here to New York and even less after Rene. You’re a physical person, always playing sports, going to the gym, and meeting up with people in person to do things. My only concern is you may need to be with Lee face-to-face for an actual relationship to happen. And then there’s your mother.”

My mother is a big problem. She’s self-involved, stuck up, and living with me.
 

“Should I give up?” I ask. “Theresa, tell me if I’m a lost cause. Honestly.”

“Of course not.” She rolls her eyes at me. “You’re so dramatic, Laura.”

“I’m three years away from thirty-five.”

“A lot can happen in three years. Do you want to try online dating again?” She sips from her bottle and pulls her feet under the bench before they’re run over by a rollerblader. “Jesus, I almost lost my toes.”

“Let’s not talk about this anymore. It’s only making me angry and depressed.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you, Laura. I just wanted to point out the options. I only want you…”

“To be happy. I know.” Theresa loves me. I should be less defensive. “I’ve been here five years. I’ve had nothing but the worst dates. My bastard father finally dies, and just when I think I’m in the clear, my mother freaks out and moves in with me. It’s been written in the stars that I’m going to be alone for the rest of my life.”

“Not true at all,” she responds. “Nothing is written.”

We stand up and wait next to the bench for a family on bikes to pass. They’re laughing and calling to one another, and I immediately imagine myself in their place, married with kids and happy. It seems like a delusional dream. “No, I’m not going to try online dating again. That’s a waste of time. Online dating is for people like my mother. Even if this thing with Lee doesn’t go anywhere, I want his friendship enough to try. If I lose even that, then I’ll move on. I just want the chance.”

Theresa reaches around my waist and guides me across the jogging path back in the direction of home. “You’re so optimistic, even when things knock you over, Laura. I love that about you.”

“I always get back up, Theresa. Lying down to die is not in my nature. I have no choice.”

I texted with Laura last night to set up our FaceTime this morning. I was on my way to bed, still jetlagged, and she was on her way to work, so we talked time and nothing else. I wanted to flirt more with her — ask her what she was wearing, what she’d be doing at work that day — but I stopped myself.

Our second date is over the internet. If I think too hard about that, it sounds pathetic, like I can’t just walk out the door and meet a woman in a bar like people normally do. I did, just not in Seoul, and I’m not even sure I could meet a woman here if I wanted to. I love South Korea but my American ways make me stick out. As soon as I open my mouth, they know because my Korean is good but not native. My mother always said I spoke Korean too slow, but my father would pull me aside and tell me he was proud I had learned at all. Both my older brother, Jin, and my older sister, Nari, refused to speak Korean in public. They wanted to fit in as much as possible with everyone else at school. I didn’t fit in at home, and I don’t fit in here either, except when I’m with friends.