Free Food for Millionaires (27 page)

“Eunah, I’ll never ask you to give up rice,” he’d said, laughing at her comment.

Unu didn’t give up right away. He brought her guidebooks or videos of movies about New York like
Annie Hall
. She read them and watched the films. She tried to be enthusiastic for him and tried very hard to think about living in America. One night when they were in bed, she turned her long body away from his and told him that she still loved her college boyfriend, whom her parents had refused to meet solely because he was from Julla-do—a poor province of South Korea, where its natives were cruelly stereotyped as cheats. She had phoned him when Unu had told her about going to America, and he’d said he was still waiting for her. That he would wait for her until he died.

Unu let her go, not because he didn’t love her, but because he did. After she left, there was a peculiar sense of heartache mingled with relief, because then he understood that the sense of doom in her life wasn’t his fault. After the divorce, Eunah married that college boyfriend from Julla-do, and they had a daughter. And now Unu, the American-born Korean from Texas, lived alone in a two-bedroom Upper East Side apartment with rented furniture across the street from his cousin Ella, who invited him to brunch every Sunday after church. Unu didn’t tell Ella that on Friday nights he drove his Volvo station wagon to the Indian casino in Connecticut and played blackjack until his eyes made him quit. In March, he’d cleared eight thousand dollars, but in February, he’d lost five.

They had just finished the fifth hole.

“So where did you learn how to play?” Hugh asked Casey.

“I told you. I picked it up in college.” Casey smiled weakly. His attention made her feel self-conscious.

“Yeah?”

She was surprised herself by how smoothly it was going. “I haven’t played in three years or so. I’m not kidding.”

“Hmmm,” Unu said, looking skeptical.

“I swear.” Casey nodded to herself, because it was true.

“Shall we make this interesting?” Hugh interrupted. “A dollar per stroke.”

“I thought you’d never ask,” Unu answered.

They all looked at Brett, the weakest player of the four.

Not to be embarrassed, and believing earnestly that the pressure might do his game some good, he upped the ante. “Two. What the hell.”

There’d been no need previously to discuss handicaps, but now, with the final scores needed, the issue presented itself. Casey didn’t want to tell them her last handicap. It would freak them out. If the average course was seventy-two par, and this one was—that is, all eighteen holes could be completed by a very fine player in seventy-two strokes—then it had been her practice to finish such a course in eighty-six, thereby making her handicap fourteen. At the height of her playing with Jay, she often shot an eighty-five or eighty-six. That was a very good score for either sex. Golf was this useless hobby where she was a natural. It was especially useless and ironic since she could neither afford to be a member of a club nor have the leisure to play. She had no car and no friends or family who played who’d take her out to a course. Jay had been the only person who’d arranged these things for her, because he loved the game, and they had a great time playing together. Until recently, the idea of playing golf at all had, admittedly, hurt her heart.

Unu gave his handicap first: “Twenty.”

“C’mon,” Hugh said. “Really?”

“Yeah.” Unu smiled. “I got nothing to prove.”

Brett said, “Thirty-five? What’s max here?” The others were very good players, and frankly, the assistant’s playing had taken the piss out of him.

“Twenty,” Casey said.

“Get out of town,” Hugh said.

Unu cocked his head. “You can do better than that. You just shot two bogeys, two birdies, and one par, which was damn near an eagle except for—”

“Yeah,” Brett chimed in.

“What did you shoot in college, Miss Full of Surprises?” Hugh looked amused at her.

“Fourteen,” she said quietly.

“Damn, girl.” Hugh laughed so hard, he had to clutch his bag trying not to fall down.

They made her take fourteen, and the game went on.

Eighteen holes passed faster and more quietly with the bet in place. Although her game was steady, the twelfth hole gave her a smidge of trouble, and the seventeenth was screwy when she lost her ball in the water. In the end, she shot an eighty-seven—a very respectable score by any measure—but because of Unu’s larger handicap, Casey ended up placing third behind Unu and Hugh. She owed Unu and Hugh something like forty dollars. Everyone paid up quickly, but Casey didn’t have her wallet with her, so she promised to get them later at the dinner.

Everyone went back to the rooms to shower. After cleaning up, she futzed around in her bathrobe. She tried not to think about the seventeenth hole. It irritated her to think of how she’d lost her focus and the angle of her wrist. She’d chuffed. It happened. She powdered her nose, resolving to be braver at dinner with Unu. Maybe she wouldn’t have to deal with him. She wanted to believe that she could pretend not to be uncomfortable.

Casey slipped the sleeveless navy sundress over her head, twisting about to zip herself up. Wide straps, a square neckline edged in white, and nipped in at the waist. She’d brought along a pearl necklace, a high-quality fake, that skimmed above her clavicle and larger studs for her ears. She laced the ties of the linen wedge espadrilles about her ankles. The outfit cost a breathtaking eleven hundred dollars—more than half her monthly take-home pay. She’d become a card-carrying Wilma—willing to pay retail for the right look. In the side zipper of her tote bag, she had exactly sixty-seven dollars and a wallet full of maxed-out credit cards, and if she forked over the money she owed to Hugh and Unu, she wouldn’t have sufficient cab fare to get back home from the airport. She had no one to blame except herself. She could’ve passed on dresses and shoes like these. Said no to the bet made on the fifth hole. Her clothes cost more than what women brokers, bankers, and analysts wore, though they made ten times her annual salary. But clothes made her feel legitimate in her shifting environments; tonight, in this dress, she was a girl who’d gone to Andover, not Stuyvesant, and a girl who’d lost her virginity at the Gold and Silver in New York, not at a roller rink in Elmhurst. She had always curated her identity, matching locale with dress, and why should this night be any different? When she completed a hat, she named it, and with this name, she tried to imagine what kind of lover the woman who’d own such a hat would make. Would she be shy or demanding? Would she trust his touch utterly or fight her feelings? Would her body rise to meet his? Through clothing, Casey was able to appear casual, urbane, poor, rich, bohemian, proletariat. Now and again, she wondered what it’d be like to never want to look like anything at all—instead, to come as you are.

When she got to the lobby, Hugh and a few others had beaten her. She was only five minutes early.

Hugh whistled. “Nice pearls.”

She picked up a corner hem of her skirt and curtsied. “Thank you.”

Hugh asked, “How old are you again?”

“You know how old I am. I am much, much, much younger than you.” She laughed. They were less than a dozen years apart, but it was a running joke that she was jailbait as far as he was concerned.

The others paid them no mind. Kevin Jennings nodded at her briefly as though he approved but would never admit that he was pleased to see her. He was a grumpy person, and by this time, Casey realized that he possessed a fine character despite his refusal to be affable on a consistent basis. Kevin and Walter talked with Seamus Donnelly, who’d finally arrived. He was a top-tier client—perhaps the most important client there—and accordingly, he received the attention he was due. Also, it should be said that Seamus was clever and amusing to talk to. Everyone would want to sit with him at dinner. As for his investment style, he was slightly more contrarian than either bull or bear—nearly impossible to predict. Walter said that in his experience, people who were independent-minded were the ones who had the potential to make serious cash and not just upper-yuppie money. Seamus Donnelly was crazy rich now, but he’d be the first to tell you that he was fifty-eight years old and his first two funds went under and that his kids had to go to state schools because he’d screwed up one too many calls.

Unu was disagreeing with Seamus about something, but they both looked pleased by the exchange. Something about manufacturing plants in Vietnam and Indonesia, Casey gathered. The crowd began to move toward the dining room, where they’d eat a steak dinner. She’d helped to plan the event, so she could recite the menu by heart. Unu was only a few paces ahead of her, wearing a white golf shirt, a pair of dress chinos, and a navy blazer. He wore a needlepoint belt with the Greek letters of his fraternity. The smells of soap, aftershave, and spray starch wafted about her. The group was mostly men—after a solid day of sun and sports, fresh from a shower, and dressed for dinner. It was like being back in college when she and her friends headed en masse to a spring formal on warm April evenings.

Unu broke away from Seamus, giving the others a crack at the great man in attendance. He waited to walk in with her.

“Hey,” Casey said. “Good game. I owe you some money. Can I send you a check when I get back to the city? There doesn’t seem to be a bank around the resort.”

“I wouldn’t have taken it from you, but Hugh’s already taken care of it for you.” Unu was pleased that she was talking to him at all. She didn’t seem upset anymore. The girl on the college golf team was back with her sass in gear. She had a natural smile that made her eyes crinkle up in a pretty way.

Casey looked around for Hugh, and when he caught her eye, he raised his eyebrows like Groucho Marx. “Thank you,” she mouthed to him. He made an okay signal with his hand.

“He didn’t have to do that,” she said.

“Something about how he owed you a shirt?”

She laughed out loud.

Unu wondered if Casey was seeing that guy, but he didn’t think so. Hugh seemed too old for her, but he did resemble the old boyfriend a bit. Hugh was a better-looking guy, however. Not married and, according to Walter and Kevin, quite the hound.

The event planner had put out the folded place cards on one round table. She and Unu were seated at Walter’s table. One broker was posted to each long banquet-hall-type table. Hugh was with Brett’s crowd and his own clients, and Kevin hosted the one with Seamus Donnelly and other top-tier clients.

Unu plopped down next to her as though it had been his intention all along. And right away, he asked her to pass the breadbasket. He plucked out two rolls and put them on his bread plate.

“I’m starved, aren’t you?” He tore into his sourdough roll and slathered two ribbed curls of butter on his broken piece. Walter sat on the other end of the long table and chatted comfortably with three portfolio managers. He was amazing at integrating several people into one discussion. Left alone, Unu and Casey chatted between themselves. It was fun to hear about Ella and Ted from someone else.

“He’s completely full of shit,” Unu remarked about Ted between bites of his bread. “But I love winding him up so he can start his canned speeches. I think I can recite them.”

“Please don’t.”

“He’s not good enough for my cousin Ella—”

“You’re telling me—”

They both nodded and laughed.

“Your bracelets. . .” He gestured toward her silver cuffs.

“Huh?”

“I heard about those from Ella long before I ever met you.”

Casey blushed. Except when she slept, she never took them off. She’d forgotten about them.

“Where’s your invisible plane?” Unu chuckled, imagining Casey in the Wonder Woman outfit. Her boobs weren’t as big as Lynda Carter’s, but they looked good as far as he could tell. Her dress had an open neckline, but he couldn’t see anything. He felt a little warm. It had been a long time since he’d felt attracted to a girl. “And where’s your truth lariat?”

She laughed again. Both Hugh and Walter glanced her way. They would no doubt tease her on Monday.

The clients looked happy to play by themselves, so Hugh got up from his chair, leaving his napkin on his seat. He wanted to go to the men’s room, but along the way, he passed Casey’s table. He stopped and draped his long arms across the back of her chair and Unu’s.

Hugh winked at Unu. “Is she still obsessing about the seventeenth hole?” He pointed at her with his thumb, his remaining fingers making a loose fist. “She’s quite competitive, this one.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Unu said.

Casey flicked her napkin at him.

“Did you know that Casey is my cousin’s best friend?” Unu asked without taking his eyes off her.

Casey smiled. That’s what Ella must’ve told him—that Casey was her best friend.

“Oh? You didn’t tell me, Casey Cat.” Hugh faced her. Another charming smile.

“You didn’t ask,” Casey replied, wincing a little at the nickname. “Besides, we Koreans all know each other. There aren’t that many of us, you know.”

Hugh raised his hand. “The white guy has an ethnic joke.”

“Shoot,” Casey said.

“Why did God invent WASPs?”

“Dunno,” she answered.

“Somebody has to pay retail.”

Casey raised her wineglass at him. “Well done.”

Unu, the male Texan, didn’t get it.

“By the way, thank you, Hugh, for paying my gambling debts,” Casey said.

“I wish someone would pay mine,” Unu said.

They all laughed; then Hugh headed to the john.

Casey watched Unu eat his steak. He’d coated the meat with a blanket of black pepper.

“Steak au poivre?” She wrinkled her nose.

“Needs
go-chu-jang
.” He said this like a dare, waiting to see what she’d say.

It was a test of sorts, but Casey didn’t flinch. “Tabasco would work nicely, too.” She’d never met a Korean who added the chili pepper paste to steak, but on reflection it didn’t sound so awful.

She didn’t know for certain if he was attractive to her. He wasn’t at all like Ted, who was traditionally handsome. Ted could have been cast in a Korean soap opera. He also had a brute quality that women liked. In contrast, Unu had a kind face, and she liked the way he looked at her with a kind of wonder and privacy. His eyes were so focused and attentive. Unu seemed fully engaged with what she was saying. She felt almost pretty near him, and she liked seeing his face, how familiar it looked to her. Especially around the brow and eyes, he resembled Ella exactly. With him there, she felt less lonely in the room. As though she had an ally. It wasn’t just because he was Korean. When she spent any time with Ella and Ted, even when Ted wasn’t being a jerk, she felt separate from them, as if they were members of some improved world, where every pot had a lid.