Best,
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Senior Storytelling Strategist
Entertainment Division
PRISM STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT
+ 82 2-555-XXXX
www.prismstrategies.com
“Every angle in the best light”
- - - - - - - - -
CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This message may contain sensitive and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, copying, and/or distribution is strictly prohibited.
9
Dawnwasjustablue haze on the horizon when Jiyeon clocked in for Thursday’s opening shift. In the dining room, shadows settled among the tables and stacks of chairs, steeped in the restaurant’s signature aroma of waffles and maple syrup. A pale orange glow peeked through the gaps between window shades. She propped the back door open with a gigantic wooden wedge, provenance unknown. Like so many things at Wanna Waffle, it had been there forever.
As sunrise gilded the sky, she helped her father move a succession of potted plants outside, some grown so large that Joey needed both arms to carry them. “I feel like these are multiplying,” Jiyeon mused, watching him lumber out of the restaurant with a fern straight out of the Jurassic era. It seemed even more massive than the last time they did this. Her dad continued humming to himself, setting his cargo on the asphalt with great care. He patted the fern’s leaves as though it were a puppy.
“Got a good deal the other day,” Joey said. “Orchids on clearance, just forty cents at Lowell’s! Not bad, huh? Picked a nice one for Ryan, too. He can put it in his new place. Easy to take care of, orchids. Perfect for beginners.”
She smiled at this. “Oh, sure. He’ll love it.”
Once they’d arranged all the plants in a row, Joey paid a visit to each one, pouring a silver stream of water from a pitcher reserved for this purpose. Jiyeon had no doubt there would be at least three new plants next Saturday. And there would be a fresh argument about what to call them; her dad insisted that each plant deserved a unique name, but Lizzie thought that was overly ambitious. She insisted that they should all just be named Charles. It worked for Jane Austen and it would work for Joey Han.
Coffee grounds, fried dough, damp earth. Jiyeon breathed in the scent of a new day and wondered when these sensory details had become such a bone-deep comfort. Her sixteen-year-old self had loathed getting up before the sun for her obligatory shifts at Wanna Waffle. She’d counted the hours until she could toss that orange apron on a hook and spend the rest of her day elsewhere. Now Jiyeon found herself wanting to stay right here, where everything felt worn and weathered, as familiar as the future was uncertain.
She snapped a picture of the fern for Eunjae. He wouldn’t see it right away, late as it was in Seoul right now, but it might cheer him up. He’d been quieter than usual since he called about the show.
By Jiyeon’s estimation, things could be a lot worse.Sunshine 24/7would film a little over an hour away, in Monroe. Eunjae wouldn’t be in another country anymore. And the production team had decided on shooting at a renovated diner rather than turning Wanna Waffle into a stage set. They could carry on with business. It was Denny she worried about. He’d told theirparents that he planned to do the show, that he’d stay with Apollo through November as originally agreed, no matter what that entailed. But she knew that this plot twist gnawed at his conscience.
Even as Eunjae felt guilty about Denny being drawn into this situation, Denny felt guilty about being away so long. The shop meant just about everything to him.
Just then, Lizzie poked her head out of the kitchen, whipping up some muffin batter. “Yeonnie, tell me again when your brother will be on TV. Next month?”
“No, that’s just when they’ll start filming. I don’t think anyone can watch the show until next year. January or February, maybe.”
Jeannie poked her head out for the express purpose of tattling. “She’s talking about it on the phone. I saw the earbuds go in.”
“I’m not talking about anything!”
“Better not be,” warned Jiyeon. “You could get Denny in trouble.”
Morning traffic rolled to a stop on the boulevard. Music poured through someone’s car window, heavy on the bass. Taking the plastic pitcher from Joey, Jiyeon circled around to the front of the shop, where a few more plants took pride of place next to the orange door. Once she’d watered these, she went back inside, finally remembering to send that fern photo to Eunjae. That was when Jiyeon noticed the two missed calls from her agent. What could Colette want from her at this hour? They hadn’t spoken in months, what with Emma going into sudden retirement.
Actually, this was… a ton of notifications. Her phone kept buzzing. Every time it went off, Jiyeon’s fingers itched to toss the thing into the oven and crank the heat as high as it would go. It didn’t help that two of the newest messages were from Arthur.And she had an email from someone named Eric at Prism Strategic Management, whatever that was about.
No way did she have time for this right now. There was an endless checklist in her mind: bring out more coffee cups, take down the chairs, an Apollo sticker to scrape off the wall behind Table 6. And she kept finding things to do, a bevy of small tasks that kept her occupied until the shop opened thirty minutes later. Between the morning and lunchtime crowds, it was 2:00 in the afternoon before Jiyeon had a chance to just sit for a second.
She started with Eunjae’s text from the airport, saying they were off to Bangkok. Then there was another missed call from Colette and a second email from Prism. “Hold on,” she murmured. Wasn’t that the name of Apollo’s newly hired public relations firm?
