It had been a productive morning, to say the least. Jiyeon felt as though she’d been awake for days. After helping with post-breakfast cleanup in the kitchen, she threw herself into preparing for a meeting with Eric. When she checked her phone, a message from Eunjae was waiting to be read.Hey, good luck. Kick Eric into next week.
She smiled, typing as she left her room.More like next year.
Jiyeon had never met with multiple Erics at once. They'd always maintained a quota of one Eric per visit, as if gathering in greater numbers might implode the space-time continuum. She'd whiled away many dull presentations by imagining the Erics spontaneously combusting if they ever laid eyes on each other. But today there were three of them in the library, wearing serene smiles and Prism baseball caps. The one in the middle had been at the lake last night.
As if a council of Erics wasn't enough, they'd also brought an alternate Erin. Cozy in a teal sweatshirt, she sat beside the fireplace, laptop balanced on her knees. She’d taken the last available chair, meaning Jiyeon would have to stand. Original Eric shuffled some papers, maddeningly cheerful as usual. “Good morning, Miss Han! Isn't it gorgeous out there? If you'll hang on another minute or so, we're waiting on one more.”
Jiyeon made a slow circuit of the room, perusing the bookshelves, peering through glass cases at Langley family memorabilia. The library served as a repository of yellowing documents and photos in tarnished silver frames. Here was someone's wedding band, and a cameo locket left open to show the tiny picture tucked inside. Portraits of long-dead citrus barons were also in ample supply.
So many objects, so many stories. She wondered what all the sad-eyed women were thinking, when they posed for these photographs in their best dresses and lace mantillas. She wondered if they thought of this place as a house or a home.
“Am I late? I never thought I'd run into traffic in a little town like this.”
Leila, with her cosmopolitan accent and supermodel smile, hair swept into a chignon. Of course she'd be the final addition to this meeting. She shut the door behind her, trailing the scent of expensive perfume. The Eric on the left surrendered his chair without hesitation.
They traded pleasantries. Jiyeon crossed to the stained glass windows. She’d always loved the panels in their door at Wanna Waffle. She perched on the sill, finding comfort in the play of color and light. Her sister would call it a good omen. A sign or a message, like the universe sending courage when she needed it.
“Why don’t we get started?” Eric flipped to the next page in his sheaf of papers. “You’ve got great timing, Miss Han. There's some exciting stuff in the works. Can't wait to hear your input.”
The other Erics concurred. Erin tap, tap, tapped on her keyboard. “We’ve got an awesome opportunity for you. We took an idea from Leila and ran with it. That’s why we invited her to sit in. Oh! But did you want to go first? You’re the one who called the meeting.”
Another idea from Leila. Great. “No, go ahead. Let’s hear it.”
There was a short debate over who should do the honors. In the end, Leila took the lead. “I just couldn’t stop thinking about your salon. I see how hard you work every day, and you never seem to have a minute for yourself. When you’re not here, you’re helping your parents. You should be chasing your dream, Emma.”
Erin chimed in, some saccharine nonsense about Leila being so supportive. She even threw in a joke about Jiyeon being lucky to have such a fantastic future mother-in-law. So they weren’t even bothering to feign ignorance on that front. Good to know.
“To that end,” said Eric, taking over, “we’d like to start the next phase of your rebrand. Now, you’ve done an amazing jobdeveloping this warm and relatable online persona. Your clean record has definitely made a positive impact. Thanks to these leaks, fans are now aware that you interact with Apollo on a regular basis. They’re not upset about it, which is a welcome surprise. Love being wrong, let me tell you!”
Erin nodded at this, fingers hovering over the keys. “Sunshines currently don’t perceive you as a threat. That’s been our trajectory all along, but we need to reinforce it more than ever. You’re not looking for romance, you’re looking to level up as a professional. The guys are fun, but you’ve never lost sight of your goals. That’s the angle.”
Here, Eric set some pages on the coffee table, showing Jiyeon that they were commercial property listings. “Our goal is to present you, Emma Han, as the strong and independent young lady that you are. Career-focused. Driven. Starting this week, you’ll be dropping a lot of your diner shifts to work on a fresh content push. We’ll roll out new posts as a counter to the videos that went viral. Erin has you scheduled to tour three spaces available for lease, all very well-suited for a salon.”
“We’ve also got a few partnerships for you.” Erin listed a real estate brokerage, a cosmetology school, and an interior design studio. Solid choices. Prism had clearly been working on this gambit for weeks.
Jiyeon slid down from the windowsill. Fighting to keep her emotions in check, she took up the printed listings, skimming through descriptions, scanning the numbers for square footage and monthly rent. “You want me gone,” she observed, wryly.
“Yes!” Leila replied. “We do. We want you out there, making that childhood dream come to life! You deserve to have this chance. To be honest, it’s what I wish I could’ve had, when I was your age. I was so young when I got married, and then Ari came along. It was years and years of getting him to lessons, finding tutors, singing competitions. I gave it everything I had. I had togive up on my career, my big dreams.” She sighed. “I’m so happy, Emma. I helped my son, and now I can help you.”
I helped my son.Jiyeon took a breath. She counted to ten. “Hmm.”
“Now, I know you’re a huge help to your brother, but Prism has a replacement lined up for you. Everything’s covered. You can focus on Emma, Emma, Emma and finally get your business off the ground.”
“Thanks, Leila. It’s so nice of you to care about me like this.”
“Of course I care!”
“What if we toured these places together?” said Jiyeon, flipping the switch, putting on her sunniest smile. “I’d love that. Wouldn’t you?”
“It sounds lovely. Wouldn’t you rather go with Arthur, though? Childhood dream, childhood friend. Those go together, don’t they?” Leila looked to Eric for backup. “I’m no PR expert, but I’ve been learning.”
“You’re my star student,” Eric assured her. “Mr. Hong would be the perfect special guest for these posts.” To support this assertion, the bonus Erics produced content calendars, updated metrics, samples of captions and topics to pursue in her quest for the ideal salon space. Jiyeon stopped them midway through.
“I won’t bring Arthur with me. I understand what you’re going for, but I think it would be confusing to include someone from my past in a content series about my future. It’s not the creative direction I want to take.”
Jiyeon kept talking so that no one had a chance to object. “This works out pretty well, really. At breakfast this morning, we were talking about some posts I could put together for the show, in collaboration with Apollo. I’ll have more time for both projects if someone’s covering me here.”
Eric’s smile wavered. “The production approached you with this?”
