“He can be a dick, but he knows he can’t use the paper any way he wants,” she replied.
“That’s good,” I said. “You know him pretty well since you dated him.” When she hesitated, I added, “He keeps using the door code to get into the Ahns’ house at all hours to see Channing.”
She made a face as if she’d tasted something bitter. “He’s annoying, I get it. One of his strengths is that he doesn’t give up easily. If he wants to go out with Channing, she should just do it, and then at least he’ll feel she gave him a chance. There’s nothing he can do after that. As long as she keeps refusing him, he’ll keep trying.”
“That’s your advice?” It sounded useless.
She rolled her eyes. “How would I know? East End isn’t what it seems to be. Everything is about to collapse. Like this newspaper. I thought I was working at a pretty stable place. Small, but one I could really write longpieces for, and now it turns out it could go under without some major advertisers. Subscriptions have fallen. We need more readers; the paper needs more financial support. I shouldn’t have given up my job in Boston.” She put both hands on the edge of the table and leaned back. “Where the hell is Paul with my drink?”
Just then my phone rang, startling me, and I spilled coffee on myself. It was Channing calling to say the camp had called. Edison and Austin were missing their swimsuits. Could I bring them immediately? “We’re heading back, but it’ll take a while,” she told me. I left right away. It was my fault they didn’t have their suits since I’d packed their backpacks that morning. I would have liked to talk more with Ames, plus say goodbye to Paul, but Channing said it was almost time for the boys to swim and I had to hurry.
When I explained why I had to run, Ames just said, “I get it. Cousins,” and ate what remained of the pastry.
I remembered Channing’s words about Kent knowing everyone and everything that happened in East End when I drove into the town park’s lot with the boys’ swimsuits on the passenger seat beside me. Kent was dressed in a suit, standing with a group of other people in similar attire by the building where I had dropped the kids off earlier. As I neared him in the Ahns’ SUV, he jogged over.
Massive disappointment was the only way to describe the expression on his face when he discovered me behind the wheel. He jerked his head side to side as he peered around me, stared a bit too long at the coffee stain on my chest. He seemed to think Channing was in the car somewhere, hidden from sight.
“What are you doing here?” he said.
“Can you excuse me? I’m in kind of a hurry.” I grabbed the swimsuits and was about to open the car door, but he wouldn’t move away.
“Is she sick?”
I pictured her in Minjae’s little red car and assured Kent she was fine.
“Does it have to do with her health issues? Until you told me, I didn’t know,” he said.
Did I look guilty for telling him a lie? I said quickly, “I’m going to be late. Can you please let me out?”
It was 11:20. I could just imagine the boys’ anxiety rising as they waited for me. Kent wouldn’t move. I pushed the door open, forcing him to lurch back just in time. I felt his eyes on me as I ran toward the camp office.
A large group of children sat by the pool, talking and laughing, pushing and hugging each other, sometimes at the same time. Austin was sitting on a bench by himself. He had his arms around his knees. “Austin! Hey!” I called to him. He didn’t react.
A woman wearing the purple T-shirt of the town camp stepped in front of me.
“Parents aren’t allowed until pickup,” she said sternly.
I waved the swimsuits in front of her. She showed me her clipboard, and I pointed out the names of the two boys, after which she took the suits from my hand and refused to deliver them until I started walking away. I had to turn my back and leave.
Chapter 19
There was nothing else for me to do, so I drove to the house on Sandpiper Lane, trying to focus on the positive. At least I’d gotten the suits to the kids. Hopefully, they were still able to join their camp friends and swim. I made myself some lunch and took it outside to eat. A light breeze rustled through the full green leaves of the young poplar trees that ringed the yard. I felt it again, the strangeness of this suspended time in this town. In high school, after she’d moved to Boston, Channing and I used to talk about dreams we had about East End in the years afterward.
Her dreams always began in the kitchen of her house in the morning, where her mother would be drinking coffee and Channing would say, “Eomma, what are you doing here? I thought you were dead.” Her mother would say, “Oh, honey, did you think cancer would beat me? We’re way tougher than that.” Channing would say, “Who’s ‘we’?” And her mother would reply, “You and me.” And Channing would feel relief wash over her. She’d run into her mother’s arms and say, “I can’t believe I doubted you.”
I dreamt of Channing’s mother when I was stressed about my job. The part I remembered most vividly was standing in my aunt’s bedroom in her house as she handed me a book and said I should remember what it felt like to be a child. That was the key. “They’re more like you than it seems at first. Everyone is really more alike than different. Teach second-grader Dahee.” I looked down at the book she’d handed me and woke up.
Thinking of her filled my heart with a heaviness I couldn’t bear in that moment, so I got up and went inside. I wanted, suddenly, to read a good book. I went in search, but all the Ahns had were cookbooks. On Channing’s laptop, the Kovikiflix app flashed when I touched the screen showing she was on episode six of the Chunhyang series. I flipped through to see if another show appealed to me. Nothing did. I closed Channing’s laptop and told myself I was ridiculous for looking for ways to kill time. I was sure Channing could manage the boys now, especially with Minjae’s help. They’d figure out how to deal with Kent together. When you have a boyfriend, a real relationship, other interested parties gave up, didn’t they?
Harabeoji and I would figure out what time we’d leave East End. Thinking of going to New York reminded me to check my school’s computer app. With a large teaching and administration staff of a New York City public school, people commented often and regularly, so I’d turned off the notification alerts. As expected, there was nothing urgent when I popped on, just a series of messages from my principal and assistant principal asking the staff when they’d be decorating their rooms. There was an informational session tomorrow for new faculty not relevant to me. I wrote in a separate private message to the principal that I would be back soon. Thursday at the latest. In my mind I imagined that Harabeoji and I would leave tomorrow or early on Wednesday.
After an hour, Harabeoji called with details about the meeting at the bakery. He couldn’t ask them directly, but he said he put it out there that young people like to arrange their own relationships. He said that Channing had expressed no interest in marriage at this time.
“Mrs. Ku, whom you met at the beach club, told me that Kent is an outstanding man, her words. She’s been advising him for years—knows him best. I told her privately that Channing is not interested in Kent. So Mrs. Ku’s going to talk to him. I think it’s all going to be fine. She wasn’t happy with Channing as a choice, she apologized for saying that, but she says it’s obvious without a mother, she isn’t going to be approved by Kent’sparents. And the reputation of Channing’s father had reached Koreans in Seoul, and no one appreciated his battle with alcohol.”
“That’s not fair for his parents to reject her because her mother died,” I said, even as I was glad Kent would have another reason to back off.
“It seems as if he had his mind set on Channing from seeing her in Boston,” Harabeoji said.
