I nodded.
“I might recognize it if it really was my dad’s bag,” she said.
“It would mean Kent stole the money or knew who did.”
We couldn’t get to the Yuns’ kitchen fast enough. The house was empty, and the bag was nowhere to be found.
When we reached Paul by phone, he said he was driving back from the town waste center. He had thrown the bag away.
“But I just saw you, how could it be gone already?” I said. “Is it in the trash? We could go through it; it might be the evidence we need against Kent.”
“You were so upset by it that I took it to the town dump along with old boxes and things my grandparents had been asking me to throw out for weeks. I’m sorry,” he said.
“Can we go pick through—” I began. Channing was pacing the kitchen frantically.
“I’m sorry, it’s a huge place, they just took the bags and I saw them throw them into a truck, it was crushed, I’m sorry,” Paul said. He sounded so sad that I had to tell him it was okay.
Channing saw the look on my face when I hung up and said, “It’s gone?”
I nodded.
“We need that bag to prove Kent stole the money.” I was so mad atmyself for reacting so strongly. If I hadn’t, then Paul wouldn’t have gotten rid of it so fast, and we’d have our evidence.
Channing sighed again. I was pounding my fists into the sides of my legs. “Dahee, it’s not your fault. There’s another way. There has to be.” She shook her head as if to clear it and hugged me. I couldn’t let it go as quickly as she could.
I didn’t go up to the apartment with her. Instead, I took a long walk around the block, trying to calm myself down. Reminding myself as my hands tingled that there had to be another way. The duffel would have helped clear my uncle’s name.Focus on Channing, I told myself. We were running out of time.
Chapter 38
I’d always believed that the point of a story depends on when it ends. If “The Tale of Chunhyang” concluded when the evil magistrate imprisoned her, that would be one way to say that evil won out. If it ended when Chunhyang was freed by Mongryong, then it would mean that love triumphed.
Despite my cynicism, the Korean love story had made an impact on me, too. I considered myself a person who dictated the terms of her own life, and yet I was passive right now. I’d been waiting for Minjae to return to East End and vanquish evil Kent, free Channing, and live happily ever after. I had hoped that he—or even my grandfather before he’d died—would save us. I tried to push past that expectation now. Minjae and my grandfather were gone. There was no one left to fight Kent but us.
Ames was right about Kent winning. He was determined to destroy Channing. If he couldn’t have her for himself, that was one way my cousin’s life might have gone. One ending to the story. There was more than one way to hold Channing captive. Kent had found a way to separate Channing and Minjae.
What kind of story would that be? The one circulating around town was that Kent was the hero. The popular man in service to the people by working for the mayor. The man who had saved a woman who had little means to make a living for herself not because she wasn’t talented butbecause she just couldn’t apply herself to living in the real world, who had lost her mother as a child, whose father was destitute and an alcoholic. How fortunate that Kent found her suitable for a wife. Not “lovable”—they didn’t talk about love. It was shelter. As if he were her protector. I had to laugh. And cry. And live knowing I’d let Harabeoji and Channing down.
If Channing complied, Kent said he would drop the charges and a wedding date would be set. He didn’t care if she didn’t love him. He wanted her to belong to him as his legal wife, as if she were his possession. I knew my cousin well though. She’d never agree. Channing would go to prison for years rather than capitulate to Kent. Everyone would believe she was guilty because the justice system would brand her that way.
Here’s another ending to the story: The afternoon Paul drove Channing and me back to his apartment above the garage, I left them and headed back to Middle Street. There were more cooler days than sweltering ones. The weather was brisk on that Wednesday after Labor Day. The change in the air made me feel more alert and determined. I pushed thoughts of Harabeoji’s death out of my mind and told myself to do what he’d want me to do.Believe in yourself, he would have said to me.
I’d assumed Ames would be at theEast End Courier’s office. It was closed. Ames didn’t reply to numerous texts and calls from me asking her to meet. I was about to give up when I remembered how Paul had pointed to the row of windows above the café when we’d sat at Bike and Basket, so I took a chance and looked for her name next to a row of electronic doorbells nearby. Apartment 2C had an “A. Y.” name tag, so I rang that one. In seconds I heard the door unlatch. The lobby was cluttered with boxes. Ames took a while to open her door and backed up when she saw me. She was dressed like Channing in sweatpants and a T-shirt. Her feet were bare.
“I thought you were a food delivery service for someone in the building,” she said. “I was all set to direct you to the correct apartment.”
“That’s nice of you to help,” I said, and added quickly, “Remember you told me once about trying to get the Korean families in town to talk about what happened back in 2005. You believed your parents, who told you that Channing’s dad stole money; it was the reason they didn’t let you play with her anymore. There’s more to that story. It’s just the tip of the iceberg.”
She filled her cheeks with air and then let it out in a pop before inviting me in. I took off my sandals and left them by the door inside. Despite my feelings about East End now and not being interested in living here anymore, I found myself admiring Ames’s apartment.
There was a cooktop and a farm kitchen sink, a long wooden table with a marble slab on a portion of it, a tall gallery of windows from which you could look down on Bike and Basket, a warm maple-brown slick hardwood floor throughout, a large antique brass post bed with cream bedding, and a clump of pink and green pillows covering it. On the extra-long beige couch was a fluffy purple throw blanket. A square card table with folding chairs were the only items that looked as if they weren’t planned for this space. On the table were two closed laptops, a printer, and a spread of issues of theEast End Courier. Against a wall, a rolling clothes rack held up a handful of dresses like the one she’d worn the first night at her grandparents’ cookout, shirts, and pants. A capsule wardrobe, tidy and neat.
Not having a lot of clothes as a kid made me a bit of a hoarder. It calmed me to open my closet and see a row of skirts, just in case. If I didn’t get a chance to go the laundromat that week, then I had plenty to wear. When I was young, I remembered having to put on the same shirt and pants I’d worn the day before or watching my mother stay up late to wash a dress by hand for herself.
“I’m always at my grandparents’ house,” she said, watching me look around. “So I hardly eat here.”
“I think it’s great,” I said now about her apartment. “I wish mine was this big.”
“Everything outside New York City is palatial,” she said.
