5,029 words.

She shut the door, turned the key, and drove off. She saw a couple kids on bikes. She was in a residential area. Watch out shits. She looked in her rearview mirror. She was already going 40 and climbing.
She shook her head and swallowed to keep the tears back. But she’d been crying the past four hours straight so where weren’t many tears to be had. She turned on the radio and turned it off as quickly. God help me. She crossed herself. She shook her head again and again. Somewhere in the back of her mind she wondered if she should be driving. But she had to get out of the house. Do something. Feel better. Move. Breathe.
Bits of the night before flashed through her mind. The phone call. Why did she call him? Persuading him to get out of bed. Getting what she wanted…and then what? Just falling. One big freefall. Sinking low and then somehow sinking lower. She was walking with a ghost that night. She crossed herself.
She pulled over and bought some cigarettes. It had been three years since she had smoked. Quit because she was getting old. Ten years of smoking does start to show. She showed them, didn’t she? In Busan, she’d been slapped on the street for smoking. She’d stopped. But then she moved to California and smoked fearlessly. She showed them. It was a great victory. But the party was over. She thought about it as she unwrapped the plastic casing. Her brother had taught her to smoke. He’d learned it in the military where they get free smokes. She looked at the loose change in her hand. Weren’t free anymore.
She looked in the mirror. She could remember that fearlessness. From Busan to California. She could have taken on the world then. She got a fake visa, hopped on a plane. Easy. So young and stupid and drunk on confidence. Sure, she’d send money home. She’d make it worth it to her family. They wouldn’t miss her when they got the money. They’d know it was from her and it’d be like she was right there.
She inhaled so fast with the flame at the end she thought she was going to burn her tongue. She dropped the match between her legs. It was out. The taste was smoke. She took another drag and another. A dull calm spread over her body. A slightly sick, dull, calm. She spat on the floor of the passenger side twice and her throat started to gum up a little.
Why had she called him? What had she hoped would happen? What was the ideal outcome? What was her vision when she called? That was the stupidest part of the whole thing. She took another drag.

“Something horrible has happened.”
“What time is it?”
“You have to help me.”
“It’s after 12. Why are you calling me?” He walked out of the bedroom and tried to shut the door quietly.
“You don’t understand,” her voice wafted into emotion. “Do-ri is gone.”
“Dory?” That fucker always said it wrong, like an R in Railroad. “What?” disbelieving, he tried to figure out what to say. How to handle things calmly and neatly. “Look, I’ve told you…”
“Wait. Please. You don’t understand….you don’t know this, but my mother is dying. That’s part of this.”
There was a pause. “Your mother is dying?”
“Yes,” she started to cry a little. “I need Do-ri right now. I really need him.”
He wanted to be firm. But he wasn’t a monster. He was still human. He got out of bed and slinked out the door, down the hallway, so his wife wouldn’t hear the conversation.
“What happened?”
“He went out the back. You know that little space under the…you know, the yellow metal bar on the patio. He went under there…I don’t know when. A couple hours ago. I can’t find him.”
She whimpered and then was sobbing.
“Where are you?” he said finally.
“I’m at the apartment.”
She tried to emphasize the “the” in “the apartment. Their apartment. Our apartment. The apartment we lived in together. Where we laughed, cried, slept, and ate. Loved.
“Listen. I’ll help you find Dory. Let me put on some clothes. Meet me out front of your apartment.”

She opened the ashtray and stubbed out her cigarette. She remembered rubbing it clean with Arm & Hammer when she’d quit. She got it so clean she could have eaten rice out of it had she wanted to. That was her little joke to herself at the time. She took a deep breath and started the car again.
She crossed herself and instinctively she smelled at her shirt. She hadn’t washed it in a while. It still smelled like the fryer from work. She took another deep breath. Get to the store. She turned on the stereo and pushed in the tape.
Seo Tae-ji. His songs were hard. The first true rock and roller of Korea, she’d left when he was still on his way up. Korea was so fast. Surely nobody listened to Seo Tae-ji anymore. They’d probably make fun of her. Whatever. His songs could make her cry and miss her home on any normal day. But very little could make her cry now; like trying to get toothpaste out of a rolled up empty tube.
She told herself she was getting better. She said it allowed. Like in the book she’d read. She was getting better. She felt good, right? She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She tried to sway a little to the music. Nothing. She was feeling better, wasn’t she? Maybe starting to smoke again wasn’t such a bad idea. She smiled a little. Made herself laugh.
What did anyone know about life? If only she could get that old confidence again. Why not? She was older, sure. But she was still the same person. Basically. She had got on that plane like it was nothing. Screw her father who wouldn’t let her go to University. Fuck the men in the streets that slapped her for smoking. Prostitute culture. She wasn’t a prostitute. Fuck Korea.
She’d gotten off that plane and walked into that restaurant in San Francisco like she owned it. One look in her eyes and anyone would give her a job. She was soaking in it. Fire. One look and she could have anything. A place to live. A man for one night or a lifetime. It was all her choice.
Then she thought of her mother. Was it wrong to lie about her like that? To tell him that her mother was dying? Would God punish her? Or worse, her mother? She crossed herself for both she and her mother. Her mother was healthy, as far as she knew. She hadn’t talked to her in a couple of months. Must have been at the end of last summer. It didn’t feel like summer now. The summer where everything was wrong. What a horrible summer. Working all day every day. Had she even seen the sun set? Maybe through the windows. That was no sunset. Watching the sun go down, running around. In the kitchen and out of the kitchen. Trying to catch a glimpse of the sun going down. Over Applebee’s. Seeing the brilliant oranges, reds and blues. And Applebees as the sun. Customers out of sweet mustard, fries not cooked all the way through, drink refill after drink refill. And an Applebee’s as the fucking sun.

“How’d he get out?” he said rubbing his eyes as she got in the car. It was March, but it was still chilly. He was groggy and he hoped his wife didn’t notice he’d left the house.
“I told you that already.”
“How’d he get the cover off? You still have the same cover? The one I put on?”
“I don’t know.”
There was a pause. He was wearing that scarf. The scarf she gave him. She didn’t recognize the jacket. She didn’t look at his ring.
“So where do you want to look?”
His voice was deep. Always was when he woke up. She wondered how early he usually went to sleep these days. Why his wife didn’t care that he left. What kind of woman wouldn’t care? What a cunt.
“Around here.”
He started to drive up East Avenue. No shops were open. Bars were closed. He looked at the clock a couple of times. It was nearly 1 a.m. They both just sat there for a while. Cruising down the street at about 15 miles an hour. For a moment it was kind of nice, she thought. Mostly, just having him there. She could smell him a little. She wanted to hold his hand. She nervously looked up at him driving. She hadn’t held anyone’s hand in a long time. At least in Korea she could hold her friend’s hand. Her mom’s hand. What the fuck is wrong with people in this country? What was she still doing in America? The anger started to build inside her. She needed the confidence again to get the fuck out, just as she got the fuck in. Fuck these people and their godless over-sexualized nonsense. Women can’t hold hands, can they? Only if you’re fucking. Then you can hold hands. She stretched her fingers out, tried to calm down, and looked at his hand gripping the gear shift.
“Are you looking for Dory?” he said, interrupting her. Dory, she thought. Dory. Like a cowboy. Dory. Like a door. Or poor. Or roar. Scorn. Whore.
“It’s Do-ri,” she said, flipping her tongue. What is it about Americans and language that they have to make everything theirs? It’s Iran, like E-rahn. Not I ran. Like I ran to the store. Even in Korean we say it like the people say it in their own country. Not change it. It’s Roma, like Loma, not Rome, like Throne.
She turned to the window. “Do-ri,” she said, mostly to herself.
He was getting suspicious. At first he had reacted to the dog missing, but now he was wondering. He imagined the dog in their old apartment. Peacefully sleeping on the couch. He kept looking anyway as he merged onto South Livermore.
She didn’t know what to say. She wanted to look at him, not outside.
“What’s wrong with your mother?”
She had to think a minute. What. Wrong. Mother.
“She’s sick.”
“You said she’s dying.”
“She is dying.”
She looked in the passenger’s mirror, but the angle wasn’t right. She couldn’t see him. He turned left on South L St. The street was empty save a newspaper dispenser. Somehow the dispenser looked human. Like a man standing on the corner.
She turned and looked at him. He hadn’t shaved in a couple days. He looked basically the same as when they were together. A little older. He was aging more quickly than before. It had been a couple months. She wanted to lean over and lay in his lap. She wanted to hit him. Punch him in the face and lie in his lap. Like a dog. Give him a blow job and lie in his lap. Rub his knees and hold them like they were her babies.
He jerked the car over to the side of the road. “Hey!” he said. He slammed on the breaks. “What’s up? Where’s the fucking dog? Are you lying? Is the dog at home?”
At first she resisted the lurch of the car. But once he’d finished his question, she just let her body fly forward. She just let her body hang there for a few seconds. The gig was up. He knew. She lied and he knew. She wanted to see him. So she lied.

She pulled into the parking lot of a mega-store. It was starting to rain a little and she wanted to park close to the front doors. An employee was bringing in a long line of shopping carts and she could hear the metal bumping and roaring as he walked by. He was in his teens, maybe early 20s. He glanced over nonchalantly as he walked by. She watched the carts roll by, like a train, not looking at any one cart.
She’d have another cigarette before she went inside. She’d park, sit, have a cigarette, listen to some music, go inside, buy what she needed, get home, and relax. Let Do-ri lie on her lap and watch one of the Korean TV drama DVDs that her brother had mailed her.
The only parking spots she could find were far from the front. So many goddamn people around here and every one of them with a giant fucking box car. Box cars at box stores. Her mother had recently told her about the American mega-store that had recently closed in Busan. She laughed out loud, on the phone then, and again in the parking lot of a similarly styled store.
As she looked for parking she was intent on not looking where she worked. It was there, but she wouldn’t look at it. She wasn’t even going to look at that place on her day off. She crossed herself. She leaned forward and looked for parking.
What would she do if she went home? She was almost 36. Too late to get married in Korea. She imagined herself going to one of the Buddhist fortune tellers that arrange marriages. Was there any hope? Could she marry a Korean man? After having been with so many foreign men? Could she do it? The men that turn women into prostitutes? The men that slap cigarettes from women’s mouths? What kind of man could she marry in Korea? A rich man? Unlikely. Maybe a farmer. The kind who would ordinarily marry a Vietnamese woman.
She tried to put it out of her head. “Don’t think about it,” she said, in Korean. She crossed herself.
She thought there might be parking on the side. There was always side parking. No one ever parked over there. People thought it was just for handicapped people. But there were a few spots at the end. Nobody ever looked there. Idiots. Nobody in this country looks at anything. They just do. Without looking. Do. Without thinking. Do.
She made a U-turn near the RV parking. An old Asian couple worked to fix an umbrella over their table. They were playing cards. Could that ever be her? Could she get married in America? Settle down and be happy in America? Die in America?

There wasn’t much to discuss. She’d lied. There wasn’t even anything to argue about, like in the good old days. When they would argue about money. Or a movie. Or America. He was always good at criticizing America. Until she did. Then he defended it.
He didn’t even pull over the side of the road. He wasn’t going anywhere near their old apartment and she needed to know that. She did know it. She put her handle on the door but she couldn’t open it. She waited for him to say something. Anything.
Finally he said: “Is your mother even sick? Or did you lie about that too?”
That was the final straw. She turned and looked at him. Her eyes glazed over in rage and filled with tears. It was one thing to disappoint her again. It was another to call her a liar.
“She’s fucking sick, okay?!” she tried to scream but there were too many tears in her throat. “How could I lie about my own mother being sick?” She stomped her feet on the car floor several times. It sounded like a drunken drum roll. Her fair flew up and down and forward and stuck to the tears on her face.
“Do you think I’m a monster?” She screamed and then looked at him. His face was blank. He’d heard this kind of stuff before. But the pure emotion could still affect him. She buried her head in her lap and wailed into her knees. He didn’t say anything. “How could you think I would lie about that?” She tried to scream again. But then she noticed her emotion had calmed quickly. She was tired and her mother wasn’t sick. The game was coming to an end. She couldn’t even create the emotion anymore. She couldn’t fake it. She kept her head buried in her lap.
It was quiet and they could both hear the rain taping on the windshield.
He sighed and looked out her window, which fogged up. He looked up at their old apartment building. “Hey,” he said, moving his hand over her back. He thought about touching her back, just to give her a little comfort. He thought she was crazy, but still…
His hand stopped short of touching her, and just hung there, as if there were an electrical field around her. He knew he couldn’t touch her. He knew what she’d think. What she’d do. None of this was new to him. He searched for a place to put his hands. He looked at the clock. It was nearly 2:30 a.m. He thought about work the next day. He’d be a wreck. No sleep. Because of his ex-girlfriend’s usual trickery.
She sat up part of the way, like she was in shock. She thought she’d felt his hand on her back. She thought she’d maybe heard it touching her jacket. She looked ahead. What had she hoped would happen? The question started ringing in her ears. The silence went on.
She wanted to say something, but what? She’d already said she missed him. Told him she still loved him. Told him she cried all the time. Followed him. Called him on the phone. Called him and hung up. Sent him text messages saying love, shit, fuck you, I love you, care, kill, owed, you people, and everything in between. She’d hidden and watched him, tried to be direct, indirect. Thought she was doing the right thing, and then trying to do the wrong thing. She just sat there in his car. Her spine relaxed and she was slightly hunched over. She became aware that he hadn’t touched her. It was torture, all of it. But she didn’t want it to end.

Finally she found parking on the side. All the way down, past the handicapped parking. Just like she’d thought. She cracked her window and grabbed her cigarettes like a frog’s tongue might grab a fly. She leaned back and smoked. She breathed in with no problems this time. It tasted better. It was like going home. She turned Seo Tae-ji back on.
This was better. Today was better, she thought. The rain dripped on the windshield. Big drops. She took another drag. Definitely better. She’d get things in order today. Back to work tomorrow, five days straight. That was no good, but then three days off. Three days off in a row. Not so bad. Maybe she’d go somewhere. She’d definitely head to the city one of those nights. Call up some of her Korean friends and go out. The ones who weren’t married, at any rate. Get out of the apartment. Get a crew and go to the city. Eat some Korean food. It had been a while.
The same worker she’d seen earlier rolled by with a short row of carts. He didn’t gather many carts because no American can imagine going to the side of the store. For them there’s just a front and inside. She laughed a little. Stupid. But forgivable. At least she could smoke in peace. No one there to slap her face and scream “what about your baby?”
She watched the boy push the carts. He turned his head and looked at her. He squinted and had a small mischievous smile on his face. He winked at her. She immediately looked away and focused on the first thing her eyes could find. If she hadn’t she would cry. She knew that. The ashtray. Just stare at the ashtray.
She looked at her hair in the mirror. She needed to do some serious thinking. If she was going to feel better she needed that old confidence. That swagger. Then she’d know exactly what to do. In those days she could turn to her heart for anything. She had turned to her heart to come to this wasteland, maybe she needed to turn to it again in order to leave.
But it was so difficult. Her gaze drifted in the direction of her work, and she softly closed her eyes before they got there. All she could hear was the rain, car tires rolling over rained on pavement, and the shopping carts fading off a bit.

The morning after she’d called him someone called her phone. It woke her up. She had some awareness it was ringing, but couldn’t place where she’d put it. She let it go to voice mail and tried to sleep more.
Could it be him? She hoped not and felt some victory in that hope. She didn’t want to hear from him. She’d ignore the phone for a while she thought as she got out of bed. Even if it was him. The phone beeped. A message. She didn’t care who had called. Especially if it was him. She’d hear it in due time. On her time. This was the way of her new life she reminded herself. She’d have time for people when she had time for people. This was confidence. The confidence she’d needed.
She made coffee. It was 7:30 a.m. She put a piece of bread in the toaster. The phone was on the entry way table. She sat down and crossed herself. She needed to renew her connection with God. She’d forgotten to pray the night before. It’s ok. God still loves. This was confidence. She took a sip of coffee and ate her toast. Do-ri was still sleeping on the couch, curled up next to the pants she’d taken off and dropped in a ball the night before.
She finished breakfast and put the cup in the sink. She casually walked to the bathroom and saw the phone, thinking she might continue to ignore it. She sighed and caught herself on the corner of the wall. She dragged the phone and its red blinking light from the table and headed to the bathroom. She saw the number. It was from someone from Korea. It wasn’t him. Good.
It was her brother. “Happy birthday!” he said in the kind of English that Koreans sometimes use to poke fun at English. “Sorry I’m a little late sister, it must be….7 a.m. there, huh? Okay, so I’m one day late. Not even one day. One night. The morning after, right? Well, anyway, happy birthday from Korea…”
She stopped the message and put the phone next to the sink. She sat on the toilet and tried not to cry. He sounded so joyful. People in Korea often are, aren’t they? Thinking this made her want to cry too, but she refused. She crossed herself and took a deep breath and looked up at the ceiling form the toilet. Nobody is really happy in this country, she thought as she wiped herself. They have everything and nothing and no one is happy while they try to act happy. She wanted to go home where people were happy. She shook her head and said “no” aloud in Korean.
She got in the shower, picked up the soap, and furiously washed her body. Pressing her skin to feel pain instead of emotion. She didn’t cry.

She brought her cigarettes into the store. She wasn’t sure why. It’s not like she was going to smoke inside a mega-store.
She walked over to get a cart and the cart boy was there. Her heart jumped a little. He looked at her like he was trying to swallow her with his eyes. Up close she could see he was only 17 or 18. He flirtatiously raised his eyebrows at her. She ignored him. Fuck you, she thought, but then also admiring his confidence.
She pulled a cart out. The boy scooted up to her. “Let me help you with that miss,” he said, letting his hand fall on hers. She jerked it away and walked off briskly, gripping hold of the cart.
“What the fuck is he doing?” she muttered in English. How can someone do that? Just walk up to a strange woman in a store and put your hand on hers? She quickened her pace. Would he do that to an everyday American? Had he done that because she was Asian? The meek, submissive little Asian? What the fuck was he doing?
She tried to get control of herself. She needed four things. She needed Coke, milk, cotton balls and dog food. She started to repeat the list in her mind. Then out loud in English. There was one more thing she needed. “What is it?” she said in Korean.
Razors, she needed razors. Her mind stopped on that for a second. Razors. Why had she forgotten razors? Was she trying to tell herself something? Don’t buy razors. Don’t take home razors. No. She shook her head and sped up. She was sweating a little. She could feel her underarms and back getting wet. The cart ran over the tile breaks in the floor. It sounded like a machine.
Then she started thinking about her ex-boyfriend again. He was probably at work by now. Hopefully he was dead tired. She wondered what his wife had said. She must know about her. Did they still work together? No, she quit. She quit after they met. That bitch. She was getting angry and her grip on the cart got tighter. She felt some emotion in the base of her throat. She walked down the bath isle. She grabbed some soap and inhaled. Sometimes when she got angry she tried to smell something nice. Put it out of your mind. Over. Get out. She put the soap in her cart. She walked down the next aisle. The emotion was starting to pass. She crossed herself. She would be okay.
She walked slowly down the aisle. She didn’t need to be at work until 3 p.m. She had plenty of time. She took a deep breath.
She stopped and looked at the TVs and stereos. She could use a new stereo for the house. Batteries! That’s right, she did need those. She shuffled over to the battery case. Four for $5.36. Eight for $9.32. Sixteen for $12.34. Lithium, 4 for $9.89. She tried to compute in her head. That might help too. Concentrate on something. She did use batteries pretty fast and she needed them for the TV remote, and….maybe the clock soon. She took pulled the pack of eight and stared at it. The cheap brand was about $7. But those don’t work. She threw the batteries in the cart and walked toward the front of the store. As she got to the front she could see the colorful cartons of cigarettes beyond the registers. Red, green, gold, blue, sliver. Should she buy a carton? That seemed extreme. To go from being quit to buying a carton? Definitely a commitment. Though cigarettes were working for her as of today. Could be part of her new confidence. She wanted to commit to that. She’d have to think about it.
She got razors and cotton balls. Not thinking about the razors she saw the chips. She’d get some chips. She deserved it after what she’d been through. What a day. What a night. But it seemed to be getting better. She’d barely thought of him today. She grabbed some jalapeno flavored corn chips and threw them in the basket. She was strolling now. Stepping a little bit high. She felt better. Not even close to crying. Not even close. She softly crossed herself. She thought of having another cigarette in the car as she drove home. This made her smile a little. Why not? No one will ever tell you not to in this country. She had to give America that one. People don’t care, for better and for worse.
She wasn’t sure why but she started looking at the candy. She didn’t eat much candy, unless she was depressed. Then it was chocolate. She wasn’t depressed anyway. What a good feeling, she thought. She’s already getting better. She looked at the candy. Most of it was for kids. Pink and purple packages exploding, looking sweet and wild.
Then she saw something she didn’t expect. Sae Kom Dal Kom candy. It was one of her favorite candies as a child. What was it doing here? She squinted at the package and shook her head. She looked at the package, and then the entire candy shelf. It was like someone was playing a joke on her. She picked up the package. Her hand was shaking. It was nearly the same. They’d modernized the logo and such. But the candy itself looked the same. She’d never seen Sae Kom Dal Kom in America. Not even in Korean specialty food stores. Not even in the Korean stores in Oakland. She hadn’t even thought of Sae Kom Dal Kom since she was a child.
She could almost taste them. How could it be here? She looked around her. She became dizzy. A wave of emotion overcame her and she could feel she might cry. Wait! Confidence. She thought. Confidence! She started to cross herself, but it was no use. It came right up from her throat. She coughed and could taste a little smoke. Her face became hot and red. The tears rushed to her eyes and she gasped for air. The candy fell to the floor. She kneeled down, her knees were near her face. She exploded. She wept uncontrollably. Tears streamed down her face like she’d turned on a faucet. She put her knees to the floor one at a time. Like at church, she thought. She reached out blindly and let her fingertips touch the package on the floor.