“What are you doing here?” She’s wearing denim overalls and a raincoat with a hood. Meanwhile, I don’t remember the last time I saw her in jeans, let alone dungarees. She’s holding a neon-yellow plastic folder. Something about the color reminds me of a crossing guard.
She glances at my oversize sweatsuit. And then down to my clothes from last night, which are swinging in my bag. “Where were you?”
“I’m just gonna grab my stuff,” I tell her, sticking my foot in the elevator door before it shuts. “I’ll leave the key with the doorman.”
“Okay,” she says. Her expression’s unreadable. “I’ll get out of your way.”
“Wait, where are you going?”
A beat. “Uptown,” she says.
“Doctor’s appointment?” I nod at the folder in her hand. She’s always bitching about crosstown traffic when she’s headed over there.
She looks down at it and frowns.
“Nah, I’m just meeting with an old client,” she says with a penetrating gaze. “Are you still coming to Texas? At least tell me if I should cancel your ticket.”
I let the elevator doors close without answering her.
She didn’t blink once.
* * *
“Jayne!” I call out.
This time it’s my sister who looks up from her phone. Startled.
It takes seventeen minutes from June’s apartment to Fifty-Third Street and Madison if you take the F or M train. It’s right where the line arcs toward Queens. You pop out at Lexington. Easy peasy.
It’s different in a car.
June’s Uber spent eleven minutes just crossing over from Park Avenue on Fifty-Second and then flipping back around the block because Fifty-Third’s a one-way. I trailed her big mouth right to the medical pavilion. She’s been here twice this month.
I’m leaned up against the thick metal column with my arms crossed. She has every reason to feel unsettled and paranoid. I still can’t believe she thought she would pull this off without me knowing.
She gets out of the car, stalks straight up to me, and grabs my arm.
“What’s the matter, Jayne?” I ask her. Her eyes flit over to the security guard by the revolving door. Then she pulls me toward a flank of plants away from the building. It’s still drizzling.
“What are you doing here?” she whispers angrily. “And don’t lie to me. I know you’re never in this part of town.” Her eyes slide down my outfit again. I’m still wearing Patrick’s sweatsuit since I’d never made it back to the apartment to change.
The truth is I’m not sure why I’m here beyond getting in a pissing match with my sister. “Me?” I ask innocently. “I have an appointment here. I thought you had to meet an old client.”
“Just once I’d love it if you didn’t make everything about you,” she says. Her nostrils flare. I can’t believe she’d have the nerve to be angry with me. “And where were you last night anyway?” She glares at my clothes bunched up in my tote and shoots me a knowing look. She rolls her eyes and turns on her heel.
I follow her into the building without answering.
I beat her to the counter. There are two brown-haired white guys in their midthirties at the desk. Their name tags read NICK and ADAM. I flash June’s ID, the one I’ve been using in bars. I smile at her. She flashes mine, the one she obviously picked up off the kitchen counter, where I left it.
Even standing side by side with identification displayed at the same time, we’re given sticky name tags with each other’s name and nobody notices.
Not that Nick and Adam don’t have the exact same face to me.
They take our pictures with a tiny round camera and hand us our sticky name tags. “All right, this one’s for… Is it Jay-eye Heyoon? Jee…”
“June’s fine,” I tell him, grabbing for it. Our IDs read Ji-young Jayne Baek. And Ji-hyun June Baek, respectively. It’s actually not that hard.
In the blown-out security photograph, I’m two little dark eyes in an expanse of white.
I hand June hers. He’s only managed to capture the top part of her head. My sister doesn’t even get eyes; she’s a hairline with a middle part.
We take the elevator, and I follow June into the labyrinthine corridors. It’s eerily quiet for how many people there are.
We’re silent on our walk. The linoleum floor is glossed to a high sheen. In the too-bright lounge in the waiting area, there’s a thin, drawn man with dyed black hair drinking a coconut Bai staring into middle distance. He’s propped with a striped cushion on the midcentury sofa and struck with a general air of incredulousness.
June pulls me toward a cluster of chairs as far away from him as possible. “Seriously, why are you here?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Jayne.”
“June,” I correct her. “My name is June. You can call me Ji-hyun if it makes you feel better.”
We watch back-to-back Property Brothers episodes without talking. Every single ad is for prescription drugs.
A woman in maroon scrubs calls my name. We both look up and follow her behind the door into a hallway.
We’re led to another room, where a tiny woman with hair parted down the middle gets up from behind a desk to greet us. “Hi, Jayne, come in.”
“This is June, my sister,” says June.
“Her older sister,” I tell the doctor, smiling. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be here sooner. I had work.” I know I’m overexplaining, but part of me is having trouble believing we’re doing this.
The doctor’s hand is cold when she shakes mine. “Dr. Ramirez.”
Dr. Ramirez has huge eyes, made larger by glasses, with a serious face and a tiny mouth. She looks like a friendly mouse. Her nude pantyhose wrinkle slightly at the knees and her severe foamy loafers give her the appearance of someone older, but I’d peg her in her midthirties. She has great eyebrows, full lips, and a reedy voice.
“So, Jayne, how was your week?” Dr. Ramirez takes a seat, gesturing to the leather-backed chairs across from her.
June sits. I sit beside her, reminding myself not to slouch.
“Fine, I guess.”
“Did you get a chance to speak to Steph?”
June shrugs insolently. I almost kick her shoes.
“Who’s Steph?” I pipe up.
June throws me a sharp look. “She wants me to talk to a counselor.”
Dr. Ramirez leans back in her chair. I can’t tell if she has eyebags or if she has one of those faces that come with eyebags. Silence settles around us.
“She thinks I need to talk about my feelings before having my uterus removed.”
“It’s a big decision,” says Dr. Ramirez, clasping her hands on her desk. “Of course it’s all up to you, but fertility preservation is an option if you wanted to explore it.”
My gaze trawls the beige walls around us. June seems to shrink in the seat next to me. I find myself staring at the innocuous Ansel Adams mountain print to Dr. Ramirez’s right. This office feels so set designed. None of this feels real. As if the walls will fall away to reveal stage lights and a live studio audience. Dr. Ramirez cannot possibly be a real doctor.