If you never knew him, back when I knew him, maybe you wouldn’t notice the difference. Years ago, Won was the first person to come out to me. He didn’t know it then, of course—I didn’t, either—but his words granted me permission. I remembered that boyish face, his eyes at sixteen, as dearly as I recalled my first crush on a girl: the feeling of Ping’s fingers hovering on top of mine over the piano keys, barely touching, the heat radiating from the palm of her hand while it covered my own. Back then, Won’s gaze on me seemed to telegraph a message carried by some distant future light, one that asked me to trust in the possibility of a different road than what was offered to my father, the burden of which—my mother, me, the semblance of our lives together as a family—eventually killed him.
Won untied the smock at my throat and shook it loose with a flourish. I stood from the chair and stepped aside from his station while Won swept up the pieces of my hair on the ground with a broom. I checked out my reflection, turned my head from side to side. My bob looked great, styled in an effortless way like nothing I could duplicate at home. I thanked Won and tried to tuck some bills into his jeans pocket, but he waved me off.
“Just do me a favor, Jane?” He paused, and I waited for him to go on. “Keep writing in that notebook, will you?”
“I told you,” I said. “I can’t think of anything else I hated—”
He held up a hand to stop me. “Not about Carly,” he said. “Write something else.”
“Like what?”
“Anything,” he said. “Ideas. Thoughts you have.”
I frowned.
“Write a letter to Fiona,” he said. “No time difference on paper.”
“You’re taking this life-coach thing a little too seriously.”
“Write to your dad,” he said.
“For what?” I said. “Got nothing to say.”
“I think you do, though.”
I was silent for a moment. “Maybe we should push the marriage pact to thirty-two,” I said finally. “Thirty-three. Also,” I added, “we need a provision for kids.”
“Oh hell no,” he said. “Kids? Why are you always trying to get me in bed? Hard pass—”
“Shut up, Won,” I said. “I hate you so much—”
“I hate you more,” he said.
“I’m leaving,” I said. “Don’t call me.”
“Why are you still here?”
“I love you, stupid.”
“You’re welcome for the haircut!”
“I know you love me, too,” I said.
“Stop coming on to me,” he said. “I don’t like you like that, Jane. I told you—”
“Stop lying,” I said. “You asked me to marry you.”
* * *
? ? ?
2. Controlling
I thought about the fight we’d had about my mother. After Mah’s knee surgery, I started visiting her at home more regularly on the weekends. Up until then, Saturdays had been my standing date night with Carly, when we treated ourselves to dinner out and a movie at the ArcLight, or cooked a meal together at her place, Xena and Gabrielle underfoot. After accepting a few rain checks, Carly wanted to cash in. She said she wanted to meet my mother. I hesitated. She asked if I was out to my family, and I reassured her I was. Mah knew what was up with me, though she wasn’t exactly rallying to head up her own local Asian American chapter of PFLAG. I told Carly I needed more time.
Besides my past with men, this issue became another battle she waged constantly. I told Carly I wasn’t close to my mother. Still, I was her only child, and as her daughter I had certain responsibilities. When she needed help around the house, I showed up. I had to. There was no one else.
Later on, Carly started following a new thread. “She met your ex,” she said.
“Baby. Don’t start.”
“She liked him? What was his name?”
I didn’t answer. She knew his name was Danny and that he was locked up now for assault and battery, grand larceny.
“Because he’s Asian?” she said.
“She’s going through a lot,” I said. “She’s still recovering from her surgery.”
“I just want to know what kind of bigot I’m dealing with,” Carly said.
“What did you say?”
“You’re blind to it, Jane. Your mother is ignorant. She uses her Bible—”
That was when I stood up and without thinking, I slapped her face hard.