Tina edged closer to her older sister as if to block her exit.
Leah closed her eyes as if she were praying. She opened her eyes, blowing the stray hair from her forehead. “Yobo, we can’t be late,” she said, her voice cracking.
Joseph then got up from his seat and opened the door. Once outside, he leaped almost a foot off the pavement to catch the metal gate handles with his right hand, and he pulled them down with all his might. The metal gears made a churning noise, and European Cleaners I was finally closed. The Hans walked up the street to Mr. Chan’s.
“Welcome, Joseph.” Howie shook his hand, then patted his back. “Leah, hullo, hullo,” he said, shaking her hand with both of his. A Hong Kong Chinese, Howie spoke with a heavy British accent. “My, my, my, are these your daughters?” He’d never met them before. “Could they be any more beautiful than they are?” He smiled, thinking that the girls were quite pretty, especially the younger one—remarkably so. “Then again, why should that surprise me when the mother is such a famous beauty,” he said, winking at Joseph. “Forgive me. I am flirting with your wife.”
Leah turned red and looked away. Howie spoke more dramatically inside his restaurant than when he stopped by now and then to chat with Joseph at the store. He was a tall, slender man with a straight carriage. She’d never seen him wearing his custom-made English suits before. Of course, she’d seen his clothes when they were brought to be cleaned or pressed. She’d sewn back all the dangling sleeve buttons on his shirts. His wife wore Chanel and Valentino almost exclusively, and she was a French size thirty-six. Leah had never met his wife but figured out that he also had a beloved mistress from Joseph’s oblique comments about his friend.
After Howie greeted everyone, he turned to the alcove where guests normally waited to be seated. “There’s one person here already from your party,” he said.
Unu smiled at them from where he was sitting. He hadn’t wanted to interrupt the greetings. Seated on the brown velvet bench, he’d been reading the Post, following the races that day. He dropped the paper on the bench, rose, and stepped forward.
“This is Unu Shim,” Casey said.
Unu bowed deeply and greeted them in Korean. He had a slight American accent, but his pronunciation and diction were fantastic.
Joseph shook his hand and smiled politely as if he were meeting a new attendee at church. Leah bowed but didn’t touch him. She’d been reared never to touch men outside her family, and the only reason she’d touched Howie’s hand was he wasn’t Korean. Americans were always touching. Howie was a Chinese man, but to her he was more Western than many whites.
Leah smiled at the boy warmly; he was Dr. Shim’s nephew. There was some resemblance to Ella around the eyes. Dr. Shim had said Unu was a very nice boy. “It’s too bad about the divorce, but—at least, no kids,” he’d said.
Tina raised her eyebrows at Casey. She approved.
Leah looked straight at the young man. He had a nice face, full of warmth. A good forehead—open and generous—and handsome ears with thick lobes. And he spoke Korean, pleasing her greatly.
“You’re Shim jang-no’s nephew. Ella’s cousin,” Leah said.
“Yes, I am. Uncle Douglas is my favorite uncle, and Ella’s the cousin I am closest to.”
Leah nodded, and Joseph gave a small smile. He’d noticed Unu’s ears, too—indicating good fortune.
Joseph spotted the corner of a piece of paper peeping out from his pocket.
Unu casually tucked the racing form out of sight.
“Where do you work?” Joseph asked him.
Unu mentioned the name of the fund where he worked as a buy-side analyst.
“Do you know Chuck Shilbotz?” Joseph asked.
Tina and Casey looked at their father in surprise.
“He’s my boss,” Unu said. “I mean, he’s the boss. Of everybody.”
Joseph nodded, not explaining, and he turned back to Howie, who was finishing up with a waiter. Leah then recalled who Shilbotz was—a customer. He was a fastidious bachelor whose hobby was to buy historic town houses in New York and to restore them with period details and furnishings. He lived in only one of them, a block from Mr. Walton’s town house, while owning three others. The bills for his draperies alone cost thousands, and his meticulous cleaning job required Joseph to contact both Roy, a specialist, and Kenny, the foreman at the Brooklyn plant, to make sure that nothing ever went wrong. When Mr. Shilbotz called for his curtains to be cleaned, Joseph had to accompany the delivery boy himself because the fourteen-foot draperies couldn’t be lifted just by one person. Consequently, Joseph had been to all of Chuck Shilbotz’s homes.