But it had the opposite effect. Casey grew silent, and whatever good feelings she had left for the day evaporated. She looked out the windshield. It wasn’t dark yet.
“Hey, hey, hey,” he said. Casey looked irretrievably sad. “I’m an asshole. I mean it.”
“That makes two of us,” she said. “I’m a horrible person.”
“Yeah, but we’re all horrible. And occasionally, we’re not.” Hugh kissed her for a long time, and Casey let this feeling of warmth come over her.
The taxi stopped in front of the building. George, the doorman, approached the car and tapped on the trunk. He saw Casey brushing back her hair with her hands, the man’s hand on her breast, and her pulling away slowly.
Casey got out of the car without saying good-bye.
“I’ll call you,” Hugh said.
She nodded. George had seen them together. Hugh had just had his hand inside her jeans and the other on her right breast, his tongue in her mouth. She could still smell his aftershave on her skin.
“Hi, George,” she said, and looked into his eyes.
George said nothing back, just nodded. He would pretend that he’d seen nothing. That was part of his job. In his work, he had seen more women cheating than men. All the talk about men being dogs seemed like bullshit compared with single girls who fucked a lot of guys at once. Unu’s girl was a whore as far as he was concerned. All her nice clothes and fancy talk in that college-girl accent didn’t mean a thing to him. George put the golf bag in the elevator for her and asked, “You all right with that?”
“I’m good, thanks.” Casey pushed the elevator button to her floor.
9 SEAM
JOSEPH HAN HAD NEVER SPOKEN to the new choir director. Deacon Kim, a whispy mechanic and baritone, had told Joseph that the young man worked hard to support himself even though he came from a boojah family and could have easily sponged off his father’s wealth. Joseph approved of this. He himself had been born into a rich household but had labored since youth. Occasionally, he wondered what would have happened to him if it hadn’t been for the war—would he have gone to the university like his elder brothers or stayed home and loafed as the youngest son? Joseph had not become rich in America, certainly, and didn’t have much to show for his life, but he had worked diligently since he was sixteen. He liked the looks of Charles Hong: thin and sober looking. He didn’t wear a necktie or a suit. Leah had mentioned that he didn’t even own a car.
Joseph had come to the choir rehearsal room this Sunday to talk to Charles Hong, because of Leah, of course. This was the fourth Sunday in a row that she had missed church. She’d been going to work, doing mostly sewing, because she’d lost her voice and couldn’t talk to the customers. She’d had a terrible cold the first half of the month, then lately she had been suffering from a stomach virus. This past week, he had made her stay home on Thursday and Friday, because she had been looking wan and feeble. She had lost weight. If she didn’t get better soon, he would get permission to close the store and take her to the doctor himself.
This afternoon, Tina, Chul, and the baby boy, Timothy, were flying into New York, and Casey and Unu were coming to the house. Timothy was finally coming. Ever since Joseph had gone to San Francisco to see his grandson, he had been feeling more hopeful. But oddly, Leah had been worsening. It wasn’t like her to go to work and skip church when she wasn’t feeling well. In their twenty-six years of marriage, she might’ve missed church only a handful of times, if that. Even Elder Shim had noted her absence. He had asked about her.
Joseph hadn’t always wanted to go to church. It was Leah’s faith that had moved him to accept Yesu Christo as his personal savior and redeemer. Joseph’s first wife had not been a Christian. But she had been a fine person, and perhaps she might have become a believer. The minister said that the only people who were saved were those who accepted Jesus and turned their lives from sin. Before she had the chance to hear the gospel, she had been taken from him. What happened to her? Joseph had always wanted to ask his minister that but lost his nerve whenever he had the opportunity.
Joseph entered the choir room, and several people greeted him right away. He bowed back at them. Charles was seated in the front part of the room behind a small wooden desk—a rough-hewn thing salvaged from the street.
Charles heard the approaching footsteps and looked up. He could hardly believe whom he saw. The man’s serious face appeared pleasant enough. It had been a month nearly since he had last seen Leah—though he’d hardly thought of anything but her since then. In his mind, she had become an imprisoned angel. All this time, he had been trying to figure out how to free her without putting her in danger. He might have thought that her husband could have killed her or taken her away but for the fact that for the past four Sundays, including this one, the soprano Kyung-ah Shin had explained that Leah was sick. It wasn’t possible to ask the friend anything beyond if she was all right, and Kyung-ah had volunteered no extra information. In the midst of his frequent reveries, Charles would occasionally come to his senses and recall that she was a long-married woman, someone who’d known nothing of the world except for her husband and two grown daughters. But she was evidently in love with him—Charles felt sure of that. But doubts surfaced inevitably: If she were the kind of woman who’d leave her aging husband after a lifetime of marriage, then would she be the woman Charles would or could love?