For four years, Casey had sold hats at Sabine’s with price tags ranging from fifty dollars to one that actually cost twelve hundred dollars （Elizabeth Taylor’s dresser had bought it for her to wear to Ascot）。 The prices had appalled her, but now, after spending twelve hours hand-sewing a homely denim chef’s hat, which included pulling out all the uneven gathering stitches and starting again, Casey wondered how anyone ever made any money. On the first day of class, Frieda had warned all the millinery hopefuls that hats were not a growing industry—its heyday had long passed; in America, only eccentrics and religious women wore them.
The phone rang, and Casey picked up right away, not wanting it to wake Jay.
It was Ella.
“You did what? What the fuck?” Casey shouted. “Damn it.” Ella was apologizing, but that was irrelevant. “Bye.” Casey hung up.
She shook Jay awake. He protested, rubbing his eyes with one hand, fumbling with the other in search of his eyeglasses on the bedside. The clock-radio’s green LCD letters read 9:15—the first day he’d had off in months.
“My mother is on her way. Can you please stay in the bedroom and not come out until she’s gone?” She sat on the edge of the bed, her eyes wide open.
“Baby”—Jay stretched his neck out from under the quilt like a turtle—“I’m not hiding in my own house.”
“Have it your way.” Casey covered her mouth with her hand. If she waited in the lobby, pretending that she was heading out, she might be able to overtake her mother. Talk at the coffee shop on Second Avenue. Though naturally her mother would wonder why she couldn’t come up.
Jay studied Casey’s anguished expression. He felt sorry for her.
“What do you expect me to do? Hide in a closet? Sit out on the fire escape? It’s freezing outside.” He dropped his face in the pillow, then looked up, having thought of something else to say. “For God’s sake, Casey, grow up. You just turned twenty-three years old. You’re still going to lie to your mother about me?”
But Casey didn’t say anything, unable to express the pain she felt. Her lips whitened at the pressure of her jaw clenching. How could he possibly understand what it would mean for her mother to find her here? She suddenly hated him for being an American and herself for feeling so foreign when she was with him. She hated his ideals of rugged individualism, self-determination—this vain idea that life was what you made of it—as if it were some sort of paint-by-numbers kit. Only the most selfish person on earth could live that way. Casey was selfish, she knew that, but she had no wish to hurt anyone. If her rotten choices hurt her, well then, she’d be willing to take that wager, but it was hard to think of letting her parents down again and again. But her choices were always hurting her parents, or so they said. Yet Casey was an American, too—she had a strong desire to be happy and to have love, and she’d never considered such wishes to be Korean ones.
She went to get her coat. Jay sank his head in the pillow. Then he sprang up and pulled on a white T-shirt and the pair of sweatpants that had been draped over the armchair. He needed coffee.
“Ten minutes. I will remain in the kitchen obscured from view for ten minutes. Then I demand a proper introduction,” Jay said, adding, “I will do this because I love you.”
“Thank you,” Casey said, accepting his offer gratefully. The buzzer rang, and she flew to the intercom. Her mother’s warbling voice rose to her—its sound broken up by the rushing wind from the street.
“It’s Umma,” Leah said, and Casey buzzed her in.
When she opened the front door, Casey found it difficult to accept that her mother was standing in that narrow foyer. She wore the navy wool three-button coat that she’d made last winter when she and Tina were home for Christmas break. The day Leah found its Vogue pattern, she’d asked the girls if they’d like matching ones. As usual, Casey said no, and Leah made one for Tina in a sturdy black wool.
Leah looked disoriented as she glanced about the living room. Casey saw her mother’s disapproval. To her, the leather sofa would look vinyl, the hand-painted flea market table would show its price of fifteen dollars, and the new gray carpet that the landlord had just tacked down was pilling too much. None of this had bothered Casey before. But her mother had just come from Ella’s—with cherrywood Ethan Allen furniture and upholstery in blues and creams.
Leah stood in her coat, her cheeks reddened from the cold, her hands clutched with worry. She studied the apartment sharply, trying to learn something about her own daughter.