Free Food for Millionaires (49 page)

When she checked her overnight bag, she saw that she’d forgotten to bring her Bible and notebook. She felt like kicking something. It had been such a long time since she’d gone away that she didn’t realize how routinized it had become for her to read her chapter, to write down her daily verse. She might forget about God for the whole day, and often did, but it had become part of her morning rituals, like her shower, coffee, and teeth brushing. And because she was missing church, too, she felt out of sorts.

There was no newspaper outside the door, either. Her fancy travel style with Kearn Davis had spoiled her for perfectly good and free hotel rooms, and Casey had to laugh at herself. When she’d come out of the shower, the towels had felt scratchy compared with what she used at home and at the five-star lodgings she’d stayed at for work. It was absurd for her to have these princess expectations with a pauper’s pocketbook. She drank her coffee from a Styrofoam cup and wondered what was the point of rising in the world if the height was so insecure. Her mother and father had never even stayed at a hotel.

Unu was sleeping soundly. And why did it bother her so much to miss church and her Bible reading? Surely she didn’t follow most of the Christian precepts: She was sleeping with a man whom she couldn’t marry even if she wanted to; she couldn’t stand her parents and had minimal contact with them; she still felt allergic to most Christians and do-gooders; and she wasn’t at all sorry about any of this. The Bible was clear: If you believed, you were to turn away from your wickedness. Casey had scarcely shifted. Yet in her resolute irritation and unimproved state, she was looking more for God, if that made any sense at all. She hoped for a clue as to what to do next.

Unu’s eyeglasses rested precariously on the nightstand next to the heap of chips. Casey walked toward the table, curious as to how much he’d won. She still had the eight thousand–plus dollars’ worth of chips in her purse. There was nearly double that on the nightstand. Was that normal for him to win so much in a night’s playing? Who was this man sleeping on the bed so innocently? Casey picked up a hundred-dollar chip. The black chip with gold numbers felt solid in her hand. It must have been something to have this kind of payout. Was it intuition, strategy, or gut feelings? Was it math skills in tandem with good memory? How would he ever walk away from this life? she wondered. There was something sexy about what he could do, but she had seen him lose big, too. This life was too erratic to admire, and Casey recognized that she craved steadiness in a person she loved. He was so different from Jay, whom she had come to love like a relative, and though Unu was the Korean one, he did not feel familiar to her. And she was different now, too. She put down the chip and opened the top drawer of the nightstand, fishing around for hotel stationery. This would be a good time to write Virginia.

There was no stationery. However, there was a copy of a Gideon Bible. Casey sat down to read her chapter in Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians and scribbled down her verse on the memo pad by the phone: “Each one should remain in the situation which he was in when God called him.” In that chapter, Paul was talking about what kind of life you had when God called you to have faith and how you should respect it in all its complexities. To be honest, Casey wasn’t crazy about the apostle Paul. He was difficult and arrogant, and she didn’t think he liked women. There were many things about the Bible and God that confused and irritated her, but Casey couldn’t dismiss this faith bizarrely growing inside her like a gangly tree sprouting from a concrete pavement. She often thought about her college professor Willyum Butler and wished she could talk to him, but he was dead. Death. That was upsetting, too.

“Good morning,” Unu said, squinting at her. He fumbled around and found his glasses.

“We missed church,” she said, disappointed. But she didn’t feel angry anymore. “Do you think we can go back to the city now?” She smiled at him. “After you cash in your chips, that is?”

“I’m sorry about last night,” he said. “I was doing well, and I wanted to make back the rent.”

“The rent?” Casey tried not to look worried.

“I was behind.”

“I have my paycheck,” Casey said. She hadn’t known about the rent.
But how much were you behind?
she wanted to ask him. “You can have whatever I have. I live there, too.”

“You gotta pay your debts with it, baby. That was the deal,” he said. “Besides, I made eighteen thousand dollars last night. Not including what you took up in your purse.”

“Do you win that much. . . often?” Casey asked. It was more money than she could imagine. It was almost tuition for school.

“It’s the most I have ever won. In my life. And I’ve never needed it more. Now, the problem is cashing it in and walking out.”

“Will there be a problem?” She didn’t know if he meant that the casino wouldn’t let him.

Unu shook his head, as if he were telling himself no. “I’m not going to return to the tables today,” he said. “Hey, let’s go eat breakfast, then I’ll drive you back.”

Along the highway, he apologized again about not returning the night before, and Casey told him to forget it. It was really okay, especially seeing him more lighthearted.

“I feel a little bad that we stayed for free, ate for free, and you won all that money.”

“Believe me, I’ve paid my dues,” he said, and coughed a little.

Casey nodded, thinking that was probably right.

“Do you have a cigarette?” he asked.

“No,” she said after checking her bag.

“Check the glove compartment.”

Casey popped it open. There were two packs of Camels and a green sheet of paper. “What’s this?” She glanced at it.

Unu was shifting to the left lane and couldn’t look her way.

The green paper was a schedule for Gamblers Anonymous. The Wednesday smoking meeting near Fourteenth Street was circled.

“Have you gone?”

“Oh, that.” Unu noticed the schedule in her hand, then turned to look at the road. His hair was still wet from the shower, and his sunglasses shielded the discomfort in his eyes. “I went. Once.”

“And?”

“Cigarette, please,” he said, and Casey lit one for him. “Radio, please.”

Casey turned it on, and a Hall and Oates song came on: “Private Eyes.”

Unu began to bob his head, his lips pursed, as if he were getting into the music.

“I saw them in concert,” he said. “At Foxwoods. Randy, that guy you know from yesterday, gave me a ticket. They opened for Carly Simon.”

“I love Carly Simon.”

“I didn’t know that,” he said, smiling. There was so much he didn’t know about her. They had never discussed music, for instance.

“There’s more room in a broken heart. . .” she sang.

Unu tapped his chest with his left hand. “Well, don’t break mine, baby. There’s a warehouse in here already.”

Casey folded the schedule and returned it to the glove compartment.

For the remainder of the ride, they talked of where to go for dinner to celebrate his winnings. Casey tried to be enthusiastic about the money but found it difficult. She had grown up without money, and it hadn’t occurred to her how she could have it exactly, but gambling felt like a dishonest way to acquire it. She could argue to herself that it wasn’t stealing, and clearly it was legal, but the whole thing made her feel uncomfortable. Perhaps it was seeing the faces of the elderly men in gabardine slacks, the fabric shiny in the seat and knees, pulling down the levers of the slot machines, their bold eyes full of cherries. Unu had said to her earlier when he was explaining blackjack, “You can beat the house, and you should beat the house.” That made it sound as if you were taking money from a faceless company, but walking through that smoking floor had made Casey see that the house was filled with men and women who were bored, wistful, and full of pipe dreams. It was their foolish money that had built and furnished that edifice.

Unu suggested going to Thirty-second Street for dinner that night.
Kalbi
and
naengmyun
. The works, he said—a real feast. Casey said why not. She turned up the radio and tried to enjoy Unu’s happiness.

5
BLOCK

C
HARLES HONG DIDN’T HAVE TO SAY ANYTHING.
The choir sensed that they were far from good despite the increase in the number of practice hours from four to six. It was the way that the choir director couldn’t smile, his lips thinning from exhaustion, and how he’d ask them to repeat the unsatisfactory bars, unwilling to make eye contact nearly. There was a conscious restraint on his part from expressing his unhappiness with their performance, but Charles was more transparent than he thought. After Wednesday evening rehearsals, the men went to eat barbecue and the older women and the ones without young children rushed to New China Hut for
jajangmyun.
At the late dinners, the choir members discussed the director and their failure to be better.

In a curious way, his refusal to affirm any improvement—for there had been some modest gain in his two-and-a-half-month tenure—only fueled their desire to work harder. Their persistence may have originated from their complicated Korean hearts. Also, they were impressed by his intense efforts with no expectation of a larger salary. The chair of the church finance committee, Elder Lee, also a baritone in the men’s choir and the owner of six beauty supply shops, signed the choir director’s small paychecks himself. If there was no money to be made, then surely, Elder Lee reasoned, this was a man of immense talents who served the Lord alone and not mammon. The choir director of their little Woodside church had a doctorate in music and graduated from Juilliard! Yes, they chided themselves: They must labor to please the new choir director. At the close of these midweek meals, it was generally agreed that in a year or two, under Professor Hong’s direction, they would be a superior choir, worthy of touring their sister churches in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

What stirred in Leah’s heart was pride whenever the women in the choir spoke of Professor Hong with reverence. She never said anything in these discussions, despite Kyung-ah’s occasional prodding at the professor’s favorite soloist, and none of them knew that she’d been to his house twice accompanied by Elder Shim when the choir director had suffered from chicken pox: once when Elder Shim had to leave her to go to the hospital and another time shortly thereafter to bring him groceries. At the store, while she hemmed trousers or sewed loose buttons on shirtsleeves, Leah recalled the afternoon spent alone at his house with vividness. Bits of the day would turn up in her private thoughts: The choir director kept only two pots and one frying pan in his many kitchen cabinets, his socks were navy blue wool or white cotton, his Baekyang undershirts had a V-neck, and he read mostly American newspapers and magazines as well as the
Hankook Ilbo
. In moments of vanity, she wondered if he’d kept his shoes ordered as she had arranged them in his closet, or had he cast them aside in his unused bedroom fireplace as before?

The soloists, both male and female, concurred that Professor Hong’s extra work with them after practice had changed their voices for the better. He was a demanding but brilliant voice coach, and the soloists looked forward to their sessions with him. Leah was no different.

Yet she couldn’t look at him during practice when Kyung-ah was there, because her blushing became pronounced. To avoid this, whenever he faced her direction, Leah studied her score, making check marks on the margins with a pencil.

On the first Wednesday rehearsal of June, Charles asked Leah to stay behind to practice for Sunday’s solo. He dismissed everyone at nine o’clock instead of nine-thirty, but no one was upset by this. The choir members grabbed their light jackets for the cool, springlike evening; they were impatient for their dinner.

Leah rose from her assigned seat and moved to the front of the room. This was what Professor Hong wanted soloists to do. She sat quietly in the first row, awaiting his instruction. She watched the young accompanist pack up her things to go. She had two daughters, too.

Charles waved politely at the accompanist, who bowed on her way out. At the piano, he began to play the first few bars, then stopped to scratch the nape of his neck.

“Damn,” he muttered. He began to play again, then stopped abruptly again, shaking his head rapidly like a dog stepping out of a bath.

“Is everything all right?” she asked.

“Yes,” he answered, slightly astonished to find her sitting there, as if he had forgotten whom he’d asked to stay behind. “It’s still so damn itchy.” He rifled through his black knapsack to pull out a tube of liniment that the pharmacist had recommended. He rubbed some on his back but couldn’t reach between the shoulder blades. “Goddamn it.”

Leah remained seated, wanting to help him but not knowing what to do. She lifted her hand slightly, as if she were reaching toward him, then pulled it back in hesitation.

Charles scratched his neck and back. He trembled as if he were cold.

“Does the cream help?”

“The relief lasts for a little while.” He tucked the tube away and searched the bag again. The roll of LifeSavers he’d bought at the newspaper kiosk was nowhere to be found. “Damn, damn, damn.”

Leah made a face, feeling sorry for the man. The itching must have been unbearable, and he’d had to control himself during the long rehearsal.

“Would it be better if I came back later?” Perhaps he needed a moment. He had been working without a break.

“No, no. I’m just pissed off because I can’t find the candy.” Charles laughed then, because it sounded silly.

“I have some cough drops.” Leah handed him an economy-size bag of Halls that she kept in her purse.

Charles unwrapped one and put it in his mouth right away. From her seat, she could hear the grumbling in his stomach. “Professor Hong, did. . . did you eat today?” Having been to his home, she knew he didn’t pay attention to things like food.

Charles stared blankly at the back wall with its row of metal wardrobes holding choir gowns. Come to think of it, he hadn’t eaten since breakfast. During the day, he’d been so absorbed in his song cycle that he’d forgotten to eat. The song cycle, commissioned by the Lysander Quartet in Boston, was due in two months and would have its world premiere at Berklee College in September. He’d almost been late for rehearsal today because his writing had been going well.

From his lost expression, she realized that he hadn’t eaten all day.

“I’ll eat after this.” Charles faced the hymn music.

“If you want, I can come early on Sunday morning, and you can go have dinner now. You must be starving.” She wished she had something else in her purse beside the bag of blue Halls. The grumbling in his stomach grew louder.

“Did you eat dinner?” Charles asked. Suddenly he was ravenous.

Leah shook her head no. For lunch, she’d eaten a navel orange. She rarely ate before practice because she was so nervous. Even now she was nervous just to be sitting in front of him. But she didn’t worry about her own hunger. “You have to eat. You’re getting over being sick. You must take refreshment.” She was talking to him like a child, like one of her brothers, but he didn’t seem to mind.

“Ever since I was a boy, I’d forget to eat when I was concentrating on something.” When his mother was alive, that was always the first question she’d ask him. “Moon-su
ya,
did you eat today?” Even when he lived in Germany and she spoke to him on the phone, she’d ask him the same thing. It drove his brothers crazy how she’d ship special foods to him from Korea like toasted laver,
custera
, and dried squid from the best shops in Seoul. Up till her death, his mother had worried that he didn’t eat enough. The thought of his mother made him feel a kind of ache.

“I am really hungry,” he said, surprising himself in the admission. “Is there a place around here where I could buy a sandwich? I could run out, and you could wait for me.”

There was no place that was open this late. You’d need a car to get to the nearest diner.

“There’s a restaurant about five minutes’ drive from here. I could go and get you a sandwich if you want to wait.”

“Let’s go, then. We can both get something to eat.” Charles picked up his bag and sweater.

Leah swallowed. How could she do that? It would be preferable to lend him her car, she reasoned. They could not go to a restaurant together.

“Do you have a license?”

“No. I don’t know how to drive.”

“Oh.”

“Never mind,” he said. She was nervous about going with him. She was a married woman, and married Korean women didn’t do things like go to restaurants with single men. He’d somehow forgotten that her world was still in the nineteenth century. “We’ll practice for a bit, then I’ll eat something near my house.” He bit down on his cough drop and unwrapped another one.

Leah knew that even if they practiced for thirty minutes, he wouldn’t be home for another hour and a half.

“I’ll take you.” She picked up her purse.

“Okay, then,” he said, and followed her out the door.

The hostess asked them how many were in their party, and Charles said two.

“Table or booth?” she asked.

“Booth,” Charles answered.

Leah sat in the brown leather booth at the Astaire Diner. She’d understood that they’d get the food to go, but now they were sitting alone at a restaurant. How could she explain this to Joseph?

Charles ordered a hamburger deluxe with onion rings and French fries, a large chocolate shake, and an extra order of half-sour pickles. Leah asked for a cheeseburger and a ginger ale. No one took notice of the Korean couple. Framed photographs of Fred and Ginger dancing lined the orange-colored walls. The restaurant was somewhat crowded, but Leah saw no one from church. The food came quickly, and Charles asked Leah questions between bites.

“When did you come to the States?”

“In 1976,” she answered. “And you?” She took a small bite of her burger.

“I’d been coming for visits since I was a boy, but I guess I settled here when I first got married in 1980.”

Leah nodded, having heard of his two marriages.

“But I’ve moved around a lot. Went to school in England and Germany and here, of course.” He felt so much better eating again. “I was starving.”

Leah laughed, thinking, How could such a smart man be so foolish? Men were like children. This was what the older women in her town had told her when she was a girl, and it was often the case.

“You must have been very busy to forget to eat.”

“I’m working on a song cycle right now.”

Leah wrinkled her brow. “A song cycle?”

“A group of songs sung together in a sequence. A common theme or a story unifies them.” He shrugged. He hadn’t spoken to anyone like this in a while. Sometimes he felt that he wasn’t fit for company since he spent so much time alone. That was the thing he missed about marriage, always having someone around that you liked enough to do things with, to talk things over with. The problem was that at the end of his marriages, all he had wanted to do was never be home.

“What is your story about?”

“Well, it’s based on a set of poems by Shakespeare. Sonnets.”

Leah nodded, trying to imagine what that must be like to sit down and read poems and set them to music. That sounded no different to her from magic or alchemy.

“That must be very rewarding,” she said.

What could he say to this? She was idealizing his work. He smiled at her, and Leah flushed deeply.

“It’s what I do,” he said. “I am a better composer than a singer, a better composer than a choir director.”

“Oh no. You’re a wonderful choir director,” Leah said with great feeling.

Charles dismissed this. He poured ketchup on his plate, salted the ketchup, dipped an onion ring in it, then popped it in his mouth. Leah was amused because this was how her younger daughter ate her onion rings, too.

“It keeps me from having too much salt. I have high blood pressure.”

“Oh,” she said, embarrassed to be caught staring. “You don’t look unhealthy.” She blushed again.

Charles nodded. “Looks are deceiving.” He’d said this in English, and seeing her confusion, he translated it loosely into Korean, and she nodded. It felt intimate to speak to her in Korean, and it reminded him of how it was with the Korean women he’d slept with before he’d married his white wives, who didn’t speak it or have any interest in learning. There were so many things you could say in a native language that made the moment immediately private.

“I make you nervous.” He smiled and took another bite of his burger.

Leah picked up her soda glass.

“How old are you?” he asked.

“Forty-three,” she said.

“Quite young,” he said. They were only five years apart.

“I’m a grandmother,” Leah said. “My younger daughter just had a boy.” She smiled shyly. They were coming to visit soon. “My grandson—”

“Unbelievable.”

Leah didn’t know what to say. What was unbelievable about her being a grandmother? She cut her burger in half.

“When is your birthday?” he asked. Charles’s second wife had a keen interest in numerology. She’d left him on the day generated by her numerology software.

“February.”

“Mine too. Valentine’s Day.”

“But, that’s my birthday,” Leah said, surprised. “The fourteenth.”

“No, our birthday. We’ll have to celebrate it together next year.”

He was kidding her, of course. That would be impossible, Leah thought. She couldn’t help wondering, however, what they would do to celebrate their common birthday. It felt special to share this day. She took another small bite of her meal.

“Maybe that’s why my songs are about love.” Charles laughed. “Though I must admit, I know nothing really about love. Or how it lasts.”

Leah could hardly breathe.

When the waitress slapped down the check, Charles picked it up.

Leah pulled out her wallet.

“Put that away. I never thanked you properly,” he said. “For coming by. I felt like dying that day, and when you and the doctor came, I was so. . . grateful. And you cleaned up my house. Then you brought over the milk and fruit.. . .” He smiled at her. “Thank you. I’ve been meaning to get you two something, but didn’t know what exactly.”