The Fold (7 page)

“I will pick you up at the restaurant at two o’clock tomorrow. Surely, Mrs. Lee can handle the kitchen until you get back.”

“Well. Yes.” Uhmma signaled the waitress for more tea. “Yes, I believe so.”

“Good.” Gomo lifted her teacup to her lips, but her hawk eyes peered over the rim at Joyce.

Joyce felt her family’s eyes turning to her. She pinched her chubby knees to keep from laughing nervously. The thought of all those sale clothes sounded pretty enticing right then, compared to shark liver oil, a Korean dating service, and permanent makeup tattoos. The evening was turning into a strange Korean game show with even stranger prizes.

“Joyce,” Gomo said, “I have made a doctor’s appointment for you. Next week, we will go and visit Dr. Rie-ne-or.”

“Who?” Joyce said, still confused.

Gomo set her teacup down. She patted the corners of her lips with her napkin. “My doctor,” she said. “He is Jewish. Very smart.” Gomo pointed to her temple.

Joyce reached up to the zit on her temple. It had gone down a lot, but there was still a scar there from all the picking.

“Oh, for my skin,” Joyce said. “It’s really not that bad. I should just stop eating chocolate, but maybe seeing a dermatologist will help. Gam-sa-ham-nee-da, Gomo.”

Joyce felt pleased that her gift was a practical one.

Gomo leaned forward and studied Joyce’s face. “Yes, the san-gah-pu-rhee will change your entire face. Dr. Rie-ne-or will make your eyes much bigger.”

Joyce glanced around the table, but none of her family members would meet her gaze. “What does a dermatologist have to do with eyes?”

Gomo turned in her seat. “Where is our banchan? They could at least bring us some kimchee.” Gomo signaled the waitress.

“I don’t get it.” Joyce said. “I thought a dermatologist only looked at skin and stuff.”

Andy leaned over. “Dr. Reiner. You know.”

“Dr. Reiner?”

Andy curled his upper lip and whispered, “Dr. Reiner. Remember? Michael’s plastic surgeon.”

Joyce sat back in her seat. Her breath came in shallow pants. The plastic surgeon. Gomo’s plastic surgeon.

Gomo turned back to the table after the waitress
left. She stared at Joyce. “The double eyelid fold surgery is a very simple procedure. It was my first operation.” Gomo closed her eyes, pointed to her upper eyelids and then opened her eyes again. Twin crescent moon creases appeared above her piercing black hawk eyes. “These days, they do not even cut the skin with a knife. They use a laser and only sew a little here and there.”

Joyce picked up her tea and swigged it down, wishing for once it was shoju. A knife? Laser? Just the very thought made Joyce sweat.

Gomo wiggled her finger at Joyce from across the table. “I know you want to be beautiful like Helen. You will never be as pretty as your sister, but with my doctor’s help, you can look very nice.”

Joyce lowered her head and raised the napkin to her mouth, wishing she could wipe more than the corners of her lips. She bit down on the inside of her cheek and furiously blinked back the tears. If nothing else, you could always count on Michael to be brutally honest.

At the end of the night, everyone stood outside of the restaurant and took their turn again to thank Gomo
for her generous gifts. Gomo reminded Uhmma that she would come by tomorrow to pick her up for the appointment. Uhmma said faintly, “Yes, I’ll be ready.”

They waved and bowed again and watched as Gomo drove away. Apa faced his family. “Now,” he said. “That was not too bad.” He turned around to step off the curb, and before anyone could catch him, he somehow misplaced his step and fell down onto the street, one shoe slipping off as his ankle twisted under his weight.

Uhmma rushed to his side. “Apa, are you all right?” She tried to help him stand. “What happened?”

Apa slowly stood up with Uhmma’s help, while Joyce retrieved his shoe.

As Joyce bent down to set the shoe in front of him, she noticed something odd about how it was made. She stared at his feet. At the way his one shoeless foot dangled so much farther from the ground than the foot that was planted firmly in his new wing-tip shoes. And then it all made sense.

“Apa,” Joyce said, “did Gomo give you shoes with lifts in them?”

Apa smiled sheepishly. “I look taller.”

Helen and Andy groaned.

“It’s like you’re wearing man heels.” Andy laughed.

“Hey, shark liver boy,” Helen said. “Look who’s talking.”

Uhmma sighed. “Your Gomo has her own ideas sometimes.”

Apa slipped his shoe on, but he still hobbled and could not put weight on the injured foot. Helen studied him trying to walk and said, “You sprained it, Apa. You’re going to have to ice it when you get home.”

Uhmma helped Apa walk to the car as Helen, Andy and Joyce followed behind.

“Michael strikes again,” Andy stated.

gina
pushed open the door to the department store and waved Joyce in first. Joyce smiled at the chivalrous gesture and curtsied in response before entering. Soft jazz piano music filtered down from the escalator atrium. Joyce squinted for a second as her eyes adjusted to the bright light that seemed to radiate from every corner and counter. A floral bouquet from the perfume aisles mingled with the smell of new leather from the shoe and purse department. Joyce inhaled deeply and then sneezed three times in a row. Gina grabbed Joyce by the hand and pulled her forward into the maze of cosmetics counters.

“Try this one,” Gina suggested and held up the tester tube of bright red lip gloss.

“That’s too bold,” Joyce protested.

“It’s gloss, Joyce,” Gina said with a slightly exasperated tone in her voice. “Gloss is sheer when you put it on.”

“Are you sure?”

“Do I not work here part-time?”

Joyce took the tester tube and examined it closely. “You work in the stockroom.”

“But I come out at every break.” Gina handed Joyce a Q-tip that she magically produced from behind a mirror.

“So?” Joyce dipped the Q-tip into the tube, and applied the gloss to her lips.

Gina squinted at Joyce’s lips. “So I’ve tried everything.”

Joyce examined herself in the round mirror. “Don’t you think it looks too goopy?”

Gina reached behind a makeup tray and pulled out a tissue. Joyce took it gratefully and wiped the gloss off her lips. Gina grabbed another tube of gloss and Q-tip, and stared intently at herself in the mirror as she dabbed some on.

“Why are we here, anyway?” Joyce asked.

“So you can buy me some makeup.”

“What?”

Gina stood back from the mirror to check the effect of the gloss on her full lips. “You owe me for the yearbook, remember?”

Joyce slouched against the glass front of the display counter. “Oh, yeah.”

“And,” Gina said, studying another tube of gloss, “we can try some stuff on your eyes.”

Joyce could feel her posture slipping even further. “I can’t believe crazy Michael.”

Gina layered another color of gloss on top of the one she was already wearing.

“What do you think?” Gina asked.

Joyce stared at her purple-lipped friend. “Too Barney.”

Gina checked her reflection. “Like the dinosaur or the department store?”

Joyce chuckled. “God, only you would ask that. Dinosaur. Can we just focus on me for a second.”

Gina grabbed another tissue and wiped her lips. “What are you so upset about? It’s not like Michael wants to stick some double Ds in there. Although if Michael did spring for that, you know John would be looking at you differently.” Gina poked Joyce in the sternum.

“Oww!” Joyce yelled. “That hurt, Gina!”

A saleswoman in her fake lab coat came over. “May I help you ladies?”

“We’re just looking,” Gina said and grabbed Joyce’s hand again, pulling her down the aisle. The photographs of flawless models’ faces peered down at them as they walked from counter to counter. Their brightly colored eyelids beckoned to Joyce. She stood before them mesmerized.

Like most Asian girls, Joyce knew about the san-gah-pu-rhee or double eyelid fold surgery, but Joyce didn’t actually know anyone who had gone through with it except for Gomo, and that didn’t really count. Once a few years back, when Joyce and her family had visited Korea, her cousin had showed her some magazines and said she dreamed about getting the surgery that many girls in Korea got as birthday or graduation presents. Joyce recalled being slightly curious, but waved it off as just another crazy Korean fad.

Joyce studied the poster-sized close-up of the model’s face. The layers of color on her eyelids fanned out like the feathers of a peacock. Now that Joyce’s attention had been drawn to this detail, she couldn’t stop staring at the fold or lack of a fold in all the women she knew and met.

Gina had nice almond-shaped eyes, normal by
Korean standards, but she did not have the double eyelids that Western women took for granted. Joyce’s mother had narrow creases above her eyes, and when Joyce asked about them, wondering if she had already gone through with the surgery before leaving Korea, Uhmma explained that years of applying makeup and older thin skin had naturally caused her folds to appear. Helen didn’t have to worry about getting a fold like Joyce. Her eyes were so large, even without the creases, that people sometimes thought that she was Hapa or half Asian and half Caucasian, just like John Ford Kang. Joyce turned and found a mirror. Her eyes had never seemed narrow before, but as she stared at herself surrounded by the faces of countless models, the hurtful term
slant-eyes
popped into her head. Her gaze shifted back and forth from the shape of the models’ eyes to her eyes. Joyce raised her fingertips to the outer edges of her eyelids. Why hadn’t she noticed how thin and small they were? No wonder John mistook me for Lynn, Joyce thought.

Joyce widened her eyes, raising her eyebrows as far as they would go, and turned to Gina.

“How do I look?”

Gina glanced up from studying some facial cleansers.

“Like a scared dweeb. And your eyes aren’t going to look like that after the surgery.”

Joyce frowned and relaxed her eyebrows.

Gina moved on to some blushes arranged like a palette of watercolor paints. Joyce followed behind.

“You know, it’s major surgery,” Joyce said. “Remember last month when that woman collapsed after she got lipo? I mean, I could die.”

Gina gave her a sideways glare.

“I don’t know if I can go through with it, but Uhmma will kill me if I offend Gomo. And if a lot of Asian girls get this surgery, then how come we don’t know anyone who did it? Maybe they had it done but didn’t tell anyone. I don’t want people always staring at my face and wondering what’s real and what’s not. What if they point and whisper behind my back? And it’s gotta hurt afterwards. You know how much I hate pain. I even have to put Band-Aids on paper cuts. What if I can’t see for a while? How am I going to get around? What if—”

Gina suddenly reached out and grabbed Joyce by the shoulders, giving her a good shake. “Joyce. Stop
it. What are you complaining about? Damn. So many girls would be dying to be in your shoes. Your Gomo is going to PAY for you to get the fold. Come on!”

Joyce stepped back. “Would you do it?”

Gina threw up her hands. “Of course. In a heartbeat. It’s free!”

Joyce pushed her hair behind her ears and turned to face her image in the mirror. “Do you think it’ll make me look okay? I won’t look weird and fake?”

Gina came up behind her. “You’ll look like yourself only better. More alert,” Gina said and widened her eyes slightly.

“I still don’t know,” Joyce said.

“What is so different about getting your eyes done compared to the time your Gomo paid to get your teeth fixed? I would kill to have a rich aunt fix my flaws.”

Joyce ran her tongue over her perfectly aligned teeth. “I guess, but the eye-fold thing seems more extreme.”

Gina made a choking noise and went back to studying the blushes. She lifted up the display box and pulled out a cotton ball.

“How did you know that was there?” Joyce wondered.

Gina blotted the cotton ball to the shell pink blush and gingerly swept it across her cheekbone. “I work here, Joyce.”

Gina finally picked out two tubes of gloss and a small container of loose powder. After buying them for her, Joyce called it even.

“You owe me, now,” Joyce said.

Gina smiled. “That’s the way it should be. Feels good to have the natural order of our friendship restored. I was starting to get that high and mighty feeling.”

Gina took Joyce’s hand and pulled her forward. “Come on.”

“Where are we going now?” Joyce asked.

“To get your eyes done!”

The two girls hid behind a particularly large display of potpourri, candles and paisley makeup bags. Gina picked up a bottle of perfume from the counter and sprayed some on her wrist before slowly turning around.

“There she is,” Gina said, bringing her wrist up to her nose and quickly pointing in the direction of a pretty Asian woman arranging some brochures on a counter.

“She had the surgery done?”

“I don’t know,”
Gina said, her eyes fixed on the woman. “But she sells the best makeup for Asian women and their eyes.”