The Queen of Tears (19 page)

Won Ju walked to the bedroom and found the pillows and blankets in disarray. She shrugged. Crystal, being sick, must have slept on the bed after everyone had left. A feeling of invasion should have come, but it didn’t. Won Ju just thought about how nice it was of Crystal, being sick and all, to pick Brandon up from school. She suspected that Brandon had a crush on his aunt, but it was probably harmless. Crystal was a man’s woman, despite her marriage to Donny, and Brandon was still just a boy.

She fixed the bed, turned on the air conditioner, then took a shower. The restaurant had a way of letting her know she had been there all day, especially in the shower. Water beaded on her forearms. She thoroughly scrubbed the grease from her body. Satisfied that all remnants from the day of cooking were gone, Won Ju got out and dried herself off. She looked at her face closely in the mirror. New signs of age seemed to be popping up every day, and she had a row of containers on the basin to combat them. There were tubes, jars filled with cream. But she knew these products were effective only to a certain point. Like sweeping rubbish under a chair, slowly the accumulation would be too much to hide. The funny thing was that she didn’t know why she was fighting age. She didn’t feel like it really bothered her, but fighting it seemed like the proper thing to do. She had come a long way from being the pretty and ignorant cocktail waitress at the California Hotel in Las Vegas. Won Ju sighed and applied one of the creams to her face.

At about six-thirty, before anyone got home, Won Ju went to bed. Before she fell asleep, she found herself rolling from her side of the bed to Kenny’s side. Then after Kenny’s side warmed up, she rolled back to hers. After most of the coolness was used up and the air conditioner finally cooled the entire room, she fell asleep and curled up like a fetus on one of the corners of the mattress. One wrong move during R.E.M., and she’d find herself on the floor.

Her eyes shot open at ten-thirty. She looked around, disoriented from the suddenness of consciousness. It was strange being in the dark apartment alone. There was no noise, little light, and a strong awareness of loneliness. She didn’t really feel lonely, instead loneliness was like a big, strange thing floating outside of her. Maybe it wasn’t her, but the apartment that felt lonely. She felt a sudden urge to keep it company.

Won Ju went through the apartment turning all the lights on. Not satisfied, and without any intention of watching it, she turned on the television, too. She even went to the fish tank, which she hated and had purposely neglected for the last couple of months, to turn the fluorescent light on. Moss covered a large area of the glass, and the Oscars slowly rose to the surface waiting to be fed. They looked a bit pale. The clown loach on the bottom frantically vacuumed the moss on the glass. But there was too much. She felt sorry for the loach and decided she needed to clean the tank. After two months, it was obvious that no one else would. But then she felt like cooking. The tank could wait, and despite the fact that there was no one home to eat, she took out a bag of chicken wings anyway and decided to fry them up. It was strange, after spending the entire day cooking at the restaurant, Won Ju prepared food eagerly. Then the thought finally occurred to her. Where the hell was Brandon?

After she cooked the rice, heated up two cans of corn, and was finishing up the last batch of fried chicken wings frying in a wok full of vegetable oil, Brandon came walking through the door. He stopped at the kitchen and stared at his mother. She knew he was waiting to get yelled at for being home so late. “Where were you?” she asked. “I thought you were sick?”

Brandon shrugged then cast his eyes down. “Hiding.”

He thought she knew something. It was something beyond her knowing that he’d feigned sickness. At first, she didn’t want to play the game because she was just happy that the apartment wasn’t lonely anymore. But then the motherly curiosity kicked in. She wanted to know what kind of minor trouble her quiet, mild-mannered son got himself into. As the chicken fried, she began to fish out errant bits of clumped burnt flour, putting then in a small bowl. “You can’t hide forever, Brandon.”

He put his hands in the pockets of his shorts. “So I guess Grandma told you.”

Now Won Ju was really curious. The noise from the game filled the once-empty home like a pinball machine. How would her mother know anything before she did? He hardly talked to his grandmother. She continued to remove the bits, careful not to let them touch the frying chicken. “And what do you have to say for yourself?”

He stood silent. Won Ju became worried. This thing moved from being minor to being something he couldn’t even say. She had to test it. “Don’t worry about it. We all make mistakes.”

Brandon’s head shot up and his eyes widened. “Really? You aren’t mad? But you should be mad, right?”

“Why? I probably wanted to do the same thing sometime in the past. I’m not that old.”

“Don’t be sick, Mom. You’re teasing me, right?”

Won Ju kept her face still with little effort. “No. You think you’re the only one to get urges to do something bad?”

“But what about Dad?”

Dad, bad. It was about a girl. He was fifteen. She wasn’t surprised, but why did he think he was in trouble? Pregnancy. Won Ju put the tongs down, walked to the table, and sat down. But why would he think she knew about it? Was it someone she knew? But she didn’t know anybody. He’d never brought friends over in the last year since he started going to Punahou. And she never saw him around girls. “We really need to talk about this,” was all she could think of saying.

Brandon sat down and sighed. It was the sigh of an adult with adult problems, not a bored or disappointed child. Won Ju stood up to take the chicken wings out of the oil-filled wok. As she removed each piece with tongs, she asked, “So what are you going to do now?”

“I guess I have to stop, right?”

“Right.”

She put a plate full of chicken on the table in front of him. “Here, eat.” She walked back to the stove and turned off the burners, and continued to remove burnt bits of chicken and flour. There were only several pieces left.

“So did you tell her she had to move out?”

Crystal?

Brandon turned around and walked into the bathroom. Won Ju grabbed the keys from her purse and walked out of the now crowded, overstuffed apartment before it suffocated her.

Walking into Soong’s apartment, Won Ju threw her keys on the counter, ready to yell at her mother. It was the first time she was actually ready to yell at Soong. Soong was sitting cross-legged on the white carpet in front of the brown boxes. Besides the boxes and a few pieces of furniture, the room was empty. Won Ju wondered how a woman who lived over a half a century could have so little to show for it. As feelings of pity were about to overwhelm Won Ju, Soong’s strong Korean voice emerged from her bird-like body. “Look. I have pictures of you when you were a baby.”

Instead of sitting by her mother and looking, Won Ju asked, “What is this about Brandon and Crystal?”

Soong sighed and stood up. “I caught them.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I had to go to work. How could I?”

“Did you tell Donny?”

“No.”

Won Ju didn’t know what to say next. In fact, she wasn’t sure how she felt. She wasn’t angry, but she wasn’t calm. She kind of felt like she was in a crashing plane, thinking, wow, this is really happening. Except the fear that should have been there wasn’t. “What do I feel about this?”

Soong frowned. “I don’t know about you, but I’m mortified.”

“I haven’t known many women who could keep this in, and go to work mortified.”

“You should get to know older women.”

Won Ju sat on the small love seat that still had plastic covering on it. “What did you do?”

“I walked out.”

“So where is Crystal?”

“I don’t know. Hopefully gone forever.”

“Do I tell Kenny?”

“Of course; he is the father. He is the very one who should speak to your son about this.”

Won Ju noticed the change. In the past, every time Soong referred to Brandon, she’d say, “my grandson.” But now Brandon was “your son.” “What about Donny? He is the husband.”

“He will hate me even more for not telling him. He will think I’m glad that it happened.”

“So why did you not tell him?”

“How could I?”

“So I have to?”

“You don’t have to. I won’t. Besides, he would not hate you for it.”

“Even though Brandon is my son?”

“Chung Yun could never hate you. This is, how do the Americans say? His ‘saving grace.’ I cannot give up on him as long as he could never hate you.”

Won Ju knew she was right. To Donny, Brandon was this thing that he didn’t really like or care to understand. He never considered his nephew a part of Won Ju. Instead, Brandon was just an inconvenience to him, like a cracked step he had to step over in order to see his sister. And Won Ju did not feel badly towards Donny because of it. Suddenly, Won Ju needed a cigarette very badly. “I have to go back down. Hopefully Kenny will be home.”

As Won Ju walked towards the door, she heard her mother mumble, “I guess I can’t die yet.”

* * *

Before Won Ju walked through her apartment doorway, she hoped the place was no longer overcrowded. She longed for it to be lonely again. She sighed and opened it. The lights were still on, but Brandon’s door was closed. She put the food away, turned off the lights, and grabbed her cigarettes. She stood by the window and blew out smoke. There was no wind, so the clouds from her mouth shot out and slowly rose, then disappeared.

She looked at the fish tank. She decided to clean it. She went to the kitchen and grabbed a small beige bucket from under the seat. She went back to the tank, turned the light off, and put the cover and light to the side. She turned off the pump. The fish, even the slow-moving oscars, became frantic. Won Ju reluctantly put her hand in the mossy water, and began taking out the decorative rock and plastic plants. When she lifted each object out, she noticed that a brown cloud would rise from the spot where the object was sitting. She went to the kitchen, dripping water on the carpet from her right hand, to get a sponge to scrub the glass.

When she began to scrub the glass, the water became so cloudy that she could hardly see the fish. But it was nothing compared to the undergravel filter. When she buried her hand beneath the gravel and pulled at the white plastic grating under it, the entire tank turned brown. Disgusted, Won Ju pulled her hand out of the water, and decided that the only thing that would get all of that filth out would be a complete change of water and gravel. But even if she were to take most of the water out, she wasn’t confident that she could carry the tank to the tub, or toilet, to dump everything out. Besides, what would she do with the gravel? She decided to wait for Kenny to get home.

* * *

It was a little past midnight when Kenny arrived. Won Ju had nearly scalded her arm with a hot-water washing and finished her pack of cigarettes when she saw him come through the door. His curly brown hair was messy, and he wore a big grin on his face. His eyes were red. He was drunk. Her suspicions were confirmed when he walked to her and kissed her on the cheek. “Hi, baby,” he said, as invisible alcohol fumes escaped his mouth. “Hey, what happened to the fish tank?”

She looked at the tank. The brown cloud had settled, but the cover and light were still off to the side, the decorative rocks and plants were still in the bucket, and the gravel was pushed to one side of the tank. She knew the filth was still there, under the white grating of the filter. It was hiding, which irritated her. She turned back to Kenny. “Where were you?”

“At the club. We paddled till late tonight and the boys wanted to have a few beers.”

“Was it the boys or the girls?”

Kenny frowned. “What are you talking about?”

She didn’t know. She just felt like unleashing at him. “Never mind. Do you know what happened with your son today?” She said it in a tone that suggested he was in an accident or something.

Kenny’s face turned serious. Won Ju knew, despite everything, Kenny loved his son dearly. “What happened?”

“Are you sure you want to know? I mean, you could sleep it off first.”

“Won Ju, stop fucking around and tell me what happened.”

“Evidently Crystal’s fucking our son.”

Kenny’s face, for a split second, flickered with relief. Then Won Ju read anger. No jealousy. Then, his next split-second twitch shocked her. He smirked. Not enough for anyone else to notice, but as a woman who had been married to this man for over fourteen years, as a woman who could see more than anyone else she knew, she swore she saw a smirk. Why would he smirk? Was it insignificant to him? No, it was something else. It was pride. It was an overwhelming pride that his fifteen-year-old son was screwing a beautiful twenty-something stripper. That time he’d stepped on Crystal and woke up the entire house, he probably didn’t step on her at all. He’d probably caught Crystal and Brandon, so she screamed. But he lied. He was so proud of his son that he let the relationship continue. Won Ju walked to the kitchen and pulled a gallon bottle of Clorox out from under the sink. There was still about a third left. As she walked back to the living room, she heard Kenny ask, “You’re gonna do laundry now?”

She stopped at the fish tank and twisted off the blue cap from the bottle. The smell jolted her, sending a burning sensation up her nostrils. It really woke her up. She tilted the mouth of the bottle over the edge of the tank. “I’m taking Brandon and leaving you,” she said, as she poured the contents of the bottle into the tank. First the oscars twitched, then floated to the surface. The clown loach lasted a bit longer, swimming rapidly, to and fro at the bottom, but soon it was floating too. She felt bad about killing the fish, but felt satisfied after the loach floated to the surface. Suddenly her favorite fish was the one she wanted to see die the most. She put the cap back on the bottle and placed it in the tank. Now all four objects were floating on the surface.

Kenny was quiet throughout the entire process. And when she looked at him, she sensed a bit of fear, and it made her feel good. She imagined it was the first time in her life that anyone feared her. She didn’t see him as being petrified or anything like that, nor did he seem like he was afraid of bodily harm. Perhaps it was the cruelty of it; knowing for the first time that she could be cruel. She just found out herself and it scared her. Or maybe it wasn’t even the action, instead it was the words, “I’m taking Brandon and leaving you.” Her question may have been answered when he asked, standing very still, “Why? He was the one fucking her, not me.”