Chapter 6 - Mino

Jennie’s been acting really depressed lately. She spends most of her time brooding, staring off into the space in sullen silence. Just when I’m least expecting it, she’ll blurt out something really aggressive and confrontational. Next thing I know, her eyes are welling up with tears again for no obvious reason, and she’s looking over at me with this horrible pathetic look in her eyes. Everyone has their ups and downs, I guess, but Jennie’s are a little extreme. I’ve learned that it’s best not to get too upset or show too much concern, and anyway, I like Jennie best when she’s herself. But even so, I’ve started to wonder recently if it was really such a good idea to let things go on like this for so long. Her attempts to improve the situation by going to see her old doctor and dropping in on Jinwoo made my heart ache. Always fighting her battles alone.

“What’s on your mind?” Jiwon asked. I was lying on his small and uncomfortable bed, with its beat-up old mattress and striped sheets. Jiwon’s bed.

“Lemme guess, actually.” Jiwon was hunched over on the floor, clipping his toenails. “Your mom, right? You said at dinner she came by at the gallery.”

“Wrong.”

Next to the pillow, Jiwon’s clock was flashing 1 a.m. It had a huge digital display and an alarm that went right through you when it went off. Next to the clock were a lamp and a potted cactus.

“Did you have to remind me of that?” I said. “No, I was thinking about Jennie. I’m worried about her. She’s getting more and more unstable every day.”

“I’m not surprised,” Jiwon said, as unconcerned as ever as he rolled up the tissue he’d been using to catch his toenails in. “I mean, it figures with her fiancé cheating on her like this. Who wouldn’t?” I looked down at Jiwon’s straight and tossed him his T-shirt, which had been lying crumpled on a pile on top of the bed. Jiwon knew all too well the effect of his slim body had on me.

“Put that on. You’ll catch a cold.”

He stood straight up, bathed in the moonlight that came streaking through the blinds, his shadow stretched in stripes across the floor in front of him.

“Well I’m sorry, but I like being .”

As I showered, I remembered the way Mother had looked when she’d stop by the gallery that afternoon: so serious. “I hear the success rate are very high,” she’d said. “Why the hesitance? If you won’t explain your reasons to us, how can you expect us to understand?” She’d gone on and on about artificial insemination: how safe it was, the wonderful success rates lately. And then she’d given me a long passionate speech about the vital role of children in a family and about all the joys they brought into your life. 

“I’m sure her parents are hoping you’ll have a child soon, too” Mother paused and heaved a dramatic sigh. She was staring down at the ashtray on the table. “When I think of all the happiness you’re depriving of Jennie, it makes me so very unhappy. It could mean divorce, you know if they ever found out.”

“Oh, Mom.” I sat down across from her and looked at her straight in the face. Her lustreless skin, her carefully plucked eyebrows, her thin painted lips, the small beauty mark just below her right eye.

“We’re just not ready,” I said. “Jennie and I don’t feel right about having children yet.”

A strange look of satisfaction overtook Mother’s face. “But that’s what we’re here for,” she said, smiling gently. “We’ll do everything we can to help. It’s all right, you know. Everyone’s nervous at first.” I caught a whiff of the perfume she was always wearing and felt my stomach turn.

When I came back from the bathroom, Jiwon was whirring the juicer. His health potion of choice was fresh vegetable juice mixed with egg yolk.

“So what did you think of the lubricant?” He said. Jiwon had bought a new mint-and-lime scented lubricant for us to use. In the past, we’d always stuck to creams that were fragrance-free, and at first, I objected that I didn’t want to use anything scented (and especially not something like mint, which I thought would seep into my skin_. “Says here that it’s all-natural ingredients, though,” Jiwon had said. “Easy on the skin.” And so eventually I’d agreed to give it a try.

“It was okay, huh?”

I grunted agreement and took a bottle of Evian from the refrigerator. Jennie was over at her parents’ place. In fact, she was the one who had suggested that I come over and stay with Jiwon, since it had been so long. “I’ll probably end up having to stay the night,” she had argued. “I’m sure my parents will be happy to have me. I am their only daughter, after all.”

“Now what’s on your mind?” Jiwon asked me.

“Nothing,” I said, but he didn’t fall for that. He laughed and gave me one of his ‘Oh yeah?’ looks.

“Hey, Mino, why don’t you just sleep with Jennie?” He said it casually enough, but something in his voice told me that he was quite serious. I was so taken aback that I didn’t know what to say. Then I started to feel really annoyed. How could he say such things?

“Do you mind not kidding me about stuff like that?” I requested.

“You don’t feel sorry for her?” He asked. “I wouldn’t mind. I mean, I’m not one of those dime-novel queers, remember, who find all women repulsive.” He poured the thick green brew he had just concocted into a cup and looked over at me solemnly.

“You’ve never even tried it, have you?”

I told him to cut it out. I gulped down my Evian, which seemed to have no taste at all that night. “You got anything stronger?” I asked.

“Booze? I think there’s still half a bottle of gin lying around somewhere.” He asked me if I wanted to watch a film, picking out a title on Netflix. Some B-grade American action flick. “Cool car chases.”

Gin, huh? Too bad there’s no kummel, I thought. I was surprised to find myself thinking such a thing. I’d never even heard of it until fairly recently.

And so we settled down in front of the TV and watched Jiwon’s lousy movies screech its way to its ear-splitting while he worked on his vegetable sludge and I sipped on my gin on the rocks. It was yet another of the pointless blood-splattered movies Jiwon seemed to enjoy so much.

It was four by the time I left Jiwon’s. The roads were deserted. Great, I thought, I should be able to get home by five, have a nice long soak in the bath, and eat a proper breakfast. After all, I wanted to start the day out right, even if it was a Saturday and there was nothing I really needed to do. 

Outside, pale early morning light washed across the sky, the moon and the stars now little more than dimming lights fixed in the fast fading darkness. Street lamps shone on indecisively. Driving home at dawn like this reminded me of my student days when I used to spend every night at Jiwon’s place, leaving while the rest of the world was still asleep. One after another, the familiar old sights were coming back: the moon in the brightening sky, faint and pale over highway fences; the green emergency phones every mile; the exit signs. Driving like that, I felt as if I had gone back in time.

I took off my shoes at the door and stepped into the apartment. I turned into the living room. And there on my left, by the doorway, was Jennie flopped down on the floor.