Lloyd didn’t leave after dinner. Daiyu needed his help. Since I’d met her, she’d cut open the skin on her shin from falling down the stairs in the student union, sprained her thumb, and burned her arm with hot coffee. I’ve never seen anyone have so many accidents. She cut her hand on a piece of glass in the dining hall that evening, and Lloyd had Neosporin and bandages in his backpack. He patched her up like a medical professional. Daiyu was so grateful she invited him to a party in the student union, and he accepted. “Free beer is exactly what I need,” he said. I wanted to talk to him some more about what had happened to you, but a few hours at a party wouldn’t hurt. As we headed to the party, Lloyd talked to my friends, and I didn’t say much. I was still mulling over what Lloyd had said about you earlier in the day. It didn’t make sense, but what else did I have to hold on to?
As soon as we entered the large hall of the student union, Daiyu and Faye were called out to the dance floor by some friends. Heather and Lloyd went to see what beverages were available. I stood by myself. You and I had never gone dancing in Korea. The tour hadn’t organized parties. Heather and Lloyd returned with large red plastic cups of beer and handed one to me. She said something to Lloyd, and he laughed, bobbing his body to the music pounding around us. Daiyu came dancing over to us and pulled Heather to the dance floor. I thought Lloyd had gone with them, but he was back with another cup of beer for me, and when I raised my cup to show him I still hadn’t drunk mine, he downed both. “It’s too loud,” I told him.
“It’s a party,” he said as if I didn’t understand this.
“Shouldn’t you take it easy?” I said, indicating the empty beer cups in his hand.
He replied by nesting one in the other. “It’s a party,” he repeated.
He started goofing off, dancing in place.
“Yeah, but aren’t you tired?” I said.
“Don’t want to think about anything right now, know what I mean?” he said.
I nodded, but I didn’t entirely agree.
“Drink up.” He nudged my cup to my lips. “Show me your moves,” he said.
I reasoned if I did, we could get out of there sooner. The beer was surprisingly cold. When I looked back at Lloyd, he was fully involved in the music. “You’ve got me beat,” I said, motioning to how he was dancing. He laughed at that, his head entirely thrown back. Just then Daiyu was back, and she synced her dance moves with Lloyd’s. I didn’t remember seeing Lloyd as relaxed and entertaining as he was now, flirting with Daiyu.
“Come on, let’s go, dance, dance, dance,” he said in my direction. After all he’d gone through, a night of dancing seemed to be a small respite.
I drank my beer and joined in. I don’t know how long we were dancing. A few more beers replaced the one in my hand as Lloyd kept handing me full cups. Faye, Heather, and their friends joined us. Someone sloshed beer on my shirt, everyone oblivious. It snapped me back to reality. I looked at everyone dancing and laughing and drinking too much, and I had to get out of there. A wave of grief washed over me. Everyone was having fun meeting people, and I didn’t want any of them, only you.
I left them dancing and drinking, the lights pulsing and the music throbbing. I walked out to a terrace beside the hall and then all the way to the railing and looked down at the waters of the gorge rushing below. What had happened to you? Your parents thought you were dead. How could they be so certain? But they were certain. I thought of your father’s voice and of the fatigue in it. What else but a son’s death could bring on that kind of crushing weight on every part of his being? But then there was Lloyd, who said you were still alive. You had to be alive. He was the last one who saw you.
In a trick of the moonlight and the shadows of the trees, I thought I saw someone standing below me, near the water’s edge. Something about him made me think of you. It couldn’t be. I knew it couldn’t be. I tried to tell my legs to slow down. The stone steps were slippery in the dark, wet with leaves, but I went faster and faster. My heart was in my throat. But when I reached the bottom, no one was there.
Lloyd found me sitting on the steps in tears. He sat next to me. “Kind of cold, don’t you think?”
“Headache.” I didn’t wipe my eyes in the dark. He wouldn’t know I’d been crying.
“I get those too. Migraines. They should rename them something that means ‘shoot me now because it would feel better than this.’” He laughed at his cleverness.
I let out a half laugh to join him.
He edged closer to me. “I think I drank too much.”
“Probably.”
“Your friends are nice. Daiyu and Heather and Faith.”
“Faye. Her name is Faye, not Faith.”
“Right, Faye.”
“I need you to tell me more about that last day with him.”
“He told me once, I guess it was on the tour, he said you guys were alike. You wanted to be in the service of other people, life goals, you know. He said, If you want Yoona to do something, tell her someone else will be hurt if she doesn’t do it.”
“What? You’re making that up. He never said that.”
“Maybe I’m drunk.”
“You’re definitely drunk. Weird thing to say.”
“I can’t stop thinking about him.”
Hearing him admit that made it impossible for me to hold back. I hung my head in my folded arms and sobbed. He put an arm around me, and in that cold air, the warmth was welcome.
“Where is he, Lloyd?” I wept.
He was mumbling. “I asked Jaesung once what he saw in you. He said you had sequins. I said what kind. He said sparkly ones. Do you? Do you have sparkly sequins?”
“You’re making no sense,” I said.
“I told him it was lust, pure lust.” He chuckled.
“I prefer that version,” I said.
“Me too. Lust is better.”
“Not sure it’s better, Lloyd.” I had to laugh. He laughed too.
“It’s nice here. There’s been no nice place since the fire.”
“So the car did catch on fire?”
“No, no, no, the firemen wouldn’t be there if there weren’t a fire.”
“Right. So there was a fire.” I felt tears well up again.
“Only smoke. You’ve got to believe me. He needs us, Yoona.”
I huddled closer to him. “I believe you, Lloyd. I believe you, and you know what? Jaesung said you were the smartest guy he knew.”
“He said that about me?”
“Yeah.”
Lloyd turned his cup of beer over, but nothing was left in it to spill out. We sat in silence for a while, and then he said, “Now I’ve got a headache. You tricked me, Yoona.”
“I’m sorry, Lloyd.”
“Sequins.”
I made him get to his feet, and we went back to my room to sleep off whatever we both were filled with.
61
“I’ll find you.” Your words. How certain you sounded. We make such promises as if we know the future. And we count on them as if words have power.
62
I could think of nothing but how to find you. I proposed to Lloyd that we scour microfiche of Korean newspapers for anything that mentioned the accident in August, to research eyewitness accounts of secret service operatives in Asia. I insisted we read everything we could get our hands on, searching for any hints of what might have happened on August 21 in Seoul. The American newspapers only focused on preparations for the winter Olympics. I grilled Lloyd again and again on that night in Seoul. I drafted letters to your parents and planned what Lloyd might say to them and then what I’d say. “If we have proof, they will believe us,” I said.