“A lot of exciting new events this year,” a stocky boy in a polo shirt was saying into a microphone in the back of the room. “My name is Thomas Bang, and you elected me president last year. Welcome. I’m happy to see new faces here. Be sure to sign your name on the sheet where you came in so we know how to reach you to let you know about upcoming events. One of them next month is the barbecue on the south lawn, so if you have a good time here tonight, we hope you’ll join us on October fifteenth. There’s a calendar up front too—and you can ask me or John Koh. Where are you, John?”
I joined everyone in clapping for him. Then John Koh, a boy up front, waved the sign-in sheet and said something about how great Thomas Bang was, and Thomas Bang waved in acknowledgment, and we all clapped again. “I’ve seen him before,” Lloyd said. I looked around the room. “He was on the tour,” Lloyd whispered to me. I had to admit this time Lloyd was right. John had been on our bus. Our eyes met, John’s and mine, and he raised a hand in our direction. I raised a hand back in greeting.
“Small world,” I said.
“Too small,” Lloyd answered.
“But this could be a good thing,” I said. “Maybe he knows something.”
“Doubt it,” Lloyd replied.
“Why are you so negative all of a sudden?”
“I’m just tired. I should go back to the city. I don’t know what I’m doing here.”
“But you can’t give up now. Lloyd, you were there. You saw him in the other car. Someone here, maybe John, can help us.”
Lloyd turned away from me as Thomas began speaking again about events they hoped to hold during the year. He talked about more sign-up sheets, babysitting that grad students with families needed, and field trips to local wineries. They needed tutors too, to help the Korean grad students. “You could learn Korean, some of you could improve your Korean, and you could help them with English,” he said. And then he talked about ways to raise money for the Olympic athletes.
“What about organizing around politics, like they’re doing for the antiapartheid protests in South Africa?” Lloyd cupped his hands and shouted.
Heads turned in our direction. People stared. I whispered low at him, “Let’s talk to him privately.”
Lloyd turned away from me and held his fingers to his lips as people coughed uncomfortably, cleared their throats.
“Always drama at the Korea Society, am I right?” Thomas said, and everyone laughed. “Thanks to Youn Lim for organizing tonight’s meeting. And over there is Z-MC, providing us with great music,” Thomas continued, giving a single wag of his finger over his head. And with that, a boy with large headphones at a record player and speakers in the far corner raised one hand to everyone and started to spin some tunes with his other.
“Come on.” Lloyd took my arm and pulled me out of the crowd toward the door. He had a scowl on his face and was wiping his nose with the back of his hand.
“Where are you going?” I said.
“There’s nothing here but a party,” Lloyd said and kept walking, pulling me along, refusing to let me go. It was the first time I felt helpless against him. Outside, he released me and kicked the base of a sculpture. We stood under a spotlight. Students walked past us.
“Don’t ever do that to me again,” I said and held my arm where he’d grabbed me.
He rushed over and put his arms around me. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I know. That was wrong. I know. I’ve got to get out of here. If I don’t, I’m going to do something I regret, I know I will. It’s the accident. It’s made me like this. I don’t want to be like this. Yoona, say you forgive me. Please. Say it. Please?”
I looked into his face. I knew what he was feeling, I told myself. I felt it too—the helplessness and despair. We were no closer to finding you than we had been two weeks ago. This place, this campus where life wasn’t quite real life but something like a circus. Something false. And you were out there suffering. What, I didn’t want to imagine.
“You can call Korea from your house phone if you go back to New York,” I said.
“My mom gave me hell over the phone bill last time, but if she kicks me out again, I’ll just come back here.” He shrugged.
“Your mom kicked you out?”
“That’s why I came here. I was calling Korea constantly, trying to find Tongsu Cho, and I was close too. I had to know, you know?”
“Did she really kick you out? Like, where would you have gone if you couldn’t come here?”
“I’ve got a car, so no big deal.” He gave me a small smile.
“She’s awful.”
“Yeah, well, my stepmother, you know, fits the stepmother stereotype. There’s always one, you know.”
“Well, come back here if she does that, promise?”
“That’s a promise, and then I’ll fall apart again.”
“I feel it too, like there’s nothing we can do, but we have to do something.”
He nodded. “I’ll try to call Korea again when I get home. I’ll be in touch. Go study.”
“I can’t.”
“Go, I’ll let you know as soon as I find anything.”
“Promise?”
“You bet.”
He reached over and gave me a hug, and I squeezed him back and turned so he wouldn’t see that I was on the verge of crying. He was abandoning us, you and me.
That night on campus after the Korea Society meeting, Lloyd got back into his little red car and promised to call. And even though I felt we’d failed you, I let him go.
63
You used to say we make our own luck. But you believed in curses too.
64
No one comes through that door after Daiyu leaves. I can feel Heather’s and Faye’s nervousness increase. Staring at the door isn’t going to make it open for them. Lloyd stands at the window, the handgun’s muzzle holding back the curtain, allowing a sliver of light to fall on the floor, a fraction of a view for him of the parking lot.
“Can you see Daiyu?” I call over to him.
HE FUCKING LIED TO ME.
I try to stay calm even though Lloyd still sounds angry. He let Daiyu go. That means something. He’s going to let us all go soon. He has to. “Who do you mean?” I ask as if we’re talking about someone he’s read about in the news.
He answers, IT’S A TRICK. He’s still studying what’s happening outside, but this is a conversation I can work with. There are sounds of men shouting and applause. TWO MEN ON EACH SIDE OF HER WHEN SHE WALKED OUT OF THE BUILDING. HE SAID NO ONE WAS IN THE BUILDING.
“He said no one was in the hallway,” I said.
YOU’RE LYING.
“I heard it too. You said hall, and he said hall,” Faye says.
“Me too,” Heather adds, but her face is still turned to the door.
“You’re being paranoid, Lloyd. Maybe I should tell Sax to hurry up with the car. I’ll have to go to the bathroom soon,” I say.
Lloyd releases the curtain and turns to me. GO AHEAD, CALL.
“With my hands like this?” I make an effort to laugh at the ridiculousness of my predicament.
STOP LAUGHING AT ME.
“Laughing? I’m not laughing at you. Lloyd, I was just talking about my hands being—”
He grabs the phone and thrusts it up to my face. TALK.
“You won’t show me the proof you have. You say you care about this baby—”
TALK.
“Tape is too tight. How will I have this baby you say you care about if I lose circulation in my hands?”
FINE.