The Leavers

“What immigration jail? I thought her husband was Chinese mafia,” I said.

Joey snickered. “Mafia would explain a lot about her personality.”

On a slow Tuesday morning, I sat on one of the pedicure chairs and flipped through a magazine.

“You’re here until two, right?” Rocky stood in front of me holding a ring of car keys, eyeliner on her right eye, but not her left. “I have to run home for a minute because I forgot something. Come with me?”

It turned out Rocky didn’t live on Long Island, but in northeastern Queens, which was almost in Long Island. The drive took half an hour, over highways and bridges, and she talked about her bad ankles and high blood pressure. “Getting older is a bitch, Polly, you know that?”

“You’re not old,” I said. She was probably ten years older than me, in her forties.

“You’re so good to me. But seriously. High blood pressure! I’m going to have to give up coffee, red meat, fried foods, you name it. Take pills. And I’m forgetting things right and left. I have these forms I was supposed to bring in today and I left them at home. I even wrote myself a note to remember.”

Rocky’s house was at the end of a block of similar-looking houses, with two stories and a front yard and an attached garage. The outside was brown brick, with a dark red roof, a low gate separating the yard from the sidewalk. It wasn’t a mansion; the new houses in Minjiang were far bigger. But it was a real nice house. I followed her into an entranceway with a full-length mirror on the wall and into a living room with a nice leather couch and two tall windows. There was an electronic keyboard in the corner with paper piled on top, and a school picture of Rocky’s teenage son, whose smile exposed a mouth full of plastic braces.

“You want water?” She gave me a plastic bottle of Poland Spring from a cardboard box. “Take a seat on the couch. I have to run upstairs to find this form.”

I sat, but as soon as I heard her walking on the floor above me, I got up. Down a short hallway was the kitchen, which had a dishwasher and a microwave, boxes of cereal and bags of chips on a round table. The sink was full of dishes, and the counter stained with dried sauce and crumbs. On the other side of the kitchen was a small room. I heard voices, the sound of a motor revving.

It was the television. I leaned closer to the open door and saw a man in a reclining chair, dressed in striped pajama pants, slippers, and a baggy white undershirt. One hand gripped the remote control, the other rooted inside a bag of Cheetos. He crunched in a mechanical motion and sighed, content.

Rocky’s husband was home in the middle of the day, eating Cheetos and watching action movies in his pajamas. He didn’t look like the owner of an import-export business, or even a househusband who cooked and cleaned.

“What does your husband do again?” I asked Rocky on the drive back to the salon.

“Oh, he’s in between jobs right now, so he spends too much time at home. Let me tell you, I’m glad I have this salon. Speaking of which, I wanted to talk to you. Where you live, in the Bronx, are there a lot of nail places?”

“A few,” I said. “Smaller places. I’ve never been to any of them.”

“Are they nice?”

“They aren’t trying to be spas.”

“Is your neighborhood near Van Cortlandt Park? Riverdale?”

“No, those are north of where I live.”

“I’m going there later today.” Rocky turned onto the highway. “There’s a space for lease in Riverdale and I think there’s a market in the Bronx, especially in those higher-end neighborhoods. Lots of people with money who don’t mind paying for a clean nail space.”

We got to the bridge entrance and Rocky slowed down at the toll. The E-ZPass sensor clicked to green. I took a breath and counted from one to ten. “If you do open another salon,” I said, “and you are looking for a manager, I would be good at it.” I tried to catch a glimpse of Rocky’s profile without looking directly at her, and thought I saw her nod.

She looked over her shoulder as she changed lanes. “Yes, I’ll let you know, of course.”

I took you and Leon out to dinner at a Mexican restaurant, the room cheery with red and yellow streamers, and told you it was too premature to say for sure, but there was a good chance I might get promoted to become the manager of my own salon. A man fed a dollar into the jukebox and a raucous chorus of trumpets kicked up. You kicked your legs under the table and I didn’t tell you to stop.

LATER THAT SUMMER, DIDI and Quan got married. Quan had proposed after winning big one night in Atlantic City, kneeling on the carpet of the casino hotel and presenting a diamond ring. I stood with them before the judge at City Hall, sat next to Leon at a restaurant table, clapping as the newlyweds posed for photos. Didi applied extra coats of fuchsia lipstick. Quan’s spiky hair fell over his eyebrows.

One of the other women at our table said I should inquire how much the meal cost in case I wanted to have my wedding here, too. I didn’t. Didi was marrying a man who gambled his paycheck away. Sure, she loved him, but even Leon agreed she was getting the shit end of the deal.

Meanwhile Leon’s back was giving him trouble. At work, his pay remained the same, though he’d been there longer than most of the other men. “You’ve got to ask for a raise,” I said, but there was always another excuse. His boss was in a bad mood. His boss quit and he got a new one. That boss was out that day. Then he was in pain and couldn’t get out of bed, so he missed three days of work, not to mention pay. Vivian and I kept telling him to see a doctor before his back got worse, but he refused, said we were overreacting, he was fine with ice packs and Tylenol.

A former co-worker named Santiago was starting a moving company, and when Leon said he was thinking of joining, I was so happy I pounded my fist on the kitchen table and said, “That’s a great idea!”

Whenever he mentioned it might be nice to have a baby together, I’d say I didn’t want to while I still had debt. But each month I paid only the minimum. I just didn’t want another child. You were almost eleven, and in a few years you wouldn’t need me to look after you all the time. I could work more, get a better job, learn English. Not take care of a baby.

Two months after Didi’s wedding, Leon met me after work, and as we were walking in Riverside Park, he slowed down as we approached a big tree. Then he stopped.

“What’s wrong?” I asked. “What, your shoelace got untied?”

He rooted around his pocket and removed a box. My heart started to pound. He fumbled with the lid, finally opening it to reveal a gold ring.

“Do you want to get married?” he asked.

Lisa Ko's books