High Hopes Read online

  HIGH

  HOPES

  HIGH

  HOPES

  JACLYN JHIN

  High Hopes. Copyright © 2018 by Jaclyn Jhin.

  All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permissions of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in articles, blog and reviews.

  For information email www.email.com

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-692-16343-6

  For my amazing parents, Jack and Joy;

  my wonderful husband, Nick, my two son,

  Greg and Grant, and my three step children, Jack,

  Izzy and Oscar; and of course, all my supportive

  girlfriends and mentees.

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER ONE

  The clock on the shelf read 5:30. Last time I’d checked, the digital image read 5:29. Just sixty seconds. One interminable minute.

  The Columbia University admission office was issuing its early-decision announcement today, and I had promised Halmuni I wouldn’t sneak a peek before I got home.

  “Six o’clock,” she’d insisted. “I’ll be waiting on dot. Hear good news.”

  Halmuni was so confident in me, the only possible outcome she could imagine was an email declaring, “Congratulations, Kelly!”

  I pictured Halmuni, how she was at that exact moment, waiting for me in our apartment, preparing herself to celebrate her granddaughter’s achievement.

  I was so nervous. I felt like throwing up.

  I sneaked another look at the clock. Now, it read 5:31. I wished I could will the digital numbers to run backwards.

  The bookshelves in my office were stacked with documents in manila folders. All neatly labeled, there were so many, they filled nearly every inch of shelf space. The legal paperwork inside was so important, saving even a few inches for my own personal things gave me a twinge of guilt. My boss told me I should feel free to decorate my cubicle however I wanted, but in the midst of so many crucial documents, it never felt quite right to display many objects of my own.

  Only on the shelf, I’d reserved about 12 inches for myself. I had my clock, of course; a little Korean doll my mom had given me when I was little; and a photo of my father, my mother, and my grandmother in a restaurant. In the photo, the table was loaded with Korean barbeque, glistening so beautifully I could almost smell the thinly sliced pork and Kalbi short ribs. In the shot, the trio smiled happily, with no clue as to the tragic fate that would soon befall two of them. Dad was a little heavyset, blond, and blue-eyed. Mom, from Korea, was slender and gorgeous, and Halmuni, my mother’s mother, looked at the lens impatiently as if to say, “Enough of this camera already, let’s eat!”

  Other than the clock, the doll, and the photo, my entire office was reserved for the work of the Brian Chu Law Offices, B.B. Chu, he liked to be called. “Like B.B.Q!”

  It just wasn’t in my nature to decorate my workspace or “toot my horn,” as B.B. always counseled me to do. Putting up photos and awards would have felt like showing off to my coworkers.

  I told myself, “I’m half-Korean. That’s not in our culture.” But then again, Halmuni never hesitated to brag about my accomplishments. So maybe it wasn’t so much about being Korean as it was just being who I was—shy through and through.

  For the last month, I’d barely slept. The email from Columbia kept flashing before my eyes. Each night, after tossing and turning and finally giving up on sleep, I’d flipped on my light, reach for my laptop, and read articles and blogs. Mostly, I’d gravitated toward ones like “How to Deal with College Admission Anxiety,” “Seven Ways to Stay Calm When Waiting for College Decisions,” and “Tips for Surviving the College Admissions Waiting Process.” Some of them recommended starting a hobby or an exercise routine, but I was carrying a full load of A.P. courses. Between studying and my part-time job at the law office, I really didn’t have time for quilting or jogging.

  Another blog suggested getting a dog. Now I wondered if I shouldn’t have taken that advice. I pictured Columbia’s decision arriving in my email inbox, Halmuni distraught at the result, myself ready to burst into tears ... but if I’d adopted a dog, at least there would be one creature in our apartment who wasn’t crushed by the news.

  Now, the clock read 5:32. There was no more putting off the inevitable. I twisted my hair into a ponytail, secured it with an elastic hairband, and reached down for my BRIAN CHU LAW OFFICES bag.

  Brian—or “B.B.,” as my boss liked to be called—was an excellent lawyer. He was also practically family to me. When I was little, he’d been a regular fixture in our house. For the last few years, he’d been the closest thing I had to a father. So, I may have been biased in his favor.

  In addition to lawyering, he was a non-stop self-promoter. His face smiled from bus-stop benches all over Koreatown, and he insisted on his staff members carrying a BRIAN CHU LAW OFFICES bag, such a bright orange it almost hurt to look at it.

  “You never can tell when the next big client will see you walking by,” he would say.

  I started to stand up from my desk, but I was so anxious my knees shook. I sank back into my chair with my neon orange bag in my lap. Sitting there, I glanced at the stacks of paper atop my desk. People expect paralegal assistants to be organized. That’s 90 percent of the job, isn’t it? So my shelves were incredibly organized. I had allocated each square of my desk as a separate compartmental thought: initial applications for trademarks, pending trademark applications, completed applications, and potential IP litigation.

  No more of this. No more shyness. No more modesty. Tomorrow morning, I will come back here bright and early, stand beside my desk and shout to everyone within earshot, “I don’t need to do this anymore. I’m going to New York!”

  That would never happen. I would never shout in the office. I could never be anything but respectful to my co-workers and our clients. Even respectful to these tidy piles of paperwork. My heart would beat frantically with joy at my acceptance to Columbia. Or I would blink back tears. Either way, I would sit at my desk, lower my head, and get back to work tomorrow. That’s the Korean way, which I’d absorbed from my mother—though I suppose I carried it to an extreme.

  Suddenly, B.B. Chu appeared in my cubicle. “Hear anything yet?”

  Six-feet-tall and built like a football linebacker, B.B. wasn’t a typical Korean. People joked that he must have permed his naturally wavy hair in imitation of K-pop singers. This annoyed him so much he straightened it. I would never dare to tell him it made him look
worse.

  “Uh-huh,” I said.

  “I’m going to be the first to know, right?” said B.B.

  Addicted to working out, B.B. put in two hours of weight training each morning. In the old days, my dad and Brian would spot for each other. I wondered if it was the strain of all that pumping iron that had created those deep frown lines between his eyebrows. They gave his face a serious, slightly angry look that served him well in the courtroom, but didn’t reflect the man I knew: approachable, caring, and humorous.

  I hoisted my bag on my shoulder. “I should tell you before I tell Halmuni?”

  “No way.” He pretended to be horrified. “If Halmuni found out you told me before you told her, I’d hate to think what she’d do to me.” He laughed before noticing the anxiety on my face. “Take it easy. And remember: Success is the only option.”

  B.B. was into theories like the Law of Attraction and books, like The Secret. He always lectured me about how we attract what we project.

  I nodded. Sure.

  “I’m just looking forward to getting to say, ‘I told you so.’ ” He smiled, crinkling the lines around his eyes.

  I walked past him, heading toward the lobby, shaking my head. “We’ll see.”

  “Let me know the good news, Kelly,” he called after me. “After you tell Halmuni.”

  As my hand pressed against the copper handle, I remembered what I had been working on: Speak up. Be less shy. Be less me.

  “Hey, Brian. I’ve been meaning to say, ‘Thank you.’”

  “Thanks for what?”

  I steadied my nerves. It wasn’t easy for me to express my feelings. “For always ... For having confidence in me.”

  He scoffed. “Come on, Kelly, you are a superstar! You’ve always worked your butt off. If Columbia doesn’t take you, I will personally go to the admissions department and punch them in the nose for being so stupid.”

  I’d rarely heard him raise his voice in anger, but he had a habit of talking tough.

  “And anyway,” he said. “Who’s Brian?”

  “I mean, “B.B. Chu.”

  “Like B.B.Q!” With a big grin, he waggled a finger at me as if this was the most important thing I needed to remember in life.

  I blushed and smiled. “Got it, B.B.”

  He acted just like my dad used to, making me laugh and annoying me at the same time.

  “Go home now, Kelly,” said B.B. “Halmuni’s waiting.”

  * * *

  Halmuni is “grandmother” in Korean. Back in Korea, the name signified respect and tenderness. Halmuni. Halmuni. It fit how I felt about her.

  Today I found myself repeating the word, imagining different destinies: Halmunnniiiiiii, I got in! Halmuni. I didn’t get in. Hal-MUNI. I GOT IN. Halmuni, I’m never going to amount to anything. Ever.

  Our condo hugged the border of Koreatown. Literally. Our diminutive porch stuck out like a fat lip away from the nearby units. Beside it, the fire escape crawled down to Little Bangladesh of Los Angeles. Sometimes as I stepped outside to get away from Halmuni’s endless commentary on Real Housewives of Orange County (“She did not just say that!”), I found myself straddling two worlds.

  I climbed the concrete steps, scattered with dead leaves from the maintenance man’s leaf blowing this morning. Crunching my way up, I hummed the song my parents always sang together. Just what makes that little old ant/Think he’ll move that rubber tree plant/Anyone knows an ant, can’t/Move a rubber tree plant. Since I was little, I sang that song whenever I needed a lift.

  Inserting my key into the lock, I hummed louder, swung the door open and stomped in. I always tried to be loud so Halmuni would hear me above the TV buzz. The apartment’s tangy smell, garlic and ginger with a hint of spicy peppers, immediately hit my nose.

  Halmuni heard my humming, swiveled her neck to look at me, and belted out her own version of the song. “But she’s got higghh hopes! She’s got high hopes!” She creaked forward in her ancient recliner, adjusting her ankle-length dress. Tucking loose strands of curly, grey hair behind her ears, she put her wrinkled hands in the air. “You got in,” she said, as if I had already told her.

  “I don’t know yet.” I dropped my orange bag on the beige carpet, its pattern worn from decades of footsteps.

  As Halmuni bounced her knees up and down, her blue slippers fell off her feet. She was wearing her usual “outfit,” which was baggy cotton sweatpants with a loose, long-sleeved tee shirt. The sleeves were too long for her because Halmuni was a diminutive figure. She also liked to buy her clothes one size larger than needed because her view was that everything eventually shrinks, but they hardly did and as she got older, she seemed to get shorter. Her face was very round, which most Koreans would say was a lucky face (since Buddha had a round face), but it gave her the appearance of being chubbier than she actually was. “You better open email before I have heart attack.” She tugged her right hand out of her sweatshirt sleeve to pat her chest. “Tell me good news.”

  “In a minute, Halmuni.” I made my way into the kitchen to avoid her stare. Using chopsticks to peel a pickled cabbage from the fresh Kimchi bowl, I popped it in my mouth.

  “Kelly. Eat later,” she said impatiently.

  “Okay. Fine.” Walking back into the living room, I pulled out my phone, but I couldn’t make myself press the home button.

  Halmuni glared at me.

  “But you can’t look at me.”

  She rolled her eyes, mumbled something in Korean, and swiveled her recliner in the other direction. “I make you comfortable,” she said, and she scrunched up even further into a contorted position.

  “I didn’t mean you have to turn around.”

  “No, I just wait over here. How long you going make an old lady wait?”

  “That’s not—never mind.” I clicked on my phone. It lit up, showing two unread email messages. Going into my inbox, I saw it: Columbia University. My finger hovered above the screen. All those years of late night studying, notecards under pillows, friendless lunches, all came down to this one moment ...

  “Kelly. Pretty soon I read from grave.”

  “Okay, okay.” I clicked. The screen filled with letters that made no sense to me. Ants, I thought. How could one ant move a rubber tree plant? Impossible. Maybe there were hundreds of little black ants pushing at that rubber tree together. But then one word, near the top of the screen, took shape before my eyes: Congratulations.

  I gasped. Halmuni turned around. “What? What? You make it?”

  I pitched the phone to her. It got lost in the fabric of her skirt.

  “Why you throw it to me, not hand it to me?”

  Halmuni’s hands fumbled for it. She stabbed at the screen with a long yellow fingernail.

  I squatted beside her recliner, took the phone out of her hand, and held it up for her.

  She stared for what felt like five minutes, and I realized, she doesn’t have her glasses.

  I grabbed her bifocals from the low table beside her recliner, handed them to her, then raised the phone for her. She read slowly, out loud, moving her lips. If possible, this was even more agonizing than the last three months of waiting.

  Finally, her mouth dropped open. “Aigo!!”

  Relief flooded through me. I fell into the recliner, wrapping my arms around her, the edges of her glasses digging into my cheek.

  “I knew it all the time. You so smart, girl.”

  “Halmuni, I made it.” I felt tears of joy filling my eyes. “I made it; I made it.”

  “Your parents be so proud.”

  Then, knowing how proud my parents would have been, wishing they were here to share this moment with me, the tears really did start to flow.

  Halmuni wiped off my cheeks with a leathery fingertip.

  I looked up into her eyes and knew she had read my mind.

  “Don’t think like that. Time to go Ivy Leagues. Law school. Become big-deal attorney.”

  “Then I’ll take care of you, Halmuni. Like you always—
”

  “Shh.” Halmuni tugged me into an even tighter hug. “This a time for happiness. No Kimchi and rice tonight. We celebrate. I brag to everyone my Kelly going to New York—become big city lawyer. Make everybody jealous.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Seoul Garden is an upscale restaurant off Wilshire in the heart of K-town. The succulent odor of barbecued Kalbi and savory Kimchee Stew filled my nostrils as we entered. Waxy green booths lined the walls, and round tables filled the space between. Golden light fixtures hung above each polished table with its grille in the center. I’d only been here two or three times. I took it all in, allowing myself to own this moment.

  Halmuni stood on her tiptoes to peek over the hostess stand. “Give us best table. We’re here for my granddaughter. She get into Columbia University.”

  The young hostess set down her phone, gave me an expressionless nod, and muttered, “Cool.”

  Halmuni looked like she was about to launch into one of her scoldings, so I put a hand on her arm. “Like you said,” I whispered. “This is a happy occasion.”

  The girl carried menus toward our booth. She didn’t even wait for us to follow.

  Halmuni poked me in the ribs. “Young generation. So rude. Don’t you act like that when you come back from New York.”

  “I won’t.”

  “I know. That never be Kelly’s style.”

  Halmuni always excluded me from the “young generation,” because she knew I never really belonged to it. My best friend was a 46-year-old man whose name was associated with BBQ, and my high school “friends” were the people who gave me a slight nod when I ran into them at the Korean market. The nods always meant the same thing: You only look a little like me. Why are you here?

  As we passed each table, Halmuni engaged with every single family. I wondered, Does she actually know all these people?

  “Anyonghaesayo, my granddaughter get into Columbia. What about your child?”

  With some, Halmuni spoke English. With others, families who hardly spoke any English even though they’d lived in the US for years, she spoke in Korean. Halmuni interrupted conversation after conversation to share the news. My news. I didn’t know whether to linger behind Halmuni and mouth “sorry” after each table, or keep my eyes plastered to the floor in case it would offer mercy and swallow me whole.