Luxury and Gorgeous
The next afternoon, I was planning to head into the commercial district of Garden Queens for an appointment when my father, who had been sitting in the living room reading the newspaper, looked up and asked, “Son. Where are you going?”
“I’m heading into town for an appointment.”
“Is that so? Then I’ll drive you.”
“Huh? It’s fine. I can take the truck.”
“Just come here, you little punk.”
There was a strange excitement in his voice, and I soon found out why.
My father and I headed to the parking lot beside the house, where a sleek black car was waiting.
A black Buick Roadmaster.
With its gently sweeping aerodynamic hood, the tall vertical chrome grille, and the silver molding running along the sides, it was a huge sedan that carried the full DNA of America’s golden age of automobiles.
This Buick Roadmaster had gone out of production in 1958, only to be revived in 1991—the exact year I had regressed to.
The base price was twenty-three thousand dollars. Once I’d loaded it up with every option available—leather seats, power-adjustable seats, a premium sound system, traction control, the whole lot—it had climbed past forty thousand dollars.
Of course, I could have bought my father an even more expensive car now, but if I had, he would have waved it off, saying it was too much of a burden.
So I decided to give him this one instead, a car that carried a special meaning for him.
The dream car that symbolized his youth.
Back in the 1960s, right after he immigrated, my father used to stop in his tracks every single time he saw this car on the street.
He wanted it so badly he used to cut pictures of it out of magazines and keep them in his wallet, or so the story went.
But, naturally, he couldn’t afford one then.
In his younger years, my father had promised himself that someday he would save enough money to buy that car—but after I was born, and he had to support the family, that promise was pushed farther and farther back, to the very end of his life.
If he had never had me, perhaps he might have been able to buy and drive it years earlier, when he was still much younger than he was now.
A dream and a romance he had to give up for the sake of children, raising them, and providing for them.
I wanted, if only now, to make good on one of the things my father had sacrificed because of me.
And because he understood that feeling, even after he received the car, he spent a long time doing nothing but admiring it, polishing it, and keeping it tucked away in the garage.
He had only started driving it recently.
Vroom. Vroom. Vroom.
The engine rumbled to life, and the car glided down the rural roads of Garden Queens.
Familiar scenery slid past outside the window.
“……”
“……”
There wasn’t much conversation between my father and me.
He drove in silence, hands steady on the wheel, while I sat in the passenger seat staring out at the road.
Before long, we reached my destination.
I unfastened my seat belt and said, “Thanks for the ride, driver.”
“Don’t mention it. That’ll be one billion dollars.”
“Oh dear, I suppose I’ll have to sell the oil field. I need a little time to negotiate with the county government, so please put it on account.”
As I was joking around and getting ready to get out, my father suddenly called out, “Son.”
I turned my head, and he was still looking straight ahead, both hands on the steering wheel.
“Thank you.”
His voice was low and calm.
“Riding this thing makes me feel like I’ve gone back to when I was twenty and my heart used to race.”
“……”
“You know something? When your father was young, I used to tell my friends that someday I’d make a lot of money and buy this car.”
“……”
“Do you know what those bastards said? They laughed at me. You? Working in a factory, getting oil and grease all over yourself after coming to this country? Dream on. That’s what they said.”
A faint smile spread through the wrinkles around his eyes.
There was a teasing lilt in my father’s voice.
“But in the end I was right, wasn’t I? I bought the car.”
“I’m the one who bought it.”
“You, you little punk, came out of me. So if you bought this car, then this car is here because of me in the end.”
“I can’t argue with that. It’s true.”
My father and I grinned at each other.
“Anyway. I’ve been so happy lately. I don’t even know if I deserve to be this happy. I haven’t done all that much for my son.”
“If you get tired of driving it, just say the word. I’ll replace it with a better one right away.”
“Save your money, you little punk. This is already too much. If you drive through town, every country bumpkin in sight will stare at you.”
With that, my father started the car and pulled away.
Vroom.
The black Buick slowly grew smaller and smaller.
I stood there for a while, watching until it finally disappeared from view.
Honestly, I felt pretty damn good.
In front of a shabby café-cum-restaurant, a sign read Daisy’s Diner.
It had been there since I was a kid, and I’d always liked the coffee and sandwiches they served here.
Ding-a-ling!
The bell on the door rang as I stepped inside and took my usual seat in a secluded corner.
The shop was quiet now that lunch hour had long since passed. A ceiling fan with peeling paint creaked as it turned lazily overhead, and the espresso machine by the counter occasionally exhaled a burst of steam along with the rich scent of roasted beans.
From the radio came an old song, Old Black Joe.
I’m coming, I’m coming, for my head is bending low.
I hear those gentle voices calling, Old Black Joe.
The mournful lyrics, carrying the ache of an elderly Black man looking back on the pre-Civil War era, fit the slow, quiet atmosphere of the shabby roadside diner surprisingly well.
It’s been a while since I’ve had a little peace and quiet.
I idly turned an almost empty glass of water in my hand and stared blankly out at the dusty country road beyond the window.
There was no one worth worrying about here—just an old man in reading glasses with a newspaper beside me, a few farmers discussing the corn crop in the back, and six or seven mechanics in work clothes.
No impatient waitress telling me to order quickly, no owner giving me the side-eye for not buying one item per person, no customers fighting over a limited menu and lining up to compete for it.
I sat there at my leisure and soaked in the morning sun.
And then—
“Huh? Sanha? Sanha Lee?”
A sharp voice from beside me broke my reverie.
I turned my head and found a waitress who had already come over, chewing gum with loud, snapping bites as she stared at me.
Heavy makeup, a revealing uniform, and blonde hair puffed up with so much spray it looked like a lion’s mane.
Her name was Stephanie.
Back in high school, she had been known as the queen bee of Queens High School.
Stephanie had been the captain of the cheerleading squad and the prom queen, and she’d been wildly popular.
The prom queen was the “queen” chosen by student vote at an American high school graduation dance, a spot only the most popular and beautiful girl in school could hope to claim.
In other words, if you pictured the stock image of “the most popular girl in school” from an American teen movie, you’d have the right idea.
When she walked down the hall, the other cheerleaders used to trail after her on both sides like handmaidens, and the football players would follow behind them in a pack. For every boy in Garden Queens who had been a teenager at the time, she was the Queens public high school heartthrob they had all crushed on and admired from afar.
And now she stood before me, wearing a uniform at this old café.
“You’re Sanha, right? Wow, long time no see! I’ll pour you some coffee, hand me your cup.”
“Thanks.”
“What do you want to order?”
“I’ll order with my party when they get here. Should be about ten minutes.”
“Oh? Fine, whatever’s easiest.”
Stephanie casually pulled out the chair across from me and flopped down into it.
Since there were no customers, it looked like she planned to slack off openly.
“Anyway, I was surprised. I didn’t think you’d show up here again. You’re only back for break, right?”
“That’s right. But why would me coming back here be such a surprise?”
“Why? Because you’re the only kid from our school who got out of this damn backwater. And to Harvard, too!”
Stephanie propped her chin on her hand and stared at me.
“You were so quiet in school, weren’t you? Like you were almost invisible, always in the corner doing math workbooks or something. We barely ever talked, didn’t we?”
“I guess not much, no.”
“Right, that’s how I remember it too. To be honest, I think I heard your voice for the first time at graduation.”
“Yeah. I was busy studying.”
In truth, I didn’t remember ever exchanging a single proper conversation with her during all three years of high school.
She had been the center of the school, and I had been the nerd buried in the far corner of the library, the grade grubber, the bookworm.
Stephanie laughed softly, sounding almost regretful.
“I should’ve gotten closer to you sooner. You’re the only one from our school who made it to the Ivy League, you know. The teachers still rave about you anytime your name comes up. They call it the Miracle of Garden Queens or something.”
I nodded and searched my memory for anything I could recall about her.
“I see. Oh, and how’s that boyfriend you used to date?”
“What? Which one? There were so many I don’t know who you mean.”
“You know, the football player. Wasn’t he the captain?”
“Ahh, I know who you mean now. We broke up an hour before graduation! I don’t even remember his face or his name. Maybe I’ll remember if I run into him at a reunion someday.”
Stephanie burst out laughing and blew a big bubble with her gum.
Pun.
The bubble burst, and she stuffed the sagging wad of gum back into her mouth and kept chewing.
To be polite, I kept the conversation going.
We had almost nothing in common, so the only things we could really talk about were the latest news on our classmates.
“Do you still keep in touch with the other girls? There were a lot of cheerleaders, weren’t there?”
“They’re all the same. Still here in Garden Queens, that’s all. Wenda married a mechanic from the next town over, had three kids, and lives there now. Mary works the register at Walmart. Jane…”
Stephanie broke off for a moment and let out a sigh.
“Haah—well, it’s all the same. Me included. I thought things would change after graduation, but nothing changed at all.”
“……”
“At least back in high school I had dreams, you know? I wanted to go to L.A. and become an actress. Or at least a Las Vegas showgirl. At the very least, I thought I’d end up in some city doing office work. But reality is…”
She shook the stain-spotted front of her uniform across her chest and laughed at herself.
“I’m stuck wearing this apron, pouring coffee for old men around the neighborhood. I spend all day cutting sandwiches, carrying plates, and the tips are barely pocket change. Even getting a part-time gig like this isn’t easy these days. The economy’s so bad right now. My dad says it’s the worst slump since the Great Depression.”
“Everyone’s having a hard time these days.”
“What can you do? Most kids born here stay here for life, never make it out, and grow old and die.”
Stephanie shrugged.
“That’s why you seem so impressive to me. You’re the only one from our school who actually escaped. God, I really don’t want to spend my life in this cow town. Sanha, when you go back to Harvard later, can’t you take me with you? You know I was a total big deal in high school. It makes no sense for a queen like me to be stuck in a little country dump like this. It’s practically a loss for America!”
She went on complaining about Garden Queens for another ten minutes or more.
Then, eventually, she actually moved over beside me and leaned in close.
“So. How does it feel to get out of this backwater? Doesn’t it feel amazing? Man, I wanted out of Garden Queens so badly too! It’s just so damn depressing! It’s always the same scrubland and dirt roads, every car around here is a truck, everyone is old, it smells like cow shit in the daytime and frogs at night, and then there’s this ugly uniform killing my style too! See? Look how tight this thing is around my chest! Why do they make something like this for gum-popping airheads and make me wear it? Ugh, it’s suffocating and boring to death!”
“……”
I had once felt the same way, so I could sympathize at least a little.
Stephanie leaned even closer to me.
“Sanha. What’s Harvard like? Is it like the movies—parties, champagne, all that? And after graduation, do they all go to Wall Street and become millionaires? Driving red supercars, spending money like water? Buying luxury brands and all that? Sparkling shoes, bags, watches… I bet they’re all on the fast track, right?”
More or less, yes.
That was exactly what my life had been before I regressed.
But this pure, dreamy country girl would never know about the deep emptiness, inferiority, and unease that lurked beneath all that glitter.
I took a sip of coffee.
“Who knows? People live pretty much the same wherever they are. There’s so much homework that we don’t even have much time for parties.”
“Hm… now that you mention it, I guess that makes sense. Looking at you now, you haven’t really changed much from high school. Sigh. So the luxury and gorgeous life I imagined at Harvard was just a delusion after all. Well, to be fair, you were a total nerd back then. Just because a nerd goes to Harvard doesn’t mean he suddenly turns into somebody wildly different… maybe it’s the same even if I go to the city…”
The moment Stephanie let out a sigh—
Whoooom—
A heavy engine note rolled in from outside.
Every head in the café turned toward the window at once.
On the dusty country road, a dazzling red car was gliding toward us.
A Ferrari Testarossa.
The car’s muscular, angular front end and its graceful curved sides threw back a blinding sheen of polished light.
Vrooom—vroom—vrrrroooom—
As it stopped, the exhaust note rattled the café’s glass windows ever so slightly.
“Oh my God… why is there a supercar like that in our town?”
Stephanie muttered, half her mouth hanging open.
And right behind it, two black Lincoln Town Cars pulled up side by side.
Long, heavy bodies, gleaming chrome grilles, dark tinted glass.
They were the classic executive sedans, the kind company officials and politicians rode in.
“What is that? Are they filming a movie?”
Stephanie got to her feet, eyes wide.
The old man who had been reading the newspaper removed his glasses and peered out the window. The farmers, mechanics, and ranch workers all stopped talking entirely and stared outside as well.
Then the driver-side door of the red Ferrari swung up diagonally.
The first thing to emerge was a pair of gleaming black shoes.
Then came navy suit trousers pressed with razor sharpness, shirt sleeves with silver cuff links flashing at the wrists, and neatly slicked-back black hair.
A young, handsome man stepped out of the car.
His name was Vito Hamilton.
He was a capable lawyer whose name had recently begun making waves in the legal world.
Almost at the same time, the doors of the two Lincoln Town Cars behind him opened in unison.
First, six young men in black suits stepped out and lined up.
And between them appeared a distinguished gentleman with graying hair.
Soren Hamilton.
He was my personal tax accountant, and like Vito, he belonged to the Hamilton family.
Ding-a-ling!
The bell over the café door rang again.
With Vito and Soren at the front, the men in suits entered in a line.
The sound of their heels striking the old wooden floor echoed through the quiet café.
Clack, clack, clack, clack.
They walked straight toward my table.
At last, Vito addressed me first.
“You’re early, Boss!”
“Oh dear. We should have arrived even earlier… I deeply apologize, Mr. Lee.”
Soren followed.
As soon as Vito and Soren came before me, both men bent at the waist nearly ninety degrees. The six attendants behind them bowed in unison as well.
Watching the scene unfold, Stephanie stared at me with an expression of utter shock and muttered, “So this is… Harvard… luxury and gorgeous…?”
I supposed I had just implanted a very strange misconception in my hometown friend’s head.