The Purple Jacket
Peter bolted from the room.
A school only nobles attended, and he a fallen aristocrat who had sold off even the castle and still could not let the old glory go, wedging himself in where he did not belong. Of course he would be a laughingstock. That was why his first worry had been the roommate.
"Whew."
He let out a breath of relief. Thank goodness he seems decent.
A recommendation from the Queen herself, and the very first placement in the honors track. Anyone else would have been entitled to put on airs. Park Jihoon said nothing of the sort. He seemed thoroughly easygoing.
Peter turned it over as he walked, and before he knew it the school office was in front of him. The roommate seemed all right. This came first.
He knocked. The door creaked open.
"I'm Peter, a first-year."
Perhaps because the entrance ceremony was nearly upon them, the office looked frantically busy.
"What is it?"
The woman who seemed the most junior of the staff looked up.
"I'd like to apply for the work-study scholarship."
"Is this about your service hours?"
"No. I mean it literally. It's for the scholarship."
"A scholarship?"
Did the children of rich houses simply have no need of the school's help? The word seemed to reach her from a very great distance.
"Hang on. Let me check."
She headed for the team leader's office. A moment later she came back smiling brightly, as if the answer had been an encouraging one.
"There is a work-study scholarship, it turns out."
Peter said nothing.
"No one's applied in years, so I didn't even know we had one."
"Then... I can do it?"
"There's a problem, though."
"A-a problem?"
"Cleaning, repairs, tidying—the contractors handle all of it. So there isn't really anything for you to do."
"Even so, if I did something, the contractors might be a little more comfortable..."
"What was your name?"
"Peter. Peter Bint."
"I'll put you on the list for now. If something comes up, we'll call. Head on up."
"But if there's no work all semester..."
"I'll find you something. Sweeping snow, tidying the garden. Don't worry. Go on."
Only then could Peter bow his head.
"Thank you."
"Oh. Wait."
"Yes?"
"You haven't been on a television show, have you?"
"A sh-show?"
"You know. When you were little. In front of a great big chalkboard..."
Right then a rebuke cracked down from behind her.
"Jessica, how long are you planning to stand there chatting with a student?"
She flinched, shoulders drawing in, and hurried the words out.
"Sorry. I have to go."
She vanished in a rush. Peter could not make his feet move. For a long while he stood there blankly, because the clerk's words would not leave his ears.
You know. When you were little. In front of a great big chalkboard...
Meanwhile, in the dormitory, in Park Jihoon's room.
My luggage was nothing but a few changes of clothes. I hung them roughly in the wardrobe and stepped straight back out. There was still plenty of time before the entrance ceremony. I might as well look around the school.
I had been walking for about a minute, looking at the paintings along the corridor, when a familiar voice found me.
"Where are you going?"
Jack Grylls. Finished unpacking already? Earlier he had come in hauling a military duffel stuffed to bursting. He wiped the sweat gathered on his chin.
"Going to train?"
"Just thought I'd look around."
"Want to look together? While we run?"
I snorted. The kid couldn't sit still for a second. Fortunately, I liked running too.
"Come on out."
His room was 3103. Through the wide-open door I could see his roommate.
He's wearing a ruffled shirt.
You know the kind. An enormous lace collar, that cumbersome costume peculiar to aristocrats. He wears a shirt like that to relax?
He and Jack will be oil and water.
The room confirmed it. Split down the middle, one half a soldiers' barracks and the other dressed like a handsome salon.
Practically oil and water.
And my roommate, by comparison! Nothing for luggage but a single computer.
Practically an angel. An angel.
Anyway, Jack came out of the room looking lighter than air.
"Let's go."
Beyond the dormitory a broad garden opened out, a wide path shaded by countless trees. Neither of us called it. We simply started to run.
What caught the eye above all else were the statues. They must have been Britain's great figures. First came royalty, enormous crowns standing proud. Behind them, chancellors holding books stood in a row, and past that stretch came soldiers on horseback. Then the artists. Books, sheet music, painting kits—each of them carrying the tools of a trade. Just as their procession was ending, water roared up.
A fountain vast as a lake, crowded with little angels blowing trumpets. Whenever the water shot high, a faint rainbow showed.
This is another world entirely. I might as well have stepped into eighteenth-century Britain.
Our feet drummed the path. Maybe the strangeness of the view was to blame. We ran on without tiring, and only when the way split four ways did we look at each other. Which way? We took the one toward the river.
A mated pair of swans, and four cygnets paddling hurriedly after them. Well clear of the birds, a group of upperclassmen pulled at their oars. We ran a good while longer even through that pastoral scene before we finally caught our breath.
"Bodies are loose. Gym?"
I had felt it in Korea too. Jack did not know the meaning of enough. Once he got going, he saw a thing through to the end. The problem was that he got going all the time. The bigger problem, if you could call it that, was that I couldn't laugh the suggestion off.
"Fine. Might as well."
Perhaps I had overdone the leg work. My legs were shaking under me.
The entrance ceremony, indifferent to my condition, dragged on and on. Maybe that was what came of a school nobles attended. Families had come, and whole clans of relatives besides, until the hall might as well have been a concert venue.
The one who rose to the podium as representative of the incoming class was, of course, Tennessee Grosvenor. When his oath ended, the hall erupted.
"Waaah!"
Applause crashed down the way it does at the end of an orchestral performance. The rest of the new students might as well have been extras.
Yawn. I'm fairly numb to that sort of spectacle, but looking around, I saw I wasn't the only one. Jack was nodding off on his feet, and Olivia spent the entire ceremony sketching in a notebook. You could call it high self-regard. Or you could call it indifference to school affairs.
Either way, thunderous applause broke loose, and the tedious ceremony seemed more or less over. Sure enough, the relatives who had been seated came pouring into the hall. Flashes burst from every side.
Must be nice. All I wanted was to lie down in bed.
I was about to start for the dormitory when a voice came from behind me.
"Park Jihoon!"
Olivia. If it had only been Olivia, there would have been no problem. A middle-aged man in a brown jacket, a beige shirt, and a chocolate tie was looking at me.
Huh?
Give brown a variation and you land on olive or khaki, at most. It looks safe, and it is anything but easy to wear. And here was a man carrying that brown perfectly, tone on tone, by the harmony of color alone. In that instant I knew.
This is no ordinary person.
Sure enough.
"Dad said he wanted to see you."
"I've heard a great deal from my daughter."
Which meant this man was the designer who represented America. Ralph Warren. I took his hand.
"It's a pleasure to meet you. I'm Park Jihoon."
"I hear you've got the distribution network in the eastern United States locked down."
"I don't imagine the West would be so very different..."
At that he laughed, full and easy. The look on his face said he had been curious what sort of person I was, and this was answer enough.
"Dad, what does that mean?"
There had been no advance word with Olivia, it seemed. She was looking from Warren to me and back when he turned.
"Ah. And."
A man who looked like a secretary brought over a large shopping bag.
"This is a small gift."
"...Yes?"
"I was told my daughter received some help."
Inside the bag was a purple jacket.
"Actors commission the suits they wear to awards. This one was designed for Harrison Ford. Well. I'll simply have to make another, and quickly."
Ralph Warren smiled, a little awkward.
"The color may be too much for every day, but in a party hall it will be quite splendid. All black, and a single purple jacket, and that's enough to make you the center of the room."
"Is it really all right for me to accept something like this..."
"It is. Of course it is."
His voice left no room for argument.
"A friend did what a father ought to have done. I'm nearly ashamed that a single suit is all my gratitude amounts to."
"I didn't really do anything."
"My daughter says she was helped. That's enough."
If he was going to put it like that. I dipped my head, small, in thanks.
"If you've got East and West distribution in your grasp, I expect we'll be seeing a good deal of each other."
"Half of that was a joke."
His mouth crooked. He studied me for a long moment. It was a pleasant smile, without a trace of wariness. Then Olivia cut in with perfect timing.
"We've taken too much of his time. Dad, let's go eat. He needs to rest too."
Everyone's parents seemed to have come. Olivia, of course, and Jack and Peter both, together with their families. I wasn't the type to care about that sort of thing, ordinarily.
Still. It stings a little.
I was hurrying away when, at the entrance to the hall, a very welcome face appeared.
"Boss!"
I hadn't known Korean could sound so welcome. It was Jo Sudeok. As if he refused to lose to anyone, he was holding a bouquet the size of a ceremonial wreath. The gladness vanished at once, and shame took its place. Fortunately, the gladness still seemed to be winning.
"What brings you here?"
"What brings me? You're entering school, Boss. I had to drop everything and come running."
"Isn't your term about to start?"
"I wanted to see you so badly I moved my address to Britain while I was at it."
"Come on..."
"It's true."
I could only stare. We moved somewhere else first. Fortunately the school had a large café, and we were speaking Korean anyway, so no one else would understand a word. Jo Sudeok laid out everything that had happened, in detail.
"So you've been at King's College London all this time, as a research professor?"
"That's right. The Chairman seemed a little worried, and he even arranged a house for me without a second thought."
Well, well. Park Jihoon, hogging Grandfather's affection all to himself. The conversation that followed was something I could truly welcome.
"From now on, how would it be if Baker handled anything to do with sports, and I took everything else?"
"That would be perfect."
As if he had been waiting for it, Jo Sudeok went on with his report about the abandoned factory. A change of use would be necessary anyway, so he had contacted a city-owned plant. That sort of thing. The stage had moved to Britain, and his execution was still flawless.
"Even so, it'll take a few months."
"Shall I try to pull it forward somehow?"
"No, no. They'll have procedures of their own. We ought to match them."
I let a beat pass, then went on.
"Then, while you're settling in, how about resting properly for a while?"
"Settling in? I'm a research professor. I don't even have lectures. As long as I hold a solo exhibition within three years, they won't interfere..."
"Even so, you ought to rest a little."
"Oh, come on. You know I'm the type who gets restless if I sit still."
I said nothing.
"Boss, do you still not know me? I'm the type who surges with strength when there's work. Just give me anything..."
"Then... shall we?"
"Yes?"
"Better you surging with energy than sitting there listless. Better all around."
"R-right. A hundred times better, haha."
Jo Sudeok took out his notebook.
"Ah."
"So I'd like the first store to be especially special..."
"You have something in mind?"
I nodded.
"Just say the word. I'll persuade that brand and bring them in at once."
"There is no brand."
"Then I should find the designer?"
"Something like that."
"If I only knew where the fellow was working..."
"They aren't working yet."
"I'm sorry? What do you mean..."
"They're such a newcomer there's almost no information."
An absurd order, truly. But Jo Sudeok showed no sign of questioning it. There must have been a similar mission once before. That preposterous assignment in Boston: find the architect who owned a painting. And the result?
We'd unearthed an unpublished da Vinci.
Perhaps that memory had risen in him. He swallowed, hard. Jo Sudeok's Adam's apple rolled, large.