An Invitation from the Past
Jo Sujeong, wife of Lee Changguk—Changhee’s older brother, now known as Gukhwa—wore a modest two-piece suit. She had still taken care with her appearance for the interview. Her lightly made-up face looked a little gaunt, yet the bright smile she carried was genuinely pleasant. She had the air of a mother who had weathered the world’s hardships and come through intact. According to Mira, she had graduated high school and headed straight to Seoul to begin work in a garment factory. She met Lee Changguk, dated him for roughly a year, then married him almost immediately. He had fallen for her strong survival instinct and optimistic spirit.
She was not a beauty in the conventional sense, but neither was she plain. The way her eyes crinkled into gentle crescents when she smiled was, in fact, quite charming. Whether it was the novelty of our first meeting or simply her sunny disposition, I couldn’t be sure, but her voice sounded brighter than it had over the phone, and I liked it. Overall, she gave off the impression of someone who felt fundamentally good to be around.
“Don’t be too disappointed if you don’t land the position. I can look into a few other places for you.”
“I’m sorry. We’ve practically only just met, and I feel embarrassed accepting this kind of help.”
“Please don’t say that. I’m doing it because I want to. You’re the sister-in-law of the person I love. If I won’t help family, who would I help? I talk big like this, but the truth is I’m so ashamed I never invited you to the wedding that I can hardly look you in the eye.”
“No, it’s all right. Actually… I already knew. I heard through the young lady…”
“Yes, Mira—I mean, the young lady—told me as well. She said my brother’s opposition was so fierce that it was difficult for you to come alone.”
She offered no reply. Her gaze remained fixed on the baby.
“I understand you’ve already been told what kind of people Changhee and I are.”
She lifted her head a fraction and looked at me. She gave a small, slow nod, then turned her eyes back to the infant.
“I imagine learning the truth must have made things very awkward for you. That’s one reason it’s been hard for us to stay in closer contact.”
The moment I finished speaking she looked straight at me and shook her head firmly.
“No, it’s not like that. I don’t hold those kinds of prejudices. I’m not clever enough to pick apart every little thing, nor am I narrow-minded. More than anything, it was simply a difficult time. I felt lost, I suppose. I’d be grateful if you could understand it that way.”
She offered a gentle smile and returned her attention to the baby. She looked like a woman for whom the only precious thing left in the world was her child.
While the interview continued, I kept watch over my “nephew” Sanghyun as he slept sweetly in the stroller and called Changhee.
“Thank you, unni. By the way, does my sister-in-law look healthy?”
“She looks better than I expected. She’s a bit thin, but raising a baby is no small thing, so that’s understandable. She doesn’t seem ill or anything, so you don’t need to worry on her account. On that note, it seems she doesn’t harbor any ill feelings toward us, which is a relief.”
“That really is fortunate. Next time I’ll join you when you meet.”
“All right. I don’t know how things will go after the interview, but if we end up having a meal together I’ll suggest we all meet next time.”
“Please do. You know how much I love you, right?”
“Of course I do. That’s why I’m trying so hard, haha…”
I ended the call and ordered another coffee. Asking for it to be brought to an outdoor table, I took Sanghyun out to the café’s backyard. I parked the stroller a short distance away, lit a cigarette, and phoned Jeongsook. She, who had handled the payment for me, reported that everything had gone smoothly.
“How’s it going on your end?”
“The interview’s still underway.”
“Dad put in a good word. When he said it was someone our company was recommending and dropped your name, the president’s eyes apparently lit up.”
“Really? Why? The president there has no direct connection with us, does she?”
“The vice president there says she knows you. When exactly did you start building connections behind my back?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
The president here was a fairly well-known businesswoman with no direct ties to our company, so we had never met. Naturally I had never encountered the vice president either, which made the claim that she knew me all the more bewildering.
“Her name is… just a second… Cha Suyeon. Cha. Su. Yeon.”
She must have located her note; she read the name with deliberate clarity.
“Huh? It can’t be…”
“What? You know her?”
“I’m not certain, but it’s possible. It’s the same name as my second or third girlfriend, hehe…”
“What? You had a girlfriend I never heard about? You rotten girl!”
Even though she knew I was joking, Jeongsook cried out as if someone had tried to steal her own lover.
“Why are you getting so worked up? You were busy making your own lovers back then too. I only vaguely remember the name.”
That was a lie. Cha Suyeon. Of course I remembered the name; of course I remembered the memories attached to that past girlfriend. It had already been eight years.
Though we weren’t in the same department, we had been in the same university club. Suyeon, the same age as me, had approached me openly from the very beginning. She was a rich girl with a taste for my type—the kind I often spoke of—and she had worked hard to secure even one date with me. She was studying design, a classic femme, and her adorable looks and stylish clothes drew plenty of men, yet she behaved as if I were the only person in her field of vision.
And eventually, since I wasn’t seeing anyone at the time, I let her win me over and we began dating. I had never breathed a word of it to Jeongsook, who attended a different university. It was strange that I had kept it from her when we shared almost no secrets. I’m not sure whether I feared Jeongsook would steal her from me or whether I simply assumed we would meet a few times and part ways.
In any case, we saw each other steadily for about six months. She possessed an intensely jealous nature. Displeased that I occasionally spent time with men as well, she would frequently cry and cling to me, begging me to love only her. But it never worked out that way.
I carried a peculiar inclination that was difficult to explain. As a lesbian I was distinctly butch, yet I also liked well-behaved men who became pretty when they cross-dressed—a strange bisexual tendency. That said, unlike Kim Minjun, I never regularly visited transgender bars in search of sex partners. I usually met people through arranged gatherings, and there had been only a handful of occasions when I took a compatible partner to a motel, dressed him in a bra and stockings, and slept with him.
Since I felt no heterosexual attraction toward ordinary men, if anyone asked I could only answer that I was still a lesbian. That was ultimately why Suyeon and I broke up. A few months later she left to study abroad. Circumstances suggested I had been the one dumped, yet I felt so liberated afterward that I wondered whether I had truly been the one rejected.
“Hey, are you even listening to me?”
“Ah, sorry. I was wondering if it was the Cha Suyeon I know.”
“Ugh, you player… You’re heading home after this today, right? Come in tomorrow so we can talk, okay?”
“What are you on about? Why are you suddenly scolding me?”
“Scolding? Hoho… That’s right, it’s been a while since I nagged anyone. There’s no man around, so why don’t you play the man for me, hoho…”
After I hung up and began pulling the stroller back inside, I spotted Jo Sujeong approaching. When I waved, she waved back. Her face was far brighter than it had been before the interview—a good sign.
The moment she reached me she announced that she would begin work next Monday. I congratulated her and, though it was still early, asked if she would like to have dinner. She agreed, so we walked to a restaurant just a few steps away.
As soon as we placed our order she launched into the story of the interview. The quickened pace of her speech made it obvious she was thrilled to have passed on the spot.
“The work was a little different from what I’ve done before, but they said it wasn’t difficult and that I could learn it quickly. Then they asked if I could start on Monday. I’m truly grateful. I don’t know how to thank you properly.”
“If you really want to show your gratitude, let’s meet often from now on. And while we’re at it, I have one request. At home we’re sisters-in-law, so I’m your unni, but when the older family members aren’t around, I’d like to simply call you Sujeong. Our family isn’t some aristocratic household, and I’ve always had an allergy to excessive formality, hehe… From your résumé earlier I saw you’re a year younger than me… Would that be all right?”
“Oh my, yes, I’d like that. I don’t care for that kind of formality either. Actually, I wanted to call you unni. Since I never had an older sister, I tend to call any woman older than me unni. Hoho… Please let me call you that when it’s just the two of us.”
“But what if you slip up in front of your in-laws?”
“I’ll just have to be careful, hoho…”
I had no desire to ask whether the pay was higher or lower than her previous job, nor whether the working conditions were better or worse. The fact that her expression had grown so much brighter in the space of thirty minutes was enough. When I thought that this might be the real Jo Sujeong, my heart swelled with quiet satisfaction.
“Oh, right—I received this business card earlier.”
Vice President
Cha Suyeon
RSVP
I looked up from the card and at her.
“The interview was with the manager, but afterward they asked me to wait a moment. The manager then brought a woman over, and that woman asked her to give me this card.”
I looked at the card once more. At the bottom of the name, RSVP was written. It was the abbreviation used when one hoped for a reply to an invitation. If the business card itself was being treated as an invitation, the letters implied a request for a phone call in response.
Interestingly enough, the person who had once taught me the meaning of those four letters was none other than Cha Suyeon herself.