Son wasn’t about to give up on her principles of personal responsibility and clean up the smear of a mysterious gelatinous substance on the kitchen table. She made sure to slice her meat and greens to the left of it, to keep her colander of veggies in the sink, and when it came time to remove her stir-fly from its pan she pushed the cutting board back, laid out a plate and proceeded to transfer her meal from the pan to the plate. She at once washed the pan, the cutting board and the knife she had made use of. Then, she wiped down only the portion of the table which she had used (leaving the gelatinous smear as pristine as she had found it), took her plastic bag of wrappings and discarded portions of vegetables from where she had hung it off the back of one kitchen chair, set a pair of chop sticks on her plate and carrying plate of stir-fried pork and greens in one had and bag of kitchen refuse in the other, she retreated from the kitchen.
This was day three of life with the mysterious gelatinous smear on the kitchen table. Whoever had originally perpetrated this smear had not come forward to claim it, nor clean it up at a moment of kitchen solitude. And neither had anyone else.
Now, in fairness, there were a total of five people sharing that small kitchen, and none of them had taken the job upon themselves. Son was hardly the laziest of them. She was merely the only one who routinely prepared meals in the smear’s company, and just as routinely cleaned off the side of the table she had deemed suitable for her use, and not the half occupied by the smear.
Back in her room she sat cross-legged on the bed, plate on a TV table opened in front of her. She ate in silence. Bite by bite the plate slowly reemerged from under her dinner. About half-way through she realized she was thirsty and got up to pour herself a glass of water.
She kept a Brita pitcher full of water on the dresser top nearest the door and several shapes and sizes of glasses (and one mug) as well. She had never bothered to exchange the expired Brita filter for a fresh one. A roommate, a boy named Gyon-Jong who called himself Neil, had bought her a new filter, his going-away gift to her. She had kept it on top of the refrigerator, fully intending to put it to work when the time was right.
Another roommate beat her to it. Just took it upon herself to soak the new filter for an hour, insert it, and discard the old one. Son knew she’d live to regret letting that person share her refrigerated water. She kept the Brita pitcher in her room from then on.
It was then that G’ene arrived home. Of course, Son couldn’t immediately determine whether the individual who had just entered was G’ene, or one of stompy little men who they shared the apartment with. Not that G’ene in any way (but how her walk down a hallway, muffled by walls and door sounded) resembled one of the stompy little men they happened to share apartment 43 with.
Son listened intently at her door. Whoever it was had made their way directly to the kitchen. The entrance to G’ene’s room was through the kitchen, but it sounded like whoever it was was lingering, unpacking groceries, and slamming cupboard doors.
The suspense was killing her. She fetched her plate of stir-fry pork, not yet cleared, and brought it with her out of her room, down the hall and into the kitchen.
G’ene let out an enthused greeting, in no particular language, and made to give Son and her plate a hug. Son had to be quick on her feet to dodge the embrace. Not that she didn’t want G’ene to embrace her. She just didn’t want G’ene hugging her stir-fried pork and veggies.
She decided to be there on the pretense of needing some Kim Chee to go with her dinner, and muttered something to G’ene about thinking she was that noisy American (Jewish he called himself) guy in room D.
Son was sort of relived when G’ene appeared oblivious to her veiled criticism.
G’ene was in a very good mood. G’ene was usually, though admittedly not always, in a very good mood. She was a tall girl, certainly by Korean standards, she wore glasses and pony-tails and had a round and delightfully cheerful face.
She’d grown-up in a community of Seventh Day Adventists whose every member claimed to descend from a pack of fifteen Western European missionaries that arrived on the shores of Gangwon-d Providence, at the turn of the 19th century.
G’ene was the Gangwon-do Providence regional weight-lifting champion, middle-weight division. She’d lifted as many as 207 pounds in the snatch event, and had a personal high score of 255 pounds in the clean and jerk.
Her prospects for the 2008 Olympic team had been high indeed, until a torn ligament forced her off the mats late last spring. Everybody said she would be able to recover, that she could make up for this little setback through extra-vigorous training in the fall. There was talk of abbreviating her academics beginning in September, to allow more time for training.
“No one thinks I’ll be the best lifter out there. I really am no Prapawadee
Her coaches, her father, her brothers, and fellow lifters hardly knew what to say. That didn’t stop them from trying. She was ceaselessly confronted and compassionately counselled.
Had she torn a ligament in her shoulder, or had she dropped a weight on her head? … Suddenly even her doctors weren’t really sure.
“It won’t do to stay here right now G’ene. If you really mean it, you really want to quit, then see Father Moon-Ny about studies abroad,” her mother advised her.
Standing in the kitchen of her Washington Heights sublet apartment, G’ene knew she’d ridden in on a tidal wave which originated in a gym in Gangwon-do Providence eight months earlier, when she’d tried (and for a few moments succeeded!) lifting a weight that she just couldn’t bear.
Now, what had happened since she’d rented her little room and began studies at Columbia University (molecular biology had always been a passion of hers, until recently cast asunder by the demands of her training schedule) really originated much earlier than the day of that fateful workout.
She frankly assumed it all originated in the womb.
“I bought everything I need to make spaghetti, even French bread and a pasta strainer!” G’ene proudly presented her new colander, “Should I cook now, or wait until later?”
“If you’re hungry now, cook now.” Son detested indecisiveness in others, a very hypocritical stance to take, but Son really was an exceptional hypocrite.
“Oh but I’m always hungry. I’m going to get so fat! I’m not burning it off like I use to.” G’ene pat her toned tummy.
G’ene felt her frustration with their little shared kitchen mounting, it was already filled to capacity, she searched every cabinet and shelf, but there appeared not to be an inch to spare. And half of everything that claimed space was crap! Rusty pots and pans, and expired canned goods.
“It takes a really long time for a can of lentil soup to go bad,” G’ene was examining such a can, “This one expired last year. How many years has it been sitting here?”
“I don’t know. It isn’t mine.”
“You’ve lived here longer than anybody, haven’t you? Like more than three years, right?”
Son didn’t like the implication of these questions. She knew how to mind her own business. She always attended to her own responsibilities. It wasn’t her fault that a can of lentil soup had been abandoned by some ne'er-do-well….
The newest roomy filled a plastic Gristedes bag with cans, packages of noodles, jars of mayo, and boxes of granulated sugar, all long past their dates of expiration. It was a bit of an ordeal, but G’ene kept at it, persevered by drawing on the of Jesus Christ, which she had been reared on. Such reminiscences on the word of God had allowed her to grit her teeth and endure many a relentless training session, and now served to keep her smiling through the painstaking process of clearing twelve-square inches of shelf space for her personal use, cleaning a mysterious gelatinous smear from off the kitchen table, relegating three badly rusted pots to yet another refuse bag, and coaxing from Son some hints as to which plates and cutlery were without owners and might, given a good long cleaning, be re-enlisted into kitchen service.
While G’ene maintained a brave face, she couldn’t help but notice mounting anxiety on Son’s part.
“There, I’m done now,” said G’ene upon Son’s third pace of the apartment. “I’m not trying to upset you. I’m sorry if I have.”
Son laughed a little and said she wasn’t bothered. G’ene wondered whether she was being lied to, or whether Son was lying to herself. And just like that G’ene too was in a state of crisis.
She had moved into apartment 43 five months earlier and become fast friends with the apartment’s other Korean tenant. They were immediately aware of sharing a country of origin and a mailing address. It wasn’t long before they realized they shared a love of Central Park and American sit-coms. And finally, one Thursday evening six weeks prior, well into the NBC comedy line-up, they realized that they were both gay. They were both gay women who had made it into young adulthood without so much as uttering to themselves what they were. But suddenly there they were and they were touching, and kissing and being intimate with one another in ways they never knew they could be with another human being.
On that first momentous night it had been enough that they had Korea, Central Park, and must-see-TV in common. G’ene hadn’t been attracted to Son from the moment they met. It had been a far more gradual awakening. This, G’ene assured herself, was perfectly normal. Gay or straight love depended on who people are on the inside, and you can’t glean that from first impressions.
G’ene watched her waifishly thin lover fill a little Tupperware container with the left-over portion of her pork and veggie dinner.
Hell, she thought to herself, nobody gets these things right on their very first try.
Two years after high school graduation Christina Correa got it into her head to visit New York. She bought herself a plane ticket, got a sad little hotel room and after a week here in the Big Apple, made-up her mind to stay. She's been here ever since.
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