Chapter VI

 

When it’s April, people start to build summer hobbies. The sun shines longer, meaning the day is too long for everything listed to do. April means the month of bloomers, of flowers and the like. You can see it in people’s faces, April means a lot. Around the neighborhood, people just enjoy what they are doing.

 

There’s grandma on the porch reading with her thick, heavy glasses; Junior’s watering the garden, and mom’s weeding. Others are having a who-has-the-better-bicycle match. Girls are out for an adventure…

 

But not Dara.

 

Not her.

 

Without… yes, there’s no sense, he would be out here walking with her now doing some kind of unusual adventure.

 

But hey, it’s the new Dara!

 

“Hi there, grandma!”

 

The old woman just smiled.

 

“Hey junior! You‘ve got a heavy work!”

 

The little boy smiled.

 

“Good day, Mrs. Wood!”

 

The woman waved a bunch of weeds to her… and smiled.

 

“I think this blue bike is the best.”

 

The boys laughed. The blue bike was partly rusty and the tires were old, bald that is. The small boy who owned it just smiled. He had a missing front tooth. Dara grinned…

 

“Hey, what’s the rush?”

 

“We’re going to a hike up the mountain.”

 

“There aren’t any here.”

 

The girls giggled. “We’ll be travelling to one now.”

 

“Have a good trip, then.” The girls smiled.

 

Dara reached their house. She walked right into the porch and put down her backpack. She had just gone from school with lots of books inside her bag. It was Saturday night, alright. But she won’t go out. No adventures this time. The finals are near. She has to give her best shot.

 

She went straight to the kitchen. Her mom was preparing their lunch. She sat down.

 

“You are becoming a celebrity in the neighborhood, Dara.” Mrs. Park the stove She turned around and looked at her daughter.

 

“Later... I’ll be a celebrity in the entire world,” Dara replies and reaches out a hand towards the peaches…

 

Her mother smiled. “It’s not that, sweetie. I’m just happy you are getting more sociable.”

 

“I was sociable then, what’s the difference?”

 

Mrs. Park recalled the boy… “Oh, nothing.”

 

“Ji.”

 

Mrs. Park’s eyes shot back to Dara.

 

“Forget him. He’s not making any sense to my life. Right about now, I don’t need him,” she said.

 

“I wasn’t asking.”

 

“No, you were thinking, mom.”

 

Dara stood up and grabbed a handful of peaches and ran upstairs.

 

Upon closing the door, she dropped herself in the bed. At least she could hide… In her room, the real ‘her’ speaks out.

 

She opened her diary. Lot’s of  ‘I miss you’ filled the pages. Somehow, the intensity has declined, she thought. She misses Jiyong badly but later these days, she feels so free that Ji becomes only a faint dream.

 

“That’s better,” she whispered. “At least, I’m partly forgetting him.”

 

The thought occurred again…

 

“Does he miss me too?”

 

Dara sat on the bed and pulled out a paper from the diary. The music sheets he gave…

 

Standing up and looking out of her open window into the blooming world outside, she recited the verses.

 

“I’ve walked a thousand miles and here I am now. Tired and weary of the journey. I’ve passed a million roads in search of a star. And fin’lly I’ve found you.”

 

She walked towards the window table and took a green ballpoint pen from her pocket. She began writing at the back of the music sheets.

 

I’ve waited for so long and here I stand now…

Almost dreaming, always thinking.

I’ve reached the endless hours

Under heaven’s grace.

And fin’lly you are here.

 

She looked away, out to the window. Outside, April was making its earthly toast of life. Inside houses, life in April looks different… Dara let out a sigh. She took the sheets and hid them again.

 

How true the paradox? When people leave, that’s the only time you feel how important they are to you. Ironic, but it’s true. How important is Jiyong to her?

 

Dara bit her lower lip. Despite the darkness inside the room, moonlight filters through the curtains. She couldn’t sleep well. With eyes wide open, she began to recall the past that had been only a cruel nightmare.

 

There were many times she could count on Jiyong to do something that had suddenly pop into her schedule or something else she had forgotten. For instance, during their finals last year, she forgot to finish one of her projects involving a very complicated research about chemical solutions. Jiyong’s miracle help proved useful. She never knew he could solve such rigorous experimental calculations. Oh, she couldn’t stand that.

 

Hence, she tried convincing him to straddle up the rankings. He would say a half-yes. His name would never appear in the top ten lists because he had failed somewhere else. But he was happy, when Dara would be scolding him afterwards.

 

For many countless times, he had saved her time and… life. It was only ‘til now, could Dara realize how much she owed him half of her entire success. Jiyong is used to school errands, including her own requests. He would stay up all night in the house helping her encode files or finish papers in their computer.

 

Maybe, she had been used to a “Jiyong” ever since childhood. He had been there from the start, so it really makes no difference at all to her. But now that he’s gone somewhere else, everything has become totally different.

 

The past schooldays, everything was fierce. She had to triple time everything and does what Jiyong calls, a think-fast-decide-now risk. She had to meet her parents’ and her teachers’ expectations. He had taught her that time is precious. He even taught her some funny exciting things. He told her one time that the best step to take in the midst of confusion is a decide-now-regret-later. She grinned, recalling the memories.

 

And did she ever hear herself say “Thank You”? Once, during Valentines Day, she bought a thank-you-card just for him. She tried to recall if it was deliberate action or if it was one of her mom’s commandments again.

 

Was it sincere? Jiyong was silent the following day after that. When asked what’s wrong, he would sigh and say nothing.

 

She needed him alright, up ‘til now.

 

Dara pushed the sheets aside and got up from the bed. She opened the window and stared at the stars above. How she wished she could fly straight to him and just say “hello”.

 

She turned around and saw that phone. She heard the number from her mom and someone else’s name, called Fred or Freddie or Ed…

 

But maybe, her mom could be right after all. She has to forget something that’s already lost, something that will never be found again. But Vince…? She would treasure those memories of friendship all her life. They say that this world is too small for two people. That has yet to be proven.

 

“Is life unfair?” she whispered as she went back to bed. Maybe…

 

Bom took a gum from her orange coverall jacket and chewed it mercilessly. Dara looked at her and just sighed.

 

“What?”

 

“Do you brush your teeth?” she asked.

 

The bus began to roll forward on  their way to the airport. Everyone inside are settled comfortably. Her classmates and teachers… will be on a trip to Manhattan. Did she just hear them say a one-week-trip?

 

“Of course. Three times a day,” Bom replies the lipstick and grinning at her friend. She put on her earphones and decided to enter another world.

 

Dara closed her eyes and tugged at her blue long-sleeved polo. It’ll be a long way to New York. What would she do there? What’s in for the World Trade Center anyway? She thought it was in New Jersey? Or was it?

 

If you’d ask her ‘bout economics and the stock market, she’d be looking blankly at you. What’s it for seventeen-year old wanderers? Well, at least there’s going to be lots of shopping in New York. But to think that it’s just the United States, she’d find same old stuff in the Big City just like in Seoul. Yeah! My family’s well-off and can afford a trip to the Big City. But who cares, it’s a big city to even meet that one person I’ve been longing to see…

 

 

“Anyway, we’d be arriving in California and would take a bus from there. We will be stopping at every state. So, this would be a two-week trip.” She heard her teacher say.

 

“A two-week trip?!” she found herself raising a complaint. She had heard it wrong then…

 

“It’ll be fun Dara,” the teacher said. Her agitated smile was such a discomfort for Dara.

 

“Oh, fun…” She nodded just to look away.

 

The bus began moving…

 

She pulled one earphone out of Bom’s ear and whispered. “My mother permitted me to join this trip because I said I wanted to see New York. That is all there is to it.”

 

“Okay. If that’s what you want me to believe, can I object?”

 

Dara looked at her friend suspiciously.

 

“It’s a veeeerrrry long journey, and we’ll be crossing timezones.” Dara found herself speaking. Bom smiled.

 

BUS from LA…

 

So this is the United States on a personal encounter, not that she had never flown and visited other states before… It is just that this time, she took time to notice the changing details. She looked outside the window, staring at the sights outside. Hours had passed. She had slept a while ago when they stopped at a gasoline station. Gasoline? No, buses have diesel engines.

 

She had seen the states even on books, magazines and heard it on documentaries, films and even in songs. All that stuff seemed very much alien to what she was witnessing now. The window was like a big movie screen, city turning to countryside to desert and mountains, urban to rural to metropolis again. Those gray and white and colorful sceneries turn to green, brown and black.

 

Crossing the whole country means getting in and out of time zones, even to climate regions and land topography. From temperate to warm, to dry deserts and deciduous forests, swamps and evergreens, even cactuses and succulent plants. Well, maybe that’s why their teacher suggested a bus trip. Inside that bus, she could gradually observe the changes outside.

 

“And so is the heart,” she whispered. “How wide the heart could be… It has the entire climate in the world. But the most often that it feels is what defines the personality of the person.”

 

And so is the mind, only it could wander further than what the eyes perceive, she thought. Home is so far away now. Jiyong must’ve felt the same, Dara thought. Home…