Chapter 3

 

            It was November 9 when Stephanie Hwang first came to work at the Starbucks on Wilshire and Vermont.  She arrived with a timid demeanor, unable to look into her coworkers’ eyes at first.  Sunny, who had embraced her new nickname quite excitedly, introduced herself as so.  She was assigned to help train Stephanie her first few days, though it seemed difficult to find a connection.

            Stephanie had all the appearance of a Hollywood starlet.  Her hair was dark and glossy, making her clear, light skin glow brighter under the Starbucks lamps.  Beautiful makeup adorned her face, accentuating her cute cheeks and pretty nose.  But as Sunny watched her attempt to make various lattes and Frappuccinos throughout the days, she wondered if her lack of confidence was hiding an even more beautiful feature.

            “Your hair is really pretty.”  Before meeting Jessica, Sunny wouldn’t have had garnered the poise to compliment a coworker.  But her words flowed naturally, as if Jessica herself were speaking them.

            Stephanie’s eyes flickered up from the cash register for a moment.  She gave a small smile, but barely made eye contact with Sunny.  “Thanks.”

            “Sunny!”

            Jessica walked up to the cash register and looked over at Sunny at the other end of the bar.  She waved her hand excitedly, then patted it on the counter laden with gift cards, small snacks, and CDs for sale.

            “Will you have your usual, Jessica?” Sunny asked slyly, already taking a cup from the Grande stack.

            “You know me too well!”

            “Stephanie, that will be a Grande mocha latte,” Sunny informed as she began the drink.

            “Are you new?” Jessica asked, taking her credit card from her wallet.

            “Jessica, this is Stephanie.”

            Stephanie took the card from Jessica without looking up at her.  Jessica watched her carefully with a frown on her face.  What she assumed was the result of her “Ice Princess” persona was really just Stephanie’s very own brand of how to meet new people.

            “It’s nice to meet you,” Jessica finally smiled, eyeing Stephanie curiously.

            “You would have met her earlier if you had visited the past two days,” Sunny remarked with a smirk, finishing up Jessica’s drink.  “She’s been training for a while.”

            “Ah, yes, I had to go up to San Francisco for a couple days,” Jessica told, walking over to the pick-up bar.  “It was sudden.”

            “Is everything okay?”

            “Yeah, everything is fine.”

            Sunny stared at Jessica’s limp grin suspiciously, but she handed her the drink without questions.  “Will you study here for a bit?”

            “Yeah, I need to catch up on some things I missed,” Jessica sighed.  “I’ll be here for a while.  Do you want a ride home after your shift?”

            “That would be great!”

            Since that night at the Santa Monica beach, Sunny stayed at Jessica’s apartment as often as possible.  Now that they both knew they were lonely, they hoped to cure the pain they both felt.  It was almost as if they were roommates, something Jessica said often.  But Sunny didn’t, and she couldn’t pay any rent to Jessica, so she tried to avoid the term whenever possible.  Regardless of the uncomfortable guilt Sunny felt, Jessica lavished her with gifts whenever they would go shopping.  She insisted her new friend ought to have anything she wanted, and she definitely made sure of it.  Sunny learned to keep shut when they shopped, even keeping herself from looking at clothes she genuinely like.

            Autumn rolled by quickly, and Sunny finished her semester well.  Even with the stress of new holiday-themed beverages and cold winter nights, her mind was clear enough to study for her finals and find time to spend with Jessica.  She wondered, if Jessica had not been there, if studying would have even done anything to help her grades.  Jessica made every worry seem like a simple issue to manage.

            It was the second Saturday of December when Jessica asked Sunny to spend the night yet again.  This time she didn’t offer to pick Sunny up and bring her over.  She called suddenly around 9PM, not with a blatant invite.  But Sunny sensed trouble, so she quickly caught the bus and headed over.  She brought nothing with her, knowing that a good amount of her clothes and other necessities had already made permanent residence at the apartment.

            The door was unlocked when Sunny arrived, and she found herself worrying even more.  She walked in and immediately spotted a glistening bottle of wine on the kitchen counter.  It was already opened, and at least a fourth of it was gone.  Jessica stepped into the hallway holding her glass containing some of the wine.  She was wearing the same shirt from yesterday; that alone was a worse sign than the alcohol.

            “Jessica…Are you okay?”

            “Yeah,” Jessica smiled.  The circles under her eyes were dark and alarming.  She sipped the wine casually and walked back into the kitchen.  “I’m trying to make some ramen.  Maybe you can help me.”

            Sunny entered the kitchen and smelled the boiling water on the stove.  She eyed the wine in Jessica’s hand again, knowing that in both Korea and the United States, it was illegal for the both of them to be drinking alcohol.  But she ignored that fact for a moment and tended to the ramen.  She opened two packets of it and put it in the water.

            “What…What did you do today?” Sunny asked, wondering how to tip-toe around Jessica’s potentially unstable condition.

            “I tried to study for my finals next week.”  Jessica finished the wine in her glass and poured herself some more.  “I just couldn’t focus…You already had yours this past week, right?”

            “Yeah, they weren’t bad,” Sunny assured.  “I’m sure you’ll do fine.”

            “I told you about my little sister, right?”

            Sunny sensed that this was the tip of Jessica’s iceberg.  “Her name was…Krystal?”

            “Yeah…We’re both anemic, you know.”

            “Anemic?”  Sunny turned to Jessica and watched her with wide eyes as if she could collapse at any moment.  “What kind of anemia do you have?”

            “Deficiency in iron production,” Jessica informed, swirling the wine around in her glass.  “I went home last month because my sister fainted during a soccer tournament.”

            “Is she okay?”

            “She was fine, but they took her to the hospital to have some tests done just in case.”  Jessica gave a small smirk as she looked down at the ground.  “My sister is so athletic.  She does any sport she can possibly fit into her schedule.  But she’s fainted a couple times since then.  My parents are going to limit her from now on.  She can’t put herself in danger.”

           “That’s a good idea.”  Sunny stirred the ramen and added the flavoring.  “Try not to worry too much, Jessica.  She’s going to be fine.”

            “I’m just so worried about her.”  Jessica took another gulp of her wine and picked the bottle up again to pour some more.  “Along with finals next week, I just don’t know what to do.”

            “Hey.”  Sunny hurried over and took both the wine bottle and glass away from Jessica.  After placing them on the counter, she took Jessica’s hands and smiled.  “If you’re stressed out, let’s find something fun to do.  You don’t have to drink it all away.  Why don’t we…go shopping?”

            “You never want to go shopping anymore,” Jessica sighed, looking over at the wine.

            “Well, Christmas is coming up, so I need to shop!” Sunny exclaimed.  “The malls are all decorated really nicely at this time of year.  Let’s go tomorrow and find some good winter clothes.”

            Jessica’s eyes finally brightened.  “Do you mean it?”

            “Of course!”  Sunny felt anxious about the shopping trip, but she wasn’t going to let Jessica sense it.  “It’ll be a lot of fun!  And maybe…Maybe we can invite that new girl from my store?”

            “Tiffany?”

            “Stephanie,” Sunny corrected.  “Yeah…I know she just moved to LA this summer.  I think she might be lonely as well…I saw her crying in the back room a few days ago.”

            “Then you must bring her along!” Jessica insisted, shaking Sunny’s hands.  “Shopping cures anything!  I have so much to buy!”

            Jessica’s eyes sparkled with excitement and intoxication, and Sunny knew she had to finish making the ramen quickly.  “Hey, go sit down and find something to watch.  I’ll bring some ramen out to you.

            But when Sunny finished with the ramen, she found Jessica already asleep on the couch.  Her tired eyes seemed so relieved to be closed.  hung open ever so slightly, and Sunny could already see a shiny bit of drool on the corner of her lips.  But the humorous sight didn’t amuse Sunny, and she couldn’t overcome the knot in her stomach.  She left the ramen on the kitchen counter and sat in the cozy chair next to the couch.  She just wanted Jessica to rest.

 

*          *          *

 

            The next day, Sunny made sure Jessica had a hearty breakfast before she studied for her finals.  They spent most of the morning reviewing the text for Jessica’s English class.  Jessica’s talent rested in art and visual representation; the black and white words in books bored her, and the thought of writing an in-class essay terrified her.  Sunny instructed her to write an essay on fashion tragedies of the past autumn, and that seemed to loosen her up.

            They found a tiny ramen restaurant nearby where they went for lunch.  Jessica claimed she had been craving it for weeks, and the thought of last night’s ramen going to waste made her even hungrier for it.  She slurped it up quickly and reviewed her fashion tragedy essay between bites.

            “Stephanie texted me back this morning,” Sunny informed, stirring her ramen lazily.  “She’ll meet us at the Westfield Mall at two.”

            “Sounds good!”

            They soon hurried off to the mall and lingered in the MAC Cosmetics store for a while.  Sunny resisted taking out her old flip phone to check for a text from Stephanie.  Every time Jessica saw it, she immediately offered to buy her an iPhone, and Sunny saw this as a threat.  Just as she was going to finally take it out of her purse, Stephanie walked into the shop.

            “Ah, Tiffany, we’ve been waiting for you,” Jessica greeted warmly.

            “It’s Stephanie,” Sunny corrected, as Stephanie was far too shy to correct her herself.  “I’m glad you could make it, Stephanie!”

            “Thanks for inviting me,” Stephanie said quietly, offering a slight grin.

            “Now that you’re here, we can move on to the classy stores!” Jessica insisted, leading them out of the shop.  “I’m not talking about trashy shops like Hollister and Abercrombie.  I’m talking about real stores!”

            Stephanie hugged her body and looked down at her own clothes with sad eyes, and Sunny wondered if her entire outfit consisted of clothes from those two “trashy shops.”  She patted Stephanie’s arm, and they three of them began to walk through the mall.

            “Ah, Sunny, you know, while I was taking my Korean class, I studied Korean culture on my own,” Jessica began as they strolled along the bright tile floor.  “You know what fashion tragedy I should have included in my essay this morning?  There’s this new girl group in Korea right now…Girls’…Girls’ something…”

            “Girls’ Generation?” Stephanie asked, looking at Jessica with curious eyes.

            “That’s it!” Jessica exclaimed.  “Yeah, I saw their music video online, and it was so depressing.  Their fashion is such a tragedy; I could never be a part of that industry.”

            “Girls’ Generation…What’s the Korean name?” Sunny questioned.  “Yeo-ja-shi-dae?”

            “It’s So-nyuh-shi-dae,” Jessica informed with her sloppy Korean accent.

            “So-nyuh-shi-dae…Are they with SM Entertainment?”

            “Yes,” Stephanie answered quickly.  “They just debuted a couple months ago.”

            “I think I’ve heard my parents talk about them,” Sunny told.  “Lee Sooman…is my uncle.”

            “Lee Sooman is your uncle?” Jessica exclaimed.  “Wow, girl, you’re basically Korean royalty.”

            “He’s your uncle?”  Stephanie stopped walking, and Jessica and Sunny stopped as well and turned to her.  She looked at Sunny with such wide, hopeful eyes.

            “Yeah,” Sunny chuckled bashfully.

            “Do you think…Do you think you could get me an audition?” Stephanie requested suddenly.

            Sunny observed Stephanie’s desperate stare in surprise.  The girl’s eyes almost glistened with tears, and her whole body was stiff with anticipation.  Jessica gave Sunny a concerned look, and Sunny returned it with an uncomfortable grimace.

            After noticing their behavior, Stephanie gave a choked laugh and looked down at the ground.  “I’m just kidding.  I…I was just playing.  I already auditioned a few years ago.  They offered me a contract, but…things didn’t work out.”

            “Impressive,” Jessica noted, her critical gaze slowly fading.  “You must be really good!  That’s actually very funny.  When I was twelve, a scout from SM Entertainment tried to recruit my sister and I for an audition.”

            “Wow, maybe the two of you could have been members of Girls’ Generation!” Sunny suggested playfully.  “Then you could wear those breathtakingly gorgeous outfits, Jessica!”

            “Disgusting!  I would never sacrifice my dignity to be a Korean pop star!”

            Sunny laughed happily and looked at Stephanie.  “What about you, Stephanie?  Would you sacrifice your dignity to be a member of Girls’ Generation?”

            Though the atmosphere felt light with laughter and smiles, Stephanie remained in a bubble of silent disappointment.  She stared at the ground quietly, though she appeared far from calm.  Her shiny eyes revealed a mind full of racing thoughts.  Sunny leaned toward her and tried to catch her gaze.

            “Stephanie?”

            “Um…Of course not.”  Stephanie answered with a halfhearted grin.

            They stood in uncomfortable silence until Jessica finally cleared and pointed toward the other end of the mall.  “Let’s skip the shopping for now.  I want something sweet.  I feel…strange.”

            “That’s a good idea, Jessica,” Sunny replied, still looking at Stephanie’s cold expression.  “Come on, Stephanie.  Let’s get something sweet to eat.”