clothes were always a marvel, consistently stunning in both style and cut in unusual color combinations. She had a low voice and a rare smile, which sometimes flashed across her face like a comet.
“The dean loves her because of all the donations her father made,” said one of the Parsons girls after Ruby asked us to work on Sunday morning. “And he only made them because she didn’t get into Stanford like everyone else in their family.”
“I heard it was the biggest disgrace—even all the cousins-in-laws’ neighbors get in if they’re connected to the SeoLim family,” said another girl, who went to Tisch. “Then apparently she wanted to go to Yale, but her boyfriend’s ex is going there so she threw a fit and decided to come here.”
“No, no, it was because of a huge drug bust at Ashby,” said the first girl, flipping her hair. “She was supposed to get kicked out, but they let her graduate because her dad donated a new gym. My cousin goes to Ashby and she said it cost twenty million dollars and it’s outfitted with all the latest SeoLim technology.”
Ruby came in and glanced around the room until she saw me. “Miho, can you come help with these flyers?” Without a word to anyone else she stalked back out immediately and I could see the other girls’ dissatisfaction printed on their faces. Which pleased me, because they had been ignoring me once they discovered I was on scholarship and hadn’t gone to a boarding school in America.
“I’ve never heard of it,” said another SVA girl when I told her the name of my public middle school in Korea. “Which neighborhood is it in again?” And when I told her it was in Cheongju, her eyebrows bounced sky high before she turned swiftly back to her phone.
But I didn’t care, and it wasn’t like I could have lied about my schools anyway. For all its millions of people, Korea is the size of a fishbowl and someone is always looking down on someone else. That’s just the way it is in this country, and the reason why people ask a series of rapid-fire questions the minute they meet you. Which neighborhood do you live in? Where did you go to school? Where do you work? Do you know so-and-so? They pinpoint where you are on the national scale of status, then spit you out in a heartbeat.
* * *
—
THE THING ABOUT Ruby was, it wasn’t only me or other Koreans who found her fascinating. I would be sitting with her in a coffee shop or even a library and people would just steal glances at her the entire time. I couldn’t quite figure out what it was—the sheen of her skin and her eclectic, expensive clothes or stony expression, I did not know. But it was only the most oblivious of men who would try to talk to her. Once, we were eating dinner in a new salad place near her apartment when a man approached her. He looked foreign—Italian?—and he was young and slickly dressed in a well-cut suit, clearly a finance type stepping out for a quick take-out dinner to eat at his desk. He had been looking in our direction while standing in line, and after he had picked up his bag of food, he came and stood by our table.
“Excuse me, sorry to interrupt,” he said with a slight accent, looking both cute and confident. “I have to tell you that you are very beautiful.”
Ruby didn’t look up from her food and kept eating slowly, not saying anything.
“Can I ask if you live in this neighborhood? I live and work around the corner,” he said, pointing to the window at a building that he clearly thought we should know.
His smile began to falter when neither of us responded.
“Okay, well, have a good dinner,” he said, almost sullen now, and headed for the exit. As he opened the door, I distinctly heard the word “bitch” muttered under his breath.
“So ridiculous!” I said lightly to Ruby.
“Maybe I can have him killed,” she said, her eyes slitted.