mouth slightly open as she stares at everyone around her.
“I want them to think I’m stupid,” she said to me once. “No expectations is nice. It gives you a lot of time to think.”
Well, you’ve certainly got everyone convinced, I wanted to tell her.
My roommate, Miho, joins us around 10 P.M. Our rooms were originally one bigger office-tel with one side the “office” and the other side the living quarters, connected with an adjoining door that was locked so that they could turn it into two small, separate apartments. Before Miho, a creepy thirty-something man used to live next door, and at night, I would hear his whimpers when he jerked off. I was relieved when he moved out and Miho moved in a few weeks later. I invited her over to drink a few times and she invited me over to see the paintings she was working on. I personally do not care for her style of art—the world is depressing enough already. There is no need to add more freakish misery. Meanwhile, Miho thinks all my regimens are a waste of time and money. But there was something to be said for staving off loneliness, and to have someone there to respond to. So after a few months of getting to know each other, we asked the building to unlock the connecting door between our apartments.
Nami is very intimidated by Miho, because Miho lived in America until recently and she has a real job at a university being an artist. Somehow, she gets paid to fuck around with paint and wood and clay all day. Most of the time, though, she seems to be just staring at the wall.
When Miho arrives, she sinks into a chair at our table with a big sigh and starts drumming her fingers on the table. They are truly disturbing—blisters all over with splotches of paint that has dried inside old cuts. And the state of her nails!—I don’t think she has ever had a gel manicure in her life. I shudder and Nami gapes at her.
“I’m so hungry,” says Miho. “Did you order any more food?” She twists her long ponytail around her wrist like a rope.
“When’s the last time you ate?” I ask. Miho will forget about food when she is working. I get jealous because it is so hard for me to diet but she doesn’t even spend a thought on her weight and remains impossibly slender.
“I think I ate this morning. And then I had, like, a pitcher of coffee every hour.”
I push some of the leftover fish cakes on my plate toward her and wave at the pocha owner, who comes rushing over from the counter.
“Hi, can we get an order of kimchijeon? And what else do you want?” I ask.
“Whatever you think is the best thing on the menu,” Miho tells the owner, who scratches his head. But she has already turned back to me and he hurries to the kitchen.
“Hanbin’s on his way too but it’s going to take at least an hour with the traffic. Don’t say anything about his mother, okay?” Miho’s tone prickles with warning. She is so sensitive when it comes to her boyfriend.
“Of course I won’t,” I say witheringly. “You think I’m crazy?”
“How have you been, Nami?” Miho turns to Nami and looks at her kindly. This is the third or fourth time they’ve met, and after every time, Miho tells me that Nami seems much too young to be having so much surgery. “Won’t she regret it later, when she’s older?”
For someone who grew up in an orphanage herself, Miho can be so na?ve. As if there’s a chance Nami is thinking about the future! She hasn’t seen her parents since she ran away at twelve. She lives one night at a time. Anyone with half a day of real life experience would be able to see that in a heartbeat. But Miho also thinks working in a room salon is something I do because I want to make a lot of money. She could never imagine the type of place Nami and I started in. Even though Nami has also moved out of Miari and into