This Burns My Heart Page 0,87

attendant at the front desk. We spoke to Mr. Lee, the handsome guy with the little girl, Hana, is that her name?” Nami continued.

Min, thought Soo-Ja, what did you tell them?

One of the girl’s friends, a round-faced bulldog with giant fake eyelashes and harsh bangs, piped in, thrusting her face in between them like a child playing peekaboo: “We told him we didn’t have the money, and he said don’t worry about it! He has a handsome smile, that man! It’s good to know there are still good people out there like him.”

“We’re just here to have fun,” said Nami, looking at Soo-Ja incredulously. “Now be a good sport and follow the boss’s orders.”

Before Soo-Ja could reply, the girls swiftly disappeared out the door, giggling. But they were not the ones Soo-Ja was really mad at. She picked up the phone and called the sul-jib Min always went to. The bar manager, who knew her by now, had no trouble finding Min. Soo-Ja soon had him on the other end of the line.

“Why are you calling me here?” Min asked.

“Did you tell a group of teenage girls yesterday that they could skip on their bills?” Soo-Ja could tell she sounded like a machine gun, the words snapping out rat-tat-tat-tat.

“They’re just children, Soo-Ja, and they don’t have the money. What are we going to do, send them to jail?” asked Min.

Soo-Ja pictured him looking around the half-empty bar, eager to return to his leatherette booth. “You had no right to do that! I’m trying very hard to earn money here, and at the same time, here you are, giving rooms away. The least you could do is ask me before doing that.”

Min seemed offended. “Ask my wife for permission? That’s a new low you want me to go to, isn’t it?”

“I hope it made you feel good, letting them stay without paying, because that good gibun cost us three hundred won.”

“I’m a very generous man,” he said, and his voice sounded to Soo-Ja a bit distant, as if he had moved his head away from the receiver and said this to someone else, at the bar.

“Yes, that’s what these girls think. You are so nice to them, giving them things for free. I don’t see you offering any generosity or niceness toward me, though. I could use your help around here.”

“A hotel is woman’s work. And what’s so hard about standing around, saying ‘Welcome to the Hotel Seine’?”

Soo-Ja sensed a bit of cruelty in his voice that had not been there in a while, but she bit her tongue. “I have to go now, there’s something I need to do before the girls return.”

Soo-Ja bade Min good-bye and hung up the phone. She moved fast, lest she change her mind. She rushed to the girls’ rooms and, after glancing down the hallway for a moment, she went inside.

Clothes were strewn everywhere, creating spots of bright pink, orange, and green on the floor. Their silver-hued suitcases, featuring labels like Chanel and Hermès, looked like impressive knock-offs, with shiny fasteners and hard rough black coating. On their beds sat all kinds of expensive Pearl Sisters–related paraphernalia, including LP records still in the original wrapping, smelling like freshly minted vinyl. Soo-Ja glanced at the price tags and saw that they all added up to a pretty penny; if they hadn’t spent so much money on souvenirs, they could easily have paid for the rooms.

Soo-Ja opened their bags and began stuffing them with their belongings. When all the suitcases were full, she dragged them to her office and locked them in there. She did notice that the bags looked a bit lonely and sad, left on their own in the cold, blue room, but she stayed strong and told herself that if the girls really valued their things, they’d pay up and earn the return of their precious records and clothes.

When Soo-Ja finally came out of the alcove she used as an office, she saw there was someone at the front desk, and though she did not recognize him at first, she realized it was a guest who had checked in earlier that day. Mr. Shim? Or was it Mr. Yoo? And even though it was not even five in the afternoon, the man was clearly drunk. He had a bottle of maegju in one hand, and with the other he was undoing his tie. Soo-Ja couldn’t tell how drunk he was, as men in Seoul often tended to exaggerate their drunkenness.

They were like drunks