Devil In The Waters // 9.5

After a light dinner Hyun said they should go to a karaoke place. They couldn’t go to Tudor Rose in Ajax because Meyer got kicked out once and though it was just the two of them tonight, no sign of Meyer, Hyun said she was still too embarrassed, even if the incident was four years ago.

They took an Uber west to Unionville and Hyun texted in a reservation at a Chinese place called Ioho KTV where there were private karaoke rooms. The spot was in a vast suburban strip mall filled with Chinese businesses, all the sign names in English and hanzi. At night the mall was emptied but for a few dozen cars out front of the multiple restaurants. Hyun told their driver to take them around the back of the plaza where the loading bays were, a long, faceless brick wall with red metal doors. Only a single row of parking spots at the back, all filled with expensive foreign sedans and a few hot-rod Japanese sports cars. Ioho KTV didn’t have a storefront, only a secret back entrance, no signage, the only indication something might be happening inside was the congregation of young Chinese people, who smoked cigarettes and vaped and laughed, standing on the asphalt below the low metal stairs that led to a landing out front of double industrial doors under a red awning. The place looked grim and impersonal.

Up the stairs and beyond the doors was a long fluorescent-lit hallway, a slick vinyl banner attached to the wall with Ioho KTV printed on it. At the end of the hall a tall, glamorous woman took their names, speaking in Chinese, smiling and gracious, then opened the plain door for them. It was a beautiful space beyond the door, black and glossy, neon tube lighting, a busy bar all in black marble. The hostess led them down a hall, away from the bar and the noise, to a private room with the word Paris engraved on a brass plaque in swash lettering.

Once inside, the room’s simplistic title became clearer: a compact square space in midnight blue, a Louis XIV couch upholstered in metallic-looking silver-blue leather, a pewter table with en console legs and engraved leaves around the belt; the tabletop was lit, a flat rectangle of soft white glow under-lighting a bottle of Patrón, two fluted shot glasses, and a board with cut lemons and a bowl of sea salt. As the hostess pulled a braided rope that opened the heavy velvet curtains lining one whole side of the room—revealing a fifty-inch television—Hyun leaned close and whispered, “I hope you don’t mind, I thought we’d have tequila.”

“I don’t mind at all,” Kimmy said, chuckling.

The hostess showed them how the microphones worked and reminded them there was no smoking, departed and left them alone. They both slung their bags onto the sofa—a canapé—tossed off their jackets and settled onto the seat, melting into the leather like they were exhausted. It had been a very long day.

Hyun was the first one sitting upright after a brief respite, eager to have a drink. Kimmy hadn’t thought of Hyun as a drinker—at least not of the harsher abv—but it was a nice surprise, a welcome one since they were two young women out for a fun night, getting to know each other better even though they’d already known each other for years. Hyun peeled the seal from around the neck of the bottle and then poured a splash into each of the shot glasses. “I wonder how the game is going,” she said.

Kimmy accepted one of the shot glasses Hyun passed, crossing one leg over the other and looking up at the black ceiling above, lit somehow with twinkling stars. “I’m not going to bug him,” she said. “Let him have fun with his new guy friends without his wife checking in on him.”

Hyun pulled the board closer, saying, “Oh, I didn’t want to know the score or anything. I don’t even follow the Jays.”

“I don’t care either,” Kimmy said. “As long as he’s having a good time.”

Hyun teased her with a lemon wedge. “That’s all I meant. And I’m glad he’s got some buddies to go out with.”

“These guys are business guys, too.”

Hyun said, “Mature.”

Kimmy crinkled her nose. “I don’t know about mature. But their interests are definitely more of the masculine kind.”

Hyun chuckled and rolled her eyes, knowing exactly what Kimmy meant. “Yeah,” she agreed. “They’re still guys.”

“They can’t help themselves.”

Now Kimmy uncrossed her legs and scooted forward to the table. She and Hyun watched each other, trying not to laugh, both of them knowing there was pressure when drinking tequila to know the order of tequila-salt-lime, but trying to be mature themselves. Hyun pinched some sea salt and sprinkled it in the thumb-hollow of her fine-boned hand. She dipped her flattened tongue to it, Kimmy following suit now, smiling, watching Hyun knock back the whole shot in one toss, then tuck a lime wedge into her mouth and pierce it with her teeth. Kimmy did the same, a little stiff and awkward, but getting more comfortable hanging out with Hyun, especially when she came out of her shell like this, ordering tequila for their private room ahead of time from the Uber. They both squinted and winced, exhaling tequila fumes, mouths twisting around but keeping their cool in front of each other.

Hyun set her shot glass on the glowing table top. “It’s nice to do it right. Meyer would always”—she shook her head, trying to remember it right—“like snort the salt, or pretend to, then bite the lime and fake tossing the tequila over his shoulder or something.”

Kimmy laughed, finding it very familiar. “Josh did that, too, back in school. From a movie or something.”

Hyun said, “But it’s you and me tonight, and we’re sophisticated.”

As Kimmy laughed—an honest, feel-good post-tequila laugh—Hyun reapplied some lip gloss, the former shine on her lips erased by the lime wedge. She said, “Do you want to go first?”

“Definitely not,” Kimmy said. “You first, more tequila, then I’ll go.”

Hyun grabbed a microphone and a tablet from the side table and started scrolling through the song library on the enormous TV, finger-swiping the tablet’s screen. “You’re not thinking of moving away though, are you?”

Kimmy scrunched her face, not sure what she meant, watching Hyun’s pretty profile as she read the screen, her face painted in flashing colors of light, her lips shining like they were wet. “What do you mean?”

“From Ajax. Those houses . . . they’re all so expensive.”

“Oh,” Kimmy said, getting it now. Before dinner tonight they’d driven around to look at some new residential developments where they were taking pre-orders. “No, we’re going to stay in the area. My dad’s like here in Unionville, Josh’s job is in Ajax, and I don’t want to move to the city. Besides, it’s expensive anywhere you go around here.”

“It’s brutal,” Hyun said, still scrolling, stopping now to type into the search bar. “I liked the second place best, not the town homes but the separate lots, the half-acre ones.”

“It won’t be for a while yet. Like maybe two years, maybe three. I just like to look around for fun.”

Hyun gasped, a soft happy sound. “Here it is,” she said, face lighting up with joy. All smiles, she activated the song, the screen transforming from a menu to pure white, then an image blossoming out of the fog: a snowy night sky, the flakes floating left-right in a strong winter wind. The music began as Hyun skipped from the couch, twirled before the television, her skirt fluttering around her. She wore a light cottony dress with fine line drawings of diamonds, thin red strokes on a white field. She fumbled with the microphone’s button, laughing at herself, getting it turned on finally.

Before she even sang the first line of the song, she realized she knew it very well. Or had at one time. Hyun sang in Korean, the first line, translating how though she says to her heart don’t go, it still goes toward you, Hyun swaying, moving her arms like an experienced performer. Kimmy broke out laughing and applauded Hyun with earnest. The song was “Something Happened to My Heart,” from “Boys Over Flowers,” a high-school K-Drama she and Hyun had bonded over back when Meyer and Hyun had just got married and they were getting to know each other.

Feeling so good and warm and happy, despite the torment she’d delivered her husband into tonight, she poured two more shots of tequila, and while Hyun sang, she performed the tequila ritual again, knocking back another shot before settling into the sofa and enjoying the show. Hyun was a beautiful girl, and so shy and kind. She was reminiscent of Geum Jan-di, the sweet but poor main character in “Boys Over Flowers,” a real innocent introduced to the exciting but tainted world of the privileged.

The longer Hyun sang, the more it seemed like the words were sang to Kimmy, Hyun performing like a real K-Pop star, selling the lyrics to the listener. Her voice was sweet and beautiful—she’d already known that, she’d heard Hyun sing before, and her singing voice was something Meyer used to like to show off—but what surprised her tonight was how well she performed. The song was heartfelt, more than a fun reminiscent song from one of their favorite TV shows. When she sang about counting memories one by one, and lamenting why her heart was the way it was, there was true emotion in Hyun’s tone, a pleading, hurtful cry. But when Hyun sang the lines how the only phrase she could say was I love you, but why can’t you say it to me, Kimmy’s smile faltered.

A strange chill passed over her; a sinking realization all at once. Something she’d maybe intoned before but now came clearer to her, a path through the last months visible like footprints in the snow. Hyun with Kimmy’s haircut, Hyun saying how she had feelings for someone else, but it was unrequited.

The smile returned to Kimmy’s face, now inflamed by disbelief. No way. But it made sense. It made so much sense. She was Hyun’s secret love. It was so unexpectedly lovely and touching that her eyes swelled. It made her laugh as Hyun sang the lines right on cue, going back into the chorus, how her tear ducts were broken, how she couldn’t stop the tears. If she was right, then Hyun had planned this before tonight. The karaoke, the song, the ready-and-waiting bottle of Patrón to embolden her courage before she sang a love song to her crush.

Hyun’s pale cheeks were blushed pink. Her eyes were shining. She swayed with the soaring music, and Kimmy admired her friend, watching the movement of her calves and her thin knees below the hem of her skirt. She could imagine the angst Hyun may have experienced dressing up tonight, wondering what she would wear, probably fearful, fretful, a sick knot in her stomach as she braved her own anxiety and tried to break free of it so she might express a fraction of how she felt about Kimmy.

There was something alluring about it. Arousing, even. To be the subject of another’s obsession or attraction, enough they wanted to offer a grand gesture from their heart, wanting to make a connection, to feel valued or maybe even loved in return. But with that came a pressure, a compulsion to react in a way that would preserve Hyun’s feelings. She loved Hyun. She was a bright spot in their lives, a decent human, the mother of their beloved niece.

But as Hyun continued, singing with emotion, swaying, moving her arms in slow and graceful strokes, she couldn’t help a darker fantasy opening before her from all this displayed innocence. A way to comfort her friend through inclusion. Collusion, too. Bringing in her beautiful friend, sharing some of those parts of her that scared herself, opening up how dangerously close to the sun she’d flown this summer, how close she was coming to setting her whole life in flames. She needed someone in her life to confess to. She’d sought a confidant. That was why she’d befriended, or at least rekindled, an existing friendship with Hyun. And if Hyun felt this way about Kimmy, then what would that mean of their friendship? It would mean she could probably tell Hyun everything, and Hyun would comfort her. Maybe help her find a way out of this terrible tangle she’d pulled around herself. Hyun could even help her find a way out.

And as Hyun wrapped up the song, laughing and blushing, eyes wet and teary, Kimmy called Hyun to her. Hyun flicked off the microphone and stumbled comically, slump shouldered and embarrassed. Kimmy welcomed her with a pure and open embrace, Hyun falling onto the couch and laughing and turning away, and Kimmy hugging her, laughing as well and telling her how she didn’t know she could sing so well and how it was one of her favorite songs.

There was something good about giving another human you cared about the reaction they craved. A feeling of “doing good.” And in the midst of her shadowy world of doing bad, Hyun could maybe serve as a redeemer.

She could picture it now, holding Hyun’s slender and delicate body: maybe in bed, maybe a tender moment of sharing and exploration—three of them, luring Josh into her own dark world, showing her husband how sexual curiosity could ignite lust into a raging fire. Hyun was his cousin’s ex-wife, the mother of their niece.