Re Jane by Patricia Park Read Free Book Online

late-summer heat, barely moving the air that was thick with humidity and the smells of fried fish and Hannah’s fermented bean paste. George left the table for the family computer in the living room. He did not clear away his bowl and chopsticks. Mary left the table to practice piano for church service. She carried her bowl and chopsticks to the sink but did not wash them. Each time someone got up, the table wobbled, despite the folded-up magazine pages wedged under one leg.
    After Hannah and I cleared the table and washed the dishes, Sang asked me again whether I’d heard back from my interview. When I told him I hadn’t, he shook his head with disappointment. “You want something happen? You gotta make happen. When other people sleeping, you suppose to be digging well.”
    Abruptly I rose from the table. The backs of my thighs made a squelching sound against the plastic seat. I opened the fridge to the usual assortment of bruised fruit. We took home the rejects from the store, and that night there were Asian pears, which were my favorite.
    When I returned to the table with the most banged-up of pears, Sang was fanning himself with a Con Ed bill. Hannah was boiling water for tea. (She thought that eating hot foods on hot days was good for the system.) I set to work on the pear, slicing away its sores, the card table all the while rocking unsteadily. Then I began to peel.
    Sang stopped me. “Look, you waste.” He held up the pear peel and pointed to the white flesh on the underside. I’d cut too thick a peel. He shook his head in disappointment. Asian pears cost us around four dollars each at wholesale. Hannah picked up my too-thick peel and put it in her mouth, scraping off its flesh as if it were an artichoke leaf.
    Sang launched into one of his stories that were always the same: the business of Flushing. Which of his friends were making money and which were not. In this case Mr. Hwang and his real-estate deal.
    Sang’s eyes, seeking an audience, darted through the doorway to his daughter at the piano, but she was immersed in her Bach. Mary always started her piano sessions with warm-up scales, then a couple of Bach two-part inventions, which you could always tell from their utter mathematical symmetry, then something more erratic and swelling: sometimes Beethoven, sometimes Rachmaninoff. Sang’s eyes moved on to his son at the computer. George was clicking furiously on the mouse with one hand while punching a key with the index finger of the other. Sang sighed, his story barely started. It felt rude to leave him hanging. “Which deal is this again, Uncle?”
    My uncle ignored me. “
Ya!
Georgie-ah!” Sang said. “Your
abba
talking to you!”
    George looked up from his computer game and groaned. Reluctantly he trotted back to the kitchen table. Mary stopped her piano. “George! Did you log off? I’m expecting a phone call.” George returned to the computer and replugged the cord into the phone jack.
    Sang began his story again. “Hwang just buy house in Great Neck. Kings Point! When he suppose to buy business building instead. Now he have Chinese landlord. Every morning ten, fifteen Chinese people coming up from building basement. They just living
there. Those people, willing to sacrifice anything. Where they go bathroom?”
    The phone rang as my uncle went on about the Chinese. Mary rushed across the living room to answer it. “Jane, it’s for you.” She held out the receiver.
    â€œJane!” a voice cried out. “It’s Beth Mazer. We’ve been trying you all night, but the line was busy!”
    â€œI’m sorry, my cousin was on the computer.” I glared in George’s direction, but he was engrossed in his pear. His eyes went blank whenever he chewed, as if he were gazing across the pasture. I envied his ability to escape.
    â€œJane, my
sincerest
apologies for the delay. I was away at a conference and then