“God bless you!” he yells.
As promised, the punctual Mr. Yi is nowhere to be found. “Fuuuuuck!” I scream at no one in particular.
“Watch the language,” warns a passing transit cop.
By the time I’ve paged Mr. Yi over the public-address system and called the courier agency—both misses—the flight is less than an hour away. I slump to the floor near the ticket counter. You’ll see her again in a couple of weeks, I say to myself. I rest my head in my hands.
“Are you okay?” asks a woman from behind the ticket counter. She’s Korean, approaching middle age, dressed in the uniform of the airline I’m supposed to be flying.
“My mother is dying,” I say, surprising myself.
Suddenly, we’re both crying. “And you missed your flight?” she asks, holding out a tissue box.
“I was supposed to meet the guy with my tickets here, but my cab got into an accident and I was late.” I accept a tissue and dab my eyes. My conscious brain is no longer in control of my speech. “She’s in the hospital in Seoul…,” I hear myself saying. I’ll spare you the rest of the performance; suffice to say that it’s desperate, shameless, and in the end, effective.
“There is one thing I can do for you,” she says. “The flight is not full. I could sell you a seat.”
“I don’t have much money.”
“I can charge you bereavement fare, because of your mother. Can you afford three hundred and fifty dollars?” I nod that I can—I still have nearly a thousand dollars left over from my aborted deal with Danny. After checking my passport, she scribbles a series of numbers and letters onto my ticket. “When do you want to come back?”
“Monday morning?”
“So little time!” she says, pausing to look at me. I nod gravely with puppy-dog eyes. She begins to cry again. “There’s one last thing,” she adds, tears streaking down her cheeks. “I can only get you a ticket in first class.”
A minute later I’m sprinting through the airport like O. J. Simpson in that Hertz commercial, arriving at the gate just before it closes. I show my ticket to a stewardess, who ushers me to a large leather chair that would have been too big to fit in my apartment.
“Cocktail?” she asks.
And then we’re taking off. We’re in the air for nearly an hour before an old lady sitting next to me offers me a huge smile. “Don’t you just love these international trips?” she says. “So exciting. Even the air on the plane smells different. It re-minds me of my garden.”
I take a whiff of the air. It suddenly dawns on me that what she’s smelling is the two pounds of marijuana I’m still carrying on my person. I excuse myself for the bathroom, where I flush two thousand dollars’ worth of drugs down the toilet.
15
“WHERE IS YOUR LUGGAGE?” ASKS THE Korean customs official with a cherub’s face.
“No luggage,” I reply, causing the cherub to raise an eye-brow. “I’m only here for the weekend. To see my girlfriend.”
“Ah, girlfriend,” he says, stamping my passport. “She must be good girlfriend for all this travel.”
“She’s the best.” I look up at the clock behind him, which places the local time at three P.M.
The cherub returns my passport and nods at the soldier who stands between me and the exit. “Soldier” isn’t the right word to describe a kid with greasy hair and a soft layer of stubble and who, despite the ominous-looking machine gun hanging from his neck, reminds me of a teddy bear. He smiles and gestures at me with the gun, indicating that it’s okay to pass. South Korea may be the most adorable country on Earth.
Unlike New York, Seoul’s subway runs right into the airport, making it an obvious choice for a budget traveler like yours truly—I only have a few hundred dollars left to my name, and it is going to have to last given the abrupt end to my relationship with Danny Carr. So I’m disappointed to discover, studying the map on the wall, that none of the stops are labeled “the Four Seasons,” K.’s hotel and the only point of reference I’ve bothered to bring along. One more thing to re-member the next time I make a mad dash across the world to evade the police and spend the weekend with a lady.
I exit the terminal to a sunless afternoon that feels ten degrees colder than what I’ve left behind. Rain is inevitable. Luckily, the taxi stand is where I expect it to be, just outside baggage claim, and a black-suited man escorts me into the back of a waiting car. Ahead looms a skyline, white, shiny, and clean, like a miniature Manhattan by way of The Jetsons.
About forty minutes later, we pull into a semicircular driveway in front of the Four Seasons. The driver points to the meter, which has just broken 11,000.
I rub my eyes to make sure I’m reading the meter correctly. I hold up the portrait of Andrew Jackson. “Hothyel,” says the cabbie. I’m saved when a smartly uniformed valet opens my door for me. “Welcome to the Four Seasons,” he says in perfect English. “The concierge will be happy to help you exchange your American currency for our Korean won. I will ask your driver to shut off the meter while he waits. You should know that in Korea it is not customary to tip the driver.”
The doors to the hotel part like curtains, exposing an international casting call for beauty and wealth. As I scan the lobby for the concierge, I find Ray. He’s sitting on a couch, looking completely at home, his attention focused on a dark-haired woman. He doesn’t look up as I cross the room to the front desk.
An agreeably efficient concierge magically transforms $100 American into a princely 70,000 won. I’m on my way back to pay the cabbie when Ray intercepts me by the door.
“There he is!” he yells, capturing me in a bear hug. “Man, do we have to talk!”
I disentangle myself and place a hand on his shoulder. “Good to see you, too. Just let me go settle my tab.”
Outside, the cabbie accepts the exact fare on the meter with the same smile he’s worn the entire trip. I slip a 5,000-note to the helpful valet—the extra zeros have me rolling like Donald Trump. I reenter the hotel, this time with a strut in my step.
Ray is waiting for me, his arm around the dark-haired woman. I decide that thirty-two perfections might have been an understatement, wondering if “skin like mocha ice cream” and “the legs of a Rockette” had been among them. “You must be Devi,” I say, extending my hand. She hands me hers as if she wants me to kiss it, which I do. “First time I’ve ever kissed a goddess.”
Devi flashes a perfect smile and surprises me with an elegant British accent. “In my country, it is considered to be good luck.”
“This is very good news,” I reply. “I hope to get lucky.”
“You Americans are such bad boys,” she says, not disapprovingly. “Ray and I were just about to have a cocktail at the bar. Will you join us?”
“I’d love to, except I’m only here until Monday and I’d really like to see the lady I came here for.”
Devi cocks her head, puzzled. “You’re leaving tomorrow?”
“No, Monday.”
“But today is Sunday.”
“What happened to the international date line?” I ask Ray.
Ray looks at me sheepishly. “Only works on the way home. Turns out you actually lose a day getting here. My bad. Listen, buddy—”
“Wait a minute…. I’ve only got, what, eighteen hours here? Now I really have to find K.”
Ray nods and looks like he’s going to say more, but Devi interrupts him. “K.? She’s in our suite,” she says. The change to her smile is fractional, but transforms its message from benevolence into something more mysterious. I can see why she probably made an effective goddess.