I bought my own bottle of Windex after that, just so I’d never have to live through the embarrassment of having an unsmiling Polish woman wipe my sex handprints off the mirror next time.
But Victor didn’t show up that week either, or the week after that. Before I knew it, June had come and gone without a peep from the man who was now insisting on calling himself my owner. Cultural sensitivity didn’t seem to be a thing in New Victor’s world. Actually, sensitivity of any kind didn’t seem to be a thing in New Victor’s world.
By July, I’d run out of On Demand episodes of Rap Star Wives to watch and had acquired a pretty impressive day drinking habit. I had to do something other than sitting around waiting for Victor to show up. So instead of cracking open another bottle of Mike’s Hard Lemonade, I looked up an address on the iPhone Victor had given me and grabbed my Mount Holyoke tote.
“Where are you going?” Yaron asked, jumping out of the car when I came charging out of the house.
“To the library,” I answered, hitting the gate’s inside button. “It’s within walking, so I don’t need a ride.”
“But—” Yaron started to say after me.
“Back in an hour or two!” I called out before he could finish his protest. And I waved over my shoulder as I slipped out of the gate.
Just as I hoped, Yaron didn’t follow me. If the house was my cage, that meant Rhode Island was my prison yard. I could go wherever I liked, and that was something. It had to be if I was going to survive these ten years without going insane.
I signed up for a card at the library and checked out a bunch of books with names like “Anyone Can Cook” and “Cooking For Dummies” and “Dinners For Beginners.” And for the next couple of months, with the help of library books and foodie blogs, I taught myself to cook something other than Korean food made for a family of four.
I got pretty good at it, too. By August, I leveled up to cookbooks with words like “Cuisine” and “Gourmet” in the title. I also began developing instincts the same as my mom and no longer had to do things like measure ingredients or consult a recipe book every time I wanted to make Yaron and me dinner.
Yaron, I’d found out, after a little bit of prying, was from the Philippines. And when I made chicken adobo for him, he’d told me it was better than his girlfriend’s. He also liked all the recipes I tried from the library book Gourmet Cooking for Two.
He was stationed at the carport, so I fell into the habit of bringing him a plate every night. Yaron appreciated all the meals I made for him, and he insisted my pork bulgogi made him want to fly to Texas and thank my mom personally for passing down the recipe.
I preened under the compliments. Maybe Victor would have been impressed with the kind of dinner I could make if he showed up. But he didn’t.
And suddenly, summer was nearly over.
“Are you sure you don’t have time for a visit?” Lena asked during a catch-up phone call in late August. “It doesn’t have to be for a whole weekend. Maybe just one night? How about this Friday? I could come to you.”
“Ugh, I wish!” I answered while massaging a mix of salt, pepper, olive oil, and lapsang souchong tea leaves into the last of the summer lamb I’d gotten from Whole Foods a few days ago. “But this internship is non-stop. And we’ve got back-to-back deliveries scheduled on Friday. There’s just no way to make this weekend work.”
I hated lying to my best friend, but I couldn’t tell her the whole truth. That I was currently in a weird prison wife situation with some Chinese mafia boss in Rhode Island, not in New York where she and the rest of my family assumed I was. This was already a big enough mess without getting my best friend involved.
Still, it felt way too symbolic when I moved to the sink to wash the mess of blood and spices off my hands.
“That’s too bad,” Lena said, her voice even sadder than the last few times I turned down her offers to come to visit me in New York. “I’m not sure when I’m going to get the chance to see you again.”
God, how upset would she be if she knew I was really in Providence, less than an hour’s drive from where she was currently enjoying the best summer of her life.
I took a swig of the glass of Cabernet the internet had assured me would pair well with the lamb dish I was making, then hedged, “Maybe in the fall. I might be able to get a couple of days off then.”
