Not Yet, Da-eun

Da-eun said my name across the marble like she was calling a dog. Not calling — announcing. I have memorized the acoustics of that lobby for years and I know exactly how far her voice carried: the second elevator bank, the bell stand, Im. I watched Im not move. I have known Im for four years and I have never seen him not move. He stood at the elevator bank like a fixture and watched a married woman eat me alive over my lanyard.

She married a Cha. The husband photographed my lanyard before I could step away, the way a person photographs a parking ticket, a stain, something that proves a point later. I have been thinking about that photograph for seven hours. I do not know where it lives now. Probably the family chat. Probably already sent — "Seo-yeon is at the [hotel], not Samsung, lol." The lol is always there.

The mother lie. My mother told her mother I was at Samsung. I did not ask her to. She did not ask me. The lie has been running for nine years and this morning it walked into my lobby in a silk blouse and said my old name in front of strangers. I am angry at Da-eun. I am more angry at my mother. I am most angry at myself, because I never corrected it — not at Chuseok, not at her birthday dinner at the Lotte buffet, not when the aunties laughed about how well I was doing in the electronics. I let them keep me. I let them decorate me.