SIXTEEN

Although I had my fair share of Friday nights at bars with groups of college friends (of whom were mostly acquainted solely with Jessica), I probably spent more time in this summer alone at a bar than in my entire life. That was a peculiar thought, wasn’t it? Was that a good thing or a bad thing?

“Did you find the meaning of life yet?”

I was in the middle of trying to determine the answer to that specific train of thought when Tiffany’s sudden query caught me by surprise.

“Oh, uh,” I said, recuperating myself, “Almost, I think.”

Tiffany smiled. “Oh yeah? What is it?”

I entertained a mysterious smile at her. “What about you? What do you think?”

I knew what she was going to say. Not word-for-word, but it came to no surprise for me when she replied with, “For me? That’s you.”

I couldn’t help laughing. What a strange scenario this was; if this was an isolated scene in a movie, I would not blame the audience for mistaking us a couple. Me expecting her to say something that cheesy, her actually saying it, and me laughing in response? Yeah, definitely something straight out of a cheesy romance movie.

“That doesn’t even make sense,” I told her, “I mean unless you’re talking about yourself specifically or something. But even so, that doesn’t really make sense … I mean, how can I be that?”

Tiffany responded simply by looking at me, smiling. Feeling pressured to meet her gaze, I stared back at her until a man’s voice called for her.

“You can Taeyeon, trust me,” she said, twirling around and gracefully gliding to the eager customer.

I played with my glass, absent-mindedly watching her interact with him. Tiffany was being serious that time? But usually, she teases me about this kind of thing, right? So if she was actually serious, then does that mean she was serious other times as well? Or, wait … what were the implications of her being serious all those other times? Were there any?

“Agh,” I groaned, placing my hands back down on the bar’s counter in frustration. Women are hard to understand.

Wait. I’m a woman.

“Yes, you are.”

Tiffany’s giggling voice interrupted my thoughts. Oh my god, why did I have to say that out loud? I buried my face in my hands. “You didn’t hear that, did you?” I fearfully asked, voice muffled by my hands.

“You’re so cute Taeyeon,” Tiffany replied, patting my lowered head.

“I want to just disappear right now,” I groaned, nevertheless enjoying her warm hand stroking my hair.

The door’s jingle signified the opening of the door, but I thought it insignificant until I realized that Tiffany cut her response short.

I lifted my head and turned around while Tiffany made her greeting. “Jessi! You’re here!”

I found myself grinning dumbly. It was four days ago that Jessica told me to give her some time to think, so the level of excitement I experienced seeing her willingly confront Tiffany was through the roof. No one liked to see her two best friends on rough terms, after all—although it seemed like Tiffany still held no grudge towards the other Korean-American.

“Sica! Come here!” I greeted her excitedly, patting the empty stool next to me. She gave me a shy grin, meandering over. I wasn’t used to this; I admired Jessica for her confidence, but seeing her this apprehensive was off-putting. Tiffany openly displayed her excitement at Jessica’s appearance, right? That meant that she didn’t hold any disdain or the like towards her; why was she being this cautious, then?

“Hi Taeyeon,” she said, promptly turning towards Tiffany. In the split second between my greeting and hers, I could sense the slight pause that signified a fear of speaking. I knew that sensation all too well; I would go to career fairs and plan out a whole speech only to freeze up in front of the recruiter. It was that sort of irrational fear of ‘what if I mess up and embarrass myself’? “Hi Tiffany,” Jessica settled with.

“What’s with that? What, are we strangers?” Tiffany playfully said, reaching over the bar’s counter and grabbing her hands. Jessica flinched briefly, her shoulder muscles tensing up for the briefest of seconds, but not quickly enough to go by unnoticed by Tiffany. “I don’t bite, I promise,” Tiffany laughed, rubbing the back of her hand.

“Sorry, I know that. I’m just … I’m going crazy right now, I guess,” she admitted.

I, who was just watching them, now sat in this silence, started to feel pressure to continue the conversation. “So, what do you want to drink, Sica? Don’t worry, this time, after you get drunk, I’ll record you so that you can remember everything.”

Jessica turned to face me, immediately placing her hands around my throat. “Don’t you dare,” she said, shaking me.

I grinned, sticking my tongue out at her. “You can’t stop me~” I said in a sing-song, Tiffany laughing on the side.

“Ooh I wanna see that. I promise not to spike your drink, but what do you want Jessi?”

Feeling much more comfortable now, Jessica eyed Tiffany suspiciously. “Well now I trust you a lot,” she commented, “But I’ll just have a water.”

“We don’t have that. How about—”

“How do you not have water?” Jessica said, leaning over the counter and scanning the utilities present, “There’s a sink right there!”

“Oh, that water isn’t meant to be drinkable,” she said dismissively.

“You’re just making up excuses,” Jessica replied accusingly.

“That’s what my manager told me, so I have to obey her,” Tiffany said innocently, “May I recommend our special for Friday nights, the—”

“You’re not getting me drunk, Tiff,” Jessica said. Although she interrupted Tiffany again, this time, the atmosphere was much more light-hearted, “I’ll just have a Sprite.”

“You’re no fun,” she said as someone else called for her, “I’ll have your Sprite shortly; don’t flirt with Jessica too much, TaeTae,” she said, winking at me before waltzing off.

I laughed uneasily, trying not to think too much about the wink that almost caused my heart to skip a beat. That was a ridiculous notion: why would Jessica flirt with me? Although I guess I prefer Jessica doing it than a man I’ve never met before; at least, I won’t feel like I’m ruining that person’s day by being socially inept.

“Oh, what’s this?” Jessica said, using English for some reason. I squirmed in discomfort, feeling Jessica’s gaze on me, “Is Tiffany being defensive of you? Why’s that?” I wanted to reply, but Jessica gave me no chance to do so. “Is there something going on between you two? Are you two secretly dating or something?”

Tiffany? My girlfriend? As in, like, going on dates with each other? Maybe even doing stuff like moving in together and … oh gosh, was my face turning red? It really didn’t seem bad at all but thinking about such things surely wasn’t good for my health—mental and emotional.

“Wh-What?” I replied, cursing myself for stuttering, “What does that mean? We’re not—no, we’re not anything,” I hastily replied in English, my Korean accent more prominent than usual.

“Are you sure? That was a really suspicious response,” Jessica said, switching back to Korean.

Tiffany saved me before I had the chance to respond. “I thought I told you to not flirt,” Tiffany said, directing anger towards me. Ok, maybe ‘saved’ wasn’t the correct word.

“I wasn’t doing anything” I protested, “We weren’t talking about anything.”

“Hmph, that’s something a cheater would say,” Tiffany said, sliding a glass full of Sprite to Jessica.

“You’re probably not going to admit it, but I’m going to ask anyway: this isn’t spiked with alcohol or anything, right?”

Tiffany diverted her attention to Jessica, instantly transforming her facial expression from angry to innocent. “No, why would you say that?”

Jessica, unconvinced, cautiously sipped her drink while keeping her eye on the bartender. Tiffany just continued to smile politely at her, as if expecting something.

“Well, I don’t taste anything strange yet, so you don’t seem to be lying,” she said, retaining her cautiousness regardless.

“Why would I lie?”