Martoons

Today: A scheme is produced.

Cast of characters

Damion Lee – the foreigner

Miss No

*

The foreigner straightened up.

In the last few micro-seconds he’d gotten an idea.

“Actually … (throat clear) … I’m an international matchmaker. I have a client who wants to meet a foreign English teacher. I’ve got word that you have one here – a very handsome one from Canada.”

* How is this matchmaking plan going to work? *

No’s face distorted hideously with bewilderment; then she broke out laughing at the oddity of the question.

“Oh,” she waved him off and suppressed the giggles. “Do you mean … Thomas?”

She snickered again.

“I’m sorry. I was not expecting this.” She laughed vigorously.

“Yes, yes, you are right though – he is very handsome.”

The foreigner stayed on track. “Would you be prepared to arrange a meeting between myself and this … Thomas … so I may interview him as to the suitability for my client who is seeking this relationship?”

* Will Miss No fall for this? *

She waved him off and looked back at her desk.

Her humour instantly evaporated.

“Absolutely not. We don’t do that sort of thing here. I don’t know your credentials or anything about you and you should have made an appointment.

My foreigner employees are very vulnerable and I must protect them from strange people. Surely you understand…”

The foreigner clung to his composure.

“Something, anything you could reveal about Thomas would be useful to my client. In exchange I can tell you what I know.”

No continued avoiding eye contact.

“Yeah, I can tell you that my Thomas has no time for your client. He is very busy here – all work and no play make him … very valuable to my business.”

She flashed a glance at him with a public relations smile and raised eyebrows.

She was doing her best to act aloof but suddenly was craving more info.

“So,” she stretched and yawned to look as uninterested as possible, “what can you tell me?”

“First of all, I am Lee, Damion Lee. From Canada and freelancing here in Korea. I am an international businessman.”

Snake oil salesman more like it.

Bullshitter extraordinaire.

No paused and reflected.

Hmmm.

An outsider.

Interesting.

And Canada to boot.

“So anyway,” she continued with more elliptical yawns and feigned boredom, “what have you heard about our Thomas?”

“That he has a Korean girlfriend here in Chinju but that will be ending soon.”

She waved him off. “He may or may not, I don’t know and it is not my business.”

Actually, it is and I’m insanely jealous.

She picked up and perused some papers to appear uninterested.

The foreigner added, “I have also heard a rumour from a very credible source that Thomas will leave our fair Chinju very soon…”

No scoffed. “Oh, so you’re a psychic now in addition to matchmaker? Actually, I think you are crazy.

“Please, I am asking you politely to get the hell out – is that how you say it in English?”

The foreigner turned to the exit. “Have a good day…”

No sat there stunned. It was impossible that Thomas would leave here.

But…

She sank into a daze and inadvertently flashed-back to her bus trip back.

That dream from her bus ride that she’d forgotten?

It suddenly came back to her…

Miss No’s dream flashback. 

The bus pulled out of her friend’s town.

The baby shower had gushed with pampering over the expectant mom.

Miss No had been re-acquainted with a handful of her favorite former school friends, and their smiles seemed sincere, not the pasted ones that were a mainstay of business life.

She enjoyed events like this (in small doses) precisely because they were living proof of the life she would have been railroaded into had she not flatly rejected the traditional arrangement her family wanted for her.

“My friend lives in a bubble. They all do. I don’t want that.”

As her baby-showered friend’s town disappeared behind the express bus, No’s mind switched gears back to the real world.

She got drowsy.

She slipped into a dream…

Walking through Central.

Marching.

High heels clicking on the polished concrete tile.

Click-click.

Click-click.

Click-click.

Confidence and pride wells up as she passes Mr Go mopping the floors.

He looks up briefly; “Yeah” is all he says but looks away quickly as if he’s hiding something.

She knows the man well.

She knows the meaning of the hundred and one facial expressions he exhibits.

She carries on down the hall toward the staff room.

The usual waft of instant noodles, which usually assails her smell – and tells her Thomas is here – is strangely and blatantly absent.

An empty chill ricochets through No’s soul.

The nightmarish recollection of her bus dream was shattered presently by a terse phone call.

It was Mr Go.

Something about Thomas going.

Then he hung up.

*

Tomorrow: Mr. Go’s conflicted mind shows.