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I want to protest that my backpack is, in fact, genuine, current season Prada and quite expensive, but I hold my tongue.
We open the door to the apartment and everyone immediately scatters to check it out. Each room has four bunk beds. The entire apartment has only one bathroom. In what is presumably the living area, there is another set of bunk beds. I remind myself to close my mouth. I can’t believe ten people are expected to live in this one small apartment.
“This is awesome,” Roy from Ames, third year at Yale, says.
“It’s like fucking sleepaway camp, but without counselors,” someone else says excitedly.
I’ve never shared a room with anyone in my life. In fact, in our home in Korea, I have an entire wing of the house to myself.
“Is this the Upper East Side?” I ask again, this time to anyone who will listen.
“Not even close,” Sarah says. “We’re like a hundred blocks away. This is the Lower East Side. No way Haneul Corp is putting us peons up in that part of town.”
I nod slowly as I look around at the tiny accommodations, the sparse furniture, the unfamiliar faces with their off-the-rack clothing. We may all be here for a summer gig at Haneul, but we are not the same. This is not where I’m supposed to be.
My irritation spikes, yet again, as I realize how vastly different the summer my father has planned for me is from anyone else my age. I never get to have an experience like everyone else. I’m not stupid nor do I need to be sheltered. But for some reason, that’s how I always feel like I’m being treated. With kid gloves.
I should call my dad’s assistant and have the situation cleared up. But instead, I take a seat on one of the beds in the living room. Despite my exhaustion from the journey, I’m also kinda energized by all of this.
“You and me on this set?” Jason asks.
Without even thinking, I nod. “Sure, I’m good with that.”
Whoever the tenth intern is supposed to be is not here. So even if it’s just for tonight, it won’t hurt anyone for me to hang out and play along in their place. I like the chatter. It sometimes feels like they’re speaking a foreign language, what with my English learned almost entirely in class settings outside of the States. But it’s not how they talk as much as it is the things they talk about that I’m not familiar with.
They go over the plans for shopping for groceries, toiletries, sharing, bunking, cooking. I just keep my mouth shut and listen, nodding when it feels like the right time to do so. I must look like a deer caught in headlights. But it’s all such a trip.
Jason hands me a T-shirt. “Here, you can borrow this until we figure out what happened to your luggage. I’m sure someone at the company can help you get it all tracked down. The humidity here is no joke, right? I mean, it’s not as bad as in Korea, that’s for sure. I’ve spent almost every summer in Seoul growing up, so I know how bad it can get.”
I appreciate Jason’s effort trying to engage me and also bringing up Korea to make me feel more at home. He seems like a pretty cool guy.
“Thanks,” I say, grabbing the shirt. I head to the bathroom to change. I catch Jason glancing my way and shaking his head. Did he just expect me to take off my clothes right here in front of everyone? They’re strangers. And there are girls here.
I turn the water on and rinse my face. I wish I had my essence, serums, and moisturizer with me. My skin always gets so dry on airplanes.
I look at myself in the mirror. After a long travel day and being away from all my own stuff, I don’t look that different from anyone else here. But I feel like the odd man out. I’ve never had to think about things like roommates, work schedules, budgets. I’m the one who doesn’t quite fit.
A part of me really wants to, though.
When I return, I hear the group talking about going out and grabbing some dinner. “There’s a really good soon tofu place around the corner if we’re craving Korean food. Haneul serves Korean food in the cafeteria for lunch that’s really good too, so we’ll never be without,” Jason tells us. It’s his second year interning at the company, which makes him some kind of prodigy, considering how tough it is to get chosen for the program. He mentioned in the van that working at Haneul is not a cakewalk, but the name is so huge he’s had multiple doors open up for him because of it. Jason knows more about the company than I do and I’m supposed to be the CEO one day.
It crosses my mind that if I were where I’m supposed to be, I’d likely be eating a meal made by a private chef, alone, followed by a mindless night of watching some Korean zombie movie on Netflix, and then going to bed.
Instead, I’m with a bunch of kids my age exploring the streets of New York.
Everything sounds louder here than in Seoul. People’s voices, the honking of car horns, generators running food carts are all competing to be heard. And though the streets and storefronts are lit this time of night, nothing is quite bright enough to be seen clearly. Like there’s a haze, an air of mystery, over everything, shadows around every corner.
We head out a few blocks from our apartment building, Jason leading the way. He stops for a second on a corner despite the walk signal. I stand off to the side to let people, all crossing the street with a purpose, pass me by. I feel something wet hit me on the forehead. I look up and another drop falls on me.
“Air conditioners,” Grace says.
“What?” I ask.
She pulls me aside a couple inches and then points up. Each of the windows of this building have white boxes precariously hanging out of them.
“Window unit air conditioners. Condensation builds and then they spit on you,” she explains.
“Are those...safe?” I ask.
