My Seoul Man

Chapter 32

I found a guardian angel sitting at the open bar in this big green tent set up in a courtyard behind the gallery, surrounded by statues and mobiles and other freaky looking art.

"Best seat in the house," she said—Leona was her name. Yeah, one of those names like my cousin Bernie's that didn't fit the face you were looking at.

Only this was a serious misfit.

Cause Leona was "straight off the runway" fine. Nordic blonde, ice blue eyes. Designer dressed from head to toe, too.

I'm talking one of those fits that you see on those "Real Housewives" shows that make you wonder what kind of Cinderella life these babes must be living to be able to strut around in clothes like that all day.

We met a little while after I'd stumbled into that courtyard after teetering down the block wishing I could click my red soles like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz clicked her red shoes, and be back in The Quarters in the blink of an eye.

So I tipped over to a cement bench next to this big glass...square. Seriously, it was just a big block of glittering glass set down on a sharp corner so it looked like it might topple over and shatter if the wind blew too hard or someone bumped into it or something.

It looked like I felt. On edge and ready to explode into a million pieces if one more weird thing happened to me.

And I was on the verge of angry, ugly crying when I noticed a lot of ritzy-looking people coming out of that tent with drinks and little plates of food.

There were some people with headsets and lots of different types of backstage passes slung around their necks rushing in and out, too. Stuffing food in their mouths like they hadn't eaten in days.

Which...was probably almost the case. Crew members, you know? The grunts responsible for running the whole shebang—the people I would've been working with back when.

So, I struggled my way up onto my throbbing feet and headed for the bar inside trying not to look like I'd already had a few too many. It was kind of spartan but there were decorations on the little tables and strands of tiny white lights slung across the ceiling.

Giant TV behind the bar. And some monitors along the walls--kind of reminded me of the overflow room at church where late arrivals were sent to watch the service on the TV after the pews were full.

Leona turned out to be the wife of one of the inductees those "bitches" I'd just been lumped in with by Security were hunting. She was wearing a massive Super Bowl ring that didn't go with her fit even a little bit. But it told you all you needed to know.

She was watching a monitor that showed all the pre-show action backstage. And individual portraits of the inductees being photographed in a little backstage "set" like kids at a very swanky prom.

There was a little line of martini glasses in front of her when I walked up. And she saw something on my face that made her smile and say, "Rookie, right?"

The story I told her made her cackle into her fifth dirty martini. "I got thrown out of a coupla hotels when we first started dating."

"Oh, word?"

"I was just sitting down in the lobby having a few drinks and they got suspicious that I might be trolling for customers, if you catch my drift."

Somehow...I couldn't imagine it. Chic as she was that day, anyway.

But she smirked, sipped and said, "The gate keepers gate keeping."

And then she shot me a smirky wink and said, "Til you're the all-access bitch whose ass they gotta kiss until The Boss starts looking like he might be tired of your ass. And then they're like sharks circling around something wounded in the water..."