The No Kiss Contract (Jensoo)

1

Fifteen Years Later

"Your father is on the line."

Jisoo raised her head from the legal brief she was reading, and it was as if she were surfacing from the murky depths of the deepest, darkest ocean. She stared at her assistant until the world snapped back into focus and what she said made sense. Through the glass walls of her office, she could see there were still a few associates at their desks, but the overhead lights had dimmed, and the distant sound of a vacuum cleaner signaled the workday was long over. "Shit, Halima. What are you still doing here? I thought you left hours ago."

"I have a paper due tomorrow. It's quieter to work here." She shouldered her workbag. "But I've finished and I'm leaving now. And you should too."

"What's the paper on?"

"Nope, you're not going to delay speaking to your father by faking a sudden interest in Behavioral Psych. I'm going home."

"I'm not faking. I really want to know."

Halima lifted a hand in farewell. "Right. See you tomorrow."

Unable to avoid it any longer, she stood and stretched as she picked up the handset. "Hey, Dad."

"Jisoo."

"Where are you?"

"Wanaka."

Had the European skiing season ended already? She guessed the month of May certainly meant very little snow in the northern hemisphere.

"How's Middle Earth?" Nine p.m. New York time would have to be lunchtime tomorrow in New Zealand.

"Gorgeous. Seven inches of fresh powder at the highest elevations. Early this year."

And that concluded the small talk. Their phone calls usually centered around any business they had to discuss, but there was nothing pressing, and she hadn't heard from him in months. Jisoo brought up the only other thing he could be calling about. "I have our appointment arranged with Cherry in June. I just have to confirm."

"I'm not going to make it. I'll be in Bariloche."

Jisoo gazed out the south-facing windows toward lower Manhattan. Somehow, she was always caught by surprise when he demonstrated his callous indifference to his family. "Do you want me to reschedule?" Sure, Dad, let's reschedule your daughter's fourteenth birthday.

"No need. Pam informed me that Cherry doesn't want to see us anymore. That's why I'm not bothering to return to the States."

"What? Why?" The news was a surprise, but truthfully, she couldn't blame Cherry. What teenager wants to drink tea in a stuffy hotel on the one day of the year her father deigns to spend with her? Still, it hurt that Cherry had turned her back on her. "She doesn't want to see us at all?"

"Will you meet with Pam to discuss it?"

The fuck? It was all becoming clearer. An innocuous sounding request, but it was really shifting his responsibility onto her.

"If Cherry doesn't want to meet anymore, you tell Pam that I'll withdraw support when she turns eighteen," he said. "She can forget about me paying for college."

Jisoo gripped the phone hard. He was not going to put Cherry through this bullshit too if she could help it. "Hell, no. I'm not telling her that. And even if we never see Cherry again, you will not hold her education over her head. You can afford it."

Even as a teenager, Jisoo couldn't fathom why her father had attempted a domestic life that included a baby. He had stuck it out with Pam until Cherry had been about six months old, when their relationship had disintegrated, and he had departed the New Jersey suburbs with undue haste. She had been away at school for most of that little hiccup in her dad's life, but still, she remembered Pam fondly. Unlike her father, Pam knew how to be a parent.