The woman at the mahogany desk looked absently out her 52nd floor story window to see the amazing night-time skyline of New York City when she was suddenly startled by the ring of a telephone.
Collecting herself, exhausted over her paperwork, she took off her golden-frame reading glasses and picked up the phone. She sighed, “Hwang and Hwang, Hwang the younger speaking.”
“Tiffany Hwang, if you don’t come back home later tonight, I will go to New York, knock you out, and carry you back to Massachusetts!”
“Good evening, mother,” Tiffany lazily sat back in her black leather chair. It engulfed her thin body, and she felt sleepy. She rubbed her temples, contemplating the New York skyline, drenched in darkness, smattered with glitter of lighted towers of gold. “I’ll be there tomorrow early afternoon. I just have to finish up some business here, go to Cambridge and pick up a few papers there to grade, and I’ll be there.”
“But tomorrow’s Christmas Eve! We wanted you to be here with us the whole day!”
“I will…later,” she said, picking up another paper and starting to read it.
“Tiffany…”
“Mother, please don’t start with me. We went through this last year. I went though it today. And Aunt Hara already threw a fit when I wanted to stay in New York this week, instead of going to the Castle with her.”
“Well that just shows I’m right. When your SENIOR partner in your law firm, who is also your aunt, calls it a day for both of you, it means that you both stop working.”
“Mother…”
“Don’t ‘mother’ me. I want you home tomorrow morning. The Kwon are spending Christmas with us, so you have to be here too.”
“ALL the Kwon?” Her heart started to pound. All the Kwon…which included…well…HIM!
“Yes, and if you came to visit more often, you’d know. But no, you’re too busy with your law firm in New York and teaching at Harvard to come!”
“I’m sorry…” Tiffany felt her mind in a flurry of wishes…to stay at home, to go there and finally confront him, to just forget he ever existed…
“I’m worried about you…”
When ISN’T she worried? she rolled her eyes, tugging a long gold curl that fell in front of her face back n. She focused her thoughts on talking to her mother. She shouldn’t think about HIM right now.
“Tiffany, you’re all alone in that city, and you haven’t met anyone…”
*Of all times…of course! It’s the holiday season…Nothing like packing a bunch of people in a house to know how much you want a bunch a people for yourself!*
“I’m still young…”
“YOU’RE TWENTY-SIX!”
“That’s not old…”
“Tiffany, a twenty-six-year-old does not just LIVE in New York. She hides in the office buildings and apartment buildings, and goodness knows where you’ll meet someone in all the millions of people who live there…”
“Mom, I’m fine the way I am…”
“HA! If you were fine the way you were, you’d be here. Mark my words Tiffany, if you had any sense in family tradition, you’d be right here, right now. And perhaps, if you had a HUSBAND, you’d understand that kind of duty…it’s called love of the family. Look it up some time!”
With that, Irene Hwang slammed down the phone, convincing her daughter to get out of her chair, and start to go back to her apartment. She shut her eyes a moment, gathered her thoughts, and then stood up.
