Yoon and his wife are the first to arrive. My wife leads them to the living room. I’d been standing by the balcony window, watching the dark sky dump snow. It’s really coming down. In the distance, a man and a woman trudge through the drifts toward the apartment courtyard. I squint, trying to make out their faces, but they vanish from view. There’s no one now. The courtyard is empty again.Article continues after advertisement
Yoon and his wife stand by the front door, snapping the snow off their coats before removing their shoes. My wife takes their coats and hangs them on the rack by the door. Yoon’s wife makes a big fuss about the snow, saying it’s coming down harder than she’s ever seen. When I ask if the traffic was bad, she laughs.
“We took the subway. Driving would have been a nightmare. But this man complained about the subway the whole time.” She chides Yoon playfully, but he doesn’t respond.
Instead, he hands me a neatly wrapped box. “Where did you get this dining table?” he asks. “It’s the nicest one I’ve ever seen.”
The table seats six with room to spare. The top is coral marble, with a long strip of Italian walnut veneer down the middle, and the base is crafted from fine beechwood, carved with geometric patterns. The six chairs are cushioned in premium crocodile leather. To be honest, it’s too big for our apartment. Usually, we keep it pushed against the wall, but since we have guests tonight, we’ve moved it to the center of the living room. The room feels full.
