Loveboat in 서울

𝟙𝟛

We ride the bus south to a stop whose name I can't read, then rise on a very long escalator into a street filled with a funny mic o shiny high-rises, three-story rows of buildings, and those colorful Korean rooftops—jumbled together like three different sets of children's blocks. The photographer's studio is on the second floor of a narrow building beside a temple, where smoke from incense sticks rises from a brass burner.

I'm thankful to arrive, if only for the break from Sohee's incessant chatter about Kang. A brass bell chimes overhead as I follow her into a perfumed room of polished wooden floors accented by red silk rugs and velvet ottomans. Citrus-scented candles flicker on the counter.

A young adult woman in a plaid beret turns from a tripod facing a white backdrop curtain that unfurls in a room-sized square. "Ah, yeodongsaengie yeogi!" Her black button-down flutters in the AC as she lifts her camera to her face.

Poof! Poof! Poof!

White lights swim in my vision. I blink against them. I'd expected a smile mall portrait studio like Eomma brings us to every year. Not this fancy boudoir. Life-sized portraits paper the walls: a girl fingering a wide-brimmed at, a guy slinging a blazer over his shoulder, couple pressed cheek to cheek.

"Will she really make me look—like those?"

"Even better." Sohee helps herself into a piece of candy from a crystal bowl, as at ease as if we were in her own home.

I'm afraid to even sit down. If I were home, I'd be eating potato chips at the public pool with Wendy, hiding my one-piece under my striped towel. I don't belong in an extravagant studio like this, lining up to get airbrushed like a movie star. My head throbs from my hangover. I feel like a total imposter.

Sohee chats with Nana, who speaks Korean, Mandarin and Japanese, but not English. They are moving to a cash register on a glass counter and I kneel by a coffee table littered with traditional vinyl photo albums and an iPad displaying digital ones. I flip through the iPad: girls in backless dresses lying on lacy bedspreads with their heels kicked up, or golden beaches at sunrise—the colors sharp and bold. I trace the sweeping train of a lemon chiffon gown and try to imagine myself in it.

Then I sort through the albums. I come across one devoted to an acrobatic troop from Shanghai, dressed in fun costumes like green-and-pink flowers, glowing stars, scaly seas creatures, posing on trapezes and as awe-inspiring human jungle gyms.

An idea strikes, and I set the album down. "Sohee, does Nana shoot for other theater or dance companies?"

Sohee interrupts herself to translate for Nana. "Yes, she has some in the albums over there." She points to a shelf in the corner.

I pull out several leather-bound albums—a Kpop-mixed-with-taekwondo class, a dragon drum troupe, a dance last spring by an expensive studio in Seoul I'd found online. But I'm looking for one I haven't run across yet.

At least, I come across a modest album labeled, "More Than Youth Ballet Studio." I bend over the costumed casts "Cinderella, The Nutcracker, Sleeping Beauty. Swan Lake last August—I've danced in all of them at my studio. The same girls pose season after season, a year older each time. It's as small a dance studio as they come. With a jolt of excitement, I run my fingertips over the address embossed on the back. I can drop by when we finish, but will they have space?

"Omo! Naneun geueos-eul neomu johaha, jiman geugeos-eul gamdanghal su eobs-seubnida!" Sohee lifts her hands to her temples and shakes her head. I love it so much but I can't afford that!

I'm not alarmed, not after witnessing Sohee's killer negotiation skills in the market. Sohee will slowing give in until she gets a the deal she wants, and miraculously, the photographer will feel equally pleased we value her work so highly.