Where are you guys now?

“Out of all those cars passing by, is there not even one for me?”

"Take care."

A classmate who kindly spoke to me—despite my poor English—drove off in a yellow Volkswagen Beetle. The yellow car shimmered in the heat like a dandelion swaying in the air. I walked slowly down a dusty road back to the dorm, thinking,

“I wish I had a car too.”

“Out of all these buildings, is there really no place for me to rest my head?” "Someone's already taken it."

That line repeated over and over on the phone when I was looking for a place to live. When I finally heard “It’s available,” I’d rush over excitedly, only to be disappointed by the poor condition of the apartment. I’d walk away with a sigh, saying the same old line to myself.

There was a roommate once—a pale, elegant woman who had left her home after a fight with her husband. She always kept her hair neatly pinned up and would sit in front of the mirror for hours, staring at herself. I’d wait for her to move so I could check my own reflection—see if the freckles and age spots on my face had grown bigger. Did her husband come back for her? Or not? I can’t quite remember now.

I used to sit in Washington Square Park and watch people pass by. That’s where I met another lonely woman, like me. She had married an American soldier stationed in Korea and ended up living in some rural town in Ohio. She said she’d fallen for a short Korean man who taught Taekwondo—just from watching him through a glass window—and eventually ran away to New York. She worked at night and went to language school during the day.

I felt guilty about using money from my parents, so I asked her if she could help me find a job. She gave me a lead, and I went to check it out—but it turned out to be a bar near Chinatown. Thick with cigarette smoke, dimly lit—I spotted her silhouette moving in the dark. I quietly turned and ran out of the alley, like a shadow.

I remember sitting in a beautiful living room in a luxury condo in Manhattan’s West Village. Elegant black furniture, a green velvet chair, a desk placed diagonally away from the wall—it was all so stylish. It belonged to my Japanese friend. I was envious of her comfortable life as a student.
“It was a married man—my father’s friend—who got this place for me,”
she confessed, her voice filled with guilt and unease. Her story shocked me.

As I left her apartment, I walked past the house where O. Henry had once lived and written The Last Leaf. My mind was swirling with thoughts. Those people I met in my early New York days—who appeared like comets and disappeared like shooting stars—where are they now? What kind of lives are they living?