Chapter 5: Echo's Girl Revenge

We finally got back to sleep around 3:30am, because, you know, chili makes you hungry for other things :-)

After falling asleep, I remember having the most blissful dream. I was floating in a warm, deep blue ocean. All I could see was clear cerulean sky and water, there was no land, no boat, in sight. I guess this should have really scared me, the big bad ocean and all, but it didn't because I was floating next to Zen. He was holding my hand. I don't know how I knew that, but when I turned my head, he was there. He might've been asleep - I couldn't see his eyes because he was wearing these dark sunglasses. He might've been awake, because he was smiling - who smiles when they're sleeping? - and I think he was caressing my thumb. Of course he looked gorgeous in his swimming trunks. He looked like a model, well, I guess because he is a model. The sun was warm, but not too high or too hot, and the light was illuminating his skin in this almost superhuman sort of way. My eyes couldn't help but follow the trail of sparse silver hair trailing from his belly button to where it disappeared beneath the elastic of his shorts…

I was just about to speak when a loud piercing repetitive sound introduced itself into my dream. I blinked my eyes and moved my head, trying to shake it away, but it was so insistent, so non-relenting, that my conscious self finally had to concede, oh I get it, this is just a dream and that annoying noise is real.

When I opened my real eyes, the room was silent and so I was even more confused. Zen's bedroom looked normal, nothing amiss. He was an extremely tidy person, surprising for a guy in his twenties, and he had taste. Most guys his age, I'd noticed, didn't really have a flare for decorating, and it's not that I would say that Zen was much of an interior designer either, but at least you could look at his room and get an idea about the person who lived here. The king-sized futon took up most of the room and was adorned by, in my opinion, almost way too many pillows. There were several posters on the wall, vintage prints from some of his favorite musicals and films - Breakfast At Tiffany's and Rent were the ones I recognized - and he kept them all framed. There was also some reproductions of fine art. My favorite, Picasso's Three Dancers hung squarely over the bed. I loved looking in the mirror across the room and studying it in its inverse form. It made me remember that everything isn't always as it seems.

Then the noise started again, loud and insistent, and my conscious persona recognized this as my phone, and the particular ringtone I'd chosen for work.

"Shit!" Zen said, suddenly instantly awake and sitting up next to me. He was annoyed and I couldn't decide if the look on his face, with his features twisted and angry, were less hot than others. It wasn't a look I saw before, so maybe it had the benefit that it was new to me. "What the fuck is that?"

"Sorry," I said, reaching over him to silence my phone, which was charging on the bedside table next to the side of the bed where he was sleeping. As I did this, I felt my breasts brush against his chest, which gave me a rush even though I was wearing one of his tee-shirts. I've never liked to sleep naked. It made me feel exposed. Zen was wearing boxers.

"Who's calling you at six in the morning?" Zen asked.

I looked at the list of missed calls. They all contained the same area code and generic caller ID "C&R International", but it wasn't Humin or Jaehnee, I know, because their names and individual profile pics would've popped up on my phone.

"I have no idea," I said. This time I had accidentally declined the call when I picked up my phone, so it had stopped ringing, but no worries because it started ringing again almost immediately. This time I picked up on the first ring.

"Hello?" I said, genuinely curious.

"There you are, my dear!" A familiar, but not really placeable female voice responded.

"Yes?" I said, my brain was frantically trying to bridge the familiarity and instinct gap I was feeling. I know who this is, I just don't know who this is.

"Darling!" the voice said, and as soon as she said that it that way, I knew who it was. Echo Girl.

"How did you get this number?" I said, hotly.

"Oh, sweetie," she said. "Don't you know? Jumin gave it to me of course. Or really, not Jumin, directly, although he should have been the one. Why he is so cold to me? I'll never know." She sighed. "That girl, the one that works for him, what's-her-name? Jaenee? She informed me that you're the one who's handling my account now."

Zen was looking at me now with a questioning look. Who is it? His eyes were saying.

"Echo Girl," I said out loud in answer, partially to him, partially to her. "Why are you calling me so early?"

Zen's red eyes went wide and his whole body jolted with surprise. The look he gave me said, Echo Girl? WTF? Why is she calling you?

"You're my handler now, yes?" Echo Girl said. "I have needs, certain needs, you need to be aware of."

"Oh?" I said. My mind was reeling. I hadn't even gotten the paperwork on her yet. I knew she was doing the cat commercial, but I didn't know where or when that was taking place.

"Yes," she said. "Usually I'd have my assistant call you, but I wanted to get off on the right foot, you know?"

"OK…" I said. Zen was standing up now and gesticulating wildly, still WTF, what is going on, MC? I let my eyes spit back with a wave of my hand, just chill.

"I know shooting doesn't start until next week," Echo Girl crooned. "But there are several things I require on set…"

She went on to list a laundry list of things, but all the items were so specific and unfamiliar that they were wafting over me like empty air. After about a minute and a half, I cut her off.

"Kyungju," I interrupted.

"Don't call me that!" she said, her voice high and shrill. "Nobody calls me that."

"Excuse me," I said, recovering. The fact that Zen had revealed Echo Girl's true name during the scandal had been a major pain point in the whole ordeal. "Echo Girl," I said as I swallowed my pride. "I'm sorry."

"You should be!" she said. "You know you work for me now. Since you're friends with Zen…"

We were more than friends, I thought. My eyebrows knit together in a scathing "V". Zen saw it and his eyes popped like, uh-oh.

"...I was trying to give you special consideration," she said. I could hear the coy smile in her voice. "Is my lovey-hubby there now?"

She said it in her TV voice which lit me red hot. It was hard enough, after everything, to have to endure every aspect of the making of More Than Friends, the new hit TV show in which Echo Girl and Zen were co-stars, but to have her TV pet name thrown in my face in my real life was more than I could bear. I could tell that this assignment was going to be even more hell than I imagined - and I had imagined something like Dante's Inferno.

"Don't call him that," I said, feeling jealousy hot on the tip of my tongue. Zen usually thought that me being a little jealous was kind of cute, but not with Echo Girl, for some reason. This, of course, only fueled my ire.

Zen had left the bedroom and I heard the shower turn on.

"Oh, does that bother you, dear?" Echo Girl cooed. "It's just what I'm used to calling him, you know. They say it's acting, but after all, it all comes from someplace real."

I resisted the urge to hurl my phone against the wall, or the mirror. How dare she, I thought and then, that bitch. Again I took a beat to take a breath and swallow. I had to think of Zen and what was in his best interest. Rich, powerful and born from a family of influence, we already knew what Echo Girl was capable of. We'd already experienced it firsthand. We'd narrowly escaped her wrath once, but no need to tread that path again. Besides, I hated to admit, More Than Friends, was a huge success and had just been funded for its second season. Even though he prefered acting on stage and in musicals, it was lucrative. All said and done, it was probably Zen's largest source of income.

The fictional world of More Than Friends centered around a group of friends who lived in shared apartments situated in the same apartment complex, intentionally modeled after the American hit series Friends. Zen and Echo Girl, in the show called Jae-joon and Ji-yoo - yes, I know, how fucking cute - were engaged in an on-again, off-again love interest relationship which was characterized as the real deal. "Jae-joon and Ji-yoo" had taken the country by storm - the saga had become the most idealized romance in popular culture, and I did my best to ignore it.

"What do you need, Echo Girl?" I said, finally, scowling at my own plain face in the mirror. It was moments like this when I had to admit that I was no Echo Girl. I did not have size D natural breasts, nor big eyes and perfectly wavy hair.

"Like I said," she said. "I just wanted you to be aware of my requirements."

"Uh," I stammered. I hated to admit my ignorance in this situation, but I didn't really see any way around it. "To be honest, Echo Girl, I only caught about half the things on that list. Would you mind sending me, or having your assistant send me, a detailed itemized list?" I paused to take a breath and eat some crow. "I'd really hate to miss anything..." I breathed. "...that you require."

I heard Echo Girl's movie star chuckle on the other end of the line. "Oh, of course, dear," she said. "Of course. I'll have Eun-yi, my assistant, reach out via email."

There was a long pause and then Echo Girl clicked her tongue in a satisfied way. "Well, then," she said. "I look forward to seeing you, and Zen. I do hope he'll visit on set."

"He's allergic to cats," I said automatically.

"Oh, of course," she said. "Then we'll have to have you over for dinner, or maybe a weekend at Farmview."

"Mmm hmm," I nodded and murmured into the phone. I already know I'd rather die than spend a weekend at Echo Girl's family weekend estate with Zen and Echo Girl.

"Well then," she said. "Tootles."

The line went dead, and I didn't bother to be offended that she didn't give me a chance to say good-bye.

I wanted to barf. I might've literally gagged. Ugh.