I'm walking into a luxury brand boutique wearing a huge black hat and shoulder pads big enough to block traffic when the bright summer sun pierces through my closed eyelids. Burrowing in the soft, fluffy bed, I try to go back to sleep but can't because Ira is standing by the foot of my bed barking my name.
"It's time to get up."
I throw the covers off and squint out the window. The sun's up but it feels suspiciously early. "What time is it?"
"Seven."
I groan. "One more hour." I was up late, alternating between deciding which clothes matched best with the multiple Louis Vuitton bags and learning how to ask people their names in Korean.
"Ms. Lee is an early riser. She's already at a meeting." Ira might not mean to sound smugly virtuous on Duna's behalf, but that's what I hear.
I haul myself and shuffle off to brush my teeth. When I get back, I examine the outfit Ira has laid on the bed. "Are we going out?"
"No."
Yet she's chosen pants with ironed creases. "Can't I wear yoga pants since it's only us?"
"No."
She leaves and I realize my clothes from home are gone. That's a later problem, though, so I pull on the outfit. The white linen pants wrinkle on contact with my skin, and I immediately stain the black silk top with deodorant and have to change. In the mirror I practice my Duna wave again, this time with the correct hand. The shoes are adorable sling-backs that I put on to check the full effect.
Huh. I turn around. I hadn't realized the difference expensive tailoring made because I now have outstanding posture. Do I look like Duna? The spacious closet makes finding what I need so much easier than trying to sort through a bunch of shirts crammed tight enough to wrinkle, and I quickly locate a high-necked black shirt. I pull it on like a headband, the collar framing my face and the rest of the material flowing down my back, and toss my head.
"I came to see if you were dressed." Ira, who apparently has no concept of privacy, is at the door, staring at my turtleneck wig. I snatch it off and run a hand through my hair.
"Uh, yeah. Thanks."
She backs out of the room, and I toss the shirt on the bed and follow.
Fueled by coffee and fear of failure, I'm the ideal Duna student that day. Apparently she does her own makeup except for big events, so Ira shows me the Duna Standard Face, which necessitates a raft of expensive products to achieve the correct smooth skin and pretty peachy eye. Ira picks up a lipstick, a vibrant red that glides on like a dream, then goes over the edges with a lip pencil before blotting and painting me again.
I stare in the mirror at my lips. It's been a long time since I've had that much color , and I'd forgotten how bright it is. It makes my mouth the glossy focus of my face. No wonder Ben liked it. I shiver.
"Is this Duna's usual color?" I ask.
"Lacôme's L'Absolu Rouge Ruby Cream Lipstick in Kiss Me Ruby," says Ira. "It's all she wears in public.
I stay silent as Ira scrutinizes my face from the side. The makeup is part of disguise. It's Duna's face being created in the mirror, and when people see it, they won't see me. I relax slightly.
"Sun damage." Ira clucks and makes a note on her phone, disrupting my chain of thought. I focus on what we're doing. "I'll get better concealer." She takes a closer look. "And a waxing kit." Then she reaches over and drags out a curling wand.
She begins taking strands of my hair and curls them. She got my bangs and parted them to seamlessly blends in with the rest of the hair. It's been so long since I had dressed up that I forgot how fun it was; I whip my head around like I'm a hair model until I get a little dizzy. I need to take a photo of this for Eomma because she'll love it.
This time when I go to the mirror, Ira stands beside me with a critical eye before pulling out her phone to show a photo of Duna in a similar outfit. I arrange my pose like hers—one foot out and slightly twisted in a move my mom also taught me as a teenager—and turn my face slightly up and to the left with that little smile, then scrupulously check the pose and lower my shoulders a fraction. Ira takes a photo and when we look at it, I think maybe this will work.
"Terrible." Ira taps on her phone.
"What?" Deflated, I move my legs back to my usual slightly hunched stance.
There's a knock on the door and Ira opens it to reveal Taehyung. They whisper together, looking at me, and I try to decide if my better course of action is to pretend I don't know they are very obviously talking about me or to break into their conversation.
Take the bull by the horns.
"Hey. I'm right here."
Taehyung doesn't look at me. "We know." He gives Ira an instruction that causes her to disappear out the side door to Duna's suite, leaving the two of us alone. Taehyung walks by to stand near the window, and when he turns to regard me, I swear the light shifts to pool around him. I've always wondered about charisma, if it really exists, and with Taehyung I can feel an excess of energy that simply makes him more attractive. Duna has it, too, a vitality that draws attention no matter what she's doing.
I hope to God that's something that can be learned, because I sure as hell don't have it.
Beyond that, I can't decide what bothers me about Taehyung . I've seen him often enough in media that he's familiar, but when he stands here in person, it's a whole new ball game.
"You look different from your movies," I say finally. He's sharper, icier than he is in the photos. More unreal looking and far more striking.
"I know," he says dismissively. "Ira says you're hopeless."
I object to this. "'Hopeless' is a little strong."
"You are no judge. Walk for me."
"Why?" I stand my ground.
When he turns, the sun lights one part of his face and shadows the rest like a perfume ad. I groan. "Do you do that on purpose? Pose in the light?" I mimic his stance.
"Of course I do." He pulls his chin up slightly and that's it. I burst out laughing. He's so perfectly arrogant that begin to see him more as a comedic character than a man. He brings his brows together. "Something funny?"
"Not at all."
"Really. Because you're laughing."
"Well, you," I admit. "You're funny. Who does that?"
The knit brows are joined by pursed lips. "Is there a problem in putting your best self forward?"
"I guess not." I clear my throat to change the subject. "Are you honestly here to watch me walk?"
Taehyung comes over from the window and stands in front of me. I'd say he was trying to intimidate me because of how he looks down his nose, but it reminds me of one of his roles—he was a lowly delivery guy who also fought crime—and I can feel my lips twitch, He glares at me as if he knows what I'm thinking. "Duna refuses to let go of this," he says. He looks over my shoulder and chooses his words. "I said I would help."
"If you're looking for ideas, you can help by not being an asshole," I suggest.
"I can help by making sure you don't tarnish Duna's reputation with your ignorance." He leans forward. "I don't like it but I'll do what I can to mitigate the risk to her, even if it means working with you."
"A real professional."
"I work with many people I don't respect. Or like."
"Me, too." We eye each other and I pull back. I'd held out enough. Now it was business time. "Then let's do this."
"Walk around again." He sprawls in a chair and takes up more space than he has a right to.
"Give me a second." I replay one of the clips on my tablet. One the screen, Duna, dressed in a white satin pantsuit, strolls by like she's walking the runway. I can't do it like that. I throw back my shoulders and decide to simply go. Taehyung's eyes follow me as I walk across the room, which, hilariously, is long enough that I can really get some steps in.
When I come back to the center, he looks thoughtful, as if I'm a puzzle to be solved rather than an insect to squish. This is a decided improvement. "That was less ghastly than last night," he compliments me. "You have a similar walk to Duna."
"No, we don't." This I'm sure about.
Taehyung sighs and takes out his phone, which he taps and shoves under my nose. It shows a dark-haired woman walking away through a lobby, her body language confident and natural.
"This is what you want me to walk like, I know. I'm trying."
"Unbelievable," he says. "That's you. Like I said. When you're being yourself."
I watch it again and realize it's me walking out of the hotel the other day. I didn't know I looked like that. "Why do you have this?"
"I took it when you left to prove Duna what a hopeless idea this was." He looks back at the screen. "You moved better than I thought you would," he says grudgingly.
That is a deeply creepy thing to do." I'm a little awed at his dedication.
"I know." He says it without shame.
I flop down on the chair next to him and he winces/ I guess Duna isn't a flopper either. "The problem is when I know I'm being watched, I forget how to move. My hands are too big and flappy.
Taehyung motions for me to get up. "It's because you consider your body a flaccid thing you inhabit instead of a tool to be trained. When Duna walks down the street, it's the same as if she's walking a red carpet or on set. Be conscious of your body, like a dancer. Every muscle has a job. Every gesture has a purpose."
I don't like Taehyung talking about bodies, but I power through. "How?"
"You can't describe it better than that. Each movement is a decision. You don't simply walk. You decide every step, every tilt of your head. You think of how you want to look and you make that happen. Your awareness has to be external—what are people seeing? What do you want them to see?"
I look thoughtfully in the mirror. I overthink things on good days, so this advice could well blast me right out of orbit. Think about things more than I do?
"Go again."
I do.
"That was worse than before." He rubs the back of his hand against his forehead. "How can a woman not walk?"
"I'm not used to an audience."
"There's always an audience," he says dismissively. "You've had the privilege of being able to ignore it."
"What's that mean?"
"You can walk down the street and be seen but not noticed."
Great, now I have Kim Taehyung stressing my invisibility as a person—exactly what every woman wants to hear.
He keeps talking. "From the moment she leaves her room, every action Duna takes can be recorded and shared globally. Her public self is a role she plays the same as in a film. Outside these walls, Lee Duna is a character. She has to think about how she looks all the time because a single unguarded moment can bring international public humiliation and ridicule."
The unspoken threat is there—as Duna, that large-scale mortification can be all mine if I bungle this. I grit my teeth and try again. Again.
By the sixth time, I grasp the edges of what he's telling me. It's a sense of being conscious of my environment and how I inhibit it. I recall a behind-the-scenes segment of an actor about to walk the red carpet. She's told exactly where the marks are and shown photos of the scene. Standing near the wall, I survey the room as Taehyung scrolls through his phone, a slight frown on his face and his attention off me. This time I don't see it as a way to get from point A to B. I think of where I want to be within it. The room is my setting, not simply empty space with a few bits of furniture acting as obstacles.
"That's not so bad." Taehyung looks up from his phone to watch me, and I stumble slightly as I meet his eyes. He shakes his head and goes back to his phone.
Taehyung is a character. Duna is a character. I need to be one as well. I'm not Suzy doing laps of the hotel room. I need to be Duna.
Inhabiting a new persona is liberating, and Taehyung tilts his head when I walk by again. "Better."
By the time Taehyung indicates I have passed Module 1: The Art of Walking, I have blisters from the adorable sling backs. "Good enough," he congratulates me. He checks the time. "Keep practicing. I need tot get to the theater."
I collapse on the bed to see a text,
You alive? It's Anna.
Not fish bait yet, I text back.
Prove it's you.
I send her a photo of me lounging on my closet chair wearing a pair of embroidered heels too high for me to walk in. I don't know the brand—the name is in Japanese—but I assume they're pricey.
I accept that with respect. Hotty Hotterman treating you ok?
Not too bad. Today with Taehyung could have been worse. He wasn't actively mean.
When's your first event?
Few days from now. I have time.
We text casually back and forth as I try on more of the clothes and try to decide what feels easiest to wear. I send shots to Anna, who has a bad habit of liking the most uncomfortable outfits best.
Beauty is pain, she writes. Duna is a fashion icon. She's not schlepping to the store in pj's.
She probably has people to do that for her anyway. Ira had told me Duna will straight to her suite after the show, so after some more strolling around the room, I eat and go to bed, legs and feet aching and face slathered with a retinol serum Duna's dermatologist has apparently recommended for dire cases.
That's the end of my first day. I learned to walk.