The funny thing was he actually spoke the language better than he let on; it was just his accent that was a bit hard to penetrate. He said his daughters laughed at him whenever he tried to converse with them. Inhibited—although he didn’t put it that way—he retreated into pidgin and monosyllables. By default, Kate became the only person he could talk to, and he seemed to really enjoy her company. He told her about his past as a badminton champion in South Korea, and how he missed the charred beef aroma of street carts selling galbi late into the night. Several times he tried to hug her after class, praising her for being “such a good listener.”

But she really wasn’t. When he confessed that he had ambitions of becoming a writer in English, Kate encouraged him to put his stories down on paper so she wouldn’t have to hear him stutter on pitifully about them. He got to work immediately, writing hard every day. The next week, she was surprised by the quantity of his output—sixty pages—having expected only a tedious haiku or two. The quality of the work was another matter altogether. But these were language lessons, not fiction workshops. She concentrated on fixing his English and made no comment about his chosen subjects—lechers, philanderers, the full gamut of completely revolting men. Obediently, he wrote his stories out several times over, his grammar and handwriting improving with each successive draft. She was considerate about them, using value-free terms like “different” and “unexpected.”

When he finally assembled his stack of six short stories, as polished as he could make them, he invited Kate for coffee at Starbucks. To celebrate, he said. There she found him trying to read the ads at the back of the LA Weekly, his mouth open like a carp. She was mortified when the barista took them to be a couple.

As they sat down, Mr. Park thanked her for her continued encouragement and asked if she could help place his stories in reputable newspapers or journals. His primary interest was to impress his “very clever” daughters, both of whom adored The Simpsons and South Park, and possessed, according to him, “the very sarcastic type of humor.” Eventually, he’d want to go on to write novels or television sagas, with his clever daughters’ help, perhaps. Epics involving a whole cross-section of society, “like Charles Dickens and Simpsons, all together.” He would tell the stories of everybody, rich and poor, Korean and black, Latino and Jewish, and he’d make their lives intersect in refreshing ways. He clasped his hands together: “Old world plus new world!”

He waited eagerly for Kate’s response, the soy foam canopy on his latte growing cold and quietly sagging.

Kate’s face was red. She tried to find something nice to say.

“Mr. Park, I really . . . I’m not sure I know what to tell you.”