by Jessica Kim
Yuri smooths my hair. “You never know. New year. New possibilities.”
“New bullies.”
She laughs. “Just be yourself, and everything will come together on its own.”
If only it could be that simple.
Right then, Dad pops his head into the room. “How’s website? Is it working?”
“Almost done.” Yuri clicks through the screens. “I just have to add one more plug-in.”
“Good,” he says, watching my sister code. “This is what we need to bring in the customers.”
Doubtful. It’s going to take a whole lot more than a dinky online reservation button for that to happen, but I don’t want to burst his bubble.
Dad turns to me. “Yumi, I need your help. Bring the banchan to table three. We are getting the slam.” The slam. That’s Dad’s rendition of the phrase we’re getting slammed.
“Sure.” I guess Jasmine’s vlog will have to wait until later.
“Can you help? After you finish with website?” he asks Yuri. “Until end of service?”
“Yes,” Yuri says without looking up, her fingers flying across the keyboard.
When I walk into the kitchen, Manuel, our restaurant’s main cook, greets me with a big smile. “Someone got her hair done! You look great, cipota.”
“Really? I feel like I’m five years old,” I groan, pulling on my apron. “How am I supposed to go to middle school with this?” I fluff the sides of the frizzy cloud that is now my hair.
“If anyone gives you trouble about your hair”—he flexes his muscles—“show them your guns. Let them know that they can’t mess with you.”
“Yeah, right.” I snort as I wash my hands in the sink. For the ten years Manuel’s been working here, he’s always said stuff like that. It’s really silly, but if I’m being honest, it’s nice to have someone who encourages you to stand up for yourself. In my case, it’s the Salvadoran head cook from my parents’ restaurant.
I open the lid of one of the pots on the stove and take a big whiff. “Smells great.”
“You know, it’s just a little sundubu, kimchi-jjigae, seolleongtang, and two orders of my famous doenjang-jjigae,” he says, with a better Korean accent than mine.
“Mmmmmm. Mashigeta!” It truly looks delicious. Manuel can cook anything. His pupusas are just as legendary as the Korean dishes Mom taught him.
“You know it.” He tosses soft tofu into the bubbly red stew and gives it a sprinkle of fresh green onion for garnish before sending it out to the pass.
“How did your granddaughter’s birthday party go the other day?” I ask him.
“Good. Sofia wanted something low-key, so we ended up having some people over for Pollo Campero and cake. A Little Mermaid one. It was chill.”
Something pops into my head. “Oooh! That reminds me of a joke.”
“Let’s hear it.”
“How are parents like broken refrigerators?”
“I give up. How?”
“They’re loud, inconsistent, and have no chill!” I say, barely containing my giggles.
Manuel lets loose the best kind of whole-body laugh. “No chill!” He throws his head back and holds his belly with both hands. “Burn!”
“Thanks.” He’s one of the few people I feel comfortable telling my jokes to, because he’s always honest with his feedback.
“Don’t be too hard on your mom and pops, though. They’re coming from a good place.” He’s still laughing as he piles the tiny side dishes of cubed radish, sesame bean sprouts, black beans, and marinated spinach onto a giant platter. “Listen, you better get this banchan out there before the customers start complaining.”
“Right.” I haul the platter up onto my shoulder and balance it the best I can. “I got this.” I flex my biceps, which is about as thick as a chopstick.
“Atta girl!” He chuckles, flexing his arm right back at me.
“Keep working on those jokes, Yumi!” he shouts before going back to tend to the five pots of soup boiling on the stove.
I’m heading out to the dining area when Yuri pops out from behind the faded embroidered folding screen carrying two water pitchers.
Mom is already at table three greeting the bespectacled middle-aged man sitting with his family.
“How are you, Mr. Lee?” She collects the clunky leather-bound menus from the table. “Mrs. Lee, did you change your hair? This color looks so stylish on you! Samuel, I hear that you got first chair in your orchestra! Congratulations!”
After being in business at the same location for fifteen years, Mom knows all the regulars by name. Somehow she also remembers their favorite entrees, preferred spice levels, tipping patterns, and if they happen to have any eligible bachelors in the family. These days, the Lee family and a small handful of other loyal diners are the only people I ever see at our restaurant.
“You remember our daughters.” Mom rests her hands on Yuri’s shoulders. “Girls, insa to our guests.”
“Annyeonghaseyo.” We greet them with our heads bowed.
Mr. Lee sets his spoon down. “They are more beautiful each time we see them.”
“Beauty is not everything.” Mom clucks her tongue and loud-whispers to Mrs. Lee, “I’m afraid Yuri will never get married.” She tosses her head with disdain. “She still has no boyfriend.”
Yuri’s porcelain skin flushes bright pink. You’d think we’d have grown immune to this stuff by now, but nope, it’s still mortifying each time.
Mrs. Lee chuckles. “Mrs. Chung, your daughter is still a student. Why are you worried already?”
A faux-concerned expression cloaks Mom’s face. “She cannot meet any nice boys because she always studying, studying, studying.” Mom sighs dramatically, clutching the pendant hanging from her necklace. “So difficult to be youngest student at the UCLA medical school.”
Mrs. Lee’s spoon clinks, hitting the side of the dolsot bowl.
“Medical school already? I thought she was in high school,” she says, like Yuri isn’t standing right there.
Mr. Lee grunts. “Looks like teenager!”
Dad dashes over, nearly knocking the traditional wooden masks from the wall. He must have sensed there was a brag session going on.
“Mr. Lee, Yuri is not teenager anymore!” He pauses. “She is twenty years old. Skipped two grades and graduated from the university early,” he adds, injecting himself into the conversation. I swear, my sister is like his own living, breathing trophy.
Mr. Lee indulges Dad. “Wah! So smart! She finished her studies two years early.”
Dad swats at the air, feigning modesty, like they’re talking about him.
“Did you hear that, son?” Mrs. Lee elbows her teenage son.
Yuri’s face is now redder than the raw meat on the grill.
The boy looks up through his long bangs. “What?”
Wait for it.
“If you study hard like her, you can be a success, too,” Mr. Lee says.
Ha! If I had a dollar for every time my parents told me that, I’d be able to buy our family a second restaurant.
Then Mom gestures to me. “And you remember our second daughter, Yumi.”
Ack, they’re all looking at me! I grab the pitcher and top off the already-full water cups on the table, trying hard to ignore Mrs. Lee’s eyes roaming up and down, evaluating my every molecule. She squints, probably struggling to come up with a compliment.
“Your younger daughter is so . . . tall.”
Sad. That’s the best thing she can come up with. I’m not even that tall. I grab the metal tongs and flip the meat on the grill, avoiding all eye contact, hoping they’ll change the subject.
“You know, our Yumi is so shy and quiet. We don’t know what to do with her. She did not even tell us when she won the academic scholarship to Winston Academy in Beverly Hills,” Mom sa
ys unblinkingly.
I nearly give myself whiplash. Mom. What. The. Heck.
She smiles at them with her fake no-teeth grin, willfully ignoring my silent outrage.
Yuri snickers behind me.
My mother has been known to stretch the truth to make us look good. Like the time she complained to everyone at the restaurant about how difficult it was to find a costume after I was handpicked to sing the solo in my first-grade Christmas pageant. “She sings like an angel, just like her father,” she told everyone. In truth, I was assigned the humble role of Wiseman #2, with no speaking parts whatsoever, much less a solo.
“You are blessed. Two obedient and smart daughters. My son here is so lazy. He never studies. All he ever wants to do is play his violin.” Mr. Lee knocks his knuckles on his son’s scalp. “Last week, he told me he needs money to fly to New York to perform with his orchestra. Carnegie Hall or something. I tell him, what about your studies?”
So it begins. For the next good while, they go back and forth one-upping each other with their humblebrags.
Someone get me a barf bag.
If only my parents were proud of me for the things I can actually do.
CHAPTER 3
Later that night, I’m practicing new stand-up in front of my laptop.
In today’s vlog, Jasmine Jasper swore that watching and critiquing video footage of yourself is the best way to improve stage presence. So that’s what I’m doing. Normally, I’d rather eat saeu-jeot by the spoonful than watch myself on tape, but hey, if that’s what the pro says, that’s what the pro says. I’ll do just about anything that’ll help me become even a fraction as funny as she is.
I became a Jasmine Jasper fan when Yuri showed me her videos to cheer me up when I didn’t get invited to my so-called friend’s birthday party. I’ll never forget Jasmine’s stand-up about how she got her period during a sleepover but couldn’t muster the courage to ask her friend’s mom for a maxi pad because #shygirlproblems. She resorted to making makeshift pads out of folded toilet paper, but when they were playing Twister, it fell out of her shorts and the dog got ahold of it and went to town. For the rest of the night, Bella the beagle wouldn’t stop sniffing her crotch for more.
Jasmine Jasper had me howling with her facial expressions, voice impersonations, plus the doggy sniffing sounds. It was the best distraction to help me forget how bummed I was about being left out of the party. Also, it was nice to know I’m not the only one who gets awkward in certain social situations. In some ways, I feel like Jasmine Jasper gets me, maybe more than anyone else in my life. And she’s so fricking funny, too.
I wonder how many times she had to practice that maxi-pad bit in front of the mirror holding a hairbrush for a microphone before it was perfected. On her vlogs, she’s always talking about the importance of challenging yourself to do things that make you uncomfortable. And how we can’t ever improve until we put ourselves out there and practice, practice, practice.
If it worked for her, maybe it’ll work for me, too.
Here goes nothing.
I uncap my pen, then tap the Play button, unfreezing my likeness on the screen. And instantly, it’s beyond brutal.
Cringe. Cringe. Cringe.
Do I really sound like that? Do I really stand like that?
I force myself to get through the entire four minutes and twelve seconds of the clip, jotting down the million things I need to work on:
—talk way louder, slower
—stand up straight, posture too slouchy
—walk around more—you are not a plant
—stop saying “um”
—don’t need to grip hairbrush with both hands
—no nervous giggling
—pause between jokes
—don’t rush the delivery
—need more hand gestures to animate story
I flip back in my notebook to fix my dumpster fire of a bit. I reread it, and honestly, it’s not the material. There’s actually a lot of good stuff here. The real problem is my delivery. I’m totally uncomfortable, and it shows. My nervous tics are choking the humor out of my jokes.
But how am I supposed to stop acting nervous when I am nervous?
Hopeless, I fall onto my bed face-first. What I really need is a personality transplant. From a really spontaneous, naturally outgoing, fun-loving donor.
I picture waking up from surgery after having charisma and confidence stitched alongside my organs and being miraculously healed from my stifling self-consciousness. I’d leave the hospital a totally different person. I’d participate in class, have a ton of friends, and my jokes would land.
I’d turn into the person I’ve always wanted to be. I’d be the New Me!
I imagine the way the New Me would perform my act. The pen in my hand can’t keep up with my ideas.
I’m convinced my hair is mad at me.
For years [note: emphasize this], my mom has insisted that I condition it, spray it, pomade it, and perm it to “give it the volume.” That’s a lot of product, and it’s given me a severe case of dandruff. [point to crown of head] Look at this! It’s like the Swiss Alps up there. You know what I think? I think that’s my hair follicles . . . [whisper this loudly into the mic] getting revenge on me. I tried to tell my mom, “See! It’s because of all the stuff you make me use.” She looked at me sternly and said, “Not my fault you did not use enough.”
Whatever. [shrug] Sometimes you just have to brush it off.
The comments and the dandruff.
Be careful how you treat your hair, friends. Next time you’re in the bathroom, watch your back. [pause] No, I mean literally check it out with some mirrors or something [pantomime this]. You might have missed some flakes back there.
This will get me to loosen up. But can I really pull it off?
Jasmine Jasper says that sometimes you have to “fake it till you make it.”
It’s worth a try.
I adjust the laptop screen, stand up straight, and clear my throat. “All right, here it goes. Hair Bit: Take Two,” I say into the camera.
I grip my hairbrush/microphone and project nice and loud. “I’m convinced my hair is mad at me—”
I glance at my notebook for the next line, but then a freaky face appears behind me on the laptop screen.
“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”
I whip around to meet my fate.
Thankfully, it’s just Mom, looking like a killer from a bad slasher movie in her Korean sheet mask.
“I bring you a study snack,” she sings, carrying in a plate of sliced Asian pears. Our family’s shih tzu, Nabi, follows behind her.
“Mom, you scared the shin kimchi out of me!” I say, holding my chest.
“Sorry.” Mom points to the white cotton film slathered on her face with floral-scented goo. “I got the new facial mask. Secret ingredient is snail secretion. Helps with shrinking the pores.”
Snail secretions? How did they even extract that? Images of snails on treadmills made of sponge fill my mind.
“You should try, too. Maybe help with your skin.” Nabi jumps into her lap and licks Mom’s snail-slimy chin.
I turn away. “No, I’m good.” I’ll keep my pimples, thanks.
She hands me a tiny fork from the plate. “Eat. I cut for you. Fruit is good for concentration,” she says, trying not to move her mouth muscles.
By compulsion, Mom automatically starts tidying the stray papers and books on my desk. “How many times I have to tell you? You need to keep your room organized,” she nags.
“Why does it bother you so much? I know exactly where everything is.”
“Having nice-looking desk will bring peace and good energy. Just like having nice-looking skin and hair. You have to take care of outside to take care of inside.”
She sweeps my bangs out of my
face.
“If you say so, Mom.”
She glances at my computer screen. “Are you still working on quadratic formula?”
I close my laptop and clutch it to my chest.
“No, I was just, uh, working on some other stuff.”
“What kind of stuff?”
“Nothing . . . just some jokes.” I set it on the desk.
Mom’s creepy mask pinches in the middle with dissatisfaction. “Jokes? What for?” She tugs at the edges of the sheet to readjust it.
“For fun.”
Can’t a girl videotape herself practicing her stand-up act to a pretend audience for no particular reason without getting the third degree?
“Humph. Waste of time.” Mom takes a seat on the edge of my polka-dot bedspread and rearranges my pillows by size. “Have you heard from Yuri?”
Nabi’s curled tail wags at the sound of my sister’s name.
“Not since I saw her at the restaurant earlier.” I sprawl on the other end of my bed, staring at my closet door, where my K-pop posters hang next to my old Pokémon ones. “Why?”
She draws her mummy-wrapped face close to mine. “Did she mention she is spending time with any new . . . friends?” Mom looks at me like I should understand what she’s getting at, but I don’t have a clue where she’s going with this.
“She’s not answering my phone calls. Very unusual for her.” She nibbles on a sliver of pear through her mask.
I shrug. “She’s probably hanging out with people from class.”
“I knew it.”
“Knew what?”
Her smug smile pulls the sides of the sheet mask, making her look like a lackluster Mexican luchador. “She has a boyfriend.”
I bolt upright, startling Nabi. “Why would you think that?” Wow. Mom is one to jump to conclusions, but this is a stretch, even for her.
“Makes sense. She is so busy. Distracted. Hurry to go back to her apartment. Missing calls. She must be seeing someone special.”