by Annie Choi
I threw my head back melodramatically and slapped the back of my hand to my forehead, like a dying Shakespearean heroine or a Southern belle with a case of the vapors. Then, remembering the misery of last year’s lonesome Christmas, I scrunched up my face and looked cross. My mother laughed.
“Oh, Anne you such comedy! Don’t make ugly face, you get wrinkle!”
I grimaced even more, making deep crevasses in my forehead. My mother grinned and handed me a small jar.
“What’s this?”
“Wrinkle cream. Put on you face. Why you face so dry?”
“What are you talking about? My face is fine.”
I looked in the mirror and saw patches of white flaky skin on my cheeks. I was molting. I sighed and opened the jar and dipped in my index finger. It looked like whipped cream cheese but smelled like flowers.
“You’re not gonna make Mike come out here?”
I rubbed the cream cheese vigorously into my face. My mother watched me and cringed.
“No Anne, make small circle, small circle. Be gent. Ayoo, you have so many wrinkle.”
“No I don’t.”
“Yes you do.”
“No I don’t.”
“Yes you do. You look like Grandma.”
“No, I don’t. I look like Annie. What are we, five years old? We’re not talking about wrinkles here, we’re talking about Mike.”
“Anne, he leave L.A. two week ago and move Chicago. So silly for him come back right away. But I so happy you come back and see you mommy! Who cut you hair? Why so short? Are you boy or girl?”
I groaned and fled the bathroom before my mother could corner me with her curling iron and a gigantic can of hair spray.
I had wanted my family to be together for the holidays, even though they make me grind my teeth into little nubs. In the end, however, we are family and we should spend time together, even if it kills us. But now my brother wasn’t coming and I felt the dread of New Year’s Day dinner at my uncle’s house. I started to regret coming back. Why did I want this?
My brother and I aren’t the best of friends, but we are allies. Mike makes New Year’s Day dinner with the relatives more palatable. We sneak quiet jokes and exchange knowing glances across the table when relatives start bickering. When we can’t understand the conversations in Korean around us, we commiserate over our soul-sucking bosses or discuss how Eddie Murphy’s career ended up in the toilet. I didn’t want to do New Year’s with the family alone.
“Mike, are you sure you don’t want to come out? It’d be totally awesome!”
“Are you out of your mind?”
“But there’ll be wontons. Hot, delicious, savory wontons filled with…stuff I don’t eat, something mammal. Think about wontons—you love them. Do it for the wontons.”
My brother loves food and he is shaped like a hippopotamus. I’ve learned to never stand between Mike and the kitchen. If my brother wouldn’t come to L.A. for the company, maybe he’d come for the food.
“Sorry, Anne, but fuck that.”
“Fuck wontons?”
“No, fuck going out there. I just moved here, dude. It’ll be a pain in the ass to go back.”
“But there’ll be tasty, fried wontons…mmm wontons…extra fried…extra tasty….” I made chomping and slurping noises over the phone.
“Anne, Jesus, what the hell? Stop being such a little shit.”
“Don’t make me go there by myself. It’ll be horrible.”
“Dude, there’s no way I’m finding a plane ticket now. Besides, it won’t be that bad. Mom and Dad will be there.” His throaty laugh was tainted with the kind of evil practiced only by big brothers and tobacco companies.
“Oh, so cold, Mike. So cold.”
“Whatever, just keep your shit together and smile. Easy. And hey, merry Christmas and happy New Year, you little bitch. Drop me some e-mail.”
“Same to you, jerkface.”
I hung up the phone. On New Year’s Day I would be on my own. All I had to do was keep my shit together. And smile.
On the first day of the year, I woke up at three o’clock in the afternoon with a mild hangover and a serious need for coffee. I stumbled into the kitchen, my eyes swollen and crusty and my head in a brutal pre-caffeine haze. I peered at the half-pound bags of coffee beans in disgust. My mother doesn’t believe in coffee-flavored coffee. While I deliberated in agony between Supreme Holiday Pumpkin Cinnamon Cardamom Blend or Swiss Chocolate Raspberry Hazelnut Awakening, my father walked into the kitchen. He had on a red collared shirt and a yellow sweater, a gift I gave him last Christmas. He had on no pants. He did, however, have on underwear.
“Jesus Christ, DAD, put on some pants!”
“I can’t find any pants. I think they all dirty.”
“How could they all be dirty?”
“No pants, I have no pants.”
“Did you look in the laundry room? Can you at least wear a robe? Seriously, you’re killing me here.”
I wrenched my eyes away from his scrawny, pale legs. As he’s gotten older, my father has lost weight in his legs, but gained in his belly. When he turns to the side, he looks like the letter P. He returned to the kitchen triumphantly, holding up a pair of blue and green plaid pants. They looked familiar.
“Uh, I think those are Mom’s pants.”
“Really?”
He looked at the tag and went back to the laundry room, muttering to himself. My mother walked into the kitchen, fully dressed with hair and make-up in place.
“Anne, why you in pajama still?”
“I just woke up.”
“Oh my gosh, it three o’clock! I already went church and come back. How you can sleep all day? Oh look you hair!”
I looked at my reflection in the oven. My dark hair was sticking straight out in a million directions. My head looked like a sea urchin.
“I just woke up, give me a break. Tell me, do we have any normal coffee?”
My father joined us in the kitchen, defeated. No pants.
“Ayoo,” my mom groaned in Korean, “Have you no shame? Your daughter is standing here. Where are your pants?”
“He can’t find any,” I answered in English, “Do you have any normal coffee? I don’t want pumpkin pie coffee; it’s disgusting.”
“Anne, you can drink my coffee,” my father said, skittering across the kitchen. As he reached up to open a cabinet, the bottom of his shirt raised to reveal a hole in the seat of his briefs.
“Oh. My. GOD! MY EYES! MY EYES! They burn!”
“Ayoo, shame! Shame!” My mother shut her eyes in horror and stamped her feet.
“What? What?” My father looked at us incredulously. “Everyone so LOUD! Stop scream!”
“Anne,” my mother cried, “now you know what I see everyday. How I live like this?”
“I don’t know, but I’m glad I don’t live like this. You people are nuts. Dad, you really should wear pants when you come into the kitchen. It’s not sanitary.”
My father scowled and handed me a jar of Sanka.
“Anne, you be nice. My coffee taste better than Mommy’s.”
“Oh no way. This is instant coffee. I don’t do instant. No one should ever be in that much of a hurry.”
“You complain too much,” he told me.
“You’re not wearing any pants,” I said flatly.
“Everyone so crazy, how I live?” my mother wailed. She looked up at the ceiling, toward God, “How I live?”
“I bet God drinks regular coffee,” I grumbled.
“Anne!” my mother cried.
“Where’s my pants?” my father demanded.
“Where’s the normal coffee?” I demanded. I felt a sharp pinching in my temples and a throbbing between my eyes. I started scratching my arms. I dug my nails deep into my forearms.
“OK, everyone, pay attention,” my mother snapped in Korean. She put on her drill sergeant face, the look that once instilled fear in my brother and me throughout our childhood. “We are leaving at five
o’clock. Everyone get ready to go. Anne, you can wait until your uncle’s house for coffee—STOP SCRATCHING. They’ll have a bathtub full of coffee just for you. And you,” my mother looked warily at my father, “I don’t know how you’ve lost all your pants. How do you lose pants?”
My mother marched out of the kitchen in search of pants. There was a moment of silence as my father and I listened to her slippers shuffle down the hallway.
“And Dad?”
“Yes?”
“You can’t wear that sweater with that shirt. They don’t match.”
“What you mean? Red and yellow match.”
“No it doesn’t. You look like you work for McDonald’s.”
My father laughed and looked down at his sweater. “You bought this for me last Christmas. I like it. Yellow is color for emperor.”
“I know, but you aren’t an emperor.”
“What you mean? I’m emperor of the house!”
“Well then I guess the emperor works at McDonald’s. And yes, I would like fries with that.”
“Anne?”
“Yes, Dad?”
“You give me headache.”
He snickered as he walked out of the kitchen, half naked. Or half dressed, from an optimist’s perspective. My bloodshot eyes throbbed. My mother keeps a bottle of Tylenol on the kitchen table, next to the salt and pepper shakers, for easy access. I opened the bottle, only to find it empty. Now I was suffering from severe headache and irony.
I doused my hair with water and three different gels to tame the sea urchin. I threw on some clothes and waited in the kitchen for my parents. I watched the re-run of the Rose Parade. In high school, I used to decorate floats with my friend Janna. I’d come home covered in glue, petals, and seeds, and leave a sticky, fragrant trail straight to my bedroom. This infuriated my mother, though she liked the flowers I’d bring home for her.
“Anne, why you not ready?”
“What are you talking about? I’m ready. I’m waiting for you guys.”
She slowly looked at me up and down. One side of her lip curled up in displeasure.
“Mom, come on, I look fine. Leave me alone.”
“Why you not wear skirt?”
“Because I didn’t bring a skirt. It’s cold in New York.”
“Why you always wear pants?”
“What are you talking about? You’re wearing pants. Dad’s wearing pants. Hopefully.”
“Can you wear Mommy blouse? I have white one, very pretty.”
I realized that I had spent most of the New Year bickering over clothes. I was exhausted and we hadn’t even left the house yet.
“Mom, I don’t want to. Can we please just go? Please?”
“OK, OK, when you see everyone, make sure you say thank you to Tina Mommy.”
“For what?’
“She give you Christmas gift!”
My mother pointed to the kitchen table. There sat the largest jar of peanuts (in the shell) I have ever seen in my life. I couldn’t believe I had missed them before. Our ancient kitchen table was struggling to support the weight.
“You’ve got to be kidding me. What is that, three gallons? Five? What am I supposed to do with this?”
“I know. Who give peanut? How you can eat all?”
“What do you mean how can I eat it all? There’s no way I’m taking seven tons of peanuts back with me. We’ll crash.”
“Maybe you share with everyone on plane.”
“Mom, I can share this with everyone in New York City and we still couldn’t finish it. I don’t even like peanuts. Why not pistachios? Almonds?”
“Peanut cheap.”
The jar’s label had Korean writing on it. Its original contents were for kim chee. My aunt had purchased a gigantic bag of peanuts, probably from a circus supplies store, and filled jars she had around the house. I opened the jar—it smelled like peanuts and cabbage. I gagged.
“Ayoo, Anne, just say thank you.”
I grumbled at my aunt’s thriftiness, though I didn’t get her a gift. My father walked down to the kitchen. He had found some pants. He had also changed into a blue shirt. I was going to comment, but decided against it. Our family could use a little more self-censorship.
“All my pants at dry cleaner. So I have to wear old pants,” he said, tugging at the waist, “I think maybe they a little tight.”
My mother rolled her eyes. Everyone reached for keys off the hook near the garage door.
“Who drive?” my mother asked.
“I’ll drive,” my father replied.
“I’ll drive, too,” I added. Silence. My parents raised their eyebrows at each other. My brother always insisted that our family take two cars to my uncle’s house so when the moment is right, we could both escape the party together. He used the excuse of working early the next morning, and that was the end of the conversation. But now, I was on “vacation.” Plus, it was Saturday. I was trapped.
“I’m going to a friend’s house tonight,” I began. I looked at their stern faces. “After the party, of course.”
“You stay for whole party, Anne,” my mother warned.
“Until the end,” my father added, tugging at his pants.
“Fine, fine, I’ll stay until I die, let’s just GO.”
My uncle’s house is a half-hour drive from my parent’s house, in a pleasant but flavorless part of the San Fernando Valley. My father’s little brother and his family immigrated to the States in 1991, when I was fourteen. They lived with us the first few months they were here—nine people in one house with two bathrooms. It was a nightmare. Once my aunt graciously packed me and my brother lunches for school—peanut butter and ham sandwiches. She didn’t quite understand the concept of peanut butter. As I pulled up behind my parents’ car at my uncle’s house, I realized I should’ve gotten coffee beforehand. I can be quite cantankerous without caffeine and my aunt probably wouldn’t brew anything until after dinner was finished. I couldn’t even rely on the presence of soothing booze. For some reason, the Choi clan doesn’t drink much at family gatherings, which makes alcohol hard to come by at a time when I need it the most. To toast the New Year, there is usually one bottle of wine for seventeen people. Inexplicably, this wine is usually Manischewitz. My brother and I always joke about it, complaining about how hard life in Israel was for us Korean Jews and asking whether the wontons are kosher. No one else ever appreciates the humor, not even Tina and Andy, who immigrated here when they were young.
My aunt and a heat wave of garlic and fried food overwhelmed us at the door.
“Annie, Annie, you are here! Our Annie has come! Have you gained weight?” my aunt said in Korean, looking me over. She gazed intently at my face.
“No, no, I’m the same. Happy New Year.”
I gave her the customary bow. My aunt nodded and shot my mother a grave look.
“I think her breasts have gotten bigger. What’s wrong with her skin?”
“I know, it’s so dry. You think her breasts are too big?”
“No, no, it’s just that she’s little, but her breasts are big.”
Since my Korean comprehension outshines my verbal skills, I can listen, but I can’t react. It’s incredibly debilitating and infuriating. But this is probably for the best. Otherwise, I’m sure I’d say something I’d regret.
“I’m the same,” I hissed.
I see my aunt once a year, but she seemed comfortable enough to talk about my chest. If given the chance, I’m sure she’d feel comfortable discussing the state of my vagina too. I forced a smile and a dry laugh and pinched my mother lightly. She smirked at me and ushered me into the living room.
My brother wasn’t the only person who couldn’t make it. Jae-young had returned to Seoul to find a job and Andy had dropped a computer monitor on his toe and broke both.
“Where’s Tina?” I asked, looking around the room.
“She be here. She not come, but she hear you come so she drive here now.”
Everyone in the family has a
reputation. Yoon-chong’s the artistic one, my aunt is the dry cleaner, my brother is the fat one, my father is the chemist and the one who moved to the States first, my mother is the loud one and also the one who had cancer, and I’m the one who lives in New York and apparently has the largest breasts in the world. Tina is considered the sweetest member of the family. We are opposites in personality, but she’s pleasant and innocuous and speaks English and Korean fluently.
“ANNIE! OH, OUR ANNIE HAS ARRIVED!”
I whipped my head around. It was Tina and Andy’s mother, my father’s youngest sister, also known as the spoiled one and the one that gave me peanuts for Christmas.
“Hello!” I greeted and bowed to her. “Happy New Year!”
“You look different.”
“No, I’m the same.”
“You sure? You look…bigger.” My aunt looked at my mother for confirmation.
“No, I’m the same, Aunt. You’re the one who looks different.”
There was something about my aunt that didn’t look right. Through her blue-tinted glasses, I could see something unusual about her eyes, the shape maybe.
“She got plastic surgery,” my mother whispered quickly to me. “Say thank you.”
“Thank you for the peanuts,” I said in Korean, “They are very…they are…” my mother nudged me “…there’re so many of them….” another nudge. “You are too generous. I love peanuts, they’re so…” nudge “healthy.”
My aunt smiled and reached over to tousle my hair but stopped in mid-air. She let out a squawk.
“What happened to your hair?”
“Nothing.”
“She got it cut. It’s too short, doesn’t it look horrible?” my mother said, exasperated. I glared at her. Woman, I thought, you’re supposed to be on my side.
“It’ll grow out, don’t worry,” my aunt consoled me.
“I like my hair.”
“Shh, it’s OK, it’ll grow out.”
My father’s oldest brother is in his sixties, but he seems much older. He sat in a chair and waved to me and grinned. He has a lot of gold caps on his teeth, and they gleamed under the unflattering halogen lighting. I bowed. He nodded and returned his attention to the TV. A Korean bank heist movie.