by Rose Kent
I dropped the sack of towels on the counter, noticing the bag had a slight rip in the bottom.
“Uhmma!” he called into the back room. Or something like that. No Uhmma came, though the mail carrier walked in and handed the new kid a stack of letters.
“You’re Korean, too?” Yongsu asked.
“Sort of,” I said.
He pushed his glasses back on his nose. The way a geek would right before the bully pops him.
A woman walked out from the back room. Korean, of course, so I figured Uhmma meant “Mom.” Suddenly I felt out of place. Like how a Vulcan would feel at a Romulan festival in an old Star Trek episode. The Hans were real Koreans.
The new kid’s mom held an armful of tangled wire hangers, which she threw in a plastic bin beside the cash register.
Then she spun around and noticed me. She lifted her eyebrows slightly, like she was suspicious, and grinned, showing big teeth. Not exactly buckteeth, like Mom says mine would be if she and Dad hadn’t dropped three grand on my braces, but big like horse teeth, with a lot of gum.
“Ahn nyong ha seh yo?” she said.
Both Yongsu and his mother stared at me.
I shrugged. “I don’t know any Korean.”
The new kid said something in Korean, and his mom nodded. She started pulling wet towels out of the sack and counting them.
“There’s thirty-five,” I said, remembering what Mom said.
But she counted anyway. So much for trust among Koreans.
“What’s your family name?” Her accent sounded much thicker than Yongsu’s.
“Calderaro,” I said, speaking slowly. Up went her suspicious eyebrows. “The towels are from my mom’s shop. She’s a hairdresser.”
“You’re missing one towel.”
I felt like she was accusing me.
“Maybe it fell.” I pointed to the floor on her side of the counter. She bent over and picked up a towel.
“Your mom Korean?” she asked as she reached for an order slip. Her eyes sparkled as she spoke, a little like Gina’s when she’s got a secret.
“No, she’s Italian. My dad, too. But I’m Korean, which you probably figured out,” I said as my mouth started running away from my face.
Mrs. Han didn’t understand.
“I’m adopted,” I explained.
Mrs. Han stared at me with icy eyes, but didn’t say a word. It was as if she’d taken out a name tag, scribbled “fake Korean” on it, and stuck it to my T-shirt.
Then she muttered something quickly in Korean to her son. He picked up the towels and carried them to the back room. A bell jingled as another customer walked in.
“Phone number?” Mrs. Han asked, and I rattled off the number for Shear Impressions. She tore the yellow customer’s copy from the order slip and handed it to me.
Mrs. Faddegan never used slips. She just billed Mom and Aunt Foxy once a month.
Mrs. Han quickly turned her attention to a man who’d just dropped a bunch of shirts on the counter.
No good-bye, no thank you from Uhmma.
I pushed hard on the door to get the heck outta there.
“Joseph, wait!”
“Whaddaya want?” I snapped with as much Jersey attitude as I could muster. The Hans could go back to doing laundry in Flushing, if that was even what they did there. Or better yet, Korea.
“You like to play war or poker?” The new kid was still holding the deck of cards.
The thought of playing cards in this sticky place was about as appealing as the stomach flu on Christmas morning.
“It’s too hot in here.” I kept on walking.
He followed me outside. “We’ll play behind the store. You like soda? We’ve got cans in the fridge, in the back room. Ginger ale, orange, root beer, whatever you like.”
I was about to say no again. Why should I spend time with this guy? But then again, my other options weren’t so great: either walking the two miles home to get going on my social studies essay or hanging around Shear Impressions for a couple of hours and listening to the hairdressers’ gossip, since I knew Mom had back-to-back appointments until seven.
And root beer was my favorite.
“Okay,” I said. “What’s your name again?”
He smiled. “Yongsu Han.”
The back of the building had two tiny windows that reminded me of portholes on a submarine. One was blocked by an air conditioner. The other had a ripped screen. Yongsu and I started playing war on the rusted metal picnic table, on a patch of brown grass beside the parking lot. I took a long swig of root beer. I’d never heard of this brand, but it sure was cold and bubbly.
I looked up and saw Mrs. Han staring from one of the windows. I could tell she was scowling. She wasn’t discreet, the way Mom is when she peeks through the dining room curtain at our neighbor whose boyfriend drives a Harley and wears leather everything.
Obviously Mrs. Han thought I was a cheap Korean imitation, maybe even a troublemaker who needed watching. It hurt my ego, because most of my friends’ parents make a big fuss over me, like I’m this funny, well-balanced influence on their kids. I thought about asking Yongsu what was up with his mom, but he seemed so thrilled to have me around that I couldn’t do it.
“Let’s switch to blackjack,” I said. “I’ll deal.”
I shuffled the deck while he got up and threw his soda can in the Dumpster. A breeze blew, and I smelled hamburgers from the diner across the street. My stomach growled.
“Hit me,” Yongsu said after I dealt his top card. I gave him another card. He had a ten of diamonds on top of a nine of clubs showing.
“I’m over.” He flipped his bottom card. Six of spades. The wind stirred and sent the card flying off the table. He bent down to grab it just as a white hatchback pulled up.
Yongsu ran over, and a Korean man got out of the car. Yongsu bowed, and the man nodded back. Must be his dad, I figured. They talked, and the man looked over and waved to me.
Clearly Yongsu inherited his friendly gene from his paternal side.
They walked to the rear entrance. Then Yongsu ran back and began shuffling the cards.
“Was that your Uhppa?” I said, remembering how he’d called his mom Uhmma.
“Apa,” he corrected. “You say ‘Apoji’ when you’re older.”
“So you speak perfect Korean?”
“I lived in Korea till I was seven. You know any Koreans here?”
“Not really.” Of course, I always notice other Asian kids. But in my school, if they’re not in your classes, your neighborhood, or your after-school activities, they might as well live in Antarctica.
The wind picked up again suddenly, and I wished I’d worn my band jacket.
Yongsu told me he had a sister who was also in eighth grade. She hadn’t moved yet because she was in a gifted music program. She’d already composed a piano piece that her school orchestra performed at a state competition.
“You’re twins?” I asked.
He dealt the cards. “No, she skipped a year back in grade school.”
“I’ve got twin sisters,” I told Yongsu.
“You’re a triplet?” he asked, confused.
I explained that my sisters were younger and not adopted.
“My sister’s staying with my aunt and uncle in Flushing for a few more days until the music program is over,” he said.
“What’s her name?”
“Ok-hee.”
I must have made a face.
“Ok-hee’s a popular name in Korea,” he said. “Like Brittney or Jessica in America.”
“Or Kelly.” Popular with me, for sure.
We stopped playing cards. Yongsu took a handheld computer out of his pocket. It was a Japanese video game he’d bought off a street vendor in Flushing. It played like a space arcade, but involved morphed grasshoppers searching for food and fighting four-legged bad guys.
“You ever heard the name Duk-kee before?” I asked.
“One of my best friends in Taegu was Duk-kee.”
He pronounced “Duk-kee” differently. More like “Took-ee.” Not “Ducky,” the way I say it.
“Do you know where you were born in Korea, Joseph?”
“Pusan,” I said. “You been there?”
He nodded. “It’s a two-hour drive from Taegu, where we lived. In the summer my parents took us to the fish market and beach in Pusan. My cousin goes to university there.”
I wished I had a Korean cousin. Then I could write about him or her for my essay. I’d settle for just about any Korean relative at this point.
“Yongsu, can you think of any famous Koreans? Like how we have George Washington and Tiger Woods?”
His eyes sparkled like his mom’s. “You ask funny questions.”
“I’m not kidding,” I said. “It’s for a school paper.”
Yongsu said there were plenty. His dad had shelves of Korean history books.
“Problem is they’re written in Korean,” he said.
“Yeah, that’s a big problem for me.” I glanced at my watch. It was five thirty. I was starving, and that burger smell was torturing me.
“Yongsu!” his mom called from the window. She shouted something in Korean, and even I could figure out it meant “Get your butt inside.”
On my way back to Shear Impressions, I practiced saying my Korean name, Duk-kee, the way Yongsu had pronounced it. But it just didn’t sound right coming out of my mouth.
Sounds like Baby Moses
Mom came home from work as the sun was setting on Wednesday. She had dark circles under her eyes and a cardboard box of fried chicken in her hands.
“I had one heck of an afternoon perming crabby Mrs. Congelosi. After an hour of wrapping her whole head in medium-sized silver rollers—and listening to her complain about her daughter-in-law—she changes her mind and says she wants tight blue rollers. And then she had the nerve to tell me to hurry up! No way am I cooking,” she declared.
Dad took the chicken from Mom and wrapped his arms around her. “Aristotle said beauty is a gift from God. Let me behold the present He’s bestowed on me!”
“Oh, spare me your Greek philosophy and kiss me,” she said.
They kissed, this drawn-out smooch that made me feel embarrassed. Mom and Dad may be over forty and set in their suburban ways, but they still act like they’ve got raging hormones.
Luckily my sisters didn’t see them lock lips. That always gets them squealing and making “yuck faces.” They were in the family room, working on a thousand-piece Noah’s Ark puzzle—which, of course, would never get assembled without a fight and pathetic pleas for help.
Dad opened the back sliding door. “I’m going to water the tomato plants.”
“I’ll set the table,” I said.
“That would be nice, Joseph,” Mom said, looking surprised. I don’t usually jump up at the chance to help in the kitchen.
Alone at last with Mom. I could ask what she knew about the day I was born. Seeing Yongsu and his parents got me wondering even more. Plus, I still had to give Nash some more info for the search, since my talk with Dad was a bust.
“Can I ask you a few questions, Mom?”
She gave me a curious look. “Ask away.”
“Do you know my birth parents’ names, or where the adoption agency found me?” I folded the napkins in triangles, concentrating so I wouldn’t have to look at her.
Mom started to say something, then paused. “I planned on sharing this with you at a special time. When you were…well, a bit older.”
“Sharing what?” I asked.
“The information the adoption agency gave us. But it isn’t much, Joseph.”
“I really want to know whatever it is,” I pleaded. “Now.”
She took a breath before she began. “They told us they found you in the south of Pusan, by the waterfront, in a police station parking lot. An old woman was walking back from the fish market in the afternoon when she heard a baby crying. You were lying in a basket, wrapped in a blanket.”
This sounded like the Baby Moses story. Had I floated down a river in Pusan too?
“What was my birth mother’s name?”
“They didn’t give us any names.”
“What day did the old woman find me?”
“May seventh,” Mom said, rubbing the top of my head with her fingertips.
“Well, since my birthday is May fifth, that meant my birth mother took care of me for two days. Maybe she felt torn and didn’t want to give me up,” I said.
Mom nodded. I noticed her eyes were watery. It made me feel kind of guilty.
“Move, Frazer!” Sophie yelled from the family room. That old boxer loved to park himself in inconvenient places, like right on top of the puzzle.
“What’s got you thinking about all this, honey?” Mom asked.
Should I tell her about the essay? I wanted to, but she was practically crying already. I didn’t want to make her feel like she wasn’t a good-enough mom.
“I just met this new kid at school today, and he’s Korean. That’s all.”
She nodded and started scooping mashed potatoes from the plastic container onto the plates. She didn’t seem as upset anymore.
I kept imagining how it all happened in Pusan fourteen years ago. “Maybe it was a baby-snatching conspiracy and the lady who found me was in on it,” I said. “She could have kidnapped me, realized she was going to get caught, and then dropped me at the police station with that story so they wouldn’t suspect anything.”
“I don’t think so,” Mom answered. “The adoption agency told us that’s just the way babies are left in Korea. Birth mothers pick spots where they know their babies will be safe and get discovered quickly.”
Then Mom continued, as if trying to convince me she was right. “Unmarried Korean women can’t keep their babies, Joseph. Having a child before marriage is taboo there, much worse than here. Mothers without husbands are outcasts. Sometimes they can’t even find jobs or homes. I think your birth mother knew you both would have had a difficult life if she’d kept you.”
“Why do Koreans make the mothers feel so bad?” I asked. “That’s dumb.”
“I’ve read that Koreans have mixed feelings about adoption. Some think it’s unnatural, but others feel terrible that they don’t do a better job taking care of children in their country. I think it’s so sad, especially for the birth mothers.”
I thought about Mrs. Han’s face when I said I was adopted. I must have been a breathing reminder of all those abandoned babies back in her country. “Well, maybe my birth mother was married to my birth father and they just didn’t have enough money to raise a kid,” I said. “Or she could have gotten sick. Isn’t that possible too?”
“I suppose,” Mom said, nodding, although she looked doubtful.
Through the window I watched Dad reel the hose in. I better wrap this up.
“Do you know anything else? I mean, about me before America?”
Mom closed her eyes as if she were thinking hard.
“Your birth mother had tucked a note under your blanket. We never got it—and I’m sure it was written in Korean—but the adoption agency told us about it. She asked that you be raised Christian. That’s part of the reason you came to us.”
“What about my Korean name, Duk-kee?” I asked, just as Dad opened the sliding glass door.
“Just what I’ve told you already, honey. Your birth mother named you Duk-kee. It’s a common name in Korea.”
Dad came inside and washed his hands. “What are you two talking about?”
“Joseph was asking about the day he was born and his name. His Korean name,” she said.
Dad nodded and looked at me. “Your mom was set on naming you Joseph after the saint when you arrived safely, but I was partial to Antonio.”
“Yeah, Dad, I sure look like an Antonio.” I was teasing, but I wasn’t, too.
“We could’ve picked worse. You could’ve been baptized…Luigi!” He shouted it loud, intentionally exaggerating an Italia
n accent.
“Luigi?” I made my ultra-disgusted face.
“Don’t pay any attention to your father. He wanted Gina to be named Philomena. I put my foot down on that one.” She was unscrewing the cork from a bottle of merlot, Dad’s favorite.
“Thanks for talking, Mom,” I said. I felt bad inside. Like I should have said, “None of this matters. You’re my real mom, after all.”
“Anytime you wanna talk, Joseph, we talk.”
I couldn’t talk anymore, even if I wanted to. My head hurt from all this heavy info. I would call Nash and tell him everything after dinner, but for now I didn’t want to think about it.
“Gina, you’re messing up the whole puzzle!” Sophie shouted. “The camel’s hump doesn’t go behind the zebra’s tail.”
“Don’t blame me. Noah brought too many animals on this ark,” Gina whined. “Can you help us, Joseph?”
I sat on the carpet next to my sisters and picked up a puzzle piece—an orange striped tail. “Let’s get this ark built so these fur balls don’t drown. Besides, chow’s on the table and my stomach is growling like this tiger.”
Starstruck
“Go away,” I shouted, knowing the Lilliputian knocking on the other side of the door was one of my sisters.
Who wouldn’t be grouchy? I was trapped in my bedroom dungeon, slaving away on my essay. My doomed essay. Even with all the details I had given him, Nash still couldn’t find anything. And his computer crashed. He said it had some sort of virus—probably caused by the malocchio since I wasn’t wearing my goat horn.
It was still sunny out, and the sound of kids playing in the distance was dogging me.
I picked up one of the library books. It had a map of North and South Korea on the cover and a photo of Mount Hallasan, the tallest mountain in South Korea.
I reread the assignment sheet for the twentieth time: “Your essay must fully explore your ancestry and reflect on its impact on your life.”
Why did Mrs. Peroutka have to turn social studies into soul searching?
“Guess what, Joseph!” Gina squeaked from the hallway.
“What?”