Kimchi & Calamari

by Rose Kent

  I looked outside. Sophie and Gina were seated on the glider swing, squealing as they soared higher and higher. One minute my sisters were ready to kill each other, and the next they were giddy. Kind of like Dad and me.

  “Know what, Dad? I think I’m an ethnic sandwich. One hunk of Joseph slapped between a slice of Italian bread and a mound of Korean sticky rice.”

  He walked over and put his hand on my shoulder.

  “Maybe that’s not such a bad combination.”

  “That’s ’cause it’s not you,” I said, staring down at the floor.

  “I’m not you, Joseph, and I can’t imagine how it feels to be adopted. But I know how it feels to wonder if I’m doing what I was meant to do. I ask myself that almost every night as I rinse out my sponges and load my ladders back on the truck. And I’m no psychologist, but I know you’re a fine kid. The best you could be—Italian and Korean. Maybe that’s the angle you oughtta take for your essay.”

  “Maybe shmaybe,” I replied.

  Dad still didn’t understand. But he had given me something to write about.

  I turned in that blasted essay at the end of class on Tuesday. I’d stayed up past midnight finishing it, and I couldn’t wait to hand it to Mrs. Peroutka.

  “Joseph, the Ethnic Sandwich.” A fifteen-hundred-word ancestry tale that read like a buffet. A little about Buddha Baby’s American debut, or how I arrived at JFK Airport from Korea. A little about my grandparents’ tailor shop. A bit about Dad’s boxing past. And some on those straight-talkers from Pusan. Finally, I threw in a mini-lesson on Italian superstitions and the malocchio.

  I knew this version wouldn’t win a contest, but this time it was the God Honest Truth from a former Cub Scout: how it felt to be Joseph Calderaro—Korean on the outside, Italian on the inside, and sometimes the other way around.

  And I wouldn’t say this around my parents or Mrs. Peroutka, but I felt proud of “Joseph, the Ethnic Sandwich.”

  It was my story.

  Shrimp Connection

  Ahh, the sounds of silence.

  I came home from school a few days later and was glad the only mouth nearby was connected to Frazer’s snout—and he was snoring. I’d spent the whole lunch period listening to Frankie’s verbal delusions about which top-tier girl he was asking to the Farewell Formal. I couldn’t stand hearing any more. It reminded me of how my year-long plan to ask Kelly had gone up in flames.

  The empty house gave me a chance to concentrate on the phone call I had to make to Jae. I poured a glass of iced tea and dialed Jae’s number.

  “Is this a good time to talk?” I asked.

  “Yes, Kevin is sleeping. And I’m taking a break after a busy day of auditing.”

  Jae had her own accounting firm and worked from home. I told her Mom and Dad both owned businesses. Jae especially liked hearing that Mom owned a hair salon. I could just imagine the two of them talking about what hairstyles were hot here and in the Midwest. Jae said she’d never visited New Jersey, though she knew the “Which exit?” joke.

  “I’ve never been to Saint Louis,” I told her.

  She and Kevin liked to visit the Missouri Botanical Garden. “We feed these giant Japanese koi fish there. Every time Kevin spots one, he splashes and screams with joy. I think the fish want to scream when they see him, too.”

  I laughed. It felt like I had known Jae forever. She was so easy to talk to.

  “About Kevin,” I said, “his name doesn’t sound too Korean.”

  “You’re right. My husband, Scott, is from Independence, Missouri.”

  That surprised me. I’d expected Jae to be like Mrs. Han, 100 percent Korean, even in her choice of a husband.

  I told Jae about my dinner at the Hans. She giggled when I called myself the Master Chopstick Impersonator. But she interrupted when I said the Hans were the first real Koreans I’d ever met.

  “What do you mean real?”

  “Authentic, not adopted,” I explained.

  “So that makes someone a real Korean and you not real?”

  “Yeah, being adopted Korean is different. It’s sort of like wearing one of those fake stones they sell on TV—a cubic zirconium—and passing it off as a diamond.”

  “I suggest you consider yourself a diamond, only cut differently,” Jae said.

  I looked up at the kitchen clock as we spoke. Almost dinnertime. A hungry Calderaro might burst through the door any minute. So like a true Pusaner, I cut to the chase. “Do you know anything about me, Jae?”

  “It’s possible,” she answered cautiously.

  She explained that her Aunt Hea had a baby fourteen years ago. A baby, she said, that nobody talked about and nobody ever saw. “My uncle left my aunt and my three little cousins. He had a drinking problem, and he’d lost his job. Shortly after he moved out, I remember that my aunt looked fatter in the belly. But it’s the Korean way not to talk much about these things.”

  Half of my brain concentrated on what Jae was saying; the other half raced wildly.

  Jae could be my cousin. I could have sisters and brothers in Pusan. My mother’s name could be Hea!

  “The day you were found, May seventh…I remember it because in Korea, it’s close to Children’s Day, May fifth. My parents were having a party, and my aunt brought my cousins. Her face looked sunken, and she didn’t have a big belly anymore. She didn’t have a baby, either.”

  “What did your aunt do with her baby?” My heart pounded louder than a bass drum. Louder than six bass drums. I was ready to fit the final piece into the MBA puzzle.

  “I asked my mother once, and she changed the subject. My aunt took a job waitressing at a coffee shop. Nobody ever talked about the baby, and I knew I wasn’t supposed to either.”

  “Mommy! Mommy!” Kevin’s squeaky voice called, and she whispered back to him in Korean.

  I tried to remember what I knew: my birth mother named me Duk-kee. I was left outside the Pusan police station in a basket, with a blanket and a note. An old lady found me in the afternoon after returning from the market.

  “Jae, is anyone in your family named Duk-kee?”

  “That’s my uncle’s name. My mom and Aunt Hea’s older brother. Why do you ask?”

  “My birth mother named me Duk-Kee. Where did your aunt live in Pusan?”

  Jae said her family lived in the same row of small houses as Aunt Hea’s, up on a hill, not far from the docks. I knew all about those docks and hills.

  “My father worked on the boats. My mother used to take us to the market nearby. Before he left, my uncle sold fish from a cart. Sometimes he’d give us big, plump shrimp that my mother would steam for dinner.”

  That could’ve been the market that the old lady was walking from when she found me. The market where my real father sold shrimp. No wonder I love shrimp!

  “Does your aunt still live in Pusan?” I asked.

  “Yes. She’s remarried now, actually, to the owner of the coffee shop. One of her sons, my cousin Chulsu, graduated from university and came to America like me. He’s a computer programmer for Microsoft.”

  My real brother could be hacking away at a computer, side by side with Bill Gates!

  “What’s your aunt’s last name?” I asked. I was seconds away from identifying this phantom lady who’s loomed over me my whole life. I’d say her full name out loud and—presto! She’d be real.

  I didn’t hear an answer. Mom, Sophie, Gina, and Aunt Foxy burst through the door, talking and laughing all at once.

  “Sorry, Jae. I’ve got to go.” I hung up quickly. I’d just uncovered the most incredible news of my life, but I couldn’t imagine sharing it with anybody yet. Especially my family.

  ”Hiya, Joseph!” Aunt Foxy called out.

  “Hi,” I said, trying to act normal, even if my hands were trembling.

  “What, you’re too big to kiss your godmother?” She wrapped her arms tight around me. I could smell Shear Impressions’s body-fragrance-of-the-month on her clothes.

  “I better ge
t my hugs now before those high school girls notice your good looks and stylish haircuts,” she said.

  Sophie started searching through the snack cupboard, ignoring Mom’s threats about not eating before dinner. Meanwhile Gina unloaded her backpack, spilling a bag of pretzels on the floor. But before anyone could say “Back off, boxer,” Frazer had gobbled them up.

  “Aunt Foxy’s staying for supper,” Gina told me with her eyes aglow.

  “But the bad news is Mommy’s making meatball heroes.” Sophie pouted. “Ground guts, yuck! I’m having a special veggie burger. And I get to sit next to Aunt Foxy.”

  “No fair!” Gina cried.

  Mom ignored Sophie and Gina. She was listening to Aunt Foxy rave about her new boyfriend, who was a producer for the cable company.

  “I’m telling you, Maria, he’s different from the other clowns I’ve dated. Dominick’s a perfect gentleman—and sweet, too. Remember when I was sick last week? He brought me orange juice and chicken noodle soup.”

  “Just for you? Or does he make deliveries for every attractive woman he sees blowing her nose?” Mom grinned.

  “C’mon, you haven’t even met him,” Aunt Foxy said, laughing. She turned to me. “What do you think, Joseph? Dominick’s a diehard Yankees fan with season tickets.”

  “He can’t be a total jerk if he roots for the Yankees,” I said. Wanting to avoid more talk, I brushed past her on my way upstairs.

  Aunt Foxy gave me a curious look, as if she wondered why I wasn’t goofing around with her like usual. But I just couldn’t. My brain was overloaded. I needed to lie down and rewind everything I’d just heard from Jae.

  In my dream that night, I was back on that dirt road in Korea. My clothes were sweaty as I trekked up a hill, and my arm hurt from pulling the wagon. I must have fallen behind, because all my companions were ahead of me.

  My breath was heavy and I wanted to stop and rest, but then I saw her at the top of the hill. My birth mother. She was short and stocky like me and wearing a red dress. Everything about her was crystal clear except for her face. As usual, that was out of focus, even as I got closer.

  She recognized me right away.

  “Duk-kee,” she shouted, waving wildly. “I’ve been waiting. Hurry!”

  The wagon bumped up and down as I charged toward her. Huffing and puffing, I ran until I could almost reach out and touch her, when suddenly I heard:

  “Your friendly neighborhood wall crawler says rise and shine!”

  My Spider-Man alarm woke me, and I realized I had never heard her voice. I had never, ever seen my birth mother at all. I was crushed.

  But she was out there. And I got to thinking, like Dad always says, “The ball’s in my court.” I needed to make this happen.

  Jae and I had found each other, against the odds. I knew that she had to be my cousin. This was no time for Chicken Calderaro to appear. I had to overcome the obstacles—to keep going until I got the answers I needed.

  A Man with a Plan

  I’d come home from school the next day expecting a quiet house again. I needed to call Jae, to ask her if she would speak with her aunt. But instead I found Dad stretched out on the patio chaise longue with Mom beside him, rubbing his shoulder.

  “Geez, Dad, what happened?”

  “On-the-job casualty, son. Humpty Dumpty does windows,” he said, his eyes darting to the cast on his arm. He had a bandage above his eye and a few scrapes on his cheek.

  “It was only a matter of time, Vinny,” Mom said, taking an empty glass from Dad. “What were you thinking, climbing a three-story Victorian to wash old windows stuck shut for twenty years?”

  “I’m sorry, Dad. Does it hurt?” I asked.

  “Not too much. I just added a few more scars to my weathered look. How can I grumble? I’ve got the best nurse this side of the Garden State Parkway. And she’s cute to look at,” Dad said, pointing at Mom.

  Mom smiled but looked concerned. “You’re getting out of that business, you hear me? You deserve better. Look at the books you read!”

  She went into the kitchen to refill Dad’s lemonade. I sat on the picnic bench. For a few minutes we said nothing. Both our eyes wandered to the magazine resting on the side table, The New Yorker.

  “How long are you going to be out of work?”

  “A couple of weeks,” he replied.

  Calderaro Window Washers is a one-man operation. As Dad says, all the profits and all the headaches come from one squeegee cleaner. I looked at his broken arm and knew this was going to be rough for business.

  “I can help out, especially with school almost over. I’m bigger than I was last summer when I worked for you. And this time I won’t leave streaks. Promise.”

  Dad smiled. A happy smile, not like you’d expect from a guy who’d just fallen off a ladder, broken his arm, and messed up his business. “No, Joseph. You focus on your schoolwork until the very last day. I’ll adapt. Believe it or not, I think this accident was the best thing in the world that could have happened to me.”

  Frazer trotted over and plunked down between us.

  “Yup, the best thing in the world,” Dad said again.

  “I give up. Why?”

  “Because I got a wake-up call. One minute I was climbing a ladder, on my way to the top of some divorce attorney’s million-dollar mansion. I probably would’ve cleared a nice chunk of change for an afternoon’s work, and you know how I felt?”

  I wanted to say, “Off balance?” but I shook my head instead.

  “Miserable. Unfulfilled. The next thing I know, I lose my grip and fall into a juniper bush. Broke the same arm I broke boxing twenty years ago. So I drove myself with one hand to the ER and in my head I heard this voice saying, ‘Vincenzo, this could be the sign you’ve been waiting for. Get out of the window-washing business. Today it’s a broken arm. Who knows? Tomorrow it could be a broken soul.’”

  The part about falling off a ladder as a sign was more typical of Mom than Dad, but I kept my wisecracks to myself. For once, Dad was pouring his heart out.

  “So you’re going to sell the business?”

  “I’m not going to do anything dumb. We still have a mortgage. But in the meantime, I’m going to visit the local college and figure out how to get my degree. Night classes, weekends, whatever. I’ll do it. I’ve always wanted to teach.”

  Dad uses every opportunity he can to talk about books and how they relate to life. “I can see you stomping around the campus,” I said, grinning.

  “Why not—and why not now, huh? I’m not getting any younger, but I’m not ready for the senior citizen special at the diner either.”

  “Just on the basketball court,” I said. I couldn’t resist.

  “I’ll play you one on one, even with a bad wing. Seriously, it’s time to chase my dream, to stop with the shoulda, coulda, woulda’s. I want to bring great books to a generation of video game addicts. What do you think?”

  I pictured my father helping students understand what Edgar Allan Poe meant when he freaked out over that raven. Dad has a wacky way of tossing words together like vegetables in stew, but he knows what he’s talking about. And he sure loves books.

  “It sounds like you’re a man with a plan, Dad.”

  Mom returned to the patio, bringing Dad more lemonade.

  “Come here, Maria,” he said, and kissed her on the lips. “You’re looking at a man with a plan.”

  I caught a ride to band with Nash on Monday morning. We were late because Nash’s mom had trouble getting her prehistoric van started—so late that they’d already started “Jamaican Farewell” when I opened the squeaky band-room door. Yongsu gave me a sympathetic look from the flute section. I expected Mrs. Athena to point her conductor’s wand disapprovingly like she does when kids dash in mid-song, but she didn’t. I think she knows I hate being late.

  Robyn caught up with me after practice as I put my drumsticks away and gathered my books. “Hey, Joseph. You hear about the Buddhist who refused to take Novocain at the denti
st?”

  I was too sleepy to figure this one out.

  “He wanted to transcend dental medication,” she said, grinning.

  “Good one.” I smiled, and a yawn popped out.

  “What’re you, a vampire?” she asked. “You’ve got black circles under your eyes.”

  “I haven’t been getting much sleep lately. A lot on my mind.”

  “Something happen?”

  “What hasn’t happened? For one, my dad had an accident.”

  Robyn stopped in the middle of the hallway. “Even you wouldn’t make that up. Is he okay?”

  “He broke his arm. My dad’s the Rocky Balboa of Nutley, New Jersey. He’s actually happier now,” I said, shaking my head. “Parents.”

  “Rough time lately, huh? First kids spread rumors about you, and now your dad gets hurt.”

  “It’s not that bad. I could’ve gotten E. coli bacteria from the cafeteria or chopped off a finger in Life Skills.” I waved my hands with my thumbs tucked in.

  Robyn didn’t come back with a joke. “Only losers pay attention to the rumor of the day. I didn’t believe any of that stuff about the essay contest. I kept telling everyone to stick it down their esophaguses.”

  We climbed the main stairwell. All the way up I felt bad about Robyn defending me and my not coming clean.

  “Listen, Robyn. I did make up the essay about my Korean grandfather. The guy really won a gold medal, but we weren’t related. That’s why my essay got canned.” I looked down at a dirt spot on my sneaker, feeling stained inside, too.

  Robyn tugged at my T-shirt sleeve. “Did you make that up because you’re adopted?”

  “Yeah, kind of. It’s a long story,” I said, looking up at her. For the first time I noticed her eyes. They were greenish-brown and swirly, like lake water in the fall.

  “That sucks worse than an industrial vacuum. People not understanding, I mean.” She shook her head.

  At her locker Robyn started telling me about her cousin’s husband’s sister’s kid, or something like that, who was ten and had leukemia.