by Mike Jung
I smiled happily, then slid my eyes over to Mom. I gave her my sad-puppy-dog face, just to cover all the bases, and she burst out laughing. Mom has the best laugh — loud, but not too loud, and she gets her whole upper body into it. She turned to Mr. Smithfield.
“Well, Mr. Smithfield, it looks like I’m buying a yellow violin today.”
“An excellent, excellent choice.” Mr. Smithfield clasped both of Mom’s hands in his and pumped them up and down a bunch of times, grinning and bobbing his head. “It’ll become a family heirloom, I’m sure.”
“I certainly hope so,” Mom said with a smile. She put her hands on her hips and gave Mr. Smithfield a fake frown. “Now, I suppose we should get down to negotiating. That price IS a little too high for comfort.”
“Oh, it’s a perfectly fair price, but we might be able to work something out. I have the perfect case for it, by the way, let me just get that …”
Mr. Smithfield and Mom walked across the store to a pile of assorted instrument cases, and I trailed along behind them, running my hands over my beautiful new violin.
Adam Wheeler was going to be SO jealous.
Oh my god, the new violin was amazing. I could have hung up posters on the walls of the orchestra practice rooms, I spent so much time in them. I probably didn’t need to put rosin on the bow and strings every time, but why leave stuff like that to chance, am I right? I’d lobbied for the yellow fiberglass case, but not too hard, since I knew that even after bargaining with Mr. Smithfield the violin itself still cost a LOT. It was actually a little hard to leave it in my locker. I even practiced before breakfast a couple of times.
I told Shelley the story as we walked to school the next day.
“… so I had to get the less expensive case, but I got the violin and it’s just as good as we thought it’d be!”
“That is so AWESOME,” Shelley said as the school came into view a couple of blocks in the distance. “But why did she suddenly change her mind?”
“She said she got a bonus at work.”
“Does she spend all her work bonuses on you?”
I shrugged. “She’s never mentioned getting a bonus before.”
I didn’t forget about Ms. Lee’s assignment — that’d be like forgetting to breathe oxygen — and if I ever needed proof that Mom and Dad had some kind of private, two-person conspiracy against me, trying to do that assignment was it. I asked at breakfast a couple of days later.
“Dad, I need to do that family story assignment — ”
“I’m sorry, honey, I’m running really late this morning!” BAM, Dad flew out the door like a superhero. A superhero who’s avoiding his own daughter.
I asked Mom that day after school.
“Mom, did Dad tell you about the family sto — ”
“Oh, Chloe, I completely forgot, let me show you what I picked up on my way home!”
Mom, who I later realized hadn’t forgotten anything since I’d just gotten home from school, half-walked and half-ran into her bedroom before I could even finish what I was saying.
“ — ry. MOM! I’m asking you a que — ”
“Ta-da!” Mom came back into the living room holding a new violin bow in her outstretched hands. A new bow!
“Is that a Fresco bow??” I said, clapping my hands together in spite of myself. “A carbon-fiber Fresco?”
“It sure is.” Mom actually kneeled down and held the bow out to me like it was a sword or something, and I gently picked it up. The Fresco water-droplet logo on the heel was inlaid with abalone — so pretty —and I rubbed it with my thumb as I tested the balance of the bow. It was just the right weight, and it was going to look fantastic paired with the new violin.
So, that happened, which meant I spent the rest of the night practicing (and maybe looking at myself holding the new violin and the new bow in the mirror once or twice), and I totally forgot to ask about the assignment that night. Or the next night.
Mom is an evil genius.
In fact, I didn’t remember until the day before the assignment was due, mostly because of important matters of fashion. This was the first time I could remember being even more excited about the second week of school than the first, and it wasn’t just because of my new violin and bow. I decided to wear my hanbok, the one I’d saved up for almost a year to buy. I’d been reserving it for my birthday, when I planned to make my next try at convincing Mom and Dad to take Shelley and me to the city for Korean food, but hey, sometimes a girl needs to change the plan.
Dad didn’t say anything except “Chloe, breakfast,” when he first came into my room, but when he saw me obsessively checking myself out in the mirror he stopped and smiled.
“You look beautiful, honey,” he said. “That is one fancy dress.”
“Thanks,” I said, frowning at myself in the mirror as I twisted and turned. I ran a finger under the dark purple collar of the jeogori (basically a lavender-colored jacket that ended right below my chest), plucked at my shoulders to make the jeogori sleeves a little puffier, and ran my hands over the dark purple fabric of the skirt, which had a semi-complicated pattern of round flowers and swirly lines.
It was the most fantastic outfit I’d ever worn. I looked good.
“Breakfast,” Dad said. He turned my shoulders until my top half was facing the door. I walked out with him, pivoting my top half back toward the mirror for one last look.
Okay, super-whatever reaction from Dad; how was Mom going to react? Would it be as big of a disaster as the last time we’d gone shopping, which was a year ago?
“How about this?” Mom had said, pulling a tie-dyed shirt off of a rack. (Seriously, how did tie-dyed shirts become THE THING TO WEAR at school?)
“No, Mom. Just because the entire school’s going to look like a lava lamp doesn’t mean I have to.”
“Oh come on, you’ve always been ahead of the curve with clothes, right?”
It was a mystery how anyone could say that about me when there were people in school like Jenny Barton, who really was ahead of the curve with her superclunky boots and wild color schemes. I was just a fashion lemming, and I hadn’t really gotten it until then.
“Where do you buy your clothes, Mom?” I said, taking a big step away from the tie-dyed shirts. “Can I get my clothes there?”
“It’s just a boring store for grown-ups,” Mom said.
“It can’t be any more boring than this place …”
It was true that Mom’s clothes were kind of boring, but at least they were different from what everyone else at school would be wearing. Then inspiration struck.
“Wait, are there any Korean stores in the city?” I said.
“Korean … stores …”
“You know, stores that sell stuff from the country you were born in? Power to the Asian sisters and all that stuff?”
“Chloe, really, let’s just — ”
“Hello, you two look a little bit lost!”
Mom and I both twitched in surprise. The salesperson who approached us was new, or at least someone I hadn’t seen before.
“Back to school, am I right?” she said.
“Right,” Mom said. “I understand tie-dyed is what the kids are wearing this year.”
“I don’t care, Mom.”
“Of course you don’t,” the clerk said, almost too cheerfully. “Why would you? I’ve read that Japanese Schoolgirl Alert blog; you girls are way ahead of the rest of us in style, technology, everything!”
“Um, we’re not Japane — ”
“We don’t have anything as fun as the stuff in Japanese Schoolgirl Alert, but, hmm. There are some cute Aoshima Island T-shirts — ”
T-shirts from a cartoon show about an island populated by funny cats would have been great if I was five years old, and I didn’t feel like being all ironic and stuff, so no.
“Do you have any Tiger Rabbit shirts?” I asked.
“Ummm, I don’t think so, is that a TV show?”
“No — well, yeah, but they’re really a K-pop group.”
“Chloe, are you sure you don’t like — ”
“YES, MOTHER, I’M SURE. I DON’T LIKE THE FLOWER POWER THING.”
“Hey. WATCH YOUR TONE.”
At least four girls in butt-ugly shirts turned and stared. Their moms (and one random dad) turned and stared too.
“Mom, please can we go to — ”
“We’re not going anywhere unless you get yourself under control — ”
“Why can’t I buy clothes I actually want to wear instead of — ”
And thus went the rest of the day, even after I finally picked out a bunch of all-black clothes just because I couldn’t go to school naked. I’d wondered if Mom was worried the mean girls of Primrose Heights would put a target on my forehead for wearing non-boring, Korean-style clothes. Or maybe she just really, really liked tie-dyed stuff. It was point-of-no-return time, so I was about to find out.
Dad herded me into the kitchen, parked me in my chair, and kissed me on the head as usual. He sat in the chair to my left and started in on his eggs, while I carefully started spreading butter on a piece of toast. I was too worried about spilling food on my dress to go for the jam.
“Wow,” Mom said in a not-actually-wow way. “You look … huh.”
“Gee, Mom, don’t overdo it with the compliments.” I looked straight at my cup as I drank some milk, sticking my face out over the table in case of spills. Mom took a dainty little bite of egg as she stared at my hanbok.
“I thought you were saving that dress for your birthday party.”
I felt a tiny spark of irritation as I used my knife to saw up a slice of bacon and stabbed the pieces one by one with a fork. No point in taking the risk of getting bacon grease on my hands, right?
“I want to show it to Ms. Lee. I think she might like it.”
“Mmmm.”
“Because she’s Korean too, Mom.”
“Oh, she’ll like it fine,” Mom said, totally dodging the Korean thing. Her phone was on the table next to her coffee. It vibrated, and she peered at it as she forked up another bite of egg. “Will you be able to play your violin while you’re wearing that dress?”
“I don’t know. Can you tell it’s a hanbok?” I said, looking down at the table. A direct question about something Korean! Danger, Chloe Cho, danger!
“What’s a hanbok?” Mom said, still looking at her phone.
I coughed, spitting out a few bacon bits, thumping my hands on the table, and almost knocking over Dad’s coffee. He smoothly grabbed the cup and lifted it up and in the opposite direction from me.
“Oh great,” I said, picking three chewed-up crumbs of pig flesh off of my lap.
“That’s why we use napkins,” Dad said, taking a slug from his rescued coffee.
“Mom. You know, a hanbok?” I said, picking at imaginary bacon stains on my dress — I couldn’t see any actual stains, but still. Stupid bacon. Lucky for me I’d bought the purple hanbok instead of the white one.
Mom looked up from her phone with a totally blank expression. She had no idea what I was talking about.
“Hanbok? A Korean dress?”
“OH!” Mom said suddenly. She let out a laugh that was WAY too loud. “Oh, honey, of course I know what a hanbok is. It’s just been such a long time since I’ve worn one!”
I leaned back in my chair and stared at her. Why did it matter how long it’d been? I was positive I wouldn’t ever forget what a dress is.
“Did you guys wear hanboks when you got married?” I asked. “Isn’t that how they did it in, you know, the old days?”
“You make us sound like dinosaurs,” Dad said through a mouthful of bacon.
“Chew with your mouth closed, Dad. Mom, come on, did you wear — ”
“Honey, I can’t talk about this now, I’m in a hurry — ”
“It’s a yes-or-no question, Mom.”
“Chloe, I don’t want to talk about it,” Mom said. “It’s too …”
Painful, hard, yadda yadda yadda …
“… painful. Those were hard times. Let’s look forward, not backward.”
AGH! So frustrating!
“But — ”
“I can’t be late today,” Mom said in a businesslike tone as she stood up and grabbed her plate. “This will probably be my only chance to talk directly with the VP of Finance all semester.”
“You too, Chloe,” Dad said as I tracked Mom into the kitchen with my eyes. She wouldn’t look at me, of course.
“Dad, do you — ”
“I can’t take you today, honey, I’m sorry,” he said. “You’ll be late if you don’t get a move on.”
“All right, all right …”
Mom cruised back through the dining room as I was taking my plate to the sink.
“Bye, honey, have a great day,” she said, clasping my shoulder and kissing my temple.
“Yeah yeah, you too.”
“Hey,” Dad said as Mom kissed his cheek. “Tone.”
“My tone is good, I have a good tone, good-bye,” I grumbled as Mom blew out the front door. Dad hurried over to kiss me on the head, then he was out the door too. My parents, masters of the disappearing act.
I locked the door behind me as I left. Halfway to the sidewalk I stopped, stood up straighter, and lifted my chin. I was wearing my new fusion hanbok, inspired by the wardrobe of Hyungsook Lee, lead vocalist of K-pop band Tiger Rabbit. Time to be awesome.
“Power to the Asian sisters,” I muttered, then headed to Shelley’s house, one hand clenched in a fist, the other holding the handle to my new violin case.
“OH MY GOD YOU LOOK AMAZING!” Shelley shrieked as she stepped out her front door. Mrs. Dubose, the Drakes’ next-door neighbor, looked up from her flower bed. I raised my hand in a hey-Mrs-Dubose gesture, and she waved back.
“That’s such a pretty dress, Chloe!” she said. “It’s so … exotic!”
Heavy sigh.
“Thanks, Mrs. D,” I said, not even trying to keep the sarcasm out of my voice as Shelley ran out to the sidewalk to meet me.
“YOU LOOK JUST LIKE HYUNGSOOK LEE!” Shelley said, clapping her hands and hopping in place.
“Can you say that a little louder? I think one of my eardrums is still intact.”
“Sorry, sorry, but I thought you were — ”
“Saving it for my birthday party, I know.”
“You’re totally kissing up to Ms. Lee, aren’t you?” Shelley crossed her arms, puckered her mouth up on one side, and tapped her foot.
“NO.”
Shelley grinned. “Suck-up.”
“Oh, I’M a suck-up? Who sent Christmas cards to every teacher in school two years ago?”
Shelley shrugged. “It was worth a try.”
The good thing about actually walking through the door at school with a new outfit on is that it’s too late to do anything about it, and once I could stare people down I instantly felt less nervous. If I had a dollar for every time someone whispered behind their hand at the sight of my dress that morning, I could have bought another dress. And maybe some shoes.
Lindsay “Dull Knife” Crisp actually gave me a compliment that sounded real, which was nice, but the only person besides Shelley whose opinion I really cared about was Ms. Lee, so I got nervous again when we filed into social studies. I tried to catch Ms. Lee’s eye as we sat down, but she was all business as she got up from her desk with a stack of handouts in her hands.
“Good morning, class!” she said. “Let’s get right into it, shall we? We’re going to spend the next few weeks working on a very exciting project — ”
There was a wave of murmurs, grunts, and one clearly audible groan. Slackers.
“ — and I know you’re all entirely capable of doing a great job on it. It’s going to be a lot of work, but it’s also going to be a lot of fun.”
Ms. Lee started putting a bunch of handouts on the front seat of every row of desks. She did look right at me when
she handed me my stack, but she was still talking, so it was one of those generic I’m-looking-at-the-whole-class looks. I might as well have been wearing a garbage bag. I got a sinking feeling in the middle of my body, like someone had just dumped a brick into my stomach.
We’re in the middle of class, I reminded myself. She’s TEACHING. Then I looked at the handout, which was more like a booklet, and realized she was assigning us a really cool project.
The Model United Nations Handbook.
“Country analysis is one of the major components of this class. We’re going to do intensive research on individual countries, including their governments, histories, cultures, traditions, food, lifestyles, and more. You’ll need all that information to serve as those nations’ foreign ambassadors. Some of you will represent a country that’s part of your own ancestry, but most of you won’t, just because there are only so many Western European countries to go around, but don’t worry, it won’t affect your grade.”
Ms. Lee smiled. “Don’t forget about your first assignment, of course. You all remember that’s due tomorrow, right?”
I had a brief moment of panic. Doing an assignment at the last minute! Was I losing my edge?
“I’ve assigned each of you a country.” Ms. Lee picked a stack of envelopes off of her desk and held the top one up. “These are letters officially welcoming you as your country’s ambassador, and inviting you to our UN General Assembly, which is when your final, joint presentations are due.”
Joint presentations, eh?
“Please come up and accept your letter when your name is called. Kevin Archer!”
As Kevin went slouching up to the front of the room I flipped open my booklet to the first page.
“Chloe Cho!”
I snapped to attention. Since I was right there in the front row it was easy for Ms. Lee to hand my letter right to me, which she did in a superbusiness-like way before moving right on to the next name.
“Shelley Drake!”
I opened my envelope as Ms. Lee was handing Shelley hers. There was a single sheet of paper inside.
!!!
There was no way it could be an accident I’d been given South Korea, right? I looked at Ms. Lee with a superdopey grin on my face, but she was still calling out names.