by Sarah Suk
“Why don’t you ever use the new hair ties I got you?” I said, tugging on her loose ponytail. “Yours are so old.”
“Hey, they’re comfy. They’re perfectly stretched out to my hair thickness, thank you very much.” She swatted my hand away and gave me a once-over. “Besides, you’re one to talk. When are you going to get rid of those pajamas? Aren’t you a little old for cartoons?”
“What’s wrong with Pompompurin?” I said defensively. He’s a dog that looks like pudding. What’s there not to like?
“Oh, nothing.” She shrugged, clearly pleased at having bested me. She passed the remaining batter to Charlie. “Here, Charlie, this is ready.”
I racked my brain for a comeback, but before I could think of one, Umma walked into the kitchen carrying a container of kimchi from the kimchi fridge in our garage. “Oh, Valerie, you’re awake?” she said, setting the container down on the countertop. “Finally. You know your sister’s been here since eight a.m.? You should learn to wake up earlier like her. I was just reading an article about how morning people are more productive and successful in life.”
I made a face at her offhand comparison and folded my arms across my chest. As far as I knew, Umma didn’t read anything except for the home-improvement magazines she subscribed to. “I didn’t know Living Room Today had tips for life success.”
“As a matter of fact, they do. It’s a column called Happy Spaces, Happy People. I’ll leave it on your desk for you to read.” She raised her eyebrows at me as she began cutting up the kimchi. “Maybe after you read it, you’ll finally let me redecorate your room. That space is so messy. I don’t even know how you can think in there.”
“It’s not messy,” I said. It wasn’t. I knew exactly where everything was. It just wasn’t the same pristine, polished, minimalist look Umma was so into these days. “Besides, not all successful people are morning people.” That was statistically impossible. Still, Umma was so certain of herself, I made a mental note to google it later. I hated how she made me doubt myself.
Umma sighed. “I wish you would just trust me for once. Samantha, scoop the rice, will you?”
“Ne, Umma.” Samantha hurried over to the rice cooker. She popped it open and a cloud of steam billowed out, filling the kitchen with the warm smell of freshly cooked rice. She then gathered a stack of ceramic white bowls and filled each one until they all looked like real-life replicas of the rice-bowl emoji. As much as she was an annoying sister to me, she was a dutiful daughter to Umma.
I sighed inwardly. Perfect bowls of rice for my perfect grown-up sister who never slept in and hated pudding dogs.
“You know, even Charlie came over early to help,” Umma said, continuing the conversation as she arranged the kimchi onto side plates.
I grabbed a glass of water, biting my tongue. I would not snap back. I would not yell. No matter how much I wanted to tell her to let me breathe, I’d just woken up. Saturday mornings were not for yelling.
“Actually, Minhee Eemo, I’m just early because I caught a ride with my mom on her way to work,” Charlie said. “And I had to wake up early to FaceTime with my dad. Otherwise I would have slept in too.”
“See, Valerie,” Umma said, glossing over the entire second half of what Charlie said. “Look how much Charlie was able to do because he woke up early. More productive, just like that article said.”
Charlie frowned. “Oh. That’s not what I—”
“Charlie, the pajeon is burning!” Samantha cried.
“My pajeon!” Charlie dove for the frying pan, flipping the crispy scallion pancake just in time. He breathed a sigh of relief.
“Good catch, Samantha,” Umma said.
Fuming, I chugged the water down, trying to swallow my feelings with it. What was wrong with sleeping in on the weekend anyway? It wasn’t like anyone had told me there was going to be a pajeon-making party that I was expected to be at. Why did Umma always have to make me feel so guilty about everything?
The worst part was that I actually did feel a little guilty. Maybe I should have just known. Samantha always “just knew.” She was only four years older than me, but it felt like we were light-years apart, at least in terms of how Umma saw us. It had always been this way, ever since we were kids.
When I was ten years old, I had a trade going on with a girl in my school. Her name was Elaine and she loved sweets, but her mom never let her have any. Every day she would stare at the Choco Pie that Halmeoni had packed for me in my lunch bag.
“Wanna trade?” she would say, holding up her pumpkin-seed granola bar.
“No way,” I said.
“How about these?” she asked, offering her carrot sticks.
I shook my head. “Nuh-uh.”
“How about I do your math homework for you?”
My ears perked up. Math was one of my worst subjects back then, and Elaine was the smartest kid in our grade. So I agreed. From then on, we had a deal. Every time we had math homework, she would get my Choco Pie and do my worksheets for me.
It was awesome. I was so pleased with the deal that I bragged about it to Samantha. Only, she didn’t think I was so smart. Instead she turned around and immediately told Umma.
“I can’t believe this. I didn’t raise my daughter to be a cheater!” Umma yelled. She was so angry her face literally turned as red as a tomato. “Do you see your sister doing things like this? No. She earns her grades! She works hard! How will you survive in this world if you can’t even do these things for yourself?” She sighed and shook her head, muttering to herself but loud enough for me to hear, “Where did I go wrong with you?”
I cried the whole time she yelled at me, and then she made me sit on my knees in the hallway, holding my arms above my head, for a whole ten minutes. After I was finally allowed to leave, I ran into Halmeoni’s room and sobbed into her lap.
“My girl,” she said, stroking my hair. “Don’t take your mom’s words too much to heart. She says them in the heat of the moment, but she doesn’t mean them the way it sounds. She just wants you to grow up to be a good person who can take care of herself.”
“She hates me,” I said between my sobs. “She only likes Samantha.”
“It is not true. Who could hate you? My Valerie is smart and kind. Everybody makes mistakes. You will learn from them.”
Later that same day, Umma did end up feeling guilty for her harsh punishment. She never outright apologized, but she showed up in my room with a plate of sliced-up peaches, which was the closest to “sorry” she ever got. Still, I knew deep in my heart that she saw me and Samantha differently. Samantha was the golden child, the one who got everything right, and I was like one of her home-renovation projects. Could be better and never enough.
I snapped back to the present moment as Halmeoni walked into the kitchen, stretching her arms over her head. “Good morning everybody!” she said. She was wearing yellow house slippers and her Pompompurin nightgown. “Mmm, smells good in here.”
Samantha’s eyes flicked between our matching pj’s, the slightest frown crossing her face like she was realizing that maybe Pompompurin wasn’t so ridiculous if there were two of us wearing it. Ha. Take that. Leave it to Halmeoni to take care of my comeback for me. Samantha recovered quickly, bowing at a perfect ninety-degree angle from the waist. “Annyeonghaseyo, Halmeoni. Did you sleep well?”
“What’s up, Halmeoni?” Charlie said, waving his spatula.
Samantha pinched his elbow and he yelped. “Manners to your elders,” she chided him.
Halmeoni chuckled. “All right, all right. Look at this pajeon. So perfectly done! We will eat breakfast like kings today.”
“Actually, it’s lunchtime now,” Umma said.
“Nonsense. It’s the first meal after a good night’s sleep, so that makes it breakfast.” Halmeoni winked at me. “Isn’t that right, Valerie?”
I grinned, feeling a weight lift off my chest. Halmeoni knew what was up. She loved sleeping in even more than I did. “Exactly.”
; Halmeoni rolled up her sleeves. “Now, it wouldn’t be pajeon without the dipping sauce. Valerie, bring me the soy sauce, vinegar, and honey. We’ll make it together. It will be our contribution to breakfast.”
Umma sighed and shook her head, turning away to finish setting the table. Samantha sniffed the air as a burning smell filled the kitchen. “Charlie! The pajeon!” she cried again.
“I’m on it!” He flipped the pancake. It was blackened to a crisp. “Um…” He smiled sheepishly. “Who likes their pajeon well done?”
* * *
After breakfast, Charlie and I sat cross-legged in Appa’s home office, a big cardboard package from Seoul open between us. Appa is the number one real estate agent in our Korean community, or so his business card says. That means he spends most of his weekends hosting open houses and meeting clients, so Charlie and I were free to use his office as we pleased. When I was younger, I used to hate that Appa was never home. I got along better with him than I did with Umma, but he was hardly around. Now I was grateful for the extra space to have my own business meetings, away from Umma’s prying eyes.
“Have you told your mom how well V&C K-BEAUTY is doing these days?” Charlie asked. He reached into the package and pulled out a box of snail-jelly face masks. He wrinkled his nose and gagged, setting the masks far away from him. “Gross.”
I sighed. He brought up this conversation at least once a month. “I told you already—”
“I know, I know, you try not to talk to your mom about the business,” he said, leaning back on his hands. “But we’re seniors now, Val. That means it’s officially our third year of running this business. And it’s doing really, really well. That’s pretty impressive, isn’t it? I think Minhee Eemo would be proud of you, even if she wasn’t so enthusiastic when we first started.”
“Not so enthusiastic is an understatement,” I said. “Remember when she called it a cute hobby as long as it doesn’t get in the way of my grades? And then she launched into a full fifteen-minute monologue about how Samantha was taking a business elective in college and maybe if I studied hard enough I could follow in her footsteps. Yeah, no thanks. I don’t want to revisit that conversation.” I shook my head, rifling through the package and pulling out a bottle of snail-mucin essence. Ooh. This stuff was perfect for getting smooth skin. This would fly out of my locker in no time.
“I still think she would be proud if she knew how hard you work on this,” he said.
“That’s because you and your mom are best friends and she’s proud of everything you do. Not everyone can be a mama’s boy.”
“Yeah, I guess… Wait, what did you call me?”
I grinned teasingly. He rolled his eyes and reached into the box again, pulling out tube after tube of snail foam cleansers. “Um, I’m sensing a theme in this month’s package,” he said. “A very nasty theme.”
“Hey, watch your mouth. Snail mucin is all the rage in K-beauty.”
“Mucin?”
“Slime.”
He dropped the cleansers. “What is wrong with Korean people?”
“What are you talking about? They’re beauty geniuses. Besides, we’re Korean, remember?”
“Yeah, that’s why I can say these things,” he said matter-of-factly. “I say it with love.”
I laughed and flipped open the Moleskine notebook on my lap. I had a new notebook for each new business year to write down everything related to V&C: inventory count, sales records, ideas for Instagram posts, and, of course, meeting agendas. I tapped my fingers against today’s agenda, chewing the cap of my pen.
“We’ve got a lot of ground to cover today. We only have one Monday left in September, which means we need to do a final social-media push for our September stock. We also have to finish taking inventory of all this new snail stuff and think about how we want to spread it out over October. You’ll call your dad later to thank him for the package, right? And then—what? Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Oh, nothing,” Charlie said. “I just don’t understand why you won’t talk to your mom about something you’re so obviously good at, especially when you want to impress her so badly.” He held up his hands with a shrug. “Not to sound like a broken record or anything.”
My mouth dropped open. “I do not want to impress her.”
“Yeah, you do. That’s why you want to go to Paris, right? I mean, partly, yeah, it’s for you and Halmeoni to go on a trip together, but it’s also for you to prove a point to your mom, isn’t it?”
I fell silent. I didn’t want to admit it, but it was true. Paris was for Halmeoni, but it was also for me. It was something that Samantha had never done before, had never even come close to doing—funding a whole trip, exploring the world, taking Halmeoni on an adventure. Umma wouldn’t be able to compare this to anything Samantha had done, and it was real, tangible proof that I could work hard for the things I wanted to achieve, morning person or not.
She would disapprove at first. In fact, she might disapprove so much that she wouldn’t even realize how impressive it was. But she’d come around. I knew she would. Because the thing was, as much as Umma worried about Halmeoni, I knew that what Halmeoni really needed wasn’t to be locked up inside the house. It was to do what she’d always wanted to while she still could. Umma might not see that right away, but one day she would.
In the meantime, I wanted to prove her wrong—about me and about Halmeoni—and, okay, maybe a petty part of me wanted to say, Hey, if you’d supported me, I might have taken you to Paris too. It was small of me, but everything about Umma made me feel small. I couldn’t help it. A sudden lump of emotion rose in my throat, and I swallowed it down. I wished things were different between us, but they weren’t. I would never be enough to her until I could prove that I was worthy of it, and Paris would be my proof.
“Charlie, listen,” I said. “It’s not that I won’t talk to her about it. It’s that every time we do talk about, I feel like shit after. The last time it came up in conversation, she asked me how my ‘little makeup club’ was going and then, immediately after, started talking about how Samantha is president of some club at her school. That’s how it always is with Umma. She just doesn’t get me. And I don’t know if I have it in me to try to make her understand. I’d rather show her with something big. Like Paris.”
“Yeah, I see what you’re saying,” Charlie said solemnly.
“Besides, business is the one thing that comes naturally to me. I love that every decision I make means something for someone. I don’t want Umma to ruin that for me and make me second-guess everything about myself the way she always makes me do. Especially not now, when we have so much work to get through.”
He hesitated as if he wanted to say something more. But he pressed his lips together and nodded. “Okay. You’re right. Let’s get to work.”
We spent the next several hours digging through the package, taking photos for Instagram, and making an action plan for October. Making action plans always sent a thrill of excitement racing through my veins. It was as if writing things down in ink gave me momentum, reminding me that every great venture began with a small idea just like this one. I really meant it when I told Charlie that I loved this business. Whether it was matching someone with the perfect product or figuring out a really sweet deal, I liked the feeling that I had a presence, that everything I did mattered and made an impact.
Even after Charlie’s mom came to pick him up, I kept on working. I might not have been an early bird, but once I got into the zone, I could burn the midnight oil, completely losing track of time. Umma’s voice played in a loop around my head as the sun began to set outside.
Where did I go wrong with you? Wrong with you? Wrong with you? I clenched my jaw and tried to shove down Umma’s voice. I thought instead of Halmeoni: You’re my girl.
I flipped to the front of my Moleskine notebook, where I had made a chart of all the Paris expenses I was saving for. Flights, hotels, museum fees. The total goal was five thousand dollars. So far, si
nce sophomore year, I had saved up $2,074. Estimating my growth and income from previous years, this year I would be able to get that number up to around $3,500, which was still short of my goal. I had to figure out a way to work extra hard and nearly double my income if I wanted to take Halmeoni to Paris this summer. It was the perfect time for our trip: before I went to college and while she was still healthy enough.
Don’t worry, Halmeoni, I promised in my head. I’ll take us to your dream city no matter what it takes. I’ll find a way.
Her voice alongside Umma’s warred inside my mind, my constant companions as I worked late into the night.
Monday / October 7
October at Crescent Brook High was about to become the month of the snail.
I got to school an hour early to set up for the day. Charlie and I had decided to release one featured snail product a week, starting with the snail-jelly face masks. I clipped them to the laundry-clip hanger in my locker, giving it a spin for good measure. They looked good. Real good. Amelia and Natalie were going to throw a fistfight over these.
After making sure that all my shelves were plentifully restocked with toners and creams, I took a step back to survey my handiwork. Perfect. Everything was ready for business. Just as I locked up, I heard rapid footsteps coming down the hall. I turned to see Charlie racing toward me, out of breath and sweaty in his number two basketball jersey.
“Valerie,” he said, grabbing my arm. “You’re not going to believe this.”
“What? What’s wrong?” My eyes widened in alarm. “Is everything okay? Did something happen to Sunhee Eemo?”
“No, she’s okay; everyone’s okay.” He took a breath, biting his lip. “It’s just… there’s something you gotta see. Follow me.”