by Sarah Suk
Monday / December 2
By the time Monday morning rolled around, my mind was back in overthinking mode. There was no way Toblie would have gotten back to me by now. Callbacks for auditions weren’t even until the new year. But for some reason, logic didn’t stop me from checking my email every chance I got. The only thing that was in my inbox, though, was a list of college websites that Dad had sent me. When you get a chance! he wrote.
Between that and the imagined terror of my parents somehow stumbling into my email and seeing “Your application to Toblie School of Music has been successfully submitted” and the many notes from Uncle Hojin suggesting audition songs, I almost didn’t notice when the first bell rang and over half the tinted-foundation mini bottles I’d gotten from Mom were still left over on the music stands.
“Huh,” Pauline said, considering the cash box. “We didn’t do so well today. Maybe the worst sales day we’ve had since Halloween.”
“That’s so weird,” I said. I picked up one of the bottles designed with Namkyu’s tiger, the silver one eating a corn dog. “I thought these would sell really well.”
So well that I hadn’t even brought anything extra. No postcards or key chains or bonus items to make a package deal. Had that been my mistake? Or maybe foundation wasn’t as popular as I thought. What the hell did I know about foundation anyway? Maybe it wasn’t even what I thought it was.
“You use this on your face, right?” I asked.
Pauline nodded. “Yeah. Listen, I have to head to class, but why don’t you ask Kristy Lo what’s up?” She nodded to the band-room door, where Kristy was walking in with her flute case tucked under her arm. “If anyone will know what’s going on, it’ll be Kristy.”
“Right.” I quickly packed up the leftover foundation bottles as more band kids filed in for class. I’d have to get to Kristy quick before Mr. Reyes started rehearsals. We were performing at a district-wide band festival next week, and he was keen to have us master the theme from Star Wars by then.
“Good morning, Kristy,” I said, shuffling awkwardly over to the flute section with my backpack full of foundation in tow. “I, um, didn’t see you this morning.”
“Hi, Wes!” she said. She smiled brightly and then her face dropped into a pout. “I know—I’m bummed I missed your sale. But I saw on Valerie’s Instagram last night that she restocked all her foundations, primers, and concealers! All her products look freaking amazing, too. Want to see?”
I was still trying to wrap my head around everything Kristy was saying—primers? Concealers? Huh? Was that all stuff to put on your face too?—when she stuck her phone in front of my face, playing an Instagram video on V&C K-BEAUTY’s page of Valerie holding up different bottles of beauty products against her hand and sampling the products. My heart did a weird lurch when I saw her face on the screen. I cleared my throat, trying to ignore the sudden heat crawling up my skin.
“She would make a great beauty guru,” Kristy said, turning her phone off. “She should make YouTube videos or something. Anyway, I’m saving my allowance to go shopping with Valerie today after school.” She smiled apologetically. “Sorry, Wes. Your foundation is super cute, but I want to try the one that Valerie’s selling.”
“I understand,” I said, just as the second bell rang. I hurried to my seat to tune my saxophone, turning over this new information in my mind.
What a weird coincidence that Valerie was promoting foundation the same week I was selling it. I sighed. Talk about terrible timing. Not to mention, it brought up the whole social-media concern again. Pauline and I had attempted to set up an Instagram account for our business, but neither of us was social media–savvy enough to keep it up or even know how to make good posts. There were so many other things to juggle that we were constantly forgetting about it too.
Things weren’t looking good for me. Had I made a huge mistake in betting against Valerie?
Monday / December 9
The bad luck continued.
Today I brought the same foundation from last week, along with some Crown Tiger postcards from their Italy travel series and the leftover stock of lip balm from Halloween. Yeah, the lip balm was stuff people had seen before, but I was hoping enough time had passed that maybe they would be in need of a new one. Lip balms only lasted so long, right?
And maybe that would have been the case. But I never found out, because that very same day, Valerie announced that she was launching a brand-new line of lip balms that was apparently all the rage in Korea. Oh, and she was continuing her foundation sale.
Argh. Of all the times.
It didn’t help that we had to cut our sales short because of my field trip to the band festival. Before the first bell rang, all the band kids were required to meet in the school parking lot, wearing white collared shirts tucked into black pants, instruments in hand. Maybe it was for the best. I could use a full day of playing music to take my mind off my dismal sales and my growing regret at having bet against Valerie.
The district-wide band festival gathered school bands from all over the city at the Florence Lennon Convention Center, where we played for a panel of judges and anyone from the neighborhood who wanted to watch. It was basically a free event where we could practice playing in front of an audience. The judges were mostly there to give feedback rather than to run an actual competition. Which was truly fine by me. One competition in my life was enough.
When we weren’t playing, we were hanging out in the convention center’s multipurpose room with all the other students, waiting for our call time. I’d been to school band festivals before, and these in-between times were always the worst. I never knew who to sit with or what to do. Everyone always seemed so settled in their friend groups, and I felt awkward orbiting them, with nothing to say even if they were nice enough to invite me. Lisa Carol smiled and waved me over to join her and her friends, but I politely smiled back and gestured to my saxophone like, Whoops, sorry, I already made plans, before retreating to a corner to practice. I probably should have said yes—to making new friends and growing in confidence and all that—but today I didn’t have it in me to be social in such a big group.
Just as I was about to start up on some scales, I happened to glance up and make eye contact with a familiar face across the room, a boy eating a bag of Sour Patch Kids and wearing a NORTH HILL ACADEMY BAND sweater. What the. Was that…?
“Yo!” Taemin’s eyes widened as he recognized me. He bounded across the room, his face splitting into a huge grin as he high-fived me. “Wes! I should’ve known you would be at this festival. You said you play saxophone, right?”
“Yeah,” I said, shocked. We’d been texting here and there since the aquarium, but I hadn’t even thought to ask him if his school would be part of the festival. “I didn’t know you were in band too. What do you play?”
“Trumpet. But I suck. They wouldn’t even let me join the marching band because I kept messing up formation.” He rolled his eyes. “Sticklers. Whatever. Anyway, how’s it going, man?”
“It’s going okay. Could be better,” I said truthfully.
“Girl troubles?” Taemin asked.
I raised my eyebrows and he clapped a sympathetic hand on my shoulder.
“I can tell. Call it a sixth sense, if you will. So, tell me about her. What’s the problem?”
“It’s, um, kind of complicated.” I chewed my lip, trying to figure out where to begin. “Her name is Valerie.”
A flash of recognition crossed his face and I looked at him curiously. “Do you know her?” I asked.
“Depends,” he said. “Do you mean Valerie Kwon? Cousins with Charlie Song?”
My mouth dropped open. “Yes! That’s her.”
“Yeah, I know her. Charlie and I are buddies from church.”
“Whoa. Small world.”
“Koreans know Koreans,” Taemin said, shrugging nonchalantly. “So what’s the deal with Valerie? Do you love her or something?”
My face burned instantly. “What? No! Tha
t’s not—no. No, I don’t.”
He laughed. “I’m just kidding, bro.”
I laughed too, but it came out as more of a wheeze. “It’s just that she runs a K-beauty business in school,” I said, quickly changing the subject. “You’ve probably heard of it if you know Charlie?” He nodded slowly, and I continued. “We kind of have this bet going to see who earns more money with their business by prom. I thought I stood a chance against her, but these past couple of weeks it’s like she knows exactly what my sales are going to be.”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“For example, remember that day we had lunch at the aquarium? Pauline and I were talking about how we were going to sell Crown Tiger foundation the next day and lip balm the week after that. But then last week, Valerie announced that she’s going to have a fifty-percent-off sale on her foundation. And then today she comes out with a brand-new line of lip balm! Man, I can’t seem to get a leg up.” I glanced at Taemin, who suddenly looked a bit pale. “Hey, are you okay?”
“Huh? Oh yeah.” He smiled sheepishly. “I just got spooked for a second there. Sounds like she has a sixth sense too.”
“Right?” I sighed. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Don’t worry, bro,” he said, patting me on the arm. “Her sixth sense probably won’t last forever. In fact, it was probably only good for a couple weeks. These things are like that.”
“I don’t know… Ugh. I never should have made this bet against her. What was I thinking?”
“Out of curiosity, what were you thinking?” Taemin asked. “Why would you make a bet like that?”
I looked down at my saxophone, my somber reflection staring back at me. “I just thought, I don’t know, that I had a chance. I’m trying to save up money to go to music school. I managed to pull together enough to apply to my top choice, but…” My mind flashed to the spreadsheet on my computer. “There are a lot of other expenses coming up in May. And then a tuition deposit after that. Not to mention, auditions are in February, which is this added mental stress. The closer all these deadlines get, the more panicked I feel that I won’t be ready for them. But I need to be. I have to get in.”
“Wow, you really want to go to music school, huh?” Taemin said.
I nodded. “Yeah. I just wish my parents were more supportive. Especially my dad. He’s really against it, so I’m kind of trying to secretly fund myself right now.” The secret part was starting to weigh on me. I didn’t like lying to my parents, and I would have to tell them sooner than later that I wasn’t going to apply to the schools they wanted me to. It was all getting to be a little too much.
Taemin fell silent. Worried I’d overshared and made things weird, I smiled lightly and nudged him in the elbow. “Hey, why do you look so guilty? It’s not like you’re the one stopping me from going to music school.”
“Yeah, ha-ha, true,” he said meekly. “It’s just, yeah, I know how dads can be. That sucks.”
He paused for a long time like he was going back and forth about something in his mind, chewing his lip. And then he straightened up, clapping a hand on my shoulder and looking me in the eye like he had made a decision about something. “Listen, Wes, you’re a good guy. If there’s anything I can do to help you, let me know.”
“Thanks,” I said, smiling, not quite sure why he felt so much empathy for me. He must be a really sensitive guy. “But I’m not sure what you can…” I trailed off, a sudden idea flashing into my head. But no. This was definitely not a good idea.
“What?” Taemin said.
“What?” I said back.
“You’re looking at me like I’m a ghost that just crawled out of your TV or something.”
“Uh. It’s just… You said you’re friends with Charlie and Valerie, right? I guess I was just wondering if maybe you would be interested in, uh, helping me out by letting me know what they’re up to with their business these days?”
He blinked. “Like a spy?”
Oh God. That sounded so bad. “No, no, not like a spy. More like a…” More like a what? There was really no other way to put it. “Okay, yeah, kind of like a spy. But it would just be a one-time thing. I just need to know what they’re planning on selling next so I can finally get my momentum back. I’ll pay you back in some way, of course.”
It looked like he was rolling the idea over in his mind, considering it from all angles. “Okay, I’ll do it.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I’ll help you even out the playing field again. It’s the least I can do after I… promised my pastor I’d try to be a better person.” He smiled brightly. “Don’t worry about it. Just treat me to a bingsu to pay me back.”
“Bingsu? As in shaved ice?”
“Yeah. I can never say no to bingsu.”
“Okay,” I said. “Deal.”
I swallowed back the guilt poking at me from the inside as we shook hands. This was fine, right? I wasn’t really hiring a spy to discover anything secret. I just needed to get myself back in the game. Level out the playing field, as Taemin said. It was an oddly accurate choice of words, but it definitely summed things up. I was losing ground fast, and I had to catch up.
Music school depended on it.
Monday / December 16
“Valerie is doing a big sale on moisturizers this Monday. We’re talking hydro gels, water creams, and brand names with the word ‘glow’ in them. If I were you, I’d sell something so amazing, it’ll distract everyone from her products. Do you have anything like that?”
I turned over Taemin’s advice in my head as I looked at the clock on Monday morning. He’d called me over the weekend with this tip on V&C, and after watching a dozen K-pop unboxing videos, I’d finally had an idea.
What was better than a great deal? A great limited-edition deal.
Me: Hey Kristy, you definitely don’t want to miss my sale today. I’m selling limited-edition Crown Tiger makeup pouches. They don’t sell these in Korea anymore and I only have a few, so spread the word…
Kristy: OMG! Thanks Wes! I’LL BE THERE!!
Thank God I’d found these pouches in Umma’s office. Each one was made of a durable canvas material with a colorful zipper that matched the color of the cartoon tiger on the pouch. It was true that I only had a limited supply. And a Google search showed me that they weren’t being sold anywhere else. They must be discontinued. Thus, limited edition.
The band room doors burst open as Kristy ran in, followed by a crowd of Crown Tiger fans I hadn’t seen in weeks.
“Wes, Wes!” Amelia Perry cried, already reaching into her bag for her wallet. “I heard you have limited-edition makeup pouches? I want the one with KP on it!”
“No way, KP’s my bias!” someone else shouted. “Wes, save that one for me! I’ll pay double!”
Bless you, Taemin Park. Things are finally looking up.
* * *
Something I’d learned about the PNW: It rains. A lot.
I pulled the hood of my jacket over my head as I jogged out to the parking lot after school, my glasses already getting speckled with rainwater. Sometimes it will literally come out of nowhere on an otherwise non-rainy day like today. I inwardly thanked my parents for letting me use the second car as I ducked into the driver’s seat. Man. I’d lived in a lot of cities, and I’d never seen it rain as much as it did here. Still, whatever the weather looked like, nothing could bring down my mood from today’s sale. I was feeling on top of the world.
I dried off my glasses on the hem of my sweater before switching on the windshield wipers and pulling out of the parking lot. I squinted through the rain as I spotted a familiar figure walking down the sidewalk, hugging a cardboard box to her chest, getting totally soaked.
Valerie.
For a second, I hesitated. I could just drive by. I mean, we weren’t exactly friends. But we weren’t strangers, either, and it felt weird to just pretend I didn’t see her.
I slowed down and rolled open the passenger-seat window.
“Hey! Valerie! Do you want a ride?”
She startled, looking over at me. Maybe it was the wrong timing, but I was struck by how pretty she looked, rain plastering her hair against the sides of her face. I had the sudden temptation to smooth out her hair and pull the wet strands away from her cheeks.
“No, I’m good,” she said. And then she kept on walking, her boots slapping against the wet concrete.
I inched the car forward, keeping pace with her. “Are you sure? Where’s Charlie?”
“Basketball tournament,” she said, her eyes fixed in front of her. “And yep, I’m sure. Bye.”
“Okay, well, this is my last offer if you change your—”
Riiiip. The bottom of Valerie’s cardboard box tore open, completely waterlogged. Bottles and round tubs of moisturizer came tumbling out, rolling along the sidewalk as Valerie gasped. “Oh my God!” she cried, desperately trying to grab them all before they got away.
It hit me suddenly that a good sale day for me meant a bad one for her. These must be all the products she couldn’t sell today. Without thinking, I pulled over and threw open the car door, grabbing as many beauty products as I could until we had them all secured, our arms laden with moisturizers as we stood in the middle of the sidewalk, staring at each other through the downpour.
“You sure you don’t want that ride?” I asked.
She gritted her teeth. “Fine,” she said finally, yanking the passenger side car door open. She climbed in with her beauty products. “But I’ll pay you back for this somehow.”
“You don’t have to,” I said, passing her the beauty products in my arms through her window before getting back into the driver’s seat. I took off my glasses and wiped them down yet again. She stared at me the whole time as I put the glasses back on my face.
“What?” I said self-consciously.
“So you really need them? They’re not just for fashion?”
I laughed, caught off guard at her question. “Yeah. Of course I need them. I think I’m almost legally blind.”