by Nicola Yoon
Charlie laughs long and loud.
I start to say that she doesn’t need anything, but Natasha interrupts. “Thank you, Mr.—”
“Bae,” I say, because she should know my last name.
“Mr. Bae. I don’t need any—”
“Hair too big,” he says again.
“I like it big,” she says.
“Better get a different boyfriend, then,” says Charlie. He waggles his eyebrows to make sure we all get his innuendo. I’m surprised he doesn’t follow it up with a hand gesture just to be absolutely clear. My surprise doesn’t last, because he holds his thumb and forefinger apart by an inch.
“Good joke, Charlie,” I say. “Yes, my penis is only an inch long.” I don’t bother to look at my father’s face.
Natasha turns to me and her mouth actually drops open. She’s definitely reconsidering her recent life choices. I practically fling the pouch at my father. Things cannot get any worse, so I reach for her hand despite the fact that my father is standing right there. Mercifully, she lets me take it.
“Thank you, come again,” booms Charlie when we’re almost out the door. He’s like a pig in shit. Or just the shit.
I flip him off and ignore the vast disapproval coming from my father, because there’ll be time for that later.
I’M LAUGHING EVEN THOUGH I know I shouldn’t. That was the most perfectly awful experience. Poor Daniel.
Observable Fact: Families are the worst.
We’re almost all the way back to the subway station before he finally stops tugging me along. He slaps a palm against the back of his neck and hangs his head.
“I’m sorry,” he says, so quietly that I more lip-read it than hear it.
I’m trying to keep my laughter suppressed, because he looks like someone died, but I’m having a hard time. The image of his dad trying to shove the tub of relaxer at me rises in my mind and the laughter just bubbles out of me. Once I start, I can’t stop. I clutch my stomach as hysterics take me over. Daniel just stares at me. His frown is so deep it might become permanent.
“That was terrible,” I say, finally calm. “I don’t think that could’ve gone any worse. Racist dad. Racist and sexist older brother.”
Daniel rubs the spot on his neck and frowns some more.
“And the store! I mean, the ancient posters of those women, and your dad critiquing my hair, and your brother making a small penis joke.”
By the time I’m done listing all the things that were awful, I’m laughing again. It takes him a few more seconds, but finally he smiles too, and I’m glad for it.
“I’m glad you think this is funny,” he says.
“Come on,” I say. “Tragedy is funny.”
“Are we in a tragedy?” he asks, smiling broadly now.
“Of course. Isn’t that what life is? We all die at the end.”
“I guess so,” he says. He steps closer, takes my hand, and places it on his chest.
I study my nails. I study my cuticles. Anything to avoid looking up into those brown eyes of his. His heart thrums beneath my fingers.
Finally I look up and he covers my hand with his.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m sorry about my family.”
I nod, because the feel of his heartbeat is doing funny things to my vocal cords.
“I’m sorry about everything, about the whole history of the world and all its racism and the unfairness of all of it.”
“What are you even saying? It’s not your fault. You can’t apologize for racism.”
“I can and I do.”
Jesus. Save me from the nice and sincere boys who feel things too deeply. I still think what happened is funny in its perfect awfulness, but I understand his shame too. It’s hard to come from someplace or someone you’re not proud of.
“You’re not your dad,” I say, but he doesn’t believe me. I understand his fear. Who are we if not a product of our parents and their histories?
DANIEL’S FAMILY DID NOT ENTER the black hair care business by chance. When Dae Hyun and Min Soo moved to New York City, there was an entire community of fellow South Korean immigrants waiting to help them. Dae Hyun’s cousin gave them a loan and advised them to open a black hair care store. His cousin had a similar store, as did many other immigrants in his new community. The stores were thriving.
The dominance of South Koreans in the black hair care industry also did not happen by chance. It began in the 1960s with the rise in popularity of wigs made with South Korean hair in the African American community. The wigs were so popular that the South Korean government banned the export of raw hair from its shores. This ensured that wigs featuring South Korean hair could only be made in South Korea. At the same time, the U.S. government banned the import of wigs that contained hair from China. Those two actions effectively solidified the dominance of South Korea in the wig market. The wig business naturally evolved to the more general black hair care business.
It’s estimated that South Korean businesses control between sixty and eighty percent of that market, including distribution, retail, and, increasingly, manufacturing. Be it for cultural reasons or for racial ones, this dominance in distribution makes it nearly impossible for any other group to gain a foothold in the industry. South Korean distributors primarily distribute to South Korean retailers, effectively shutting everyone else out of the market.
Dae Hyun is not aware of any of this history. What he knows is this: America is the land of opportunity. His children will have more than he once did.
I WANT TO THANK HER for not hating me. After that experience in my parents’ store, who could blame her? Also, she didn’t need to react to my family as peacefully as she did. If she’d yelled at both my brother and my dad, I would’ve understood. It’s a miracle (water-into-wine variety) that she’s still willing to hang out with me, and I’m more than grateful for it.
Instead of saying all that, I ask her if she wants to get some lunch. We’re back at the subway entrance, and all I want to do is get as far away from the store as possible. If the D line went to the moon, I’d buy a ticket.
“I’m starving,” I say.
She rolls her eyes. “Starving, really? You have a penchant for exaggeration.”
“It’s to offset your precision.”
“Do you have a place in mind?” she asks.
I suggest my favorite restaurant in Koreatown and she agrees.
We find side-by-side seats on the train and settle in. It’ll take forty minutes to get all the way back downtown.
I take out my phone to find more questions. “Ready for more?” I ask her.
She slides closer to me so our shoulders are pressed together, and peers down at my phone. She’s so close her hair tickles my nose. I can’t help it. I take what I think is a discreet sniff of her hair that is not discreet at all.
She scoots away from me, eyes wide and mortified. “Did you just smell me?” she asks. She touches the section of hair where my nose just was.
I don’t know what to say. If I admit it, I’m creepy and weird. If I deny it, I’m a liar and creepy and weird. She pulls the strands that she’s touching across her nose and sniffs at it herself. Now I need to make sure that she doesn’t think I think her hair smells bad.
“No. I mean, yes. Yes, I smelled it.”
I stop talking because her eyes have gone wider than eyes should be able to go.
“And?” she prompts.
It takes me a second to work out what she’s asking. “It smells good. You know sometimes in spring when it rains just for like five minutes and then the sun comes out right away and the water’s evaporating and the air is still damp? It smells like that. Really good.”
I make my mouth close even though it just wants to keep talking. I look back down at my phone and wait, hoping she’ll come close again.
HE THINKS MY HAIR SMELLS like spring rain. I’m really trying to remain stoic and unaffected. I remind myself that I don’t like poetic language. I don’t like poetry. I don’t even l
ike people who like poetry.
But I’m not dead inside either.
SHE COMES CLOSE AGAIN and I barrel ahead, because apparently that’s who I am with this girl. Maybe part of falling in love with someone else is also falling in love with yourself. I like who I am with her. I like that I say what’s on my mind. I like that I barrel ahead despite the obstacles she raises. Normally I would give up, but not today.
I raise my voice over the clacking of the train against the tracks. “Right. On to section two.” I look up from my phone. “Ready for this? We’re leveling up on the intimacy.”
She frowns at me but still nods. I read the questions aloud and she chooses number twenty-four: How do you feel about your relationship with your mother (and father)?
“You have to go first,” she says.
“Well. You met my dad.” I don’t even know where to begin with this question. Of course I love him, but you can love someone and still have a not-so-great relationship with them. I wonder how much of our non-relationship is because of typical father versus teenage boy stuff (a ten o’clock curfew, really?) and how much of it is cultural (Korean Korean versus Korean American). I don’t know if it’s even possible to separate the two. Sometimes I feel like we’re on opposite sides of a soundproofed glass wall. We can see each other but we can’t hear each other.
“So you feel bad, then?” she teases.
I laugh because it’s such a simple and concise way to describe something so complicated. The train brakes suddenly and jostles us even closer together. She doesn’t move away.
“And your mom?” she asks.
“Pretty good,” I say, and realize that I mean it. “She’s kind of like me. She paints. She’s artistic.” Funny, I’ve never thought of us being the same in this way before. “Now your turn.”
She looks at me. “Remind me again why I agreed to this?”
“Want to stop?” I ask, even though I know she’ll say no. She’s the kind of person who finishes what she starts. “I’ll make it easy on you. You can just give me a thumbs-up or thumbs-down, okay?”
She nods.
“Mom?” I ask
Thumbs-up.
“Way up?”
“Let’s not go overboard. I’m seventeen and she’s my mom,” she says.
“Dad?”
Thumbs-down.
“Way down?” I ask.
“Way, way, way down.”
“IT’S HARD TO LOVE SOMEONE who doesn’t love you back,” I tell him. He opens his mouth and then closes it again. He wants to tell me that of course my father loves me. All parents love their children, he wants to say. But that’s not true. Nothing is ever universal. Most parents love their children. It’s true that my mother loves me. Here’s another thing that’s also true: I am my father’s greatest regret.
How do I know?
He said so himself.
SAMUEL KINGSLEY WAS CERTAIN BEING famous was his destiny. Surely God wouldn’t have gifted him with all this talent with no place to display it.
And then Patricia came along. Surely God wouldn’t have given him a beautiful wife and children if he didn’t mean to provide for them.
Samuel remembers the moment he met her. They were still in Jamaica, in Montego Bay. It’d been raining outside, one of those tropical storms that start as suddenly as they stop. He’d ducked into a clothing store for shelter so he wouldn’t be soaked for his audition.
She was the store manager, so the first time he saw her she was wearing a name tag and looking very official. Her hair was short and curly and she had the biggest, prettiest, shyest eyes he’d ever seen. He never could resist a shy girl—all that caution and mystery.
He’d quoted Bob Marley and Robert Frost. He’d sung. Patricia never stood a chance against the force of his charm. His audition time came and went, but he didn’t care. He couldn’t get enough of those eyes that widened so dramatically at the slightest flirtation.
Still, a part of him had said to stay away. Some prescient part of him saw the two paths diverging in the yellow wood. Maybe if he’d chosen the other path, if he’d left the store instead of stayed, it would’ve made all the difference.
“KOREAN FOOD? BEST FOOD. Healthy. Good for you,” I say to Natasha, imitating my mom. It’s something she says every time we go out to dinner. Charlie always suggests we go to an American place, but Mom and Dad always take us to Korean, even though we eat Korean food at home every day. I don’t mind because it turns out I agree with my mom. Korean food? Best food.
Natasha and I don’t have much time left before her appointment, and I’m beginning to doubt that I can make her fall in love with me in the next couple of hours. But I can at least make her want to see me again tomorrow.
We walk into my favorite soon dubu joint to greetings of “Annyeonghaseyo” from the staff. I love this place, and their seafood stew is almost as good as my mom’s. It’s not fancy at all, just small wooden tables in the center surrounded by booths on the perimeter. It’s not crowded right now, so we manage to snag a booth.
Natasha asks me to order for her. “I’ll eat whatever you tell me to,” she says.
I ring the little bell attached to the table and a waitress appears almost instantly. I order two seafood soon dubu, kalbi, and pa jun.
“There’s a bell?” she asks after the waitress leaves.
“Awesome, right? We’re a practical people,” I say, only half kidding. “Takes all the mystery out of food service. When will my waiter appear? When will I get the check?”
“Do American restaurants know about this? Because we should tell them. Bells should be mandatory.”
I laugh and agree, but then she takes it back.
“No, I changed my mind. Can you imagine some jerk just leaning on the bell demanding ketchup?”
The panchan, complimentary side dishes, arrive almost immediately. A part of me braces to have to explain to her what she’s eating. Once, a friend of a friend made a What’s in this food? Is it dog? joke. I felt like shit but still I laughed. It’s one of those moments that makes me want that Do-Over Card.
Natasha, though, doesn’t ask any questions about the food.
The waitress comes over and hands us both chopsticks.
“Oh, can I have a fork, please?” Natasha asks.
The waitress gives her a disapproving look and turns to me. “Teach girlfriend how to use chopsticks,” she says, and walks away.
Natasha looks at me with wide eyes. “Does that mean she’s not going to bring me a fork?”
I laugh and shake my head. “What the hell?”
“I guess you should teach me how to use chopsticks,” she says.
“Don’t worry about her,” I say. “Some people aren’t happy until everything is done their way.”
She shrugs. “Every culture is like that. The Americans, the French, the Jamaicans, the Koreans. Everyone thinks their way is the best way.”
“Us Koreans might actually be right, though,” I say, grinning.
The waitress returns and places the soup and two uncooked eggs in front of us. She tosses paper-clad spoons into the center of the table.
“What’s this called?” Natasha asks, when the waitress is out of earshot.
“Soon dubu,” I say.
She watches me crack my egg into the soup and bury it under cubes of steaming tofu and shrimp and clams so it will cook. She does the same and doesn’t make a comment about whether it’s safe to eat.
“This is delicious,” she says, sipping a spoonful. She practically wiggles with pleasure.
“How come you call yourself Korean?” she asks after a few more sips. “Weren’t you born here?”
“Doesn’t matter. People always ask where I’m from. I used to say here, but then they ask where are you really from, and then I say Korea. Sometimes I say North Korea and that my parents and I escaped from a water dungeon filled with piranhas where Kim Jong-un was holding us prisoner.”
She doesn’t smile like I expect her to. She just asks me why I
do that.
“Because it doesn’t matter what I say. People take one look at me and believe what they want.”
“That sucks,” she says, scooping up some kimchi and popping it into her mouth. I could watch her eat all day.
“I’m used to it. My parents think I’m not Korean enough. Everybody else thinks I’m not American enough.”
“That really sucks.” She moves on from the kimchi to bean sprouts. “I don’t think you should say you’re from Korea, though.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s not true. You’re from here.”
I love how simple this is for her. I love that her solution to everything is to tell the truth. I struggle with my identity and she tells me just to say what’s true.
“It’s not up to you to help other people fit you into a box,” she says.
“Do people do it to you?”
“Yeah, except I’m really not from here, remember? We moved here when I was eight. I had an accent. The first time I saw snow, I was in homeroom and I was so amazed I stood up to stare at it.”
“Oh no.”
“Oh yes,” she says.
“Did the other kids—”
“It wasn’t pretty.” She mock-shivers at the memory. “Want to hear something even worse? My first spelling quiz the teacher marked that I spelled favorite wrong because I included the u.”
“That is wrong.”
“Nope.” She waves her spoon at me. “The correct English spelling includes the u. So sayeth the Queen of England. Look it up, American boy. Anyway, I was such a little nerd that I went home and brought her the dictionary and got my points back.”
“You didn’t.”
“I did,” she says, smiling.
“You really wanted those points.”
“Those points were mine.” She giggles then, which is not a thing I thought she did. Of course, I’ve only known her for a few hours, so obviously I don’t know everything about her yet. I love this part of getting to know someone. How every new piece of information, every new expression, seems magical. I can’t imagine this becoming old and boring. I can’t imagine not wanting to hear what she has to say.