Yolk

by Mary H. K. Choi

  “I wanted options.”

  Meanwhile, I haven’t brought a single nice thing to wear. I’m still wearing the same dress Mom licked.

  “Pearls though, really?” I roll over to check my phone. Patrick’s left a voicemail. It’s almost three minutes long. The tightness at my temples twists.

  June shrugs. “It’s what I have,” she says, tilting her head and attaching the earring back.

  She tucks in her blouse.

  “Great.” I sigh. “I’m going to look like a bum compared to you.”

  I stare at the notification again. A voicemail has to be bad news. Or maybe he butt-dialed.

  “First of all,” says June, “you are a bum. Second of all, borrow something.”

  She unzips her bag and pulls out a sleek black suit. “This one’s long as shit,” she says. “I brought heels if you want.”

  “It won’t fit,” I tell her automatically.

  “Yeah, it will,” she says. “Mom’s going to pop such a holy boner if both her daughters look like little politicians at church.”

  I finger the fabric. It’s a high-end British label that I’m surprised she knows about. It has a peak lapel and gorgeous drape. I slip it over my arms.

  “Oh, that works,” she says, and tosses the trousers at my face. I try on the pants in the bathroom. When I return, I look at both of us in the mirror, dressed in black, with demure makeup.

  “Hi, I’m June.” I wave into the mirror stiffly. “I like Domino’s Pizza and finance dipshits. The A Star Is Born soundtrack is the most important thing that’s ever happened to me despite never having seen the movie. Or even being aware that there’re four of them.”

  June hip checks me. “And I’m Jayne,” she parrots back. “I’m partial to oat milk, bands that no one cares about, white boys who hate me, trust-fund poverty, and I still think tattoos are subversive even though literally every-fucking-body has one.”

  She smiles. “And tote bags for boring magazines.”

  I laugh. To be honest, I’m a little touched that she knows so much about me.

  * * *

  I take a deep breath in the lot as June parks. She drove us in Dad’s car since our parents had choir practice beforehand.

  “Don’t get worked up,” she says, applying lipstick in the rearview. I pull out my compact and powder my forehead.

  “Easy for you. You love this shit.”

  June blots her lips and checks her teeth. “Nobody loves this shit.”

  “Then why do you do it?”

  June rolls her eyes and caps her lipstick.

  “Because being in a family is about doing shit you don’t want to for the benefit of other people,” she says. “Mom and Dad sacrificed everything for us, and they want the stupidest, basic shit in return.”

  “What? Like lying to them about still having a job?”

  June side-eyes me. “Do you listen to the words other people say to you, or is just a high-pitched droning?” She tosses her lipstick in her purse. “Mom and Dad want to know that we’re safe. They want proof that they did a good job. Why the fuck would I tell them I got fired? Mom calling me three thousand times a day and losing sleep won’t get me a new job. I’m protecting her. And whatever. I’m already talking to headhunters. I’ll have a new job as soon as all this shit is under control. People don’t really want to know how you’re doing. They want to wait until you’re done telling them so they can tell you how they’re doing.”

  June shrugs. “Mom’s the same way. I don’t think it bothers me as much as it used to.”

  My sister smiles at me with deranged brightness. “People like capable, positive people. It has nothing to do with reality.” June flashes her teeth even wider. “See? Boom. Different person.”

  She pops open the door. “Just make us look good, okay? For me.” June gets out before I can answer.

  Mom’s church is called, aptly, Church of the Korean Martyrs. Dead serious. At least that’s how it’s referred to once a week on Saturday nights. The Korean Catholic community in the greater San Antonio area leases the church at 6:00 p.m. every Saturday from a Catholic high school. A different, richer Catholic church gets the prime time slot of Sunday mornings. After mass, we eat in the gym. I snap a picture of the plastic banner that we sling on top of the regular Sacred Heart sign. I want to send it to Patrick even though I still haven’t listened to his three-minute sermon on my phone.

  “You think one day we’ll get to have church on an actual Sunday?” asks June as she opens the door.

  “But then we wouldn’t be martyrs,” I tell her.

  “Yeah, right,” she says, nudging me. “As if these fools only martyr on weekends.”

  It’s our bit. We’d said some variation of this every Saturday. I stopped coming when Mom left. I couldn’t stand the hypocrisy of pretending we were still a family. To her credit, Mom didn’t make me. I took it as an acknowledgment of her guilt.

  A sour man in the back glares at us for talking. I smile serenely without teeth, then pretend to dip my finger in the holy water to dab the sign of the cross on my forehead and over my heart. I don’t care how blessed it is, this shit could cure smallpox and still have pink eye floating around in it.

  “Jesus,” mutters June, taking it all in. She leads us to our usual spot, the row immediately after the pews reserved for the choir. Right behind the organ. It’s all so much smaller than I remember. The wood-paneled, maroon-carpeted box looks like the waiting room of an old folks’ home. My eyes search the room, landing on the brownish water stain that resembles Italy’s boot on the back wall. I used to zone out on that stain, staring until it melted and I could feel myself melting along with it.

  June gets up to say a few hellos. Hugging choir members spiffily done up in their freshly steamed purple robes, bowing deep as she greets each one. I hang back. Even fortified by my sister’s suit, I can’t stomach it. There’s Kim Theresa. Im Theresa. Park Helena. The other Kim Theresa, the one that lives out by Fort Sam Houston. I watch June shrewdly navigate the flock. She has a mind like a steel trap for differentiating Theresas.

  “You look fantastic, Jayne,” one of them calls out to me from two pews over, wriggling her fingers in greeting. She has a dewy, open face and frizzy bangs. “You’d never know how fat you used to be,” she stage-whispers. “You’re a stick. A stick! And you must be at least a hundred and seventy centimeters tall. You could model.”

  Park Helena, who I’ve always liked, waves. She doesn’t do the Korean compliment roundhouse, where the nicety detonates into an insult a half second later. These mom proxies remind me of those fishes that bloom around you and eat the dead skin cells on your feet. Patrick’s Mom was never among the nudgier women. She didn’t sing or play golf. In fact, I can’t remember talking to either of his parents beyond a perfunctory hello.

  June punches my leg in solidarity when she sits next to me. The familiar chirp of KakaoTalk rings through the hubbub. The organist plays the first few notes of the opening hymn.

  Mom enters to take her place, followed by Dad. As choir leader, she wears a gold-and-white sash on her robe. The priest is the only other member of the congregation with a sash. His features a slightly thicker gold border, which probably hasn’t escaped Mom’s notice.

  Mom turns around to thrust a worn pleather-bound hymnal into June’s hand. We hear another KakaoTalk chirp. There’s another. And another. People check their phones self-consciously. It’s always old people who fail to keep their phones on silent while upbraiding us for our attention spans.

  The first hymn begins.

  I stare at the water stain and wonder what games Patrick played in his head while he was trapped in here with me.

  As if sensing that I’m not contemplating spiritual redemption, Mom spins around and conducts directly at me and June. We can actually feel the whoosh of air from Mom’s enrobed arms flapping. June’s better at fake-singing than I am. She gives great, big spirit face. Boisterous on the first syllable, then letting the phrasing peter out. I
barely move my lips. June elbows me again, harder. Her eyes light up as she pops her chin on the chorus. She’s so close to cracking up.

  Our mother smiles and mouths with the exaggeration of a stage mom. She frowns, then smiles brightly, pointing at her mouth, instructing me to smile.

  The song ends just as I find the right verse.

  I can’t bring myself to take Communion even as my face burns when I have to get up to let people pass.

  Afterward, we make our way over to the gym. June and I walk behind Mom. The sky is purple.

  Before we burst through the double doors of the gym, Mom turns around and loops my hair around my ear. I wait for the barb. How the pants are a little tight across my thighs or that I need to brush my hair, but it doesn’t come. Instead she smiles and squeezes my arm affectionately.

  I pocket this moment for myself. This memory alone makes the trip just about worth it.

  chapter 33

  We hear another Kakao chirp.

  The gym already smells like the dankest Korean food, all garlic and fermented fish guts. Mom rushes ahead into the kitchen behind the row of folding tables arranged with large aluminum trays and Sternos burning beneath them.

  I watch as she slings a navy apron around her neck and pulls on disposable plastic gloves. She flips her hair coquettishly to show off her necklace. The ladies admire it while Mom tilts her head this way and that, making them laugh. Then they return to serving banchan, scooping the fiery red vegetables and marinated meat with their hands, keeping the portions modest so everyone will be fed. Everything smells incredible.

  Park Helena comes in behind us. We both bow deeply. “It’s so good to see you girls,” she says to us, eyes crinkling in a warm smile.

  “You too.” I realize I mean it. It’s good to be back. Following June’s advice, I’m smiling compulsorily, trying not to internalize anything, and it’s working. It’s like an instant lobotomy.

  “Especially you, Jayne.” Helena squeezes my elbow. “You should come home more often. Your mother’s been relentless all week. She raided my freezer for my homemade dumplings, radish kimchi from Oh Theresa. She’s been bending our ears and showing off for days how both of her girls are coming in from New York. She’s so proud of you two. It’s just a shame she never gets to see you.”

  “I’m here all the time,” interjects June.

  Helena laughs. “And we’re all so lucky for it. You always did take such good care of your little sister.” She pats June on the shoulder. “How’s work? Your parents couldn’t be prouder.”

  “It’s fantastic,” says June. “Challenging yet rewarding. A wonderful growth opportunity.”

  They talk about her son at Wharton, about all his scholarships. My eyes glaze.

  “You girls should eat,” says Helena, before crossing the room to talk to the priest, who’s seated at a long card table with the rest of the men.

  “I think if Mom ever said she was proud to my face my head would explode,” I tell June while we watch a flock of women descend on the priest to offer food. “Like, there would be blood pouring out of my ear and shards of skull and hair everywhere.”

  June rolls her eyes. “It’s Mom. What do you expect?”

  I look over at Mom again, heaping piles of food onto her plate. Suddenly, I can’t bear to see her.

  “I’m not hungry,” I whisper before turning on my heel and walking back into the evening air.

  The pea gravel that lines the parking lot crunches under my borrowed heels.

  I watch a junky white hatchback pull up to the gas station across the street, taillights glowing red. Two girls hop out, wearing short skirts and tights and oversize, candy-colored hoodies. They both have scrunchies in their hair. I used to fantasize every Saturday about how my friends would come get me at church. Central to this fantasy was that it would be in front of everyone and that all the church kids would see how cool I actually was. How totally I didn’t need them. How they’d been wrong to ignore me and leave me out of their games.

  I sit on an aluminum bench and pull out the cigarettes. It’s dark, but the seat’s warm from the sun earlier in the day. The smoke feels heavy in my lungs. The sprinklers have been turned on for the football field behind the school, the mist forming an arc where the lights hit.

  I listen to Patrick’s voicemail.

  He’s at work. Having lunch. He describes a chicken katsu sandwich in glorious, mundane detail. They cut the crusts off, which is a nice touch. He’s wondering what I’m doing, where exactly I’m standing. He asks if I’ve been to the restaurant. Whether or not June’s with me. If everything’s okay and says that he’d neglected to ask if I was going home for any particular reason. He says he’s thinking about me and that he’s still sorry that he had to cancel dinner. He asks if I’ve had barbecue. How the air smells.

  I see the appeal of voicemails for the first time in my life.

  There’s a prickly sensation inside my body when I think about him. It’s the nettlesome conflict between the him I know and the other him he becomes when I’m away. He’s flattened on Instagram. Bloodless and scarily intimidating for it, a stranger.

  Patrick feels like my only tie to New York, and right now my link to him feels tenuous and imagined.

  I recall him carefully pulling the hair out of my mouth. His steady, dark eyes. The rise of his shoulders above me. Warm and breathtakingly present. It’s my favorite moment of the ones I’ve experienced so far. The sweetness of it startles me no matter how many times I play the tape in my head.

  I stub the cigarette out on the bottom of my shoe. My heart hammers as I dial his number.

  He picks up on the third ring.

  “Hey,” I say into the dark.

  “Whoa, hi.”

  “I’m at church.”

  “How is it?”

  “So unchanged that it’s distressing.”

  He laughs. “I was convinced for a second that you were pocket dialing me.”

  “Yeah, phone calls aren’t really my scene. This whole real-time communication business.”

  I hear him chuckling down the line. It tugs at my chest.

  “This is my first time back since I moved.”

  “How’s it feel?”

  “It’s a lot,” I tell him. “I have this paranoia that New York won’t let me in after this. That it’s like Shangri-La or El Dorado or some other magical place that will punish me for leaving.”

  “Like all the hard work you’ve put in will get washed away?”

  “Yeah.” I smile into the phone. “Like the score card goes back to zero.”

  “I get that,” he says.

  “But you have a real life in New York. It’s your home.”

  “Yours, too,” he reminds me.

  The two girls in the gas station across the street return to their car. They look tiny and insect-like climbing back into it. The green-hoodied girl pulls her friend out of shotgun by her backpack. She stumbles, and they laugh their heads off.

  It seems strange to me that I’ve been their age.

  “What are you doing this weekend?”

  “Working. And then I have some people in town.” He sighs. “When are you back?” he asks.

  “Tomorrow.”

  “Thank God.”

  “Seriously.”

  He laughs. “Can y’all drive around and do something fun tonight?” I warm at him y’all’ing for my benefit. “Free tea refills, remember? Brisket?”

  “True.”

  “Plus, Texas gives great sky.”

  I look up. It’s still there. All oceanic and silencing.

  “You’ll see New York again. I promise.”

  “I know.”

  “Besides,” he says. “You still have our sweats.”

  I grin helplessly.

  We say good night, and I relight my cigarette and take a drag. I send Patrick the picture of the church. He likes it immediately.

  “Seriously?” June sits heavily beside me. “I literally have cancer,” she says,
gesturing at the smoke.

  I take a long pull. It tastes gross, but I don’t want to put it out for her benefit. I make a big show of exhaling the smoke away from her.

  I feel her cold fingertips on the back of my hand. She takes the cigarette from me and, shockingly, takes a drag.

  “What the fuck?”

  “Glarg,” she says exhaling, and then spits at her feet. “Disgusting.” Still, she hangs on to it and inhales again.

  I take it from her and toss it.

  I want to talk about Patrick but know better. I don’t feel like hating her for telling me what I already know. That he’s too good for me.

  I wonder how much of the phone call she heard.

  “When’s the last time you were here?” Her breath smells faintly of garlic.

  “You know when.”

  “Yeah.”

  We sit companionably in the dark. “You want to dip?” June dangles the car keys.

  I glance back at the gym.

  “They’re going to take forever,” she reminds me. “All the cleanup and the bullshitting.” She gets up. “Come on, I’ll take you to Dairy Queen.”

  I don’t know why she’s being so nice to me, but the thought of cruising around with my sister after all this time makes my heart surge giddily. “Yeah, okay.” I shrug. I pop a breath mint into my mouth and spray myself with perfume. I offer some to June.

  “You’re such a pussy,” she says, shaking her head. I spray her anyway since I’m scared enough of Mom for the both of us. If she smells smoke, we’re toast.

  I draw my hands to my face, sniff, and then spray them, too. “Wait,” she says, splaying her fingers. “Do mine.”

  chapter 34

  “Did you know that Jimmy Buffett owns Dairy Queen?” I’d read about it in class. “He basically brought them back from the brink of bankruptcy because he likes them so much.”

  June pulls us onto the brightly lit lot. “I went to business school too, dummy,” she mutters.

  The thing is—and June knows this—I love Heath Bar Blizzards more than life itself. Not that the Peanut Buster Parfait isn’t pretty incredible too. I ignore the caloric math because what I want is a bucket of frozen deliciousness with shrapnel chunks that get stuck in my molars.