People always look so surprised when I tell them he’s a surgeon—they open their eyes really big and say “Oh!” in a way that makes me think that they think it’s pretty impressive or something. But I’m not that impressed. He’s kind of a dork. He sings in an opera voice a lot. How can you take somebody seriously who does that? I sure hope he never does that in front of his patients. Normal people would never let him near their heart if they heard or saw him sing. Anyway, because my dad is almost never home, my mom always is.
While the leftovers were still heating up in the microwave, Tori came stomping into the kitchen wearing her earbuds and almost crashed into Jason.
“UGH! Why are you always here, Jason!?” Tori spat. “Why don’t you and Krista get married already and start your lives together?” She grabbed a drink from the fridge.
There it was. The same old joke Jason and I had been hearing for years. We’ve been best friends since preschool. On the first day, I was sitting in a circle waiting for class to start—I don’t remember this, but our parents tell us it happened this way—and Jason sat down next to me. He wouldn’t sit anywhere else for the next two years. It had to be next to me. If I was sick or absent, Jason would refuse to go to school or stay there without me.
We’ve been tight like that ever since that first day. But we’re older now, so if one of us is sick and going to be away from school, the other person will still go to school because we do know a lot of other people, but our first choice is to always hang out with each other.
To us, it doesn’t matter that he is a boy with reddish-brown hair, glasses, and green eyes, and that I am the Korean girl at school who everybody assumed was Chinese—except Jason. He knew. We are friends. We have always been friends and we always will. We both knew it from the first day of preschool. Other people don’t get it. We like to hang out with each other. We like each other’s company. We make each other laugh. When we look at each other, I don’t think we see anything weird or unusual about the fact that we are friends. Does it matter that my best friend isn’t a girl? It does to certain people.
Jason always handled my sister with good humor. “Tori, I’m just sick of ham sandwiches. Korean food is such a treat!”
“Hmph!” Tori swiveled around on her heels theatrically and went around opening every window of the house. Then she stomped around spraying air freshener. I tried to ignore her, but she can be so dramatic sometimes.
Just then the microwave beeped. We forgot about Tori and sat down to enjoy our steaming plate of beefy goodness.
CHAPTER 2
After eating, Jason and I sat on the sofa to continue our card game. We had been playing the same game of war for three days, off and on, and nobody could seem to win. But then we heard a car pulling up in front of the house and Jason saw who it was—my grandmother. I could tell by the look in his eyes that we would not be continuing our game today. It wasn’t that Jason didn’t like Grandma, it was the other way around. Grandma often could be what you might call aloof, but to Jason, she was downright cold. I don’t know why she was so mean to him. Asking her about it was out of the question.
Tori got along with my grandmother. They kind of had the same attitude about things. My grandmother always dressed very nicely. And her hair was always in a state of permanent curled perfection. It’s like her hair didn’t move. Even if she walked into the shower, I don’t think it would get wet. Water would just hit the top of her head and slide right off. She always reapplied her lipstick after dinner and made sure her handbag matched her shoes. Have you ever seen old Korean ladies “out for a hike” in a forest on the North Shore wearing giant visors that covered their whole faces and completely inappropriate shoes? Like they might even be wearing heels? Well, that was my grandmother.
My mom saw that Jason was reaching for his backpack and said, “Why are you going home already?”
Then came the knock on the door and my mom looked out and saw the car. She gave him a knowing look and said, “Oh, okay.”
When Grandma came over, she always brought her special soup. It was tteokguk, a beef broth with sliced rice cake rounds that get a bit soft in the soup It was Jason’s food kryptonite. He just couldn’t handle it. We eat it almost every time Grandma comes over, and it’s pretty tasty to me, but it is the one dish that makes Jason gag. The first and only time he tried it, he didn’t chew the rice cake properly, and it slid down his throat and then got stuck. He turned a deep shade of purple and almost died. My mom freaked out and slapped him on the back and yelled “Spit it out! Spit it out!” He ended up finally swallowing the rice cake, but he never could, or would, try it again.
He would not be staying for dinner today. Plus, he had very quietly whispered to me once that he thought my grandmother was kind of scary. I can’t blame him. She kind of is. Especially when she’s gesturing and talking in Korean to
