“Yes, Grandma, I remember. Thank you for the apron, it’s nice.”
“Okay, squeeze.” She slid a bowl of blanched spinach my way. I took it and went to the sink. I heard my dad turn on the TV in the living room. I heard Tori talking on her phone. My mom asked, “Can I help?”
“No, Krista can do,” Grandma answered.
“Okay.” Mom smiled at me and went to watch TV with Dad.
“After squeeze, put spinach in bowl with noodles,” my grandmother instructed. “Slice mushrooms now. I do beef,” she said as she fired up her stovetop.
After we had finished preparing all the ingredients we assembled the japchae. It was one of my favorite dishes. Chewy noodles mixed with vegetables and sliced beef. It was good warm or room temperature. She served it with the usual table full of other side dishes, rice and there seemed to always be some kind of meat. Today she had stir-fried spicy pork.
“Thank you for preparing such a wonderful dinner,” my mother said to Grandma before we started eating.
“Thanks, Mom, it looks delicious,” my dad agreed.
Grandma looked very satisfied and smiled, as she looked around at all of us. I reluctantly picked up my chopsticks.
“Tori!” Grandma proclaimed. “Eat more!” Tori had been pushing noodles around her plate for a few minutes before Grandma had finally noticed.
“Grandma, I’m just not hungry. We had all this popcorn at the movie theater this afternoon and—”
“Alice! You spoil their appetites!” my grandmother started to scold. My mom shot my dad a cold look.
“Actually, Mom, it was me,” my dad confessed.
She started muttering things in Korean as she got up from the table. My mother was still staring at my dad who just shrugged his shoulders. Grandma started rifling through her cabinets.
“I pack up for you to take home. Eat later,” she said, turning to Tori. She had started to assemble empty plastic containers for leftovers. We never got away from Grandma’s without at least some food. I was trying my best to eat, because I knew how she was about food. She made it, we were supposed to eat it. The pork was so spicy today that I needed four glasses of water with dinner, but I didn’t want her to stare at me the way she stared at Tori for not eating. I was on the verge of being sick.
I put on a good enough show to satisfy her, so I was allowed to go lie down on the sofa. Which I did. My dad joined me and then undid his belt and the button of his pants. He put his head back on the sofa and gave me his death-by-food face and we both giggled.
CHAPTER 13
During our PE classes, we had been doing a dance unit. Normally I liked PE. I was a pretty good athlete without trying too hard. I wasn’t the best at anything, but I wasn’t the worst either. But this was a Hip Hop Dance unit. Mrs. June had got it into her head that she wanted us to perform at the Celebration of Dance that the school board put on once a year. She said her niece performed in it last year and she was so inspired that she wanted us to do it this year. So every PE class for the next few weeks, we were supposed to work on this dance. She even hired a local dance troupe to choreograph it. Mrs. June was serious. Madison, Arden, Cassie, and Emma were very good dancers, so they loved the idea of the whole Celebration of Dance. Me? Not so much.
My mom had put me in a ballet class when I was three. I guess she thought it would be cute. There are a lot of pictures of me in my little pink get-up before the class started, but—I don’t remember this, this is just what my mom tells me—once the class started, I wouldn’t listen to the teacher. Instead I just wanted to run around in a circle shouting. My mom couldn’t quiet me down. She tells me that I ripped off my tutu and threw it at the teacher. She was too embarrassed to take me back for more classes. That was the end of my ballet and dance career.
I’ve seen all those videos of K-Pop stars doing awesome and amazing dance moves, so I can’t blame having no rhythm on being Korean. Instead, I blame my dad. Hey, he brings it on himself by being a workaholic. It’s easy to blame the absentee parent for all your failings. But if you have ever seen my dad dance, you’d agree that I most certainly got my lack of rhythm from him.
The choreographer, Denise, was super edgy. She wore her long hair straight down her back and her baseball cap backwards. She tied a plaid shirt around her waist and her black jeans had ripped up knees. The first couple of weeks she taught us some basic moves, but this week we were working on choreographing the whole class to run around the stage in formations using those basics. She shouted, “How many boys and how many girls in the class?”
We all looked around confused and nobody answered her, I think we were all a bit intimated by her cool factor.
“Okay, never mind. Boys on the left side of the stage, girls on the right!” she shouted when nobody gave her an answer.
“Your other left, boys!” She didn’t even need a microphone. She herded us like cattle to count us off.
She came up on the stage and counted. “Perfect! An even number!”
“Partner up!” she shouted. “One boy, one girl! Go!”
Of course there was awkward jostling with nervous glances and hesitant moves to potential partners. I just automatically headed over to Jason who saw me coming,
