Yuhbow, Apa said, they will have to work with him.
Apa gestured to us. “My daugh-tors.”
“Hi,” he said and held out his hand, his eyes cast downward.
“He name, Is . . . Is . . .”
“Ysrael,” he said and smiled at Apa, his eyes glancing up briefly from the floor.
“Yes-rail,” Apa repeated to himself. “Yes-rail.”
“Hi,” I said and shook his hand. I quickly let his hand go after finding his skin soft and cool. I knew my own palms were sweaty and warm. I felt Suna’s presence behind me. I stepped out of the way. “This is my sister, Suna.”
Suna stood there frozen for a moment before she darted back behind me. Ysrael leaned to the right and waved to her, his eyes finally leaving the floor. When he smiled, the dimples along the sides of his lips were long and elegant, stretching from his cheeks to his chin. Except where they joined the scar at his jawline. The white indented scar, a half circle, like a bite into an apple, was just to the right of his chin.
Uhmma watched all this with a tight, fake smile on her face. That is enough, she interrupted in Korean. Mina, go watch the front of the store.
Ysrael tilted his head as Uhmma spoke. I could see him trying to puzzle out what had been said.
Suna and I reluctantly walked away, but not before glancing over our shoulders again to catch another look at Ysrael.
Uhmma came up front with us, muttering, Mrs. Kim said that she would send someone. She did not say that she would send a Mexican. I must call her right away. This has to be a mistake.
Uhmma put on her fake voice for the phone. She spoke brightly, Mrs. Kim. She paused and frowned as she listened.
Yes, she said. He is here. Are you sure he is the right person? Uhmma bit down on the fleshly pad of her thumb as she listened. Her voice returned to normal. Yes, of course. Another Korean would have been far too expensive for us. Yes, I see. Thank you very much, Mrs. Kim. Thank you. Uhmma carefully placed the phone down, her eyes cast away from us.
In the back, Apa in his broken English was trying to explain all the various stain removers to Ysrael. Uhmma went to go find them.
Suna’s father, she interrupted in Korean. He cannot do that properly. He will not know the difference between all the stains. Look at him. He can barely keep himself clean.
Yuhbow, Apa argued weakly, he can do this work.
Uhmma raised her voice. No. You want us to lose our business. You are as big an idiot as he is. I will handle this.
Apa said, “My wife. She do this.”
“Are you sure?” Ysrael asked. “There’s a lot of clothes here.”
Uhmma answered Ysrael, “You go do shirts now.”
I heard two sets of footsteps coming to the front. I quickly pulled out my SAT books and pretended to be busy.
Suna’s father, Uhmma called out. Come here.
One set of footsteps went back. The other set continued forward to the presses. The steady sound of the foot pedal and steam releasing started up.
Uhmma yelled at Apa in the back of the store. She said, You must keep your eyes on him. Some of these young Mexicans steal and then they disappear. Mrs. Kim told me about their dishwasher at the restaurant who ran away with all the register money.
I turned my page with a clear snap, gripping my pencil in disgust. I wondered what Mrs. Kim would think if she saw the brand-new leather jacket her perfect Stanford-bound son had hanging in his locker, the one thing that he never took home. Jonathon had let that poor dishwasher hang out to dry when Mrs. Kim checked the books and noticed money missing. That was how Jonathon learned never to take too much from the register at one time.
Yuhbow, Apa argued, he will not steal from us. He seems like a nice young man. Let us just try. Besides, in a week or two, I will be able to work again.
Uhmma did not answer. After a long silence, Apa’s slow footsteps walked back to the office.
• • •
By midafternoon, in between the lunch-hour rush of errands being completed and before everyone got off work, there was a haze of heat outside so thick, it looked like fog. I stood by the register and wondered where Suna had been all morning. She had stayed close to me for a while, trying to help with the tags and hanging up the clothes, until one time I turned to give her a coat to hang up, and she had simply disappeared. Apa most likely was still in the office, dozing with the fan aimed at his head. And the presses were silent.
I walked back to the office to check and see if Suna was there. I stretched out to look past some clothes at the back door but saw only the faint profile of Uhmma taking her cigarette break. She sat on an overturned bucket just outside the back doorway, her body in the shade of the building, the cigarette smoke streaming behind her into the store. As I turned to go to the office, I saw him out of the corner of my eye. He was washing his hands at one of the large sinks, letting the water slowly trickle over his hands as he read the labels of the various stain removers that we kept on a shelf. I thought about trying to talk to him. Tell him to ignore Uhmma, that she was always like that. Ask him if the presses worked smoothly. That sometimes you had to clean the foot pedal ’cause it got gunked up. And as I tried on all these sentences, testing each one, he turned around. A smile jumped to my face in a reflex of fear and surprise. Ysrael’s eyes immediately darted to the floor, but he smiled and nodded his head slightly. He turned
