Since You Asked... Read online

  I slowly slid off my bike. “Oh crap!”

  “YES! ‘Oh crap’ is RIGHT!”

  My breathing sped up. “Oh crap, oh crap. What am I going to do?”

  “I don’t know! Your column was so offensive that I’m sure the entire newspaper’s going to get hell for this! We’re all screwed!”

  My life flashed before my eyes. I envisioned my immediate expulsion. I saw my parents breaking down into hysterics. My mother would be wearing one of those white headbands tied around her head — what Koreans wear at funerals when they’re throwing themselves onto the floor in front of a picture of the deceased — screaming and crying over my demise. Because really, at that moment, I would be dead to her.

  “What can I do? Can’t I just explain that it was a mistake?”

  Isabel sighed. “I guess. I’m just expecting the worst. We’ll see what happens on Monday.”

  It was Sunday. Just enough time to hop the border and assume a new identity.

  * * *

  “You don’t know how to do it, Holly. Aigo, just move!”

  I moved aside so that the pushy dictator who was my mother could finish making the dumplings. We were prepping a huge meal for yet another family gathering at my house, and yet again my mother was admonishing me in Korean for my lack of dumpling-making expertise.

  “Oh, please, holy queen of dumplings, do show me the proper way.”

  She threw me a Mom Glare that had grown increasingly popular lately. A look that said, “I’m not sure what the hell you’re actually saying, but I know I don’t like it and you need to shut your mouth.”

  She grabbed the dumpling from me. “You are putting way too much stuffing in here.” She scooped some of the raw ground pork from the round dumpling skin and flung it back into the bowl.

  “YOU said one spoonful!” I said accusingly.

  “Can’t you just stand there and say, ‘Yes, Mother,’ for once? You always have to talk back!” she snapped, carefully closing up the dumpling by dotting the edges with some warm water mixed with egg whites.

  “I’m just defending myself. YOU’RE the one who chooses to interpret it as ‘talking back.’” I refrained from calling her a fascist.

  “There you go again! Forget it, go play with your cousins. You’re not helping anyone in here.”

  “Fine by me!” I huffed and stalked away. I was so annoyed that I didn’t even have the energy to make fun of my mom for telling me to go “play” at the age of fifteen. I walked through the living room, which was already crowded with my uncles lounging in front of the TV watching ESPN.

  “Holly, why are you out here doing nothing? Try to be helpful sometimes!” one of my more charming uncles bellowed as he sipped his beer. He hadn’t moved in two hours. I threw him a dirty look, which made everyone laugh.

  Because our extended family usually met for dinner every week, this was the norm. My aunts were in the kitchen fussing over dinner, and my cousins were scattered around the house trying to stave off boredom. Some of the boy cousins were playing video games in the family room, and they yelled at me when I walked in front of the TV. “Oh, get OVER it,” I spat, bonking my littlest cousin, Mark, on the head for good measure.

  I poked my head into Ann’s room to see her and the girl cousins sitting around looking at magazines and staring into laptops. “What are you guys doing?” I asked. They all kind of grunted in response.

  What happened to us? We used to talk to each other so much our moms had to tell us to be quiet, that we sounded like a bunch of squawking birds. Now we mostly passed the time in silence, staring into our phones and checking Facebook for the billionth time. “WOW, don’t let it get too CUH-RAZY in here!” I said before leaving.

  But really — did we have to hang out with everyone every weekend of our lives? I envied Carrie, whose extended family lived scattered across the country. Her weekends consisted of going to the movies with her parents and “Ice Cream Sundae Sunday!” nights. Given the current climate of my impending social and academic suicide, I was so not in the mood for all of this.

  I was about to hole up in my room and call Carrie when my mom hollered for me. “Holly! Set the table!” Dinner was ready.

  I dragged myself to the dining room, which seated:

  Yup, twenty people. And that wasn’t even my whole family.

  I walked by my grandma as she inspected the silverware, her Swarovski crystal–encrusted bifocals perched on the end of her nose. “Holly, this is not good quality. Your mother is being cheap, like always.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Sorry it’s not as good as the queen’s silverware, Halmoni.”

  My grandma, or halmoni, tsked. “It is just not dignified to have cheap silverware. So common.”

  I don’t know where she gets these airs. As long as I’ve known her — which is my entire life, I guess — my grandma’s carried herself like British royalty. She owns a mahogany four-poster bed in her old folks’ home, wears Ferragamo heels, and sports pristine white gloves while driving. A modern-day Grace Kelly living in a senior citizen home in Clairemont Mesa.

  “Also, what did I tell you about your hair?”

  I reflexively lifted a hand to my choppy, cropped hair. “It won’t grow. I must have a terrible disease.”

  She shook her head with an exasperated frown. It must be tragic to have a granddaughter who doesn’t take horseback-riding lessons and refuses to grow long, lovely lady locks. (Yes, horseback-riding lessons. She also hoped that I’d become a tennis champion. I think somewhere along the way my grandmother got confused and thought we were the Korean Kennedys.)

  My dad walked up and dropped a platter full of beef on the table. “This is good meat!”

  How was he the offspring of my grandma? They couldn’t be more different. Case in point: the pants he was wearing. They had a hole in the butt and were at least eight years old. If my dad didn’t have a family, I’m pretty sure he would have been quite content as a hobo.

  Everyone started trickling into the dining room, and I sat down at the kids’ table and dug into the food — some grilled short ribs, sautéed spinach and bean sprouts, rice, and a dozen varieties of kimchi. Unlike most Korean dads, my dad did most of the cooking in our household and was really pretty darn good at it. As we sat there chattering and eating, I overheard one of my aunts discussing so-and-so’s kid’s SAT score.

  “She got a 2280. After only one try!”

  A murmur of approval went through the entire table. My cousins and I all rolled our eyes and made gagging noises. It was starting — the weekly critique! The lovely portion of the evening where all the parents sat around complaining about their children and comparing them to so-and-so’s children.

  “Yeah, a 2280 on her SAT. It’ll probably set her apart from the million other Asian kids applying to Yale,” I said.

  Everyone snickered. “But how else will she meet her future Korean financial consultant husband if she doesn’t go to Yale?” Amy asked sarcastically — she was about to take the SAT in a few months.

  We all laughed while our parents went on with their conversation. My cousins and I had endured each other’s company every weekend of our lives, and therefore we were as close as siblings. Except that unlike siblings, we didn’t see each other every day, so we didn’t hate each other as much.

  While digging into my ribs I heard my mom say from the other end of the table, “I worry about how Holly will do on the SAT — she’s not the best tester.”

  Not the best tester? Where was my mom getting these things? And why was she talking like Dr. Phil? Also, the SAT was still a year away! Get a life!

  “Um, Mom? I CAN HEAR YOU,” I barked across the table.

  My aunts and uncles cringed and gave me disapproving looks. Another annoying thing about having aunts and uncles around all the time? They’re just a few more parents watching your every move — extra pairs of critiquing eyes.

  Can you even imagine these people once I got expelled from school because of my column? My mom would be mo
aning and pounding her chest at the table, and my aunts and uncles would be trying to console her. Then I’d show up, thirty years old and still trying to graduate high school, pumping my fist in the air and saying, “I got a 2280 on my SAT!”

  My mom’s eerily calm voice broke my reverie. “Holly, lower your voice.” Her eyes betrayed her fury, though. Eek.

  There is nothing like the Korean Mom Death Stare. I instantly shrank into my seat, but I also felt a flash of stubborn rebellion. I was so sick of feeling like I was getting in trouble all the damn time. I gave her a look in return, which startled her momentarily, and I wondered if I would be dying tonight.

  While everyone was still eating, I slipped out into the backyard where my dad was grilling on the barbeque.

  “Do you want more chicken?” he asked as he tossed some meat onto the grill.

  It smelled delicious, so I nodded.

  “Okay, then.”

  It was nice and quiet outside, and I was grateful for how simple my relationship with my dad was. He was content feeding me chicken, and I was content eating it.

  While my mom and I butted heads constantly, my dad understood me in a way my mom didn’t. He and my mother were so different — she, anxious and quick tempered, and he, all Zen Buddha. In the immortal words of Paula Abdul, I guess opposites do attract.

  “Can I also have some pork?” I asked. He slid some delicious grilled pork belly onto my plate.

  We sat there in silence for a little while as I watched my dad lay strips of meat on the grill methodically and slowly, how he approached everything in life. The column incident had been in the back of my mind all evening, and it killed me that I somehow couldn’t bring it up with my dad. It had been years since I talked to my parents about anything remotely personal. Once I hit puberty, it was Awkwardville. I had crossed some line and couldn’t go back.

  “Thanks for the food.”

  He grunted, his attention on the grill.

  So instead of pouring out my feelings to my dad with cheesy music playing in the background á la Happy Sitcom Family, I shuffled to my room and tried to ease the panic rising in me.

  Would anyone even care about the article? Was I making a huge deal out of something that could potentially slip under the radar? How would I convince everyone that it was a joke?

  Hours later, after the tea had been served and everyone started dozing off into food comas, my relatives finally left and my family got ready for bed. Needless to say, I didn’t get any sleep that night. I tossed and turned with an endless list of excuses in my head and felt both terror and relief shoot through me as daylight peeked through my window.

  Here we go.

  You are my hero.”

  I shut my locker to see David holding up the latest issue of The Weasel Times.

  He was laughing.

  “This is not funny, D.” I snatched the paper out of his hands.

  “Come on, it’s funny. Nobody knew who you were yesterday, and now you’re famous!”

  “But I don’t want to be famous!” I whined.

  David leaned against the lockers. “Why didn’t you tell me about this, anyway? If I’d known I was going to start Monday with this awesome piece of high-quality journalism, I would have actually been on time for homeroom.”

  At that moment, a beautiful senior girl three bra sizes larger than me walked by and muttered, “Bitch.”

  My mouth dropped open and I looked at David. “Did you hear that?” I hissed.

  A flash of anger crossed his face, but then he waved his hand dismissively. “Typical, low-life lemming behavior. Don’t sweat it.”

  I felt a lump in my throat as I watched the senior walk away nonchalantly. Then I looked around at everyone hanging out by their lockers for other signs of hostility. It was almost second period, so at this point I was guessing a lot of people had seen my column already. The Weasel Times was really popular, and we were always eager to do anything but listen to announcements during homeroom.

  Carrie came running toward me at breakneck speed, clutching a copy of the newspaper to her chest. She stopped and leaned over for a second, out of breath, before panting, “Oh my God, tell me this is a joke?”

  I bit my lip and wanted to die for the hundredth time that day. “Well. It was a mistake.”

  Swatting her sweat-dampened hair out of her eyes, Carrie stared at me long and hard. “What do you mean, a mistake? People are going to kill you for this. Like, seriously kill you. Like, they are going to throw stuff at you and then like, beat you, and then, like —”

  “I GET IT. See, I copyedited this other column by Stephanie Gonzales, but I did it as a joke and I must have submitted the wrong version to our stupid stoner designer….” I trailed off.

  “So has anyone tried to kill you yet?” Carrie asked, looking a little worried.

  “No. But the day is young. Also, this senior girl just called me a bitch.”

  Carrie’s face turned bright red and she whipped her head around, eyes blazing. “WHO? She better show her damn face and know who she’s dealing with!”

  She may be the daughter of two tree-hugging hippies, but Carrie has one mean temper if provoked. Once, in third grade, she pushed a boy off a swing because he was hogging it. And in eighth grade she was suspended one day for kicking a girl who had pushed Liz into the grass during PE.

  “Thanks, but if you try to beat up everyone who hates me today … well, I dunno. You’d be tired.”

  I feebly said good-bye to David and Carrie and walked to my history class, where Liz was waiting, holding the paper gingerly in her hands.

  Silence.

  “I know,” I said wearily.

  “You should hire me to do your PR. How else do you expect to survive high school?”

  At the beginning of class I dodged a few dirty looks. But what’s weird is that I also got the vibe that some people were actually being nice to me. Was there something sinister lurking behind their smiles? Or could they have possibly liked my accidental column?

  A girl sitting to my left, who had never said two words to me before, leaned over and said, “Sweet piece in the paper. The funniest thing ever!”

  I blinked and shook my head quickly, like a dog.

  “Seriously?!” I whispered furtively.

  Before she could answer, I was shushed loudly by this goody two-shoes named Caroline, who was sitting to my right. I made a face at her and snapped my head back to attention.

  I tried to keep my mind on the history lesson — something about the French Revolution. Man, those revolutionaries were brutal. I mean, who doesn’t hate rich people who eat cake all day? But head chopping was taking it a little too far, in my opinion. Anyway.

  My thoughts wandered back to my accidental column, and I snuck a glance at the girl on my left. (I didn’t even know her name!)

  Hm, a fan. Something I did not anticipate.

  A few minutes into Mr. Reilly’s lesson, someone walked into the class and handed him a note. Everyone started murmuring excitedly in that way high school kids do when there is even the slightest distraction.

  After reading the note, Mr. Reilly looked straight up at me. My mouth got very dry.

  “Holly? Can you come up here please?”

  I tried walking up there all casual-like, ignoring the whispering masses.

  Mr. Reilly leaned in toward me and said in a low voice, “You need to see the guidance counselor Mrs. Karkis right now. Just take this pass to her office.”

  I tried to remain calm. “Um, why?”

  Mr. Reilly raised his eyebrows as if to say, “Like you don’t know.”

  I shuffled back to my desk to grab my things. I tried to coolly stuff my binder and pencil case into my backpack, but dropped the tin case onto the floor, making a huge clattering noise. All heads spun in my direction and a few people snickered. Ugh.

  I finally fled the room, but not without one of the belt loops on my jeans getting caught on the door handle. Seriously?

  AHHHH!

  Take
a deep breath.

  I got to Mrs. Karkis’s office and knocked on the door.

  “Come in.”

  I stepped in and noticed someone else sitting in a chair in the corner. It was Mr. Williams, the journalism advisor. “Oh, Lord,” I thought to myself. It was about the column. But why was I being called into the guidance counselor’s office of all places?

  I only ever saw Mr. Williams in brief glimpses during my journalism period. He usually hung out in his office and politely ignored everyone. Now I would probably get an earful.

  “Please take a seat, Holly.” Mrs. Karkis motioned toward a chair. I sat down nervously. The only other time I’d ever been in her office was to change my class schedule last year, when she thought it was a great idea for me to take a woodshop class instead of art. She thought I needed to “expand” my interests. Okay yeah, hanging out with male thugs every fifth period, a billion miles away from the rest of the campus in some godforsaken warehouse by the football field? No thanks. After my third trip to her office, she finally let me take the art class.

  “Holly, what were you thinking when you wrote that column?” she asked, hands folded primly on her desk.

  “I wasn’t thinking. I mean, it wasn’t meant to be published! It was a joke —”

  “A JOKE?” Mrs. Karkis sputtered.

  “I didn’t think anyone would read it…. I was just being … ridiculous? I mean, I don’t really hate everyone that much….” I trailed off lamely. Everything I said sounded like an excuse from a creepy future school shooter.

  Mr. Williams made a funny noise from his corner that I could have sworn was a snicker. Men of all ages have mastered the fine art of snickering.

  Mrs. Karkis sighed and went on. “Well, thanks to your ‘joke,’ you have offended almost every single person at this school. As well as the administration.”

  I tried to swallow the lump in my throat. “So what’s going to happen to me?”

  Mrs. Karkis sighed, took off her glasses, and said in a gentler tone, “My concern is: Why so hostile? What’s going on in” — she pointed at her chest — “here?”