Yolk(71)

“Let’s have lunch at the restaurant,” Mom says as she oversees us loading the car in the parking lot. “You, take this,” she says to June, rolling the cart over. “Jayne did the bank.”

June meets my eyes before trundling away. There’s no telling what we’ll have to do at the restaurant.

Seoul Garden is Korean in name only. Truthfully, the cuisine is more Pan-Asian to cover all the bases, with a sushi bar right in the center and Korean barbecue, as well as Chinese noodle dishes trooping out of the kitchen at all times. Logistically, it’s a clusterfuck splitting tickets between the kitchen cooks, the raw bar chefs, and the actual bar staff serving drinks.

The parking lot’s jammed. Mom bypasses the customer lot, driving through the narrow alley to the additional parking in the rear. She stomps the brakes at the blind corner as another car barrels toward us. As she does, Mom instinctively sticks her arm out, crossing June’s chest. “Sorry,” she says softly, and pats my sister’s hair. I watch June watch our mother with such tenderness that my heart cracks open.

We pull into the active driveway of the back door.

We follow Mom, who carries her purse tucked into the crook of her arm, trailing her like ducklings past the dishwasher, the walk-ins, the slip mats squishy under our feet. It’s been forever since I’ve cut this course with her. “You remember my daughters,” she says as we pass the heat of the kitchen. June and I bow slightly. Wave. Say hi. Mom instructs various people to unload the supplies from the car.

Our usual table, the one where we did all that homework, is laden with a gilded red melamine boat heavy with raw fish.

“Is that for us?” asks June.

There are bowls of miso soup and rice and iced tea for the four of us.

“I called Rodrigo to have it ready,” she says. Rodrigo’s their sushi man. There’s June’s Unagi Enchilada roll, which resembles a wet burrito more than it does a purist’s idea of sushi. And the Izzy roll, my favorite. The whole thing’s deep-fried. There’s also gyoza, kimchi pancakes, and jewels of nigiri sushi dotted throughout. This is why I can’t ever bear to pay for sushi in New York.

Mom turns to us and peels off a few twenties from a brick of new bills. I wish she’d hold it up to her face like a phone so I can take a picture.

“You didn’t bring tip money, did you?” she chides, shaking her head. “Waiters don’t like credit card tips. How many times do I have to tell you that?”

No matter how stern she sounds, I know she’s pleased that she timed the meal perfectly.

“Ji-young,” she says. “Get your father.” Dad’s office is back behind the kitchen. When I pull out my phone to text him, Mom kisses her teeth. “If I wanted him texted, I would have done it,” she says. “Have some respect.”

I get up, and June smiles at me, sugaring her tea.

“Hurry up,” says Mom. “The sushi’s going to get cold.” It’s an old joke. Now they’re both cheesing at me.

Both of them are firstborns. And firstborns can suck it.





chapter 32


I wake up from a two-hour nap to catch June, in a bra and suit pants, threading her arm into a white blouse. I was pretending to do homework on my laptop, sprawled out on my belly, when I passed out, and I’m struck now by how beautiful my sister looks with her face in repose. I pretend to be asleep so she stays this way. Her shoulders sag, lending a weariness that makes her seem older. She’s less decisive, less a bully to her surroundings. Without the bluster, she’s a different person. She reminds me so much of Mom, the way she lets herself show sensitivity only when she thinks no one is watching. June takes a deep breath, and when she lets it out shakily, I can’t bear it. Her frailty scares me.

“God, seriously? You’re wearing a fucking suit to church?” I sit up. I have a headache from sleeping so long. “You’re such a suck-up.”

“I want to look nice,” she says pleasantly, not rising to the bait. “It’ll make Mom happy.”

Her garment bag hangs from the hook behind the door. “Jesus, how many suits did you bring?”

There’s something about the somber black bag for church that seems funereal. I tug my lip, hard, but when June eyes me, I sit on my hand, which only sets my leg jiggling.

“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.”