“What are you thinking so hard about?” Kitty asks me.
I barely hear her.
“Hello?”
I close my eyes and pretend to be asleep, and all I see is Peter’s face. I don’t know what I want from him exactly, what I’m ready for—if it’s boyfriend-girlfriend heavy-duty serious love, or if it’s what we had before, just fun and some here-and-there kisses, or if it’s something in between, but I do know I can’t get his Handsome Boy face out of my mind. The way he smirks when he says my name, how when he’s near me I forget to breathe sometimes.
Of course, when we get to Aunt Carrie and Uncle Victor’s, none of the other cousins are wearing hanboks, and Kitty practically turns purple with the effort of not yelling at Daddy. Margot and I give him some side-eye too. It’s not particularly comfortable to sit around in a hanbok all day. But then Grandma gives me an approving smile, which makes up for it.
As we take off our shoes and coats at the front door, I whisper to Kitty, “Maybe the adults will give us more money for dressing up.”
“You girls look so cute,” Aunt Carrie said as she hugs us. “Haven refused to wear hers!”
Haven rolls her eyes at her mom. “I love your haircut,” she says to Margot. Haven and I are only a few months apart, but she thinks she’s so much older than me. She’s always trying to get in with Margot.
We get the bowing out of the way first. In Korean culture, you bow to your elders on New Year’s Day and wish them luck in the new year, and in return they give you money. The order goes oldest to youngest, so as the oldest adult, Grandma sits down on the couch first, and Aunt Carrie and Uncle Victor bow first, then Daddy, all the way down the line to Kitty, who is youngest. When it’s Daddy’s turn to sit on the couch and receive his bows, there’s an empty couch cushion next to him as there has been every New Year’s Day since Mommy died. It gives me an achy feeling in my chest to see him sitting there alone, smiling gamely, handing out ten-dollar bills. Grandma catches my eye pointedly and I know she’s thinking the same thing. When it’s my turn to bow, I kneel, hands folded in front of my forehead, and I vow that I will not see Daddy alone on that couch again next year.
We get ten dollars from Aunt Carrie and Uncle Victor, ten from Daddy, ten from Aunt Min and Uncle Sam, who aren’t our real aunt and uncle but second cousins (or is it cousins once removed? They’re Mommy’s cousins, anyway), and twenty from Grandma! We didn’t get more for wearing hanboks, but all in all a good take. Last year the aunts and uncles were only doing five apiece.
Next we do rice cake soup for good luck. Aunt Carrie also made black-eyed pea cakes and insists we try at least one, though no one wants to. The twins, Harry and Leon—our third cousins? Cousins twice removed?—refuse to eat the soup or the black-eyed pea cakes and are eating chicken nuggets in the TV room. There isn’t enough room at the dining table, so Kitty and I eat on stools at the kitchen island. We can hear everyone laughing from over here.
As I begin to eat my soup, I make a wish. Please, please let things work out with me and Peter.
“Why do I get a smaller bowl of soup than everyone else?” Kitty whispers to me.
“Because you’re the littlest.”
“Why don’t we get our own bowl of kimchi?”
“Because Aunt Carrie thinks we don’t like it because we’re not full Korean.”
“Go ask for some,” Kitty whispers.
So I do, but mainly because I want some too.
While the adults drink coffee, Margot, Haven, and I go up to Haven’s room and Kitty tags along. Usually she plays with the twins, but this time she picks up Aunt Carrie’s Yorkie, Smitty, and follows us upstairs like one of the girls.
Haven has indie rock band posters on her walls; most I’ve never heard of. She’s always rotating them out. There’s a new one, a letterpressed Belle and Sebastian. It looks like denim. “This is cool,” I say.
“I was just about to switch that one out,” Haven says. “You can have it if you want.”
“That’s all right,” I tell her. I know she’s only offering it to feel above me, as is her way.
“I’ll take it,” Kitty says, and Haven’s face pulls into a frown for a second, but Kitty’s already peeling it off the wall. “Thanks, Haven.”
Margot and I look at each other and try not to smile. Haven’s never had much patience for Kitty, and the feeling is infinitely mutual.
“Margot, have you been to any shows since you’ve been in Scotland?” Haven asks. She plops down on her bed and opens up her laptop.