I never met my grandfather, but thinking about how tall he stood has inspired me. Beneath Sohn’s Japanese jersey was a true Korean: proud of who he was and determined to achieve.
Finally I was finished. I’d told Sohn Kee Chung’s story, and he was one awesome Korean. If only our family connection were true.
I waited for the yahoo-I’m-done! exhilaration to hit like it usually does when a paper’s finished, but it didn’t. Sohn Kee Chung was proud and true to himself, but I didn’t feel that way.
I looked up. Dad had gone upstairs. I hit Save and signed off. This wasn’t the kind of document I wanted Mom or Dad to see.
My sisters were still in the kitchen as I searched the cupboard. Dad had let me skip dinner to finish the essay, and now I was craving something cheesy with tomato sauce.
“Did you two reach a truce?” I asked.
Only Sophie nodded, so I figured she ate the last Popsicle. Gina was distracted, playing some sort of stack ’em game on the kitchen counter with the spice containers. She’d gotten eight of them on top of each other and was attempting to add the dried rosemary to make it nine, but it was wobbling.
“The leaning tower of flavor,” I said in an accent just like Nonno Calderaro’s.
Gina giggled.
I poured a glass of orange juice and looked in the fridge, only to discover leftover pizza in the back, behind the margarine. Yessss. Heaven in tinfoil.
“C’mon, Gina and Sophie, bedtime. Brush your teeth,” Dad called from upstairs. Gina got off her chair just as Sophie reached over and knocked the tower down. Plastic spice jars started rolling across the counter. Green flecks of oregano spilled everywhere.
“I saw you, Sophie, you brat!” Tears filled Gina’s eyes.
Sophie grinned and then glanced at me.
“Why are you so mean?” I barked.
“Who says it was me?” she said, dashing out of the kitchen with guilt and Popsicle juice smeared across her face.
“That’ll be five seventy-five,” the pizza guy growled in a cartoon bulldog voice on Sunday afternoon. I handed him a ten-dollar bill and stuffed the change in my shorts pocket. Kelly was already walking to a booth in the back of the pizzeria.
“You didn’t have to pay for me, Joseph,” she said, poking a straw in her cup. She was drinking diet soda, though I doubt she weighed a hundred pounds. I can’t stand diet anything.
The pizzeria was warm and crowded. A herd of Little Leaguers had just walked in. The smell of garlic floated in the air like it does when Mom’s making her Bolognese sauce. It was almost four and I was starving, even though I’d eaten most of the popcorn at the movie theater.
Subtly, I watched how Kelly handled her pizza. Pizza-eating technique reveals a lot about a person. First Kelly placed a napkin on top and sopped up the grease. Then she pricked the cheese with a fork to release the heat. When she finally dug in, she took teensy bites and dabbed her chin with a napkin.
Me, the moment we sat down I reached for the Parmesan and the red pepper shaker and covered my pepperoni slice like sand on the desert. The more kick, the better. I’m convinced my spicy craving is genetic. Even in kindergarten I preferred ballpark chili dogs over plain franks.
Still, I didn’t want to be a slob around Kelly. I was careful to not chew with my mouth open—which, according to Mom, is a bad habit of all us Calderaros.
We talked about how the movie creeped us both out. “My sister Sophie would have liked it,” I said. “She loves getting scared to the brink of wetting her pants.”
Kelly said she was the only child in her family.
I told her how I have five cousins on my dad’s side, and six cousins—or cousins once removed, I get it mixed up—on my mom’s side. “Italians have Rolodexes full of relatives,” I added.
“Italians?”
“Yeah, most of my relatives on both sides moved to Florida. The warmer weather reminds them of Italy. We’re the only family members who still own snow shovels.”
Kelly started to speak, but then stopped. She seemed to be confused, about my being Italian, I guessed.
“I’m adopted.” I shrugged, as if that explained it all.
“Really?” She looked surprised. Maybe she thought my dad was white and my mom was Asian. But I guess she never met my parents.
“Yup, I was born in Korea,” I said, as though I could map the entire country. Under the booth I slapped my hands against my knees to the beat of “You’re a Grand Old Flag.”
Kelly put her drink down and perked up. “Do you know your story? I mean, who your parents were?”
“Oh, sure,” I said. I don’t know what made me say it. Maybe to impress her. Or maybe because I felt dumb not knowing.