Kimchi & Calamari(3)
I felt rotten. Worse than any nasty virus you could get from the malocchio.
Niente per Niente
Mrs. Nash’s van had just pulled up. Mom was standing in the driveway giving her leftover cake and talking. The sky was brilliant blue that night, so blue it almost looked fake, like pool water.
I walked Nash out to the van with Frazer following us. We’d played my new video game for an hour, but we’d hardly spoken. Ever since that goat horn appeared, I’d been in a bad mood and my stomach hurt. The triple whammy effect of the malocchio, overeating, and lactose intolerance.
Mom was telling Mrs. Nash how to get gum off a couch cushion, so I hopped in the back of the van with Nash while they talked.
“Out of here, you smelly beast,” I shouted as Frazer jumped in, but it was too late. He wedged his thick brown butt on my lap and rested his snout on Nash, who started rubbing his ears.
“Sorry you had to hear my dad popping his buttons over that goat horn,” I said.
“Your dad’s not as bad as my mom. Remember how nutty she got last year when I started getting migraines? She still won’t let me play hockey.”
Nash’s mom is a nurse. What’s that saying about too much information being dangerous? I’ve seen her lose it when she catches him doing something she thinks could cause a migraine. It’s not pretty.
“Wearing that corno seems so dumb. I’m not Italian. Wouldn’t you feel weird if you had to wear a French beret?” I asked Nash.
He scrunched up his freckled face. “Even a French kid would feel weird wearing a beret in middle school. Could you talk to your dad about it?”
“You know my dad. He’s Mr. Italiano, always playing Tony Bennett songs and retelling tales from Tuscany. He’ll get all mad or sad. That’s why I’m in deep doo-doo over this essay. All I know is that my birth relatives put my diapered butt on an airplane to the USA. End of paper.”
Nash’s eyes widened. “I’m on the computer a lot since I can’t play sports now. I could help you search the Internet to find out about the place where you’re from in Korea. My uncle traced his genealogy all the way back to this Irish rebel who escaped from a British prison in Belfast in 1912.”
“Really?”
“I swear. And he did all his research online.”
Hmm. Our family computer wasn’t even hooked up to the Internet. And I sure didn’t want to be flashing this touchy-feely personal stuff on a screen at the library, especially since the big-mouth reference librarian was one of my mom’s regular customers. One time I was there researching the digestive system for a health project, and the next day she asked Mom if I had a nervous stomach. Talk about privacy.
Besides, hunting for my Korean ancestors online might be easier than asking my parents. Dad got testy over a goat horn. And Mom, well, she’d talk about my adoption, but all talk would eventually lead to tears—that’s just the way she is. And I don’t like making her cry.
“Let me think about it,” I said as Mrs. Nash opened the van door. I grabbed Frazer’s collar and followed Mom inside, wondering what just a click of the mouse might reveal about me.
Later that night I lay in bed, looking up at the glow-in-the-dark constellations on the ceiling. Dad stuck them there the day I first rode a two-wheeler. Most of the Big and Little Dippers’ stars had fallen off, but Pegasus was still glowing bright.
I kept thinking about the essay. The corno. The birthday brawl. And back to that essay. Nash’s idea to research Korea online might help me get it done. But did I really need that?
I’d exaggerated a little when I talked to Nash. Mom and Dad haven’t exactly engaged in a cloak-and-dagger adoption conspiracy. Mom loved to tell my story, and Dad always hung around listening.
“Time to remember that magical night you came into our lives,” Mom would announce when I was little, as she tucked me under my spaceship comforter.
“Once upon a time, Mommy and Daddy wanted a baby to love,” she said, rubbing my head. “A wonderful baby who would make us laugh and cry with joy.
“Meanwhile, in Korea, a special mommy was growing you in her tummy, but she couldn’t care for a baby. Still, she loved you so much that she did something very hard. She allowed you to travel all the way to America, to be Mommy and Daddy’s little boy. And that is how we became the Calderaro family.” Mom always smiled when she said that last line.
Sometimes Mom would describe the stormy night when I arrived at JFK Airport. It was the Saturday after Thanksgiving, and she said Dad was so excited, waiting for the plane, that he passed out plastic cups of champagne to strangers walking by.