“‘Meet the Parents’ is a dangerous game,” I say again, repeating things I’ve already said out of anxiety. “It almost always goes south.”
“Babe, it’s going to be okay,” Vita says. “I mean, how bad can it be?”
“The first thing my mom is going to ask you is whether you go to church. That’ll probably come up before we even order the food.”
“I’m Catholic. We call it mass,” Vita teases me.
“Let’s go over our notes. I think we’re Methodists. We were brought to America by missionaries. Money is loaned unofficially, without interest, at church meetings. This is called a ‘gye’ and that’s how we got to open our dry cleaner. Don’t do a Hail Mary, because that will be met with suspicion. But feel free to speak in tongues if the Holy Spirit strikes you.”
Vita’s listening, watching me with fascination. She finds my nervousness to be cute. She’s not rattled at all.
“I think I’ll be okay,” Vita says lightly, putting her hand on my hand. “Stop worrying.”
I’m still amazed that Vita wanted to meet my parents. Is she insane?
“Believe it or not, I want to know more about the people who raised you to become the wonderful person that you are,” Vita says. “Is that strange?”
“That had nothing to do with them,” I reply. “That was all me.”
Vita laughs, but I’m kind of serious. Do I even know who my parents are?
Certainly not the way she knows her parents. I mean, I know what kind of people my parents are, but she knows her parents intimately: Where they grew up, how they first met, how they fell in love, and so on.
My parents wouldn’t speak about their childhoods if there was a bayonet pointed at their chests. It’s like pulling teeth to get them to say anything about Korea, even though their hearts are obviously inseparable from that divided peninsula.
There’s a lot of hustle and bustle in Emperor Jade. I wish I didn’t pick a place that was so noisy. But maybe an inability to hear each other speak is just what the doctor ordered.
Servers with ill-fitting ruby-colored tuxedo jackets zip around with huge platters of mouthwatering food balanced on their shoulders. This chaos will fill in the awkward silences and cancel out any embarrassing questions my mom might ask.
“What do you feel like eating?” I ask distractedly, for the third or fourth time. We’ve already decided on Course A, but Course B is not without its charms. What I really want is a cigarette, but we’ve decided to go cold turkey together.
“Gosh, I’m starving,” says Vita, looking down at her belly. “I think this little guy likes Chinese food.”
“Well, he is Asian.”
“You think it’s a boy?”
“I don’t know. Maybe?”
“I’m ready,” Vita says, her eyes warm and trusting. “Are you ready?”
She’s been asking this a lot lately. Maybe because she needs to keep pulling me down to earth to stay with her, making sure I don’t float away.
I’ll never abandon her or the baby, if that’s what she means. But that’s not what she means. She just wants to let me know that she loves me, and I love her. I do. Of course, I do. I’ll do anything…
I spot my parents walking in. Vita and I rise from the table.
Uh oh. My mom has her look of consternation set to Level 5. You can always tell by my mother’s perm the level of formality of the occasion. It’s very tight.
As they approach, Vita gives a little bow.
“Hi!” she says charmingly. “I’m Ivita. It’s so nice to finally meet you.”
“Yes, hello. Nice to meet you,” my dad replies in a Korean accent. He chuckles a little. After thirty years in America, he still thinks it’s funny that he can speak English.
“Nice to see you,” my mom says and smiles at Vita. Turning to me, her face switches to worry and she asks in Korean, “Have you been well?”
I give a canned response, and we sit down. My dad starts ranting as if Vita isn’t even there. She sits with a patient smile waiting for translation.
“My dad is upset about the traffic,” I explain to her and play translator for the rest of the night when they aren’t talking directly to her.
I field their questions in Korean, mostly about the house I’d moved into with Sonic, Dom, and Cheese. They don’t ask about my art classes. They just want to know if I’m at risk of being homeless again. “My living situation is good,” I convince them, leaving out the fact that the place smells like weed 24/7.
“What’s your…your major?” my dad asks swiveling his attention to Vita finally, addressing her head on. He smiles charmingly, a grin full of gold crowns and uninsured dental work. He sniffles unconsciously as his nose runs constantly from years at the steam press.
“Right now, I’m in premed. I’m hoping to become a doctor.”
My parents make happy noises upon receiving this information. It really changes the mood at the table.
My dad takes this as a cue to launch into his standup act, my high school blunder years serving as comedic material. Soft and awkward throat clearings emit from my mom. She looks uncomfortable as my dad laughs, just plain confounded that he could’ve produced a son with such a lack of academic rigor.
Finally, the food arrives. Chinese dishes gleaming with sauce, sprinkled with sesame seeds, the peppers bright red and green, the bowls of rice as white as steam are placed in front of us.
“Let’s eat,” my dad proclaims, but before his chopsticks reach the beef, my mom stops him.
“We must pray first,” she urges in Korean with a frown on her face, and then to Vita she asks, “Are you Christian?”
“Yes, I am,” Vita responds in a way that seems as if she’s been anticipating this question, a small release of breath.
“Do you go to church?” my mom asks, her eyes searching Vita’s eyes for any hesitation, any flinching from the truth.
“I was raised Catholic,” says Vita. I’m unconsciously gritting my teeth.
“A good thing,” my mom says to me, after a moment, perhaps considering all the other religions it could’ve been. “She’s pretty, smart, and a Christian,” my mom announces, letting us we know that we’ve passed the first of many tests.
“Thank you,” Vita says, genuinely relieved, or maybe it’s just me sucking in my breath this whole time. More like “Thank God.”
We bow our heads in prayer, and Vita automatically crosses herself, but my mom has her eyes closed.
The rest of dinner goes well because my dad does most of the talking, not curious about the details of our relationship exactly, but carrying on with his usual brand of dinner conversation: complaining about the rising cost of insulin for his diabetes, the goings-on at the White House, and the cost of the things in general.
Vita matches my dad’s every passing thought with grace, engaging him like a voice in his head to urge forward his views on the economy, healthcare, Bush, the war in Afghanistan, electricity, and plumbing. Somewhere toward the end of the meal, as the last giblets of chicken and the scrawny pieces of broccoli drown in the sauce, the question of how we met each other is asked.
I begin hesitantly, knowing that by mentioning the dorm that I’m guaranteed to set off my dad. He hasn’t gotten over my getting kicked out of freshman housing for smoking weed.
“Does she know you do drugs?” he interrogates, not to be a jerk, but there’s a level of unveiled scorn that hurts.
The waiter comes over and asks us if we want ice cream or oranges. Vita and I both order ice cream and my parents order oranges.
“Doesn’t she know why you got kicked out of student housing?” my dad asks again, the change in mood totally abrupt. My mom’s objections are ignored.
“I wasn’t on drugs,” I rebut in Korean and then in English add, “I had drinks at a party. Is that a good reason to kick me out of the dorm?”
“Husband, don’t talk about that here,” my mom hisses in Korean, looking embarrassed. “Danny promised he’d quit. He doesn’t do it anymore.”
“Kkae-ddok-ghat-eun-mahl-ha-ji-ma!” my dad almost yells. Don’t say words that sound like dogshit. His favorite phrase. “That’s what you said last time. Every time, it’s someone else’s fault. Not your fault.”
“What’re we talking about here?” Vita whispers to me from the side of her mouth.
“Me getting booted from the dorms.”
“Oh,” Vita utters and looks worried.
“After you graduate, you can do whatever you want,” my dad continues in Korean. “I don’t care. Maybe one day you’ll become a famous artist, or you can get a job as a designer, I don’t know.”
“Dad, I—”
“But don’t get this nice girl in trouble. She’s going to become a doctor!” he blasts me with his voice rising and pointing a finger at Vita.
“Husband, please. Danny is going to study and do a good job. He’s going to graduate. We just need to keep praying every day.”
“Can’t you just sit still without talking?” my dad snaps, his good cheer sucked out of him like there’s nothing left but the rind.
“Your son is really talented,” Vita interjects expertly, trying to salvage this portion of the night. “Were either of you artists? I was wondering where he may have gotten it from.”
My parents look at Vita like she’s nuts. If either of them ever drew a picture, they left it somewhere in Korea with the shoes they never had.
“You were lucky to get into the university,” my dad continues. “With your grades, you were lucky to graduate high school. But now is your chance. You can get a degree and do anything you want. But without a degree, what can you do? You’ll end up back where you started, pumping gas for the rest of your life.”
“My dad’s first job in America was at a pump station. It’s something he never forgets to remind me,” I tell Vita quietly.
A tense silence wraps around us like tablecloth. The vanilla ice cream is an eggshell-colored ball slipping and sliding around the glass bowl as I chase it with my teaspoon.
After dinner, I fight with my dad to pay for the check. He insists on paying for it and pulls out the huge wad of cash he always brings home after emptying the register. He peels off five moist twenties and mutters about how expensive food is getting. I glance over at Vita looking beautiful in her winter coat, miniskirt, and “hooker” boots as she makes small talk with my mom.
We escort my parents back to my dad’s old Dodge and say goodbye. Before they leave, my mom hands over a grocery bag full of groceries for me and my housemates to eat. I can already see from a glance that there’s a big jar of kimchi.