by Mike Jung
“Uh, I mean — ”
“Fish or cut bait? Is that what you’re trying to say?” Okay, Mr. Dietz sounded way nastier than he needed to. It wasn’t like Dad had punched him in the face.
“Yes, that’s what I mean. Fish or cut bait.”
“What is that, some kind of translation problem?”
Why was Mr. Dietz being such a crabbyface?
“You could say that.” Dad was … smiling. Like he was laughing at a private joke.
“Well, all I can say is they have some strange sayings in China — ”
I was super confused. Why was he talking about China? I must have made some kind of noise, because Mr. Dietz paused and Dad looked at me.
“Dad, why is he talking about Chi — ”
“Chloe.” Dad held up one index finger in a just-a-second gesture. “I’m talking with Mr. Dietz.”
“But — ”
“Later, honey. I’m sorry, Stan, let’s see what you’ve got.”
Mr. Dietz muttered under his breath again as he set his plants on the counter, and I closed the office door so I wouldn’t have to hear him talk about his plants, which were probably all about to die anyway. When Mr. Dietz left, another customer came in and asked Dad about setting up a saltwater reef aquarium, and in the end we never did talk about the Chinese thing.
Since then I’d managed to never be in the store at the same time as Mr. Dietz, a streak I would have been happy to keep going, so I looked away from him with a toss of my head and went up the short staircase that led to the back of the store. Most of the actual fish were back there, starting with a huge, waist-high tank full of plants right in front of the stairs. As I climbed the steps Dad came into view over the top of that tank, standing on a stepladder and draining water out of a tank on a higher shelf. He smiled as I walked around the big plant tank. The aquarium he was working on had a bunch of tiny loaches in it, and he was careful not to catch any of them in the end of the vacuum/siphon gizmo he was using to drain the tank.
“Hi, sweetie, are you here to help me with inventory?”
“Dad. No. You’re the boss, you’re supposed to keep track of my work schedule.” I shifted my violin from one hand to the other.
“Yes, but how could I keep track of it in a way that’s more reliable than asking you?” Dad smiled as he coiled up the siphon gizmo’s long plastic tube, stepped down from the ladder, and picked up the bucket of fish-poop water. “You and that positronic brain of yours.”
As usual, I was both embarrassed and happy about Dad cracking one of his lame science-fiction jokes.
“Well then, since you’re here, can you at least feed the frogs?” Dad said as he carried the bucket to the big sink at the back of the store and poured the poop water into it.
“Well, that depends, Dad, are you gonna pay me?”
“Have I ever not paid you?”
I snorted, because I was never, ever going to let him forget the one time he tried to pay me with ice cream instead of money.
“How about if you just buy me a new violin?” I said as I grabbed an apron from the hooks next to the sink. I went into the back room, which is crammed full of all kinds of stuff, including the refrigerator and freezer. I grabbed a blister pack of frozen bloodworms out of the freezer.
“ — one you have?” Dad said.
“Sorry, what?”
“I said, what’s wrong with the one you have?”
I popped one of the little red balls of worm directly into the tank. The frogs swam up, kicking their legs and looking like they were flying instead of swimming, and chomped crazily on the frozen ball, which started shedding pieces of worm in all directions.
“It’s old.”
“I thought violins get better with age.”
“Dad, I’ve had this one for three years!”
“Oh NO,” Dad said, holding his hands up next to his face and shaking them as he made a goofy, wide-eyed face.
“Cut it out! I deserve a new violin, don’t you think? I’ve been first chair for three years in a row!”
“Wait, did you get first chair again already?” Dad dried his hands off with a gross-looking towel. “They do that on the first day of school now?”
“No, it’s later, but I’ll win.” It’s not bragging if it’s true, you know.
“No one can ever criticize you for lack of confidence,” Dad said with a smile. “We really don’t have room in the budget for a new violin, sweetie.”
“They’re not that expensive,” I said, which wasn’t a total lie — new violins are super expensive, but I’d been looking into other options. “Not if I get a used one.”
“We’ve been down that road before, honey; you weren’t happy with any of the used ones except for Adam Wheeler’s, and you refused to get that one, remember?”
“That was here, Dad, in Primrose Heights. Why don’t we go to the city and get one?”
Did I mention that I’ve never been to Capital City even though it’s only an hour away from our house? Never?
Dad blew out a big whoosh of breath, puffing out his cheeks in the process.
“Please? Daddy?”
“Oh, it’s ‘DADDY’ now, is it?” Dad chuckled. “I’ll think about it, okay?”
“Yay! Do you know if there are any Korean restaurants there?”
“Oh, well, I don’t know, honey.” Dad turned away and started filling the bucket with clean water. He tipped a capful of something from a plastic bottle into the bucket as it filled. “I haven’t been to Capital City in months, you know.”
Oh, it was that tone of voice, the I-don’t-actually-want-to-talk-about-this tone of voice. My shoulders clenched.
“Does Mom know any Korean restaurants in Capital City?”
“You’ll have to ask your mother about that,” Dad said as he started siphoning the bucket of clean water back into the loach tank. The loaches went off in all directions, wiggling along in their snakelike way.
“Dad, why don’t you ever talk about Korea?”
Sometimes you just have to get things right out there in the open, you know what I mean?
“What do you mean?” Dad hopped down from the ladder and disappeared into the back room with the bucket and siphon. Geez, the only thing worse than a clueless dad is a dad who pretends to not know what his own daughter is talking about and then RUNS AWAY. I didn’t feel like letting him escape, so I followed him in there, then had to back up when he came right back out.
“I mean, why don’t you ever talk about Korea? I ask you stuff and you totally ignore me!”
Dad stopped, still facing away from me, and put his hands on his hips. He blew out a long breath, turned around, pulled the stepladder away from the loach tank, and sat on it.
“Aren’t parents supposed to be happy when their kids want to talk about stuff like this? Why aren’t you happy??” I crossed my arms. The apron made a plasticky crinkle sound against my chest.
“Chloe, I’m happy, honestly. And I’m not trying to ignore you, it’s just …”
“It’s just that you ARE.”
“It’s not that simple, honey. Talking about Korea … it’s complicated, and painful.”
“So what? I’m not in kindergarten, you know.”
“Yes, I know.”
“Our new social studies teacher said she admires my interest in being Korean.”
“Oh really?” Dad sat up a little straighter. “Why does she feel that way?”
“Because she’s Korean, Dad. Duh.”
That REALLY got Dad’s attention. He actually stood up and started pacing. There wasn’t that much room between the rows of aquariums, though, so he looked a little bit like a character from an old video game, zinging back and forth really fast.
“It’s in the letter we got from the school, Dad. Why are you doing that?”
“Doing what?” Dad looked down at his feet and stopped. “Oh. I’m just … surprised. She’s really from Korea?”
“Well, no, she said she was born in America.”
Dad put a hand over his mouth and stared at me with his eyes narrowed.
“Dad? You’re kind of freaking me out.”
Dad snapped his hand shut and shook his head quickly, like he was trying to shake off something that had landed on it. “I’m sorry, honey. That’s great that your teacher is encouraging you.”
“You sure?” I said, my arms still crossed.
“Really.”
“Great, because I need your help with our first assignment!”
“You need — ”
Dad was sadly mistaken if he thought I was giving him a chance to say no that soon.
“I made a copy of the assignment for you,” I said, shoving a crisply folded sheet of paper into his hand. “It’s easy, we just have to get a family member to tell us a family story, preferably from a noncontemporary time period.”
“Oh.” Dad took the paper, mostly because I’d actually gotten it to go between his thumb and index finger. “Wait, your teacher gave you an assignment that requires your parents to participate? That doesn’t sound right to me — ”
“I talked to her about it after class.” Which was technically true, if you defined “it” as the family narrative instead of an assignment that requires your parents to participate. “And it can be any family member, not just parents, but …”
Dad sighed.
“Chloe, I don’t think — ”
“Hey, Mr. Cho?” Darren’s upper half came into view at the top of the stairs. “There’s a call for you, from that sleazeball discus breeder.”
“Thanks, Darren.” Dad quickly metronomed his head between me and Darren a couple of times.
“I gotta go, Dad, homework and stuff! Bye!” I weaved around his outstretched hands, which he’d stuck out about halfway in my direction, stood on tiptoes, kissed his cheek, and bolted down the stairs.
“Bye, Darren!” I yelled as I ran past the counter. I went fast enough that his “See you, Chloe” was cut off by the door closing behind me.
Don’t give them a chance to say no, I thought. Don’t give them a chance to say no.
Next up: Mom.
When I was nine I tried to convince Mom to buy me a pet iguana. I pulled out all the stops — crying, bargaining, cleaning my room without being told, everything. No luck. I could tell Dad was kind of into the idea, which was why we ended up getting Kaa instead. I learned a few things. Iguanas grow to be six feet long, which is huge; ball pythons grow to be four feet long, but spend most of their time curled up in balls (ball python, get it?); and if you harass your parents long enough to get you something they really don’t want to get you, they might end up getting you something else that’s almost as good.
Trading down from a new violin to help with my family narrative assignment; that would have been my strategy, and the best part was that it was only temporarily giving up my quest for a new violin. No way would Mom and Dad ever get mad at me about that. The worst they could do was keep saying no. Of course, I didn’t know Dad had already called Mom and messed it all up before I could even try.
“Hi, Mom, can — ” I said when she got home from work, but she was way ahead of me.
“Hi, sweetie.” Mom was in her no-important-meetings work clothes — black T-shirt, matching gray cardigan and skirt, and black boots. She was stylish in a mom kind of way, I guess. “Sorry to interrupt you, but I have some great news!”
“Okay, but first I want to — ”
Mom kept talking as she walked into the living room and put her laptop bag on the coffee table.
“I just talked to your dad — we know you’ve been playing a starter violin this whole time, but we just haven’t been able to afford the kind of quality instrument you really want. Well, today I found out that I’m getting a bonus at work!”
!!!
“Wait, does that mean …”
Mom smiled, nodded, and put her hands on my cheeks, which I usually pretend not to like even though I do like it, but which I couldn’t even pretend to not like at that moment.
“Want to go buy a new violin?”
“You mean right now?”
Mom let go of my cheeks, raised her hand up to eye level, and jingled her car keys.
“I’m not holding these for show.”
Wow. Two years of asking for a new violin, TWO YEARS, and just like that I was getting a new one! I totally forgot about primary source family stories and new teachers who were Korean as Mom and I got into the car and drove to the other side of town to String Theory.
There was already a bunch of kids and their parents in the store when we got there, mostly littler kids, although there was a high school guy whose name I couldn’t remember looking at ukuleles.
“Over here!” I dragged Mom past the guitar, drum, and woodwind sections to the back, where the orchestra stuff was. String Theory has a whole room just for violins, violas, cellos, my old friend the stand-up bass, and even a giant harp. Mr. Smithfield was already in the room, doing something to a cello with his back to us. He turned and smiled, partly at my mom but mostly at me.
Wait for it, I thought.
“Why, it’s our own little Abigail Yang!”
Oh, for crying out loud.
“Yeah, I’m like her in garden gnome form,” I said. “I’m so tiny.”
“We’re here to get Chloe a new violin,” Mom said, putting her arm around me and squeezing my shoulder in a cut-it-out way. Mom doesn’t really wear perfume, but she smelled good anyway, kind of leafy-smelling.
“Wonderful news!” Mr. Smithfield raised his long, bony arms in front of himself and clasped his fists together in a show of dorky enthusiasm. “What are we thinking about?”
“Chloe?” Mom said, looking at me with a smile. I stared at her for a second, not getting it, then suddenly I got it.
“What, you’re gonna let me pick?”
“Well, I have to approve your choice, of course. We’re not buying a Stradivarius or a del Gesù.”
“An easy decision, since I don’t have any in the store!” Mr. Smithfield barked like a seal at his own joke. I resisted the urge to slap myself on the forehead.
“They say those old Italian violins don’t sound any better than new ones anyway,” I said.
“Well, I don’t know about that, but we have some terrific new instruments here,” Mr. Smithfield said. He rubbed his stubbly chin, patted his round belly, and reached for one of the violins hanging on the wall. “I think this one right here might be a good choice for you — give it a try!”
Mr. Smithfield handed me the violin, and after I took it with both hands he opened a drawer and took out a bow. “I put fresh rosin on this just today.”
Oh, I should have brought my own bow. Stupid. I shifted the violin into my left hand and took the bow in my right hand, carefully arranging my fingers in the right places. With the violin securely parked on my shoulder and tucked under my chin, I played a couple of open strings just to find out what the overall sound was like. I knew right away that I didn’t want this one. The A string didn’t exactly howl, but there was definitely a wobbly, in-and-out sound to it, like it was fading out right on the beat.
“Ugh, this has a wolf tone,” I said.
“Chloe,” Mom said in her watch-your-tone voice.
“Well, it does!”
“Oh, that’s too bad,” Mr. Smithfield said. “That’s a Shan Jiang, they’re very good instruments for the price. Chinese, you know.”
He looked at us with a big smile, like he was giving us a birthday present or something. I was tempted to whack him over the head with the crappy violin, but then I’d have to buy it.
“We’re Kore — ” I started, but Mom cut me off.
“That’s very thoughtful, Mr. Smithfield — ”
THOUGHTFUL? Was Mom out of her mind?
“ — but it’s not necessary; we can loosen the purse strings a little.”
“We can?” I said. What was going on with Mom? Did someone hit her on the head with a magic money-spending stick?
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“Oh, that’s tremendous, just tremendous!” Mr. Smithfield said. “I always try to work with families on a budget, of course, but you know, there’s nothing quite like the experience of playing a really good, high-end instrument. Let’s see, let’s see …”
I pointed at a violin in the top row.
“I want to try that one.”
Mr. Smithfield looked at me with his eyebrows raised all the way up to the top of his head, then crossed his arms.
“Really now,” he said, still smiling. “Because that is exactly the violin I was going to suggest next.”
He used a stepladder to get the violin down. It was lighter than the other violins, more yellowish than red, with a glossy finish. I looked up at Mom and leaned against her, bouncing up and down a little in excitement, and she smiled down at me, although there was a little something in her facial expression that I couldn’t figure out.
I stepped out from under Mom’s arm as Mr. Smithfield held the violin out in both hands, like he was handing me a magic sword or something. I took it and turned it over so I could see the grain of the wood on the back.
“Beauty, isn’t it?” Mr. Smithfield said. “That’s a DeSio, they make excellent violins. Unusual to find an instrument with a spruce back, but it sounds terrific. I wish more luthiers would apply a clear coat like this one did.”
I got the violin into position, raised the bow, took a breath, then played a nice slow G scale. The notes spilled out of the violin strings like beams of sunlight, and I got that tingly feeling I always get when I’m playing something as well as I can play, except I was just playing a scale!
I paused for a second. Mom reached past my shoulder, quickly picked up the price tag hanging from the scroll of the DeSio, and just as quickly dropped it. I looked back at her, but she was still smiling. A good sign.
“Do you know — ” Mr. Smithfield said, but I was already launching into the etude we’d warmed up with all through sixth grade. I hadn’t played it in months, but I’d had it note-perfect at the end of the school year, and it wasn’t a very hard piece, so it came right back.
“Bravo!” Mr. Smithfield said as he and Mom clapped loudly. “That was marvelous! Nothing like a good etude!”
