I'll Be the One

by Lyla Lee

  “Kimchi with what?” I ask, more out of morbid curiosity than anything.

  “Pardon?” She blinks in confusion, and I don’t know whether to groan or laugh.

  “You’re not supposed to eat kimchi by itself. If you do, it’s the same thing as eating ketchup by itself. You’re supposed to eat kimchi with rice.”

  Melinda scrunches up her nose. “I don’t eat rice. I’m on a no-carb diet.”

  I don’t know what to say after that, so I look around the room to find both Isabel and Lana staring at Melinda. Isabel has a look of horrified fascination on her face, while Lana has a hand over her mouth like she’s suppressing a laugh. They both shoot me a sympathetic look before we all get back to work.

  Melinda, thankfully, returns to her spot soon afterward.

  Well, I think. That’s one person I won’t feel bad about winning against.

  Lana has some errands to run with Tiffany after practice, so I ask her to drop me off at Mom’s studio.

  “See you in two weeks!” Lana says as I get out of her car.

  “See you! Thanks for driving me!”

  She blows me a kiss before speeding away, and I’m left alone to deal with Mom.

  The logical part of me knows I really shouldn’t expect Mom to mention the boot camp at all, but at the same time, some part of me hopes she’ll give me a chance to talk about it, even if it’s just with a simple “How was your day?”

  But when I enter her studio, she only says, “Oh, you’re back.”

  She doesn’t ask how my day was, and she doesn’t even ask where I’ve been. Without a second glance back at me, she rearranges some purple orchids in a vase on Sally’s desk.

  “Where’s Sally?” I ask, since she’s nowhere to be seen.

  “She had to go run some errands. Today’s a slow day, so I told her she could take care of them and come back later,” Mom replies, still looking at the orchids like she’s talking to them and not me.

  “I see.” It’s the only thing I can think of to say.

  Sally is usually the one who fills the gaps in conversation between Mom and me. She’s the bridge between us that makes us seem like we’re at least acquaintances and not just total strangers. But the truth is, we barely know each other.

  I make myself comfortable at Sally’s desk and pull up some homework from our school’s Google Drive. This is what I usually do on Mom’s slow days, and it’s how I used to do most of my homework as a kid when Mom didn’t want to leave me alone at home. Sally never minds; in fact, Mom and she always encourage it because they know all my schoolwork is online.

  Despite how strained things are between Mom and me, this routine feels familiar. Comforting, even. Physics is as confusing as usual, and I’m so caught up in one of the questions that I don’t notice that Mom is staring at me until she says, “Haneul, we have to talk.”

  Immediately, my hands clench into fists as I look up at her, all traces of whatever comfort I was feeling gone with just those five words. For some reason, she’s unhappy with me again. I can see it written all over her frowning face.

  “Do you really have to go to dance and voice practice?” Mom asks. “I read the email you forwarded me, and it sounds like you’ll have to go to LA every weekend. I suppose, next week, your father can drive you, but what about after that? How on earth are you going to get there?”

  I should have known this was coming. Luckily, I already worked out the kinks with Lana during our drive back.

  “My friend Lana said she could drive me on the weekends Dad’s not here,” I say. “It works out, since she lives in Irvine. She can pick me up on the way.”

  “I see.”

  I don’t tell her that our arrangement only works for as long as both of us remain in the competition. It is a pretty obvious predicament to have, but if Mom suspects anything, she doesn’t show it. I expect her to say more, but she just goes back to rearranging the orchids. She’s moved them back and forth in the same exact place multiple times already. I don’t know which is worse, her explicit disapproval of me dancing in the competition or this passive-aggressive show she’s putting on now.

  I wonder if she’ll even acknowledge the show when it airs.

  After watching her rearrange the flowers for a bit more, I get out my earphones from my bag. If she doesn’t want to talk to me, fine. I’m not wasting any more time waiting for her too.

  Sally comes back later in the day, while Mom’s with one of her afternoon clients. She only has to take one look at my face before she says, “What did Ms. Kang say this time?”

  I groan, but not loud enough to be heard over the classical music blaring out from the facial room.

  “She was giving me a hard time about the competition again.”

  Sally gives me a sympathetic look. “Sorry, Skye.”

  “It’s fine,” I say, even though it’s not.

  I go back to my homework—APUSH just might be the death of me this year—and I’m about to put on my earphones again when Sally says, “I can’t understand why she can’t be more supportive of you. I mean, she’s shown me clips of you dancing and singing. You’re so talented!”

  “She’s shown you clips of me dancing?” I ask, momentarily taken aback.

  “Yeah, she has them on her phone.”

  I’m struck speechless. Before he moved to NorCal, Dad was the only one who ever showed up to my dance performances, so I always assumed Mom didn’t care about that part of my life. It’s not totally unbelievable for her to have seen the videos Dad recorded. After all, knowing him, Dad probably made her watch them. But for Mom to have the videos saved on her phone? It’s enough for me to doubt whether Sally and I are talking about the same person.

  “Oh,” Sally says. “You didn’t know she has them.”

  “I didn’t know she even saw them.”

  Sally sighs. “She’s watched all of your performances. And shown me a couple. I really do think she’s proud of you, in her own weird little way. She’s just too afraid of other people. And what they might think. I’m not saying that this makes the things she says to you okay. None of what she says is okay. I just . . . spend too much time with her, I guess. Since it’s usually just her and me in this office all day.”

  “She’s mean to me because she’s afraid of . . . other people? How does that make sense?”

  Sally comes over to where I’m sitting in front of her computer. “Scoot over for a second.”

  I immediately get up from the seat, because after all, it’s her desk.

  As I watch, Sally navigates through several nested folders until she finds one labeled “old family photos” in Korean.

  I frown. I didn’t know these even existed.

  Sally nervously glances back at the closed door of the facial room before whispering, “Don’t tell her I showed you these, okay? She usually only opens this folder after she’s had some wine after a particularly exhausting day.”

  She clicks on the folder, and then on one of the first image files. It’s simply labeled “03_15_1989.”

  I have to blink a couple of times to believe what I’m seeing.

  “Is that . . .”

  “Yup, your mom,” Sally says. “She was fat, like you.”

  The girl in the photo looks like a miniature version of me. She’s a bit younger, maybe twelve or thirteen, and she’s shorter, too. But other than that, she’s a dead ringer for me. Or, I guess, I’m a dead ringer for Mom. And she’s beaming at the camera while happily lounging at the beach in her swimsuit.

  Mom’s rail thin now, so skinny that you can clearly see her collarbone and ribs. And I don’t think I’ve ever seen her smile like that. Not in person.

  “What happened?” I flip through more of the photos, just in case the first one was a fluke. But the girl is there again. And again. In one of them, she’s playing with a cute white dog, while in another, she has her arms linked with her friends in front of what must be her old middle school in Korea.

  Why has Mom never shown me these? I
wonder as I keep flipping. But I know why. She wanted to hide this part of herself from me. From everyone.

  As I flip, I get flashes of the things Mom has said to me throughout the years.

  Haneul, don’t eat so much! Think about what everyone will think of you when you’re freely eating like this. Haneul, what will everyone think if you’re wearing such tight clothing? Americans might think curves are sexy, but not Koreans. Everyone will think I’m a bad mom!

  For Mom, what “everyone” thinks of me is always more important than what I want. “Everyone” could be our neighbors, our relatives, or even my friends. Regardless of who she’s talking about, she’s always scared about what other people might think of me, like everyone in our lives is scrutinizing my every move. Our every move.

  And now, seeing Mom’s pictures makes me sad. She looks so happy in them, and I wonder what happened to make her so afraid of what “everyone” thinks of us.

  “I think she was bullied in high school. Like, a lot,” Sally says, as if reading my mind. “The only time she’s talked about it was when she had a bit too much to drink, but yeah. Things were—still are—really different in Korea. The antibullying rules are more lax there, or at least, they were back in the day. And in Korea, people think the ideal weight for a young woman is one hundred and ten pounds. If you’re any heavier, people give you a hard time about it. Including family and friends.”

  The photos suddenly stop.

  Wordlessly, Sally navigates out of that folder and into the next one. The photos in this folder are labeled with the year, 1998. Sally clicks on the first one.

  The girl with the easy smile is gone. Instead, there’s Mom in her twenties, and she’s every bit the model-thin woman with steely eyes that I’ve always known. And she’s not alone. Suddenly, Dad’s there with her, ever his goofy, smiley self. I recognize UCLA in the background, although I know Dad went to USC.

  “This must be during one of the times your dad visited your mom at her school,” Sally softly says. “She told me she hated taking photos but started liking them again after she met your dad.”

  Before I can fully process everything I’ve just seen, Mom calls out, “Sally? Ms. Moon is ready to check out.”

  “Crap.” Sally immediately exits out of all the folders. “Coming!”

  I stare at the computer screen. In a way, I feel like how Harry Potter must have felt when he stared into the Mirror of Erised and saw his dead parents. Except, instead of my parents being alive again, my deepest desire was for Mom to understand what it’s like to be me. And of course, instead of just being some illusion, the photos I saw are real. Unfortunately.

  The fact that Mom was once fat herself makes the way she treats me even worse. If she understands what it’s like, then why can’t she just let me live and be happy the way I am? Is she really that afraid of other people?

  My phone chirps. It’s a text from Rebecca.

  Is it just me or does the APUSH DBQ look IMPOSSIBLE? Hard to believe that these guys were responsible for creating our nation when their writing was so convoluted. Is this why America doesn’t make any sense???

  Pushing all thoughts of Mom out of my head, I go back to work, all the more determined not to let other people treat me the way they treated her. I feel sorry for Mom, I really do. But I have my own problems and responsibilities to deal with right now. And what she went through in the past doesn’t give her an excuse for how she treats me now.

  Chapter Eight

  DAD IS THE COMPLETE OPPOSITE OF MOM IN HOW he reacts to the show. On our way up to the dance studio in North Hollywood where rehearsal’s being held, he asks me about every single little thing that has to do with You’re My Shining Star. He asks about the audition, about the judges, and even about Lana and Tiffany.

  With any other parent, it’d probably feel like an interrogation, but with Dad, it feels like catching up with an old friend at a party. I know I should probably tell him about what’s been happening with Mom, but I don’t bring it up. I don’t want to ruin a good moment like this. We’re both laughing and joking around so much that it’s a wonder he doesn’t crash the car.

  There’s an actual accident somewhere down the highway, so traffic is awful. I see so many people scowling behind their steering wheels, but I’m having so much fun catching up with Dad that I can’t relate. By the time he drops me off at the dance studio, I’m actually wishing the car ride was just a bit longer, so I’d have more time to talk to him before he flies back to the Bay Area tomorrow morning.

  Unlike the recording studio, the dance studio looks modern, even from the outside. It’s shaped like a cube and painted bright orange. The parking lot is full, so I know I’m late even before I run into the building to find Mr. Park and Bora waiting for me with their tablets.

  “I believe I mentioned punctuality last week, Miss Shin?” Mr. Park says with a raised eyebrow.

  “I’m so sorry,” I say. “I left my house at ten, but there was this huge accident on the 5.”

  Bora rolls her eyes. “Next time, leave at nine. Everyone had to drive here and yet only you were late.”

  Great, as if I weren’t already on Bora’s bad side.

  Since Dad’s never been a morning person, there was no way I could have left any earlier. And it’s not like I could have driven myself, either. I don’t say any of this out loud, though. If I told her about my car situation Bora would probably just tell me to drop out like Mom did.

  “This is your first and last warning, Miss Shin,” Mr. Park says. “Talent isn’t an excuse for laziness. You’re lucky this is the first dance practice, because otherwise, you would have been eliminated.”

  “Yes, sir,” I say, bowing deeply in respect. “I won’t be late again.”

  “Everyone else already went around and introduced themselves,” Bora says curtly. “And unfortunately, we don’t have time for you to do the same. Please go sit down and wait for further instructions.”

  I expect everyone else to be staring at our conversation, but when I look away from the judges, I see that only Tiffany is looking in my direction.

  You okay? she mouths at me.

  I nod, because I am. I’m surprised by the concern on her face—I thought Tiffany didn’t like me after the awkward first encounter we had—but before I can dwell much on it, I spot Henry Cho, who’s currently the center of attention.

  Everyone—including the camera crew—is crowded around where he sits at the back of the studio. Henry is in the middle of some story, and he’s all smiles and charm, making the people around him laugh. Some even slap their knees and look like they’re about to cry because they’re laughing too hard.

  I find a spot to sit in the very back, since that’s the only place with any space left. The dance studio is pretty fancy, with floor-to-ceiling mirrors and shiny wooden floors, but it’s barely big enough to fit all forty of us.

  After I’m settled down, I try to ignore Henry. But it’s hard to do so when everyone around him is so loud. I don’t turn around to face him, but I can’t stop myself from staring at him and everyone else around him through the mirror.

  There’s a greater variety of people in the dance group, so less than half the people in the room are Asian. The rest are a good mix of black, brown, and white kids, and we’re all dressed in hip-hop street clothes. Together, we look like one big, awesome dance crew.

  “Henry, Henry. So, what happened after that?” It’s a question, but the guy who says it practically yells his words, clearly a bit too excited.

  “Oh, well, I was just standing there, wondering what the heck was going on . . .”

  He’s so different from the Henry Cho I saw last week that I start to doubt whether last week even happened. I tune him out, focusing instead on the people sitting next to him.

  Henry’s sitting with a petite Asian lady who’s frowning down at a Surface Pro tablet, and a big professional-wrestler-type guy who reminds me of the Rock. From the looks of it, I’d guess that the woman is his manager and the
guy is his bodyguard.

  Henry’s about to continue his story when Bora claps her hands.

  “Okay,” she says. “We’re going to get started. When we call your names, please come down to the front of the room. You will be put into ten groups of four. Mr. Park and I have grouped you by age and/or similarity in style. Since each studio only has one sound system, each group has been preassigned choreography that you will learn together. During the elimination round next week, the other judges and I will either eliminate the entire group, choose to save a few from the group, or allow everyone from the group to advance to the next round. When we call your names, please proceed down the hall to find your assigned dance studio.”

  I let out a small sigh in relief. Somehow, it’s less stressful knowing that they’re doing the same thing for the dancers as they did with the singers last week.

  Everyone waits in nervous anticipation as the groups are called.

  “Studio one,” Mr. Park says. “Elisabet Hernandez, Tiffany Lee, Prithi Reddy, and Katerina Kovacova.”

  Tiffany gives me a little wave before she gets up to join her group. I wave back before I refocus my attention on Mr. Park.

  “Studio two: Henry Cho, Doug Barton, Skye Shin, and Imani Stevens.”

  I jump up from the floor, and so do the other members of my group. Everyone else in the room stares at us as we stand. Most of the attention is focused on Henry, but I also feel some eyes following me, as well as the others in our group. And of course, the cameras also watch our every move.

  Since I’m sitting at the very back, I end up leaving way later than Imani and Doug, who both bolt out of the room. Henry, however, lingers behind. He has his full attention on me.

  Well, that’s awkward, I think.

  I rush past him, since I really don’t have time to socialize. I’m busy enough with school and prepping for the singing portion of the competition. I need all the practice time I can get out of today.