Hello, I Love You (15 page)

More like he wants me to spill something juicy. I emailed Dad about it, hoping he could maybe pull some strings and get the reporter’s editor to call the guy off, but in typical Dad fashion, he didn’t answer.

And even though I’m beginning to wonder if school in Korea is harder than in America, I’m grateful not to still be in Tennessee. At home. With the press hovering and the awkwardness with Momma—and Dad ignoring us all the time. That reporter might have scrounged up my cell number, but at least he doesn’t know what school I’m attending in South Korea.

Jason and I finish up his song for the TV drama right before the deadline, although he refuses to let me listen to the finished product.

“You can wait and hear it air on TV,” he says when I pester him about it in class.

I give up asking him about it as November passes much like October did, but I can’t shake the curiosity. And I’ll be honest—I miss hanging out with him in the practice room, arguing over the sheet music. We still meet up in the library sometimes to study Korean, but that offers a lot less time for conversations about anything nonacademic. I’m a step away from failing that class, and he’s taken it upon himself to get me through with a passing grade.

I wake up on Thursday to find a new email in my inbox. I check it while brushing my teeth and almost drop the toothbrush in the sink out of shock. It’s from my mother.

Grace,

Your father and I want to know when your fall semester is over so that we can buy your plane ticket home for Christmas. Please respond soon before ticket prices go up.

Mom

I snort but can’t deny the stab of fear that shoots through my chest. Still, since when has a dollar ever held back my parents? When you’ve got more than $100 million sitting in your savings account, a first-class ticket from Seoul to Nashville doesn’t even count as an expense—it’s pocket change.

On my way to class, I can’t stop thinking about Momma’s email. Going home for Christmas. I hadn’t even thought about it before now. I figured I would stay on Ganghwa Island. I can’t go back to Nashville. I can’t see my parents.

Are Sophie and Jason going home? I don’t really know much about their family situation, whether or not they like hanging out with their parents—they don’t seem to like talking much about their family. Their parents are divorced and their dad lives in New York, so I assume they’ll visit their mom in Seoul instead.

During my math class, I fire a text to Jane:
Please tell me Momma isn’t serious about me coming home for Christmas
.

She responds almost immediately:
r u crazy?! you HAVE to come home! im goin insane here w/out you!

I glance up to see if my teacher has noticed me texting, but he’s still writing equations on the board. I text back:
I can’t face them. Momma hates me.

My phone vibrates a minute later.
she doesnt HATE you … she just doesnt know what to say. PLEASE come see me! or buy me a ticket to come see you!!!!!

A smile pulls at my lips. I would love to show Jane around Incheon—or, better yet, Seoul: Introduce her to Sophie, take her to the famous shopping districts, watch her drool all over Yoon Jae. But Momma would kill me if I invited Jane and neither of her daughters was sitting at the Christmas dinner table this year.

Jane,
I write,
you know that won’t work. I’ll figure something out. Do you want to video chat this weekend?

Before I can even set my phone down, her text comes in:
YES!!!!!!!! AND BRING THE HOT KOREAN WITH YOU!

I stifle a laugh, masking it as a violent cough, which makes my teacher shoot me a look of irritation. But at the end of class, I’m still chuckling over Jane’s text. Gah, I miss her. I forgot how much we talked before I left, how much I depend on her humor. Sophie’s a great friend, but she can’t take the place of my sister.

When I get back to the dorm, Sophie’s sitting at her desk, rifling through her notebook. She jumps to her feet when I enter and cries, “Where have you been? Didn’t your class end half an hour ago?”

I drop my backpack onto the floor. “Yeah, but I had to run by the bookstore to pick up a few things. Why?”

“We’re going out tonight.”

“It’s a Thursday.”

“But it’s an
important
Thursday.”

“Sophie, what are you talking about?”

She rolls her eyes behind her glasses. “I can’t believe you forgot. And you call yourself an American.”

I watch her grab her purse and double-check her makeup in the mirror. “Okay, now I’m seriously curious,” I say. “What are you on about?”

She shrugs. “I guess you’ll just have to come with me and find out.”

We head out of the dorm and hop on her motorbike. I close my eyes the entire way to Incheon. After she parks on a side street, she leads me into a part of town I instantly recognize. The neon lights, brick-laid courtyards packed with people, shops, and restaurants bubbling over with crowds. A soccer game plays on a huge screen attached to a building as we pass cosmetic and clothing stores blaring KPOP out their open front doors.

Sophie turns us down a side street onto a less busy sidewalk, and I’m beginning to wonder if we have some sort of meeting with Korean gangsters. What does this outing have to do with being American?

I’m just about to ask her what’s going on when she turns aside to a building with
Hangul
lettering written on the glass storefront. I keep close on her heels, and when we walk inside, I’m accosted by a familiar smell. My heart leaps into my throat. This can’t be. Surely not. It’s impossible.

It smells like barbecue!

And I don’t mean Korean barbecue, where you cook your own meat, which is good in its own right.

I’m talking
BBQ
barbecue.

Good ole Southern, slow-roasted pork in the most heavenly sauce ever invented. It smells like home.

I can’t keep my mouth from pooling with saliva. When was the last time I ate American food? I’ve tried to keep my diet filled with rice and noodles, hoping it would help me transition into the Korean lifestyle. And although I’m really starting to like the food here, I’ve never missed my Momma’s cooking so much in my life.

The host at the front of the restaurant offers us a little bow and lets us pass. Sophie makes a beeline to a back table, where I see two familiar faces. Tae Hwa and Jason both look up as we drop into seats facing them at a white tablecloth–covered table as far away from the window as possible.

“What’s going on here?” I ask, after taking another deep breath of BBQ-flavored air. “Why are we eating American food?”

Jason shoots me a disbelieving look. “It’s Thanksgiving. How could you forget that?”

“I thought we already had Thanksgiving last month. What’s it called?
Chuseok
.”

I only remember because we got out of school for three days. Sophie tried to explain that it’s a huge holiday over here, which people spend with their families, respecting ancestors and eating lots of traditional food. A lot of students stayed at the school since most of us aren’t actually Korean, but Sophie took me to a traditional Korean restaurant, so I still felt like I got to experience some culture—amazingly fun.

But Jason just stares at me with a bemused expression. “I mean
American
Thanksgiving.”

“Wait.” I freeze. “Are you serious?”

I whip out my phone and check the calendar. He’s right. Today is Thanksgiving. In roughly fourteen hours, my family will be eating turkey and dressing, mashed potatoes, and pecan pie. Momma will make Jane eat yams before she can have a slice of pumpkin pie, and Dad will watch football all evening.

And I’m sitting at a barbecue place in South Korea. Talk about surreal.

“We thought you might be missing home today,” Sophie says, skimming the menu with a wrinkled nose, “so we planned to take you out. An old American man owns this place. He stayed after the Korean War. Had we known you didn’t even remember what day it is, we would have gone someplace better than this.”

Jason leans across the table toward me and mock whispers, “Sophie doesn’t like American food.”

“That’s not true!” She glares at him. “I just don’t like
this
kind of American food. We should have gone out for pizza. Or burgers.”

“We decided barbecue was better because Grace is Southern,” Jason says.

“No,
you
decided barbecue because Grace is Southern,” Sophie shoots back. “
I
thought she would appreciate a good Italian Thanksgiving.”

Normally, I would laugh at the sibling bickering, but after texting with Jane this morning, hearing Jason and Sophie makes my chest ache. The backs of my eyes burn, and I stare down at the menu and blink furiously to hold back tears. Sophie launches into a conversation with Tae Hwa in Korean, and I attempt to shrink out of notice. But Jason catches my eye.

His brows pull together. “Are you okay?” he says in a quiet voice.

“What?” I force a tight smile. “Of course! It’s so nice of y’all to do this for me. I really appreciate it.”

He doesn’t respond, but he doesn’t look convinced, either. After a moment of awkward silence between us, he glances down at the menu, and I let out a deep sigh. With his attention diverted, I take the time to notice his blue button-down shirt with sleeves rolled up to the elbows and the silver cross necklace hanging between his collarbones. I’m not sure what it is, but he has the most attractive collarbones I’ve ever seen.

Heat climbs up my neck when I think back to the ride back to Ganghwa Island after the music video shoot. I haven’t gotten up the courage to ask him about why he held my hand. Although he’s been nice to me since then, he’s never attempted any more physical contact. The only time I ever touch him is when he drives me to the dorms on the back of his bicycle, though I’ve mastered the art of balancing while holding on to as little of him as possible.

The server comes around, and Sophie orders all our drinks.

“And, Grace, don’t you even think about paying,” she says. “This is your day … Jason will pay for everybody.”

She shoots a sly grin at her brother, who rolls his eyes but doesn’t argue.

I order the biggest plate of pulled pork they have and chow down like I’m never going to eat again. A side of French fries doesn’t compare to coleslaw and corn bread, but I’m just happy to be eating something other than rice for a change. The meat isn’t as good as it is back home, but the sauce is Memphis style—sweet and spicy, with just the right amount of brown sugar and vinegar.

The owner even comes out to talk to me, and we reminisce about Tennessee and argue about which city’s better, Nashville or his hometown of Chattanooga.

On our way out, a familiar song plays on the radio, and I point to the ceiling, where I assume the speakers are located.

“Hey, that’s an Eden song!” I shoot Jason a grin.

Sophie beams, patting him on the back, but he just rolls his eyes. Still, he can’t hide the blush that colors his cheeks.

Outside, Jason instantly slaps a pair of sunglasses over his eyes—like that’s going to hide his identity—but I don’t argue.

Sophie grabs Tae Hwa’s arm. “Hey, we’re going to run a few errands before we go back, and we’ll take the motorbike. Jason, do you mind taking Grace back?” She glances at me. “Unless you want to come with us. I don’t know how we’d all fit on my bike, though.”

“No, it’s okay! I need to get back and do some homework anyway,” I say.

Really, I just don’t want to cut into Sophie’s alone time with Tae Hwa. Although she insists that they’re not dating and that she only likes him as a family friend, I have my doubts. For one, she touches him whenever possible … like now.

I wrap my arms around her in a swift hug. “Thanks again for the surprise Thanksgiving.”

“No problem,” she says. “It was fun!”

She and Tae Hwa turn and head down the street, disappearing into the crowd of other pedestrians and leaving me and Jason standing outside the restaurant. We make our way in the opposite direction from Sophie, his head down the entire way—whether because he doesn’t want to be recognized or he’s disappointed to be spending the rest of the evening with me, I don’t know.

“Do you want to head back now or walk around a bit first?” he asks. “I need to let the driver know.”

“Why does it not surprise me that you had someone drive you down here instead of taking the bus?”

He shrugs.

I peer up at the clear sky, where I know millions of tiny stars gleam down on us, even though I can’t see them through the smog and city lights. “I’ve got a lot of homework waiting for me,” I say.

His thumb hovers over the phone screen.

“That meant I don’t especially want to go back,” I add with a laugh.

“Oh.” He flashes me a rare smile as he shoots off the text.

We wander down the street, just two people lost in the crowds we never see on Ganghwa Island. Traffic creeps down the clogged streets, even though it’s already past seven o’clock and most work commuters have headed home.

A pair of girls brushes past us, then pauses, staring at me. One of them steps up to Jason, and I expect her to ask for an autograph. Or start screaming at the top of her lungs. Because that seems like a popular thing for Korean fangirls to do.

Though I really can’t judge. I went through my own boy band phase in middle school.

But instead of throwing herself at Jason, the girl pulls out a phone and points it at
me
. She looks at Jason and says something in Korean, and he responds with a nod.

“She wants a picture with you,” he says.

“
What?
Does she not know who you are?”

He chuckles. “I don’t know, but she didn’t ask for me to be in the picture.”

The girl flashes me a smile. “Picture please.”

“Umm … okay.”

She and her friend giggle as they flank me. They throw up peace signs, so I jump in on that action. After Jason flashes the picture, the girls give me low bows.

“Thank you,” they say, then scurry away, chattering to each other.