“Where’s your jacket?” she demanded, scanning me up and down.
“Um…” I debated how to answer. My mother had already complained bitterly about having to buy all new oxford shirts for me a week ago. The last thing I wanted after that Victor session was another lecture about how I needed to stop “growing out of my clothes.”
“She spilled some paint on it at art club, so I took it to the cleaners,” my dad said and signed behind me.
That was one of the reasons I loved him so much. He was always willing to tell a little white lie to keep my mom from coming after me.
But Mom quickly found a way around Dad’s criticism roadblock.
“That’s why I say that art club of yours is no good,” she signed-spoke, putting extra emphasis on the “no good.”
“You better hope that paint comes out,” she groused. “Those uniform jackets are very expensive. And we need that money for your college applications!”
Okay, did I say that reading lips was the only thing she liked about going deaf? I’m pretty sure she also loved that she could take her spoken exaggerations to even more ridiculous levels by over-emphasizing them with her hand signs.
“Go wash up and tell your brother it’s time for dinner,” she signed in a huff before I could defend art club or my completely made-up paint spill. We didn’t even work with paint in art club today. It was a digital workshop on using all the tools in the Adobe Photoshop Suite our school had just bought.
“No arguing, sweet pea,” Dad said, cutting me off just as I was coming up with a good response to mom’s latest unfair rant against art club. “Go do like your mom said.”
I stomped off in a frustrated huff. But after telling Byron dinner was ready, my thoughts returned to that “Chinese boy” as I washed up in our apartment’s one bathroom.
What was Dad's real connection to Victor and his family? Why had he asked me to tell him if Victor said anything he should know about? And what had he meant about not wanting to get involved with the Chinese?
At this point, I had more questions than answers. But I figured Dad was probably right about one thing. Me never seeing Victor again was definitely for the best.
Dinner lifted my mood. And scooping second and third servings of the delicious tender meat into my rice bowl was worth having to endure a lecture from Mom about knowing when I’m full. Or her much less subtle signed advice that I’d never be able to find a husband if I looked like a pork chop.
“Leave her alone, Doll,” my father said and signed. “Black guys in America won't mind that she's a little thick.”
“Okay, can we stop talking about me like I’m a piece of meat?” I asked.
“Yeah, let’s talk about something else,” Dad agreed. He pointed his chopsticks at Byron. “Like how you really got that shiner.”
Mom looked between them, confused. Dad had stopped signing when he decided to change the subject to Byron’s eye, and she hadn’t been able to lip-read what he’d said to my brother.
Usually, I would fill her in when Dad forgot to sign. But not this time.
“I told you already,” Byron mumbled, scooping a fourth serving of bulgogi into his rice bowl. Of course, Mom didn’t give him any lectures because he was skinny. I didn’t want to accuse God of straight-up being unfair. But Byron could eat anything he wanted and never gain weight.
However, at that moment, I felt sorrier for my brother than I did for me.
Silence, weird and suspicious, rose between him and Dad at the table.
“I've got to work for Mr. Nakamura tonight. But tomorrow, I'm going to show you how to throw a few punches,” Dad eventually said. “Real men don't let themselves get beat on. We fight back.”
I looked between Dad and Byron, feeling my younger brother's misery as if it was my own. Yeah, it was wrong to lie. But Dad would have exploded if he found out the real reason Byron got that black eye.
“By the way, how did you do on your math test today, Dawn?” Mom asked me in the ensuing silence.
Ughhhhhh!!!!
I was down with changing the subject again, but I wished Mom hadn’t chosen this topic. Had my parents made a secret agreement to take turns picking on their kids before dinner?
“82,” I admitted, setting down my chopsticks because I already knew I was going to need both hands for this conversation.
“82?” she repeated with a gasp like I had just admitted to ax murdering somebody, not getting a less than perfect score on a math test. “How are you going to get into a good school and become a doctor with an 82 on your math exam? You have to try harder if you want scholarships.”
