“What time is it over there?” I ask him. It’s a cozy day: it’s nearly six o’clock, and I’m still in my pj’s. I’m hugging my knees to me, sitting in the big dining-room chair with the armrests.
“It’s eleven. I’m sure she’s still up,” my dad says, snapping away. “Why don’t you invite Josh over? We’re going to need help finishing all this food.”
“He’s probably busy,” I say quickly. I still haven’t figured out what I’m going to say to him about me and Peter, much less me and him.
“Just try him. He loves Korean food.” Daddy moves the pork shoulder so it’s more centered. “Hurry, before my bo ssam gets cold!”
I pretend to text him on my phone. I feel a tiny bit guilty for lying, but Daddy would understand if he knew all the facts.
“I don’t understand why you kids text when you could just call. You’d get an answer right away instead of waiting for one.”
“You’re so old, Daddy,” I say. I look down at my phone. “Josh can’t come over. Let’s just eat. Kitty! Dinner bell!”
“Co-ming!” Kitty screams from upstairs.
“Well, maybe he’ll come over later and take some leftovers,” Daddy says.
“Daddy, Josh has his own life now. Why would he come over when Margot’s not here? Besides, they’re not even together anymore, remember?”
My dad makes a confused face. “What? They’re not?”
I guess Margot didn’t tell him after all. Though you’d have thought he could have sussed it out for himself when Josh didn’t come with us to the airport to drop Margot off. Why don’t dads know anything? Does he not have eyes and ears? “No, they’re not. And by the way, Margot is at college in Scotland. And my name is Lara Jean.”
“All right, all right, your dad is clueless,” Daddy says. “I get it. No need to rub it in.” He scratches his chin. “Geez, I could have sworn Margot never mentioned anything. . . .”
Kitty comes crashing into the dining room. “Yum yum yum.” She slams into her chair and starts spearing pork onto her plate.
“Kitty, we have to pray first,” my dad says, settling into his chair.
We only ever pray before we eat when we eat in the dining room, and we only ever eat in the dining room when Daddy cooks Korean or on Thanksgiving or Christmas. Mommy used to take us to church when we were little, and after she died, Daddy tried to keep it going, but he has Sunday shifts sometimes and it became less and less.
“Thank you, God, for this food you have blessed us with. Thank you for my beautiful daughters, and please watch over our Margot. In Jesus’s name we pray, amen.”
“Amen,” we echo.
“Looks pretty great, right, girls?” My dad is grinning as he assembles a lettuce leaf with pork and rice and kimchi. “Kitty, you know how to do it, right? It’s like a little taco.”
Kitty nods and copies him.
I make my own lettuce-leaf taco and nearly spit it out. The pork is really really salty. So salty I could cry. But I keep chewing, and across the table Kitty’s making a horrible face at me, but I give her a shush look. Daddy hasn’t tried his yet; he’s taking a picture of his plate.
“So good, Daddy,” I say. “It tastes like at the restaurant.”
“Thanks, Lara Jean. It came out just like the picture. I can’t believe how beautiful and crispy the top looks.” My dad finally takes a bite, and then he frowns. “Is this salty to you?”
“Not really,” I say.
He takes another bite. “This tastes really salty to me. Kitty, what do you think?”
Kitty’s chugging water. “No, it tastes good, Daddy.”
I give her a secret thumbs-up.
“Hmm, no, it definitely tastes salty.” He swallows. “I followed the recipe exactly . . . maybe I used the wrong kind of salt for the brine? Lara Jean, taste it again.”
I take a teeny-tiny bite, which I try to hide by putting the lettuce in front of my face. “Mmm.”
“Maybe if I cut more from the center . . .”
My phone buzzes on the table. It’s a text from Josh. Was coming back from a run and saw the light on in the dining room. A totally normal text, as if yesterday never happened.
Korean food??
Josh has some sixth sense of when my dad’s cooking Korean food, because he’ll come sniffing around right when we’re sitting down to eat. He loves Korean food. When my grandma comes to visit, he won’t leave her side. He’ll even watch Korean dramas with her. She cuts him pieces of apple and peels clementines for him like he’s a baby. My grandma likes boys better than girls.
Now that I think of it, all the women in my family really do love Josh. Except for Mommy, who never got to meet him. But I’m sure she’d love him too. She’d love anyone who’s as good to Margot as Josh is, was, to her.
Kitty cranes her neck to look over my shoulder. “Is that Josh? Is he coming over?”
“No!” I set down my phone and it buzzes again. Can I come over?
“It says he wants to come over!”
My dad perks up. “Tell him to come over! I want to get his opinion on this bo ssam.”
“Listen, everyone in this family needs to accept that Josh is no longer a part of it. He and Margot are donzo—” I hesitate. Does Kitty still not know? I can’t remember if it’s still supposed to be a secret. “I mean now that Margot’s at college and they’re long distance . . .”