She barely paused before continuing. “See, this is why you need me for more than my off-the-charts photogenic properties. Me alone, I have a limited shelf life. Me and you—” she bounced her palm between our chests “—us, why, the sky is the limit.” She leaned into my side and waved her hand across the sky as though arcing an invisible banner above us. I was smelling her hair like a complete psycho so I jerked away, feeling my face flush.
When I just stared at her fake sky banner, she dropped the showman facade. “Look, all I’m saying is that maybe I did you a favor. If your mom is really having a rough time, then the idea of a reciprocated crush is going to do a lot more for her than your one-sided one. You wanted to give her a picture. Instead, you gave her a story.”
I couldn’t help but consider the potential upside when she put it like that. Things were only going to get harder for Mom as Jeremy and I spent more weekends away. Maybe that picture wasn’t such a bad thing.
Jolene smiled wide when she knew she had me.
“Yeah, okay. Thanks, I think.”
“Oh, but I am not done with my benevolent acts for the day.”
I started to object when she pulled out her camera and pointed it at me, but fair was fair, so I let her film me, then her, then us, talking and framing her shots all the while.
“Even though you offered, I decided that giving you lung cancer just so I can piss off my dad and Shelly is perhaps a tad on the petty side.”
I laughed. It startled me. A couple minutes ago, I had nearly gotten lost in a memory that would have broken me right in front of her. “I didn’t really mean the petty thing. And I get it. Having met Shelly, I get it. But yeah, that’s good.”
She angled her head to the side of her camera, and I watched her chew her lip before a sudden grin forced her to stop. “You’re actually kinda sweet, Adam.” When my face heated, she moved back to my side and held the camera out in front of us. “And look at me being all nice.”
My mouth kicked up on one side and I gestured at the camera. “Are you one of those post-every-second-of-my-life-on-social-media types?”
“No, I’m one of those capture-the-moments-so-I-can-tell-the-story-I-want types, aka a filmmaker.”
“Right,” I said, remembering Shelly mentioning something about a film school program the night before. “So you make movies?”
“I makegreatmovies. Just short ones so far, and nothing scripted—more slice-of-life type stuff—but full-length feature films are my future.” With a sigh she lowered her camera. “Real but better, because I get to control the outcome, cut out what I don’t like and frame the rest the way I want.”
“Wow, that’s cool.” Because it was, but also somehow sad. I gestured with my phone. “And thanks again. For being nice, and not just to me.”
“The famous mother. Tell me something, why do you care so much about making her happy?”
“Besides the fact that she’s my mom?”
Jolene nodded, scrutinizing me in a way that made my answer more transparent than I intended.
“She thinks all of this—our split-up family—is her fault. It’s not. My dad is the one who walked out.” I closed my eyes, thinking about that morning he’d left and wishing I’d done more. “She hasn’t been happy in a really long time, and more than anything, I want that for her.”
Jolene’s sigh brought my attention back to her. “I want to preface this by saying I’m still trying to be nice here. Try not to take it personally if you can’t make your mom happy.”
Jolene
“Oh, Mom! Your dearest daughter is home! Come shower me with kisses and lonely sob stories.”
My voice echoing back at me from the vaulted ceiling in the foyer was the only response I expected, and I wasn’t surprised. It was Sunday evening, which meant my mom was probably still at the gym. I dragged my bag upstairs to my room and tossed it in the vicinity of my bed before continuing to the kitchen. Like most of the house, it was pristine and blindingly white, from the glazed snowy cabinets to the Carrara marble countertops and glittering crystal chandelier. All that splendor faded into the background the second I smelled the lasagna that Mrs. Cho had left for me in the oven.
Technically, Mrs. Cho was only supposed to clean the house three mornings a week while I was at school—a rule Mom instituted to eliminate my interactions with a person I openly preferred to her—but she’d started cooking for me when Mom decided that the elusive key to her happiness was tied to the number of pounds she could lose and had stopped consuming anything that didn’t come in a martini glass.
I peeled back the foil, and the scent of cheesy, garlicky goodness wrapped its arms around me. “I missed you, too,” I told my dinner. It was too hot, which meant I burned my mouth and had to endure that tiny flap of skin hanging from the roof, but no sacrifice was too big for Mrs. Cho’s lasagna.
A thought propelled me across the kitchen to the fridge, and, opening it, I did a happy dance. There was a cheesecake on the second shelf, with luscious-looking red cherries on top. I checked our hiding spot in the bread box on the counter and found the best present of all: a note written in Mrs. Cho’s teeny tiny print.
I watch movie with man who drives car. I think I like dog movie best. I make you cheese dinner and cheese dessert. Be good.
My laughter echoed around the kitchen. I knew she’d like the psychological horror ofCujomore than the pulpy crime drama ofDrive—she did work for my mother, after all. Mrs. Cho and I had recently formed a movie club together. She wanted to improve her English, and I was only too happy to recommend titles for her. Next, I’d have to try her on the less gory but arguably more terrifyingGet Out.
I kept reading. Her notes were never long, and this one was shorter than most, but it was the last line she always added that filled my heart and flooded my eyes:I miss my girl. I could remember a time when I’d come home from school and Mrs. Cho would be waiting to hug me and lift me up on the island so that I could help her with dinner. She always smelled like fresh bread and Windex, and she’d scratch my back while I stirred bowls bigger than I was. She spoke next to no English back then, and I knew only the few Korean words she’d taught me, but we always understood each other.
I flipped the note over and in, my bolder, blocky handwriting, suggested a couple more movies for her to watch, and then profusely thanked her for all the cheese that I was going to consume that night and told her I missed her, too. My hand shook as I tucked the note away for her to find tomorrow.
