Channing came into the kitchen humming under her breath. “I don’t know if it’s sleeping in, or running around in the Yuns’ yard, or because you’re here, but I feel so much better,” she said. “Just kidding, I know it’s because you’re here.”
“Always,” I replied, and then pointed to the strange avocado seed. She studied it and said it was fine. This was not the first time she’d encounteredthis phenomenon. I was skeptical. To prove her point, she searched the internet and showed me the screen of her phone. “It means the avocado tree didn’t have enough water, so it made the avocado stop growing to nourish the other avocados on the tree. But the avocado itself is fine to eat. Just as good. You worry too much.”
Despite the evidence she’d shown me, I couldn’t trust that the avocado was edible. It looked rotted in its sacrifice. Channing ate her half of the green fruit, mashing it and spreading it on a slice of bread with olive oil. I hesitated spooning out my half. Would it make me sick? I had to go back and read Channing’s source and find several of my own before accepting its validity. Not a pessimist, just thorough. I liked certainty. Besides, why did we have to eat the fruit that had been released to save the rest of the tree? It felt wrong somehow.
There was so much washing and putting away and throwing out to do because the house was a mess from two weeks of Channing and the boys living in it without doing much of anything but using all the plates and cups and gadgets. Garbage needed to be collected and bagged and removed from the house. Channing claimed the parents of the boys had failed to inform her about garbage truck schedules. It was Austin who said there were bins in the garage that his dad took to the curb, and Edison who told us their pickup day was Monday. Channing noted it on the calendar of her phone with an alarm to remind herself.
At four o’clock, when the parents of the children called, they shouted on speakerphone at Channing for their sons’ missing three days of camp during the week.
Channing looked stricken with remorse as the Ahns continued to berate her. I mouthed the words, “Why didn’t you take them?”
She teared up and apologized to the parents. She promised to try harder; she explained that she thought the boys had told them when theytalked each of those days. Mrs. Ahn said it was Channing’s job to inform her, not the children’s. Mr. Ahn said he’d paid for those camp days. Channing apologized again.
Then she took the phone to the living room, where the boys sat in front of a video game on a big screen, and let them talk to their parents one by one.
“I feel terrible. I thought camp was optional. The kids said it was. Weird thing is, how did they find out?” Channing said afterward to me.
“Hardly the point,” I said. “The kids were obviously trying to get out of going.”
“But how did the parents know? Did they call the camp to check on me?”
Sometimes my cousin focused on the small matters rather than the large.
“I missed school all the time, and this isn’t even school. They said it was a summer activity for the kids,” she said. “I wanted them to go because then I’d be free of them, but they didn’t want to wake up. They needed their sleep. But did you hear what she said? Why does she think I didn’t want them to go? How am I supposed to make them happy and do what the parents want? I couldn’t tell the parents on them. Why would I lie?”
“Not telling them is kind of like lying,” I reminded her. She shook her head and wiped down the counter one more time.
“Did you tell them Harabeoji and I were here?” I asked. Before she could answer I added, “I think they should know. I’d want to know if I was a parent. And tell them you don’t want Kent walking in unannounced. He’s their friend. They should tell him to stop.”
“He probably told the Ahns about camp,” she said, and went back into the living room to talk with them. I had my second cup of coffee. Channing returned to the kitchen in minutes.
“They’re fine with you and Harabeoji. They already knew you were here, buthowdid they know?” she said.
I shrugged. It did seem fast. Had the Yuns somehow been in touch with them? Then her phone pinged with a text, and Channing read it and said, “There’s our answer. It’s Kent. He said he talked to the boys’ parents. He texts me like this every day.”
“Did you tell the Ahns to stop him from coming in?” I asked. “He can’t do whatever he wants whenever he wants when it’s convenient for him. Nor does it mean he gets to marry you.”
She widened her eyes at me. “Where did you get that idea?” she said.
“He asked Harabeoji last night at the Yuns’, I forgot to tell you.”
She burst out laughing. And I had to join her. “I’m so glad you’re here, Dahee. He’s gross. You should see all the stuff he bought me. I should never have accepted it. It was just awkward—he caught me off guard.”
“Let’s get rid of it,” I said.
“You’re right,” she replied.
I grabbed empty garbage bags and followed her upstairs to her room, where she showed me a corner piled high with shopping bags of gauzy dresses and boxes of shoes.
“So weird,” I said as I shoved items into a garbage bag. I paused to hold up a pale blue linen maxidress up to myself. “This one isn’t bad.”
“That’s a great color on you, but it’s got Kent’s energy all over it. You don’t need bad luck,” she replied.
I dropped it promptly and said, “More like he’ll see me one day wearing it and be pissed.” I laughed. Then I got serious. “We should tell the boys’ parents, Harabeoji, and the Yuns. Anyone seeing this stuff would know Kent is over the top. He’s obsessed with you.”
“I’ll tell Harabeoji, but the Ahns probably love that about him. Everyone loves him. You saw the Yuns. That’s just the way this place is. I gave so much of my life to things that didn’t matter when I was a kid. All those awards that other people said were important.” She held a bag open, and I dropped an armload of dresses into it.
“You were a little kid, Channing.” I said as I opened a shoebox.
